Now that blogs have become very popular, the concept of a guestbook has become antiquated. Why have a single page for comments when your visitors can comment on every single post you make?

Guestbooks still have a place on the web, even if their use is decreasing. This blog still uses a guestbook. I have long since scrapped my poorly-written script that older versions of this site used, mainly because it was susceptible to spam. I replaced it with a simple yet little-used WordPress trick: create an empty page with comments enabled. That’s it. Performing that one step effectively creates a guestbook.

There is only one issue with it: the comments are listed in the order they were originally posted, forcing users to scroll to the bottom of the list to view the latest entry. WordPress does not have a built-in way to reverse the comment order, which makes sense. It is common practice in blogs to list comments in the order they were posted, whereas guestbooks are listed in reverse order. Since WordPress is a blog platform, I can’t fault them for that.

That is where the wp-zy-roc plugin comes in. Put simply, you change a single line in that empty page I mentioned earlier (after installing and activating the reverse order plugin). Once that is done, your comments are now in reverse order. I applied the plugin to this site in less than five minutes; see them in action in the guestbook and on the You Make Kitty Scared page.

Edit: Another great plugin is the category tagging one, which creates a tag cloud. After seeing Joe’s setup for his del.icio.us links, I thought it would be a nice change from the boring old unordered list of categories that we currently use. Take a look in the sidebar and let me know what you think.

A few months back Shabbir put me onto the Cingluar 8125. Since then, my gadget-lusting sickness overtook me.

I’ve bought a couple of (expensive) gadgets, as well as a few games, in a very short time span. This has given  my credit card a serious workout, to the point where I’ve ruined any chance of getting its balance down to $0 by my next birthday.

Given this fact, I am trying to deter myself from taking the plunge. My first attempt was showing Nad the device and explaining how I would use it. Usually, she deads me on any purchase like that without thinking twice. Given my description, she said (paraphrasing), “That’s sounds pretty useful, and could be handy for work.”

Dammit!

My second attempt was giving myself a test: in an eight day span, if I could not find five separate and unrelated uses for the Cingular 8125 that could not be met by a combination of my current devices, then I would abandon my want for it. I didn’t find five uses; I found eight. Every single day during that time span.

Cripes!

My third attempt to deter myself was to find out how much it would cost me. I was sure I would have to spend a ridiculous amount of money to get the device, and spend in access of $80/month for unlimited internet access (which is the primary reason why the 8125 would be useful to me). During the weekend I spoke with a very informative Cingular rep. Not only am I eligible for the upgrade price, but I’d pay $10/month for the additional line (giving my unlimited night and weekends and mobile-to-mobile) and a very reasonable monthly rate for unlimited net access.

What the hell? Here I am, trying to not get this thing, and everything is telling me to do it!

Lastly, I turned to Nadia one last time and repeated my first test. “What do you think of that thing?” She replies, “I like it, it looks cute.”

Wow, just wow. This isn’t how I expected it to turn out. Don’t be surprised if one of my near-future posts is titled “I Finally Got One!”

A good friend of ours, Tak (a.k.a. The Asian Sensation or The Citizen of the World) just left our house. He came over to hang out with us for his last few days in the States. He called the US home for over ten years, and now is returning to his native Japan.

His last weekend with us wasn’t very exciting. It was full of mall-walking, movie-watching, and game-playing. Oh, and some drinking. Not a lot, but enough to get a nice buzz. Conversation topics included:

1. American movie audiences are content with watching inferior remakes of older films
2. How American and Japanese gamers differ
3. Apple will one day dominate the computing industry
4. Vodafone will merge with an American mobile phone company (perhaps T-Mobile)
5. Marlon Wayans should leave Shawn behind so he can advance his career

Basically, movies, games and tech. This is better than the topics I feared we would get into this weekend: patriotism, philosophy and politics. We have extremely differing views in these areas, and often argue bitterly about them, so I was worried that our last weekend together would be marred with ugly debates. Luckily, that did not happen.

Be careful on your trip back home Tak, and good luck. We’ll come visit some time soon (I’ve always wanted to go to Japan).