Scrubbles.net » Weblogs

A Redesigned Scrubbles.net

Matt — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Hey there — notice something different? I’ve redesigned Scrubbles.net. This is the first true sitewide retooling in five years. Although I still have some kinks to work out, I’m happy with the swanky retro-computer look we’ve got going here.

This redesigning process began about a year ago, actually, in search of a good WordPress theme. I’ve noticed that many of the popular and nicer looking WP themes have one element that works, and a whole bunch of other elements that don’t work. Either the typography is fabulous and the layout is lousy, or the sidebar is beautifully designed but the rest of it uses terrible colors. It’s always something. I was about at the end of my rope before coming across a gorgeous and subtle theme called Vanilla Cart. Top to bottom, I love it. For the logo fonts, I went with Eurostile condensed and Gala (which cost a lot, but it’s absolutely perfect — sometimes one has to spend money for perfection). I also brought back this weblog’s original tagline, which hasn’t been seen here since about 2002. There’s even a new cartoon portrait of yours truly on the sidebar.

Although I currently have about 80% of the redesign in place, there are a couple of issues with the CSS that I’m sending out a plea for help on. Specifically:

I have a kickass repeating background for the redesign, similar to the one on my Twitter profile — but I can’t get it to work. I’ve tried everything on this theme’s CSS stylesheet, but the only changes result in a pure white background. Any CSS experts out there who can help?
This theme also has an option for you to use your own logo — but when I tried it, the logo was positioned down at the white space above the blog entries. I want it positioned above the “Home” and “About Me” tabs (which is where the blog name and description are normally positioned if one does not use a graphic logo). How can I move it up to its proper place without screwing everything up?

Birthday Greetings

Matt — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:32:35 +0000

A milestone is coming our way, and for once I can make note of it before it arrives. As of tomorrow, Scrubbles the weblog will have been on the www for nine years (the Scrubbles.net domain was registered later that Fall). It’s hard to believe that I’m still scribbling away at this thing for that long. A kid born the same day as this weblog will now be nine years old. Huh.

Well, what can I say? Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me throughout the years. I’m a veteran enough to remember when the community was a loose free-for-all of ideas. I read a lot of different blogs, noted and linked to what I liked, and others linked to me in return. It was fun. Then a movement arose to make weblogs be “about” something (remember warblogging?), and I stubbornly stuck to just writing about whatever old crap took my fancy. Now we have insular segments of bloggers who stick to one subject and only link to other bloggers sharing the same m.o. I salute anyone who can do one thing and do it brilliantly and with passion — but having never gained a foothold in that world, I miss the old community.

Sorry to be a bummer, and I apologize if this weblog isn’t quite the exciting hive of activity it once was. There is a bright side. As long as there are quirky old cookbook illustrations or forgotten movies to write about, I vow to keep plugging away here.

Eddie My Love

Matt — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:28:36 +0000

I was going to post a blog entry today about how I rarely visit the pop culture blog Pop Candy because the author’s “look at me, I’m hip” photo makes me want to hurl, but this is a much more worthwhile subject. My Edward R. Hamilton, Bookseller order arrived today. ERH has a delightfully low-tech way of selling remaindered books. Yes, they have a comprehensive website, but after all these years they still only accept orders written down on paper and sent through snail mail with a personal check (no credit cards, no money orders, and forget about PayPal, pal). Falls Village, Connecticut must be a nutty kinda town.

It’s been a good four or five years since I’ve ordered from them, so I made sure to make the uniform $3.95 shipping cost count. The haul may become part of a mishmash in the future:

The Complete Peanuts: 1963-1964 by Charles M. Schulz ($12.99). Fills in an important gap, since I actually got the 1965-66 volume for Christmas. Yes, it really made me uncomfortable that I had one volume while missing the earlier one, so sue me.
Considering Doris Day by Tom Santopietro ($6.95). Although ravaged by Amazon.com customers, this critical overview looks fascinating. Every Day movie, TV appearance and recording gets a thorough appraisal. Potentially toothache-inducing yet marvy!
The Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton by Dean Jensen ($5.95). The conjoined twins of Freaks and Chained for Life fame get their own sympathetic bio. Another fascinating looking portrait (which got a much better reception on Amazon).
Penguin Special: The Story of Allen Lane, the Founder of Penguin Books and the Man Who Changed Publishing Forever by Jeremy Lewis ($4.95). Good companion to the Penguin By Design book.
Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies by Jason Surrell ($6.95). Deals comprehensively with creating both the Pirates theme park attraction and the first Johnny Depp movie. Luckily the latter subject, of which I care not a whit, takes up only about a quarter of the pages. The rest is filled with wonderful concept art and rare photos of the Disneyland classic. Surrell’s similar book on the Haunted Mansion (ride and film) is equally nifty.

Big Fat Link Log 3

Matt — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:06:45 +0000

We’re nearing the end August. Do you know what that means? Sticky thighs and melting ice cream? Yeah, that — and it’s also time for an update to the annual list of the weblogs I’ve been reading. It just keeps growing and growing, which is another reason why I prefer to keep this thing on a single entry as opposed to taking up lots of room on a sidebar. The starred new additions are not exactly new (even for me), but they are some of the weblogs that have caught my eye over the past year or so. To them and all the other hard-working bloggers on this list, thank you.

Boom Pop, Cool Beans!

Matt — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:09:55 +0000

Jeff Pepper of the wonderful 2719 Hyperion has started a new weblog to explore his interest in vintage pop culture of the non-Disney variety. Boom Pop! adheres closely to the 2719 Hyperion formula, which in this case is a good thing. It’s only ten days old and I already have it in my Bloglines feeds. Keep up the good work, Jeff!

The White Elephant in the Room

Matt — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:58:31 +0000

William at Robot Action Boy recently pointed out this second annual White Elephant Blogathon which sounds pretty cool. Participants select an awful (or sometimes good) movie, which another randomly selected blogger must view and do a writeup on. All of the blog posts will be published on April 1st. Hurry; deadline for participants is February 10th. Last year’s entries included things like Teen Witch, Nude for Satan and Bio-Dome. I am so gonna do this!

We’re Back

Matt — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:45:48 +0000

It looks like scrubbles.net is up and running again and accepting comments. Carry on!!

Technical Difficulties (Again), Please Stand By

Matt — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:23:00 +0000

My weblog just got a mysterious WordPress glitch which is preventing comments from getting through. On the plus side it’s also blocking spam comments, but still it’s a major annoyance. I’m hoping to have the problem fixed within a few days until my web host can get back to me. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of a kitten under a Christmas tree (Ideals, 1968):

Thought-Provoking Weblogs

Matt — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:22:20 +0000

I was thrilled to find that Ivan at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear tagged me with a blogging meme — and for once it’s a good one (Ivan also had some sweet things to say about scrubbles.net in his post). The basic jist of the meme is to select five “blogs that make you think” and write about each one. I’ve decided to narrow it down to weblogs done by an individual, and those individuals have no obligation to continue the meme. In no particular order:

1. 2719 Hyperion. I’m a theme park nut. Although I’ve never been to Walt Disney World, reading Jeff Pepper’s weblog and viewing his snapshots of the park’s less explored side is the next best thing to being there. Very insightful, too — check his recent post on the nostalgic pull of theme park music.

2. Today’s Inspiration. I’ll say it now — illustrator Leif Peng must possess the busiest scanner in the Western hemisphere! I love learning about unsung commercial artists from the ’50s and ’60s, and Leif is the perfect guide. His knowledge and personality elevates his weblog, so what easily could’ve been a simple “look what I found” thing is actually an invaluable resource.

3. Quiddity. I first came across Quiddity about 6 or 7 years ago and my interest has never waned. What amazes me about her stream of weird and wonderful links is that, where other blogs have wavered in quality over the years (present company included), she’s stayed exactly the same. Meggan is like the Energizer Bunny of bloggers — she keeps going and going!

4. Robot Action Boy. I’m happy to count “william in taiwan” among my online friends. He has an infectious way of sharing his interests in pinhole photography, weird Asian kiddie toys, kitschy ’70s music, and other stuff. And I think the fact that he never uses the “Shift” key on his keyboard adds to his weblog’s quirky charm.

5. Just Ask Christopher. I’m kind of biased on this — but Christopher never fails to post on some interesting topic I’d never known of, mostly in the science/nature arena. On the other hand, he can get wonderfully eclectic. In the past month he’s posted about actress Veronica Cartwright, the Hartford Circus Fire, the mysterious death of What’s My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen, the dearth of local Simpsons/7-11 merchandise, and the Dewey Decimal System. Nice guy, too.

Seven Years of Unpigeonholeable Tomfoolery

Matt — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:12:14 +0000

Here’s to odd-numbered anniversaries: seven years ago this week, I started this weblog. I would’ve never believed it would have lasted this long, but yay for longevity. To mark the occasion, I thought it would be a gas to take a look back at the earlier incarnations of Scrubbles.net.

In the summer of 2000, I came across an article on “weblogs” in the defunct online magazine Feed. Intrigued, I dove into finding various examples of this “weblog” phenomenon, most of which were technology-oriented or simple online journals. At the time I was working at The Arizona Republic, mostly designing but also writing the occasional travel piece or music review. Basically I was a marketing guy who didn’t quite fit in the newsroom and I needed an outlet to blow off some writing energies. Why not start a weblog, just for fun? So I signed up with Blogger and cobbled together a simple template with the slipshod Scrabble tile logo seen here. The blog was housed on my own personal server with an inpenetrable URL containing a tilde (~). Gosh, it all seems so innocent now.

The very blue design #2 was in service from the Summer of 2001 through December 2002. This was a hot period. I was posting multiple times daily on anything and everything, Boing Boing had me linked on their front page, and people were flooding in. The blogging community as a whole was on the crest of a giant wave. Would it ever crash?

Design #3 was my favorite, so excellent that it broke my heart when the Great Movable Type Incident of September 2005 forced me to give it up. But I’m getting ahead of myself here — in retrospect, 2003 was a bad year for me. I was under a lot of stress at work and had to take several breaks from the weblog. Eventually I quit and underwent a major reassessment of everthing in my life. Gradually the scrubbles.net m.o. changed from quickie “look what I found” link-based posts to longer, more thoughtful pieces (well, as thoughtful as 400-word odes to junk food and junkier television shows can get). Not quite as hot and sexy as the latest celebrity gossip, but it suited me better.

The current scrubbles.net! At the risk of sounding totally self-serving, I feel like we’re getting better with each passing year. So here’s to more retro-goodness, wherever it comes from. If you yourself have a weblog — thanks for the inspiration. If you’re just stopping by — thanks for the visit. I hereby promise to be as unpigeonholeable as possible for the coming seven years or longer.

Dollops of Sunshine

Matt — Mon, 14 May 2007 00:29:12 +0000

Here we go again — I found another cool/old record weblog while doing some research. This time I was trying to find info on ’60s singer Julie Budd, one of whose songs was included on a Sunshine Pop mix made by my friend Ion (Yesterday’s Sunshine, excellent and if you email me nicely I might be able to share a copy). It was during this search that this page popped up as part of Waxidermy, a site which reviews old vinyl of every genre as long as it’s sufficiently obscure (and having a weird cover photo apparently helps, too). Occasionally they share mp3s; the two songs by Ms. Budd are nice examples of that rare crossover between Broadway style razzle dazzle and psych-pop.

Jesus in 12″ or Less

Matt — Fri, 11 May 2007 01:15:45 +0000

Where have I been? In the long and sticky process of finding artwork for every song in my iTunes library. While searching for info on a old, campy LP by preacher John Rydgren, I came across the weblog Heavenly Grooves which presents downloads on all sorts of home grown religious recordings from the ’60s to the early ’80s. I used to come across a lot of intriguing looking albums of this stripe in my thrifting days, but never bought any of them ’cause, well, they’re all about Jesus. At least with this weblog you can try stuff out without the risk of losing 99 cents! I hope they post more white bread vocal group LPs, preferably the ones where the ladies sport mile-high beehives on the cover.

Four for the Feeds

Matt — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 01:43:04 +0000

Still working out the kinks on this WordPress conversion, but I have a few new (to me) weblogs to share which I can across during the transition period:

Vintage Pop is the latest venture from J.D. Roth of Folded Space. This one deals in early 20th century American pop culture, and he’s already off to a great start (and thanks for helping me out, J.D.!).
Condour of Wacky Neighbor has embarked on another project in the form of Smallist, a weblog dealing with all things miniscule. It’s fascinating the variety of stuff one can write about in such a small area, no pun intended.
I came across The Hits Just Keep Comin’ after the proprietor linked to a scrubbles post. Nice writings on pop music of the recent past, especially as it relates to the Billboard charts (a freaky obsession of mine). Loved the recent post on the vaguely psychedelic ez-listening obscurity “1900 Yesterday” by Liz Damon & The Orient Express (among other tunes).
Modeling Midcentury Modern comes from a guy who does these amazing 3-D models of vintage buildings. His rendering of the Monsanto House of the Future was recently linked on The Disney Blog, but my personal fave might be this nifty old-skool Jack In The Box.