A Couple of Bits
Aug. 14th, 2007 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_gneechBit the First
One thing training certainly does, is to allow you to recognize something really being made a hash of. Take for example, the [name redacted so I don't lose my job] website, for which I need to make an add-on piece at work. After my CSS course of two weeks ago (is that all?), looking under the hood of this site just makes me cringe. It's like it was started by somebody who knew CSS well and was doing all sorts of nifty things, and then followed up by a total hack. P tags that have a class applied -- and then FONT and B tags that duplicate the attributes of the class? (For that matter, B tags instead of STRONG tags?) Positioning done with DIV blocks that are then put inside a table layout??? Gah.
The worst part is, due to the very limited number of hours I have to work with this project, I can't go tear all that crap out of there and replace it with a properly-done version of the page. I have just long enough to insert my own new little pieces, which I have to just code as close to the right way as I can and still work within the structure they've already established.
Bureaucracy ... ugh. It's this kind of situation that leads to manhole covers exploding.
Bit the Second
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lythandra and I saw Stardust over the weekend, but I haven't had a few minutes to sit down and talk about it really before now. Laurie informs me that the movie is considerably altered from the book (which she has read but I have not), but that it still manages to be a pretty decent adaptation. Robert DeNiro's by-now-well-documented over-the-top performance, while very entertaining, is almost entirely an addition as his character is minor in the book for instance.
Still, I enjoyed it. :) It has a nice, "older" style fantasy feel than something like Lord of the Rings. Closer to a fairy tale (but a sophisticated and textured fairy tale, rather than a bowdlerized kiddie one). Laurie and I both noted with some amusement that almost all of the previews shown were adaptations of kids' fantasy books. There are two basic reasons for this: 1) everybody's hoping to be the next "Harry Potter," and 2) much (if not most) of the good new fantasy is in the "young adult" section any more. Unfortunately, as a side effect of these, we're also getting a lot of "etc., etc.". One of the previews in particular ("The Seeker") prompted me to comment, "I am a Jedi, like Harry Potter before me." Honestly, how many "chosen ones" can there be out there?
Gotta say, one thing I really liked about The Bard's Tale was the jail chock full of "chosen ones" -- all of whom were idiots.
-The Gneech
One thing training certainly does, is to allow you to recognize something really being made a hash of. Take for example, the [name redacted so I don't lose my job] website, for which I need to make an add-on piece at work. After my CSS course of two weeks ago (is that all?), looking under the hood of this site just makes me cringe. It's like it was started by somebody who knew CSS well and was doing all sorts of nifty things, and then followed up by a total hack. P tags that have a class applied -- and then FONT and B tags that duplicate the attributes of the class? (For that matter, B tags instead of STRONG tags?) Positioning done with DIV blocks that are then put inside a table layout??? Gah.
The worst part is, due to the very limited number of hours I have to work with this project, I can't go tear all that crap out of there and replace it with a properly-done version of the page. I have just long enough to insert my own new little pieces, which I have to just code as close to the right way as I can and still work within the structure they've already established.
Bureaucracy ... ugh. It's this kind of situation that leads to manhole covers exploding.
Bit the Second
lythandra and I saw Stardust over the weekend, but I haven't had a few minutes to sit down and talk about it really before now. Laurie informs me that the movie is considerably altered from the book (which she has read but I have not), but that it still manages to be a pretty decent adaptation. Robert DeNiro's by-now-well-documented over-the-top performance, while very entertaining, is almost entirely an addition as his character is minor in the book for instance.Still, I enjoyed it. :) It has a nice, "older" style fantasy feel than something like Lord of the Rings. Closer to a fairy tale (but a sophisticated and textured fairy tale, rather than a bowdlerized kiddie one). Laurie and I both noted with some amusement that almost all of the previews shown were adaptations of kids' fantasy books. There are two basic reasons for this: 1) everybody's hoping to be the next "Harry Potter," and 2) much (if not most) of the good new fantasy is in the "young adult" section any more. Unfortunately, as a side effect of these, we're also getting a lot of "etc., etc.". One of the previews in particular ("The Seeker") prompted me to comment, "I am a Jedi, like Harry Potter before me." Honestly, how many "chosen ones" can there be out there?
Gotta say, one thing I really liked about The Bard's Tale was the jail chock full of "chosen ones" -- all of whom were idiots.
-The Gneech
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 11:04 pm (UTC)"I say you're the Messiah, and I should know. I've followed a few!"
--Brian's Agent (Monty Python's Life of Brian)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 02:01 am (UTC)I saw the preview for it when I went to see the Simpsons movie, and damn. They managed to take a 'chosen one' who was far better at it then Potter ever managed and turned him into... ugh. I love the Dark is Rising sequence, so no way will I ever watch that damn movie.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 04:42 am (UTC)And the B tags thing sounds like someone who was doing HTML programming from the era when I was last doing HTML programming. Around the time of HTML 3 or 4, when CSS was still rather new (I think).
-Spiritwolf.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 07:49 pm (UTC)Having seen the preview now, I can agree with her. I've only read the five books *once* and I'd have never recognized it from that trailer, aside from the kid's name is the same. The rest... gah.
Sad how Hollywood can kill such good things.