Yesterday evening I discovered, much to my dismay, that this blog does not always display properly. Well, a more accurate statement would be that it looks terrible if you’re using Internet Explorer as your browser (hey, get with the program and use Firefox). A couple months ago, a friend told me about his experience with a distorted presentation [Thanks, G-!], but I dismissed it as an anomaly, possibly attributable to a quirky laptop configuration. I guess not, because I can now reproduce the distortion consistently on a standard desktop. Sigh.

I’ve tried to resolve this issue by applying a different theme to the blog: what you’re seeing now is the fourth iteration, and although I’m not thrilled about it, at least it’s not embarrassingly bad. I first used “Thoughts 2.0” (Lisa Sabin-Wilson), but I couldn’t see my pages. Then for months I used a variation of the default called “UMass Kubrick 1.6” (Zinj Guo), but this is the theme that allows the IE distortion. I then went back to “WordPress Classic 1.5” (Dave Shea), but I can’t see my tagline. The current theme is “Regulus 2.2” (Ben Gillbanks), which I’m feeling is okay — it does allow for some customization, and maybe it will grow on me.

I began wondering if the photos I uploaded caused the page elements to display improperly — I may test this theory over the next few weeks. The photos I download from my digital camera are 640 X 480 pixels out of the box. There’s probably an optimum size, in pixels, for each blog template, but I haven’t figured that out yet. I’m using Picasa to edit the photos — this software does have functionality which allows me to re-size the photos as I wish. I’ll keep you updated on my progress toward the goal of a decent-looking blog (never mind the content, eh).

One night last week, as I started for home after my 5:15 exercise class, I realized that I had left my iPod in my desk at work. Annoyed with myself for feeling that I couldn’t go for one night without it, I drove back to the office and retrieved it, wondering all the while if I had been invaded by a body snatcher who had transformed me into one of the Pod People. I bought the 2 GB Nano in late January of 2007, and I remember the salesperson looking rather bewildered when I declared that I had no intention of listening to music with this device. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m simply not a “music person” — in fact, I’m probably one of the few people on this planet who doesn’t own any cassette tapes or CDs or even LPs. Regardless, as of today, my iPod is three-quarters full, mostly with the spoken word.

I subscribe to four podcasts on a weekly basis and never miss an episode.

• Girl Meets Girl is produced by a singer-songwriter duo named Makena, who live and work in Southern California.
• Science Talk is one of three podcasts produced by the monthly print magazine Scientific American.
• This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass of WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, is an award-winning radio show and also one of the most highly-rated podcasts in any category.
• A Way With Words, hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, is a weekly radio show about the English language broadcast by KPBS in San Diego.

Click on the links above to go directly to each site; these podcasts can be downloaded through the iTunes store as well. These podcasts, like most, are completely free, but contributions to the organizations which produce them are most welcome.

I’ve also discovered that a number of the lecture courses offered to undergraduates at the University of California at Berkeley are available as podcasts from the Berkeley website. Last spring, I listened to ESPM 160AC, Professor Carolyn Merchant’s American Environmental and Cultural History, which was utterly fascinating. Last fall, I followed History 4A, Professor Isabelle Pafford’s Ancient Mediterranean World, which I liked so much that this spring I’m listening to History 106B, her History of the Roman Empire. Simultaneously, I’m following History 5, Professor M. Lavinia Anderson’s Making of Modern Europe. So addictive is listening to these lectures on my iPod that I keep thinking I should go back to college and major in History.