Saturday,
February 16, 2008

It's the little things that make me happy

So I'm working on a page for one of my clients, which will go live Very Soon Now and be seen by lots of people, and discover that a table cell background image is simply not showing up properly in Netscape (and yes, I know Netscape is going bye-bye but I figure the same issue is probably popping up in Firefox and IE, too).

So I do a bit of investigating, find out that I can fix the problem if I set the background image in CSS plus the appropriate axis repeat, remove the cell height attribute, and voila -- instant image stretching without breaking any browser rules.

Mellie is a happy geekette.

GMTA once again

About three years ago, I started a short story in an attempt to turn a cliche on its ear -- the classic 1950's SF trope of a square-jawed hero spaceman and his girl sidekick. In my story, Galactic Ranger Captain Dash Manning is tall, square-jawed, handsome as hell, brave, resourceful, absolutely clanking with medals...and gay as an Easter frock. The PR department of the Galactic Rangers keep teaming him up with female partners in a desperate bearding attempt, which he blithely ignores as he goes out and saves the galaxy on a regular basis, seducing handsome aliens along the way.

(And while I don't think anyone here would get on their PC horse about this, I do get the occasional new reader so let me reassure you that I ran this past the gay best friend and he thought it was hilarious. So there.)

I didn't finish it in time for the magazine issue I wanted to submit it to so it sank onto the "to do" pile, but this morning I got a wild hair, pulled it out and started adding to it again. It's funnier than hell (Ginny, Dash's newest sidekick, is essentially Janeanne Garofalo in a flight suit) and should make for a good story.

Except. I was giggling at a line, and Lyndon wandered by and asked what I was working on. When I told him, he said, "You know, if you'd sold it three years ago, everyone would've thought it was very novel. Now, they're just going to say you're ripping off Captain Jack Harkness."

And oh crap, he's right. Dash even has dark hair, sparkling blue eyes and a libido gone gonzo. I can fix the looks and maybe tone down the libido a bit, and Dash is most definitely not interested in girls whatsoever, but I know I'm still gonna get Captain Jack comparisons. Which isn't going to stop me -- it's a fun story and I should be able to sell it somewhere -- but I just want to state for the record that I started this long before I ever saw the beauteous and talented John Barrowman on DOCTOR WHO.

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