Remember last week when I said I was considering making the blog private? Well, I think I’m going to. I’m still working out the logistics of exactly how that is done in Wordpress so have no fear, this is not happening immediately (probably not until October). In the meantime, if you want access once it does become private, please leave a comment with your name and real email address (in the email field is fine) so I can send you a password or registration instructions or whatever I need to do.

After reading my last post and thinking about stuff I have going on at the moment, I decided to take the rest of the month off from blogging. I’ll definitely be back in May (if not sooner…you know how I can’t stay away too long) and of course I’ll continue baking, so feel free to check up on me on the baking blog.

See you soon!

I don’t know what to do about this blog. Every day I sit down, try to write, and nothing comes out. Or I begin writing then midway through, hit the delete key until I’m back where I started, at a word count of zero. Of course, I have a million thoughts in my head, but I’m not sure if/how I want to write about them here. Back when 100 of you read this everyday, it was much easier for me to whine, rant, and talk about anything on my mind. But now that my readership has grown, it’s not so easy. It’s not that I’m scared of being judged, but rather that I’ve come to realize there are certain things I don’t really want out here for the entire world to read. Make sense?

Not that this is a surprise to most of you, but I don’t write about every aspect of my life. There are dates I didn’t share details about, recipes I didn’t review, purchases I didn’t reveal, stressful work related things I won’t mention, and more loads of laundry that weren’t blogged about. Yes, there is more going on in my life than what is contained in my tiny little piece of cyberspace.

And so, please bear with me as I figure out the direction of this blog. The plan is to at least continue my weekend and Thursday posts (basically what I’ve been doing for the past few months) until I get it all sorted out. Thanks, and happy reading.

It’s that time again. (And apparently de-lurking week was a couple of weeks ago, so as usual, I’m late to the party. Or early I suppose, if you consider I did this back in 2006.) But anyway, I have nothing exciting to write about today, and I know you’re reading, so here’s your chance to do some of the talking! Tell me anything. Where are you from? Are you married? Single? What do you do–for fun or for work? How did you make your way to my blog?

You can read what others spilled back in June ‘06, October ‘06, and March ‘07. Don’t be shy!

The blog. Not me. Well, not yet, but soon I’ll be in Seattle! Just taking a little time off from here. See you soon!

It’s that time again. Tell me something. Where are you from? Are you married? Single? What do you do–for fun or for work? How did you make your way to my blog? Anything.

You can read what others spilled back in June and October. Don’t be shy!

My site is getting bombarded with thousands of comment spams, so there’s a chance the site will be down until I get this issue resolved. If anyone knows of any Wordpress plugins to help manage the spam, please let me know. I’m already using Spam Karma. Thanks!

Superfluous Juxtaposition was selected as Feed of the Day (I’m flattered!) over at Feedster today. Welcome to my new visitors and thanks to whomever at Feedster!

…I started this blog at its old home on blogspot and dazzled the blogosphere with this brilliant post.

Uh yeah. It’s safe to say that was before I found my voice. And back when bling was still called bling bling.

Thanks for reading!

Is anyone familiar with Wordpress and Bloglines and willing to help me figure out this mystery? Bloglines is not showing my blog as updated even when there is a new post. However, if you manually check for new posts in Bloglines, they are there. (I know, weird.) And yes, the feeds validate and the RSS works. I’ve emailed Bloglines but so far, no response. Thanks!

Also, if you’ve successfully “claimed your feeds” in Bloglines and can help me with that, it would be much appreciated as well.

On hiatus. Or something.

Blame the now not-happening-hiatus on the heat. And my haywire air conditioner. And sometimes haywire emotions. And my habit of sometimes writing boys off too quickly, before having all the facts. And not writing boys off fast enough, when I do have all the facts. And so many stories of engagements, weddings, and babies that make my head spin. And mostly, a busy day complete with a headache resulting from too many margaritas on my 32nd birthday.

Because my last header image contest was such a huge success (thanks Maria!), I decided to do it again, this time for my baking blog. Here are the details:

Size: 762 x 190 px

Format: gif file

The look: I’m probably going to end up using the same template I’m using for this blog, but with different colors and the new header. And feel free to use any of the baking photos I have on Flickr.

Colors: Totally open.

Text: Nosh With Me and One girl’s love affair with her KitchenAid mixer.

Deadline: Friday, August 4.

Prize: A dozen cookies or cupcakes. If I’m mailing them to you, you’ll probably get cookies as I haven’t yet experimented with mailing cupcakes.

Let me know if you want to enter!

When I started this blog in 2003, I was an anonymous blogger writing about my daily life. The site served as a venting mechanism for me–I wrote about my frustrations with dating, my college boyfriend who wanted to get back together, friendships, and just life in general. No one from my “real life” knew about the site, nor did anyone know my real name. As I slowly built a readership, I was amazed that total strangers would check back daily to see what was going on in my life. I couldn’t imagine what was so interesting about me.

Then I got it–my readers could relate. And I gradually began to tell more about me, the real life me. I shared my real name. And for a short while, I shared pictures of me and my family and friends. Since then, I’ve made amazing new friends, shared cookies and cupcakes (and recipes too), corresponded online with people all over the world, and had drinks with dozens of others I probably otherwise would never have met. And I am grateful.

But every now and then, I wish I was still anonymous. I miss the rawness. The realness. The one hundred percent no holding back writing I can no longer do. Or rather, that I choose not to do. I hate censoring myself–I’m a writer and this is my life, yet I don’t write about it wholly.

I want it to be complete. And real. And all me. But–there are so many buts. What if someone I went on a date with finds it? What if I say something about a friend and they take it the wrong way? What if my neighbor reads it? What if someone passes judgment on me based solely on what they read here? What if I meet a cool guy and he reads it and learns about all of my insecurities and my random crying fits and my fear of never getting married and my messy closets and those pesky ten pounds and I become even more exposed? What if a potential employer stumbles across it and finds out all these intimate things about me?

Then what?

I got the new theme up and running (obviously). I still have a few things I’d like to change, but for the most part, it’s done. If anyone has any suggestions or notices anything goofy, please let me know!

Also, if you can help me with any of the following, I’ll be your BFF:

• Link my header image. I just can’t figure it out.
• Add commenting ability to some but not all pages.
• Figure out why the comment permalinks don’t work in IE. They do work in Firefox. Weird!
• In the comments, move the comment date and time to the right of the comment author’s name.
• Get rid of the extra bullet on the Archives page that only shows up in IE, but not in Firefox.
• Figure out why the horizontal line above the post date and comments doesn’t display in IE, but does display in Firefox.

Thank ya!

This design, by Maria of Franklin Avenue! And since Maria is local, she gets to pick from cupcakes or cookies. Any readers want to help her choose?

And of course, many thanks to everyone else who participated, I loved all of your banners and the contest was a lot of fun. Stay tuned for the new look shortly!

The deadline has passed and here are the entries. Vote for your favorite! Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image. Polls close Tuesday.

For anyone interested in the header image contest, here’s the info:

• Size: 762 x 190 px
• Format: gif file
• The look: Something clean (but fun) that will go well with the layout of the new page.
• Colors: Up to you. I tend to like blues and purples, but am really open to anything. Keep in mind, the colors on the current page are just temporary, I will change them to go with the header. If possible, please provide me with a hexidecimal color that I can use to create a color scheme.
• Text: Superfluous Juxtaposition and The musings, rants, ramblings, and general observations of a 30-something Jewish girl in Los Angeles.
• Deadline: Friday, May 12.
• Prize: A dozen cookies or cupcakes. (A bakers dozen if you include little icons to go next to the sidebar categories (Favorite Posts, Recent Comments, etc.). If I’m mailing them to you, you’ll probably get cookies as I haven’t yet experimented with mailing cupcakes.

Please leave a comment or email me to let me know if you’re planning on entering.

As a side note, I’m debating letting my readers vote for the winner. No worries. They rock! And of course, I always have the final say.

Bear with me…I’m in the process of switching from my evil hosting company with NO phone support and crappy email support to a wonderful hosting company with super nice and helpful people.

Also, it appears that the nameserver change has not fully propagated yet, so not everyone is able to see the post I’ve made today.

If you can see this post, please leave a comment. Looks like I’m back in business.

And if anything looks goofy or you get any errors, let me know.

All fixed, see above post!

I’m going crazy over here. These are my issues:

Anyone have any ideas on how to fix these things? They all happened when I upgraded from 2.0 to 2.0.1. Grrr.

What a fun weekend!

Friday night I hit the grocery store then went home to relax and install the Wordpress upgrade. The installation was pretty uneventful, save for the weird email notification thing that is driving me mad. (Any Wordpress gurus willing to help me?) I haven’t really noticed many differences with 2.0, although the post preview is way cool. Other than that, it looks pretty. I know, I’m a dork.

Saturday afternoon I did the eyebrow/mani/pedi thing then got back to the City in time to meet up with Annabel Lee, Eve (who needs to start a damn blog already), and Tamara for wine and a delicious dinner at Pomodoro (not the new chain of the same name), my all-time favorite tiny Italian place on the Westside.

Following dinner we caravanned over to Boardwalk 11 for Paul’s Karaoke-A-Go-Go night and had an absolute blast. Some of us, ahem, who shall rename nameless, had a lot of alcohol and performed a few songs that had the crowd really going. By the way Paul, I didn’t hear any Greatest American Hero songs. What gives?

While at the party, I also got a chance to catch up with David and Jamie, and I think David has given me the motivation I needed to really get cracking on my book proposal. As always, it was wonderful to see them and we really do need to hang out again sometime soon!

The entire set of pictures can be found here.

Today is a much needed lazy day. I’m going to sleep, clean, do laundry, read, write, and bake. Yep, a new recipe. Details to come.

Okay, I have (for the most part) successfully upgraded to Wordpress 2.0. So far, there is one minor problem I have been unable to solve:

Comment notification emails are really goofy. Instead of showing the commenter’s actual email address, it is showing NameEnteredInCommenterNameField@missing-host-name; then when I click on the email to read it, it shows as NameEnteredInCommenterNameField@localhost.

e.g.: It should say: superjux@superjux.com. Instead, it is showing (when H is the NameEnteredInCommenterNameField) H@missing-host-name while in my inbox, then H@localhost in the opened email.

It’s driving me nuts. Anyone know how to fix this? You’ll be my hero.

Yeah, I’m a dork and forgot that the JIB awards voting begins today. You can vote for my blog in the Best Personal Blog category (Group B) once every three days or something odd like that. Of course, don’t forget to check out all of the other categories as well.

And with that, I’m off to everyone’s favorite store, Rite-Aid, for some NyQuil so I can sleep even more, because 12 hours in one night just wasn’t enough. Zzzz.

Blog: I’ve been thinking. My regular readers know so much about me, yet I know nothing about you guys. So I propose that each of you tell me something about yourself–whatever you want, so I can have a better idea of who is actually reading my blog. I know there are at least a few hundred of you who read everyday, and I think it would be fun to hear about you.

More Blog Stuff: I have been nominated for a Jewish & Israeli Blog (JIB) Award in the Best Personal Blog category. Thank you to whomever nominated me, and I’ll keep you guys posted as to when the voting begins. In the meantime, check out some of the other great nominated blogs.

Hosting: On my Wordpress Dashboard, I noticed a link about Wordpress and Yahoo! working together on blog hosting. Since we all know how much I dislike my hosting company, I was thinking about switching to Yahoo! Apparently, they will install Wordpress and perform all the updates so that the user doesn’t have to do anything, which sounds pretty damn cool to me. Anyone have any experience with using them for hosting?

Another Vacation: I’m leaving for Seattle Saturday morning and am so excited! Not only will I finally be able to catch up with my friend, I’ll get to see my cousin who I haven’t seen since his band played down here earlier this year.

Dating Related Things I Won’t Do In 2006: WeddingChannel.com, Google, Friendster, or MySpace (yes, those are all verbs now) anyone I have dated; search for blogs of anyone I have dated; accept a date with anyone I have dated; question whether I should have married The Ex after college.

Girls Night Out: Last night was a super fun night out with Annabel Lee and Eve. Further proof that good things and new friendships do indeed come from blogging.

Site of the Week: Double Lives

Have a fun and safe New Year’s Eve!

Cool: Esther pointed out the new Google blog search. And apparently lots of you have been using it to get here. So, welcome!

Blog: As you may have noticed, I added a new pull-down menu–now you can view posts by category. Kinda nifty save for the fact I can’t seem to get the list to alphabetize. Can you help me fix that? I’ll be your best friend. Or bake you cookies. Or at least post of a photo of cookies I baked.

Photos: If you put a photo on Flickr with a person in it, it gets twice as many views as the photos without. Who knew?

TV: I have 15 hours of shows to watch (and no time to watch them) on my TiVo. Do you have a new fave this season?

Question: Does anyone know of a good yet inexpensive place to buy talit in Los Angeles (or online)? My Little’s bat mitzvah is in November and her mom doesn’t have much money, so I was thinking of surprising them with one. Any suggestions are much appreciated.

Stupid Commercial: I am soooo sick of hearing the radio commercials that are supposed to sound like three people are sitting around chatting about a tv show when actually it’s a horrible commercial for what’s probably going to be a stupid show. Has anyone else heard these?

Coming Up: Adventures with fried olives and unisex restrooms in the Valley. Like, ohmigod. Stay tuned.

Site of the Week: All Cupcakes, All The Time

As you may have heard, last night was the much anticipated, first ever, Drinks With Bloggers at Cat & Fiddle. Organized by myself and Pauly D., it was well attended and I do believe a good time was had by all. It was really cool to meet bloggers in person, especially some whose blogs I have read for years.

Other bloggers in attendance (in totally random order): Dan, Meaghan, Marissa, Charlie, Lindsay, Slappar, Jessica, Keith, Justin and his girlfriend Kristin (link?), Jason, Nanette and her fiance Brent, Neil , Mike, Joel, annabel lee, Kevin, Mary, and my sister Bethany (not a blogger), who made a super quick appearance so we could swap cars. Yay for my Civic!

Highlights:

• When Justin and Kristin walked in and Justin loudly asked, “Is this the blogging group?” Shhh!
• Being told by Nanette and Brent that a nice Jewish boy (who happens to be married with a child, but whatever), is my new boyfriend.
• Meeting Dan and Meaghan after reading their blogs for years only to find out they are moving back to Boston in a few months.
• Finally meeting Paul in person after planning this whole thing via IM.

Please let me know if I forgot anyone–apologies in advance. And thanks for coming out, it was a great time and I’m glad I got to meet everyone! And if you’d like to be included in the next shindig, let me know.

As you can see, I’ve made a few changes to the blog and finally gotten rid of that green theme thing. I’m still experimenting with the new colors, so please let me know if you find them too light, too dark, too hard to read, etc. Everything looks okay in IE and Firefox on my PC. I’d love to know how it looks on a MAC. Thanks!

…the new Wordpress blog.

I still have to choose my colors (I’m not real fond of the green), fix some permalinks, and do some other template-related things. If you notice anything funky or something that you think should be changed, please let me know. Thanks!

p.s. Can anyone tell me how to add space between each recent comment on the sidebar? They’re kinda squished.

Majorly huge thanks to Justin for importing my Haloscan comments for me. You can now look forward to the new and improved blog hopefully sometime this week!

This is a temporary location. For my current blog, go to www.superjux.com.

This will eventually be my new blog. But first I need to figure out how to:

• add recent comments
• Make it allow me to use caps.
• figure out why my bullets aren’t showing in my posts (such as this one)
• increase the number of posts that appear on each page
• add an archive pull-down
• figure out how to edit the “theme” (is this possible?)
• import my Haloscan comments
• add categories to all 800-something posts. Ugh.
• make my comments pop-up instead of open on the same page Decided against it
• make all of my external links open in a new window
• add trackback
• add a little bit of space between each recent comment
• choose colors
• change permalinks somehow so that my posts that link to other posts are correct

But ohmygod, so far it is waaaay better than Blogger. If you’re able (and willing) to help me with any of these things, it would be very much appreciated!

I’m in the middle of moving over to Wordpress and I need some assistance. If anyone out there is familiar with Wordpress and willing to help me out with a few things, please email me or post something in the comments.

Thank you!

Because of that equation, I’m thinking of switching to Typepad/Movable Type. Side notes: I own my domain and am very happy with my hosting company. Now, here are my questions:

1. What is the difference between Typepad and Movable Type? Which would I want to use if I’d like to continue publishing to my domain?
2. Would it be free?
3. Would I need to install something? Is it difficult? Would someone volunteer to do it for me? [ed. note: There may be cookies in it for ya.]
4. Can I transfer over my Blogger posts and Haloscan comments?

Any additional input is much appreciated!

Earlier today, someone wrote a comment on one of my February posts. I thought the comment was odd, so using the email address he left, I attempted to find out more about this individual. Well, my search led me to his blog which contained the copy from my friend’s Valentine card (purchased at Soolip) and my An Open Letter To My Soulmate post.

Both, totally unattributed.

You suck.

Update: The Plagiarizer added this–*Portions of this blog were inspired by or borrowed from Hilary and Amy. Thank you Annabell!

Inspired by or borrowed from? More like written by.

You still suck.

Major, major props to xtasy for helping me to successfully add recent comments in the sidebar. Thank you!

I’ve succumb to the pressure and started a 100 Things About Me list like all the cool kids are doing. It’s not complete yet, but you can check it out anyway. All done! Enjoy.

As you know, my blog (along with many other blogs I read) was nominated for a Jewish & Israeli Blog (JIB) award in the Best Personal Blog category. There were so many nominations that the category were broken down into two groups–I’m in Group B. The polls are now open so go vote! Remember, you can vote once a day every 24 hours.

I just read over at Annabel Lee’s blog that I have been nominated for a JIB (Jewish/Israeli Blog) award in the Best Personal Blog category. Many thanks to whomever nominated me and congratulations to Annabel Lee for her nomination as well!

Well, my original plan to host my blog with mher.org was scratched, after I realized their technical support wasn’t very, um, supportive. So I took Keith’s advice and checked out Total Choice Hosting and they are very kind and helpful and I hope to have my blog up and running with them as soon as the DNS nameserver thing is done. Basically this means if you come here in the next couple of days and the blog is missing, have no fear, it will be back.

In other news, I’m feeling a bit better, but right now may be a good time to purchase stock in Kleenex.

So the company I currently use to host my blog (bloghosts.com) has unexpectedly decided to close up shop at the start of the new year. Anyone have any suggestions for an inexpensive yet reliable hosting company that will allow me to use Blogger to publish? As always, your help is much appreciated!

Blogger is being stupid and my template is all messed up and my posts are disappearing and I’m annoyed.

p.s. Why the hell isn’t the word “Blogger” in Blogger’s own spellcheck? What is up with that?

Can anyone tell me why my blog looks funky if viewed using a broswer other than Internet Explorer? How do I fix it? Any help is much appreciated!

Update: Many, many thanks to Theo for showing me what I needed to fix. So, if you are using a browser other than IE, everything should look normal now.

Today my blog turns one year old. Thanks to everyone who stops by regularly to read my poignant and thought provoking stories that–oh wait–that’s not my blog. What I meant to say was, thanks for being so nosy and looking forward to hearing about all of my disastrous dates and regular rants about totally average stuff. I love the readership, not to mention your fun comments.

Change: Like the new font?

Problem: Something’s up with the comments. They work, but the number
of comments that displays is incorrect. Help? All fixed!

No, not Slim Shady. But anyway. To my loyal readers: You may be shocked to learn that in fact, my first name is not Moi. It is Hilary. Nice to meet you. Now introduce yourself.

My blog is happy in its new home. I think. Had a few issues moving everything over (what a pain in the ass), but I think it’s working properly now. If you link to me, make sure you update the address!

Please change your links to http://www.superjux.com!

Like many other Blogger users, in April I received an invitation to join Gmail. I signed up, secured an account with a good username that wasn’t taken (wow!) and was good to go. A few weeks later I received an offer to invite two friends to join Gmail–I sent it to two of my coworkers who I thought would appreciate the one gig of space and they both signed up. Then yesterday, one of the lucky bastards sent me this article about how Gmail accounts are a hot commodity on eBay right now. Apparently, I could have made some quick money to take with me on my upcoming Vegas trip. Instead, I made two web programmers very happy. Oh well.

Anyone else having trouble with Site Meter? It’s stuck on visitor 22,307 and hasn’t recorded any visits to my site since yesterday afternoon, and I’m not sure why. When I click Who’s On?, I get this: The statistics for visitors from the last xxxx minutes are not yet available. (xxxx being the number of minutes since yesterday at 2:00 p.m.) Anyone have any ideas?

Update: It’s working again. Yay!

Well, hopefully. I am now the proud owner of superjux.com, so once I figure out how to ftp my stuff there, the blog will have a new home. Exciting, I know.

So when I spell checked my previous post on Blogger, it suggested changing “Jdate” to “jaded.” Kinda ironic, don’t ya think?

Not sure what exactly is going on, but somehow my template reverted back to the basic blogger one (i.e., all of my customizations are gone). I tried to recreate everything, but now people with 800×600 monitor settings can’t view the page correctly. Hopefully I’ll have this figured out soon.

Update: OK, I think it’s fixed. Let me know if the page looks funky to you.

Does anyone know how to control the number of photos (from my Buzznet photoblog) that appear on my right sidebar? Any help is much appreciated!

The long awaited photoblog that is. I’m still debating whether or not to post pictures of myself and friends and family, so in the meantime, enjoy the pretty sunset.

Did you end up here by clicking on a link on your My Yahoo page? If so, please tell me what the link was. Thanks!

Major props to osunix on Blogger Forum for helping me to get my links open properly. He was so patient and helpful and didn’t get frustrated with me at all! Thanks so much!

I’ve had to switch comment hosts for a third time. Now I’m using Haloscan, and from what I’ve read, they’re good. So once again, sorry for the lost comments and let’s start all over again…

For all of my loyal readers out there, you can now be among the first to know when this site has been updated. Simply subscribe to my blog by entering your email address in the box on the left–you will then receive an email from Bloglet whenever my blog has new posts. Isn’t life grand?

I did some redecorating and stuff on my blog and think I finally figured out this whole Blog Rolling thing and got it working. Please let me know if you notice anything funky with it.

What is BlogRolling? I keep seeing it on people’s blogs but I have absolutely no idea what it refers to. Please tell me.

If you’re looking for the old comments on my blog, I’m sorry to report they were somehow deleted by BlogOut. I know, sucks. However, I have since switched to BlogSpeak, so please, comment away once again.

Not quite, but my blog is seeing insane numbers of visitors. Already over 4,300 of you have checked it out today alone. Madness! And, in case you were sad about the show ending, season two has already been taped and will be airing beginning in January. How cool is that?

OK, not really. But apparently my blog is. I had a whopping 805 visitors yesterday, and 800 of them were searching for Adam You-Know-Who. Say hi next time you visit my blog!

Many thanks to Kimmy at Blogger Support for solving my permalink problem!

Not really, but help me figure out this permalink hell. They won’t work properly, and for the life of me, I can’t figure