Welcome to tastypopsicle.com

I've decided to open up the weblog archive. At one point is was closed off except to registered members due to an incident, However, that company has since closed its doors so they can just eat it. Use the search to find something that youmight be looking for. Maybe you'll find it.

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Bob Dob does some truly wonderful things with brush and paint. He paints things that I would love to own. Specifically things like Donkey Kong and Mario having a beer on what could only be the scaffolding on which Mario ascends on his way to rescuing the Princess. Be sure to also check out his mugshots of Mario and Luigi Absolutely brilliant!

I can't get the damn thing to work. Last night I made an effort to see if encoding the polylines for each of the CTA's train lines would improve my CTA Google Map loading time. I decided that it would be best to encode the shortest of all of the lines, the Yellow Line (aka The Skokie Swift), first just as a simple proof of concept. After running the points through an encoder I created a test page with just the Yellow Line data but I came up with nothing. I know I'm doing something wrong but I have no idea what it is. In the meantime I have removed Google Analytics and Statcounter calls for the map which should help with the initial load time.

(did you even know that it wasn't available?) I didn't know that unregistered users couldn't comment on my website. Not to toot my horn, but I was beginning to wonder why there hadn't been any new comments since August. Some scripting that I had done apparently was preventing any comment from getting through. I spent about 30 minutes this morning working on it and I think I have found the solution to the problem. So, if you've got something to say please do.

There is a problem with my CTA Google Map which I never realized until the other day. It appears that the bottom 150 pixels of the map is getting cut off. I can see why that is happening - it's because of the header - but I just can't figure out how to solve the problem. And since it doesn't prevent you from using the map I might get around to finding a solution one of these days. In the meantime I have spent some time making some minor changes to the underlying code. More importantly, I spent a good deal of time trimming the fat away from the map code and optimizing it as much as possible. By renaming most of the functions and variables and by removing unnecessary spaces and line breaks in the Javascript I was able to reduce the size of the HTML file by more than 6 KB. Hopefully by adding up all of changes I have made the map should load up at least a little more quickly. And I received a nice message yesterday from a Will Andrews presumably in Denver, CO. It seems that will is working on a Google Map mashed up with Denver's light rail system. Will told me that most of Javascript functions and the XML structure for the different rail lines and station locations is all based on my CTA Google Map. It looks like it works pretty well. Good job there Will and thanks for finding inspiration in my work. As I said, I have optimized the code quite a bit; almost to the point where if you were to look at it for the first time you'd probably be completely lost. Hopefully that will not deter you from making your own system map. For you folks I have created a slightly optimized, but still readable, CTA map over here.

Today we are out in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago having Thankgiving with Amy's side of the family. I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.