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Fanmode.net

I don’t seem to be buying many toys these days — I’m so picky that it’s a rare figure that meets my impossible standards — but I maintain a keen interest in toys, toy culture and the creativity of toy fans.

I know some of you are rolling your eyes right now. I’m well aware not everyone on this planet is as fond of these playthings as I am.

Just in case you’re still in the “… but toys are for kids” mindset, let me just point out that toys for kids are still designed by talented adult artists, and toys are marketed and sold by canny businessmen. Whether the target is kids or adults, the worldwide toy market is worth billions of dollars annually.

Culturally, toys have a major impact as well. This past summer audiences worldwide sat in cinemas thrilling to the adventures of characters who first debuted as action figures.

With all that in mind, I’ve just set up a new site which will revolve around toys, toy culture and toy fans. The domain has been purchased, WordPress has been installed, my theme of choice uploaded and the first few entries posted. There’s still some tweaking to be done but it is at least presentable.

Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I hereby present:
Fanmode.net

Posted in Toys.


Guild Wars links

Renamed skills.
Soldier’s Speed gets the best misinterpretation. (More.)

You know you’re in Random Arena when …

Best new guild name.

Posted in Guild Wars, Web.


Categorising the WordPress blogroll

I haven’t got many links on this site’s blogroll as I don’t really make use of it myself. I’d rather just bookmark sites with my browser and surf that way.

However, I’m currently setting up a second blog which is to feature an extensive blogroll and I was unhappy by the way WordPress organised the links by default.

The code that governed how my blogroll was organised was this:
WordPress blogroll code

That code resulted in my blogroll looking like this:
WordPress blogroll get_links
I didn’t want my blogroll looking like that.

For one thing, I have my links categorised so I would like to see the categories on the blogroll and have the links listed under the associated categories.

I also thought it wasn’t necessary to display the description like that since the reader would see the link description as a tooltip when the cursor is hovered over the link.

After reading up a bit, I finally got what I wanted by replacing the above code with this:

< ?php wp_list_bookmarks('show_description=0'); ?>

This resulted in the blogroll looking like this:
WordPress blogroll categorised
That’s much better.

Posted in Software, WordPress.


Guild Wars links

NCSoft at London Film and Comic Con 2007.
I especially enjoyed the sequence showing Mike Collins drawing the Assassin. (Related.)

Danke, ArenaNet.
Kleinermann123’s fanvideo, set to Louie Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” showcases the beautiful environs in the game.

Guildcast episode 82 released.
Apparently the direct link to the 50MB MP3 is so supersecret, Shawn didn’t want to give it away. The direct link is up now.

Posted in Guild Wars, Web.


Elsewhere on the web

Life in a game. [via]
Outstanding.

Spider-Man spins his web.
Mary Jane must be out of town.

Goldfish earrings.
Seen in Harajuku.

Posted in Web.