On Qinjin Road, Bao’an District, Shenzhen, PRC. (aside: I have the same T-shirt as the man.)

Captured: March 29, 2008.

Yes, WordPress, the preeminent blogging software, has taken a giant leap forward with the release of version 2.5. This is a must for those of you with a self-hosted WordPress blog. The new dashboard and interface are clean and less confusing. I’m still playing with it, but my first impression is that this is a great upgrade. I suggest you read the notes on the WordPress blog. A couple of new features are listed below.

User Features

Cleaner, faster, less cluttered dashboard — we’ve worked hard to take your feedback about what’s most important in the dashboard and organize things to allow you to focus on what’s important — your blog — and get out of your way. In collaboration with Happy Cog and the community we’ve taken the first major step forward in the WordPress interface since version 1.5.

Dashboard Widgets — the dashboard home page is now a series of widgets, including ones to show you fun stats about your posting, latest comments, people linking to you, new and popular plugins, and of course WordPress news. You can customize any of the dashboard widgets to show, for example, news from your local paper instead of WP news. Plugins can also hook in, for example the WordPress.com stats widget adds a handy double-wide stats box.

Check out the videos: Major coolness.

dashboard-and-images.swf

dashboard-and-images.avi

The Stevo has some friends and he’s taking this opportunity to pimp their new digs.

Read the news written and compiled by The Stickman (the man of many names) and his partner-in-crime, feisty entertainment reporter Wilde N Funke. It’s like CNN but without the attempted objectivity.

Click on over to GNN. Have a laugh, or a deep insight into the wide-world around us.

note: This was written in the new WordPress v2.5. How do you like me now?

Average Jane is a misnomer. The prose posted on her blog are not average. If work of her caliber could be labeled as average I would be delighted: We would have an incredibly literate planet.

Her recent post, A list of never-to-do things, as well as a first-love remembrance by amuirin, got me to thinking. That is dangerous. I don’t like looking back. I fear with only a glance over my shoulder I may experience a fate similar to Lot’s wife or Orpheus,. If I turn to salt you are welcome to use my remains as seasoning.

During the summer of 1990 I fell hard. Off a motorcycle, but that was later. I am referring to one of those once-in-a-lifetime thunderclaps of love. Yes, the L-word. My life was akin to a bad Hollywood screenplay, a DVD by Touchstone Pictures that Blockbuster would happily stock. One moment I was me, the next a slobbering, moody, love-crazed 19-year-old.

We had known each other three years, co-workers at a summer camp. There had always been something between us, a chemistry that we both silently acknowledged but never acted upon. We were both involved, or were whenever the other was free. It was just beyond consciousness.

At the start of that fateful summer she and a friend, and a friend and I played a nightly game of cards. The loosing team, split along gender lines, gave the winners a massage. Yes, you can see where this is going. While something intimate and secret develops between a masseuse and patient this was only partially the case. We traded massages a time or two. Hands upon shoulders became lips against lips. Read the full story

A locked door, at a built but never occupied building.

Captured: March 23, 2008. Shenzhen, China.

Jim, or Jimbo as I nicknamed him, was a lot like a ferret, after consuming a gallon of nicotine-lace Red Bull. He was everywhere all at once, dancing around the classroom, rummaging through my desk, the king of the overzealous nuisance. We had spent eight months together, one period a day, five days a week, before I had had enough.

He was smarter than his classmates. He could read, sound out new words, and understand the difference between is and are, something many of the native-speaking English teachers at his school were challenged with. His hand was the first to be raised. It was his voice that called out, “Teacher! Teacher!” when his written work was complete. He was smart, but he was the proverbial handful.

My first term teaching I yelled a great deal. I had the attitude that many new teachers do: I came all the way from Canada, these students should be thankful and respectful of my great sacrifice. I had yet to learn it was my attitude that had to change, not theirs. They were children, and kids will be kids. After I realized I had to think like them, not the other way around, my job became much easier.

It was a kinder, gentler Stevo that knelt down next to Jim that morning. I had sent him to a seat at the back of the class. When his mates were busy with a written exercise I approached his temporary desk. I looked him in the eye and said quietly, “You have to be quiet.” I put my finger to my lips.

He was subdued and nodded his agreement.

“Do you want me to call your mother?” I lifted an imaginary phone to my ear. That and mother would be enough of a threat to keep him in his seat the rest of the week. I didn’t yell, I talked in a quiet, understanding voice, the opposite of my boisterous classroom demeanor.

“Teacher,” said Jim, “No mother.”

The only sound was the breaking of my heart. Stupid, oafish Stevo. I understood why he was misbehaving, why he sought my every ounce of attention. Was she dead? Had she left? I never found out. My dastardly threat ended with me wanting to throw my arms around the Grade 3 boy and apologize for my stupidity and the dose of real-life he had been force-fed.

I still use “The Mother” threat, but more in jest. Sometimes attempted solutions hurt more than the problems.