Julia Phillips, Oscar-winning producer on Taxi Driver, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Sting, writes:

When a job comes up on the set that no one else has to do, according to job definition, the producer gets to do it. This comes up on a regular basis, usually because someone else didn’t do his job, didn’t do his job well, or didn’t think of the job in the first place.

page 519, “You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again“

An intriguing definition, from a movie Producer who routinely had to deal with the most intense crises imaginable.

I’m currently working on an upgrade of one of the web sites I manage.  The current site is a collection of static pages with PHP includes, while the new site will be powered by the latest version of WordPress.

I’ve enjoyed using WordPress as a content management system.  The new templating system is relatively easy to use, and gibes well with what I’ve learned from my professional experience with web sites.  I think it’s a great lesson in CMS development as well – determining what’s dynamic vs. static, what’s styled in CSS or structured in HTML code, and what the various colors and fonts need to be to make the site readable.

Advantages of using WordPress vs. static updates include:

• Word-like text editor to enter and edit content, without the need to know HTML.
• Automatic ability to push new pages to multiple news feeds.  Write a post or page, tag it with keywords, click “submit,” and it automatically goes out over Google News.
• Fancier functionality.  No more manually updating the right column; I click “post” and all the links update.
• Individual pages.  Let’s say you Google “Pray for Priests magnets” – you get http://www.serraboston.org/news.php, but you have to scroll halfway down the page to get to the relevant content.  With the new site, each page of content should appear as its own web site, with links to similar articles.
• Fancier functionality than my current blog, which also needs an upgrade to the latest version of WordPress.

I’d post a preview, but I hope to have the fully dynamic site online in a few days.

Sitting at my new Mac, catching up on stuff.

E-mail’s done, with various calendars and blogs filled with new events.

Reviewed my aunt’s new web site, Doggone Collectibles, and sent her some suggestions on how to get it to show up in search engine results. Took part of the advice I sent her and added it to my wiki, in a page named “Optimize your site for search engines.”

Used YouTube for a marathon watching of the oddball series “Spaced.” Added each Spaced episode to my wiki as well.

Given the huge dimensions of my new Mac screen, it’s no problem to work, wiki, and blog at the same time.

Currently watching a fantastic Spaced episode with an utterly unexpected parody of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Off to read a bit more of The Bonesetter’s Daughter, and then to bed.

Overall a good Friday!

Last year I made a New Year’s resolution to write one blog post per day.

So how’d I do? Not particularly well.

The first 5 months started well enough. 1 blog post a day – even if I didn’t have something to write I put up a link or a photo.  After that I kept it up a bit, using this blog’s archive to make sure every blog post had a different number.  There were a few good posts, but in general I think I generated more noises than signals.

I also think that blogging can be a sign of idleness, rather than activity.  This year I’ve been more active than ever: Ireland, Austin, the Eucharistic Congress, Serra Boston.  Working extra hours and coming into my own on the job.

This year, it’s more about the content.   Less frequent posts, but what posts there are should be more substantial.