Meta

A few things around the site to mention and discuss:

Chinese in the feeds
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This was my bad. I misconfigured a plug-in, and it started to grab some random Chinese Twitter feed. I’m going to be traveling a lot in July, well outside of traditional internet access, so I’ll be needing to use an alternative method (like Twitter) to post from the field. I’m still debating whether it’s best to generate traditional posts, or just a persistent header (like I did for Sundance).

Follow-Up Email plugin
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AndrewJS wrote in about troubles with [this plug-in](http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/):

Your WP plugin that emails people regarding new comments for certain articles seems to be overly ambitious lately. I left a comment on your Finale PDF thread and checked that box, but am receiving follow up emails for several other articles also that I never subscribed to. I rarely leave comments on your site, and I checked those other articles just to make sure I hadn’t commented on them. This included the Marvel thread and something about a Screenwriter’s Dinner, and one or two others. They all poured in
overnight at once. Seems a bit odd.

Is anybody else having troubles with this plug-in? Is anyone else using it? I’m happy to troubleshoot it if people are finding it useful, but if not, the simplest solution would just be to remove it.

Live preview on comments
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Some readers are having trouble with the live previews on the comments. If you’re one of them, shoot me an email at ask@johnaugust.com. Be sure to include which browser you’re using (e.g. Internet Explorer). Some readers have had success by breaking long comments into shorter sections. That really shouldn’t matter, but if it works, go for it.

I got tagged with the [Five Things Meme](http://www.google.com/search?q=five%20things%20meme&), in which I’m supposed to share five pieces of information most readers probably don’t know about me. Fair enough.

1. __I’m an Eagle scout.__ I can tie all my knots, splint a broken bone, and build a fire without matches. Growing up in Colorado, I also learned to dig snowcaves, gut fish and cook a delicious snipe. My troop had the Frost Point Award, which worked thusly: for every campout during the winter months, they’d bring a thermometer. For every degree below freezing it fell, you’d get a frost point. The goal was to collect 100 frost points during the winter camping season. I got the award three years straight. Yes, in retrospect, it was crazy.

2. __Raspberries are my kryptonite.__ One raspberry and I’m curled in the fetal position, waiting out the abdominal pain and feeling like I’ve been poisoned. This has only been going on for a few months. I think it may related to some undercooked ostrich I ate.

3. __I was all-state orchestra.__ I wasn’t a prodigy, but I was very good at clarinet through high school. Then one day I realized I was never going to be great. I was never going to do it for a living. What’s more, I didn’t really enjoy it: I kept playing because I was good. So I gave it up completely. No regrets.

4. __I’m not the smart one in the relationship.__ By any metric, Mike is demonstrably smarter when it comes to math, history and languages. At a certain point, most couples divvy up responsibility for life’s chores: cooking, pet care, dealing with solicitors at the door. I have ceded all responsibility for calculation, navigation and scheduling. I have claimed baking, swimming instruction, and ripping the meat off rotisserie chicken.

5. __I was a vegetarian for seven years.__ I gave up meat during a summer film program at Stanford, largely for economic reasons — pasta was cheaper. Mostly through inertia, I stayed a milk-and-egg-eating vegetarian without complaint or incident, until I started working out and found myself ravenously, deliriously craving protein. Tuna was my gateway meat, and within a year I was eating KFC. But I still don’t eat mammals.