IE CSS questions of the day

I’m working on a small commercial website and running into a few CSS issues which I sure could use a little help corralling, if anyone out there can help.

First, IE doesn’t respect the min-height property. Oh well, one could rant or rave but with little practical application. Scoble suggests a one pixel wide image and it does the job, I suppose, but really violates my sense of (err) propriety. I’d really like to find a CSS-based solution.

Next, when I set the width for a <div> which is only one line long to 100%, the displayed width of the element varies (wildly) depending on the text used. Even though none of the possible texts are anywhere near as long as the linewidth. Why and how do I avoid this? Two examples are <p>[Products]</p> and <p>[Consulting]</p>. Setting the width to a specific pixel count doesn’t have this problem but then I get into a guessing game as to just what number to use. (The CSS is {position: relative; margin: 0; background-color: lightblue; width: 671px; font-size: 75%;}, although the margin: 0 doesn’t really do anything but that’s another story.)

Similarly, if I set <body> to have a width of, say, 685px in the stylesheet and then set another style, used to control a <div>, to the exact same number, how come the body is wider than the div? (I can tell by setting a border around the body). Strangely, a different div using a different style but also with width set to that same number, does stretch to the size of <body>.

Thanks for the assist, Rob.

Oscar predictions

Forgot to record last year’s but did get the 2001 picks from Viv and me. How did those stack up against the results? We both got Halle Berry for Actress and Jennifer Connolly for Supporting Actress and Vivian was right on Ron Howard, not great. Nonetheless, here we go again:

Award Bill’s Picks Vivian’s Picks
Best Picture Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Actor Bill Murray Sean Penn
Actress Charlize Theron Charlize Theron
Supporting Actor Alec Baldwin Benicio Del Toro
Supporting Actress Renee Zellweger Holly Hunter
Director Peter Jackson Peter Jackson

Last night’s movie: Chicago

After waiting out the lines at crowds at the box office, plus not wanting to fork over hard cash for two tickets, we finally saw last year’s Best Film Oscar winner the night before its successor is named. Seems like we made the right choice: Chicago was enjoyable but not great.

The quality of the singing and dancing by stars Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere was quite good, certainly better than I expected. Then again, as Rebecca Traister points out in an article in today’s Times, most actors start out doing these kinds of productions in high school and college, and Zeta-Jones did quite a bit of work on the London stage before hitting Hollywood. Zellweger was a powerful beam of light during her productions numbers, more so for me than the others. Props to John C. Riley for his role as Zellweger’s patsy husband and his performance in the Mr. Cellophane number and to Queen Latifah for a very smart job too.

But the performances were not the problem. I can be a big fan of movie musicals–I love a ton of the older ones, though have rarely found much to enjoy post-1970 or so–but here I felt like director (and choreographer) Rob Marshall spent all his energy figuring out how to stage the song and dance bits and not enough on creating a compelling movie. I never could connect with Zeta-Jones’ Velma and Gere’s lawyer was nearly repellant. Perhaps if Marshall had stayed closer to the simplicity imposed by the constraints of a theater and avoided using so much glitz and flash, I would have liked the movie better; as produced, I felt like I was watching a concert with some thin wrappers.

recommended–good but not great

Today’s movie: Scarfies

I suppose that there aren’t too many films made for domestic consumption in New Zealand but I was still very surprised to see that Scarfies won Best Film, Actress, Supporting Actor, Screenplay and Director in 2000. I mean, it was decent, enjoyable, but not that much more than what I’d expect from a low budget Hollywood effort based on the same ideas.

Which are: college students squat in an empty house and discover a big bunch of pot plants growing in the basement, they sell the pot and party with the proceeds only to have the tough guy who set up the plants show up wanting his money. The kids are able to trap him in the now-empty growing room but then have to decide what comes next.

The return of the grower, the turning point in the film, comes about a third of the way in; a classic transition from Act 1 to Act 2. The tone of the movie completely changes too, from college party comedy, to psychological thriller. A Lord of the Flies type situation develops among the five students while the tough ass tries to use whatever divisive chatter he can come up with. That only pushes the students deeper into aggression though.

Overall I found the direction and editing not really up to the quality of even your average art house film; the lack of consistent tone and pace also lost several points as did the subpar production (poor lighting and even sound). Nice first effort for young writer/director Robert Sarkies but he did not go net.

not recommended

Bushinations: You ain’t safe

John Robb points to an interesting perspective from Jeff Jarvis on why Howard Stern was really removed from those Clear Channel radio stations: the Bushies (and Clear Channel’s leadership is clearly part of that team) wanted payback from Stern after he decided Bush isn’t fit for re-election this Fall. The shock jock has enough clout to swing some tens of thousands of votes, which is more than enough to matter if we end up anywhere close to a repeat of the 2000 voting results.

This is yet another prime example of the creeping, step by step effort by the Bushies to control government now and into the future. Looking at that sentence even I feel the paranoia rising like a bad stink but damn if the whole concept of paranoia didn’t come about because this shit actually does happen from time to time. I’m not saying that Karl Rove has a team of people working in a basement office at the EOB plotting every move but they are always looking for opportunity to advance their case, and Stern, via his call with Paris Hilton’s stud, gave them what looked like just enough rope.

This is bad.

Two not to be one

I want you to feel okay

I want you to still have the love in your heart

That you told me was beating there

When we were holding hands back at the start.

Don’t listen to the words

Coming from the people and the air

Finding their way to you so fast and free

That hurts even though you know you care.

Love, love, love will come to you

Someday you’ll find the man to match

Your eyes will lock onto each other and

You’ll spend your lives together

You may feel that right now your feet are

Wandering through dank caverns aimlessly

One foot, two feet, dripping water behind you

Every drop rebounds so hard and fatefully.

We spent days and nights together liquidly

Surrounded by people trying to tear

A hole in the gathering but not alone nor

Only we two were finding some way to share.

You offered your heart freely and I wanted

Badly to agree but it just wasn’t within me

I couldn’t find the same sentimental pressure

Inside myself and now I must let you be.

Teaching: Not as fun as you’d think

I was the co-facilitator at a ProMatch class today, my first time, and although I had very positive feedback for the portion of the class where I pretended to teach, it was not as pleasant an experience as, say, sitting in the stands at an Earthquakes match. For those of you know me and my aversion to sitting in the same building as thousands of other humans should realize that I choose this comparison intentionally.

To a degree, I walked into this because originally the facilitator had no plans to turn over a segment of the class to me and was only going to use me as scribe. But during the break I gave him some ‘constructive feedback’ (which he did request from the class just before the recess) and possibly he was not 100% thrilled with this. At least, he immediately afterwards made the change in plans.

Stage fright is a terrible thing and some people get it so bad there’s no chance of them standing in front of a class but my level is much milder. Mainly I seem to speak to the class but inside am wondering what I’ll say next or who I should call on when I’ve finished the sentence; an odd sort of multi-tasking, with some internal anxiety-driven shaking thrown in. Next Tuesday I get the pleasure all over again though with a different class.

In the town where I was born there lived a man who sailed the seas. However, he did it in a large sailboat and not a submarine and it was mainly white with a touch of teak and brass, though the main sail featured many bright colors and drawings over the years.

Tornados

My friend (and ex-boss) Jim has twin sons who just turned two earlier this month, while Jim himself just changed decades last week, and he stopped by this afternoon for a visit. Let’s just say his warning that Liam and Brendan are like little tornados was spot on, though they are both lovely and wonderful and better behaved than their dad gives them credit for. I snapped a few shots but here is the best of all three together:

Click for a full size view of Brendan, Jim and Liam

Time up for GH

In an (admittedly scientifically invalid) poll, Soccernet readers are voting 83% in favor of LFC manager Gerard Houllier’s dismissal. After recent events like the inability to score against bottom dweller in the FA Cup defeat Sunday and sitting 26 points behind EPL leaders Arsenal with the season 60% done, I’m going to agree with the majority. I also get the feeling that Chelsea headman Claudio Ranieri will face the same fate come the end of the season–I saw his team’s match against Arsenal Saturday and, regardless of a first minute score, the Blues were totally dominated.