Stretchy background images

For a project I’m working on I want to have full-width background images regardless of the size of the browser window. Ideally I’d use CSS3’s background-size property, but no browsers support it yet, even experimentally. This forum post experimental page shows how to hardcode what I want into a page, but it requires a bunch of extra markup that I’m not prepared to add. So instead I’ve written up a nasty little JavaScript that sorta kinda emulates its behaviour. The gist of the script is that it moves the <body> of a document into a <div> named fake-body and sets its background transparent, wraps that in a <div> named fake-scroller and sets its background transparent, then adds another <div> named fake-background that wraps an <img> containing the original body’s background-image. The script works in Firefox and Safari, and would in Opera if I did browser detection—it needs a weird little hack that I don’t quite understand—but I’m pretty much at a loss for finding a way to make it work in any version of IE; I’d hoped making it work would just be a matter of finding the right style object and using IE7‘s document.recalc() method. If anyone out there on the LazyWeb has any ideas—or improvements in general—please chime in!

By the power of Greyskull!

Disappointed is a mild word for my reaction to Spider-Man 3; I thought it was bad in more ways than I feel like enumerating fully, but some include character cheats, lousy timing, and horrendous attempts at what I can only presume to be comedy. Even Stan Lee and Bruce Campbell’s cameos fell completely flat, the latter doing a bad riff on The Pink Panther‘s Jacques Clouseau. There were a couple of higher points, but overall it gets a two-star meh.

(Matt’s a lot more forgiving than I am.)

Fortunately, Hot Fuzz made up for all of Spidey’s shortcomings. Although I’ve never been a fan of zombie movies I thought Shaun of the Dead was brilliant, and HF is almost its equal in the buddy-cop film genre. Simon Pegg’s parodic formula starts to show a bit, though—for example, he substitutes He-Man references for Shaun’s Star Wars lines—and I think a third along the same lines might be pushing it a bit. Still, I wonder if he’d be up for a superhero movie after Run, Fatboy, Run?

Today is the day for some solo flamenco Spider-Man

It’s on rare occasions that I visit the free download or recommended links on websites, because they’re invariably linking to stuff in which I have no interest whatsoever. But today was an exception, and an exceptional exception at that: I found two tracks that are worthy not only of adding to my library but of blogging.

The first is something of a novelty item, granted, and I didn’t technically follow Amazon’s link to find it (it came from another site) but it’s still fun, and not just for the title — David Gillis’s The Theme to Spiderman – Acoustic Flamenco Solo Guitar Instrumental. It’s just… well, exactly what it says it is, and unlike Michael Bublé’s take was released without a Major Motion Picture™ to support it. I may just have to recommend it to Brian Ibbott.

The other is right off today’s edition of Amazon’s free downloads page, Apollo Sunshine’s Today Is The Day. I do love the rockabilly, and this one’s got the drive and the straight-ahead lyrics (now if that grass looks fun to roll in, then roll in that fun grass / look at that bird, he can fly, don’t you wish you could fly) to qualify, and even some surf-rock elements that give it that extra sumpin-sumpin. Good stuff, that.

(More astute readers will observe that both tracks are by male artists, which is in itself a remarkable occurrence on this blog. To redeem myself slightly I’ll point out that I found the initial link on a page that linked to Oh Camille.)

Not naked

My watch hasn’t magically reappeared, but I was able to find the one it had replaced. I’d forgotten what had prompted me to replace it—I like the look of a full face, with individual dials for day of the month, weekday, hour, and even phase of the moon—but it became apparent when I replaced the battery and attempted to set the time: the stem came off in my fingers!

Fortunately I was at one of an apparently small number of jewellers that has a watchmaker on site, so an hour later I had a completely functional timepiece on my wrist again.

History repeats

Just finished reading the first two parts of a 1978 interview with Douglas Adams and listening to a segment of the source material. Despite being one of the funniest writers around, he comes across as serious and thoughtful, which is the impression I’ve always had of him through other material, particularly Last Chance to See.

It’s quite a departure from the interview that kicks off CBC’s new Rewind podcast. Barbara Frum’s valiant attempt to interview one of Charles Manson’s followers left me disturbed and more than a little shaken, and podcast host Michael Enright’s tag didn’t do much to assuage that feeling. (Producer (I think) Paul Gorbould has an alternative version on his blog, as well as a bit more information on the podcast and the CBC Archives.)

Barbara Frum died of leukemia fifteen years ago last week, and Adams died of a heart attack in 2001.