Jim Carrey impersonates Horatio Caine

Pia showed me this clip of Jim Carrey impersonating CSI: Miami’s Horatio Caine and it’s so frakking hilarious!

I have this theory about why CSI:Miami is considered the most popular show in the world. It’s not the storylines, or the great acting, or even the forensics. It’s Horatio Caine and the mocking that goes with watching David Caruso.

As this clip proves, Caine is the master of cheesy one liners and habits made for a drinking game.

Pia and I used to watch CSI:Miami just to count the number of times Caine would:

  1. twirl his sunglasses before putting them on
  2. put his hands on his hips
  3. twirl his sunglasses, put them on before putting his hands on his hips and then say something prophetic before gliding out of the scene

From watching season 1 the most we counted in this episode was 44 but we stopped when RPN went off the air in Bacolod. But Miss(ed) Manners has a comprehensive drinking game.

Oh my god! No way!

I’m in shock. Denial. Numb. After moving servers it turns out that my database for Ben Affleck Fan is gone.

Dead.
Kaput.
Nada.

Yes that was my reaction too. 8 years worth of database content *kicks something* is frakking gone. And to make matters worse, I can’t read the cd that I backed up the database on!!! Grr Arrr Grrr!

My only consolation is that I used MovableType’s static html capabilities so I do have physical copies files. I just have to put everything back into the database.

*sigh*

Moving Your WordPress Installation? Consider This!

There are some great articles and tutorials on how to move your WordPress installation for all manner of user levels. They range from the basic to the detailed or for more advanced users.

But one thing these guides have failed to mention if you use the built-in upload facility – watch your absolute server paths.

What the frak is an “Absolute Server Path”

The absolute server path is the full path to a file or folder. More about paths. For example a jpeg file name “just-a-picture.jpg” is stored here: wp-content/uploads/just-a-picture.jpg.

The absolute server path could look like this:

/home/username/public_html/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/just-a-picture.jpg

This value is what WordPress saves every time you upload an attachment inside the following post meta keys:

  • _wp_attached_file
  • _wp_attachment_metadata

While this doesn’t really affect what you see on your website, it does affect the uploads admin page. Instead of seeing a thumbnail, you’ll see the full image.
And unless you want to upload all the images again, then you’re screwed.

Okay so I am exaggerating. You just have a bit more work to do.

So what do I do?

Before transferring your database over to your new server, open your database backup in a text editor and change all instances of the old server path to the new one with the search facility.

Or you could use the tool mentioned here to do a global search and replace for the absolute server paths.

I ended up making a plugin to help fix 1000+ attachments for my friend’s website. With better than dial-up internet speed, it took about a minute each to fix thumbnails and attachments.

So I’m releasing the Fix Attachments plugin for use as a last resort in case the two options I mentioned above don’t work for you.

Remember, have an unaltered backup of your database handy in case anything goes wrong. The plugin worked fine in my case but it may not work in yours and you WILL want to restore your database.