c o l l i s i o n b e n d . c o m

I’m a big Stephen King fan.

Big.

This means that I tend to read some interesting stuff, glean some interesting angles and opinions on things and events, and generally have a pretty warped view of reality when it comes to fantasy.

Oh-Kay.

Next month, the TNT cable network will present a new anthology of Stephen King works, entitled “Nightmares and Dreamscapes,” starting July 12 at 9:00 Eastern Time.

So you can imagine my joy when my bride came home with a press kit from TNT, complete with DVDs, photos, and a pillow — that is, if you can sleep after watching this.

I suggest that you not miss this series. The first installment, “Battleground,” starring William Hurt, will be presented commercial- and interruption-free. While this might seem a bit dramatic, it fits for this episode, as there is absolutely no dialogue in this installment.

Hurt plays Jason Renshaw, a hitman who murders a toy magnate (for hire), and then receives a package with interesting — and deadly — consequences.

You have to see it to believe it. I was totally stunned. This is probably the best Stephen King presentation yet, which includes “Misery” and “The Stand.”

I found my pulse racing, my breating labored, and my jaw slammed to the floor with every twist and turn in the story, masterfully directed by Brian Henson, son of the late Jim Henson, which should give you a clue as to what you will see in this episode.

If you’re a King fan, you’ll want to record this (use the DVR, not the VHS, OK?). If you’re a Rod Serling fan (like me), you’ll definitely want to record this.

Trust me: television never gets any better than this.

Well, here is what happened:

On Thursday last, I posted a table within my post that broke the layout. The table bled out over onto the nav menu on the right, overlapping the content there and making it impossible to navigate the site properly.

To fix this, I edited my stylesheet. No problem; I’m an old hand at CSS. Well, here’s where the weather comes in: it was bitterly cold outside, and I, dedicated smoker, went outside to have a butt and came in with cold hands. I went to edit the stylesheet, and with one frozen, errant keystroke I ended up blowing away a small section of the stylesheet that broke the site even further.

OK. So far, so good. Then I decided that it was a good time to upgrade WordPress, and I’d finally bring out CB 2.0, which is the stylesheet you’re looking at now. WordPress has finally made it possible to have the program in one directory and the home blog page in another. Cool beans. I started to upgrade…

…and failed to back up what I already had on the server! Through what I can only explain as a royal comedy of errors, a routine software upgrade combined with the upload of two tested-proven documents (the new index page and stylesheet) became a major horror story to rival “The Shining,” “The Stand” or any other Stephen King epic.

To make a long story short: I ended up scrunching my database, had to blow it away and reinstall — with the friendly help from my host at Digital Space, and then re-install WordPress from scratch.

In my dreams, it was going to go off without a hitch. Reality, however, can sometimes be a rather strange bedfellow. So can logic.

Well, I guess I mean fantasy and illogic, actually: I didn’t back up my work. Period. I’m an old hand with computers, having had one in the home for over 15 years now; I’ve forgotten more arcane code than many users will ever learn, and this was the *first* lesson I ever learned.

Now it’s relearned.

So I have re-installed everything, added a few things, recreated my links and categories (if I’ve missed you, it wasn’t personal; just drop me a line), added my hacks, and started over. Fortunately, not all is lost: with the magic of Google, I have been able to retrieve many of my old posts from their cache, which I will soon repost in a special archive section — that is, if I can create my first — and totally unnecessary — hack for WordPress.