Author: Shelly

Crankypantsing

Messy Marvin

Shelly

One of my coworkers has a young granddaughter. That means that we get to hear granddaughter stories. Not being into small children in the abstract, I ought to find this a trying experience. I don’t though. Her granddaughter cracks me right the hell up. So, the other day, she told us about taking GD out to eat. GD dribbled something down the front of her shirt and was quite upset about it. I don’t blame her. I hate it when I do that, too. I don’t, however, throw screaming fits when it happens. GD does, apparently, so their solution was to turn her shirt around, back-to-front. Jeenyous!

So, anyway, I caved in and got pizza for lunch this afternoon. And, not just any pizza, either. It was one of those deep fried pan pizzas from Pizza Hut. Yes, it was a mistake. Duh. A hideous mistake. Not only could I suck the grease out of the crust, but I managed to drop a piece of it on my shirt. Now I have a hummense constellation of grease taunting me.

Excuse me while I run to the restroom to turn my shirt around. What I can’t see won’t bother me, right? Much.

* Yes, I am Messy Marvin.

Uncategorized

Social Commentary on Big Brother

Shelly

I may as well admit it. I watch Really Bad TeeVee. One of my favorite indulgences is Big Brother. Yes, you read me correctly. I don’t have cable or satellite, so I’m stuck with three and a half channels of whatever garbage CBS, NBC, FOX, and sometimes PBS (that’s the “and a half”) deign to broadcast at me. Summer network television is craptacular at best, so I’ve been looking forward to the start of the new season of Big Brother.

I have to say that the first episode was not everything it could’ve been. The powers that be have ordained that this new crop of jackasses should all be young and, I assume, what passes for attractive. With the exception of the lone Iraqi kid, they’re all cookie cutter replicas of ideal American plastic prettiness. I couldn’t tell you one of their names or describe any of them to you. All I recall is a lot of teeth, hair, and tanned flesh.

And I’m not the only one who noticed this fact. The girl who won head of household* nominated the kid from Iraq as one of her two potential evictees. Her reasoning? She didn’t feel a “connection” with him or the girl she nominated. I realize this is a game, but it seems unfortunate to me that she didn’t feel any responsibility for getting to know the evictees.**

* For those who haven’t seen the show, the head of household is decided by a competition. That person holds the HoH position for a week and gets to nominate two people for possible eviction at the end of the week. The rest of the household will vote to decide which of the two nominees will be evicted.

** Not getting to know the evictees is a common reason given for nomination/eviction on this and similar reality shows. Humans really are a separatist, exclusionary breed. It’s no wonder that people over here can’t find common ground with people over there, and vice versa. When that common ground cannot be found between two flesh-and-blood people living under the same roof, it doesn’t bode well for people who exist in the abstract.

Which brings me to another tangent. In high school, I read an essay speculating that human language developed as a way to name and classify things: specifically, us vs. them. It’s much easier to attack another person/group if you can create a distinction between yourself and them. I’ll try to dig it out, as it was fascinating reading. In light of current events, I think it might be good to reread it.

Ladybusiness

Patriarchy

Shelly

No art today (we’re experiencing a drought, dontchaknow?), but I thought I’d share this gem: I Blame the Patriarchy. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’s way better than Cats. I promise.

And, speaking of Patriarchy, an Instant Review of Mozilla’s Thunderbird:

I started using Mozilla’s Firefox web browser about a year ago and have nothing bad to say about it. It’s a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. I decided to give their e-mail client a try, so I downloaded Thunderbird yesterday.

I’ve been using Forte Agent and good, old-fashioned Pine for newsgroups and e-mail. Each has it’s strengths. I adore Pine, but I’ve got a crap connection at home, so an off-line news/mail client is necessary there. Agent has suited my needs well, but it still does not have multiple server support. Blech. So, enter Thunderbird.

Set-up was easy-peasy. It will apparently import from OE, but since I don’t use it, I don’t know how straightforward it is to do so. I had no problems setting up all my POP accounts, nor my news account. I like the junk mail filter. It’s trainable and seems to catch on quickly to what goes in the bozo bin and what doesn’t. I’m not so fond of the news filter, though. It’s clunky and, unless I’m missing something, not nearly as configurable as Agent’s killfile. So, I guess we’ll see if I stick with it for newsgrouping. I’m sold for e-mail, though.

For those who use OE, Thunderbird will feel very familiar. I really urge OE and IE users to give Thunderbird and Firefox a try, if for no other reason than that I think it’s important to have as many options as possible. If we don’t support the good alternatives that are out there, those alternatives will slowly disappear. I, for one, don’t relish the thought of having my computing experience controlled solely by the Wizard of Redmond (or his brother from another mother in Cupertino).

Photography

Cutest Puppy EVAR!1!! and Some Instant Reviews

Shelly

Last weekend was a whirlwind of party hopping and fil-um watching. On Friday night, I went with Mr. and Mrs. B. to see War of the Worlds and Sahara at the drive-in. Much fun was had. Saturday was Mr. and Mrs. B.’s Fourth of July on the Second party. Much fun was had. Sunday was Zombie-fest (Land of the Dead) and more party hopping. One of the parties was at the home of one of the cutest puppies I have ever met. Really. He was that adorable. Buddha is a little Pembroke Welsh Corgi (pointy ears, no tail, and ginormous feet). He schmoozed and played and finally fell asleep thusly:

Buddha

Isn’t he precious? I spent the evening trying to figure out how to fit him in my purse, so I could snatch him away from his rightful owners.

Some Instant Reviews:

War of the Worlds was pretty damned good, despite The Tom. The tripods were creepy and the suspense was never-ending. One thing that struck me as odd was how many folks brought their small kids to see it. This is not a kiddie movie! I had weird-assed dreams that night, so I can only imagine how creepy it might have been to small children.

Sahara was a good drive-in movie. I wouldn’t have seen it at a theater and wouldn’t have bothered to Netflix it, but it was a nice contrast to War of the Worlds.

Land of the Dead totally kicked ass. I think I’ll be purchasing that one when it comes out on DVD. The zombies were excellent, the gore was plentiful and satisfying, and the social commentary was spot-on. (Poor Spot!1!!)

Ladybusiness

In Primetime Porn News

Shelly

I watched way too much teevee last night. I usually try to ignore commercials, but I noticed something that cracked me up in light of the recent link I gave for Vulva Puppets. At the end of a commercial for Levitra, I noticed that their little flame logo looks an awful lot like a vulva.

I also saw the newish Paris Hilton commercial for Hardees. There’s been a bit of a to-do made over it, which I guess is par for the course. Personally, though, I think it’s not anywhere near as offensive as the other Squick Burger ads. We’re talking hardcore food porn. About the last thing I want to see when I’m thinking of food is some waify little girl stuffing her fist in her mouth. Or, the squicky porn noise of someone biting into a mile-high burger. Eeew. Compared to that, Paris tarted up in a black bikini and wrestling with a hose just isn’t terribly offensive.

Pets, Photography

Another Brief Respite

Shelly

I’ve been out mowing and got a couple of shots of Elliott while I was taking a break. This one–he’s hunting moles–was framed particularly nicely, so I thought I’d upload it. The photo on the right was taken a week ago. Even though it was hot and yucky out, the shade from the tangled tree branches looked cool and inviting. I wasn’t able to get a picture of him, but there was a male cardinal cheeking up a storm in the sassafras tree. Every time I’d get the camera focused on him, he’d hop to a different branch.

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100_0543

I know it’s cooler out today than it has been in ages, but it’s still too bloody hot for yard work. Yuck! Frequent breaks are, I think, the ticket.

Photography

A Brief Reprieve

Shelly

We (along with folks all over the northern hemisphere, it seems) have been in the midst of a heat wave. It’s been hot and humid and generally too disgusting to do much of anything. Last night, though, a cold front moved through. Right before the accompanying storm hit us, the temperature started to drop and the dogs decided–at long last!–that it was cool enough to play. I was too transfixed by watching them to get any pictures, but there was lots of biteyface and Olympic level zooming.

After the dogs had taken the edge on their pent up energy, I went in to get my camera. A hole had opened up in the thick cloud cover, with the setting sun reflecting off a small crescent of cloud tops at the edge of the opening.

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100_0547

I had no sooner come inside from taking the above photos than I noticed that the sky to the east had turned dark blue, the sky above had turned dirty dark grey, and the sky to the west had turned a glowing brown color. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I wish I’d gotten photos, but we were getting so many lightning strikes that I decided going outside would be tempting fate. Storms scare the living hell out of me, but I’m also fascinated by them. I stood in the front door and watched the lightning repeatedly strike the ridge across from me.

Thankfully, the storm moved through quickly. The lightning, while nerve wracking, cleaned the air. The smell was heavenly. We got a little bit of M&M sized hail, but nothing too worrisome. Unfortunately, we also didn’t get much rain out of it. It poured for about 15 minutes, but then it slacked off and soon quit entirely. We need a slow, soaking rain, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to get one anytime soon.

The cooler weather should last through the weekend, so as soon as the grass dries I can actually get some yard work done. Um, yay?

Crankypantsing, Meta

Pee Ess:

Shelly

And another thing… Cutesy flash intros are not so very cute, especially those that force the visitor to solve a logic puzzle in order to enter the website. I tried accessing one site with three different browsers, thinking there was a coding incompatibility, when the real problem was that I was too damned stupid to figure out that I had to drag an object across the screen in order to enter the site. That’s a mean joke to play on people. Call me silly, but it seems to me that giving visitors a reason to turn away defeats the whole purpose of having a web presence. I’m just sayin’…

Crankypantsing, Meta

HTML HELL

Shelly

With the exception of Mr. and Mrs. B’s kick-ass Memorial Day on a Sunday party, I ended up spending the entirety of my mini-vacation working on the new website. Really. The Whole Thing. And, by “whole thing,” I mean 14 hours/day with very few breaks. I have two words to describe the experience: o ick. It’s tedious, nit-picky work. I’m pretty happy with the overall look and the layout, though. It’s visually crisp and simple.

I got to work early this ayem, so I spent some time cruising around, looking at other artists’ websites. What I saw made me glad that I listened to the Little Voice who told me to keep things minimal. She usually knows what she’s talking about. Most of the websites I looked at had a lot of visual junk going on, but most of it served no purpose but to clutter up the screen, eat bandwidth, and show off the author’s mAd c0d1nG Sk1LLz. Folks, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And that goes double for anything–and I mean a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g–that blinks, bounces, rotates, or does any other sort of virtual calisthenics. Enough, already!

I also spent far too much time re-scanning and re-photographing images. That’s almost as tedious as coding, but the results are proving to be well worth the effort–especially for work with 3D elements that didn’t scan well. Having a serviceable digital camera has made life ever so much easier.

Another thing I’m discovering–and this comes as a surprise to me–is that I have a bit of a disconnect between visual and written expression. I don’t have any illusions about being the author of the next Great American Novel, but I’d like to think that I express myself fairly well with words. However, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to switch back and forth between expressing myself in words and in images. Why is this relevant? Well, I’ve been researching and writing copy to go with much of the artwork for the website. It shouldn’t be rocket science, but I’m finding that changing gears between thinking visually and expressing verbally is not as easy as it once was. So, it’s taking more time and effort than I had anticipated.

Anyway, I still have a metric butt load of work to do, but I’m hoping to get things running in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, here’s the graphic I’ll be using on my main page. There are few things as beautiful as a contentedly sleeping cat.

Pandora
Pandora

Crankypantsing

Title o’ the Day

Shelly

Opinion on the proposal for a Council decision establishing a community action programme to promote active European citizenship (civic participation) and the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on measures to be taken by member states to ensure participation of all citizens of the Union to the 2004 elections to the European Parliament in an enlarged Union.

Now doesn’t that sound like a barrel of laughs? Hello and welcome to my life. I know you’re all envious, aren’t you? In other news, the mosquito bites still itch like crazy, it’s still hot and humid, and the fountain machine at my favorite Big Foot is dispensing weak sodapepsicokepop. I’m trying to think of something positive about this day, but for the life of me, I can’t come up with anything–just more suckitude. Like, for instance, when I got to work this ayem, the custodians were busily (and noisily!) replacing all the fluorescent bulbs we’d asked them to remove. So, now I’m working under interrogation lights.

But, hey, it’s not all bad news. It’s once again safe to get your tits out. Praise be!