Category: Crankypantsing

Crankypantsing, Meta

Comments

Shelly

Andy emailed me to tell me that my blog was requiring folks to register and log on, in order to leave comments. WTF?! I haven’t changed any settings, nor would I try to make people register just to comment. In fact, I’ve completely turned off registration, as that’s how the asswagon hacker got into my blog a few months ago.

Hrmf!

Anyway, I’ve located that particular problem and fixed it. Sort of. It seems that when WordPress suddenly took it upon itself to require registration, it also closed comments on all old posts. I don’t see a fix for that, other than going back and manually editing posts, and that ain’t gonna happen. If there’s an old post you want to comment on, just leave a comment here, and I’ll unlock it. From here on out, though, everything should be back to normal.

Crankypantsing, Music

Instant Review: Songbird

Shelly

I ended up returning the refurbished iPod I bought. It was supposed to have a one year warranty, but Apple wouldn’t honor it. Hrmf. The main reason I wanted that particular older model is that new iPods require iTunes 7.4 or above. iTunes 7.4 and above require service pack 2 if you’re using WinXP. I don’t have service pack 2, and I have no intentions of getting it. Hrmf again.

What to do? As much as I’m not an Apple fan, the iPod Classic seems to be the sweet spot, in terms of providing a large amount of storage for a reasonable price. But, if it won’t work with my set-up, then I’m screwed.

I spent a couple of days thinking over my options and reading up on possible solutions to the iTunes-SP2 problem. I found several programs that came close, but nothing that was guaranteed to work. Some of the work-arounds were convoluted enough that I didn’t even want to try them. I was not a happy camper!

And then I found Songbird.

Songbird is open source, so it’s sort of like Thunderbird for your iPod. It installs easily (seriously, it’s 100% foolproof). It can pull music from your iTunes folder, if you have one, or it can automagically search for music on your drive(s), or you can manually add selected songs. It can play audio files and streaming audio. Other than that, it’s pretty basic. It does not (yet) rip or burn CDs, so you’d have to use another program for that. (There are approximately eleventy brazillion free ripping and burning programs out there.) Video playback is also supposedly forthcoming.

The user interface is basic, as well. It supports multiple tag editing (as far as I could tell, iTunes 6x did not) and playlist creation. I have not found an easy way to check/uncheck which songs to include/exclude when syncing (one thing iTunes did manage to get right), but there is an “add manually” option when syncing that might fulfill the same function. You could also create an iPod playlist, and export just those songs. My solution is to remove everything I don’t want on my iPod from the Songbird library. Since I’m using an old version of MusicMatch Jukebox to manage my real library, the “master library” is unaffected.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that Songbird does, indeed, sync beautifully with the iPod Classic. It took about 14 forevers to transfer everything to the iPod, but it did so without any problems. I give it 11 stars out of 10 for A) solving my headache and B) freeing me from Teh Eeevil iTunes.

And now I have more music-to-go than I can shake a stick at. There’s something kind of mind-boggling about having ALL OF THE SONGS on shuffle.

Crankypantsing, Photography

Clouds

Shelly

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I’m cat sitting again, and on my way home from the evening shift today, I pulled over to take a photo of these puffy, white clouds.

I like sitting for these cats. They’re easy keepers, and though they’re out in the country, they’re close to my side of town. It only takes about 15 minutes to get there. The only problem is that there are a lot of bicyclists on Hwy 45, which is a narrow, two-lane road with absolutely no shoulder. And since this is southern Indiana, it’s twisty and hilly. There aren’t many safe places to pass even a single bicyclist. When they travel in packs, and they often do, it’s even worse. They won’t pull over and let cars pass, even if there are 10-20 of them trapped behind, which makes people cranky, which makes them do stupid shit. Stupid shit, like passing bicyclists on hills and curves (and there isn’t much of that particular road that isn’t a curve or a hill or both).

I had the living hell scared out of me on the way home tonight. Some jackass was trying to pass three bikes, ON A CURVING FUCKING HILL!!! I came around the other side of the curve to find a huge truck in my lane, and there was no place to go. Luckily, we both hit the brakes, and he was able to get back behind the bikes, in his own fucking lane, where he fucking well belonged.

I really want to be sympathetic to bicyclists, but it seems to me that, if there is not a bike path, and you cannot go the speed limit, then you have no business putting your puny, little body out on a road filled with giant, hurtling boxes of doom[1]. It’s just asking for death and dismemberment. And lemme tell ya’, if I happen to be one of the people who ends up dead and dismembered, onna counta you just had to ride your bike on the highway, you’d better hope you’re dead, too, because if you aren’t, I will come back and haunt you.

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1. Really. That this seems like a good idea to some people makes me think they might be batshit crazy. I can’t think of any other reasonable explanation for their behavior.

Crankypantsing, My Garden, Pets, Photography

Rust and Lilies

Shelly

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1. If you’re a supervisor, shouldn’t you know that it’s kind of inappropriate to say “Good job, girl!” to a black employee? Aieee!

2. Slowly but surely, all paths to the library are being eliminated by road work. This morning, 10th street at the bypass was closed. WTF?! They really shouldn’t make it difficult for me to get to work in the morning, because I just might take it as a sign to turn around and go back home.

3. One day last week, I came home to a note from FedEx on my door, telling me that they’d left my package with Charlene. Okaythen! Who the hell is Charlene (an apartment number might have been helpful), and whose package is FedEx trying to deliver to me? Because I hadn’t ordered anything, so I knew it wasn’t mine. Nor did I have any way to find out who the package rightfully belonged to, to inform them that Charlene had their goods.

Of course, my iPod is being shipped FedEx. Hopefully, they won’t leave it with Charlene.

4. Windsor and Newton’s Galeria line includes an iridescent acrylic medium. I didn’t buy any, but I did make note of it. Ooooh! Shiny! I did get a tub o’ acrylic structure medium for the new painting, as well as a few new brushes and two big, fat tubes of cerulean blue and naples yellow paint. There shall be painting this weekend!

5. Across-the-hall neighbor trapped a kitten, and I got to go over and hold it. She’s super cute and not nearly as wild as my neighbor first thought. I’m betting that her owner moved out and left her. That tends to happen a lot in college towns. I held her for about 30 minutes, and she was perfectly comfortable. She purred, but not in an anxious way, and when I rubbed her ears, she leaned into it. So if any local folks are looking for a nice cat, I can hook you up. (Yeah, fat chance, I know!) She’s all black, short-haired, with two little white toes on one hind foot, and a small white patch on her belly. And a DC-10 motor.

6. Harriet could not be any cuter, not even if she tried. I have no new photographic proof of this, because I was too in awe of her ubercuteness to take peechurs. She was in a Mood, last night, though, so there was much kidney beaning, boinging, and wrinkly-snarly-smiley face making. (Lamprey face-making, even. Totally ridiculous.) And much rolling around with legs in the air, flippy-flapping like a happy trout. I should also mention the snorting and the nubbin wiggling. There was quite a bit of that, too.

She was very happy about something, and when Harriet is happy, it’s impossible not to be happy right along with her.

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Surprise Lily Keeps Surprising

Crankypantsing, Pets

Excitement

Shelly

When I took Harriet for her last potty break last night, there were two fire trucks and four police cars in the street out front. I haven’t a clue what they were there for, but there were cops in our parking lot, talking to people.

I thought all the lights and noise would make Harriet tweaky, but she was all business and completely ignored the confusion. The only thing that got her attention was my neighbor’s dogs, who were off-leash in front of his apartment. They were between us and the dumpster, so we had to walk past them to throw Harriet’s “doggie bag” away. Leash your dogs, people!

Crankypantsing, Photography

Window

Shelly

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All of these photos were from the IU Press building (that’s press as in books, not press as in newspapers).

I have been sneezing like crazy today. Something evil is blooming, probably ragweed. It’s just about the right time for it to start attacking people. Ugh. I ended up taking a Zyrtec, which A) doesn’t seem to be helping, and B) makes me stupid and tired, andalsotoo C) keeps me from sleeping. Good times!

Crankypantsing

Name Your Price

Shelly

I got asked to do another cat sitting job. It’s for three weeks in September, which is kind of long, but I sat for these cats for two weeks last summer, and it went fine. I’ve had numerous shorter jobs for this client over the past couple of years, so except for the length of the job, this is all completely routine. Except that this time, when asking me if I could do the September job, she said, “Name your price.”

What does that mean? Is she thinking I’ll cut her a break, because it’s a large job? Or does she think that I’ll want more, because it’s a large job? I just want what I normally get, and if gas goes up significantly, I intend to add a fuel tax. (The fuel tax is something we’ve discussed and come to an agreement about already, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s part of any future jobs I do for them.)

I have no clue what to tell her, if and when she asks again what I’m charging.

God, I hate negotiating fees. I sat for the ex-wife of another client a couple of months ago, and when I went for the initial meet-n-greet, she asked what I charged. I told I’m flexible, but I usually get $15/day if it’s just one visit and $25/day for two (See? There’s already a built-in bulk discount!). That doesn’t seem out of line to me, considering how much boarding costs[1]. But maybe that’s high? Because when I told her, she was taken aback. So I repeated, “I’m flexible. How much do you normally pay your other sitter(s)?” We did finally come to an agreement (I think it was $12/day for one visit), but I don’t think I’ll get any repeat business from her.

Hrmf! This is the sort of annoying crap that keeps me awake at night. Hopefully, she doesn’t think she’s entitled to the Friends’ Discount for the September job, cuz that ain’t gonna happen!

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1. The cheapest I’ve seen locally is $10/night per cat[2]. So $20/night for two cats, which is slightly cheaper than my “two visits per day” rate. However, cats being what they are, it just seems to make more sense to leave them at home, instead of stressing them out by boarding them.

2. That’s at Canine Companions, and let’s just say that I wouldn’t board my dog there, much less my cat. Maybe things have improved lately? I heard some rotten things about them from coworkers, and when I used to go in there to buy feed, the lack of supervision of the outdoor play area did not favorably impress me.

Art, Crankypantsing, Photography

Wing

Shelly

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It stormed last night, and this morning, there was a wing from either a moth or butterfly stuck to the window by my cubicle. The wind must’ve thrown him up against the glass.

And now, a rant.

I’m just about fed up with drive-by blog spammers. One of the art-related mail lists I subscribe to gets a steady stream of people who only post in order to funnel traffic to their blogs. It’s annoying as hell. “Hi, I don’t care enough to actually participate in this group, but I wrote something cutesy-puke on my blog. Please drop by! Andalsoplustoo, don’t forget to leave a comment! Hugs-n-Kisses!!!” How obnoxious!

If whatever cutsey-puke crap they’re blogging about is (presumably) off-topic for the group, then posing a “come visit” link is also off-topic, right? And if it’s actually on-topic, then why the hell can’t they just share their damned story with everyone and be done with it? I mean, what is the point of a discussion forum, if people are just posting links to outside fora, instead of holding those discussions within the group?