Here’s a cat picture.

This is Kat. He’s a brute. He’s also foul tempered, has an attitude to match that of any teenager, and is surprisingly photogenic (Don’t believe the cute. It’s a ploy. I just don’t know what it’s a ploy FOR.)

His nicknames are Mister Furry, Mister Pissy, and Sir.

This Jackalope Feltidermy immediately made me think of this. (Really. Click the link. You trust me don’t you?)

ADDENDUM the First:
OK. I think I have to put the computer away now. I just played the hamster taxidermy song two times in a row (well it is short) and if I play it again Michael might come over here and take exception to my actions.

So off to read my book.

(humming to self)

As one might conclude from my post yesterday, my now top priority project is to redo our documentation for Dreamweaver and Photoshop, which Photoshop on the top of the pile, since I have to teach that sooner.

Not only have there been major changes between Photoshop CS and Photoshop CS3, I am now reminded why I hate help files and product documentation so much.

IF YOU CAN’T NAME AN ITEM CONSISTENTLY THROUGHOUT YOUR DOCUMENTATION, HOW ARE PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO USED YOUR DAMNED HELP FILES?

I kid you not. My first task is always to label the parts of the window, so I can put up a picture to refer to as I write. Except that Photoshop seems to have multiple names for several objects, so now I have to guess what names to use.

No wonder people never read the gorram documentation.

So I had to teach Intro to Photoshop this afternoon.

First off, I am not an expert in Photoshop–far from it. I can do the basics, but any of the more esoteric stuff? Forget it. But that’s okay usually, because this is a very basic class.

So I walk into class, we open up the program, and suddenly I discover that my boss has upgraded the version of Photoshop from CS to CS3.

And he didn’t tell me.

And he upgraded every computer BUT the instructor’s computer–mine.

And I have never worked in Photoshop CS3.

At that point, there was nothing I could do but apologize to the class and tell tell them we’d just have to muddle through as best we could.

Really, when something that ridiculous happens, there’s nothing you can do but laugh and hope people are going to be understanding. Luckily, the classes are free, so they were more than willing to be understanding.

Any conversation that contains the phrase, “well, guess who’s in jail!” does NOT need to occur while you are pooping in a public restroom.

I’m just saying.

Feels like it.

I’m having a rough day today, so sorry if I’m extra cranky.

Too much in my life right now that I cannot control, and it’s making me extremely tense.

So… out of control, really tense, on the edge of freaking out.

This is going to be an awesome day!

ADDENDUM the First:
Went out to lunch with a friend. Had a small chocolate dessert. Came back and was able to schedule a massage therapy appointment for tomorrow. Things are better already.

Now I just have to get through my Photoshop class without the computers exploding.

ADDENDUM the Second:
This post and some of the following comments have been edited, for what are probably obvious reasons to those who made the comments.

Breakdown of Modern Web Design

Actually, I think the “swearing” segment and the”time spent wishing a slow painful death on Bill Gates” segments are larger thn shown.

(via War on Folly)

How to end a difficult day.

Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet Brownies (from Cookies and Brownies * OOP)

6 tbs unsalted butter
3 oz bittersweet chocolate
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup flour
2/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 325.

Butter a square 9″x9″ baking pan, and line up two sides with parchment paper.

In double broiler, melt chocolate and butter. As soon as chocolate and butter are melted, remove from pot from heat. Add sugar and stir well. Add vanilla and salt and stir well. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring. Add one cup flour and stir until incorporated. Add nuts; batter should start to pull away from the sides of the pan.
Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until brownies *just* start to pull away from the edge of the pan.

Cool one hour.

If eating while warm, a scoop of vanilla ice cream is perfect.

* This is one of my favorite cookbooks. It’s relatively short, but every recipe I’ve tried is perfect. And judging by the Amazon website, I’m not the only one who feels this way.

And lo did the fairy of annoyance swoop down with her magic wand and say, “HA! You thought you wanted to get work done today? HA!”

And lo did I spend many hours at the front desk, answering the same questions, over and over. “Yes, I need a photo ID. No it does not have to be your WVU ID, just something with your picture on it. Yes, you MUST do this if you want to use a computer. No, I don’t know why the downtown help desk won’t answer their phones.”

And lo now I have returned to my office, and shall proceed to hide under my desk and not answer my phone.

Forever and ever until Monday is over.

Multum in parvo

Much in little

For some reason, that seemed about right.

Hooray for the sun god!
He’s the number one god!
Ra! Ra! Ra!

Anyone up for a game of Calvin-ball?

Oh fine. If you insist. Some rules.

Who do I match up with politically? Some of this was a surprise, most wasn’t.

(more…)

I’ve never understood why people like scary things.

I hate to be scared. It’s probably due to the fact that I am rather high strung (as in I don’t need caffeine to be wound up and jumpy) and I have a vivid imagination.

I never had a fear of the supernatural, excluding a (fully justifiable, I’m sure) hatred of zombies. So I’ve never been quite sure why vampires and werewolves and the like are fodder for horror films. I much prefer the stories that explore why they’re different from us. But I don’t necessarily find them scary.

I think real fear is something else entirely.

Such as last night when we heard a loud banging and crashing from my grandmother’s bedroom.

That’s real fear.

She’s okay. She’s just going to be bruised and sore for a week or so. But in that moment I envisioned many things–none good. All of them frightening.

Like I said, I’ve never understood why people like scary things.

Hmmm… 9 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s pretty chilly.

Too bad I had to leave the house to come to work. Especially since work is going to kick my butt today.

A student came up to the GA at the front desk and said, “I think there’s something wrong with the printer. People keep coming up to it and swearing at it!”

This is a great story. Mostly because of this quote:

I went to unpack and saw some of the clothes and saw it wasn’t my suitcase,” he said. “I was going to close it, and a kitten jumped out and ran under the bed. I screamed like a little girl.

Cute cat too.

(via Hillbilly Sophisticate)

You have got to be (deleted) kidding me.

How the (deleted) are we supposed to do our (deleted) jobs if we keep getting (deleted) blindsided by (deleted) from (deleted) (deleted) outside our department?

Grrrr….

ADDENDUM the First:
You have got to be (deleted) me. Now it’s (deleted) (deleted) pulling this (deleted) as well?

I apparently need to (deleted) go the (deleted) home and got back to (deleted) bed, because this day is just getting (deleted) better and better.

Holy crap.

We just finished watching the episode “Distractions” from the first season of Heroes. Somehow, my grandmother (who loves this show and was upset we didn’t watch an episode last night) managed to sleep through the entire episode, including me and Michael continually yelling, “WHAT?!” and “YOU’RE KIDDING!” and “HOLY SHIT HE JUST THREW HIM OFF A BUILDING AND HE’S NOT FLYING!”
Now that is an amazing ability to sleep.

Unfortunately, she’s going to be really sorry tomorrow when she has NO idea what is going on.

And I can’t believe we only have 9 episodes left to watch. Don’t know what we’re going to watch after this… Though if Grandmom is going to start sleeping through shows again, maybe we can watch Battlestar Galactica and just hope she sleeps through all the boinking.

Don’t forget! Today is National Pie (not pi, that’s March 14th) day!

Eat pie!

Is there a word for something like writer’s block when you know what you need to write but don’t want to?

Got up this morning to write (last week I’d strained a muscle in my back, and so skipped sitting in the cold basement, and yesterday I slept through the alarm) knowing what I had to write, but was simply unable to do so, because as an outside observer, I don’t want the scene that follows to happen, even though it pretty much has to. It takes the story in what I (finally) realized is the correct direction–but I don’t want to do what needs to be done!

Of course I could be blocked simply because 30 minutes in the morning isn’t enough time to write a difficult scene.

Tomorrow is National Pie Day!

I’m off to make a sweet potato pie!

ADDENDUM the First:
Sweet potato pie is in the oven!

Bonus Conversation:

Grandmom: (Pointing to tablespoon of maple syrup) Are you drinking that?
Me: Nope. It’s going in the pie.
Grandmom: (pointing to bottle of Wild Turkey) You put that in the pie?
Me: Yup. (pointing to two tablespoons of bourbon) That’s the bourbon that’s going on. (pointing back at the tablespoon of maple syrup) That’s maple syrup.
Grandmom: Have you always done that?
Me: Yup. I put boubon in the sweet potato pie and the apple pie.
Grandmom: Really? No wonder I feel drunk all the time.

It’s snowing! Lots of snow!

(happy dance)

I love snow.

ADDENDUM the First:
Bah. Now it looks like rain.

What is it about long weekends that make coming back to work harder than usual.

No, I didn’t spend the long weekend partying, we spent it curled up reading, or watching episodes of “Heroes” (we’re more than three quarters through Season One now! GAH!)

So really, there’s no excuse for me to be tired.

When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

– Martin Luther King
“Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence“

Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I Have a Dream”

The Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project

It’s 17.8 degrees outside. It’s Sunday, but secretly Saturday (I don’t have to work tomorrow) and even with the wood stove cranking out lots of heat, there’s just a chill in the air.

So what’s someone to do in a situation like this?

(more…)