Oscar is selling Theodore, his loyal Saturn.
















Theodore was a lovely friend and we are sorry to see his passing. However, knowing his demise was near, Oscar went ahead and found a replacement. Meet Ralph Ralf:
















Ralph Ralf is fast. Ralph Ralf has many bells and whistles and is great evidence in the argument for buying a used luxury car. Ralph, who is seven years older than my Chad is much better equipped and cost half as much. Of course, you’ve got to be concerned about maintenance.

Ralph Ralf has a manual transmission, which I did not know how to drive. I’ve tried. But no offense to my mother, she is not great at teaching. She’s not very patient and things are faster when she does them, so she’d just assume do them. I don’t blame her. I can totally understand that. But that’s on my list. Be more patient. Wow, that went off course. The point of that is I can drive a stick now. I only stalled once.

* * *

EXTRA: CARMAN IS CLEVER

I took photos of Theodore yesterday. He’s a little dirty and a lot white, so it shows. But I am clever and gave it the easiest car wash ever. I overexposed it two stops. It was overcast, so it just looks like a sunny day. The car just looks gleaming except one dirty drip line that’s in a shadow. Nothing I could do without creating a heavenly glow around Theodore. Although, that might not be a bad idea.

In other news in the area of my cleverness, I found a way to satisfy a Starbucks craving in a pinch—add sugar to my coffee. I didn’t want to come to work today, but promised myself a caramel macchiato as a bribe. I didn’t wake up in time, though, so when I got my coffee at work this morning, I added a slight sprinkling of sugar. I still want the macchiato though. Maybe tomorrow. Or Friday when I’m up early enough to be first in line. Plus, I view Friday as a sort of treat day. Maybe I’ll have a piece of cake as well. Ho boy!

By the way, I wish you could say “Fuck” on television because “Starfucks” works so much better than “Slutbucks.” My dad does that with places he doesn’t like—Taco Hell, Booger King—but some of them are terrible. Carolina Forest as Carolina Hell just doesn’t do it for me. Not enough pun. As a kid I used to poke fun at Carolina Hell. I just couldn’t understand why my dad wasn’t as offended by its lack of pun as I was. I gave him a hard time about it a few times. I wish I had known how trivial my annoyance was and had just let it go. Good thing my dad reads this (Hi Daddy!), and now, if he even remembers me giving him a hard time, knows I’m sorry for it. Not to say his memory is going, but he may not have been bothered by it as much as I feel bad about it.

* * *
A friend gave me an Ani DiFranco mixed CD. I never was a fan of her stuff. Too Gen-X and feminist. My music collection is probably 75% male dominated acts. When I was coming into my music tastes, women singers were really airy and sentimental—Sarah McClachlin—or too silly—Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera—too much of a novelty—Mereditch Brookes—or just plain shitty—Paula Cole. Also, I was too young for Ani DiFranco. Way too young. I was so naïve. I doubt I’ve had understood half of what she said. I might be ready now, so I’m giving it a chance. Still, I have a feeling it will be too emotionally honest for me. I don’t do well with emotional music, especially if it’s relevant to myself. Love and loss don’t count as emotions in music. I can handle those. They’re too cliché to make me uncomfortable. Random aside: Every time I hear “Casimer Pulaski Day” I cry.

What is so wrong about emotions? That’s supposed to be the weakness of women, right? Men are better leaders (yes this is topical) because they aren’t victims to their feelings. But I think emotions can be added into logical decisions. I have no evidential support and no desire to research it. Is insecurity an emotion? EMOTIONS!! God, I’m so angry at emotions. I don’t know what to do with them.

Wow, off topic again.

If I get brain or lung cancer when

It's because of the fumes I breathed today.

I'm dizzy and my legs feel far away and heavy.

Can't move

Clouds too heavy.  

blarg.  It's so dreary today, I can't even exclaim how grossed out I am by the perfect medium gray of the world.  Not just the sky. The entire world was shot with black and white film with a low contrast filter.  Or, some jerk took the world into photoshop and turned down all the saturation, except the sickly yellow of my desk lamp.  

And there's no energy to it. There's no anticipation of a great thunderstorm. No depth to the gray. There's a light wind, but it's not nearly violent enough to make up for the dullness.  I almost feel like I need a kick in the head.  Something really sour or really sweet.  I actually put sugar in my coffee this morning. I haven't done that in at least two years.

There is a particular kind of organization that comes to us for print work. Mostly, I have nothing against these kinds of organizations.  But every time someone comes in looking for this or that I feel a twinge of annoyance.  A little grrr.  And their files are almost always crap.

We have one client, whom I love. He is the perfect curmudgeon, with his grizzled voice and his aches and pains and worries.  Yet he somehow manages not to bring me down with him.  He's always a little cheerful even through the griping. 

I'm Paul Revere, Bitch!

Alana is coming! Alana is coming!  Has the same rhythm as "The British are coming!"  She'll be here in July. We're going to bus to Chicago for a night.  We'll do a little B-town as well.  I'm so psyched.

Voxtrot

WIUX is running automation right now.  That means the same five hours of music over and over again.  Somehow, I manage to get in my car in some pattern that puts me in the same 3-5 song block.  Which leads to Voxtrot.  Their song, "Ghost" is in my block.  "Ghost" is one of those songs that is amazingly familiar and moving, without making me name the band being ripped off.  I know the song sounds like another band, I just can't finger the right one.  I had to buy the album.   Tinkly like the Smiths, epic like Coldplay, and one random song, "Stephen," is a dead on impersonation of Ben Folds when he sounds like Billy Joel.  

Overall, there are some good songs, but only because they sound like something I've already liked.  In its own right, that's okay.  But I'm still looking for something new.

Five word summary: Smiths, Coldplay, Joel via Folds.

Happy Mother's Day

Mom























Me

I hate Office 2008. It takes 4+ minutes to load. No joke. It fucks up all my fonts.  Everytime I open it my system fonts change.  And I don't even mean to open it.  It's somehow the default.  I kept Office '04.  But sometimes, I still double click instead of drag and drop.  And I'm ready to kill today. Absolutely. Just cross me and see how I grind my teeth and then cry in frustration after you've walked away and I've said nothing.

Be forewarned, this post will be boring,

but it excites me.

In InDesign, to make files a usable size, images aren't actually embedded in the file. They are linked. The picture shows up because it's being read from its file location, but if you were to send the InDesign file to somebody else without sending along the files for all the linked pictures, they would show up very pixilated and of unprintable quality.* If you change the name or location of the file, InDesign won't be able to properly display or print your graphic either.

That's just background though for me to rave about one of our clients. They're another printer, and they job out to us on occasion for small digital runs. Most of it is for one company that prints a lot of brochures. They're all the same, just with different regions named on the cover. We receive the files as .pdf, so in order to make it cost effective, I place them into InDesign so we can print them two-up on a sheet. This requires a few minutes of adjusting the placement of the images. But, this is the awesome part: whenever I get a new file, all I have to do is re-link the images to the new files and all the work is done for me. Then command-SHIFT-S and I'm golden. Get it? Don't you love it? I do.

*These statements are in no way based on research. They are based on experience and the way my mind processes things.

Just check yes or no

I have some free time at work so I just took a "Who should you vote for quiz." Mike Gravel.  Um, wow was I uninformed. I only vaguely recognize the name.  

I'm so tired of over simplified summaries with only two perspectives.  I'm tired of logical fallacies.  Sure, if you leave out details, I guess you could equate point A with point B.  

So point me in the direction of actual information.  Where can I find a simple, concrete explanation of Obama's ideas? Hilary's plans?  I'm nervous that I don't know actual plans or solutions from Obama.  Change is a pretty broad idea.  But, ideas are more adjustable.  It's harder to go back on plans.  I think ^gasp^