Hmmm....
Sunday, January 27, 2008
How do you say "Allah Akbar" in HTML?
My client wants to have her site available in quite a few languages so I've been working on a dropdown list of links to Google's site translator. Since she realized that if the viewer doesn't want to read the site in English, then they may not recognize the English word for their language, I had to copy and paste that language's name for itself into an HTML list. Both versions of Chinese worked, Greek worked, Japanese, Korean and Russian worked, but Arabic? No dice.
Hmmm....
Hmmm....
Friday, January 25, 2008
Blogs, and the blogging bloggers that blog them
I've been acting like a squirrel on crack with Del.icio.us over the past 2 years. In the course of trying to grow a web design business from something done on the side, when I've got free time on the weekend, through the part time graphic design job with the difference made up with web clients, to taking the plunge into the full time freelance world, every time I researched a different aspect of the web, I would hit Google and bookmark every decent article I could get my hands on.
The following list is the first of (hopefully) many where I share the best of the best on various topics such as Search Engine Optimization, hosting, web technologies and this one, blogging.
1) Detailed article on how to generate income from a blog by Steve Pavlina
2) 10 Free (or cheap) Content Management Systems. A CMS is basically a blog's sophisticated older cousin. This is a quick start in getting a handle on what words like Zope, Apache and Plone mean.
3) Adsense sense and sensibility. Useful tips onhow to use Google's Adsense feature without feeling like a big fat whore.
4) Kustomizing your tangerine candy-flake streamlined blog. Cool tutorials for giving a blog a personalized look by Jennifer Apple.
5) Now Digg this. A short and sweet article on 37 Signal's site about how to get your blog noticed, the right way.
The following list is the first of (hopefully) many where I share the best of the best on various topics such as Search Engine Optimization, hosting, web technologies and this one, blogging.
1) Detailed article on how to generate income from a blog by Steve Pavlina
2) 10 Free (or cheap) Content Management Systems. A CMS is basically a blog's sophisticated older cousin. This is a quick start in getting a handle on what words like Zope, Apache and Plone mean.
3) Adsense sense and sensibility. Useful tips onhow to use Google's Adsense feature without feeling like a big fat whore.
4) Kustomizing your tangerine candy-flake streamlined blog. Cool tutorials for giving a blog a personalized look by Jennifer Apple.
5) Now Digg this. A short and sweet article on 37 Signal's site about how to get your blog noticed, the right way.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Spreading the love
I found this great article on how to find new clients. Check it out!
It's been busy, busy around here, but not busy enough in some ways, so I'm hoping to make good use of some of this stuff soon!
Jenn Mears Web Design is going to be completely redesigned for the new year. I've been getting ideas together for a while and now feel good enough about most of them to buckle down and start (re)designing. Tutorials, Jenn's Web Glossary and lot 'o CSS fun!
As my friend Mary would say: "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
It's been busy, busy around here, but not busy enough in some ways, so I'm hoping to make good use of some of this stuff soon!
Jenn Mears Web Design is going to be completely redesigned for the new year. I've been getting ideas together for a while and now feel good enough about most of them to buckle down and start (re)designing. Tutorials, Jenn's Web Glossary and lot 'o CSS fun!
As my friend Mary would say: "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
And Now, For Something Completely Different-
Luther Price, Ladies and Gentlemen. A fellow Mass Art survivor who never fails to make me laugh out loud in the face of tragedy.
A Snapshot of the War: Day 1,719
I know I've posted this before, but it bears repeating.
I went to school in the late 80's/early 90's with a girl from Czechoslovakia. She would tell us stories about their news media and how everyone in their neighborhood would strategically take their evening stroll at the same time the State-run news broadcast was on. It was their only way of expressing their frustration with the misinformation that they were being fed. I loved the beautiful simplicity of a gesture like that. It was also illustrated to great effect in that episode of the "Simpsons" when Homer stole the giant donut from Lard Lad and all the advertising icons ran amok and Lisa realized that they would die if everyone ignored them but I digress...
Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone else out there is tired of the Talking Heads running the show about the war telling us that everything is going great and we're making Real Progress Over There. Case in point:
Go check out CNN's story about Robert McNamara( whoops! I mean Gates)visiting Iraq. It's about 4 headlines down in the World section on Cnn.com under the title "Gates Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq". And look! It's accompanied by a photo of a smiling Gates in a helicopter looking all sexy with his headphones on, like he's ready to open up a can of Whup Ass on some insurgents.
OK, so now you've seen the Liberal American Media's version of the story, now go check out the BBC's:
Go ahead, I'll wait...
Love the catchy headline, front and center on the BBC's homepage as of this morning.
"Eight Killed as Gates Visits Iraq". And this is from a country that went into this whole mess right along side us.
It's scary what you notice when you tear yourself away from watching Britney Spears do a year-long legal pratfall isn't it?
Sorry if I wrecked your day, but I'm getting tired from all this walking around the block.
I went to school in the late 80's/early 90's with a girl from Czechoslovakia. She would tell us stories about their news media and how everyone in their neighborhood would strategically take their evening stroll at the same time the State-run news broadcast was on. It was their only way of expressing their frustration with the misinformation that they were being fed. I loved the beautiful simplicity of a gesture like that. It was also illustrated to great effect in that episode of the "Simpsons" when Homer stole the giant donut from Lard Lad and all the advertising icons ran amok and Lisa realized that they would die if everyone ignored them but I digress...
Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone else out there is tired of the Talking Heads running the show about the war telling us that everything is going great and we're making Real Progress Over There. Case in point:
Go check out CNN's story about Robert McNamara( whoops! I mean Gates)visiting Iraq. It's about 4 headlines down in the World section on Cnn.com under the title "Gates Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq". And look! It's accompanied by a photo of a smiling Gates in a helicopter looking all sexy with his headphones on, like he's ready to open up a can of Whup Ass on some insurgents.
OK, so now you've seen the Liberal American Media's version of the story, now go check out the BBC's:
Go ahead, I'll wait...
Love the catchy headline, front and center on the BBC's homepage as of this morning.
"Eight Killed as Gates Visits Iraq". And this is from a country that went into this whole mess right along side us.
It's scary what you notice when you tear yourself away from watching Britney Spears do a year-long legal pratfall isn't it?
Sorry if I wrecked your day, but I'm getting tired from all this walking around the block.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Pretty Spam
Yep, it's actually fun to look at; especially after a week of deleting "Jenn, your new penis is here!!!" messages.
Monday, October 29, 2007
FUBAR on the BBC
From the home page of the BBC online 3rd link down. If you can find a similar link on CNN's website less than 3 clicks away from the home page, send it to me and I will send you a FUBAR t-shirt from the Salem Army Navy store.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Why I do what I do where I do it.
Apparently, American commuters spend about a week out of their year waiting in traffic. I used to be one of them and I'm sitting here thinking "only a week?"
It was my own damn fault. I moved out to Salem so I could avoid paying over 2 grand a month for the privilege of living in a closet. New Englanders love to complain and, being a "regional immigrant", naturally I wanted to blend in. It was becoming a favourite topic of conversation at my husband's family get togethers. "It takes me an hour and a half one way and yesterday there was a fender bender so Route 1 was shut down on both sides..." I started to get sick of always bitching about the same old thing. Also, I would finally reach my desk after another epic journey only to hear my former boss tearing me a new one via voicemail about some task that I hadn't been able to get to after completing the 60 other things he had asked for.
Things finally came to a head on a Wednesday morning when I had gotten up, tried to get a very sleepy and cranky toddler into the car by 7:30, sat in inexplicable traffic for 50 minutes, gotten to my mother in law's, and dropped off Chloe in the midst of a tantrum. As my mother in law said for what felt like the 300th time: "Oh it's too bad you have to work in Boston, I don't know how you deal with the rat race!" I realized that she was right. I knew that I still had a drive to a garage and then the trip on the Orange Line to go before I showed up to a desk that was one giant inbox and an office full of disgruntled, bitter co-workers. When I finally got to my desk about an hour later, I hit Craig's List and started looking.
I kept looking until I saw a job as an Office Manager in Salem. I went to the interview hoping that they would see that I made up with charm what I lacked in actual office and manager experience. My career has been such a non-linear, chaotic crapshoot that I totally ignore trying to show any kind of trajectory and just hope that I can keep the interviewer amused with film set stories.
Unbelievably, my approached worked and seeing that email with a job offer was a great moment. I had decided to check my online account one more time before I rushed out the door and as I read the words "we are pleased to offer you..." while listening to my boss scream at both a vendor and his Outlook inbox at the same time, I could feel perma-grin coming on.
It's been 3 and a half months now and my commute is a 20 minute stroll from my front door. As an added bonus, the Office Manager title was a little bit of a misnomer since they were actually looking for a graphics and web person! I could descend into a bunch of cliches right here but if you have read this far, you deserve better than that. In a nutshell, long commutes suck. They suck for the environment, since it forces millions of people to sit in idling cars for hundreds of hours. They suck for the people in the cars because humans are (for the most part) a fairly mobile and dynamic species and don't like just sitting there unless there's possible nudity or some variety of athletic activity involved. They suck for companies because there are thousands of hours wasted each year over phone calls like "We're on our way for the meeting, but a student tried driving a box truck under Storrow Drive again and it's shut down." So my advice is, don't put up with it because everyone else does. Find something closer to home. Figure out a way to work from home. If those aren't options, take public transportation. The only reason it sucks now is because anyone with sufficient self-esteem to still complain to the MBTA, has either already given up and gone back to their car, or they have opted for the first two solutions.
It was my own damn fault. I moved out to Salem so I could avoid paying over 2 grand a month for the privilege of living in a closet. New Englanders love to complain and, being a "regional immigrant", naturally I wanted to blend in. It was becoming a favourite topic of conversation at my husband's family get togethers. "It takes me an hour and a half one way and yesterday there was a fender bender so Route 1 was shut down on both sides..." I started to get sick of always bitching about the same old thing. Also, I would finally reach my desk after another epic journey only to hear my former boss tearing me a new one via voicemail about some task that I hadn't been able to get to after completing the 60 other things he had asked for.
Things finally came to a head on a Wednesday morning when I had gotten up, tried to get a very sleepy and cranky toddler into the car by 7:30, sat in inexplicable traffic for 50 minutes, gotten to my mother in law's, and dropped off Chloe in the midst of a tantrum. As my mother in law said for what felt like the 300th time: "Oh it's too bad you have to work in Boston, I don't know how you deal with the rat race!" I realized that she was right. I knew that I still had a drive to a garage and then the trip on the Orange Line to go before I showed up to a desk that was one giant inbox and an office full of disgruntled, bitter co-workers. When I finally got to my desk about an hour later, I hit Craig's List and started looking.
I kept looking until I saw a job as an Office Manager in Salem. I went to the interview hoping that they would see that I made up with charm what I lacked in actual office and manager experience. My career has been such a non-linear, chaotic crapshoot that I totally ignore trying to show any kind of trajectory and just hope that I can keep the interviewer amused with film set stories.
Unbelievably, my approached worked and seeing that email with a job offer was a great moment. I had decided to check my online account one more time before I rushed out the door and as I read the words "we are pleased to offer you..." while listening to my boss scream at both a vendor and his Outlook inbox at the same time, I could feel perma-grin coming on.
It's been 3 and a half months now and my commute is a 20 minute stroll from my front door. As an added bonus, the Office Manager title was a little bit of a misnomer since they were actually looking for a graphics and web person! I could descend into a bunch of cliches right here but if you have read this far, you deserve better than that. In a nutshell, long commutes suck. They suck for the environment, since it forces millions of people to sit in idling cars for hundreds of hours. They suck for the people in the cars because humans are (for the most part) a fairly mobile and dynamic species and don't like just sitting there unless there's possible nudity or some variety of athletic activity involved. They suck for companies because there are thousands of hours wasted each year over phone calls like "We're on our way for the meeting, but a student tried driving a box truck under Storrow Drive again and it's shut down." So my advice is, don't put up with it because everyone else does. Find something closer to home. Figure out a way to work from home. If those aren't options, take public transportation. The only reason it sucks now is because anyone with sufficient self-esteem to still complain to the MBTA, has either already given up and gone back to their car, or they have opted for the first two solutions.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Next time, try email.
Front page, top of the fold, of bostonherald.com this morning. Full "Lotto" coverage aside, the Herald knows how to work it sometimes. I miss their old ad campaign: "If you want something sugar coated, buy a doughnut"
Monday, August 27, 2007
The Perfect Desktop for Someone I Know
The article is kind of interesting too. If you already know what this is about (and chances are, if you are reading it on Boston.com, you already do), I would recommend going straight to the image gallery if your browser can take it.
Friday, July 20, 2007
What I did on my summer vacation
I'm wiping my jaw off from where it touched the floor when it dropped as I noticed the date of my last post. Time flies when you're having fun, but I wasn't having THAT much fun. I had a working vacation and you can view the results here.
I also got a "real" job! I get to actually leave my house and sit at a different computer for a few hours a day. One that doesn't have a keyboard with applesauce on it! How glamorous. I have a fancy title (Communications Manager) and as part of my duties, I got to paint the company's name on the door so it looks like the set of a Sam Spade movie.
Also, I've been learning some geeky stuff that should come in handy soon. After a couple of years of trying to learn out of books, I think I've come up with a good technique:
1) Read the book all the way through quickly to get a general overview of what you're getting into.
2) Try a couple of the projects out.
3) If the chapters have little quizzes, write down the questions on one side of a sheet of notebook paper and the answers on the other side so you can carry a super-condensed version of the book around to look at when you get stuck on a train or something.
4) As you go through, try to come up with your own real-life project and use that as your guide when you go through the book again so you will have something to motivate you.
5) College is over, your loans are (hopefully!) paid off so don't sweat the technique too much. Go out and catch a damn movie once in a while!
(warning, Flash 8 required and there's some loud theme music)
I also got a "real" job! I get to actually leave my house and sit at a different computer for a few hours a day. One that doesn't have a keyboard with applesauce on it! How glamorous. I have a fancy title (Communications Manager) and as part of my duties, I got to paint the company's name on the door so it looks like the set of a Sam Spade movie.
Also, I've been learning some geeky stuff that should come in handy soon. After a couple of years of trying to learn out of books, I think I've come up with a good technique:
1) Read the book all the way through quickly to get a general overview of what you're getting into.
2) Try a couple of the projects out.
3) If the chapters have little quizzes, write down the questions on one side of a sheet of notebook paper and the answers on the other side so you can carry a super-condensed version of the book around to look at when you get stuck on a train or something.
4) As you go through, try to come up with your own real-life project and use that as your guide when you go through the book again so you will have something to motivate you.
5) College is over, your loans are (hopefully!) paid off so don't sweat the technique too much. Go out and catch a damn movie once in a while!
(warning, Flash 8 required and there's some loud theme music)
Friday, May 04, 2007
Why the IT Guy is always the grumpiest person in the office.
questions Google can’t answer part 1:
why is the IT guy(99.9 times out of 10!) always the crankiest person in the office?
1) You’d be cranky too if you were summoned to someone’s desk at least 5 times a month to help them find a web address in “The Google”
, only to find that they are trying to type the URL into Google’s search bar.
2) People who are paid twice as much as you call you at home to ask you how to use their Blackberry. ("Yeah, it's making this weird chirping sound and the screen keeps lighting up...")
3) Temps that try to download stuff off the web and crash their hard drive.
4) Every office has that one person who’s Significant Other/ BFF sends them every chain e-mail, “cute kitty” video, Flash-based animated card and 20mb photo of someone’s baby possible and clogs up the main drive.
5) There is no such thing as “IT Guy Day” at work so you never get cards or flowers telling you what a “meaningful” contribution you make to the work environment, in fact no one seems to notice what you do unless something doesn’t work.
6) People who bring their 12 year old into the office and let them “play” on the computer. The only thing a 12 year old is interested in is downloading games; big storage-greedy, graphic-heavy games. Whatever happened to checkers?
7) People who try to answer every spam e-mail with a polite “No Thank You” reply message. They don’t understand that e-mail spammers’ feelings won’t be hurt by being ignored because they HAVE no feelings. They eat their young.
8) You have a Master’s Certification for 3 different computer languages and you spend 8 hours a day with people who can’t copy a file onto a disk without Lots Of Help.
9) At least 3 times a week your boss summons you to their office to ask you how to do something and no matter how simple it is, they look at you like you are speaking in tongues over terms like “Control-C”.
10) In fact, most people look at you like you practice some obscure form of witchcraft when you talk about your job. Sometimes you wonder if they secretly want to try dunking you to see if you'll float.
why is the IT guy(99.9 times out of 10!) always the crankiest person in the office?
1) You’d be cranky too if you were summoned to someone’s desk at least 5 times a month to help them find a web address in “The Google”
, only to find that they are trying to type the URL into Google’s search bar.
2) People who are paid twice as much as you call you at home to ask you how to use their Blackberry. ("Yeah, it's making this weird chirping sound and the screen keeps lighting up...")
3) Temps that try to download stuff off the web and crash their hard drive.
4) Every office has that one person who’s Significant Other/ BFF sends them every chain e-mail, “cute kitty” video, Flash-based animated card and 20mb photo of someone’s baby possible and clogs up the main drive.
5) There is no such thing as “IT Guy Day” at work so you never get cards or flowers telling you what a “meaningful” contribution you make to the work environment, in fact no one seems to notice what you do unless something doesn’t work.
6) People who bring their 12 year old into the office and let them “play” on the computer. The only thing a 12 year old is interested in is downloading games; big storage-greedy, graphic-heavy games. Whatever happened to checkers?
7) People who try to answer every spam e-mail with a polite “No Thank You” reply message. They don’t understand that e-mail spammers’ feelings won’t be hurt by being ignored because they HAVE no feelings. They eat their young.
8) You have a Master’s Certification for 3 different computer languages and you spend 8 hours a day with people who can’t copy a file onto a disk without Lots Of Help.
9) At least 3 times a week your boss summons you to their office to ask you how to do something and no matter how simple it is, they look at you like you are speaking in tongues over terms like “Control-C”.
10) In fact, most people look at you like you practice some obscure form of witchcraft when you talk about your job. Sometimes you wonder if they secretly want to try dunking you to see if you'll float.
Design Time Vs. Reality Time
Design Time is like the reverse of Narnian Time. I’ve come to realize this after trying to complete a site for launch. I’ve sworn off television (Watch “The Office”? No thanks, I’d MUCH rather be re-configuring this CGI script right now.)
Of course, ridding yourself of one addiction usually just means that you’ve substituted something else. In this case it’s been the Harry Potter series. To further add to the fun, my web email has been inaccessible and I hate to work on things in a vacuum. Lately it feels like 5 minutes my time = 2 hours reality time.
Of course, ridding yourself of one addiction usually just means that you’ve substituted something else. In this case it’s been the Harry Potter series. To further add to the fun, my web email has been inaccessible and I hate to work on things in a vacuum. Lately it feels like 5 minutes my time = 2 hours reality time.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Follow-up
So this weekend I tried an experiment. Friday night, I stepped away from the 2 sites I'm working on for clients and the big intimidating book on Javascript purchased 2 months ago and picked up the sketchbook, ordered takeout and ignored the piles of laundry while I just relaxed and worked on drawings until it was time to get some sleep. Saturday morning, I got up with Chloe, got breakfast, and found 2 skirts and a cardigan for $37 at Modern Millie's. When I sat back down at the computer later on it felt like I had been on vacation for a couple of weeks and I swear I got more done after taking a break than if I had chained myself to the hard drive.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Finding a Method for the Madness
Working mother+freelance job= lots of stress. I think over the past month I've had an epiphany though. My theory is that stress is actually guilt over not getting some supposedly "urgent" task done. (if you are a client reading this, don't worry, I'm just taking a break from working on your site) So for now it's bye bye "to do" list with color coded bullet points, bye bye in-box piled with ALA and Digital Web Articles waiting to be highlighted and sorted and filed. The new Joseph Cornell exhibit opens tomorrow at the Peabody Essex Museum, Russell Orchards in Ipswich opens for the season, and if there's one thing I've learned over the past few weeks, it's that sitting in front of a blank screen forcing inspiration to strike doesn't work half as well as getting out into the "real" world for a few hours.
I'll see you in the park. Have great weekend!
I'll see you in the park. Have great weekend!
Monday, April 23, 2007
Synchronicity Strikes Again
So I was watching a recorded episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher" tonight, trying to take my mind off quite a few things. Maher was grilling Bill Moyers about journalistic responsibility. Apparently, buried underneath an avalanche of coverage of the Virginia Tech mass murder was the news that our military has basically given up on training Iraqi troops and advisors are now seriously attempting to explain to President Bush that in fact, he is not wearing any clothes at all. Turns out Bill Moyer was a White House Press Secretary during the Kennedy/Johnson era so there was plenty of cud to chew about the eerie similarities between the Vietnam & Iraq conflicts. In fact, it's now becoming so depressingly similar that I decided that I'd be better off just getting some work done. I went onto the web just to check in, and saw that David Halberstam had been killed in a car crash in California. It's one of those things where one might not personally know the famous name, but a loss is felt anyway. I was working on some film or other that was shooting at Milton Academy a few years ago and ended up spending a long summer afternoon set dressing in the school library. I saw a book that said "The Making of a Quagmire" and something told me to take it down from the shelf. It turned out to be a highly readable account of the Kennedy administration's clumsy overtures to the Diem regime in Vietnam. For a few minutes I considered slipping the book into my set bag and taking it home, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Some teenaged kid needed to read that book more than I did. I can still remember that war and growing up around its aftershocks and victims. I hope some freshman picked it up that September of 2000 and found it as good a read as I did. A 14 year old in 2000 would be a 21 year old today, probably just getting out of college and hopefully a little more skeptical of presidential foreign policy for having read Halberstam's "Quagmire".
Friday, April 20, 2007
File this under, "When I get a second..."
A good guide to web apps for small businesses. If only someone could invent a babysitting/diaper changing web app, I'd be all set. Google, did you hear that?
Thursday, April 19, 2007
One Good Link Deserves Another
Via kottke.org's post today about the "low wattage web palette". This guy, Mark Ontkush runs a blog about green computing and designed it with colors that don't require a lot of wattage from your monitor. Worth checking out and cheaper than that 4 pack of 7th Generation toilet paper I just took out a loan for. ;^)
Monday, April 16, 2007
My Virtual Pat on the Back for the Day
I love Web Worker Daily. It keeps me from feeling like "a lonely insignificant speck on a has-been planet orbited by a cold and indifferent sun". There are others out there. Today "best practices for the self-employed" caught my eye and when I checked it out, it was encouraging to see that I've done at least SOME of the stuff they suggest.
Anyway, it's a great site, go check it out.
Anyway, it's a great site, go check it out.
Monday, March 19, 2007
If a twit falls in the forest, will anyone care?
Again, it's been too long since posts but I've actually been working, for actual dough, so at least I'm not going to complain.
To be perfectly truthful, the war in Iraq is getting so much nastier, so much faster, that a lot of things that I would normally post about seem even more trivial than usual. But today I figured "what the hell" and here's a post about something completely trivial for your snacking pleasure.
Just to start off, I love the name "Twitter". It's very descriptive of what the hype is actually all about: an app that allows one to see who's on line right and what they are up to. I'm a "don't knock 'til you try it" type and if it's still around in about 12 years, I'm sure I'll be using to see what Chloe's up to after school. But all that ranting and raving about how awful/amazing it is cracks me up. Let's all take a second shall we? You've just spent about 10 minutes (or 2 hours, it depends) setting up a little page at Twitter. Good for you! Now all of your friends can aquire instant knowledge of every minute of your day. Whether you want to tell the world you are having intestinal issues with your lunch is entirely up to you, but at least if someone really cares they'll know. Maybe your mom. To be fair, there are those of us who are hard at work, trying to find ways to make Twitter-ing actually productive, but it comes across as a similar act to trying to walk a cat on a leash.
Remember when AOL had instant on-line messaging? (The back in the day kind, circa 97) I was on line one day and suddenly this little window popped up, blocking what I was doing. It was my boyfriend's (now husband's)nephew. "Hi Uncle Chris! How are you?" It wouldn't go away until I answered so I yelled over to Chris: "Hey! Your nephew wants to know how you're doing!" "OK!" he yelled back. I typed in "OK" and tried to go about my business. Then another window popped up. "What are you up to?" and so on and so forth ad nauseum. I was having an online conversation with a 10 year old boy and I wasn't even wearing an ankle bracelet.
I guess the beauty of Twitter is that you don't have to answer people back. It's the kind of app that Andy Warhol would have come up with if he hadn't had such an overworked nurse and had taken up software programming. I'll file it under "sounds like fun, but I'm really too busy right now." I think it would be fun though, if you could somehow get some Al Qaeda folks to sign up for it. "AlSaid69, Whassup?" " Heading out to the souk with my bros" "Have a blast! ;^)Json"
So, there you have it, a post about nothing.
To be perfectly truthful, the war in Iraq is getting so much nastier, so much faster, that a lot of things that I would normally post about seem even more trivial than usual. But today I figured "what the hell" and here's a post about something completely trivial for your snacking pleasure.
Just to start off, I love the name "Twitter". It's very descriptive of what the hype is actually all about: an app that allows one to see who's on line right and what they are up to. I'm a "don't knock 'til you try it" type and if it's still around in about 12 years, I'm sure I'll be using to see what Chloe's up to after school. But all that ranting and raving about how awful/amazing it is cracks me up. Let's all take a second shall we? You've just spent about 10 minutes (or 2 hours, it depends) setting up a little page at Twitter. Good for you! Now all of your friends can aquire instant knowledge of every minute of your day. Whether you want to tell the world you are having intestinal issues with your lunch is entirely up to you, but at least if someone really cares they'll know. Maybe your mom. To be fair, there are those of us who are hard at work, trying to find ways to make Twitter-ing actually productive, but it comes across as a similar act to trying to walk a cat on a leash.
Remember when AOL had instant on-line messaging? (The back in the day kind, circa 97) I was on line one day and suddenly this little window popped up, blocking what I was doing. It was my boyfriend's (now husband's)nephew. "Hi Uncle Chris! How are you?" It wouldn't go away until I answered so I yelled over to Chris: "Hey! Your nephew wants to know how you're doing!" "OK!" he yelled back. I typed in "OK" and tried to go about my business. Then another window popped up. "What are you up to?" and so on and so forth ad nauseum. I was having an online conversation with a 10 year old boy and I wasn't even wearing an ankle bracelet.
I guess the beauty of Twitter is that you don't have to answer people back. It's the kind of app that Andy Warhol would have come up with if he hadn't had such an overworked nurse and had taken up software programming. I'll file it under "sounds like fun, but I'm really too busy right now." I think it would be fun though, if you could somehow get some Al Qaeda folks to sign up for it. "AlSaid69, Whassup?" " Heading out to the souk with my bros" "Have a blast! ;^)Json"
So, there you have it, a post about nothing.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
I'm sorry I can't do that Dave...
So I had to check out yet another bitchy Oscar's red carpet review. (Priorities you know) And I was right in the middle of a complete takedown of Faye Dunaway and what should pop up but this.
"Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."
Why does this only happen when I am trying to check out my morning brain candy? It's as if Bill Gates is sitting in his underground bunker somewhere saying "Back to work lazy ass, I see you slacking over there!" And then it has the chutzpah to ask if I want to send an error report. To who? Why? What are "they" going to do about it?
And I know it's not just me.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Fun With CSS
It says something about how fast the web world moves when I can recall my days at AINE in 2003, listening to my instructor say, "yes, sometimes designers use Cascading Style Sheets for formatting headers, but for now, just use the bold tag". Nowadays, anyone teaching web design would probably be stoned publicly for such heresy, but at the time, we all just innocently nodded our heads and kept plugging away at our page-sized Photoshop documents, slicing the images and placing them into tables to create our projects.
I started to see more and more sites that boasted little windows that looked like Chiclets. Then came the logos and banners that reminded me of the Jellies sandals that I had coveted so much in Jr. High. Before you could say CSS2, the web exploded in a visual extravaganza of Kandy Kolored glossy rounded corners and something that I was rapidly learning about called "suckerfish dropdowns". At the time, I was trying to come up with some sort of business plan for my in utero design shop and after tooling around a couple of times on Google with the term "Salem web designers" I stumbled across Simplebits the "tiny web design studio" run by Dan Cederholm. So I went to the site, loved the deceptively simple looking design and decided to e-mail him. In my newbie frenzy, it came out something like this:
"Hi Dan! I like your site! I am a web designer who's starting out and trying to get a handle on all the new technology that is around. As someone who has been designing for a while, what do you think is the best approach for learning about Web 2.0 development?"
Anyone in their right mind would have sent something like this right into the deleted bin, but either he's unusually patient, or, if he's like anyone else I know who does this kind of work, he was too sleep deprived to know better, but Dan responded with an invitation to join a css discussion list.
Soon my e-mail inbox was displaying messages from people with names like Ingo and Gunlaug who dispensed advice on queries like "Help! My a :hover link doesn't display in IE 6!" and "Why won't my div span float with my 3 column header?". To be honest, most of the time I hadn't the faintest idea what these people were actually talking about and for days at a time I would simply plow through all 17 pages of postings and delete them without reading them. But after a while, I started feeling guilty and dutifully tried to make sense of the various discussion threads. If anything, it was a great way to spy on what other people were doing for web design.
Finally, the inevitable happened and I got hired to re-vamp a local company's web site. It was going to be a challenge. The first time I went to their site and hit View>Source, I freaked out. It had more nested tables than a Chinese import shop. I collected every book I had that even mentioned CSS, invested in Red Bull stock, and went to work. (editor's note: I was going to link to Red Bull's site here, but it requires Flash 9 or it won't work. :^( Accessibility counts people!)
Now I can see what all the fuss is about. Although I don't have any mysterious white lines going through anything, my life is now a constant rhythm of tweak, F5, preview in browser, rinse, repeat. I was really proud when my Home page design finally displayed perfectly in Safari, then slightly nauseous when the two left columns poked up into the navigation in Firefox. My moment of shame came when I tried to shift the side bar div to underneath the content for the "About Us" page and forgot that I was changing it's position in the Home page too. Whoopsy.
The only thing I can compare the process to is this little puzzle that my grandparents used to give me to get me to stop bugging them for cookies. It consisted of a small plastic square with grooved edges. The square contained 15 tiles which, when coaxed into the correct configuration, showed a picture of Deputy Dawg. (Ralph Bakshi, who knew?) I would shift one tile over to the right, then see that it would block the tile I needed on the top, then shift that and it would knock the whole picture out of whack. I would so wrapped up in shifting one tile back and forth, up and down, that it wasn't until I put the damn thing down and went to watch "Wonder Woman" that it would occur to me what the solution might be.
So, long story short, I'm loving the CSS, and it's kind of fun to see the look a client gets on their face when I mention using a suckerfish dropdown.
I started to see more and more sites that boasted little windows that looked like Chiclets. Then came the logos and banners that reminded me of the Jellies sandals that I had coveted so much in Jr. High. Before you could say CSS2, the web exploded in a visual extravaganza of Kandy Kolored glossy rounded corners and something that I was rapidly learning about called "suckerfish dropdowns". At the time, I was trying to come up with some sort of business plan for my in utero design shop and after tooling around a couple of times on Google with the term "Salem web designers" I stumbled across Simplebits the "tiny web design studio" run by Dan Cederholm. So I went to the site, loved the deceptively simple looking design and decided to e-mail him. In my newbie frenzy, it came out something like this:
"Hi Dan! I like your site! I am a web designer who's starting out and trying to get a handle on all the new technology that is around. As someone who has been designing for a while, what do you think is the best approach for learning about Web 2.0 development?"
Anyone in their right mind would have sent something like this right into the deleted bin, but either he's unusually patient, or, if he's like anyone else I know who does this kind of work, he was too sleep deprived to know better, but Dan responded with an invitation to join a css discussion list.
Soon my e-mail inbox was displaying messages from people with names like Ingo and Gunlaug who dispensed advice on queries like "Help! My a :hover link doesn't display in IE 6!" and "Why won't my div span float with my 3 column header?". To be honest, most of the time I hadn't the faintest idea what these people were actually talking about and for days at a time I would simply plow through all 17 pages of postings and delete them without reading them. But after a while, I started feeling guilty and dutifully tried to make sense of the various discussion threads. If anything, it was a great way to spy on what other people were doing for web design.
Finally, the inevitable happened and I got hired to re-vamp a local company's web site. It was going to be a challenge. The first time I went to their site and hit View>Source, I freaked out. It had more nested tables than a Chinese import shop. I collected every book I had that even mentioned CSS, invested in Red Bull stock, and went to work. (editor's note: I was going to link to Red Bull's site here, but it requires Flash 9 or it won't work. :^( Accessibility counts people!)
Now I can see what all the fuss is about. Although I don't have any mysterious white lines going through anything, my life is now a constant rhythm of tweak, F5, preview in browser, rinse, repeat. I was really proud when my Home page design finally displayed perfectly in Safari, then slightly nauseous when the two left columns poked up into the navigation in Firefox. My moment of shame came when I tried to shift the side bar div to underneath the content for the "About Us" page and forgot that I was changing it's position in the Home page too. Whoopsy.
The only thing I can compare the process to is this little puzzle that my grandparents used to give me to get me to stop bugging them for cookies. It consisted of a small plastic square with grooved edges. The square contained 15 tiles which, when coaxed into the correct configuration, showed a picture of Deputy Dawg. (Ralph Bakshi, who knew?) I would shift one tile over to the right, then see that it would block the tile I needed on the top, then shift that and it would knock the whole picture out of whack. I would so wrapped up in shifting one tile back and forth, up and down, that it wasn't until I put the damn thing down and went to watch "Wonder Woman" that it would occur to me what the solution might be.
So, long story short, I'm loving the CSS, and it's kind of fun to see the look a client gets on their face when I mention using a suckerfish dropdown.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Tragic Synergy
In what can only be some kind of universal confluence of events, Anna Nicole Smith died "suddenly" due to what is likely a drug overdose, on the eve of the nationwide release of "Factory Girl". Both Anna and Edie were beautiful and fragile and surrounded by tragic events in their lives. I never watched Anna's reality show or the various media events where she wobbled through somehow. I only knew her through her Guess and Trimspa ads and Kathy Griffin's take on her appearance on "The New Hollywood Squares". I stumbled across "Edie; An American Biography" when I worked at my hometown library in high school and it's a pretty good read. Like Anna, once you looked beneath Edie's make-up and earrings, there was something kind of scary yet fascinating going on.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Much More Exciting Than One Hand Clapping...
Or much creepier depending on how much of an arachnophobe you are. The sounds of spiders mating, enjoy.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Movie Review: Monster
This movie kept popping up in my path over the past 3 years. I knew Charlize Theron had won an Academy Award for her role as Aileen Wuornos. I had heard words such as "powerful", and "chilling" used to describe it, but somehow I had always kind of passed it by on the shelf at the library, clicked by it on cable, thinking, "I'm sure it's great and all, but I would really rather watch "The Simpsons" right now." I recalled watching about 1o minutes of it a few months back and the scene in which Theron's character describes having her newborn baby taken away after giving birth in a home for unwed mothers was so depressing that I switched back to the Style network.
Lo and behold, I was flicking through channels on Friday night and it was on IFC again. It was kind of weird, because I quickly realized that I had started watching it again pretty much at the exact point where I had left off the first time. And this time, I couldn't click away. I've recently been undergoing a rebellion against my film school background and was getting some kind of perverse pleasure gorging myself on "Isaac" and "Access Hollywood". Screw you Jonas Mekas! Tara Reid had a botched boob job but she's bravely bouncing back from her downfall. "Clap for her people!" Between that and coming of age in an era where Julia Robert's character in "Pretty Woman" was supposed to be inspiring, I really have an aversion to movies about prostitutes. It's usually either some kind of Lifetime Channel-infused ABC After School Special for grownups about what kinds of horrible things happen to people who don't go to college, or it's some kind of trumped up fairytale about a hooker with a "heart of gold".
That kind of media atmosphere is what makes Theron's character so fascinating to watch. There's a lot of scenes where you can tell that she wants that heart of gold, but deep down she knows that she's really got a heart of battery acid. And thank you, makeup department for turning Ms. Theron into something so much more than that brand of "Hollywood" plain jane like Joan Crawford in "Mildred Pierce". There are quite a few times when she looks so believably wasted and shot-to-hell that I found myself leaning back in my seat. Thank god I didn't see this on the big screen.
And there's a lot more to this film than some overly stylized glossy movie about what Hollywood people think lower middle class Anglo-Saxon Americans act, think and look like. (Tony Scott, I'm looking at you.) Aileen Wuornos' only glamour is the fact that she is so unsettlingly real. She's the woman you've seen sobbing outside a casino at 3am in Las Vegas. She's the one you saw washing her hair in the sink at a truckstop in Montana on your post-college cross country road trip. She's the one arguing with her partner at the bus station until the security guard walks over. She's the woman who kept bugging you and your friends for cigarettes at that seedy motel you stayed at. She's someone everyone has seen out the corner of their eye and kept moving, not wanting to really know or get involved.
It actually turned out to be a pretty good movie which was more than I expected. There was a scene in a lawyer's office when Aileen tries to quit hooking and get "one of them office type jobs" that was hilarious. The lawyer is the first person who actually has the guts to tell Aileen that she is wasting his time and has wasted her life and she verbally lets go with both barrels at him. I started laughing until I realized that I was rooting for a woman who killed seven people. I really like films that do that to me.
Lo and behold, I was flicking through channels on Friday night and it was on IFC again. It was kind of weird, because I quickly realized that I had started watching it again pretty much at the exact point where I had left off the first time. And this time, I couldn't click away. I've recently been undergoing a rebellion against my film school background and was getting some kind of perverse pleasure gorging myself on "Isaac" and "Access Hollywood". Screw you Jonas Mekas! Tara Reid had a botched boob job but she's bravely bouncing back from her downfall. "Clap for her people!" Between that and coming of age in an era where Julia Robert's character in "Pretty Woman" was supposed to be inspiring, I really have an aversion to movies about prostitutes. It's usually either some kind of Lifetime Channel-infused ABC After School Special for grownups about what kinds of horrible things happen to people who don't go to college, or it's some kind of trumped up fairytale about a hooker with a "heart of gold".
That kind of media atmosphere is what makes Theron's character so fascinating to watch. There's a lot of scenes where you can tell that she wants that heart of gold, but deep down she knows that she's really got a heart of battery acid. And thank you, makeup department for turning Ms. Theron into something so much more than that brand of "Hollywood" plain jane like Joan Crawford in "Mildred Pierce". There are quite a few times when she looks so believably wasted and shot-to-hell that I found myself leaning back in my seat. Thank god I didn't see this on the big screen.
And there's a lot more to this film than some overly stylized glossy movie about what Hollywood people think lower middle class Anglo-Saxon Americans act, think and look like. (Tony Scott, I'm looking at you.) Aileen Wuornos' only glamour is the fact that she is so unsettlingly real. She's the woman you've seen sobbing outside a casino at 3am in Las Vegas. She's the one you saw washing her hair in the sink at a truckstop in Montana on your post-college cross country road trip. She's the one arguing with her partner at the bus station until the security guard walks over. She's the woman who kept bugging you and your friends for cigarettes at that seedy motel you stayed at. She's someone everyone has seen out the corner of their eye and kept moving, not wanting to really know or get involved.
It actually turned out to be a pretty good movie which was more than I expected. There was a scene in a lawyer's office when Aileen tries to quit hooking and get "one of them office type jobs" that was hilarious. The lawyer is the first person who actually has the guts to tell Aileen that she is wasting his time and has wasted her life and she verbally lets go with both barrels at him. I started laughing until I realized that I was rooting for a woman who killed seven people. I really like films that do that to me.
New Year's Resolution: Get 'er done.
So...
I feel like I got a lot done last year (see above), but some things are still being pushed around on my plate like birthday cake at a Weight Watchers' meeting. I got real ambitious a couple of months ago and posted about re-designing my website, it's gonna be great, blah, blah. If you've ever seen that episode of "The Office" where Michael Scott eats the free pretzel with all the toppings, you'll know what I'm talking about; one gets all hepped up about a project, collects all the crap on Del.icio.us that one can find, does a bunch of layouts and sketches and then what? A new client comes along, it's Christmas, your baby starts learning how to walk and she's constantly lurching around the living room like a drunken sailor...
I'm such a victim of our national obsession with time-management and organization that it's not even funny. I'm pretty sure there's a church basement somewhere right now full of people standing up, hands shaking around a cup of coffee saying: "I'm Bob, and I'm a Google Calendar addict" I sit down in front of my monitor everyday with a wad of stickies saying things like: CVS list, lists of books to look for on Amazon, stuff to do on Squidoo, things around the house to organize.
This year is going to be different though. I've sworn off the obsession with writing every little thing down on a sticky note because a) it sometimes takes more time than actually doing the thing itself, and b) I just went through a bunch of paper scraps that I had squirrelled away in a drawer and 85% was stuff that really wasn't that important to do in the first place.
But back to the website redesign, I DID start to work on it and ideas for a timelapse effect animation going on the background of a blog-like index page are starting to congeal. A quick (3-minute!) experiment in using an animated GIF as a background image did work and can be seen here.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
Update on IE7 Drops..
So far it's almost pleasurable. I'm still pretty skittish about visiting boston.com and some sites are loading kind of slow (but what banking site doesn't?). I had to root around for the refresh button too. Loving the tabbed browsing. Not quite the monster I expected.
Friday, December 08, 2006
IE7 Drops on Thursday
-Right onto my desktop. Will it touch down ever so gently like new-fallen snow? Or will it hit like Fatman? My inquiring mind can't wait.
BTW, I'm taking a little informal survey; Has anyone noticed lately that they have a lot of browser issues when they visit Boston.com? It seems like almost every time I sign on using IE6, the browser starts whimpering and cowering like a traumitized puppy. Is anyone else having issues with that site?
BTW, I'm taking a little informal survey; Has anyone noticed lately that they have a lot of browser issues when they visit Boston.com? It seems like almost every time I sign on using IE6, the browser starts whimpering and cowering like a traumitized puppy. Is anyone else having issues with that site?
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Monday, December 04, 2006
Book Report: Collapse, by Jared Diamond
This was a fun book to read in several ways. First of all, the paperback said "COLLAPSE" in big red letters on the front cover. People on the train kept giving me strange little looks, probably because it wasn't a cute little cover with drawings of cocktail glasses and shoes all over it.
Also, it was by the author of "Guns, Germs and Steel" which was a fairly fast read despite being something you could hold open a door with. "Collapse", like "GG&S" is built around a single poignant and pithy question that one of Diamond's students asked in class. "What were people on Easter Island thinking when they cut the last tree down?"
They were probably blaming their government and/or some convenient sub-group of the population. It's a good question though. Diamond broke down every reason he could come up with as to why different societies collapsed at different times in history, and compared societies like Easter Island, Greenland Vikings and Anaisazi to the list. And, much like modern life, it comes down to Location, Location, Location. Try to live too far away from your required resources for living and you won't survive very long. And it pays to play nice with your neighbors too. Erik the Red apparently wasn't and things didn't go so well for his descendants.
But if you tend to spend resources that aren't really there, over-populate your territory and piss off your friends and neighbors, don't come crying when all of a sudden you realize that you can't sustain your societial structure. You should have read this book.
Also, it was by the author of "Guns, Germs and Steel" which was a fairly fast read despite being something you could hold open a door with. "Collapse", like "GG&S" is built around a single poignant and pithy question that one of Diamond's students asked in class. "What were people on Easter Island thinking when they cut the last tree down?"
They were probably blaming their government and/or some convenient sub-group of the population. It's a good question though. Diamond broke down every reason he could come up with as to why different societies collapsed at different times in history, and compared societies like Easter Island, Greenland Vikings and Anaisazi to the list. And, much like modern life, it comes down to Location, Location, Location. Try to live too far away from your required resources for living and you won't survive very long. And it pays to play nice with your neighbors too. Erik the Red apparently wasn't and things didn't go so well for his descendants.
But if you tend to spend resources that aren't really there, over-populate your territory and piss off your friends and neighbors, don't come crying when all of a sudden you realize that you can't sustain your societial structure. You should have read this book.
Shalom Punks!
If you are like me and are of a "certain age", you might remember the perpetual ad that used to run in the Boston Phoenix's classifieds in the late 90's. "Shalom Punks! Boston's only Jew-core band seeks drummer that can keep a kosher beat..." it ran something like that. Now Steven Lee Beeber has come forth with the hypothesis that without Judaism, particularly New York Judaism (or, Jew Cool as the article puts it), there would be no Punk. I can hear Linda Richman in my head right now, "The punk rock revolution was neither punk nor rock. Discuss!"
Monday, November 27, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
40ish Mutant Retired Ninjas...
Just in case you were wondering what Rainn Wilson is doing RIGHT THIS SECOND.
By the way, I had no idea until today that his dad is Robert Anton Wilson.
The World According To...
This is pretty cool. It's different maps of the world with various countries and/or continents sized according to statistics instead of landmass. Think of it as a global homunculus.
(author's note: the preceding link is rated PG)
(author's note: the preceding link is rated PG)
Just In Time For The Holidays...Web 3.0
Just what I wanted, another reason to make me feel out-of-touch. Stay tuned, because I will bet you a Wii station that the same people blogging right now about how over-hyped Web 3.0 is, will be the same ones running around in 3 months ranting about how cool it is and don't you have it yet? Loser has to watch "It's A Wonderful Life" 5 times in a row.
Girls Vs. Girls
Gene swap makes boy flies fight like girl flies. Makes girl flies fight with lots of crotch grabbing and screaming things like “C'mon! You want some of this!!?”
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Renovation Time
Now that I've downloaded my umpteenth Web 2.0/blog/cms/wordpress created site, I'm finally ready to drink the Kool Aid and try making a go at using Wordpress to give my sites a thorough re-design. N. Design's beautiful home page was the final feather, nail, pick your analogy.
So far, I've gotten as far as some pen sketches on a few post-it notes, a ton of downloaded instructions from Word Press's link-happy site and a "standby page" with a little orange-jellybellied spider icon that I created in about 20 minutes last night (see above). Unfortunately, it will cost slightly more to host a php-enabled version of a couple of sites on Doteasy, but hopefully I'll make it up in increased income.
I've decided that until jennmearswebdesign.com has its own blog activated, I'll try to give updates here. For today, my mission is to determine if it's possible to use an animated GIF as my template's background. I have a series of design steps on the site, in the PROCESS link, that I would like to animate together in one illustration and place in the header of the new design.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Happy Election Day!
It's November 7th and finally time to hand in those ballots. Unfortunately, I have to sit this round of democracy in action out due to childcare/transportation/space time continuum logistics. It's funny how we all live in a society where you can go online to pay bills, order groceries, post photos, take surveys and a host of other things that would be nice to do privately and securely, but we can't seem to get out the vote online. Hmm. I guess all those nice old ladies who always seems to be the ones in charge at the polling stations need to feel needed. At any rate, I'm glad to live in a place where it's little old ladies with cookies when you go to vote instead of big guys in body armor with machine guns (see: Iraq).
If I could get a chance to vote today, I would vote Democrat down the line. Empirically, most of the people in my immediate vicinity seem to be slightly worse off now than they were under the Clinton Administration so I think it's time to try the other way for a change.
Link of the Day award goes to the Southern Poverty Law Center for their interactive map of hate groups currently operating in the US. Most embarrassing is the fact that South Carolina, my home state, reportedly has 46 hate groups, third behind Florida (50) and California (52). Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, North Dakota and New Mexico all have 0 reported hate groups. This is starting to put Vermont in the running for state I would most likely emigrate to. I use the term emigrate, because with all of Vermont's dissatisfaction with Washington, I wouldn't be surprised if it cut its ties with the union altogether.
Click on this to view the MILOTD (Most Ironic Link Of The Day)
Monday, November 06, 2006
Swirling Plastic Vortex Menaces Marine Life
One of the few works of art that I can clearly recall from art school is an installation done by (rickrolled link! Damn you Weekly Dig!) Jef Taylor. He was living near Revere Beach then and at the time (late 80's) it was notorious for being so dirty that people were forbidden to swim in the ocean. Jef had spent months beachcombing the medical waste and other assorted junk that washed up on the beach every day and he had separated everything according to color and then arranged it in a long graceful spiral jetty along one alcove of the gallery. From a distance it was a beautiful vibrant spectrum stretched along the floor. Up close, however, one recognized the bright red of hazardous medical waste warnings, the yellow hues of condom wrappers and the subtle blues and purples of hypodermic needles. It was my favorite kind of art; playfully calling upon your senses only to turn the tables and shock you with its message.
And now in a horrible irony, it seems like life is imitating art. On a scale even Christo couldn't conceive of. And it probably is not as pretty as Jef's trash rainbow.
And now in a horrible irony, it seems like life is imitating art. On a scale even Christo couldn't conceive of. And it probably is not as pretty as Jef's trash rainbow.
Friday, October 20, 2006
I Like Dwight
More specifically, I like the way I can enjoy his particular strain of psychotic geek-dom from a safe distance. I think we all know a Dwight-like character in real life. I have known several:
1) Comic book collectors at Newbury Comics.
I worked there in the early 90's. You could always spot the comic book (excuse me, GRAPHIC NOVEL) collectors in the store at Harvard Sq. They wore glasses and pocket protectors and would screech like banshees if you touched their precious comics when you rang them in.
2) Barry F. at my kung fu school
He was really tall and wore a tank top so you could see his muscles. When he did the movements he had an intensity that was kind of scary/funny. Scary, because if one of his flailing limbs actually made contact, it would hurt (he gave me a good sized bruise during conditioning one day), and funny because if he missed a target, he would probably fall over because he was actually really un-coordinated. He went with us to a tournament and made everyone hours late because we were supposed to meet up with him to drive down to the hotel, and he was running really late but kept calling to tell us he was "a few minutes away". He had one guy's cell phone number and he kept calling it every 15 minutes when the guy was trying to watch a DVD to give him another update on his progress. The best part was when the guy answered his phone and the entire van heard: "Wait, what? You hit who? A cop?".
He had rearended an off-duty state trooper on the Jersey Turnpike. In a traffic jam.
We were all greatly relieved to hear that Barry had developed a hernia that required surgery and would most likely not be returning to the school. He had been there long enough to qualify for sparring classes and all the women dreaded being placed in an over-eager elbow lock.
3) Paul the Psycho PA
I worked on a film that shot at the abandoned state mental hospital in Waltham. It was the most fun I've had on a film set in my life. The crew was all people I had worked with on low budgets and we were all starting to make some decent dough. There was one fly in the ointment though, Paul the Psycho Production Assistant.
He was the only PA I have ever known who did not comprehend the sanctity of the grip truck. It is supposed to be the GE crew's sanctuary from the rest of the crew, chiefly over-eager PA's. Nonetheless, Paul would bound onto the lift gate, and then if that wasn't an invasion enough, stand within inches of me and start looking through my CD collection. He was so uncool that there was no way I could nicely hint that he was being a little TOO friendly, so I comforted myself with the fantasy that he was merely an hallucination due to over-consumption of Red Bull.
We had a scene that necessitated the Waltham Fire Department being on set to supervise a what they call a controlled burn. Paul ran around trying to impress the female members of the crew with his Boy Scout experience and then when the firemen set the fire he got REALLY excited. Later on, we all got baked and watched the video footage of the shoot. You could see him dancing from foot to foot as the fire burned and at the end, when the WFD stepped in and extinguished the flames, Paul jumped in the air, hooting and pumping his fist.
Soon, though, his puppy-like on set bumblings began to take on a darker tone. He asked out the new PA chick and she (wisely) turned him down, only to accept a date from the 2nd AD. Paul spent that night's wrap beers session hunched over and muttering things like: "What does HE have that I don't?" and "I could make her like me."
Paul had written a script, and he constantly tried to pimp it to the director when he was trying to work with the actors.
He claimed to have misunderstood a night shoot call time of 6pm for 6am and turned up on the set at dawn in his beaten up hatchback. When he realized, finally, that no one else was coming for the next 12 hours, he got lost on his way off the grounds and ended up stalling out his car's transmission when he tried to back up on a gravel road. He had to get his father to drop him off and pick him up from set. We would be hanging out after wrap, passing a joint and drinking beers and this station wagon would pull up and this guy who looked like Tom Bosley would get out and yell for Paul. Paul brought him over to introduce him to us. He actually looked more uncomfortable than we were.
John Doe was the big star of the film (it was a low budget) and every day Paul would hang around the AD asking if John was coming by the set, would John sign his X cd, what's John really like, on and on. Production started to send Paul on bogus missions that involved long distances and many hours, just to keep him out of everyone's hair. They actually sent him to a town on the South Shore to buy a case of beer from a brewpub. What I really loved about that was the kid managed to get lost on the way back and arrived at wrap time with a story about stopping by a farm to ask for directions back to the highway and getting a tour of the farm instead. We imagined some farmer's wife, her legs sticking out of a haystack somewhere, bloody pitchfork on the barn floor.
As the day drew near for John Doe to arrive on set, we began to dread Paul's presence. Finally, one morning I came to set and the 2nd 2nd AD took me aside and informed me that Paul had been fired. Apparently he was being sent on another bogus mission (this time to buy a dildo in Chinatown for a sex scene) and since he had no car, the Production Coordinator was trying to tell him how hers worked and he completely flipped out on her, accusing her of trying to make him look stupid. The producer, realizing his opportunity, swooped in and almost physically threw him off set. We all spent the rest of that day expecting to see Paul strolling up the road with a shotgun.
4) Dan, my ex-brother-in-law
Dan not only closely resembles Dwight K. Schrute in appearance, but I swear someone has been observing his movements for years and Dwight is actually based on him. This is a man who can spend 45 minutes quizzing you at the dinner table about your car insurance. He reads Consumer Reports cover to cover. My favorite joke that my sister told about him was that when he emptied his pockets at night, she could hear the pennies whine from being pinched all day.
He tried teaching me how to drive and almost ended up getting me arrested. We were driving down a stretch of road that was notorious for drunken late night spin outs. It was raining and cold and I was freshly traumatized by the car crash movies in Drivers Ed. I was going the speed limit and this huge SUV behind us started riding my bumper and flashing its brights into the car. I tried to speed up but Dan wanted to "teach this jerk a lesson" and insisted that I keep to the posted speed limit. Then he rolled his window down for a second.
When we finally pulled over to practice parking, I turned to my window and there was a man shoving a police badge in my face and looking extremely pissed off. I rolled the window down and he started screaming "What did you throw at my truck!!!" and threatening to have 10 points added to Dan's DMV record. Dan turned pale and started pleading with the enraged cop and I was caught in the middle. It turned out Dan had thrown an old cigarette stub out the window and it had hit the cop's brand new SUV.
As I got to know their family more, it seemed like he was the latest in a long line of i dotters and t crossers. His mother would corner my poor sister and spend what felt like hours sharing her recipes for turnip puree and how to get stains out of the toilet bowl. The more time my family spent with his family, the more we came to dread it and when my mother called to tell me my sister was finally throwing him out I said something like "That's great!"
I'm sure there have been more Dwights than that, but I think I have repressed the memories of them. Perhaps the more frightening the real life ones are, the more fun it is to watch the TV version.
1) Comic book collectors at Newbury Comics.
I worked there in the early 90's. You could always spot the comic book (excuse me, GRAPHIC NOVEL) collectors in the store at Harvard Sq. They wore glasses and pocket protectors and would screech like banshees if you touched their precious comics when you rang them in.
2) Barry F. at my kung fu school
He was really tall and wore a tank top so you could see his muscles. When he did the movements he had an intensity that was kind of scary/funny. Scary, because if one of his flailing limbs actually made contact, it would hurt (he gave me a good sized bruise during conditioning one day), and funny because if he missed a target, he would probably fall over because he was actually really un-coordinated. He went with us to a tournament and made everyone hours late because we were supposed to meet up with him to drive down to the hotel, and he was running really late but kept calling to tell us he was "a few minutes away". He had one guy's cell phone number and he kept calling it every 15 minutes when the guy was trying to watch a DVD to give him another update on his progress. The best part was when the guy answered his phone and the entire van heard: "Wait, what? You hit who? A cop?".
He had rearended an off-duty state trooper on the Jersey Turnpike. In a traffic jam.
We were all greatly relieved to hear that Barry had developed a hernia that required surgery and would most likely not be returning to the school. He had been there long enough to qualify for sparring classes and all the women dreaded being placed in an over-eager elbow lock.
3) Paul the Psycho PA
I worked on a film that shot at the abandoned state mental hospital in Waltham. It was the most fun I've had on a film set in my life. The crew was all people I had worked with on low budgets and we were all starting to make some decent dough. There was one fly in the ointment though, Paul the Psycho Production Assistant.
He was the only PA I have ever known who did not comprehend the sanctity of the grip truck. It is supposed to be the GE crew's sanctuary from the rest of the crew, chiefly over-eager PA's. Nonetheless, Paul would bound onto the lift gate, and then if that wasn't an invasion enough, stand within inches of me and start looking through my CD collection. He was so uncool that there was no way I could nicely hint that he was being a little TOO friendly, so I comforted myself with the fantasy that he was merely an hallucination due to over-consumption of Red Bull.
We had a scene that necessitated the Waltham Fire Department being on set to supervise a what they call a controlled burn. Paul ran around trying to impress the female members of the crew with his Boy Scout experience and then when the firemen set the fire he got REALLY excited. Later on, we all got baked and watched the video footage of the shoot. You could see him dancing from foot to foot as the fire burned and at the end, when the WFD stepped in and extinguished the flames, Paul jumped in the air, hooting and pumping his fist.
Soon, though, his puppy-like on set bumblings began to take on a darker tone. He asked out the new PA chick and she (wisely) turned him down, only to accept a date from the 2nd AD. Paul spent that night's wrap beers session hunched over and muttering things like: "What does HE have that I don't?" and "I could make her like me."
Paul had written a script, and he constantly tried to pimp it to the director when he was trying to work with the actors.
He claimed to have misunderstood a night shoot call time of 6pm for 6am and turned up on the set at dawn in his beaten up hatchback. When he realized, finally, that no one else was coming for the next 12 hours, he got lost on his way off the grounds and ended up stalling out his car's transmission when he tried to back up on a gravel road. He had to get his father to drop him off and pick him up from set. We would be hanging out after wrap, passing a joint and drinking beers and this station wagon would pull up and this guy who looked like Tom Bosley would get out and yell for Paul. Paul brought him over to introduce him to us. He actually looked more uncomfortable than we were.
John Doe was the big star of the film (it was a low budget) and every day Paul would hang around the AD asking if John was coming by the set, would John sign his X cd, what's John really like, on and on. Production started to send Paul on bogus missions that involved long distances and many hours, just to keep him out of everyone's hair. They actually sent him to a town on the South Shore to buy a case of beer from a brewpub. What I really loved about that was the kid managed to get lost on the way back and arrived at wrap time with a story about stopping by a farm to ask for directions back to the highway and getting a tour of the farm instead. We imagined some farmer's wife, her legs sticking out of a haystack somewhere, bloody pitchfork on the barn floor.
As the day drew near for John Doe to arrive on set, we began to dread Paul's presence. Finally, one morning I came to set and the 2nd 2nd AD took me aside and informed me that Paul had been fired. Apparently he was being sent on another bogus mission (this time to buy a dildo in Chinatown for a sex scene) and since he had no car, the Production Coordinator was trying to tell him how hers worked and he completely flipped out on her, accusing her of trying to make him look stupid. The producer, realizing his opportunity, swooped in and almost physically threw him off set. We all spent the rest of that day expecting to see Paul strolling up the road with a shotgun.
4) Dan, my ex-brother-in-law
Dan not only closely resembles Dwight K. Schrute in appearance, but I swear someone has been observing his movements for years and Dwight is actually based on him. This is a man who can spend 45 minutes quizzing you at the dinner table about your car insurance. He reads Consumer Reports cover to cover. My favorite joke that my sister told about him was that when he emptied his pockets at night, she could hear the pennies whine from being pinched all day.
He tried teaching me how to drive and almost ended up getting me arrested. We were driving down a stretch of road that was notorious for drunken late night spin outs. It was raining and cold and I was freshly traumatized by the car crash movies in Drivers Ed. I was going the speed limit and this huge SUV behind us started riding my bumper and flashing its brights into the car. I tried to speed up but Dan wanted to "teach this jerk a lesson" and insisted that I keep to the posted speed limit. Then he rolled his window down for a second.
When we finally pulled over to practice parking, I turned to my window and there was a man shoving a police badge in my face and looking extremely pissed off. I rolled the window down and he started screaming "What did you throw at my truck!!!" and threatening to have 10 points added to Dan's DMV record. Dan turned pale and started pleading with the enraged cop and I was caught in the middle. It turned out Dan had thrown an old cigarette stub out the window and it had hit the cop's brand new SUV.
As I got to know their family more, it seemed like he was the latest in a long line of i dotters and t crossers. His mother would corner my poor sister and spend what felt like hours sharing her recipes for turnip puree and how to get stains out of the toilet bowl. The more time my family spent with his family, the more we came to dread it and when my mother called to tell me my sister was finally throwing him out I said something like "That's great!"
I'm sure there have been more Dwights than that, but I think I have repressed the memories of them. Perhaps the more frightening the real life ones are, the more fun it is to watch the TV version.
Monday, October 16, 2006
More MBTA Engrish
I had to go on an errand at the Transportation Building the other day and stumbled across the Holy Grail of T riders everywhere: a street map of the city with T stations laid over it. Hot Diggity.
That said, I just wanted to share the following example of the MBTA's convoluted thinking. It's especially poignant because this was exactly where I got trapped on a platform with Chloe's stroller on Pride Day in June.
This is in the lower left corner of the new subway maps on the Orange Line:
STATE: Orange Line accessible Blue Line wheelchair access outbound side only. Inbound riders transfer to outbound train at Government Center. Exit State outbound.
Say what? Get back on the next train, get off, go up and over to the outbound side and then back to the same stop (probably ending up 10 feet away from where you started out), and THEN wait for the elevator. Only the MBTA could come up with this kind of skinner box bullshit. This arrangement had better be temporary because the idea of not being able to quickly switch from the Blue Line to a line that goes to several area hospitals is not good. Especially if you are actually in a wheelchair in the first place and trying to get to your doctor's office for an appointment instead of being a yuppie mommie taking your two month old to a Gay Pride event, like me.
That said, I just wanted to share the following example of the MBTA's convoluted thinking. It's especially poignant because this was exactly where I got trapped on a platform with Chloe's stroller on Pride Day in June.
This is in the lower left corner of the new subway maps on the Orange Line:
STATE: Orange Line accessible Blue Line wheelchair access outbound side only. Inbound riders transfer to outbound train at Government Center. Exit State outbound.
Say what? Get back on the next train, get off, go up and over to the outbound side and then back to the same stop (probably ending up 10 feet away from where you started out), and THEN wait for the elevator. Only the MBTA could come up with this kind of skinner box bullshit. This arrangement had better be temporary because the idea of not being able to quickly switch from the Blue Line to a line that goes to several area hospitals is not good. Especially if you are actually in a wheelchair in the first place and trying to get to your doctor's office for an appointment instead of being a yuppie mommie taking your two month old to a Gay Pride event, like me.
My Office Fling
I have a confession to make. Actually, I have several:
1) I really tried to watch the British, and therefore, I assumed, "cooler" version of "The Office". (I don't care about my street cred in terms of what television I watch, but I am really picky about my tube time) I think Ricky Gervais is really great in his "I'm trying so hard to not be a dork, that it makes me an even BIGGER dork" mode. I thought "Extras" was perfect. I've worked on so many films with people like that. My favorite moments are a toss-up between Kate Winslet's Oscar-grubbing hints and Ben Stiller's Balkan Meltdown. Therefore, I should have loved the British "Office" right? I actually found it to be so realistic that it was painful to watch. I get enough stomach churning vicarious humiliation at my own day job.
2) My aforementioned precious tube time is usually spent either looking for new episodes of "Teletubbies" in the On Demand menu for Chloe, or watching this week's episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher".
3) Despite the fact that it came out in theaters about 18 months ago, I just saw "The Forty Year Old Virgin" a couple of months ago when I was out on maternity leave. Maybe it was the raging hormones, but I totally fell for Steve Carell's nice loser guy schtick. Something about his bike helmet wearing, D & D figure dialogues, and all around wistfullness makes him highly likable.
So with all of this in mind, please forgive me for coming late to the table. I've been spending most of my weekend watching the American version of "The Office" and trying to keep from pissing myself laughing.
1) I really tried to watch the British, and therefore, I assumed, "cooler" version of "The Office". (I don't care about my street cred in terms of what television I watch, but I am really picky about my tube time) I think Ricky Gervais is really great in his "I'm trying so hard to not be a dork, that it makes me an even BIGGER dork" mode. I thought "Extras" was perfect. I've worked on so many films with people like that. My favorite moments are a toss-up between Kate Winslet's Oscar-grubbing hints and Ben Stiller's Balkan Meltdown. Therefore, I should have loved the British "Office" right? I actually found it to be so realistic that it was painful to watch. I get enough stomach churning vicarious humiliation at my own day job.
2) My aforementioned precious tube time is usually spent either looking for new episodes of "Teletubbies" in the On Demand menu for Chloe, or watching this week's episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher".
3) Despite the fact that it came out in theaters about 18 months ago, I just saw "The Forty Year Old Virgin" a couple of months ago when I was out on maternity leave. Maybe it was the raging hormones, but I totally fell for Steve Carell's nice loser guy schtick. Something about his bike helmet wearing, D & D figure dialogues, and all around wistfullness makes him highly likable.
So with all of this in mind, please forgive me for coming late to the table. I've been spending most of my weekend watching the American version of "The Office" and trying to keep from pissing myself laughing.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
MBTA Engrish
Green Line service is suspended between Government Center and Kenmore stations at this time, due to fire department activity at Boylston Station. Substitute bus service is being provided at this time. Please add extra time to your commute.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
That's funny, it seems like you've already added the extra time for me.
Thanks MBTA!
We apologize for any inconvenience.
That's funny, it seems like you've already added the extra time for me.
Thanks MBTA!
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
No Donut For You Lady.
Got to the orange line platform at Malden Center to find that it was more crowded than usual so, for the sake of my sanity, I decided to let one train go and wait for the next one. I took a spot just in back of the yellow line and waited. Then some more people gathered around the platform. Then I heard a loud "Scuse ME" and this woman pushed her way past people already waiting to get to the front next to me.
I don't know how they roll in Malden, but if someone tried this in Salem waiting for the 7:29, they would probably get thrown onto the tracks. We Salemites are nice enough people, but we don't take no shit. If someone got there ahead of you and stands a slightly better chance of securing a berth on the next train, then you should have gotten up earlier.
So the pushy lady starts digging around in her enormous tote bag for her sunglasses, finds them and then shoves this 2 foot wide bag over her shoulder, knocking into the book of the woman she just shoved aside. I didn't hear anything, but apparently she had said something because then this woman turns to her and says "Do YOU have a problem or something? Tough Shit." Turned back and stood there. And nobody said boo. The train came rolling in and no one shoved her in front of it. And the woman who she had just 1) shoved aside to cut in front of 2) had her book knocked almost out of her hands by a gigantic tote/feed bag because of and 3) dissed in front of about 25 other people; Just. Stood. There.
I know from long years of experience the city-bred virtue of minding your own business, but I couldn't help myself. I waited until the train had come to a complete stop and opened it's doors so she could hear me and then turned to the cow and said; "No donut for you." And continued on my merry way.
And I KNOW she heard me. And, for once, she kept her damn cakehole shut.
And just on a different note, this whole coupon thing is a nice thought and sometimes it is the thought that counts, like when your Great Aunt Hortense knitted you some underpants for your birthday, but c'mon. Giving me a coupon so I can go stand in yet ANOTHER line in a crowded place with a bunch of rude employees yelling at me to move along is not a good idea. Take that money you've spent on the deal with DD, and buy some new trains so you can put more cars in service, so you won't have to stand around, giving out coupons for acting like a decent human being. It can be my Christmas present.
I don't know how they roll in Malden, but if someone tried this in Salem waiting for the 7:29, they would probably get thrown onto the tracks. We Salemites are nice enough people, but we don't take no shit. If someone got there ahead of you and stands a slightly better chance of securing a berth on the next train, then you should have gotten up earlier.
So the pushy lady starts digging around in her enormous tote bag for her sunglasses, finds them and then shoves this 2 foot wide bag over her shoulder, knocking into the book of the woman she just shoved aside. I didn't hear anything, but apparently she had said something because then this woman turns to her and says "Do YOU have a problem or something? Tough Shit." Turned back and stood there. And nobody said boo. The train came rolling in and no one shoved her in front of it. And the woman who she had just 1) shoved aside to cut in front of 2) had her book knocked almost out of her hands by a gigantic tote/feed bag because of and 3) dissed in front of about 25 other people; Just. Stood. There.
I know from long years of experience the city-bred virtue of minding your own business, but I couldn't help myself. I waited until the train had come to a complete stop and opened it's doors so she could hear me and then turned to the cow and said; "No donut for you." And continued on my merry way.
And I KNOW she heard me. And, for once, she kept her damn cakehole shut.
And just on a different note, this whole coupon thing is a nice thought and sometimes it is the thought that counts, like when your Great Aunt Hortense knitted you some underpants for your birthday, but c'mon. Giving me a coupon so I can go stand in yet ANOTHER line in a crowded place with a bunch of rude employees yelling at me to move along is not a good idea. Take that money you've spent on the deal with DD, and buy some new trains so you can put more cars in service, so you won't have to stand around, giving out coupons for acting like a decent human being. It can be my Christmas present.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Design So Bad, It's Brilliant
Marvel at the cheesy repeating logo wallpaper, be hypnotized by the floating, blinking yin-yang symbol! You will become mesmerized by the flashing! Blinded by the colors! Click if you dare!
I've asked this before, but I'll ask it again; Why do so many martial arts websites really, really, suck?
I've asked this before, but I'll ask it again; Why do so many martial arts websites really, really, suck?
Top 10 Pot Studies the Govt. Wishes It Never Funded
Uh, I was gonna totally do this awesome post about like, hemp and W.R. Hearst and all this s*** but dude, the Teletubbies are on and I've got a wicked case of the munchies.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
At Least I Didn't Take It To This Level
How to create a timeline in Excel. Please shoot me if I ever do this for myself.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Please Help Me!
I swear to god that I saw someone riding a bike while wearing a bear costume through Boston Common at 8:23 this morning. Please let me know if you saw it too because I would hate to think that all the hallucinogens/cleaning solutions I have come into contact with over the years are coming back to haunt me now.
Don't Ever Build a Company Site Like This One!
I'm female, therefore attracted to bright shiny colorful things, therefore I shop from time to time for clothes. Unfortunately I have to work roughly 40 hours a week so that I can afford to buy them. Time is precious (see previous post: "What I did on my Summer Vacation"), so I thought I would take advantage of this whole Internet thing and look at the H&M site to see if it would be worth going to their Newbury St. location on my lunch hour.
I'm still going there, because honestly, as what's called a retail environment, they do an awesome job. I feel 10 years younger and 5 times more fabulous just walking into the place. The only problem is that I have to spend so much time looking that I never have time to try anything on. Mostly because the changing rooms need a LOT of work. Even if there's a room open, the attendant just keeps futzing around, completely ignoring a huge line of people because apparently, the rejected items urgently need to be organized on the rack Just So. And the line at the register is notoriously ridiculous. The clothes are probably priced as low as they are due to the fact that the company refuses to hire more than 3 cashiers per store. I've actually gone in, shopped at blinding speed and made a quick decision and approached the line, only to turn around and put everything down and leave because there were about 20 people ahead of me in line.
That said, it seems like H&M thinks it has such a captive audience that's it's OK for their website to really, really blow. I went to Google and typed in "Hennes & Mauritz Women's Clothing" and the store's official site was nowhere in the top rankings. The first site was the Wikipedia entry. Luckily, that had a large H&M ad in the right column, so I clicked on that only to feel like a complete loser when I was told that I couldn't go to the site because I didn't have Flash 8. Fortunately for us non-starbellied Sneetches, there was an HTML site so I valiantly surfed on. The next step was a brief form asking what country I wanted to look in and which gender clothing I was interested in. Fair enough, I'm an American Female. Next page, Which state did I live in? Normally a state of free floating anxiety, but I clicked on Massachusetts. NEXT PAGE, what city? Okay, now I'm on my 7th page and I haven't seen a single stitch of clothing yet. BOSTON! Finally, a page loads. It's a short, boring blurb about H&M's retail philosophy and a list of press releases and the nav contains links to contacting them, reading about them and working for them. Alright marketing geniuses, can you guess what the number one reason is that the average user would want to come to your clothing site? Here's a hint, it's not to read about your new store opening up in San Paulo. There was not a single link to check out what the store sells! I understand if the company wants save money by not hiring photographers, and models and all that but didn't they just get Madonna to do a huge ad campaign? Even Target has on-line retailing.
I'm still going there, because honestly, as what's called a retail environment, they do an awesome job. I feel 10 years younger and 5 times more fabulous just walking into the place. The only problem is that I have to spend so much time looking that I never have time to try anything on. Mostly because the changing rooms need a LOT of work. Even if there's a room open, the attendant just keeps futzing around, completely ignoring a huge line of people because apparently, the rejected items urgently need to be organized on the rack Just So. And the line at the register is notoriously ridiculous. The clothes are probably priced as low as they are due to the fact that the company refuses to hire more than 3 cashiers per store. I've actually gone in, shopped at blinding speed and made a quick decision and approached the line, only to turn around and put everything down and leave because there were about 20 people ahead of me in line.
That said, it seems like H&M thinks it has such a captive audience that's it's OK for their website to really, really blow. I went to Google and typed in "Hennes & Mauritz Women's Clothing" and the store's official site was nowhere in the top rankings. The first site was the Wikipedia entry. Luckily, that had a large H&M ad in the right column, so I clicked on that only to feel like a complete loser when I was told that I couldn't go to the site because I didn't have Flash 8. Fortunately for us non-starbellied Sneetches, there was an HTML site so I valiantly surfed on. The next step was a brief form asking what country I wanted to look in and which gender clothing I was interested in. Fair enough, I'm an American Female. Next page, Which state did I live in? Normally a state of free floating anxiety, but I clicked on Massachusetts. NEXT PAGE, what city? Okay, now I'm on my 7th page and I haven't seen a single stitch of clothing yet. BOSTON! Finally, a page loads. It's a short, boring blurb about H&M's retail philosophy and a list of press releases and the nav contains links to contacting them, reading about them and working for them. Alright marketing geniuses, can you guess what the number one reason is that the average user would want to come to your clothing site? Here's a hint, it's not to read about your new store opening up in San Paulo. There was not a single link to check out what the store sells! I understand if the company wants save money by not hiring photographers, and models and all that but didn't they just get Madonna to do a huge ad campaign? Even Target has on-line retailing.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
What I Did on My Summer Vacation
For a while I couldn't tell if I had "Blogger's Inertia" or if the world just suddenly became boring. Not that nothing happens, but it's the same stuff that's been happening ever since Mankind crawled out of a cave to bash in the head of someone trying to steal their fire so it doesn't really feel like anything new is going on. My niece is at the age where everything is "boring" and my sister combats this by telling her that only boring people find everything boring.
Not that I've been sitting there staring at Nickolodeon. Labor Day weekend was crazy. I had Brigid Berlin's Syndrome in spades and got a lot of cleaning, organizing and filing done. For some reason, I obsesively collect and print out every little thing I find on del.icio.us related to organizing, CSS and dealing with clients. I wish I had time for the first thing, the left brain for the next thing, and more of the last thing.
I guess the only thing I can say in my defense is that at least I don't vacuum my shopping bags and scrub the inside of the Vaseline jar lid. That's taking things a little too far. But my office is really, really small and I know from bitter experience that if I can see big messy piles of paper out of the corners of my eyes when I'm trying to work, it distracts me.
So, everything was good, my "office" looked like a little Zen temple of creative function, and then Chloe started cutting her teeth. Suddenly my precious little bit of time at home was spent jiggling and rocking and administering tiny dabs of Oragel to her bright red little gums. Dishes and half full beer bottles piled up next to the keyboard, abandoned as the whimpering started up again. The only thing that seems to work is Infant Tylenol but I can't keep giving her that without feeling like Julianne Moore's character in "Freedomland". (Read the book, it's probably better than the movie)
After about a week and a half of this I came down with a raging case of "TDLA" or, To-Do List Anxiety. (Don't feel left out, it will probably be a top story on "Geraldo" by the end of the week) It was the nagging sensation that there were a million and one things that I had to get done, coupled with a vague certainty that I was forgetting about a million more. The only known cure for TDLA is to sit down and write out everything you have to do and then go through the list, item by item until it gets done. So I grabbed a notebook and got busy and then bogged down by the somewhat depressing realization that I was inexorably turning into my mother, minus the prescription for Ativan. She makes little lists for EVERYTHING. Last year I told her that we were getting married and wanted a simple outdoor ceremony in NH for friends and a small party for the family the next weekend and before you could say "Florist" she had color-coded lists and charts that would have put Patton to shame. But at least now I have some kind of idea how much I have to do.
The TDLA is compounded by the number one problem most parents face. NETS, or, Not Enough Time Syndrome. You think you have hours and hours to get a lot of stuff done, you buckle down and try to tackle your list, and hours later, realize that you might be able to get half of one item done, if you're lucky. So, by bitter experience, you've come to the glum conclusion that you will never have enough time so why bother in the first place? I decided to get rid of the NETS by writing down exactly how much "open time" I have every day of the week before dropping Chloe off at a grandmother's and then after bringing her home at night. Assuming I can function with 6 hours of sleep per night, I came up with 45.5 hours in a 7 day stretch. At least it's more than I expected. Last night I went home and worked for an hour on a re-design project for the design site. Then I went to bed at 11pm and set my alarm for 5. I got up and worked for an hour and a half on a Flash project before heading out with Chloe. I think that, psychologically, knowing the specific amount of actual free time available, plus having a specific item to work on instead of a lot of vague "stuff" helps me to buckle down. But I still feel like Andy in 40 Year Old Virgin when you see that little schedule he has taped to his fridge in the opening sequence. "7am : up and shower, 7:15: start coffee, 7:20: make breakfast..."
Not that I've been sitting there staring at Nickolodeon. Labor Day weekend was crazy. I had Brigid Berlin's Syndrome in spades and got a lot of cleaning, organizing and filing done. For some reason, I obsesively collect and print out every little thing I find on del.icio.us related to organizing, CSS and dealing with clients. I wish I had time for the first thing, the left brain for the next thing, and more of the last thing.
I guess the only thing I can say in my defense is that at least I don't vacuum my shopping bags and scrub the inside of the Vaseline jar lid. That's taking things a little too far. But my office is really, really small and I know from bitter experience that if I can see big messy piles of paper out of the corners of my eyes when I'm trying to work, it distracts me.
So, everything was good, my "office" looked like a little Zen temple of creative function, and then Chloe started cutting her teeth. Suddenly my precious little bit of time at home was spent jiggling and rocking and administering tiny dabs of Oragel to her bright red little gums. Dishes and half full beer bottles piled up next to the keyboard, abandoned as the whimpering started up again. The only thing that seems to work is Infant Tylenol but I can't keep giving her that without feeling like Julianne Moore's character in "Freedomland". (Read the book, it's probably better than the movie)
After about a week and a half of this I came down with a raging case of "TDLA" or, To-Do List Anxiety. (Don't feel left out, it will probably be a top story on "Geraldo" by the end of the week) It was the nagging sensation that there were a million and one things that I had to get done, coupled with a vague certainty that I was forgetting about a million more. The only known cure for TDLA is to sit down and write out everything you have to do and then go through the list, item by item until it gets done. So I grabbed a notebook and got busy and then bogged down by the somewhat depressing realization that I was inexorably turning into my mother, minus the prescription for Ativan. She makes little lists for EVERYTHING. Last year I told her that we were getting married and wanted a simple outdoor ceremony in NH for friends and a small party for the family the next weekend and before you could say "Florist" she had color-coded lists and charts that would have put Patton to shame. But at least now I have some kind of idea how much I have to do.
The TDLA is compounded by the number one problem most parents face. NETS, or, Not Enough Time Syndrome. You think you have hours and hours to get a lot of stuff done, you buckle down and try to tackle your list, and hours later, realize that you might be able to get half of one item done, if you're lucky. So, by bitter experience, you've come to the glum conclusion that you will never have enough time so why bother in the first place? I decided to get rid of the NETS by writing down exactly how much "open time" I have every day of the week before dropping Chloe off at a grandmother's and then after bringing her home at night. Assuming I can function with 6 hours of sleep per night, I came up with 45.5 hours in a 7 day stretch. At least it's more than I expected. Last night I went home and worked for an hour on a re-design project for the design site. Then I went to bed at 11pm and set my alarm for 5. I got up and worked for an hour and a half on a Flash project before heading out with Chloe. I think that, psychologically, knowing the specific amount of actual free time available, plus having a specific item to work on instead of a lot of vague "stuff" helps me to buckle down. But I still feel like Andy in 40 Year Old Virgin when you see that little schedule he has taped to his fridge in the opening sequence. "7am : up and shower, 7:15: start coffee, 7:20: make breakfast..."
Thursday, September 07, 2006
State Police Lose Explosives During Drill
Somehow, halfway through reading it, the headline became the punchline.
Monday, August 14, 2006
I Came This Close...
The past weekend was declared a tax-free holiday on purchases under $2,500. I thought I would be a shrewd player and go grab one of the new Apple MacBooks to avoid paying the roughly $50 in sales tax. Bundled the little one into a snugli and went to the North Shore Mall, ZDnet MacBook review in hand, hoping to score.
When I saw the security guards posted outside the Apple Store, I knew I would be in for it. The moment I set foot in the store, I was swept away in a whirl of teenagers, "helicopter parents", and POD people in the Apple issued uniform of black t-shirt with computer+ iPod logo. I was approached by a man wielding a clipboard and he was very nice, showing me the laptop that was the focus of my desire, flirting with Chloe, and telling me about the "free" (rebated) HP printer, copier, scanner. Great, I just wanted to get a laptop bag and I would be on my way.
As I looked at bags, knapsacks and attache cases, the little voices kept popping up in my head, "it's easy, too easy, something will go horribly wrong, it will explode when you try to boot up Photoshop" The word Photoshop swirled around in my head like that scene in the Simpsons where Homer's waiting for his free company beer and he keeps hearing "Dental Plan (lisa needs braces). Then I remembered a line I had read. "Check to make sure your current software is compatible with the new Intel processor before buying."
I went back to the front of the store and flagged down a salesperson. He said the new MacBook would NOT run Photoshop CS but it would run Photoshop CS2. I had a brainfreeze and called Chris to make sure what we had at home. Left a voicemail and waited, fed Chloe a bottle on a bench in the back of the store. (its a very kid-friendly store BTW) And finally he called. Photoshop CS.
I trudged back to the front again and ran into a different salesperson. He rushed to pimp the MacBook but this time I said no, it won't run PhotoShop CS. "Yes it will, sure it will." But then I asked the first salesperson again, "No, it won't run that, only CS2." "Okay," I said, "Can't get it then." and walked out of the store.
This whole scenario kind of blows my mind. Here's the world's second biggest computer company, aggressively promoting a new laptop for a decent price for once, BUT it only runs the Adobe software that came out last Tuesday. Anything earlier, nope, uh uh, useless. With the price, it seems that Apple is making a play for the consumer who might be wooed by the $1,099 pricetag, but spooked by prices like $1,299 and higher. I argue that it's a reasonable assumption that someone like that is not likely to be running out to upgrade their PhotoShop software every 5 minutes.
It's a mystery, rapped in a riddle, but I think the answer might be here. You can read more about the Apple conundrum here. And here.
When I saw the security guards posted outside the Apple Store, I knew I would be in for it. The moment I set foot in the store, I was swept away in a whirl of teenagers, "helicopter parents", and POD people in the Apple issued uniform of black t-shirt with computer+ iPod logo. I was approached by a man wielding a clipboard and he was very nice, showing me the laptop that was the focus of my desire, flirting with Chloe, and telling me about the "free" (rebated) HP printer, copier, scanner. Great, I just wanted to get a laptop bag and I would be on my way.
As I looked at bags, knapsacks and attache cases, the little voices kept popping up in my head, "it's easy, too easy, something will go horribly wrong, it will explode when you try to boot up Photoshop" The word Photoshop swirled around in my head like that scene in the Simpsons where Homer's waiting for his free company beer and he keeps hearing "Dental Plan (lisa needs braces). Then I remembered a line I had read. "Check to make sure your current software is compatible with the new Intel processor before buying."
I went back to the front of the store and flagged down a salesperson. He said the new MacBook would NOT run Photoshop CS but it would run Photoshop CS2. I had a brainfreeze and called Chris to make sure what we had at home. Left a voicemail and waited, fed Chloe a bottle on a bench in the back of the store. (its a very kid-friendly store BTW) And finally he called. Photoshop CS.
I trudged back to the front again and ran into a different salesperson. He rushed to pimp the MacBook but this time I said no, it won't run PhotoShop CS. "Yes it will, sure it will." But then I asked the first salesperson again, "No, it won't run that, only CS2." "Okay," I said, "Can't get it then." and walked out of the store.
This whole scenario kind of blows my mind. Here's the world's second biggest computer company, aggressively promoting a new laptop for a decent price for once, BUT it only runs the Adobe software that came out last Tuesday. Anything earlier, nope, uh uh, useless. With the price, it seems that Apple is making a play for the consumer who might be wooed by the $1,099 pricetag, but spooked by prices like $1,299 and higher. I argue that it's a reasonable assumption that someone like that is not likely to be running out to upgrade their PhotoShop software every 5 minutes.
It's a mystery, rapped in a riddle, but I think the answer might be here. You can read more about the Apple conundrum here. And here.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Here's one for the Web Wayback Machine
5 years from now, we are either going to look back at this and laugh at how paranoid we all were, (see: McCarthy Era) or, we are going to collectively sigh and reminisce about the “good old days” when you could still fly with your clothes on.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Life's Little Victories #84
In tribute to the excellent cartoonist and Malden High alumni, Kieth Knight, kreator of "The K Chronicles" here is one of life's little victories for me; Seeing an idea that you had about 5 years ago show up as a Kottke.org headline on how to save money on airfare!
OLD HAG (not me, silly, the commentor on LifeHacker!) says:
"When traveling internationally, look for an agency -- yup, a real live agency -- in a neighborhood with a high percentage of citizens from the country you're traveling to (Williamsburg for Poland, for example). Those agencies buy out huge chunks of a flight and you can get cheaper fares -- I once went to the Czech Republic for $700 when everyone else was paying about $1200, and I have heard equally good things about flights to China, etc."
Yes! This does work. I went to a travel agency in Boston's ChinaTown about 5 years ago and got two (pre-9/11) roundtrip tickets to HCMC (Saigon) for about $1,200 bucks each during the Tet season which is the equivalent of scoring roundtrip tickets to New York on Thanksgiving weekend for $200. The only problem I had was when the travel agent didn't realize my name is Jennifer and typed it onto my ticket as Vennifer. ( Probably what the tabloids will come up with for Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaugn's wedding)
OLD HAG (not me, silly, the commentor on LifeHacker!) says:
"When traveling internationally, look for an agency -- yup, a real live agency -- in a neighborhood with a high percentage of citizens from the country you're traveling to (Williamsburg for Poland, for example). Those agencies buy out huge chunks of a flight and you can get cheaper fares -- I once went to the Czech Republic for $700 when everyone else was paying about $1200, and I have heard equally good things about flights to China, etc."
Yes! This does work. I went to a travel agency in Boston's ChinaTown about 5 years ago and got two (pre-9/11) roundtrip tickets to HCMC (Saigon) for about $1,200 bucks each during the Tet season which is the equivalent of scoring roundtrip tickets to New York on Thanksgiving weekend for $200. The only problem I had was when the travel agent didn't realize my name is Jennifer and typed it onto my ticket as Vennifer. ( Probably what the tabloids will come up with for Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaugn's wedding)
Yo! Your baby's so fat...
Our neighbor has an 8 month old baby that is ENORMOUS. Our daughter had a lot of trouble with weight gain when she was about 2 months old and it's a little scary to see her photos back then. She had cheekbones like Kate Moss on a desert island. I tried to breast feed her, but when it came down to choosing between my pride and keeping her weight on, I had to switch to formula. She's chubby, but not on a National Enquirer scale.
What an interesting time to be alive. I can read an article about how worried everyone is about American children being 59% more likely to be obese than 20 years ago, right next to a ad for a charity to keep babies from starving to death in the rest of the world. If you are seriously pondering this irony of modern life, then I encourage you to read "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond.
What an interesting time to be alive. I can read an article about how worried everyone is about American children being 59% more likely to be obese than 20 years ago, right next to a ad for a charity to keep babies from starving to death in the rest of the world. If you are seriously pondering this irony of modern life, then I encourage you to read "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond.
Monday, August 07, 2006
A Nation of Wimps?
So I went onto MSN.com this morning, like I always do. I was prepared to surf ahead to the sites that I actually read, when this headline grabbed my attention. It's a virtual kick in the nuts for any parent to see something that hints their child may be disadvantaged or damaged in some way and there are a lot of pundits and advertisers out there that know it. Pretty much since the moment I saw the little pink plus sign 12 months ago, I have operated under the general rubric that if it was something that my parents could have either lived with or without and still survived through the 1930's, then I didn't have to worry. It's the only defense I have against a barrage of coupon books, "helpful hint" pamphlets and parenting magazine columns. Electric wipe warmer? No thanks, if a cool, wet wipe touched my baby's behind, I figured it would get her attention, not psychologically damage her.
It's actually a pretty decent article on the site. Written by Hara Estroff Marano for Psychology Today, it touched on a huge nerve for parents. How much parenting is too much? Do we hover over the kid to ensure that we never end up as a Boston Herald headline? "Salem Mother Turns Back, Child Plummets From Changing Table". Or do we step back and nudge them to deal with the real world. For years I 've heard anecdotes from friends who teach school about parents that practically turn into Carmela Soprano when their precious pumpkin misses the deadline on their book report. Not to sound like one of those curdmudgeon types that grouses about "kids these days" and "walking twenty miles to school EACH WAY, but I did find myself talking with a group of adults about my age and one by one, we volunteered our complaints about the "new hire" at the office who flitted in and out and told them that the deadline for the financial report was "kind of a bummer."
I think the root of the problem here is that people are starting to feel the trickle-down effects of a spike in population. More people means more competition for things like education and well-paying jobs. So now everyone in the know is jockeying for the same few spaces so Tyler and Kaylie can get their shot at the brass ring. Well, what else is new? Some kids will become spoiled and convinced that nothing is ever really their fault. They'll probably end up being right, because nowadays people are as apprehensive about firing incompetent workers as landlords are about evicting unruly tenants. No one wants to be called discriminatory or (shudder) unfair, so people are allowed to drift along, blowing off their responsibility. Other kids will develope their own ways of getting along and learn through trial and error the basic equations in life and probably end up managing the first group.
By the way, two things about this article made me laugh. Right next to the sub-header at the top; "Parental hyperconcern maybe why kids can't cope." was a big ad for a video game company that featured a masked soldier with a rifle. Nothing in modern life T's me off more that seeing a family that lets their kids become surgically attached to a gaming console. Little kids bleeping and bonking their way through an entire family outing on their PSP's, kids that are allowed to play war simulation games in 10 speaker surround sound when there are actual WWII vets present who could probably scare the crap out of them with stories about what THEY were doing at 19. No wonder kids "these days" don't have a sense of the real world, they never see it. The other thing was that the article contained a quote from a Bernardo J. Carducci, founder of Indiana University Southeast's Shyness Research Institute, a concept that would have made my grandparents giggle in disbelief.
It's actually a pretty decent article on the site. Written by Hara Estroff Marano for Psychology Today, it touched on a huge nerve for parents. How much parenting is too much? Do we hover over the kid to ensure that we never end up as a Boston Herald headline? "Salem Mother Turns Back, Child Plummets From Changing Table". Or do we step back and nudge them to deal with the real world. For years I 've heard anecdotes from friends who teach school about parents that practically turn into Carmela Soprano when their precious pumpkin misses the deadline on their book report. Not to sound like one of those curdmudgeon types that grouses about "kids these days" and "walking twenty miles to school EACH WAY, but I did find myself talking with a group of adults about my age and one by one, we volunteered our complaints about the "new hire" at the office who flitted in and out and told them that the deadline for the financial report was "kind of a bummer."
I think the root of the problem here is that people are starting to feel the trickle-down effects of a spike in population. More people means more competition for things like education and well-paying jobs. So now everyone in the know is jockeying for the same few spaces so Tyler and Kaylie can get their shot at the brass ring. Well, what else is new? Some kids will become spoiled and convinced that nothing is ever really their fault. They'll probably end up being right, because nowadays people are as apprehensive about firing incompetent workers as landlords are about evicting unruly tenants. No one wants to be called discriminatory or (shudder) unfair, so people are allowed to drift along, blowing off their responsibility. Other kids will develope their own ways of getting along and learn through trial and error the basic equations in life and probably end up managing the first group.
By the way, two things about this article made me laugh. Right next to the sub-header at the top; "Parental hyperconcern maybe why kids can't cope." was a big ad for a video game company that featured a masked soldier with a rifle. Nothing in modern life T's me off more that seeing a family that lets their kids become surgically attached to a gaming console. Little kids bleeping and bonking their way through an entire family outing on their PSP's, kids that are allowed to play war simulation games in 10 speaker surround sound when there are actual WWII vets present who could probably scare the crap out of them with stories about what THEY were doing at 19. No wonder kids "these days" don't have a sense of the real world, they never see it. The other thing was that the article contained a quote from a Bernardo J. Carducci, founder of Indiana University Southeast's Shyness Research Institute, a concept that would have made my grandparents giggle in disbelief.
Monday, July 31, 2006
And, where do I get halal goat meat?"
Excellent question. The bbc website has an article about how refugees living in America are being taught that eating fast food and drinking soda all day is bad for you. I just assumed people already knew that, but when you might be from a country where you have to catch your food before you eat it, this might be a novel idea.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Extrapolated Data Relating to the Conventional Cultural Zeitgeist AKA “Dammit, just let me change that diaper myself” Syndrome
This is going to be a long post, but trust me, I threw some good links in. Enjoy!
In response to the fuss brewing over Linda Hirschman's article, allow me to jump in with both feet and wallow in the fray. In the past I would have stayed away, clinging to the comfortable reasoning that I didn’t have kids, therefore I would have no idea what I was talking about. Now that I’ve been a mom for roughly 3 ½ months and back at work for 7 weeks, I have completed all of the necessary requirements for bitching loudly about the state of Mom-dom in the US. I: A) had a SAHM for the first 7 years of my life. B) Was a “latch-key kid for the next 10 years, C) Watched as my sister became a SAHM for a few years, then a working mom since 1998, D) stayed at home with Chloe for 2 months and finally, E) went back to work.
In a nutshell, like most choices in life, there are things that are good about it and things that really suck. From close observation, and my own experience, here are things that are great about being a SAHM:
• You don’t have to commute every day.
• When the child is asleep or otherwise incapacitated, you can get some work done.
• You can get all the errands done, stress-free, at all the places that are not open on weekends.
• You can go grocery shopping without needing Zanax.
• If you are really good at space-time management, you can actually do some of the things around the house that you read about in women’s magazines, like cook.
• You are there for every gurgle, coo and crying fit.
Here are the things that suck:
• Because there is no need to rush out of the house to get the kid to daycare and get yourself to work, it’s very easy to let the day get away from you. One minute it’s 9am and you’re thinking how great it would be to plant some geraniums, the next minute, it’s 5:30 and you’re elbow deep in soil and you hear your husband’s car in the driveway.
• It’s hard not to get sucked into watching daytime TV. The Style Network should really come with a warning label.
• People look at you differently when you are an adult walking around your neighborhood in broad daylight. Sometimes it’s a good different: (You must be a stay at home mom! Aren’t you lucky!) sometimes it’s weird different: (You must be a stay at home mom! What’s the matter? Couldn’t hack it in the “real” world?)
• So many parenting magazines visually reinforce the image of the “Have It All Mom”, that you can end up feeling like Edith Bunker all the time.
• You miss all of the in-fighting, scheming and BS of working at a “real job”.
• You are there for every gurgle, coo and crying fit. Mostly every crying fit. The crying fit will usually start about 10 minutes before the Dad comes home from work. As he walks through the door, exhausted and stressed out after commuting home, and sees you standing at the kitchen sink, trying to jiggle a screaming baby and mix a bottle of formula at the same time, sometimes he can’t help but shoot you a look that makes you feel like Andrea Yates.
But enough kvetching and kvelling about that for now. I think the elephant in the room in this situation is the fact that, in most families, both parents NEED to work. I can now say from experience that, unless you are very lucky and have relatives close by that can step in, trying to find acceptable, affordable childcare on two average incomes that has hours of operation that you can actually fit into a nine to five work schedule is, to put it mildly, friggin impossible. I looked and looked and if it was “affordable” (okay, CHEAP) then the facility smelled like cigarettes. Anything that looked like a place I felt safe with was either over $300 a week (part time!) or only open from 7:30am at the earliest, to 5:30pm at the latest.
Pretty much the only other mother I know that works outside the home is an RN who does in-home visits with patients a couple of days a week and is able to do her paperwork while she’s at home. I used to think my sister was very lucky that she was able to stay home with her two children while her husband worked, but when I was pregnant she was the first to tell me that it’s a bad idea to make one parent the sole bread winner. Having one person making the money puts them under twice as much pressure and before you know it, the stay at home parent is forced to petition the working one in order to buy so much as a hair clip.
I had seen her put her own children into daycare when her separation meant the end of her SAHM status and she was soon forced to take them out when another kid knocked my 3 year old nephew into a bookcase, badly bruising his back. As far as leaving your kids home alone while going out to work, my own mother had been forced to do it back in 1978, before the evening news became a Horribles Parade of feral children and armed gangs of child pornographers that supposedly prowled every suburban neighborhood. I was given a key, my sister was told to come straight home after choir practice, and probably the worst thing I did was try to make M&M marshmallow krispies without using a double-boiler. Then again, I was a fairly nerdy child.
I vaguely remember my mother staying at home with us and I think I got into more trouble with her there. I managed to eat strawberry scented incense when I was 2, stick my finger into an outlet when I was 3 and also tumble down 3 flights of stairs while wearing my first pair of bellbottoms, and nobody pointed fingers, whispered over the fence or called DSS. It was all chalked up to being a normal kid and I have spent the past 37 years (mostly) therapy-free.
As far as the idea that the best and the brightest are abandoning their hard-won careers to suckle and cuddle and burp their offspring, here is my two cents: If these women are so well educated, then isn’t it sexist to assume that they don’t know what the hell they are doing when they choose to stay home? My gut instinct is that they probably know exactly what they are doing and, having had the luxury of a choice, they are probably much happier doing it. An added bonus is that by nature of being better educated, these women may have the advantage of being able to stay more informed and will probably make better choices about raising their kids than the last generation. Of course, I’m not saying that being better educated automatically makes you a better mom (item #43), But, I personally knew a girl when I was growing up who had a stay at home mom that left a good academic career to raise her and she ended up scoring 1600 on her SAT’s and getting a full scholarship to an Ivy League school.
In the end, I think that if someone wants to stay home with their children and they can safely afford it, then good for them. If they want to pursue their career, and they can place their child in a situation they are comfortable with, then that’s fine too. And as for the idea that women are usually the ones who stay home because childrearing is considered “women’s work” let me say just two things: If you take the term “women’s work” to task for being demeaning, then who is being the sexist one here? 2) Have you ever seen a grown man try to change a diaper?
It’s the giant piece of the population pie that lands in the middle that we should really be worrying about. If politicians feel the need to legislate my reproductive organs, then I think I have the right to demand legislation to increase my maternity leave and decrease the rates that most day care centers charge.
In response to the fuss brewing over Linda Hirschman's article, allow me to jump in with both feet and wallow in the fray. In the past I would have stayed away, clinging to the comfortable reasoning that I didn’t have kids, therefore I would have no idea what I was talking about. Now that I’ve been a mom for roughly 3 ½ months and back at work for 7 weeks, I have completed all of the necessary requirements for bitching loudly about the state of Mom-dom in the US. I: A) had a SAHM for the first 7 years of my life. B) Was a “latch-key kid for the next 10 years, C) Watched as my sister became a SAHM for a few years, then a working mom since 1998, D) stayed at home with Chloe for 2 months and finally, E) went back to work.
In a nutshell, like most choices in life, there are things that are good about it and things that really suck. From close observation, and my own experience, here are things that are great about being a SAHM:
• You don’t have to commute every day.
• When the child is asleep or otherwise incapacitated, you can get some work done.
• You can get all the errands done, stress-free, at all the places that are not open on weekends.
• You can go grocery shopping without needing Zanax.
• If you are really good at space-time management, you can actually do some of the things around the house that you read about in women’s magazines, like cook.
• You are there for every gurgle, coo and crying fit.
Here are the things that suck:
• Because there is no need to rush out of the house to get the kid to daycare and get yourself to work, it’s very easy to let the day get away from you. One minute it’s 9am and you’re thinking how great it would be to plant some geraniums, the next minute, it’s 5:30 and you’re elbow deep in soil and you hear your husband’s car in the driveway.
• It’s hard not to get sucked into watching daytime TV. The Style Network should really come with a warning label.
• People look at you differently when you are an adult walking around your neighborhood in broad daylight. Sometimes it’s a good different: (You must be a stay at home mom! Aren’t you lucky!) sometimes it’s weird different: (You must be a stay at home mom! What’s the matter? Couldn’t hack it in the “real” world?)
• So many parenting magazines visually reinforce the image of the “Have It All Mom”, that you can end up feeling like Edith Bunker all the time.
• You miss all of the in-fighting, scheming and BS of working at a “real job”.
• You are there for every gurgle, coo and crying fit. Mostly every crying fit. The crying fit will usually start about 10 minutes before the Dad comes home from work. As he walks through the door, exhausted and stressed out after commuting home, and sees you standing at the kitchen sink, trying to jiggle a screaming baby and mix a bottle of formula at the same time, sometimes he can’t help but shoot you a look that makes you feel like Andrea Yates.
But enough kvetching and kvelling about that for now. I think the elephant in the room in this situation is the fact that, in most families, both parents NEED to work. I can now say from experience that, unless you are very lucky and have relatives close by that can step in, trying to find acceptable, affordable childcare on two average incomes that has hours of operation that you can actually fit into a nine to five work schedule is, to put it mildly, friggin impossible. I looked and looked and if it was “affordable” (okay, CHEAP) then the facility smelled like cigarettes. Anything that looked like a place I felt safe with was either over $300 a week (part time!) or only open from 7:30am at the earliest, to 5:30pm at the latest.
Pretty much the only other mother I know that works outside the home is an RN who does in-home visits with patients a couple of days a week and is able to do her paperwork while she’s at home. I used to think my sister was very lucky that she was able to stay home with her two children while her husband worked, but when I was pregnant she was the first to tell me that it’s a bad idea to make one parent the sole bread winner. Having one person making the money puts them under twice as much pressure and before you know it, the stay at home parent is forced to petition the working one in order to buy so much as a hair clip.
I had seen her put her own children into daycare when her separation meant the end of her SAHM status and she was soon forced to take them out when another kid knocked my 3 year old nephew into a bookcase, badly bruising his back. As far as leaving your kids home alone while going out to work, my own mother had been forced to do it back in 1978, before the evening news became a Horribles Parade of feral children and armed gangs of child pornographers that supposedly prowled every suburban neighborhood. I was given a key, my sister was told to come straight home after choir practice, and probably the worst thing I did was try to make M&M marshmallow krispies without using a double-boiler. Then again, I was a fairly nerdy child.
I vaguely remember my mother staying at home with us and I think I got into more trouble with her there. I managed to eat strawberry scented incense when I was 2, stick my finger into an outlet when I was 3 and also tumble down 3 flights of stairs while wearing my first pair of bellbottoms, and nobody pointed fingers, whispered over the fence or called DSS. It was all chalked up to being a normal kid and I have spent the past 37 years (mostly) therapy-free.
As far as the idea that the best and the brightest are abandoning their hard-won careers to suckle and cuddle and burp their offspring, here is my two cents: If these women are so well educated, then isn’t it sexist to assume that they don’t know what the hell they are doing when they choose to stay home? My gut instinct is that they probably know exactly what they are doing and, having had the luxury of a choice, they are probably much happier doing it. An added bonus is that by nature of being better educated, these women may have the advantage of being able to stay more informed and will probably make better choices about raising their kids than the last generation. Of course, I’m not saying that being better educated automatically makes you a better mom (item #43), But, I personally knew a girl when I was growing up who had a stay at home mom that left a good academic career to raise her and she ended up scoring 1600 on her SAT’s and getting a full scholarship to an Ivy League school.
In the end, I think that if someone wants to stay home with their children and they can safely afford it, then good for them. If they want to pursue their career, and they can place their child in a situation they are comfortable with, then that’s fine too. And as for the idea that women are usually the ones who stay home because childrearing is considered “women’s work” let me say just two things: If you take the term “women’s work” to task for being demeaning, then who is being the sexist one here? 2) Have you ever seen a grown man try to change a diaper?
It’s the giant piece of the population pie that lands in the middle that we should really be worrying about. If politicians feel the need to legislate my reproductive organs, then I think I have the right to demand legislation to increase my maternity leave and decrease the rates that most day care centers charge.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Fun Summer Reading about the T
If you're like me and you're forced to take public transportation, then you might find the following sites to be interesting reads:
Badtransit.com
Today's post is a wonderful example of art imatating life; i.e. the scene in "Brazil" where the Information Security official says "And here is my receipt, for your receipt."
Boston.com message board about commutes affected by Big Dig's FUBAR situation.
I guess the addictive thing about these message boards is that it feels like what people really want to say to each other.
T-rage blog
Why stand there on the un-airconditioned, reeking platform swearing at Dan Grabauskas when t-rage can do it for you?
Badtransit.com
Today's post is a wonderful example of art imatating life; i.e. the scene in "Brazil" where the Information Security official says "And here is my receipt, for your receipt."
Boston.com message board about commutes affected by Big Dig's FUBAR situation.
I guess the addictive thing about these message boards is that it feels like what people really want to say to each other.
T-rage blog
Why stand there on the un-airconditioned, reeking platform swearing at Dan Grabauskas when t-rage can do it for you?
"It's Too Darn Hot"
I keep hearing this song from "Kiss Me Kate" in my head whenever I take the commuter rail in this kind of weather. Of course I've never seen the actual musical, but someone does a great job of lipsynching to it in the movie "Wigstock". (Fun link note, when you click on the link that heads this post, notice the ad for hot flash treatments on the righthand side. I think Adsense needs to rethink the target audience for this page a little)
"Wigstock" was a big hit with Chloe. Anything with bright colors and lots of dancing works for her right now and it's not as syrupy as Care Bears or Barney so I can deal with watching it with her.
"Wigstock" was a big hit with Chloe. Anything with bright colors and lots of dancing works for her right now and it's not as syrupy as Care Bears or Barney so I can deal with watching it with her.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
The Drunken Master Rides Again!
Sorry, I could put a snarky tagline here, but it's hard to think of something that doesn't sound kind of racist. OK, OK:
"FLEEBIRD!!"
"FLEEBIRD!!"
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Friday, July 07, 2006
Photo Verified as Constanze Mozart
Constanze Mozart is the elderly woman on the right. This is a photo of a woman born in 1762. BEFORE THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION PEOPLE! Photos like this kind of freak me out. It's like seeing a brontosaurus walking down the street.
Soul Sisters?
Madonna played the Garden last night. That explains some of the walking fashion disasters stumbling around North Station in too-high platforms. Chloe celebrated Her Madgesty's visit by raising her shirt over her belly and vogueing for about 10 minutes while we watched a Klaus Nomi documentary which, quite frankly, had better vocals.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Raindrops keep falling on my head
Warning: Sarcasm alert
5 Things I Love About This Weather
1) I'm saving a bundle on sunscreen.
2) My ancestors were from Scotland so this is a wonderful opportunity to re-connect with them.
3) I like ducks. Ducks like mosquitos. Mosquitos like water. So everybody's happy.
4) All I need is a cup of Starbuck's coffee in my hand and I feel like I live in Seattle. So I feel very hip.
5) The more baseball games that get rained out, the longer the season goes. Yay!
5 Things I Love About This Weather
1) I'm saving a bundle on sunscreen.
2) My ancestors were from Scotland so this is a wonderful opportunity to re-connect with them.
3) I like ducks. Ducks like mosquitos. Mosquitos like water. So everybody's happy.
4) All I need is a cup of Starbuck's coffee in my hand and I feel like I live in Seattle. So I feel very hip.
5) The more baseball games that get rained out, the longer the season goes. Yay!
Thursday, June 22, 2006
BTW, Happy Birthday to ME
Jennsweb is 1 year, 21 days old. In the past year I got married, had a baby and learned how to knit. So it's been a pretty good year.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
So Many Apps, So Little Time
It’s official. There are WAY too many crazy little applets out there. I give it about 3 days before I see one of those “NEED A COOL WEBSITE NOW!!!!!!!” ads on Craig’s List where they list every application on here and demand that you have EXTENSIVE experience with all of them and can you do it in two days for $100?
Not that I’m disillusioned or anything…
Not that I’m disillusioned or anything…
Monday, June 19, 2006
The Nerdiest Thing I Read Online Today
Sometimes Steve Pavlina seems like an OK guy. Other times, he's so perfect, so Martha Stewart, that you just want to whack him in the back of head. Either way, this article was a slightly guilty pleasure for me, even though I would DIE rather than listen to New Age music.
DOTD (Design of the Day)
Project83.com is actually one of the few design companies I've come across that actually practices what it preaches. The design uses a beautiful color and upon landing on the home page, you can instantly figure out where you are and what you are looking at.
I really can't stand sites that seem to be designed with the philosophy that if you don't know what the site is about, then you shouldn't be there. That is so Studio 54.
BTW, if you follow the last link, you will find a website that is a total "Goofus" of web design, but I swear I looked at every link that Google threw at me for "studio 54" and this one was the least offensive. Trust me.
I really can't stand sites that seem to be designed with the philosophy that if you don't know what the site is about, then you shouldn't be there. That is so Studio 54.
BTW, if you follow the last link, you will find a website that is a total "Goofus" of web design, but I swear I looked at every link that Google threw at me for "studio 54" and this one was the least offensive. Trust me.
Canadians get desperate when the temp climbs above 50 degrees
Have you ever noticed how the same people who bitch about how F*#$% cold it is all winter long are the first ones to crank up the ac when the thermometer hits above 80 just so they can shiver for another 3 months?
Friday, June 16, 2006
Geeks are Sexy!
You know what's sexy about them? They are not only not willing to ask for directions, they will create custom software for their cellphones to pinpoint where they are by triangulating the signals from cell towers with a bluetooth enabled GPS device. Mmmmmmmmmmmm
Anyway, it's an article on Wired's site about the Where 2.0 conference. It sounds like more fun than a shoe sale.
Anyway, it's an article on Wired's site about the Where 2.0 conference. It sounds like more fun than a shoe sale.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
I Knew It!
Apparently every real programmer knows that there is a new language born every week. At least the birthrate is not as bad as the one for suckers.
New blog on the block
I decided that rather than stuffing jennsweb chock full of a bunch of different topics, I'm going to focus up a little bit. So here's a brand new blog about where I live since I'm constantly finding cool stuff there and looking on the web for local things. I have a squidoo lens about Salem as well.
This coffee goes to 11
The office I work in has one of those custom coffee Flavia machines and I've been selected as the test monkey for the new Intense Dark Roast Coffee. They have a number system on the coffee packets to tell you how strong the coffees are on a scale of 1 to 5. The IDR is rated as 7. I've had 3 sips so far and my desk is now clean, my purse is organized and I've walked the length of the office delivering things twice.
This is some damn good coffee. If only I could stop the ringing in my ears.
This is some damn good coffee. If only I could stop the ringing in my ears.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Ice Cream Review
I know it's been a long time between postings. I could blame the baby, but she's really not that high maintenance. The fact of the matter is that I'm pretty lazy when the weather's nice...
Anyway, run, don't walk to the nearest grocery store and pick up a pint of Haagen-Daz Mayan Chocolate Ice Cream. Spicy chocolate never tasted so good. Even my niece, a textbook picky eater, loved it, even if she did insist that she get it on a separate plate, not touching anything else.
Anyway, run, don't walk to the nearest grocery store and pick up a pint of Haagen-Daz Mayan Chocolate Ice Cream. Spicy chocolate never tasted so good. Even my niece, a textbook picky eater, loved it, even if she did insist that she get it on a separate plate, not touching anything else.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Unleash your inner migrant worker
For those of you who miss feudalism, check out this site where you can find out where you can pick your own produce around Massachusetts. And if you're nostalgic for the days of child labor, learn about places where kids can pick along side of you. Fun for the whole family!
Ch-ch-ch-changes!
It's when I look at these all together that I realize how much Chloe is changing.
2 months
1 month
1 week
2 months
1 month
1 week
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