+1 Tech Skills: Installing Fonts

I love fonts. I hate technology.

When I was in school adding fonts was a complicated process and I always ended up unable to access the fonts that I would add. It was an exercise in frustration and humiliation. The world is a much different place now. I am a different designer now.

Now I can add fonts to my cache!

Behold....

Thanks to PicMonkey's new newsletter I was able to find a foundry with some very cool fonts such as you see above. Font Freak is written in a GORGEOUS face called Caldera. Glyph Geek is swished in a font called Porcelain. And thanks to the handy dandy downloadable tutorial I was actually able to install these silly fonts.

I will warn you though. Sometimes the install button referred to in those instructions is not readily apparent. I just upgraded to Windows 10 which might have some thing to do with when the install button shows up. If it doesn't appear in the pop up menu when you right click then go to where you saved the download. I keep it easy and leave it all in the download file. Once you unzipp the compressed files view the font file itself. When you view the file the install button is in a header at the top of the file that shows you the sample font.

I don't have anything more fancy than Word. I'm cheap like that. I refuse to buy a fancy processing program separately. Because I use PicMonkey I can get away with Word as a repository for fonts. PicMonkey is able to use fonts in your local word processor. When you open their text app to add words to your design there are two columns. "OURS" & "YOURS". Your fonts are in the "YOURS" folder.

But here is a trick. When you install the fonts you will want to open the program that you do your word processing with. That makes them stick so to speak. Its like hitting refresh. Once you have opened it and your processing program knows you have new fonts then PicMonkey will be able to read it to.

Life is good when you freshen the fonts a bit.

C is for Cookie and confusing

Today Blogger has informed me the the EU requires a notice about the use of cookies being used by Blogger and Google and Google's adsense app. They have very kindly "done this for you" and I suppose that I should trust that it is here some where on the page.

The thing is, I can not see what is says about cookies unless I am in the EU. I write from America so I can't see what it is that I am supposed to be telling you that they told you for me. I don't even know on my layout page where this stupid thing is. I don't even know if I can edit it in the layout page.

I understand that you want to know who is looking you up and bookmarking you for sale to another commercial source. I want to know these things. But with the state of the Internet as it stands today, I just assume that everything has a cookie in it. I think we all do. But I guess, just to cover everyone's asses we must do these things. I understand all of that.

What I don't understand is why, if I am responsible for maintaining the damn thing, can I not find it to verify it's actual existence on my blogs. And why should it only be visible to the EU guests? Stereo typically, Americans are the stupidest people on the planet so shouldn't the Cookie warning be everywhere Americans tend to be?

Why does this have to be so confusing?

Please, friends in the EU and beyond, tell me if you see the Cookie Usage explanation from Google. I for the life of me can not see it at all.

Clone Blogs & Phishing

I've been cloned and I am mad.

I've slept on this issue. It did not impact the quality of my sleep and I am not over the issue. In fact, when I woke this morning I was more mad than ever. And being who I am I made a connection between my personal experience and a news article. Now I am more angry. In part because I do not know what I can do about it on my end. And in part because, as usual, a politician has inflated a petty issue while ignoring a significant issue. So here are some thoughts about Vladmir Putin's ban on memes in Russia and the scammers who make blogging less fun.

First of all, this made me a little angry when I read it. Our politicians in America seem to think that if they give you the stones to throw at them that you should have more self control than to use that ammunition in your arguments or to heal yourself when you are heartsick about the things that are making your life more difficult than it needs to be. If sticks, stones and words hurt and you do not want to be hurt by them then don't hand them out like candy at Halloween. It is that simple. If you want to be respected and revered then do the things that gain the respectful reverence of the masses. Stealing the common man's livelihood, sucking the life out of his soul and the soul from his desire to live isn't the way to do it. And neither is sucking the resources from the planet and hording it among the wealthiest of persons so that you can influence policy and criminalize the poverty that you created. If you are going to behave badly then you deserve to be called out on it. WE LEARN THIS IN KINDERGARTEN PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!

We also learn that instead of committing criminal acts that cause bodily harm we are supposed to find creative outlets for anger and frustration. Creative communications and artistic expression are those outlets which allow us to let the fear and frustration out so that they do not harm us while giving us a direction away from committing bodily harm. Satire is a statement of anger and frustration. Memes are an expression of satire. One such meme going around is a bit of advice from someecards. And I think it applies here. It is none of your business what other people think of you. Even if it posted publically?

 Yes. Oh I know, political campaigns spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to find out how they can get the most votes. Public opinion polls seem to make my statement null. However, there is not ONE SINGLE POLITICIAN who has EVER taken ANY of the REAL advice they get from their advisers. You guys spend waste more money than you deserve to earn trying to manipulate people to think that you are God's gift to all of mankind when you ALL need to worry about making yourselves better people who are WORTH respect. There is probably an "in Russia" joke in here somewhere. The point is, all we want is for you guys to tell the TRUTH, make HONEST laws that benefit EVERYONE, and NOT TURN US INTO PAUPERS so that you can feel eminently better about yourselves and the FALSE CLASS CASTES you created in the first place. We all want to feel valuable and nothing you guys do in office makes anyone feel better except YOU! We want to be safe, to work AND know that work means something. We want financial security first because the other kinds of security will come when that is taken care of. But when your polls and your PR people tell you how to get the votes you all stand behind the BULLY TACTICS straight out of the mobsters handbook. Why should anyone like any of you?

Mr. Putin, if you are going to act like a typical American Politician why should you be exempt from the typical American pundits pen? You built the climate in which being caught in a social media poop storm can happen. What good is it in "crying" about it? Make some changes. And for Gods Sake why would you want to BE LIKE an American politician? Can't you find a better role model? The Germans seem to have all of their needs met and a far better economy than anyone else at the moment. If you have to copy someone else's model I think that is the one that makes the most sense. Sure, it isn't a perfect system. But right now it seems everyone would rather live in Germany. (I want to live in Germany more than anywhere else right now so that statement may be heavily biased). Well, unless you want to create an economic oligarchy then by all means keep doing what you are doing. Just remember what happened to the oligarchs of the French Revolution.... when the revolutionists outnumber those in control lots of stuff goes wrong really quickly. You've seen it in your own country. Taking away rights isn't going to make you safer. It usually only deepens the resentment. And at some point, people do not mind getting their hands dirty and they forgo weapons.

We have a saying, You get more bees with honey than poop. (I know it isn't accurate. Name one metaphor that is). Being the Grand Orge of Eurasia isn't going to get you a grand spot in the people's hearts. And the people's hearts are when politicians need to be... NOT IN THEIR WALLETS!!!!!!! When you start poking at people's thoughts, their expressions and you force frustration to go inward be criminalizing it then you create a situation where implosion is guaranteed and the possible results can not be predicted. What is wrong with a little satire if it keeps people from doing harmful things? What is wrong with being nice and as fair as is possible in the world? Why can't you politicians just let sleeping dogs lie?

I think one of the things that makes me angry about the attempt to police creative expression is that the focus is on something silly like one figure being upset that a meme told the truth or twisted it and made him look bad. Again, if you are going right then there is nothing to worry about. If opinion of oneself dims then one must ask how one contributed instead of crying foul and prosecuting those who call you out on your crap. While this is a focus, very little is being done about the people who are using the internet to commit crimes. Are you aware that a large portion of the worlds scammers and phishing sites are in Russia?

I've run this blog for 7 years (in May). I am naturally creative. When I can not use words or images to process my thoughts and do not have an outlet for my creative energy things get very ugly in my life very quickly. Blogging keeps me occupied for a nominal cost where otherwise I would quite literally die of boredom. The brain stays sharp. The soul stays happy. I stay out of jail or the grave. I also blog to keep my skills as a writer sharp. One day I hope to be a paid writer. I write for the joy of it, but when my body breaks down and I can't work a physically demanding job any more I will need something that I can do to pay my bills. So this is the main blog where that happens. Where I try to keep things fun, fresh, and I work out thoughts that can go into "real" articles latter. Everything in here is mine. It is MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY!

And it has been stolen. Well, cloned is more accurate. If you go to sherola1701.blogspot.ru which should not exist because I did not open and account with Google Russia, you get a message stating that it is a phishing site. Some one in your country, while you are all pouting about how your public figures are being damaged by people's memes, has cloned my blog and is using it to commit a crime. And I do not know how to stop that from happening. So what will you do to curtail this kind of activity? Anything? My guess is probably nothing. Your country will do nothing.

My overwrought mind which had gorged itself on spy and crime dramas is pretty certain that what is happening is a state sponsored thing... like China and Korea spying on US companies using hackers. But this is probably a bunch of Russian wiz kids running these things in a network of cloned blogs and product websites with state sponsorship. The network is probably so vast that no one in the CIA would be able to associate it with the Kremlin. And yes.... that is what I think. I think that you all are a bunch of spoiled brats who take from everyone else and demand the kind of loyalty and worship of rock stars and movie stars for doing things far less beneficial than being entertained and far more egregious than tearing up a hotel room in a drunken haze. And by you all, I mean ALL. There are no such things as borders in this issue. It doesn't matter what country any of you are in. None of you are worth the chads in the voting booth. Not when you let this kind of thing happen.

And yes, You let it happen. Your resources tell those who would visit my blog.ru that they could be phished. Yet you do not take down my blog.ru !!! You can ban anything else in your domain. But you can not kill my cone blog??? I call Bullshit Mr. P. BULLSHIT!!!! Oh, cry about the bad opinion you get from a meme or a slightly disagreeable report in a news paper. But what about me? How many people are getting phished by that clone of my blog and think I am the one doing it? How many red flags are being sent up requiring investigating me when clearly I AM NOT THE ONE DOING IT? But what do I matter? I'm just a single white American female who is too poor to actually own the stereotypical 3.4 cats or her own place to live. Why should anyone care what this phishing clone is doing to my reputation? I am too poor to defend myself legally. And I am too poor in technical know how to fix this myself. So just cast me into the wind! Let KNOWN phishers keep gathering data illegally. Don't do anything about it.

But don't get mad at me either if I think this is state endorsed hacking. If Google Russia knows this is an issue and doesn't kill a clone blog what am I supposed to think?

New Tech: Evernote

I am not entirely certain any more where I heard about Evernote. But what I heard was impressive. Impressive enough for me to download the thing and start working with it. I do like it a lot. It is a cloud computing service. I thought maybe it was just another writing software.... some things do not stand out as obvious to me in the technical world. And that little bit of info was one such thing.

Evernote and its sister app Skitch work in tandem for you to do some web surfing and reporting so for a blogger it is pretty easy to keep things flowing. Of course while I am learning this other things are going to suffer.... the writing of official posts for one. Catching up on e-mail for two.

Evernote promises to make NaNoWriMo better for me this year. As in easy to keep track of what I am doing or not doing as the case may be.

My only concern, as with anything that has to do with the ease of accessibility on the internet given what we know about the NSA, is security. They say that I can lock up certain files so the things don't get stolen. But well......

I don't trust the government to keep my stuff secret. They are so busy handing over our personal information to their corporate friends, how do I know there isn't a back door into Evernote so that anyone with a vested interest in publishing can steal our material as it is being written? Okay. So maybe that isn't happening right now. But that does not mean that it won't. Marketing companies are already 3 thoughts into my head for knowing what to post on my gmail page for ads. So really..... I do not put it past them to sell us out. And it isn't like anyone has to read each and every entry. We live in a world of tags and tag specific searches so all you have to do is look for the key words of the hottest selling genre and put the NSA to work for a publisher to find the next Sherilynn Kenyon or Danielle Steele. Of course.... that is provided any of us who write really know anything about writing. I've seen some pretty wickedly bad things published lately. Grammar is dead apparently.

But aside from the future perfect dystopia I seem to envision lately, Evernote does look like a gem of a service.

By ­°

or earning XP one small discovery at a time


A few days ago someone posted a link to a page full of keyboard short cuts for things like ° and ™. You will be seeing these thing a lot more. One reason is that when things are really trademarks the trademark should be there. In this day and age when everyone wants to scream about fair use and attributions it is just good sense. And it is polite. But as far as the ° goes?

It's in the title. And how many times do I complain about weather and the temperature? I should be using that one. Just the simple fact that I don't have to be a coder geek to use the short cuts is nice. It used to be that you had to have a program that would allow such things. Now you just have to have Windows™ and the right platform for blogging and it's a go.

I feel a bit more empowered by this knowledge. ╪ And here is a random sign just because I felt like using "alt + random numbers" with the numbers lock enabled. I have no idea what it is. It is probably a elemental sign.

Of course with my luck it is the sign to end all signs and somehow a random, out of context keyboard short cut used without consideration to its powerful meaning just opened up the last door to hell.... or let Cerberus of his chain. Well.... if Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett were writing my life that is about how it would go. Most likely I've just done something suspicious enough that the NSA is signaling the MiB for a round-up series of Q&A. *waves at the NSA with a toothy, cheesy grin that would ruin any family photo. I don't give a crap any more. They are going to make enemies out of anyone and everyone so why bother to hide the pain in the ass that is my ass?

And in other techo-phobic news: I've replaced my mouse. I had the purple one for a long time then sat it somewhere and have no idea where the hell it is. So I got another one at Big Lots® today. It is red, wireless, speedier than the 30.00 mouse I bought 4 years ago. And it was 13.00 with the batteries included.... even though the package said they weren't.

This mouse is fast.

It's the little things. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps.

The OCD of Geek

It's one of those Mondays where I should be doing a lot of things to make forward progress. And one of those Mondays when I am not. My house mate should be home preparing for her clarinet performances coming up at the Film Festival. I should be home detailing the basement and setting up the studio to get ready to work on new projects.

Should being the ugly word used here. What is happening is that I am letting her be home to practice alone because when we get together there is too much chatter. We easily distract each other with the frivolousness that is the joy of having a crap load of interests only some of which we actually share. For instance, I would love for her to fall in love with Richard Armitage's work so that I am not the only one here drooling over him. (It's less conspicuous, like blaming a fart on the dog. Of which we have none- dog). It is these kinds of situations that high light just how improbable the situational comedy hijinks of the BBT are: where two or more Geeks are gathered in revelry nothing is accomplished. Physicist schmiysicist! Sheldon would play video games all day long every day if he could always be Batman and we know it!

So I am at my favorite coffee shop trying to teach myself how to do things that I as an artist should not be bothering with... namely buttons on pages. And because I need something totally distracting in the background I threw up the cringe-worthy playlist on Spotify. And I have a euro-dance version of Rock the Cashbah BA-LASTING my ears. I know everyone here thinks I am weird as I am a bouncing bobble-headed version of a pseudo adult sitting here.

Do I care?
No.

Does it bother me that I have heard the same song for the last hour?
No.

Do I think that anyone bored enough with their life to watch me working should suck it up and go get their own lucky rocketship underpants?
Yes.

I'm actually getting a lot done. There must be some information out there about harmonic resonance and how it balances the brain between the two hemispheres and how repeated rhythms put the mind into a trance state. I've breezed through a few of them. I know they are out there. Maybe I don't care how it all works. I just care that it does. And I love the fact that the OCD of Being a Geek doesn't bother me. Embrace who you are and how you are and get to it.

Of course that Go-With-Your-Nature instead of Go-Against-Your-Nature behavior requires a certain lack of self consciousness. It either takes some heavy duty blinders or some sturdy cajones to sit in public at my age and revel in the tunes in your head. But hey! How will your fellow geeks know you if you aren't flying that Geek flag as high as it will go?

It's not like it is a State Funeral or a Papal Audience. It's a friggin coffee shop. But maybe I don't care because I am such a gypsy at heart. Hmmmm..... I wonder if we have Wi-Fi downtown in the parks yet. I would love to be sitting in this breeze in the shade and bobbling to these tunes.

Look Out Blog-O-Sphere!!!!!!!!

I have learned how to do something new.

Not that long ago in normal time, but eons ago in cyber time, Blogger rolled out its new gadgets, tweaks, layouts, and dashboard that were supposed to make the writing life a wonderful life. And I couldn't see a huge improvement in anything but the photo uploader. Thank you IE8 auto spell check, I know "uploader" isn't a word per se. HOWEVER, since this is 3013 and Google makes whatever rules and fake words it wants to when it wants to it would be nice for you to recognize that and not make me have to manually add Googleisms to the dictionary.... though I see that one will have to of course. Where was I?

Oh right... so while I've been on the other site adding pictures and writing about my art and the adventures inherent in long term storage of said works there have been tons TONS of pictures. And every once in a while I will totally overload the system and give it such conniptions that a musical Scrooge would be embarrassed by the shenanigans. The drop down tool bar for editing photos in the post editor will disappear so that I can not resize anything. Or it will make the picture all blue with its highlights and then the menu for text editing will light up like the Mother Ship in Close Encounters. The underline button turns blue. The Link button turns blue. And I don't know what all it means.

Panic. "OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG I can't loose this photo what the hell did you just do!" New Kirk Me says to New Checkov Me. And I say in theeeeeeeeeeee worst Russian accent ever (no disrespect to Yelchin. I suck. He does not.) "I don know Keptin." And then the feeling of inescapable doom sets in. There will be Romulans at the back door. WU-HAT. THEE. HELL?

The last new thing that I learned how to do made me so giddy with excitement that I almost peed. But I put on the grown up pants and went to tell my room mate only to find that she had been gone for hours. So I was forced to extoll my virtues to the three disinterested cats in the house. I believe at least one is the reincarnated Queen Victoria. She is NEVER amused. But this.... oh this thing that I have learned how to do...

Without having to learn to do HTML coding I now can make any word link to any site that I wish it to link to. Just. Like. Wil. And new to the Google task bar in this editor there is a strike out function, you know, for when I really fuck mess something up but kinda want to own it anyway.

Google has taken a lot of crap lately. And with the whole Snowden NSA thing (I know NSA, silence. From ME! Astounding is it not? Don't worry your pretty little loafers over this one though. I'll get to you people eventually) Google is taking a lot of crap for selling out and shafting those of us who use their products. But really.... you have to take the good with the bad. There's a time you have to go and show you're growing up. Being able to object to a principle while using a product as it was intended, to promote YOURSELF and the hard work that you put into things that you got excited about and made, is a grown up thing to do. Little kids get mad and take their toys home. Adults realize all systems are corrupt and learn to live within the system.

If you conscientiously object to everything then you will not participate in the commerce that is the world we live in. If you do that, if you fail to avail yourself of all the tools possible to make your life easier then you have donned the frock of sub-servitude, agreed to be the butler to Mr. Boddy without a means to be better than you ever were just because you don't like how cozy Google or anyone else is with the Powers That Be.

And that is where the PTB want you. If you don't participate they win. They win because they have beaten you and killed your spirit. They've chased you off of a grid that, if you and people who think like you would stay on and ride like a bronco buster, can be reclaimed in true Matrix fashion. You have to be in the Matrix to beat the Matrix. At least that is what I got out of three movies and a couple of over-buttered-popcorn gut aches.

Google give me great tools. And I love them for that. Google is in bed with the sneaky cheeky bastards in our Government and I'd bury it with a stake of Holly in its heart if it had one. But again... take the good take the bad take them both and those are the facts of our modern life.

Until we change it.

I should be asleep but instead I am rattling sabers at things with sharp teeth. Ah the joys of sleep dep.

Open Letter to the Verse

After all the ranting and raving I did on the subject of the stupidity of there being borders in a global economy that technology is able to leap in great cosmic bounds, you, Universe, have heard me. And apparently you agree with me that when information can be shipped via broadband there is no reason to keep the music I like out of my reach. And as an agent for change, Amazon.de has finally figured out how to get me my tunes on time and without the extortionist prices of a third party "collectibles" dealer. There is now, on its way to me, a shipment of Matthias Reim CDs straight outta Deutschland. The much covetted Unverwundbar (less than 8.00 EUR), Die Grosse Weihnachts Party and Hitbox. 

Amazon and my bank now will let me make international purchases. How will taxation work? I don't know. I am waiting to see how that goes before I go overbaord and replace the rest of what was stolen two years ago. Or get new stuff. Though I did pre-order the NEW ALBUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes.

So thank you for listening. Thank you for agreeing. And I am keeping my fingers crossed that no one figures out how to stab me with my own wishes.

Um.... I guess.

It may be that it was time for a change in the blog anyway. Sometimes its the cosmetic changes that make us look a little deeper into what lies at the heart of a thing. It does not always make sense but it is often the case. In this instance, the blog was dated and not as crisp and clean as I would have liked even though I was rather attached to the way it looked. Afterall, my first blog and the first template that I really settled on, there needs to be some kind of continuity to at thing. And I hate it when a blog up and changes its look; makes me think that I went somewhere I didn't mean to be. And it is the first rule of blogging.

Don't make your reader wonder if they got the right house. As much as a constant address, a constant look to your blog tells a reader they are home. I love that about Wil and Michelle's blogs. I know I have the right house and once I get inside I can settle down and enjoy being there for as long as I like. On the other hand; there is something to be said for change.

Blogger keeps developing these tools and creating more layouts to appeal to a wider variety of writer so that the community will grow. And if anyone would know the cardinal and veneal rules of blogging it would be Blogger. So why create a new template and change the basic services so that you can't keep your old blog's look, or get back to the old look if you mess up or change your mind, if that rule is so sacrosanct? Exactly.

So the key is balance. I'll try not to change templates as often as I change necklaces no matter how cool the thing looks. I may swap out some colors for the sake of readability. But I won't know that needs to happen until I start writing nd find out what annoys the crap out of me.

Hope you guys are having a gret time writing your own blogs and remembering to keep your pleasures simple and frequent. For myself I am thinking that this weekend (weekend for me) is going to be the time to really dig into the sand and get some good vibes running through me. I've got to think fast and think well.

Macaroons!!!

OMG! I warned you that I was going to ad a monetization feature. I should have headed my own warnings. The first ad they send me is for macaroons like the ones I saw on unwrapped! Oy and double veh! I love macaroons. How can you not love coconutty goodness?!?!?!

It's one of those simple foodie things I want to make but that unreasonably scares me to death. And now I get to look at this ad?

And what kind of macaroon do I have to be to decide to enable a new edit feature for my blog? I was barely used to the old one. Techonophobe trembles.

So here is the post testing new edit feature.

Anthropomorphize much???

In the middle of another ordinary day doing laundry for an upscale new hotel in town things were going as they do. Load washer. Select cycle. Select setting. Hit start. I've done this so many times that I don't even consciously make the selections any more. I don't even think about the process. And I don't look. As a matter of fact I don't even wait to see the water shoot out of the nozzle before walking away from the machine to go fold what is already dry; I listen for the hissing.

Load washer. Select cycle. Select Setting. Hit Start. Hiss. No Hiss.

ME: where's the hiss?

I turn back, cuss, flip off the inanimate objects and hit start again. It beeps its own expletive as a lazy hourglass icon does laps. Abort Cycle.
Hit Stop. Unlock. Crank on the latch. Open Hatch. Screen auto clears and I close the hatch. Latch the hatch. Hit start. Nothing.

ME: What the Fuck now?

Upon closer inspection I see that the cycle has, in fact, started. The countdown began. The symbols for those of you who read only sanskrit at home indicates that water is filling the machine. But there is no water.

ME: Grrr....

Stop. Unlock. Crank. Open. Reset. Close. Lock. Start. Nothing.

ME: Is there a delay that I wasn't paying attention to?

So I give it a minute or two. The machine rocks a 1/4 turn without any water. Now I know that it isn't me. But what is the deal? While I am thinking, I futility go through the process again. We'd just replaced a microprocessor in the other machine so maybe it is a hitch in this one's giddy-up. Or it could be the the lazy icon meant something that I should have been paying attention to and didn't because I assumed it was just being the prissy little bitch that it likes to be once in a while and got mad about me accidentally punching too many buttons... you know because it likes to believe that I do that on purpose cause I'm not allowed to make mistakes as a human being. I start the process again.

ME: Maybe there's no water.

I check the couplings, make sure the water valve behind the machine is on, put my hands on my hips while stroking my beardless chin.

ME: Of course there is water. Someone would have told you if there was no water you dolt. What are you doing wrong? C'mon, MacGyver, you can figure this out.

I go fold some laundry for a while trying to puzzle out what happened. I have been known to make machinery nervous. But it's been nearly a year. How could this kind of problem happen suddenly? And how could I forget, consciously or subconsciously, how to run these machines? There has to be a reason. But maybe I should call Dave anyway.

OTHER ME: Yeah and the second he hits the start button it'll work and you'll look like a bigger idiot than you do now, talkin' to yourself and flippin' off the machinery. You'll turn all red. He'll mention your blond and then he'll say something about being smarter than the equipment you're working with.

ME: And I'll have to bruise his shins. I am not calling Dave.

One more time. Check settings. Hit start. Nothing.

ME: G** D*** S ofa F****** B Why the F*** can't this stupid S ofa B**** POS do what it is supposed to????

OTHER ME: So call him.

ME: And what if its nothing? I waste his time and he gets pissy.

OTHER ME: Chicken.

ME: I Can FIGURE THIS OUT!!!!!!!

OTHER ME: You're no Wesley Crusher.

ME: Shut up.

I try the process one more time. I quote Cyrano Jones: "Twice nothing is still nothing".*

OTHER ME: That's more than twice.

ME: Shut the fuck up.

Dejected, I walk over to the desk and phone the front desk.

ME: Will you have Dave pop back to laundry when you see him?

FD: Sure.

Enter JODI: Hey, Dave says there's no water.

So I didn't break it.
I'm not stupid. Not entirely anyway.
So can we define more clearly the terms of NEED 2 KNOW BASIS?????????
[headdesk]



*Cyrano Jones, Intergallactic trader with a rap sheet the size of the Kessel Run from ST OS episode "The Trouble with Tribbles." I have to entertain myself because no one else at work is going to get these references... kinda like how I hear the typewriter *DING!* whenever I hit ENTER while in a writing frenzy.

technofrustration

One day Media Player will open when I download Memories of the Futurecast episodes and then not replay them because they are on the internet at I tunes... even though I have downloaded them already from Wilw's site. Then the next day I download a podcast I have to save it to a folder without the benefit of Media Player for no other reason than....
stars misaligned?
my magic Wesley Crusher fix it thingy is broke?
the computer hates me?
Rodney McKay highjacked my computer to fix a DHD on some forsake our old gods planet?
My 'puter thinks its a Hal9000 and acts like a Commodore 64?
the nanites got out of the lab?
God hates me?
The Fates like laughing at technophobic geeks?
someone on Alpha Ceti left the lights on 15million years ago and it caused anomolies on Earth now? [yeah you get the tenses right when dealing with the fluidity of time/space. I dare you. I double dog dare you!]
My futureself hasn't educated present self on properly setting up media player?
Microsoft is pissed that I'm not using Windows whateverthehellversionexistsinthistime/space?
It is a karmic test for which there is no right/wrong yin/yang answer?
the 'puter doesn't like the feng of my shui?
Somebody's borrogroves are all mimsy?
did someone kill an Enchanted Bunny with a rock? Frelling Moonpie!
what?

WHY CAN'T IT WORK THE SAME WAY EVERY TIME I WANT TO FRAKKING DOWNLOAD A HARMLESS BUT ENTERTAINING PODCAST IN HONOR OF ALL GEEKDOM????????????

Oh wait. It's because Sheldon Cooper is superior to me in always* and Microsoft likes to prove it at every turn. Stupid Moonpie!!!!!

*I do see what I did there and I'm leaving it that way on purpose.

technophobe to engineering, come in LaForge

1.14.2009
I can see myself becoming addicted to being at home again if I keep this up. As I write, I am warming my toes after an arduous trek through the impassable driveway with 50 pounds of storage gear. The sun is out (ironic isn't it?) chickadees are twittering in the giant blue spruce while I am tucked into bed to stave off illness. My writing desk holds a box of Cheez-its, my mango peach fuse and a host of material I am supposed to be transcribing. I can also fit a remote caddy in the lapdesk. The remotes opperate the radio and the ceramic heater. It holds the cell phone as well. And at this vantage (broadcasting14.25 inches high above the bustling metropolis of dustbunnydom) I can see outside and know when the mailman, the plow guy and the men in white coats are coming. I'm freezing and I can't feel my heels, but I have the world at my fingertips.
Flippant as I am, I have to say that I am thankful to have somewhere to live even though it is so far from perfect as to need to be condemned. And while I am not satisfied to have to be scrambling to pay my bills and constantly on the brink of total ruin, I have to find moments of pure happiness. A few moments given ones self in bliss restores the vital energy required to look another bleak day in the face. Anyone who would deny his or her fellow human being any gift of restorative power should be ashamed of themselves.