1: And tell me, who can’t resist That - Big Eyed Art. It’s so sad and whiny, spinless and decrepid - oohh awful ly for such big words, I need to go lay down now.

2: This is the funniest damn thing I have seen in a long time. A cool & crappy flash animation about Todd’s days as a laid off dot commer.

3: Anyone know why my posts keep changing text sizes? ANNOYING, only done this since I re-did the template so the archives looked better. Now it’s like every other post is large … weird…

I’ve been to Vegas four times, was married there. Didn’t really want to get married there, but he did. So I made him plan it. I wanted an Elvis impersonator, I got shot own as they are expensive.

Now he wants to go again. He being my husband, he’s been there six times now, including just last November when he went for Comdex. He wants to take a vacation and Vegas prices are dirt cheap right now, so of course its the only option on the plate, his option. Any places I mention get shot down, then he goes and pouts because “you don’t’ want want to go, fine, but I dont want a vacation where we’re driving around everywhere.”

I want to go to Seattle, NYC, DC, Florida. I wanna see the Coral Castle in Florida, I’ve never been to Florida, I’m a sorry excuse for a Ohioan. I just want to go ANYWHERE else. I’ve seen Vegas. It’s fun, we eat FANTASTIC at the 5-star places while we are there, but… I’ve seen it all already. (see our last trip?)

We’ve had this tussle for a few years now, I’ve been there, I don’t mind going every few ys, but EVERY Y? Sometimes TWICE a y? Come on.

He likes going because he likes the Vegas, and if I so much as roll my eyes at the prospect I get him in a pissy mood for 3 days.

We were talking Florida, then all of a sudden he comes home with a Nevada map, now It’s Vegas. And I’m going to have to go to make him feel better, because he hates going alone. And I’m going to have to act like I like it too otherwise he’ll get pissy there.

I want to get a car and GET OUT of Vegas, one of the last times we spent three days doing ghost towns and stuff, that was cool, saw Death Valley and junk, which he sees it as “us just driving everywhere is not relaxing”. I can’t see walking endless miles through busy streets and crowded casino and sitting on butt wing table chairs relaxing. I don’t want to get in a swimsuit for one, I’m the size of a house, and two, I can’t be in the sun since I had almost a killer sunburn a few years back and nly got sun poisoning, I was in pain for a week solid. So he whines about that too, “Oh you never will go to the pools there.” No, I will but they better damn well have shade.

I suggested Reno or Tahoe, Just for a change of pace, Shot down. Denied. Now If I even MENTION s a place he gets all huffy. Damn. I am really sick of Vegas.

I’m a museum person, My trip to Germany (which may be without him at this point, he keeps promising me “you get to pick the next trip” but then keep s slipping trips to Vegas in under my nose and eats up any money we had saved.) I want to go to DC and see the Smithsonian, last time we went we barely got to scratch the surface. In Germany my main thing to visit is museums I have a few backstage passes essentially to get and go touch some medieval beadwork, stuff I’ve only ever seen in books.

But no, he wants to go to Vegas and I’m not allowed to even MENTION other options. So people, tell me what Do I suggest ewe do while we are there thats different?

We’ve seen BlueMan Group twice, and loved it because theres no way not to, it’s faboo, but wanna see another show. We’ve eaten at a host of 5-star, including TWO Emeril’s. We don’t do roller coasters… all we do every time is sit at the roulette table (we love roulette) and walk, walk, walk, and eat, eat, eat. (He s a THREE meal a day person, by the end of the week we eat so often I have bagels two meals of the day, I’m just so SICK of food three days into it.)

He wants to do a cruise, I hear if you are bigger than Christina Aquilera it’s hard to get around. I’m not looking forward to just sailing around and not get to actually SEE anything since my ass is stuck in a room the size of a closet.

I think I’m doomed to a life of separate Vacations. Sigh.

And I wince every single time I see it used - especially online. (Do you really think you are fooling anyone into thinking it’s ‘handwritten’? on your webpage?) It was a tacky font when it was new. If you use it in all caps like shown, you should automatically be eligible for random knee cappings with a meat mallet.

And so should everyone. Evil nasty awful font! Ewww! Ewww! I don’t think I need to write too much to convince anyone of that. Do I? I hope not, this font doesn’t deserve anymore attention.

I went to one of my medieval gatherings this weekend. One of the merchants I know who used to “play” around here who has been begging me for ever to let her braid my hair. In the real world she’s a programmer, but she runs a hair braiding booth at these things cause it’s fun, she does great work. She does it for weddings and stuff and her work is really pretty and she’s booked solid the whole day usually but she was open that second, so, I was bored, and said sure.

I never do ANYTHING to my hair and I was sort to intersted to see how it looked. I haven’t done anything but worn it long or flopped up in a quasi-ponytail bun thing for over 7 years. I know I’m a creature of ease and habit. I hadn’t had m hair braided since I was like 10 when I had cut my hair short.

I have naturally curly, coarse, light red hair that falls into ringlets - the stuff people pay big bucks to get, I get naturally. It’s a pain in the butt though. If I do anything to it when dry it turns into a late 1970’s porno afro. So, I barely comb it, and when I do it’s only if it’s sopping wet in the shower.

So, it was nice that I got a lot of compliments saying how great it looked with my viking garb, and I have to say it did look rather Scandinavian. I took down the buns that night but still have the braids but they are getting kinda shaggy from sleeping on them so I put on a kerchief thing to hide the frizzies and with the braids out the bottom just have this “Helga the German Shot Putter” look.

Helga’s going back to Germany, the braids are coming out, I dunno if I’ll put them back in or not. For me it seems to be
too much trouble, so prolly back to the same old thing. It was nice for a change though. (sorry I don’t have pictures)

Followup - I just realized that it didn’t look too much different than the picture of the Opera lady below - just red braids instead of blonde - No hat like that though. hehehe.

St. Elvis of Presely

Last week, we just began exploring the world of country music “legend” Red Sovine with a tale so morose it could even twist ts out of even the coldest of ice queens, Martha Stewart.

In this week’s episode, Red tells us all about the time the King played on the back of his flat bed truck in a beam of heavenly light to a crowd of convenient weeping thousands. It’s practically an oral version of a velvet Elvis painting. (this one is for you Robin!) I even think the sound of him choking up at the end could be real. Git’ yer box of Kleenex, and cry the a river for da’ King.

AB hates Blox and proudly declares why this font is worth hating:
“Yes…Blox. I actually used to like Blox for its sort of clumsy hey-ho jollity…until I started seeing it EVERYWHERE. I even saw it on a STD prevention poster. Now I never want to see it again. Damn you, Blox!”

From Smattering:

1. Hey, baby, what’s your sign? Do you think it fits you pretty well?
Leo. GRRRRRRR! Yeah, I’m a solid, Leo, born in the middle of the sign onthe 9th, don’t get more Leo than me. I even have the hair.

2. What’s the worst birthday gift you’ve ever received?
Uhm… Pink anything.

3. What’s the best birthday gift you’ve ever received?
Birthday.. Hrmmm.. best XMAS was a rare $300 medieval embroidery book I”ve wanted for years. (I love you Johnny!)

4. What’s the best way you’ve celebrated your birthday thus far?
It is always up against a major thing my friends and I go to, so usually I’m not even home, and niether are they and it kinda gets ignored. One year in 8 or so I have a birthday when it doesn’t fall in the same week.

5. What are your plans for this weekend?
Uhm, doing my medieval thang this weekend. Yup, I’m a weirdo. Ten years and counting.

This post is for Susan:

As many local readers know, Cincinati has a Dangerous Fugitive Cow. And of course the whiny butts have hailed the standard cry “Won’t someone think of the children?”

I love this quote and I’m using her name as she’s an idiot…
“The disapping act concerns community members, many of whom worry about the safety of children.

“It could eat someone up,” exclaimed Sophia Melnyk.”

Now, granted I’m a city kid (as city as living five minutes or less from a mall my entire life gets), but in Ohio you’re never TOO far from cows. My grandpa lived in 10 minutes up the road in farm country and we were out there alot. I went to a Young’s Jersey Dairy all the time, all my life since it was THE locals late night hangout and they had food and homemade ice cream.

They had cows all over the place you can tour the barns and smack them on the butt if want, they don’t care. So, while not a cow “expert” I have been around alot of them, I have never in my LIFE ever hd of a cow biting anyone. EVER. Country fairs, calf scrambles, rodeos, 4-H shows… NEVER SEEN A COW EAT, BITE, NIBBLE, LICK, NUZZLE OR EVEN SO MUCH AS SNIFF ANYONE. EVER. Heck I’m not sure they even notice your’e there if you don’t have hay in your hand.

Cows are pretty much, well, simple… hangout, shuffle, sleep, poop, moo. They have a simple life. They need simple things. They don’t usually fall into bloodlust or go taste testing children. Come on! It’s acow, the worst thing it might do is walk into traffic. It’s a COW. Come on, woman dont make me look up your phone number and laugh at you.

RUN COW RUN! Head for the Golden poppied pastures of Cowtopia!

Red Sovine - trucker, ballader… manic depressive.

I’ve recently been reminded of the “songs” of Red Sovine, (more of trucker’s country rap really). All of them seriously messed up and makes you wonder if old Red required serious pyschoanalysis.

Most of Red’s songs fit into at LEAST one of these themes:

1 - Trucking, or big hted truckers
2 - Children, without one - or both - parents (usually big eyed boys)
3 - Crippled Kids (maimed, blind, or just plain gimpy)
4 - Christmas songs (so sappy and DEPRESSING they to make you want to turn Jewish.)
5 - Death or dead people

Now let’s get to some fun! It may be WAY too ly for Christmas, but to put them up AT Christmastime would be cruel, and cause a rise of holiday suicides.

In the first of this series of seriously twisted songs; Red sings about a runaway, starving, half naked, abused, keylatched boy dying on a street side santa’s lap. Not kidding.

There are a great many fonts I despise but must keep around for some rare instance I have some lameoid client who HAS TO has thier website done in Bembo so it matches all thier circa 1970’s letterhead.

When I was in Middle school, Mom brought home a BOX of press-type from her NPR station - what’s that? I’m barely old enough to remember it myself.

It was the old this plastic type printed in reverse on plastic sheets that you rubbed off onto paper with a ’stylus’ - or basically a ball bing on a stick. It was the way you did it before computers, but only slightly after the hot lead blocks and blood of a dead witch. Well, the plastic sheets weren’t good forever, you had to keep them covered, and happy or the type could crack and flake off easily. It wasn’t a great way to do type, but it was better than hand drawing it. And that what I had, a big box of grody, used up, mangled, and flaky “presstype”. I was in heaven.

I must have played with those font sheets for years. And I mean well into high school. Even as a kid I used to play with letters and faces drawing lettes over an over again.. I even saved the used up sheets because I could still see faint impressions of the letters on the plastic still. I really think I was born to be a designer. I was meant to do this. Anyway, by the time I got to design school I knew ALOT of faces. Optima, Eurostyle, Microgramma - all the gross 80’s classics - I forget them all now… And one I hated even then… One so hideous I even threw those precious sheets away…

That’s why it’s my first… HATED EVIL FONT OF THE WEEK! I might do more than one a week. So many ugly fonts so little time!

Which fonts do you hate? Send me a gif of it (format: “your name hates “font name” and I’ll post them!

Went out last night for dinner and on the way in passed this 40-45 year old woman. Does anyone else notice that it seems once some women seem to get rid of the kids and start menopause they seem to reverse gender? Short hair, smart but butch clothes, little glasses… I see it enough its gets me thinking. Are they trying to redefine themselves? Are they trying to simplify? Long hair is allot of work, and most of the time mine is a mess from being tied back all time, but I don’t know I want to crop I all off for the sheer fact I WILL look like a lesbian.

Up entirely too late sending my pal Broom evil sappy online greeting cards to make him less sad and back to his old evil self again. Broom being evil is good, honest.

Found this spiffy place, what can be funnier than monkeys in war bonnets? Nothing I say. I have a new favorite site this week. Watch out Broom.

At least for now and not without the patient help of ric. Thanks dude. never coulda’ done it without ya!

I have been having some second thoughts on the blog being in the main directory so I might move it all to it’s own to not make my site folder a mess of archive files eventually, but I’ll leave a note up here when, and if, I do and let all you folks who link me know first. So let me know that you link me, thanks!

This week looks AWESOME. If you aren’t watching the show you’re a big loser! I stop breathing for a hour every week, and it’s the reason why. It’s just fabulous. But then I like drama’s with long arc story lines. You HAVE to watch every ep, you can’t miss one. You do and you’re screwed. I like that! This show should turn Keifer’s career around, he’s jus brilliant in it. And a real hottie still.

Fox’s wepage has an awesome site for it, breakdown minute by minute of each episode, but it’s too late to catch up. I’m only hoping they will rerun it whole in sumer so all you late bloomers can hop on the train.

As you can tell alot mf my posts are abotu TV, I watch alot. I have the G4 Powerbook in the livingroom and the office has a tv on the dish too so i am always online and in front of the tube. There is some great stuff on TV anymore (not in daytime tho) why not watch it?

If you watch 24, let me know, I need people I can scream with.

Sometimes the news is funnier than fiction, there is an
escaped cow still on the loose. Jumped a six foot fence at a slaughterhouse and escaped, not lying.

I tell ya, I can’t make this stuff up.

Watching something about the new Kevin Costner movie Dragonfly, looks vaguely interesting. More so now that I see that he niether produced or directed it. Has potential for that at least.

If anyone sees it, let me know if it sucks or not. I dont trust real movie reviewers. They made me interested in “A.I.” - God, that was three hours of my life sucked away. Team that movie with “What Dreams May Come” and you have a suicide inducing double feature. Avoid them both at the rental shops. Eww. Makes me wanna slash my wrists to think back on them.

But maybe the Kevin Costner new one won’t suck. Maybe. Costner has done enough bad stuff (The Postman, Waterworld… etc… to near my wary caution. I think it could be interesting, maybe.

On movie talk, Ice Age is something I’ve even waiting for since November, all the trailiers on Apple’s site are AWESOME! And I’m looking forward big time to Spiderman. BIG TIME. Spidey rules! Spidey Rules!

HIGH SPEED BLAMED FOR CRASH ON 275
Police say the man killed in the wreck that tied up traffic on I-275 yesterday was driving 150 miles per hour. 23 y-old Richard Harley was killed when his Trans Am went across the median and slammed into a semi hauling sulfuric acid. A passenger in Harley’s car, and people in 6 other cars involved in the crash had to be pulled from their cars by rescue workers. No word on how severe the injuries are. 275 was shut down in both directions for 6 hours while the wreck was cleaned up last night.

150 miles per hour? Sulfuric acid? I submit this to stupidest driver ever.

Another satisfied customer, the sample design was a big hit. Final design resented at 4am EST. I’ll get final approval any minute now. I love being able to take NOTHING but a site map and be a virtual pixel wizard and concoct something out of thin air that redefines a company in a whole new way. It’s not anything for a musuem, but then it’s not exactly art either. Nor am I an artist.

I despise the label “artist”. Or “graphic artist”. I get it alot too, which is annoying. To me a artist creates things that last, that endure. Paintings, drawings endure. Sculpture endures. Artists do not create disposable art. Designers do, I’m just fine with being a designer.

I design websites, or print sometimes, these things are disposable, easily changed or discarded like a Whopper wrapper.

You can love the work you do, but you can’t be in love with your work. It might not live more than a few months. It’s not going to change the world, or open eyes. And that’s OK. Design is temporary. And that’s good. If it didn’t I’d be working at Wendy’s and we’d all have ugly things.

(*= Challenge : Name that quote!)

I love Mr Cranky, he’s sooooo well, cranky. He also writes the best movie reviews. Here Mr. Cranky rates Collateral Damage

In case you are wondering about the TNT rating… the index page explains… “ So godawful that it ruptured the very fabric of space and time with the sheer overpowering force of its mediocrity.”

:::Sniff, sniff::: That’s sooo beautiful!

My favorite still is his review of Battlefield Earth

I haven’t been having luck with these quix do hickies. So I retook this one on principle…Now this sounds more like me…

“Wowie! You are Tfu Tfu! You’re the odd one out, there are few places you fit in. Others don’t understand you very well and tend to treat you indifferently and take you for granted. But then again, you don’t really give a damn about them anyway.” (link stolen from Flowerhead.com - I keep messing my tags up)