Okay I’ve been calling around AT&T and Sprint and the like looking for a new plan. Looking for non-cable options for all inclusive unlimited local/LD phone plans for Ohio. If you know of one under $50 let me know. Hubby does’nt want to go the Vonage route, but our plan recently got sold to some Alabama idiots and it went up $20 month… we’re outta there.

How to torture a prospective customer (me):
AT&T plays chamber music on hold. NOT some sweeping orchestral symphony - FREAKING CHAMBER MUSIC! Someone kill me! AGHHHH!

Now there is a line of “Quality Apparel Dedicated to the Christian Faith”. They even have a line so you can mark your place on the “Presidential Prayer Team”.

I suppose at less than 30% of the populace behind him, President Stimpy McWillikers could use all the prayers he could get, heh.

If you click you can see where I was sitting… It’s that chair pulled out at the back on the left side. (If you were there I was the fat chic dressed like an apple store employee, I got asked several times if I worked for Apple. I didn’t really know they wore tan pants, just what I pulled out of the dresser.) My offical black Apple employee shirts I got off ebay are just about the most comfy shirts I own.

The conference was really good. Bert Monroy is a digital da vinci with his realism. Some of his tips were so hand to the head “why didn’t I know that!” duh simple, others were more complex just that you never though of doing it THAT way. Some of them just make my head hurt in a good way. I went to learn more about alpha channels and came back with a lot more than that. I plan on spending the day on Photoshop with my workbook from the class just to make it all sink in.

I was rather bewildered at how many folks seemed learn the most basic photoshop functions like layers at the seminar. The lady next to me was taking notes like nuts over what I think is Photoshop grade school level stuff. Some of the questions asked like “show us how to se the pen tool” were shocking. I mean, shit folks, the pen tool is nearly the same thing as in illustrator, and basiclaly the same idea as any other vector drawing application. You should know that before going in there. I was also disgusted that 80% of the audience was PC. The teacher was a mac guy so the PC guys had to adapt to his mac commands, ha!

They should have a “knowledge level” list list assigned for these conferences so everyone walks in with a similar skill set. “Know how to use pen, layers, and layer styles”

But all said WELL worth the $99 I paid (make that $111 aafter the parking fees!)

Highlight leaving was that the convention center was also being rented for it’s yearly Memorial day weekend 3 day long scifi con called Marcon. It’s one of the larger ones in the midwest.

(When they had good guests I even used to go to it, I’m still occasionally remembered for my Rainman like performace a a Babylon 5 “Jeopardy”-style trivia game show they where running in one room and where I happened to get pic, but that’s another story. They are run by scifi book guys, who look down on the TV fans, so no more good guests just boring writing seminars and author guests. There’s a caste system in scifi, don’t cha know.)

Imagine 200 design geeks in a walking horde passing through a few dozen early bird geeks checking into the Marcon Friday-prereg line. The fat pudgy one in bad fitting t-shirts and thick glasses and holding a staff while wearing a blue velvet cape. The overweight female elf in harem pants, panty hose and clothe hanger eings and covered in boddy glitter. Oh and lest we forget The “fandom famous” Luke Ski “filk” singer doing a tune in the corridor about being eaten by orcs… I was laughing the entire way at the clashing of my worlds. Little did those designers know how packed that area would be the next day. Just crawling with hundreds of them.

Anyway, that night Mr Man came home from Vegas. I went to a SCA event for Saturday afternoon that was in town and skipped the second day of it Sunday (Crown Tourney, whoo freaking hoo.) to stay home with the man and nap in air conditioned comfort. Monday too. Have I said recently how spectacularily comfy my bed is? Oh yeah it is. Way.

With IKEA opening in Detroit I’ve been getting calls from all kinds of reporters the last couple weeks looking for quotes to fill up articels about the opening. (Seems OHIKEA comes up very high on most search engines when searching for IKEA, muhahah!) The latest is the Cincinnati Enquirer in this article and in these shopping tips which I assume was a inset in the article itself.

I’ve also talked to a Detroit newspaper or two, but can’t remember who, if anyone knows, drop me a line.

Friends fans will reconize the post title as that of one of the Freind’s eps where Ross whitens his teeth and they are so bright white they blind people.

I watch a lot of Spike TV during the day (thanks to Dave and him getting me hooked into watching Star Trek and DS9 in the afternoons, that bastard) so I don’t know if it’s showing anywhere else, but there is a Buy.com commerical running.

A previous one had the owner on the office building and you panned up to him as he sang the praises of his company’s products (and I have to say I’ve bought a lot from them over the years… but this new one is more IN the building and well, he has baked himself in a tanning bed and sadly, gotten Ross teeth.

I should be the last person to speak on tooth whiteness, but it’s going too far, your teeth should not be whiter than your eyes. If your teeth are so white your eyes look beige, they are too white. And this guy’s were.

Buh.

Worst clown ever…

But wait, there’s more… I don’t know what else to say… I’m just scared.

Use firefox? These links will give you some wonderous hacks that add amazing Flickr functionality and hacks you will wonder how you lived without them.

All you need to do it install Greasemonkey , restart, then go here. Click the links to the script you want. For each you’ll go to a new screen and along the stop of the screen in something that looks like a popup alert but it will ask if you want to install it. Say yes! When you are all done, restart Firefox.

Best of all if you ever want the old ways back you just go to the smiling monkey at the bottom of the broswer window, click him and they all go off. Right click him and you can enable/disable on the fly the ones that are active for that particular page (just reload the page to get it old school). Go to the edit menu to edit or turn off any of the installed ones.

I will say that the “group organizer script is fabulous for us grou junies - but almost invisible . It makes the • next to the group names into a kill switch. Just double click the • to quit the group, and hit return button for the pop-down verification. Very fast way to quit a crapload of groups.

If you can’t figure out what a particular script does, go to edit and view the code, the upper part of the script usually explains how to work it or what it does.

It’s very easy I swear! If I can do it, and I’m not a huge hack junkie, anyone can. I’ve installed nearly all of them and they kick much butt.

You can thank me later.

Global warming my ass! The last month or so has been remarkably mild in Ohio. I dont think it’s gotten over 75 - most the time it’s been hovering around the 65 mark, sunny and clear and remarkably low humidity. Nights we’ve actuallly had frost! They got down to 40 last week.

Normally this time of year 70 would be the low temperature and I woudl have fired up the A/C a few times to move some air out of here. June usually is in the 80’s pretty early on, if not higher, then the rest of summer it’s hot and humid until September.

I have the huge front windows, as well as others, open nearly all day anymore, it’s been nice.

(Ginevra you have the BEST weather fore moving I’ve ever seen.)

Dear Gary,

I love you dog, you are my little spunky boy, but….

WHAT THE HELL do you have against me working in my office now? HUH? If I am in the livingroom goofing off you lay in bed all day and sleep like a lump. If I DARE go to the office to actually DO something you immediatly hop out of bed and bark your ass off to come in, then out, then in , then out. And If I ignore you you just bark until I end up screaming at you. Little bastard.

I’m sorry I ever taught you to bark to go out to begin with.

Jen
Your owner at the end of her rope.

Mr Man is in Vegas right now. Left Saturday, back Friday. While he’s gone I plan on catching up on sewing costumes for the SCA, I can make a huge mess and sew all day which is how I like it. I’ll be online when Im not sewing (and even if I am) I have the IM up, so If anyone is bored, pull me up on IM and chat me up. I’m pretty bored and usually online.

aim: dsignfunk
msn: jen@verybigdesign.com
yahoo: jengrizel

(If I dont’ answer after a couple minutes I’m likely sleeping or at the sewing machine, but will be back before too long. So don’t be a stranger, say hi! I’ll answer when I come back!)

My brother passed on this:

Inforomation Interactive - You’ll blow an hour of your life going deeper and deeper into the photo, and be fine with it.

Video Funtime:
There are lots of these movie mashups where you take a classic movie and do a video and edit it to look completly different genre, this one is I think the best so far.

This guy is one heck of a video editor.

The hateful asses who brought you “god hates fags” and other lovely thoughts like protests at funerals have made a lame disgusting and bad rip off of JibJab to spout thier evil hateful crap. I only link it becasue it’s so astounding that living human beings made it. If anyone needs a killin’, it’s these guys. It’s offensive, in so many ways. There’s no one they don’t seem to hate.

This is a dupe post from my other Blog, OHIKEA.com, the blog dedicated to rumor mongering a possible about IKEA in Ohio… I know I have Ohians and IKEA fans over here so it deserves a reprint:

I just got a call from the Columbus Dispatch, they want to write an article about US - OHIKEA and YOU - going to the new IKEA in Canton Michigan (opens June 7th). It’ll be about what IKEA is, and what having one means for the area its in (tax money and tourism) as well as what it’s like to shop there, and what’s so special about it. This is a great chance to tell all those Ohio muncipalities that may have been, or might yet be, approached about a possible IKEA to know what an impact and passion the store will have for them. Show them what kind of positive fanactics IKEA has, and they lengths they’ll go to get a nice looking endtable.

Now, the first two weeks are going to be NUTS, and the weekends for years afterwill be too, but what the hell. Let’s do it. Let’s set a date.

I am just gonna set an arbitrary date of Saturday June 24th, 2006.

We’ll all drive up to the Motor City, meet out front of the store bright and early at a certain time and all go upstairs and get some meatballs inside together and shop our butts off. All those in tell me so in the comments, be sure to leave a working email so I can get back with you on details and to get phone numbers.

So - Who’s in? Nows the time!

Anyone in Cinci/Dayton is welcome to join in my caravan. For those wnating to drive up Friday night keep an eye out here I’ll do some research on the closest/cheapest hotel to the store and post it - but Saturday will be IKEA DAY.

Don’t forget to buy your shirts and bumper stickers!

Please comment over here if you wish to join in the fun!

Mark the date ya’ll, those that are long time readedrs know I NEVER show pictures of myself (this would be the first). This one is decent. It has a good bit of photoshop work, but not overly so. Tilt and coloration, but most of the work was darkening shadows and brightening highlights… Okay I removed a bag under my eye and highlighted the curls bit. The orginal pic is out of focus and the color is over saturated and was takedn in my bathroom, heh.

Overall, I look far less fat ugly crone I actually am.

Flickr has gone Gamma and changes are hard to miss if you are a Flickrati. I’m a little miffed at the loss of the Tags link, but I’ll get used to it, it’s still there just in a drop down. Everything in dropdowns now.

It will be a bit of an adustment, but already I love the new Organizr. It’s way faster, easier to use, more adaptable and you can find photos without tags or not in a set. I love that. It seems a vast improvement.

Kudos, at least partially, all around.

So having strawberry red/blonde curly hair my increasing grey ones are less noticeable, but I am noticing them. Top that with I seem to be getting a stripe between my right temple and eye. I think it has the potential to look cool, I mean if I have to go grey a stripe is a cool way to do it - but at the same time it’s making me feel really old. (I also get white hairs in my eyebrow on the same line)

I tend to color my hair in the summer not because of covering any grey but because curly hair likes being colored and it behaves WAY better in the heat and humidity. (It’s hard to explain but it’s like mositure spackling up all the cracks… Normally (and boringly enough) I usually have the hairdresser dye it something nearly the same color as it is naturally that just fades away over 6 weeks so I dont have to keep it up. But this time I was thinking of going darker. But what? Darker red? More brunette? (Mom is brunette and I always wanted to be… but nooooo, I got Dad’s genes.) A few of you out there actually have met me, you tell me… No odd colors, I might be a designer but even I have limits of normality I don’t like to test.

I am certainly far from health concious but even this make me kinda shudder. Just saw a commercial for KFC for what has to be the laziest meal option ever.

Bascially it’s a bowl of chicken dinner… Mashed potatos and piled on with corn and fried chicken nuggets, and topped with gravy and three cheeses.

< homer>Mmmm, gravy and cheeeeeese…. < /homer>

Sam & Max are back! YAY!

I used to play that game for hours. I still think of it every time I see a pecan log at a gas station. It was so damn funny.

I’m SO there. (Being I can run it on this 8 year old mac)

Original scene cut from teh first Star Wars, no joke.

“This is a rare deleted scene from “tar Wars: A New Hope”. When Luke sees the Star Distroyer attacking Leia’s ship high above the planet he races off to Anchorhead to tell his friends. When he arrives he finds his best friend Biggs is back for a visit. The two reconnect and Biggs tells Luke he’s going off to join the rebellion. After this scene Luke goes home and helps his Uncle buy two new droids to replace the one that broke down at the beginning of this deleted sequence.”

The first scene is crap, but after it’s color and not too bad! Pretty neat gap filler explaining why Luke was SO happy to see Biggs. and I like the Luke in it, he’s far less whiny that what stayed off the cutting room floor, but his friends still treat him like the little prat we all know him to be, heh.

A clip I’ve NEVER seen from Robot Chicken, so I wonder if it’s new: Darth calls the Emperor

(Star Wars geeks you shouldn’t eat or drink during this - trust me.)

Attention TV producers,

Shockingly enough, most of the country does not live in Lousiville Kentucky. And of those who do a fraction of a low percent go to the race. Therefore the yearly three day fest of pre-Kentucky Derby fashion segments showing me what kind of Ascot-worthy hats we should be looking for doens’t really apply to anyone. Normal people don’t care much about the race, let alone throw “churchill downs” partie or dress for the occasion. Fewer have actually HAD a Mint Julep and aren’t likely to want one, but I bet after all these years a good portion have a idea how to make one from all the repeated morning shows.

(Add a couple tablesppons of sugar to the bottom of a tall glass and put in several mint leaves, Mash the leaves into the sugar with a wood pestle. Fill glass with crushed ice and top with bourbon, add a mint leave as garnish. I don’t even drink for god’s sake!)

While we’re on it, it’s a 2 minute race. Why the 1.5 hour extravaganza? Do I need to know which jockey had a horrid life in Bolivia or lost his father to testicular cancer? How about a half hour? 20 minutes of preshow, and 10 minutes of race and post show. Too much to ask???

The show’s main cast as Simspon’s charcters.

Fabulous.

This Dave Gorman on Flickr is the same Dave Gorman who is the new brit correspodant on the Daily Show is also theDave Gorman who was seeking other men named Dave Gorman.

Again from the frightening Wardrobe remix flickr pool - No I can’t seem to stop gawping at it… I bring you Melovescookies - a flying horrid fashion doll. She’s adopted the habit of posting her daily oddball outfits while jumping, sprawled upside down, hanging from walls, doing cartwheels or swinging like a bat.

And best of all her set of fashion don’ts is two two two pages long.