Rose Red in Wonderland

Moving content

2009-04-18T20:33:28Z

Moving the content from my old site to the new one is tedious, time consuming and only marginally less boring than watching paint dry.

But the Wordpress admin area has vastly improved since the abortive attempts at using it when I was at OYM. Tagging and dating are pretty easy; I really like being able to click on my previous tags and have them automatically added.

Gah. I never realized just exactly HOW MUCH work I had posted to my old gallery. And that was just the barest fraction cuz I was too lazy to really be thorough. (Ok, not really laziness, just lack of time. Still). Been doing this all week and I'm only just now reaching 2002. Gotta kick it into gear if I'm going to have the site done by end of day tomorrow.

Not done designing it yet but the blog is visible at http://www.crysodenkirk.com/blog. Constructive criticism is always welcome. You can't get to the other pages yet; when I make the whole site live the navigation will work properly, and those other pages aren't done yet anyway.

File under: How fucking stupid is THAT?

2009-03-16T22:00:21Z

"During its fourth-quarter earnings call, parent General Electric said Sci Fi racked up a double-digit increase in operating earnings despite the beginnings of the recession.

Nevertheless, there was always a sneaking suspicion that the name was holding the network back.

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network."

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/03/sci_fi_channel_aims_to_shed_ge.php

That's right, Hey! It made money! Let's screw with it! Double digit increases while the rest of the company is falling apart (due to corporate mismanagement-through-greed, but that's a rant for another time)? Can't have that! That can't POSSIBLY mean we're doing something right already!

And then people wonder why the economy is tanking.

And I'm not even going to go off on the rant about the idea that we women are "in particular" turned away from the name "Sci Fi". Because we poor little delicate flowers couldn't possibly have the brains to understand or be interested in something imaginative or thought-provoking! But boy, you take out the c and change those i's to y's and golly! We'll never be able to tell that it's really a channel about science fiction! Being considered too stupid to tell the difference, yeah, THAT's the way to draw in those women! (Or maybe it's shades of "womyn" or "wymyn" or however they're spelling it now).

Not to mention, the best way to grow your station is OBVIOUSLY to insult your primary demographic, a cross-generation, tech-savvy, word-of-mouth-driven demographic, who are the ones most likely to create great big websites and blog posts (like this one) to tell the world how stupid you really are. Yeah. That's brilliant marketing right there.

bleh

2009-03-07T20:49:23Z

In reference to my last post:

so I'm thinking, put it in /blog, strip the theme info down to php calls to my own wrapper files, use my own uberleet programming skills to just lift the last three entries or whatever to display on the first page with all commenting/etc just linking straight to the /blog page, rather like sitepoint does (if Wordpress is good enough for sitepoint, zeldman, and smashing magazine...).

I vaguely feel like I should write it myself but I just can't in the time frame I have. I only get a couple hours a week to work on this and writing a blog from scratch at a couple hours a week... that's a year long process, easily. I got maybe a month, at the outside.

Working on my website

2009-03-07T20:06:15Z

So if I want a blog on my website, what program would you recommend? I need to be able to completely control the coding in the theme and I don't want to have to rewrite the program to get it to do things like, let me post snippets of html/css easily (which I recall as being a particular issue in wordpress).

Seems like a lot of the big name designers are using the newest versios of WordPress. It seemed easy to use when I was using it before, if you just wanted to post text, but not terribly good for posting css or for being able to reformat the templates without a TON of work. I suppose I could just rewrite the things it doesn't do the way I want them, but then I can't just apply security patches and whatnot. I also don't plan to put the whole site in the db as pages, but I want to be able to control the theme from one set of files. That's really the big issue for me. I don't want to maintain multiple theme files for the same parts of each page.

On the other hand, I'm seeing some sites that are a hell of a lot cleaner than the code I saw when I was using it a couple years ago and a lot of the people who do what I do but are better known for it seem to have done just fine with it.

And it's free. Always an important consideration.

Why I am a "graphic designer" and not an "artist"

2009-02-27T15:14:38Z

Pay the writer:

I got this from friadoc in comments on mouseferatu's journal.

Far more eloquent than I on the subject.

Just because...

2009-02-26T00:50:44Z

One little compliment can make you feel amazing. So give me a compliment, anything in the entire world, even that my shoelaces are pretty. Put this in your journal. And once you get some comments, put that entry in a memory or tag and when you are feeling down, just go to that entry and this will remind you how great you are.

Comments are going to be screened so none of you will know if I'm uber-popular who gets over 100 comments on this or a total loser who doesn't get any

How many read?

2009-02-19T23:36:30Z

Leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember. Don't send a message, leave a comment here. Next, re-post this in your notes/LJ and see how many people leave a memory about you.

Need some hardware help

2009-02-10T00:50:06Z

Ok, this is really annoying me.

I'm on a laptop. It has a touchpad but I also have a usb mouse, which is what I mostly use. Both are displaying this behavior:

It registers a single click as a double, sometimes a triple click. Sometimes in the middle of dragging with the mouse down, it will register click-drag-click, which I haven't clicked a second time. So I'll go to move a window and it will maximize instead, I'll select a whole paragraph when I single clicked to place a cursor, or I will click and drag to select text and it will only select the last few letters because it's reading extra clicks, I can't open windows in, for instance, World of Warcraft because it's reading the click to open and click to close immediately (so it flashes open and closes right back down) or most annoyingly I'll be trying to drag a crop tool around an image and it will read a double click in the middle of the drag and crop the image before I've finished selecting the right parts.

I have updated, uninstalled, and reinstalled the mouse drivers, for both the usb mouse and the touchpad. I have swapped out the mouse with other computers, so I'm certain it's not the mouse, because it only happens on this laptop and not the other computer. I have played with every setting I could find that even remotely concerned mice. I have scoured google looking for people reporting similar problems. All of these things have produced no results.

I am out of ideas. Anyone else have this problem ever? And if so, how did you fix it?

I'm a Cool Nerd God.

2009-01-28T23:54:33Z

That's right, baby. Bow down and worship me.

"Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?"

I need...

2009-01-20T02:58:06Z

... a vacation.

A long one. With no projects for work taking up brain space and no other obligations weighing heavily on my mind and my conscience for not working on them when I try to take a break.

It's a wash.

2009-01-12T01:17:22Z

I took yesterday off because I felt like I needed a break. Didn't even try to accomplish anything. Figured I'd have a rest and then put extra effort in today.

...but I got no motivation today. I'm looking at these websites and I just don' wanna. I have accomplished absolutely nothing today, even though I've been working since noonish (7 now). With my current level of complete apathy, I don't expect to accomplish anything.

Maybe I should just give up and go play WoW or watch tv or something...

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T08:22:03Z

Here's hoping all of you have a bright new year!

May the wind always be at your back.
May all the storms you find be only those you can weather.
May your beer always be cold and your coffee always hot.
May all those you love, return it threefold.
And may you never want for those things you need.

I'm discontent today

2008-12-24T22:36:35Z

I'm not sure why. I'm restless. You might say I'm having an ADHD day... I can't concentrate on ANYTHING (this makes working on my website damn hard). I kind of feel like I've got some really great ...._something_ just beyond my reach. Like when you're talking and a common word is on the tip of your tongue but you can't say it. It's a drawing or a painting or a story or a song... I can't even tell.

So I'm puttering and haven't accomplished a damn thing yet today. I've got two stanzas written... unfortunately for entirely different poems. I've got several drawings to scan for the building blocks of my website (I suddenly found inspiration for it yesterday. More on that in a separate post), enough that I could be working on that. And I've got a ton of work to do for the Keeper's site that I want to have entirely finished by end of day next Sunday (jan 4). Plenty of outlets if I could just focus.

It's something beautiful and amazing and it's right there, so close I can graze it with my fingertips... but not close enough to bring it forth yet apparently.

I... am not a patient woman. I hate this part of the process, where you can feel it working its way around your brain but you can't grab it by the throat and spill its blood on your paper.

I'm going to be a bitch until I can. This is your fair warning.

Now where the hell is my Jameson...?

Snow day!

2008-12-19T14:55:22Z

hahahaha they closed our office for the first time ...a decade maybe? They NEVER close for snow, if that tells you how bad this blizzard is.

Unfortunately, I still have work that I have to get done today one way or the other, so I'll be working this morning anyway but for those of you in WoW, I should be around this afternoon. If I get some time off from work, I'm actually going to take a break and go level!

I might go play in the snow a little too. We live at the top of the county's tallest hill. All the sledders come up here but the road's not open yet so there's no one but us residents...

some things never change

2008-12-18T19:05:34Z

It just registered with me that I am regressing. Or something.

Loose black tshirt. Black jeans. Grey flannel overshirt with unbuttoned sleeves. Floppy puppy slippers. Janis hair... drinking coffee, eating egg rolls, singing along with the Cure and New Order and Billy Idol while I write and work on my computer at the same time...

Is it 2008 or am I back in high school? *facepalm*

To those of you who say "did you ever stop doing that?" I say "Hush, you! Hush!"

What are you doing today?

when you least expect it

2008-12-14T14:43:36Z

So, I stopped at the grocery on the way home from work, the little "European" style (as they call it) market where I go to get small-brewery beers or high quality cheese. I'm wearing my bulky winter coat, got my hair piled up haphazardly on the back of my head, not exactly looking my best. I am browsing the beer cases and I glance over my shoulder so I can avoid hitting the guy that I have to get past who is looking at summer sausage and dried meats. Like I do with everyone, I meet his eyes and smile at him. He smiles back, like most people do (though the ones that scowl and look at me like I'm going to come after them with an axe are hilarious). I start to move past and he asks "So, do you know anything about" he pauses, I think realizing the full import of what he's about to say, "sausage?"

Nothing like random cute guys flirting with you in the beer aisle when you're not far from looking your scrubbiest.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T16:39:13Z

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Mine started with organic fair trade Ethiopian coffee ((mmmm... peppery....)) and a book about Alexander's tomb, and will most likely proceed with changing my spec to Elemental because I'm tired of levelling so slowly as a Resto Shaman, followed by writing. Lots and lots of writing. And illustrating. There will be a bit of that to go with the writing.

What are you doing today?

No surprises here

2008-11-26T01:03:44Z

Just found this in a friend's LJ and had to do it.

This will surprise exactly none of you:

Really? No, I mean, really?

K.I.S.S

2008-11-12T03:27:55Z

So, my friends list is getting pretty big. I've got a lot of communities I never read. Time to pull out the pruning shears.

If I remove you, it's nothing personal. I'm removing a lot of people who don't post often or who I only know tenuously and online. If you'd like to be back on my friends list if I remove you, go ahead and post or send me an email. I'm just trying to get the list manageable again and anyone who actively wants to keep up with me is more than welcome on my list!

yeah...

2008-11-06T03:06:55Z

Copy this sentence into your journal if you used to be in a heterosexual marriage/relationship but you're not anymore because your marriage/relationship was whack, yet even after all that, the idea of same-sex marriage being a threat to your whack-ass heterosexual marriage/relationship is the biggest bunch of shit you ever heard.

Not dead yet

2008-11-06T02:30:18Z

Life's just been hectic. Things to see, people to... well, you know the saying.

It's nothing exciting. I did get a promotion but it's not a change in job, just salary grade. Cool, but not earth shattering.

I'm sorry I've missed the last couple months of you all, and I know there's a backlog of comments for me to answer. I'll try to be more forthcoming...

So... I got my diploma today.

2008-07-25T03:08:49Z

It came in the mail. It's a nice white piece of paper that says Beloit College says I've got a degree.

Woohoo! time to have a graduation party!!

Oh, and Batman tonight. Awesome. Ledger's Joker is way scary. One thing about the movie though: A friend had pointed out that it seemed to be more a movie about people whose connection to each other was Batman, rather than a movie about Batman. I would tend to agree with that assessment. That's not a criticism of the movie. It's a great story. Just an observation.

Did I mention, the Joker, scary?

I love it when movies make me hold my breath without realizing I'm doing it.

But big news if you haven't seen it: Watchmen trailer! Holy mother of god (that would be of any god...). I don't go to opening nights. I wait until the 2nd week or try to catch a matinee to avoid the crowds.

...I might take the day off and get in line first thing in the morning opening day for Watchmen. The trailer's out there in the tubes being carried back and forth by tiny dump trucks if you haven't seen it yet. Now, I'd seen it online and I knew it looked good. The music choice was inspired. But seeing it on the big screen was just fucking outstanding.

the Mummy

2008-07-19T02:35:45Z

Ok, I like Maria Bello. She's really talented, and not exactly hard to look at either. I'm sure she's plenty good enough to play Evie if she'd been cast in the role originally. It would be a different character but I'm sure I'd love her just as much.

But the Mummy without Rachel Weisz now? That's like saying you're going to have a Batman movie without an Alfred. Or an Indiana Jones movie without Harrison Ford. It's just NOT the same. I suppose they couldn't have killed the character off without some kind of horrendous death scene; if they did people would be complaining about that, and obviously they couldn't or wouldn't get Weisz so that would be right out. But killing her silently off screen might have been better, then introduce Bello as a new love interest.

I know. Fan wank. If they couldn't get Weisz, they couldn't and they had to come up with something. I just wish they could have. I haven't dug into why she's not in the movie. I'm sure it's either scheduling or money. I'm just a little disappointed she won't be back.

I do say, sir! Yaaaaargh!

2008-07-19T02:08:21Z

Your result for The Steampunk Archetype Test...

The Roguish Pirate

There is treasure on those airships flying back from the Imperial colonies and you can be found wherever there is treasure. Sometimes you don’t know what you prefer, having the loot or getting the loot. You have your own crew of engineers, bodgers, tinkerers and fians to keep your airship fast and powerful. Those lumbering cargo ships can’t withstand your assault after you fire off the grappling hooks. Oh there is always a fight, but that is part of the fun.

Take The Steampunk Archetype Test at HelloQuizzy

world of workcraft

2008-07-12T00:32:22Z

*dies laughing*

If you work in an office and play an mmo, you must watch this:

I'm totally spec'd in percussive maintenance.