Geek alert!

Excuse me while I geek-out about software:

Uh, wow. I cannot even believe that Adobe Photoshop CS came out in 2003. Wtf. 4 years ago!?

I knew when Photoshop CS2 came out, because I tried it and then couldn't afford to upgrade to it. And I know that there is a beta version of Photoshop CS3 available now, which I will also try and not be able to afford. But I glanced at the copyright this afternoon when I launched Photoshop and it was like a sticker shock to see "2003" there.

I guess I just can't even believe I've been doing graphics for 4 years now. Time really does go by without you realizing it. I feel a bit old. I mean, not really. But I sorta feel almost like a grown-up. Almost.

I also can't believe I've been using Photoshop for 4 years and I'm still learning new shit about it on a regular basis. When I graduated from college I thought they'd taught me every trick there is in Photoshop and Illustrator that would get me by in the Real Working Adult World. But uh, NO. I learned most of the tricks I use today on my own and through trial and error.

I wonder if someone could find me (because I'm too busy to do it myself) a list of the specifications on CS versus CS2 and versus CS3. I vaguely looked around Adobe.com for such a chart or list, but frankly didn't look that hard for it. Because I'd like to contrast and compare what I use now and what I would be upgrading to if I purchased CS3... but without reading a 400 page users manual or sifting through 100 pages of forums.

* grumble * Back to work.

Happy birthday to you.

It's March 20th, people. Guess who was born today, 26 years ago?
(It's not me, mine's in December. Hint: It's someone I make out with.)

Happy birthday, Corey. I love you.

Ass hat in the news

If you're not a member of what the blog!? yet, you should be. Because then you can participate in the ass hat awards, which features a sweet little contest every 2 weeks. There are lots of buttons and awards and junk that you can earn if you post cool crap about ass hats. Oh yeah, and did I mention that what the blog!? and the ass hat awards are run entirely by the lovely and talent Tiffany, Michelle, and yours truly?

Yeah, we're awesome. You don't have to say it, just sign your ass up.

Anyway, even though I cant qualify to win an ass hat award, I still love to participate because, guess why? It's tons of fun, people. Try and keep up, okay? If you tried it, you would know this.

This past 2-weeks the theme has been Ass Hats in the News, so here's my post:

This is a bit of a disturbing ass hat, but an ass hat nonetheless. Here's the story if you want to read it, though all you really need to know are the parts I highlighted for you in red:

ERIE, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to swinging her 4-week-old son like a bat to hit her boyfriend during a fight, fracturing the infant's skull in the process.

Chytoria Graham, 27, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child under a plea agreement with prosecutors.

By pleading guilty, Graham acknowledged that on October 8 she grabbed her son Jarron by his feet and swung him, hitting her boyfriend and seriously injuring the child.

At Graham's preliminary hearing in December, paramedic Betty Schau, who treated the baby, recalled that Graham was crying and disheveled when medical crews arrived. She testified that Graham told her, "I swung him. I swung him like a bat."

The judge ordered a psychological examination for Graham before her sentencing, set for May 8. The charges carry a minimum of five years in prison because the child was under age 12. Two lesser charges were dropped.

Graham's previous attorney had said Graham did not use her child as a weapon, that the boy was hurt during a fight between the two adults and that Graham lied to authorities about how the injury occurred to protect her boyfriend.

Her current attorney, public defender Julia Dudics, however, said Tuesday that the choice to plead guilty was Graham's. Dudics declined further comment except to say that Graham had told her she was depressed.

Jarron, who made a full recovery, and Graham's four other children are currently in the custody of her parents.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Here's the link too, if you wanna go read it at cnn.com. But really, if you can just read it here, why go anywhere else?

So, uhm. Do I really need to say anything else about this? I mean, holy hell. WTF is wrong with people?

I see no mention of this mother being on drugs, but I really think that would make more sense... I mean, if you're totally drugged out of your skull I could maybe possibly see this happening.

Like, I could understand a bit if you're a complete crackhead and you hallucinate that your baby is really a baseball bat and start swinging away at the purple spidermonkeys flying towards your head. I could understand that excuse.

But, apparently this lady was sober!? Really? WTF? And her primary excuse is that she was depressed. Why is it that we always hear about mothers getting depressed and then either drowning their children, driving them off bridges, or using them as sports equipment?

Man, this must be an epidemic! I know whenever I'm feeling depressed, I also feel the urge to end innocent lives. Thank goodness I'm not alone anymore in Crazy Town!

/sarcasm.

Maybe birth control should be issued free-of-charge to anyone with an IQ below that of current U.S. President's. (I realize that at the moment that is not a lot of people. But hopefully this will encourage us to vote in smarter Presidents next time.) Two birds with one stone, people. That's how you do it.

Anyway, I'm glad the kid is okay. (And frankly I wouldn't be posting this story if he wasn't okay, because I'm NOT trying to make everyone cry.) I do want to say is that this lady is a freakin ass hat and she doesn't deserve to have children if she can't even operate them properly.

Obviously, this kid was not made for sports. I mean, seriously. Lady, if you really wanna go psycho on your man you have to buy yourself a real baseball bat.

It would do a lot more damage to him than your kid's squishy little head.

The definition of psycho.

I don't really consider myself as a stalkable type of girl, but I guess for every and any girl there are at least 12 scary guys who could possibly stalk you.

I went out with this guy JUST ONCE, a little over a year ago. After the one date we went on, I knew I wasn't into him. I'm not the kind of girl to stay with a guy "just because". I have to really like him. And I just wasn't into this guy. To tell you the truth, I thought he was a bit too intense and had way too much emotional baggage. I understand falling for the guy who needs fixing, but I'm not interested in that... I've been there and done that, and I realize it sucks major ass. I could trash-talk him more, because there was a lot to say, but I don't think that's fair.

So anyway, I told him that I wasn't interested in him "like that". I told him that I also don't stay friends with guys that I've been out with, because I don't want to risk unrequited-feelings on either side. Plus, I wasn't looking for friends. I have friends and they are WAY too much AWESOME to handle already. So I don't really need anymore. If I happen to get more, that's cool, but I wasn't going to force a friendship or have small-talk with yet another aquaintance. Sounds bitchy? Yeah, well I try and be nice about it, but it's the truth.

I told him this before we even went out on the date. I reminded him of all this the day after our date too. Then, probably a day or two after our date, I had a very serious family emergency, where I thought my dad was not going to make it. By pure coincidence, he called me right after my dad was taken to the hospital by ambulance (even though I'd just spoken to him the day before, but whatever).

I told him I couldn't talk to him, that there was an emergency with my dad, and I had to go. But he kept talking. Actually, whining. It was closer to begging. I mean, he literally ignored the fact that I was very upset and started asking me why I didn't want to be with him.

I was beyond disgusted and pissed.

It's usually difficult to make me mad, but if you somehow manage to do it, you'll see me blow up and say exactly what I'm thinking at the time. Anyway, I was at my breaking point already and hearing him go on and on, interrupting and talking over me, completely disregarding my feelings and my family emergency... well, it totally set me off. I told him I didn't EVER want to talk to him again and I didn't want to be friends and to NEVER call me again. And CLICK, I said goodbye and hung up.

He called back several times that evening, and I eventually turned my cell phone off for the night to get some sleep, because one of the calls came in at 2AM from some high-pitched whiny chick friend of his who was asking me why I was "mad" at him. Like we were in f-cking 6th grade or something! I hung up on her after telling her to never call me again either. He called me back a half-hour later and I answered again because I was half-asleep once more. I told him AGAIN to never call me. He called the next day a few more times. I didn't answer.

He called me every single day for a month following, and sometimes he would call multiple times a day. Most days he would just hang up after my voicemail picked up, but sometimes he would leave usually very drunken messages begging/whining on my voicemail. At times he would call from unknown numbers and I would answer the phone. Everytime I would hang up on him or tell him to PLEASE STOP CALLING. After a while I started loathing hearing my phone ring. It would make me cringe. I kept telling myself, "Why should I have to change my phone number? He's the psycho, why should I have to pay for that" and I never changed my number.

Finally, after a month of being scared whenever my phone rang, I wrote him an email telling him for the 8th or 9th time to stop calling. This time, I also told him that he was scaring me and that I would be calling the police for a restraining order if he did not stop immediately.

The calls stopped a couple days later.

He called again in the summer of 2006, just once. I figured he was just drunk and was doing it "one last time" just to mess with me.

Now, this last Thursday evening, he called me about 10-12 times in a row, and left 5 very drunk voicemails on my phone. I keep saying to myself "This is the last time, then I'm changing my number." But when is it really the last time?

This time, I hope.

Back to school?

I set an appointment to talk with a rep at a smaller-sized university. I need to see what it will take to get my Bachelor's for Computer Graphic Design or Computer Graphic Design: Web Design with a minor in Art: Studio or Marketing Management. I'm hoping the majority of my credits from my previous college (where I earned a 2-year associate's degree) are transferable. I'll be really annoyed if they're not... I don't want to have to start over from scratch. I'll also find out how much money I need to have to afford this, and how many internal organs I will have to sell to get the money I need.

Anyway, I know you can't tell, but I'm kind of excited. Really, I am!

New meaning of the word asshat.

I've been a vegetarian since I was about 13. That's over 10 years and it continues to be a learning experience. So consequently, PETA's international spys somehow found me on the "National Vegetarians List" or something (That's not real, okay. I made it up), and has started mailing me magazines and literature.

I like the idea of PETA. It's People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, for those of you who don't know. I like their name and I like the idea of a large group of people organizing to make themselves heard. But I definitely don't like the scare tactics... the gory photos... the horror shows they display on a regular basis. That's what they've become known for too. Showing people things they don't want to see. Trying to shock people into caring about animals. It doesn't work... it just makes people think PETA is insane and fanatic and outrageous and extreme and it causes people to discredit the things they have to say and label them as propaganda. (Which they might very well be just mere propaganda, though I personally don't believe that.)

Well, I don't want to see these images and stories either. Hello, the whole reason I became a vegetarian was because I wanted to avoid thinking about how animals die. The best way to avoid this guilt is to stop eating them. And yes, eventually I'll become a full-on vegan, but until I make that choice I'd like it if they would stop trying to make me cry.

Anyway, on to my point. I started getting emails from Compassion Over Killing (COK... yes, I know), which appears to be "affiliated" with PETA. And by "affiliated" I mean that I can't seem to find their connection to PETA, but because they both use the same scare tactics and display the same horrific photos, it's my opinion that they are lumped together as one big scary company.

Now, I'm all for getting the word out about animal cruelty. And I agree with the beliefs and principles they are preaching. And I'm all for going vegan, when I can actually afford to do so. (Soy products are not cheap.)

But I think these people a new marketing guy. Like, 5 years ago.

Check this email out that I just got from the people at COK:

Subject: Action Alert: Act Today to Help Caged Hens

Compassion Over Killing and Vegan Outreach are teaming up with compassionate people everywhere to ask Morningstar Farms® to stop using eggs in its product line.

[[Insert disturbing photo of hens in very small cages and a caption below it with a horrifying statistic]]

[[Insert link to an entire photo gallery of these terrible images.]]

Morningstar Farms®, which is owned by the Kellogg® company, was approached in September 2005 about its use of eggs in its products...

[[Insert link to more disturbing photos of hens in cages.]]

[[Insert long description of horrible conditions that the hens live in that I am certain my readers don't want to hear.]]

Morningstar Farms® has long been a leader in supplying delicious vegetarian foods to a growing market.
[[Insert a suggestion that everyone should contact Morningstar Farms and tell them to stop using eggs in their products]] ...encourage them to join with companies like Gardenburger®, which last year announced it has taken eggs out of all its products except for one private-sourced item.

Okay. What the hell, COK!? Are you actually picking on a company that provides us vegetarians with yummy yummy food-stuffs in lieu of a company that is mistreating the animal directly? What happened to going to the root of the problem?

You seriously need to learn how to pick your battles, COK. You're biting the hand that literally feeds you. In fact, let's throw another cliche in there: beggars can't be choosers.

It's like saying to a doctor, "Well you sorta cured cancer, but it's really not good enough yet. Think you can work on that? Uhm, oh yeah and here are a TON of my friends to tell you the EXACT same thing until you DO fix the problem."

Or saying to the rocket scientist, "Well, the rocket got us safely to the moon and stuff, that's great... but the coffeemaker inside the rocket isn't working right now, ya think you could take a look at that? Cuz the astronauts are really thirsty and uhm... you're gonna get about 40 emails a day until it's fixed. Thanks!"

WTF?

Geeks eat cake too.

My birthday isn't until December, but you can start planning now if you want. Or maybe you have a geeky friend who would appreciate an awesome cake. I know this has been done elsewhere, but I just love the idea so I thought I'd share some of my favorite geek cakes:

Happy Birthday coding cake. Not my cup of tea, but The boyfriend would love it.

Lego cake. No explanation needed. :) I'll take mine in ANY color.

Arrr, matey. Yeah, so geeks have this fascination with pirates. (Because they are usually "software pirates") Pirates, and also ninjas. It's almost a war over who's more awesome. But yeah, apparently the pirates win because they have this freakin sweet cake.

Well this is about as close to a "ninja" cake as I've seen. Which isn't very close. Well who hasn't played Mortal Kombat anyway? I once went out with a guy who had the soundtrack to Mortal Kombat and would play absolutely nothing else in his car. Ugh.

Homestar Runner! If you don't know Homestar, you should go here. I'm still looking for a Trogdor cake. Nothing says geeky like online cartoons.

Very cute Star Trek cake with the Enterprise and Vulcan saying "Live Long and Prosper".

Superb R2D2 Cake. Wow.

A Nintendo Gamecube cake. Aww. Isn't it cuuute? I'll take one in Platinum, because that's that color of my GC. Thanks! (Actually, my GC is skinned with a lovely pink faux Louis Vuitton print from eBay.)

Another Nintendo cake, this time it's Kirby. Am I just out of the Kirby loop (Frankly, I don't ever remember playing a Kirby game, so I assume that I am) or is he supposed to be carrying a sandwich on dark rye with eyeballs? WTF is that?

OMG! Yessssss. Dual Nintendo Wii remote (wii-mote) cakes. Beautiful.

Remember my post from this past September, You can have your Mario and eat it too, where I said that this Super Mario/Princess Peach/Mushroom wedding cake would be my future wedding cake? Well, I've decided that that's probably not gonna happen...

Because, this one is SO much better!!!Oh my hell. Look at that masterpiece. A "shoot-em-up" style wedding cake. Check out the detail. From bottom to top, here's the specs:

• Level One, bottom of cake: 1 dead groom and crashed airplane.
  
• Level Two: 1 groom scaling the edge of the cake (in the back), 1 groom shooting a machine gun at the top of the cake, and 2 other grooms appear to be working together to saw down one of the legs of the cake.
• Level Three: 1 groom with pushed-down detonator and a very big explosion and a couple of the cake legs blown up (causing the cake top to be tilted)
  
• Level Four, top of cake: 1 groom climbing up to tilted top level and Bride and groom backing away to cake's far edge.

Required improvements: Bride needs glasses and an uzi. The uzi in white, please.

Oh, the crazy things we say.

Just to clarify, the lady we're talking about really is a bitch:

Nadine: so i go ask her if it was hers and she goes "oh my god where did you find it?" and i was like it was in the toilet paper dispenser

1:59 PM Jen: lol

Nadine: and then she goes "oh my god i didn't even know it was missing, its worth thousands and my husband would have killed me, i guess i owe you big time."

Jen: yeah, how about a GET OUTTA BITCH FREE CARD?

Nadine: LOL

Nadine: HA HA HA Nadine: SERIOUSLY!

I think she says it just to get me to shut up:

Jen: he said that he's even happier now than when we first starting dating, isn't that sweet?

Jen: he is the best Nadine: aww

3:57 PM Nadine: that's cheesy Nadine: have to poop brb.

Jen: EW
Jen: i hate you

My skills are deteriorating.

Maybe I was wrong in the first place about being skilled at graphic design and 3D modelling and multimedia in general. I used to think my 2D designs and 3D models were really great. And I figured that since I was just starting out I would get even better. I thought, Wow, I found my true calling. That's something that not a lot of people have ever felt and may never feel, and that felt so precious to me. And I thought that things could only get better after I graduated. My school (which shall remain unnamed) made it seem like I'd be making bank at doing exactly what I loved. They made it seem like companies would be begging for me to work for them, because I was so talented and multi-skilled and creative and yadda yadda yadda.

Well, it's over 2 years after graduating, and nobody's ever beat on my door looking for my skills and talent or anything. In fact, I beat on their door and I can hear the deadbolt click into place and hearty laughter coming from inside the building. It's disheartening, to say the least. I'm still at the same bad job that pays nothing with a boss that frequently makes me either scream inside my brain or burst into tears; it's the same job that I thought was "just a stepping stone" in my path.

That alone wouldn't be so awful if I still enjoyed the work I do as much as I used to. But lately I've felt like every ad I make is incredibly tacky. I'm embarassed when I see them printed in the magazines or newspaper. I used to be so proud that I once asked my boss if I could sign my name somewhere on the ad so that everyone would know who designed it. Lol.

Every flyer I print is so ugly and messy and cluttered. And I have to print them in mass quantities, so each one that falls out of the printer is uglier than the last. The 3D work I do is lame and no one cares about it except our customers, which are all 87-year-old couples that have never even been within 10 miles of a computer. And the websites I make are only about 2 steps away from Geocities.

Is it my hell-on-earth job that is making me lose my love of design? Was I just inspired by my teachers and classes, is that why I did so well before? Or was I never really good at it in the first place, and no one had the heart to tell me the truth? How is it that everytime I make a new ad or design or logo, I end up loathing it?

I know you guys can't answer these questions and you all have never even seen any of my work, but I need to rant. I can't stand my job and I can't stand constantly applying to places that literally ignore me. The boyfriend says it's because I only have a 2-year degree and not a Bachelor's, but that's bull. If I were really talented and skilled, someone would have snatched me up by now, whether I had a 4-year degree or 2-year degree or highschool degree. If my portfolio really stood out, I would have been hired by now... right?

End of self pity rant. Lol. Sorry about that.

Taggy goodness.

Music is my #3 favorite thing ever, so of course I'm excited about this taggy-post from the lovely and stupendous Tiffany. So, I'm supposed to list the Top 10 Songs in my iTunes library...

Okay, so I don't use iTunes and will probably never use iTunes. I don't even know what's so great about it (or care). My excuse for a long time was that I don't have a Mac (yet), but now I know you can use iTunes whether you have a Mac or PC, so that excuse is out the window.

My new excuse: I don't like music organizers. I make the rules, damnit.

Anyway, so I'm gonna bring up one of my all-time-greatest-songs mixes in WinAmp (yeah, that's right, WinAmp. How can you use anything else?) and list the top Songs from that instead.

Tiffany posted her top 25 though, so I think I'll post 25 too. Mostly because it's super hard for me to narrow it down to my favorites.

I'm also supposed to list them in Song - Artist - Album format, which is going to be hard because, uhm, I have to Google most of these to find that out. (yeah yeah I know if I used iTunes it would do all that crap for me. shut it.)

And, because I'm a visual person, I thought I'd add some pics that I googled. Then I felt extremely old because some of the bands I listen to look 5-10 years younger than me. And I'm only 23.

1. Done Wrong - Ani DiFranco - Dilate
2. All Hail the Heartbreaker - The Spill Canvas - Sunsets and Car Crashes
3. Take Me Anywhere - Tegan and Sara - So Jealous
4. It's Cool, We Can Still Be Friends - Bright Eyes - Transmission One: Tea at the Palaz of Hoon
5. Combat Baby - Metric - Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?
6. Probably - Kevin Devine - Split the Country, Split the Street
7. Spanish Doll - Poe - Haunted
8. Waste of Paint - Bright Eyes - Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground - [see above photo]
   
9. I Wasn't Prepared - Eisley - Room Noises
10. Ever So Sweet - The Early November - The Room's Too Cold
11. I Don't Miss You Anymore - Lisa Ekdahl - Sings Salvadore Poe (Bonus track)
12. Sitting, Waiting, Wishing - Jack Johnson - Sitting, Waiting, Wishing
13. Winter - Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes
14. Calling You - Blue October - History for Sale
15. Brightest - Copeland - Beneath the Medicine Tree
16. Here I Am - Tegan and Sara - Unreleased/Live - [see above photo]
17. Forget December - Something Corporate - Songs for Silent Movies
18. Anything - Plain White T's - All That We Needed
19. Riot Nrrrd - 2 Skinnee J's - Super Marcado
20. TKO - Le Tigre - This Island
21. Broken - Lucky Boys Confusion - Commitment
22. Not Tonight - Tegan and Sara - If It Was You - [see above photo]
23. Are You Sad? - Our Lady Peace - Spiritual Machines
24. The Absence of God - Rilo Kiley - Execution of All Things
25. Spawn - Silverchair - Neon Ballroom

Whoa, that's way too many photos. Good luck loading this page.

If you don't know any of these bands, you are severely depriving yourself of some really great music. You're probably too busy listening to crap on the radio that you've forgotten there are real bands out there in this world.

(And yes, I'm a music snob. but I'm a closet music snob, which means I pretend I'm not a snob most of the time and when it's completely appropriate I break out with a "WHAT IS THAT CRAP YOU'RE LISTENING TO?" and also I never admit my music guilty pleasures... you would be a bit suprised, I think.)

That's it. I'm done with the music taggy post. I tag... uhm. Everyone who reads my blog has already been tagged by Tiffany. So, I tag everyone else. That's right, that means you Missy. :)