September 2004

Just In Case You Had a Modicum of Breathing Room...

In addition to my regular duties, my boss has been having me design ads for the extra insert, which she agreed to do because I didn't have time. Well, today there is a note on my desk telling me to design the entire insert and, by the way, it has to be completed by Monday at 12noon. Greeeeat. Mondays are such open days for me anyway. It turns out that my boss designed maybe half the ads for the thing and did nothing on actual layout. I'm so furious right now. I want to sabatoge the whole process by goofing off the next two days and then handing the whole thing to my boss on Monday. The problem is I don't think I could stick to my guns and I'd end up stuck with all the last minute work. Frag me. So do I bitch to her again that I don't have time for this? Do I try to throw together a crappy insert just to get it done? Do I just go home and never come back? Hmm... that last one is sounding quite pleasant.

P.S. I just told my boss that I didn't feel I had time for it and that I understood that she would be taking care of it. She told me, "I think you're ready to take this on."

douche bag of an inebriated dog

Link Me Up

I just wanted to send out a baby trend link for Lynne. She thinks if we all send out some links to her post about the high chair then the baby trend company might actually start answering her phone calls. Of course, you never know with stores like baby trend. Word out.

Admitting Defeat

I guess my secondary font challenge was a bit too difficult. Next time I'll try to make the challenge a little more accessible. Even the font goddess herself wasn't able to name those fonts. That's a true sign that it can't be done. So, I'll just tell ya what they were.

The first font was Gloo-Gun, a freeware font from Font-a-licious, a groovy font source.

The second font was Baby Kruffy, a freeware font that is also from Font-a-licious.

The fact that both fonts were from the same creator is an amusing coincidence. I just chose two fonts I liked - and that would be hard to guess - from my extensive font list. It seems I have quite a few fonts from Font-a-licious. I guess I like their fun, goofy, and irreverant fonts.

Note to Self

When one is seriously depressed, one should not take "calming" agents. Last week I took some tea which "calms, soothes and relaxes." I was severely depressed due to some new developments in my divorce and was overwhelmed with my job. I thought that some emotional "soothing" would be nice. It didn't occur to me at the time that calm = downer. I was at work when I discovered this nifty little fact. Within a few minutes of starting my tea I felt the relaxing effect wash over me. This rapidly proceeded to drag me into a state of "calm" which left me completely defenseless to my depression. I ended up sitting at my desk just staring at my computer screen; not working or playing, just staring. I was handed edits to the newspaper (which was to be published the following day) and still I remained staring at my computer. Every once in awhile I would glance over at the growing pile of edits and think to myself, "If I quit right now I can go home and sleep the rest of the day." After nearly an hour of this it occured to me that my tea may have had something to do with my new found fascination with my monitor. After some an immense feat of willpower and caffeine, I made the edits and the got the paper out on time. Now calming agents are off-limits to me until I get to a more stable place emotionally.

Campaigns are for Wusses

I've finally figured it out. I've discovered how to survive at my job and not be stressed out all the time. I just need to let this place break my spirit into tiny enough pieces that there's nothing more to break. Basically if I stop caring about my job and the quality of work I do, it will be smooth sailing from here on out. Whew. I'm glad I finally got that figured out.

And to think that mere months ago, I was on an anti-cynicism campaign. Silly me.

Queen of Menses

I'm getting reeeeally tired of the possibly menopausal, yo-yo mood swings of the person sitting across from me. I thought I was an emotional diva, but nothing compares to the sighing, stomping, bitching, and schizo behavior of my beloved co-worker. She likes to pawn off her job responsibilities, bitch about things like paper clips, and she is the queen of turning the aura of any room into black sludge.

Going Down

Valette will be graciously moving my site to a new and better host, namely hers. This means my site may be down for a bit while she does this. We don't have a scheduled time or length. If you find that the site is down and you are missing your dose of cynical, divaesque, or sexually inappropriate ramblings, just toss me an e-mail and I'd be happy to provide you with a specifically tailored reply.

Wetness is the Essence of Beauty

Things you don't expect to hear from co-workers: "are you overly damp?" (a.k.a terrible foreplay dialogue).

Compliments of the Chef

After two hours of cooking, the menu for the week (and beyond) is:

Carribean Jerk Chicken with broccoli, cauliflower & carrots
Chicken Teriyaki with Pineapple and an asian vegetable blend
Chicken Fajitas with bell peppers, onion, beans, and rice
Thai Green Curry with beef, rice and an asian vegetable blend

For drinks we have:

African Redbush Peach iced tea
White Grape/Pear juice
Orange/Carrot juice made from freshly juiced carrots

In total, I ended up with 15 meal servings and 2 gallons of drinks.

All the Better to See You With

Today my mother and I washed, peeled and juiced 5 gallons of delicious home grown carrots. It produced a little over a gallon of juice. We froze over half of it and mixed the rest with orange juice for an amazing drink. Sobe ain't got nothing on us.

P.S. She still has nearly 10 gallons of carrots which we (which will probably end up being "her") will chop, slice, and dice to be frozen for later use.

And Our Font Recognition Winner is...

An extra special prize to anyone who can correctly identify both fonts used in the above image: any one font set from fontdiner.com. No joke; I am now paying you to care. Get to recognizin'.

...and just in case no one is up to this challenge, here's some eye candy for my fellow typophiles (look, but don't touch). Consider it a preemptive consolation prize.

Pencils Down

How well do you think you could look at a newspaper full of a variety of fonts and be able to identify each font by name? That is what I did today. Something happened to the font manager on my system and, basically, it stopped managing. That's right, my system has achieved font anarchy. None of my fonts were showing. Quark wasn't smart enough to tell me the name of the missing fonts so I had to test my font recognition skills while sorting through the thousand fonts in our files. Surprisingly I was able to recognize most of them without too much effort. Still, with a 28 page newspaper filled with ads... I was fixing my font problem most of the morning.

Here's a quick pop-quiz. Name the following fonts:

Movie Mania

Yesterday I watched the documentary Festival Express. It was awesome. The musical performances were amazing to witness as was the entire event. I can't imagine the creative energy of a train full of top-notch musicians traveling the country together giving concerts. While I can't say that I would have wanted to experience the boozin' and trippin' that was going on, I would have loved to be a part of that kind of artistic vibe.

Last night I watched American Splendor. This was a dramatization/documentary of a writer who creates comics about his life. And quite a pathetic, grumpy, and cynical life it is. While I didn't like this guy as a person, there was something about the movie that really drew me in. I think it's his stubborn determination to be average or perhaps even worse than average. He's an outrageously negative person and portrays his life as such. I guess I can relate to the cynical, but humorous outlook. Before the movie I had given myself permission to turn it off if I didn't like it, but I never once considered it. It was a great movie that was well worth my time.

Mad Skillz

While building a bonfire at the beach yesterday in honor of my sister, a guy comes by. He wants to know what I'm doing and then offered to help keep the fire going (the wood was wet and the wind was strong). We ended up sitting around a nice fire for about 2 hours talking about everything under the sun. It was a lot of fun getting to know someone new and having zero complexity/commitment to muddy things up. He's in town for the next year so I may see him again, though I kinda think it'll be a one time, love-'em-and-leave-'em, thing. I was not only comfortable with having this guy join me, but I was thrilled at the opportunity to get to know someone new. It actually turned out to be a perfect, God-sent situation cause I was able to talk about my sister's death, my divorce and tons of other crap. It was a healing time.

When this guy walked up I'm like, "Cool. God sent someone to spend this time with me." It was a sort of freaky optimism that doesn't come naturally to me with all that's going on in my life. God's doing something in me. I'm totally developing some mad social skills. Next thing you know I'll start saying hello to people at the grocery store and helping old ladies cross the street. Will the madness never end!?

2 Years of Sorrow

Melissa, thanks for being such a cool part of my life.

You always gave me an excuse to be child-like and to let loose.

You are a beautiful, special person.

You will always be missed.

Your big brother,
Damon

Fantastic Four

Superhero Hype provides a first look at the costumes for the upcoming Fantastic Four movie.

Ponderings

Will every Monday be filled with the desire to find another job? Will every Tuesday be filled with the desire to tear someone's head off?

These are the things I ponder.

Super Size Me

Super Size Me rocked. It was funny, sometimes disgusting, and scary on the informative.

Nice Effects

As long as you aren't concerned with bothersome things like a solid plot, character development and continuity with previous stories... Alien vs. Predator was a great movie. There were kickass special effects, sweet visuals, gadgetry to drool over (which, um, the aliens actually did), and, well, more special effects. So yeah, it basically sucked, but it sucked with style.

Color Me Social

While at lunch an older gentlemen asked to sit with me since there were no other seats open. He didn't seem to expect conversation, but I conversed nevertheless. I found out that he knows my family, has lived in Fairbanks, and has lived in Homer since the 50s. We had a nice visit. After he left a couple at the next table began to ask me a few questions since they overheard that I was born and raised in Homer. They were from North Carolina and just finished a week of camping across the bay. I invited them to sit with me and we chatted for about 15 minutes. They were really pleasant people and I had a good time getting to know them. All in all my lunch hour was filled with stepping outside my social comfort zone and meeting some colorful people. I feel energized.

Shake Them Hips

Does this disturb anyone else or is it just me?

Annoying Co-workers

Nod and smile.

Hm

Now my home computer is totally down again. I've got two viruses which Norton can't seem to delete. I finally just turned it off and walked away last night. I don't know if I have the strength to start again from scratch. I may end up taking the thing to the local computer geeks.

Don't pity me too much. I have a computer at work, plus my mom's computer is only 10 feet from my bedroom. I'm sure I'll find some way to survive.

Update on the Boss from Hell

Evidently she isn't originally from hell, she just grew up there.

Immediately after my rant (see last post) I had like a 30 minute conversation with my boss where I laid it all out: her being nitpicky, negative, condescending, untrusting, etc. Oddly enough, she's okay with talking through these type of things. She has sensed tension between us and was concerned about it. She agreed that she wasn't a very affirming type of person and said she would try to do more of that. She told me that I'm doing great and that the things she complains about are like 5% of the stuff I still haven't gotten, but that she feels I'm doing great with the other 95%. The conversation ended with her agreeing to try to do better with her approach when giving criticism and me agreeing to try to be less sensitive about it. I can't say that I'm all "I have the bestest job in the whole wide world," but I'm definitely feeling a lot better about stuff. I still don't think the newspaper biz is the life for me. We'll see how long I last.

For Lynne

I've been away for awhile, not from this ever joyful life we like to refer to as a newspaper, but from the internet. My home computer crashed on Thursday and I've been working on it since. The entire weekend was spent sitting in front of the thing deleting partitions, installing windows, installing software, re-deleting partitions, installing windows... All the while I got caught up on my reading. It's sorta back up and running, but I still have a crap load of programs that still need re-installed.

I'm currently writing from work as I have some down time after getting my 4th paper out... 40 minutes early. Yay! The stress level was much lower this go round. I've decided to just let it happen and not worry about getting things done on time. I'll do what I can and live with whatever doesn't get done. Since I bitched to my boss last week, she helped me with several things and everything got done ahead of schedule.

That's not to say that there wasn't some amount of stress, of course, my stress this week has to do with feeling continually demeaned by my lovely boss and spoken to like I've never heard of things like dominant elements, stylesheets, or layouts. The condescension is made worse by the fact that my boss completely sucks at design. She's spouting off terms that she hardly understands and bitching about style rules that she turns around and breaks while "helping" me layout the paper.

She can't seem to understand why my little brain has any doubt of the "way things are done" when I have a "style guide." This guide is a reduced copy of the newspaper with hand written notes scribbled all over showing the multiple fonts, sizes, lines, etc. that are used throughout the paper. It reveals the 2 different serif fonts used for headlines and text, the 3 different san-serif fonts used for subheads, bylines, etc. This isn't including the different typestyles used for each of these fonts. Even though these are scribbled on an old copy, they have evidently been blessed with holy water and are now sacred law.

I totally respect having a consistent style, but cut me a tad bit of slack when it comes to laying out the articles and photos. It's not like I just graduated design kindergarten. I understand the principles of good design and have been using them for quite some time now. I'm the designer here; let me do my job.

Matters are Well in Hand

The new "self service" booths at the local supermarket have met with explosive success.

Feel Me Up

What are some of your favorite textures?

They Sure Talk Funny Like

I just finished watching the UK edition of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. While I enjoy the show I'm offended by the fact that they keep "translating" British slang into American. One of the actors will say "that looks really smart" and up on the screen comes "smart = good looking." Um, duh. Then another would say, "that would be perfect for going on a holiday" and the screen would print "holiday = vacation." The entire show is littered with these translations so us stupid Americans can laugh in amazement at the fact that there are actually other cultures in the world. Granted I didn't know that a "poofay" was an ottoman (or footstool), but since the girl was pointing at it when she said they word I'm thinking that I just might have figured it out. I'd much rather learn these kinds of things through context than having it splashed across the screen as if to say "these Brits sure are weird and you Americans are just plain stupid."

To ad insult to injury, they printed nearly a third of the dialogue on the screen just to make sure we understood what was being said. It wasn't that the actors were speaking softly, or with a slur, or with food in their mouths, or all mumbly like... Oddly enough they were speaking like they are from the UK. I think it's called an accent. I've heard people from other parts of the world have them. Go figure.

I'm sure that many Americans are loving this little elementary educational experience. To them I say, piss off (look it up you culture deprived freak).

The Continuing Saga

Today I told my boss how overwhelmed I was with trying to get everything done on the paper. This came up because she wanted me to start working on a special insert (i.e. 8 additional pages of layout) which would go out at the end of the month. I told her that I couldn't do it, that I was overworked as it was, and that the job is way too stressful. Surprisingly she was concerned and offered several good solutions to lessen my load. She did confirm that things will always be tweaked and fixed up to deadline no matter how far "ahead" the layout might be. She also said that I was doing a very good job and am much further along than previous new production staff at this point. While I still wonder if the stress will ever get to a manageable level, I did get the affirmation that I've been needing in this position. Praise God for that totally perfect gift.

Collateral

I just utilized my press pass to see the movie Collateral for free. I probably wouldn't have seen it if not for the rather attractive price. I wasn't expecting it to be all that great mostly because it starred the overdone and ever annoying Tom Cruise. Well, I was pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed the film. The characters were very interesting and the story had a lot of interesting things to say about people and choices in life. In fact, the movie kinda seemed like an intellectual character movie (with murdering and gangsters thrown in for fun) until the last 30 minutes where it turned into high adrenaline action. That was a bit of an odd shift, but enjoyable nevertheless. It wasn't an earth shattering movie by any means, but it was two hours well spent.

Quotas to Meet

So I completed my 3rd newspaper. It was only a few minutes late which is weird because after the 12.5 hours I put in yesterday it was much further along than it was last week. The paper did get out essentially on time this week which is a cause for celebration. Still, the stress levels were pretty similar to last week. It was still a wash of chaos and the recurring temptation to just shoot myself and get it over with. I'm starting to wonder if the paper has a stress quota that has to be met each week: it doesn't really matter how good the paper is, additional stresses must be added so that by time the damn thing goes to press you are a ready to consider homicide as a career choice.

Gastrointestinal System Goes on Strike; News at 11 (and 12, and 1...)

My gastrointestinal system has been protesting my eating habits as of late. For some odd reason it hasn't been enjoying corn dogs for breakfast, french fries for lunch, and egg rolls & chips for dinner. Go figure. It's not that I don't enjoy eating healthy. With my current depression I'm not only craving comfort foods, but I pretty much limit my food prep time/energy to the 5 minutes it takes to heat up a frozen meal. Today I decided to do something about this. I went grocery shopping and then came home to do a butt load of cooking. I made beef teriyaki with stir fry veggies and pineapple; lemon pepper chicken with bell peppers, onions and carrots; and burritos with seasoned hamburger, bell peppers, onions and refried beans. After three hours of cooking I ended up with 14 very tasty and very healthy meals which are nicely frozen awaiting my quick microwave treatment. Now my only barrier is craving comfort foods...

Investment Into Solitude

I went garage saling today. I got an old microwave, a nearly new (and very nice) electric skillet, an oversized square down pillow, a 20-cd case, and some over-the-door clothes hooks all for a grand total of $24. I'm pleased. If I get some utensils I could actually do most of my cooking/eating in the basement and see other human beings even less. It's a pretty good plan except for the whole wallowing in depression bit. Ah well. Even plan has it's snags.

Time for Mr. Grumpy's Validation

While I was away at lunch my boss sat at my computer and rearranged much of the paper. She edited, formatted, and moved stuff. She shifted ads around that we had talked about just before I left for lunch. She left a few things apparently in process with lines overlapping ads, etc. Now I don't know what has been done in the paper and what hasn't. She didn't leave me a note or tell me that she had done a thing. I feel totally violated and like she doesn't trust me to do my job. I went into her office and asked if there had been a problem with the paper. She said there was no problem and that she had edited while I was at lunch. She then proceeded to tell me about all the things I'm doing wrong (would she have ever told me these things if I hadn't gone in her office?). I told her that it felt weird when she lays stuff out in the paper while I'm gone; like she didn't trust me to do my job. She said, "You shouldn't feel that way." Ooooooookay. "It's perfectly normal." By this point I'm shaking in rage. I began to explain my concerns in more depth and after being interupted several times I again said that it felt she didn't trust me to do my job. At the very least I wanted her to acknowledge my concerns. She simply said that this is the way things are done. Well thanks for quite enlightening skull fuck. You're a swell boss.

douche bag of an inebriated dog

Here's Your Sign

I love when "I'm just gonna leave that up to you" actually means "you're going to have to do all the work because I'm a lazy-ass-bum who's gonna pawn off the duties of my job onto you."

(as you can see I'm not quite over the grumpies)

The Power of a Phrase

Simply having typed "douche bag of an inebriated dog" helped lighten my mood. I'm in much better spirits at the end of the day. I can't imagine the impact that saying it would have had. I'll have to try it next time.

P a c e Y o u r s e l f

This is like the slowest day of my life. No, it's not "like" the slowest day. It really is the slowest day. In fact, it's going by so slowly that I'm sure it's taken me like 4 hours just to write these few sentences. I'm so freakin' ready to go home. Only 1.5 hours. Let's see: that should equal about 12 hours in grumpy, sleep deprived terms. Damn.

That Time of the Month

Don't ya hate it when you are in an extremely pissy mood and someone decides that's the best time to point out all the ways that you could do your job better?
I do.

Don't ya hate it when you nearly give yourself a hernia trying to stop the venomous responses that are threatening to spew from your lips?
I do.

Does it make you feel bad when you know that these feelings have nothing to do with what the person is saying, but it is entirely about your grumpy mood?
Not me. All I want to do is tell said person what a freakin' douche bag of an inebriated dog they are. I feel quite certain that this response would make my world a better place.

Victoria's True Secret

// my personal research assistant: valette //