Dear idjit Kern county drivers,
When you’re in the fast lane, doing 45 in a 70 zone, and there are people stacking up behind you, flashing their lights at you, passing you in the middle lane, and even the big rigs are passing you like you’re standing still, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to GET THE FUCK OVER TO THE RIGHT LIKE THE SIGNS SAY.
No love whatsoever,
Me
hummmmmmmmBANG!
This afternoon I was on the net-connected computer for a short time. I was catching up on the various sites I visit regularly. Well, that’s what I thought I was doing. I never got past the first one I hit. It seems that I have not yet lost my curse when it comes to computers. Yes, the chick who managed to make a mainframe go crazy back in the 80s just by quitting a game of Nethack and made the screen fill with nothing but “y y y y y y y y yyyyy yyy yyyyyyyy y y y yy y yyyy y y y y yy” is at it again. Not bad enough that one of my own computers would flip out once a month and would not boot into Windows 3.1 from DOS without a CD (didn’t matter what CD, could be any, but there HAD to be one) in the drive. Today I managed to kill a computer by reading Protagonize. I’d been at the site for maybe a minute at the most, when there was an almighty great BANG from the tower and the machine died a grisly death. Well, okay, it lost all power immediately after the bang. I think that’s close enough.
I immediately thought that it was the power supply. But the machine’s still under warranty, so we called tech support, and they diagnosed that the hard drive was the problem. They said that we’d have to find someone who could recover data from a dead drive, and they’d be shipping an entire new tower to us. This would take two weeks.
Of course the net-connected computer died now. We needed to start working on our midterm projects today for the Flash class, and I’m behind by one project now since I’d been planning to upload it just after hitting the sites for the day’s reading. It is now on the unusable machine. I will have to reacreate it on my own computer now that the net connection and software I need have been transferred to it. And I’ll have to work around my mother, who does not deal well with no computer all day. She’s generally on from the time she gets up until she goes to bed. In the past if her computer went south, every day she’d take over my computer for longer and longer and make it difficult for me to get anything done. I’m sure that’s how it will play out now as well. The new computer will finally arrive just about the time the midterm projects are due and my spring break starts. So just after the pressure is off. Fun, fun, fun.
Well, I guess this is what I get for taking time for enjoyment before uploading my work on the last project. Off I go to recreate my animated Flash travel brochure. At least I’m done with the night photo shoots for the night/low light project in photography. That opens up some time at night, since I’m not out wandering the streets of Delano most of the night with camera in one hand and barstool over the opposite shoulder.
What? What’s wrong with that? I didn’t have a tripod (it just arrived today, AFTER the shooting was over). YOU try to hold a camera rock-steady through a 15-second exposure so your picture isn’t all blurred. Then tell me how well that works for you.
Students in the digital photography class were talking about how many weird looks they’d get while taking photos at night. I say that if you really want to get stared at, go out shooting pictures at night while lugging around a big, backless, wooden barstool on your shoulder.
Joyride
I may be taking only two classes this semester, but the pace of work is enough that I don’t have much spare time for anything. Between taking pictures, postprocessing images, and getting my best work together for each project in digital photography and the animation work in the Flash class, I feel like I’m always busy trying to meet some deadline or other.
In spite of that, I’ve been making some (admittedly small at this point) attempt to keep up with writing over on Protagonize. The site began in December and I joined in January. I discovered it through MonkeyFilter. One of the other members, dng, posted it there after he’d started an addventure-style story on Protagonize.
I didn’t join Protagonize with my most common username. I read dng’s story there, and the style of humor just wasn’t for me. There probably wouldn’t have been any problem if I’d used my usual handle, but I didn’t want even the chance that I might irritate or annoy dng for not joining in on his story. The humor in it just wasn’t for me, either falling flat or vaguely annoying me. Nothing wrong with that. Not every style of humor is for everyone. But I had enough confrontations going on at home. I didn’t even want the slight chance that there might be one, however minor, over “The Screaming Boy”.
So I played around on Protagonize for a bit under an old name. I’d forgotten how much I love writing collaborative fiction. I was reminded. And then I was the featured author for a week, which was a very nice ego boost.
It took until the introduction of linear stories before I finally decided to start one of my own. It’s been there a couple weeks or so. I’m not sure exactly, since I have a truly lousy sense of time. But this week, it’s the editor’s pick. So far, Joyride only has four chapters, but I like where it’s going, and I’m hoping more people will come out and play.
It was just what I needed, after several long hours of postprocessing, to discover “Joyride” was an editor’s pick. Made the whole lousy day so much better.
