Saturday, August 31, 2002

450 Square Feet
It's official. I finally plotted out my apartment and crunch the numbers (all two of them). I live in 450 square feet. I love living in a small space.

Last weekend I came up with a grand scheme to redesign the place. I love my apartment, but there are a couple problems. The biggest one is that between the layout, lack of furniture and my Slob Queen status, my apartment isn't hospitable for anyone but me. When I do clean my apartment and make it visitor-friendly, I get rave reviews and I take great pride in the comfort folks feel here. But that pretty much happens once a year with my fall open house, which occurs 3 consecutive Sundays. And the apartment is a languid pigsty the rest of the year.

Honestly, the new idea was kickstarted with the new IKEA catalog with it's "Think Cubic" theme. And now I've got a plan that will fulfill the goals of having friends over more, making the 10' desk/work area less prominent, and ability to have out-of-town guests stay here. Wowsa. Three items will be bought from IKEA (a table, a locker and roman blinds) and actually won't cost a whole lot. Mostly paint, fabric, foam rubber and lumber.

For the first time in my life I am determined to rearrange furniture WITH a CLEAN apartment. Normally I'm pushing around piles of crap out of the way of furniture paths.

So, the next 12 days, before I head to Minnesota, will be full of cleaning and client work.
posted on 8/31/2002 01:05:15 PM

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

Animatronics
At about 2 am I was flipping through the channels, post-Requiem. Late at night I flip through every channel (versus hitting the FAV button on the remote) to see what night owl offerings there are. Every so often I get snagged by Walt Disney Presents. It's a hour of archived footage from the Land of Disney. Personally, I didn't get the Disney gene, and I avoid the corporation's products. But when I see very old, very garish film of parrots, tiki masks, birds of paradise and orchids singing and animatronicized, I can't turn away. Seeing the 1963 audience of pointing parents and dumbfounded kids. It hit me - the audience, by and large didn't have any sort of computers in their daily life. Woah (#2). I won't get into some revisionist take on early technotainment - let's just say it hurt my brain.

Watching the tv show I was struck by a few things:
1) Is the Enchanted Tiki Room still in existence? Apparently so. From what I can tell online, it's still running at Disneyland. Has it changed much? Looks like the Disneyland version has been refurbished but still retains the integrity of the original. The Disney World version is reworked with newer characters from one of the movies (this is where my attention span breaks down).
2) Do families still sing along with the song ""Let's All Sing (Like the Birdies Sing)"?
3) Are parrots indigenous to Germany? José (Spanish accent) is the main emcee parrot, but they also threw in 3 more parrots to round out the mix - Fritz (German accent), Pierre (French accent) and Michael (Irish accent). Took me a few minutes to figure out why the parrot's accent was all over the place. Oh, wait...of course! Four parrots from all over the corners of Europe. Still charming, despite the strange geographical reasoning.
4) How big is this Tiki Room anyhow? I said I wouldn't judge the Tiki Room by 2002 tech standards, but it still has to be impressive. The movements may be limited to this lowering and rising from the ceiling, mouths and eyelids opening and closing - but the shear magnitude of characters must still be impressive. This was confirmed today reading that there are 225 "performers." Just about a 1:1 ratio of audience to "performer" How often does that happen?

After fact-finding this morning, I learned that the Tiki Room is was Disney's first audio-animatronic creation. Apparently, it's been saved after a tenuous future. Seems like it's a piece of Disney history, that should be saved, even if dated. If you want to learn more, here's a tour of the line outside. One and two good, basic introductions to the Enchanted Tiki Room. Here's a page with LOTS of details. And Disney's official content-sparse blurb. And finally, a page that will give you another tour and history of the Tiki room, along with their efforts to keep the Enchanted Tiki Room entertaining folks.

Posted on 8/27/2002 11:05:44 AM

Friday, August 23, 2002

I know I shouldn't complain about work. But I am. Because half of my projects became dormant and all of a sudden all of them are ON. All at once. And yet, not until today was I able to complete and invoice a project.

So, now I'm on Operation Invoice, cracking down on deadlines, lighting fire under asses and get projects done. I'm off to Minnesota again on September 12th - and I want to go with a clear mind a (nearly) empty client plate.

August?
All afternoon and evening there's been a good amount of fog outside. Between the opacity outside and the AC running inside, my brain is thinking it's winter and those are flurries outside. Very odd.

Time vs. Money
Ok, so I recently joined LiveJournal and am participating in a list of called "craftgrrl." Interesting stuff. Really enjoying being on it. Tonight someone posted saying that they could not imagine charging $30 to someone else for a scarf that took $5 in materials. I dug my response, so here it is:

"Here's the deal. (WARNING! Gross generalization) There's two types of people in the world - Makers and Buyers.

Some folks love to make stuff. They'd rather spend a lot of time and a little money to get stuff. Buyers would rather spend money than time to get stuff.

Besides, a lot of the non-Makers just don't have the inclination, patience or skill to make stuff.

That's just the way it is. So, Makers should price their stuff for the Buyers and not the Makers - AND at a price that values their time and skills."

Jeezycreezy - it's 1 am. I gotta tuck myself in for the night/morning.

Posted on 8/23/2002 01:06:45 AM

Monday, August 19, 2002

It's over!!

Last week was 20% ok to good, 80% sucky-horribleness.

As an antidote, I made a mix cd of great music that makes your butt wiggle. Here's the songlist (forgive the formatting, but I don't feel like reformatting it from the way I used it on the CD label):
Audiopharmacology
you're doing better|ken nordine||don't rain on my parade|bobby darin||hotel yorba|the white stripes||holiday inn|stereo total||patricia|billy may & his orchestra||honeycomb|jimmie rodgers||a little less conversation|elvis presley||let's work together|canned heat||i thank you|sam & dave||weapon of choice|fatboy slim||danke schoen|wayne newton||brazil theme|michael kamen||mercy, mercy, mercy|the buckinghams||video|india.arie||la la la love you|the pixies||grazin' in the grass|friends of distinction ||soul bossa nova|quincy jones||i'm not responsible|tom Jones||walkin' down the street|the coctails||stickshifts & safetybelts|cake||sir duke|stevie wonder||happy trails|roy rogers & dale evans

Now I plan to have a great week.

Posted on 8/19/2002 10:39:58 AM

Wednesday, August 14, 2002

Measure of how stellar today has been? My left eyelid has been twitching for two hours straight. Fun. Oh, yeah, and heart palpitations. Rockin.
Posted on 8/14/2002 11:20:35 AM

Monday, August 12, 2002

I felt like I scored low on the Flux-O-Meter. I think I may hold a higher constant threshold of flux and instability, because I'm a freelancer and because I'm always juggling several things. But that's on one level. On another level, there are several givens. I know who I am. I know I'm going to be living in Chicago. I love my business and am doing what I should be doing. I'm not concerned with a romantic life, so no drama there. Great solid support network.

It's exciting to see people thinking about that stuff, vs. the same ol' same old. I wish them all well.

Posted on 8/12/2002 09:53:00 AM

Wednesday, August 07, 2002

Interesting stuff. Kudos to all the players for playing a good game, and to the production team and ABC for designing a good one.

The Mutual Admiration Society
Ciaran and Miss Amy Beth both said lovely things about me on their sites these days. Can't deny that it feels good, but the best thing is that in both cases it's people and sites I rilly, rilly like in return. So, go to Amy Beth's Supah and Ciaran's UberCyberCats and enjoy!

Momma's Got a Brand New Blog
Ok, how to explain this so it makes sense outside of my own head...
This blog is my personal thoughts and is located at the "Me" circle on my homepage and is the connector to the other "Me" sub sections. Well, the few ardent followers of Loosetooth will notice that the "Art/Work" and "Commerce" circles had been very neglected. Design-wise they needed to be there to define and connect their subsections, but I really didn't have any content to put there. Well, after being inspired by other crafters online, I decided to start a blog describing my current projects on the "Art/Work" page . So, that's up and running as of very early this morning. And I'll be creating a "Commerce" blog soon, that'll explain the trials and tribulations of building an online store. If nothing else, it'll hopefully entertain the folks who are waiting for the store to be up. (I know, I know, ME TOO.)

Posted on 8/7/2002 11:50:29 AM

Tuesday, August 06, 2002

Dorothy was NOT the Mole. I was WRONG. Fuck. Dorothy was the fuckin' WINNER. Argh. I was SO WRONG. I hate that.

Grrrrr.
Posted on 8/6/2002 08:15:35 PM

The Mole II
Since tonight's the season finale, I feel like I have to go on record and say I think that since episode 4 I've thought Dorothy was the Mole. I feel so strongly about this that I'll be friggin' shocked if it is Heather or Bill.

So there.

And, by the way, who saw Anderson Cooper when he was an anchor on ABC's World News Now on the graveyard shift?

I happened upon the show on a very rare night of insomnia (always brought on by a rush of brainstorming). Great news because it was silly and quick and fun. They reported real news, but it wasn't that inflated-importance, human-interest crap of prime timenews. "Hey, let's put on the news since no one's watching" kind of show. I was totally charmed by the show, and looking forward to switching it during those sporadic all-nighters. Anderson was/is just a big goofball (and I mean that in the best possible way). Which made the switch for 4 am, slap happy, news anchor to Serious Reality TV host hard for me to swallow. Seems like he's more himself (like I know the guy) this second season than last. Hope to see more of him post-Mole, but more of the WNN tenor.

Site update
Here's the newest update on the site. Hooray!
posted on 8/6/2002 11:27:20 AM

Saturday, August 03, 2002

When Burgundy began "attendant talks," I found out I would have to find summery, black formal shoes to wear with my apple red bridesmaid dress. I started looking right off the bat, well in advance of the August 2003 date. I know how big my feet are. I know how low my tolerance for uncomfortable shoes is. I know how foreign this task was going to be to me, being so un-girly.

I was determined to get shoes that were the triumvirate of cute, comfy and reasonably priced. They should also be copasetic for the heat of summer. And while the dress will graze the ground, they wouldn't be seen much, but still had to be fancy enough for the occasion. No high heels, because, like I said, I'm un-girly. Yeah, yeah, throw in my wide Fred Flinstone feet and I know I'm asking the world. At least I was giving myself over a year to find these mythical shoes.

Since it's now summer and I live within a train/bus ride of a shopping Mecca (Michigan Avenue), I started my shoe hunt in late June. After a few fits and starts I knuckled down one day on the Miracle Mile. From Nordtroms to Nieman Marcus to Marshalls to Hanig's to Filene's Basement to Marshall Fields to Lord and Taylor. Nada. At Nordstroms, the well-known convergence of shoe selection and customer service, I found a pair of black slipper type flat, cute as the dickens. The salesman was prompt and helpful, and promptly came back to tell me they only had up to a size 8 1/2. I am techincally a wiiiiiide 7 1/2, but shoes are rarely as wide as my feet, except for Birkenstocks. So, I usually end on in a 9 to 10 in women's shoes. Thus my propensity for men's 8 1/2 shoes.

Dejected, I went as far to hunt down the shoe online. Very few hits, none in larger sizes. Very odd.

After that day, I felt like I was probably going to either 1) have to go to the crossdressers shoe store to get the wider sizes. By the way, I'm only 5-foot-freakin-2, so I've got some flippers on me. or 2) Wear the currently popular flip-flop style sandal, and just find a fancy version of this. Because there really aren't sides to flip flops, my wideness wouldn't matter as much.

Jump to last week in Minnesota. Burg, who inherited the shopping gene that I didn't, said, "Hey, let's go shopping." A few hours later I had bags of cool shit, and paid full price for nothing. Amazing. We went to a thrift store and Burg found a pair of heeled Mary Janes in black velvet my size. She said, "try these." Barely used. Fit. Comfy. They weren't summery so much, but they fit all the requirements and definitely fit the reasonable price requirement - a paltry $5. So, the basic requirement was fulfilled.

A few days later Burgundy (bride), Sally (matron of honor), Shannon (bridesmaid) and I (bridesmaid) trekked back to David's Bridal to finalize the bridesmaid's dress decision. We are each wearing a different dress, same color. Everyone comfy and happy. Done and done.

Afterwards, Burg, Shannon and I dropped by Famous Footwear. I was half-heartedly browsing. Burgundy, behind me, picks up a shoe, waves it, and says, "Isn't this the ugliest shoe?"

Ohmigod.

It was the shoe. The only shoe I really liked. The one that didn't come in my behemoth size.

No surprise that these particular two sisters look at the same pair of shoes, one thinks "cuter than the dickens" and the other thinks "darn ugly." After a good laugh we found the shoe on the shelf. The second I put it on, Burgundy conceded, "Yep, those are cute, they are very you."

Bought a freakin' size 11. On sale too. Now I've got the shoe base covered. Dress done. Shoes done. Haircolor unknown, but growing out the uberbleached hair to accommodate Burgundy's request. "You don't have to have your natural hair color, but you do have to have something resembling a natural hair color." No sweat. Jewelry TBD. Because I can make jewelry, no worries there. I'll make a proper bridesmaid yet.

Posted on 8/3/2002 11:59:39 AM