LUCKY NUMBERS

Glen has just informed me that his favorite number is 13,021. Why? Because in hexadecimal, that's 32DD.

I almost killed a coworker today. She's been asking me for four days to do something with her, and each day she's backed out for lack of time.

So today, she called me at 12:15 and asked if we could do it "now." I asked if we could do it after lunch, and she said, "No, no, this is the only time I have!" so I agreed.

She came over to my desk, and started looking at images. Everything was "crap". This is how these things always go with her--all images are crap, but then when you ask her to choose one, she won't.

Less than five minutes after arriving at my desk, she answered her mobile phone. Fifteen minutes later, she was still on the phone, and only paused once, when I cut-and-pasted an image, to say, "Oh, NO! Don't use that one, it's crap!"

After another five minutes or so, I said in an unamused voice that I thought it would be a good idea if she hung up the phone and started actually working with me. She got upset, of course, because she thought I was being snappy. I was.

I don't mind skipping my lunch because someone needs me to work. I do mind skipping lunch so that someone can talk on her mobile next to me.

Then started the 45 minutes of explaining to her that no, you can't just use a copyrighted image to send to all of your corporate clients. She ended up taking something off of the LIFE magazine classic photos page--the one with all of the warnings about use of the images being prohibited by law. If she gets fined, I am *so* not going to get involved in the defense.

We finished at 2:30.

I HAVE MISSED MY CALLING

This site:

My Porn Name

tells me that my porn name is "Aria Hunter."

...and I studied opera for eight years.

Tell me that isn't scary.

NOW PLAYING - PHOTOSHOP!

I've been thinking lately that I should have a "now playing" line at the top of my posts. For example, right now, I'm listening to Divine Comedy, "fin de siècle".

The problem with this, of course, is that I would feel pressured to be consistent about this--you know, and always list what I'm listening to.

And the problem with *this*, of course, is that then you might have an entire week of "ICS Wig Lodge X-mission 1, track 23". And although *I* know that I sometimes listen to one track off of one CD twenty times in one week, I don't know if that's information I want to share with the world.

Today's exciting graphics question (from the coworker who thinks that Photoshop comes with an "add snow" button) was this:

If you want to use a Microsoft icon, how many pixels do you have to change before it's far enough away for them not to sue you for copyright infringement? (Note: this is for his own personal project, not for anything at work. I actually draw the icons at work, as I have mentioned, and no, I don't open a microsoft icon and push the "make an icon like this only not Microsoft" button in Photoshop.)

My answer: I don't know. I've never done that. I understand that Person A has, however, and I think he knows all about it.

This did not end the questioning. It went on for about 15 minutes. No, I don't know whether just changing the color of the pixels is sufficient, or if you have to change the shape of the drawing as well. I really don't know. I've never done it. Um, yes, I know how to change pixels. You change pixels by opening the image in Photoshop or Paint or whatever you want, and take the pencil tool and draw new pixels. This is all I know.

Buttons I would like to see in Photoshop:

1. The "make this drawing not crap" button.

2. The "No, no, I wanted to draw a horse, not a dog" button.

3. The "Remove this guy from the picture and show me what's behind him" button. (Or, "remove this object from the picture")

4. The "Clear up my skin and take 20 lbs off of me in this photo" button.

5. The "Please make this stock photo not look naff" button.

I'd also like to see some kind of wizard where you can type in your client's vague instructions and have Photoshop magically translate them into an image. You know, like, "I want my website to be trendy yet traditional. Create a look that says, we're stable, we've been here a while, and yet we're on the cutting edge and not at all stale." That sort of thing.

PROGRESS REPORT

I am really getting quite good at rolling cigarettes.

Still not smoking.

On the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, it's time to revisit....

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation

INSANITY SETTING IN

This guy at work is driving me crazy. I feel really badly about this, because he's a really nice guy. I seem to have this recurring theme in my working life--there always seems to be one person who I work with who is really nice, but who makes my work life exceedingly tedious.

For several years the "really nice guy" was a terrible programmer. I mean, really terrible. Which would be fine if he hadn't chosen to do that for a living. But when you were put on a project with him, it was like the worst news ever.

This new one is kind of funny in a way.

In case I haven't mentioned it in the last five minutes, what I do for a living is program computers and design graphics. The split is about 50/50.

So this guy is constantly asking me questions about design that are, shall we say, unusual.

I don't think he really grasps what it is that I do here.

For example, one of my duties has been to look at the current software product, and design new icons that fit in with the new style. (I can post that, since the new product has already shipped and this is not anything confidential at this point.)

One day, this guy asked me if I could show him how to convert a graphic to the new look. He literally thought that what I do is open one of the old graphics in Photoshop, hit a button that says "convert to new spiffy look", and then save the new graphic.

This week's questions were: a) if I could show him how to make an "attachment" graphic (answer: draw one), and b) how one goes about taking a picture and then making it look like everything in the picture has snow on it (answer: draw snow on it).

These are the more normal questions. Don't ask me about the "What is it like to be an American?" questions.

UNINSPIRED

I am so uninspired. I have been staring at this website all day, and I have about as much inspiration as the head chef at Taco Bell. (Hey, I have come up with an *entirely new* way of combining beans, cheese, and tortillas!)

I spent all weekend playing with my new toys, and of course taking breaks for shopping and watching more Father Ted. The great thing about ICS is that right now, I don't feel any pressure to create great music, and this frees me up quite a bit to just spend time learning this stuff. How bizarre.

I'm definitely going to turn into a cult person. I already feel myself thinking (and speaking) of ICS with the fervent glow of a recent Amway convert. As long as I don't try to have sex with the founders and their five other wives, I think we're okay. (Considering the fact that I think I'm the only straight person in my lodge, I probably have nothing to worry about. Besides which, they all live in San Francisco.)

I'm at the point now where I'm trying to figure out how to feed the MIDI files back through my keyboard and then into my pre-amp to record them as audio tracks. This seems clunky to me, and I wonder if there's another piece of software that allows you to skip this tedious step.

In other news, I discovered this morning that the top song in the British pop charts last week was from a boyband (Westlife) covering a Barry Manilow tune (Mandy).

I *need* to get out of this country.

Oh, and my sister, Natalie, informs me that I have, and I quote, "exquisitely bad taste." She meant this as a compliment.

I think.