OH ME, OH MY OH CAPSLOCK?

I didn't notice the capslock was on; sorry.

The heat [in our office] continues unabated. It will abate (or perhaps be abated) tomorrow; apparently they shut off the a/c over the weekend and then turn it on again on Monday morning. Unfortunately, our warren of offices takes awhile to fill up with cool air, so the first day, ie every Monday, is a slog. Hey, not unlike reading this! Self high-five!




The guy who made this spent a lot of time watching Batman movies. I can't begin to imagine the dedication that takes. It's a hilarious video, but I am completely mystified that someone would watch all the Batman movies and cut them down into chunks and then cut them down into smaller chunks and be like "I have to cut more from these chunks but all the chunks are so good!" and he obsessed over them and had to time them right, and then he was done and he was like "Yeah, that was awesome" but then in a couple weeks' time it will be just another video people sort of remember and then the internet laurels will be gone and he'll have to start again, perhaps by watching the Harry Potter movies (oh GOD do those blow) and this post will remain, not as a hey, check out this Batman video that will amuse you for five minutes, but as a comment on the fleeting nature of youtube fame and the internet everyman's desire to live forever.

Did I ever show you the youtube video I made?



I'm going to live forever!

Am I the schmuck here?

The psychotic printer guy from my previous post sent another email this morning. He claims the logo I sent him is unusable because it's 72 dpi. Here's the image I sent him. It's 300 dpi. Go ahead and download it and open up Photoshop ("the artists' program") and take a look at the resolution. It's 300 dpi, right? In what universe is this image 72 dpi?

Fuck all y'all, where y' = my employer and its contractors

If anything will be the death of me this week, it will be my job. More specifically, the death of my will be brought about by the idiots I have to deal with at work.

For instance, there's the exec who found out that another group is hosting a Ukrainian festival the weekend after our festival. Here's an email she sent Monday. (Imagine I included "[sic]" wherever you see something that would never have been typed by someone with more than fucking grade school education.)

please make sure ad is paid for and place it sio that our festival gets the beat spot. Our must be on the right side full page Color this week is possible. I have the progtram already so that I can give it to you tomorrow. IU am at [the resort where the festival is being held] today. Thioer ad should be after ours and on left side if possible. [Thank you]*

*actually she wrote "Dyakuyu" but you probably don't understand Ukrainian, so I thought I'd translate it

Yes, that's the entire text of the email, and yes, my higher-ups are territorial retards.

Today she sent another email. This one was in a bigger font, so you know she meant business. (Again, "[sic]" is implied throughout.)

Lets make sure our [festival] ad is in color and on the right side of page before their ad. They can be on the left side of a page somewhere behind ours. [THANK YOU]*

*another "dyakuyu" but this one was ALL CAPS

In other words, lets [sic] make sure we underhandedly screw with our advertisers because we feel threatened by their event which takes place a week after ours. And lets [sic] make sure you read this second email which reiterates the information in the first one, albeit typed slightly better, because there's a chance you're an idiot who can't comprehend a message unless it's pounded into your brain. If there's one thing I hate, it's to be treated like a fucking child. If there are two things I hate, the first is to be treated like a fucking child and the second is R.L., treasurer of the [blah blah] Association who can't limit her responsibilities to the scope described in her job title.

This waste of space fancies herself an amateur designer, so she downloads stock photos at 72 dpi, slaps text onto them in Corel Draw and then asks me to make them print-ready. This week I was involved in a threeway email exchange with her and the guy she contracted to print t-shirts. This printer guy is another of life's winners. He saw how out-of-the-loop R.L. kept me, so he offered to send me "the specs." When I said, "I'd love to have a copy of your specs," he re-sent me the email he sent R.L., which read in part:

Now, although Corel is an artist-program, most artists I know don't like it ...rather, they prefer Adobe Photoshop ...this seems to be the artists' standard [at least among the artists I know]...

The optimal files we're hoping for are .psd or .eps
Apart from these, secondary choices would be either .j-peg or .pfd*

*no such thing

I don't know what kind of file transfer capabilities Corel has ...but it may be possible to simply change them to any of the above settings.

When "saving" finished artwork, the optimal action is to have the design sized to scale ...and saved at 300dpi (dots per inch) At Scale (Very Important)...

That, in a nutshell, is pre-press production...
It's a wonderful thing that Programs like Corel or Photoshop have settings that allow one to save in a CMYK profile, but again, it really isn't that simple (believe me, I wish it was).
If you can get me these files in any of the formats listed above (.psd, .eps, etc.), that would be wonderful.

"In a nutshell"? Thanks. You've told me exactly nothing. If a fucking banker asks you for design specs, it's safe to assume she's a useless idiot. If a graphic designer asks you for specs, it's safe to assume he's using Photoshop. When I asked for specs, I was hoping there'd be some information about image dimensions, transparency/opacity ... you know, specs.

And let's get something straight, disphit: Sending you the files as psd's or eps's doesn't mean shit. Psd's and eps's aren't some magical file formats; ff the layers haven't been separated or if the image is flattened, a psd or an eps is as useless as a child' fridge drawing. And you know what, sending you a file saved in a CMYK is indeed "that simple." I took R.L.'s images (which were 72 dpi and like 40" by 40"*), converted them from RGB to CMYK, and separated the color channels into separate layers. It took me less than five goddamn minutes. It's ironic that this guy is a simpleton and can't recognize simplicity, but I shouldn't expect much from a guy who uses the phrase "j-pegs." It's like he has to type phonetically or some shit.

*if I had some goddamn real specs, I'd know what dimensions an image should be for a screened t-shirt. Thanks again, asshole!

So I sent him one of our images which I'd separated into layers: one layer each for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The black layer was on top, but get this: because there was no black in the image (I mean, none at all; it was a very bright, colorful image), the black was blank, ie all white. Why all white? Because I didn't know if the separations were supposed to be on opaque white backgrounds or transparent backgrounds. Such information could have been imparted in the specs, if the specs existed.

After he got that image with the blank black top layer, he sent me an email. Excerpt:

this one you last sent me a link to... opened as a blank page

Did you try opening it in Photoshop, idiot? Photoshop seems to be the artists' standard [at least among the artists I know]. Did you take even one goddamn second to look at the layers pane and see that there was more than one layer?

I decided that I'm going to look into incorporating myself. The next time R.L. asks me to clean up her design disasters, I'll tell her that I cost $40 per hour or for any part thereof (it's a low enough number that it just might work) and then send her an invoice when I'm done. Or maybe I should tell her to shove it and get myself fired. Honestly, that's a really tempting option right now.

Lessons to be learned

It's 11:22 am on Thursday and I'm DIE-ing again.

I really have to start eating substantive breakfasts.

Ease my hunger, Fred Thompson

I'm DIE-ing.

(ie dying, but melodramatically)

It's 11:09am and I want to eat the meatloaf that I brought to work. I made it in my slowcooker overnight and it looks really and truly horrible, a veritable waste of ground beef, but I made it and I'm hungry. It's still too soon to eat, though; if we start eating lunch at 11:10am, we'll be hungry for dinner 40 minutes sooner and why I am calling myself "we"?

In accordance with my sudden interest in the tragicomic presidential aspirations of Fred Thompson, I searched for some fine Fred Thompson campaign swag. What I found is not just a window into the soul of a lifelong public servant (and sometime awesome guy in The Hunt for Red October), but also a soul-searching exposé of my ... soul? That just sounds dumb.

On Ebay I found a pretty slick Fred Thompson poster:

Fig. 1: Auction ends in 4 days!

According to the description, the seller received this poster after making a large donation to Thompson's campaign. Maybe the campaign would have been more successful if they hadn't been so stingy with their sweet-ass posters. Still, it's kind of a shame the artist missed the day in art school where they teach you how to paint bald heads without making the subject look like a creepy robot-man made out of clay.

Another seller on Ebay had this delicious button:

Fig. 2: No link because the auction ended. I know, I'm as depressed about it as you are.

Fred's face is supposed to say, "9/11, Iraq, tax cuts, immigration, Reaganomics, mom and apple pie." Fred's face actually says, "I do not enjoy being photographed, even if it's for MY CAMPAIGN TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES." (emphasis mine)

This hat is available indefinitely on Ebay:

Fig. 3: Buy it now!

This was the first Fred Thompson hat I saw, so I was really excited about it until I thought about the phrasing. "Property of Fred Thompson" ... "Property"? Unless one of Fred's campaign promises is to roll back that pesky Emancipation Proclamation, then the hat could have only meaning: to wear it is to indicate your submissive role in your BDSM relationship with Mr. Thompson. The "Fred08.com" on the side of the hat either refers to the year 2008, or to the 8 inches of dick that swing between Thompson's legs. The American flag on the back is so that Fred can salute Old Glory as he rails you from behind. Only $15!

And speaking of Fred08.com, was "Fred2008.com" already taken? Fred 08 is too easily confused with Fredo 8, and we all know (spoiler alert!) Fredo died at the end of Godfather 2. Sloppy work, Team Thompson.

Er, ok, it ends up Fred08.com was a website set up by Thompson or his campaign, but by people who wanted him to run. In that case, they were making hats that screamed, "I subjugate myself to your will, Fred Thompson!" They were also posting photos that shrugged, "I do not enjoy having my photo taken." For example:

Fig. 4: Comfortable in front of the camera: that's why he's an actor!

Eventually I hit the motherlode of quiet desperation: FredThompsonHometown.com, "the only store providing authentic Fred Thompson merchandise from his actual hometown of Lawrenceburg."

First I found the hat I was looking for:

Fig. 5: Better dead than red, thank you very much.

It is, as you can see, red. That's unfortunate.

But then I saw the link for Limited Edition Shirts. In this case, "limited edition" means "on sale for as little as $6:

Fig. 6: "'Limited' to as many as we still have in stock."

Still, $6? You could get a Fred Thompson candle for a buck less:

Fig. 7: Now I'm starting to feel a little bad.

"$5?" you ask. "Why, I could get a Fred Thompson coin purse for two dollars less!" you exclaim.

Fig. 8: Now I just feel mystification.

Maybe there should be a rule: If your official merchandise was transported from an 1890's general store, you shouldn't be allowed to run for President in the 21st century. I'm looking at you, John McCain 2008 Official Coal Shovel.

Google to my building: "You exist"

The big news from this weekend is not that I started Improv 101 at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater,* nor that The Incredible Hulk was better than it had any right to be,** nor even that Vincent Bugliosi is such a bad-ass that his book "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" was 1600 pages long and still had to come with a cd-rom containing his endnotes and sources.***

*my proudest moment was convincing my improv teacher that "prawn is freshwater shrimp, and shrimp is seawater prawn." She actually interrupted the game to ask if that was true.****
**it still got boring whenever the Hulk was onscreen
***his book came out in 2007, but I only got it this weekend
****it isn't

No, the big news is that Google acknowledged my apartment building's existence via Street View:

Fig. 1: Click for more detail, but not much more

I blurred out the street names because a few of them are distinctive enough that they'll be right at the top of any Google search results, and you'll be able to discover where I live and I'm not accepting any more stalker applications at the moment. Interestingly, these aforementioned Google search results point to the Huffington Post's FundRace 2008, where you can find out how much your neighbor donated to political candidates. It's pretty sweet, until you see that David C. Bushnell of Short Hills, NJ, donated $2300 to Mitt Romney. And then it's perplexing-ish, because you see that David C. Bushnell of Short Hills, NJ, also donated $2300 to Chuck Hagel, $2000 to Christopher Dodd, and $1000 to Hillary Clinton. That's some fine fence-straddlin' there, guy. According to the listings, David C. Bushnell of Short Hills, NJ, is a Senior Risk Manager at Citigroup, so maybe he knows to hedge his bets.*

*Is that how you hedge your bets? I gave up gambling after I lost $4 at the Saskatoon racetrack so I've forgotten a lot of the lingo.

I'm much more a fan of Myra Bushnell of Clermont, FL, who donated $375 to Fred Thompson's campaign. Myra Bushnell apparently is a comedy fan and is willing to pay top dollar to see it.

I personally considered buying a bootleg McCain hat from a sidewalk vendor this weekend, but now I'm thinking I should check Ebay to see if I can score some Thompson swag. Because come on, McCain can't even put on a hat himself, so wearing one with his name is just taunting him. You wouldn't like him when he's angry; he's like the Hulk, only waaaay more in favor of the Iraq war.

That music is never leaving my head now, thanks

Based on the strength of the preview, Laura and I went to see The Fall:



It was indeed as stunningly beautiful as you'd think. And that music in the preview, you know, the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony? Yeah, that got stuck in our heads for several days. That was fun. Laura eventually wrote lyrics to it and then made a short video using those lyrics:


It's a pity she's not singing in the video, because she was amazing when she sang it to me. Her impression of Subcomandante Marcos makes up for it, though.

Subcomandante Marcos is probably my favorite not-yet-successful revolutionary. For a few years he took a backseat to Luther and Johnny, the chainsmoking magical twins who led God's Army in Myanmar when they were 10, but they retired (ie, reached puberty) and now I'm firmly backing the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. You're a part of the problem, not a part of the solution, if you can't support a dude who says things like this:

The only way to get their attention is to kill or be killed. If you ask us what's going to happen in the near future, we have no fucking idea. Sorry for using the word 'idea.' We are ready to go to war or move on to peace.

Sure, war or peace. Either one. OK.

I almost messed my pants ... just once, thank you

The heat that I was complaining about yesterday hasn't subsided. Delightfully, I came home from work yesterday to find a massive power outage in my town and an adjoining town. I suspect it may have been a brown-out or a rolling black-out but not a black-out proper; my suspicion is based in my not knowing the difference between all these terms.

Does it really matter what the different terms mean? For me, the end result is the same: eat some cold pasta salad for dinner; realize that the pasta salad is missing one of chive, leeks, or green onions; call mom to ask the difference between chives, leeks, and green onions; drive a few towns over to go to Taco Bell for dinner; go to the movies to escape the heat even though there's nothing interesting playing; see "The Strangers" by default; realize that seeing a home-invasion horror movie while suffering migraine- and Taco Bell-related nausea is as bad as seeing "Vacancy" (a motel-room-invasion horror movie) after being awake for 36 hours.

I have to give a thumbs-down to "The Strangers" because it scared the shit out of me. Here's the premise: three youths (it's always youths!) put on masks and terrorize a couple in their secluded home. Character fates include, but are not limited to: shot, stabbed, dead, free to terrorize more couples in the future.

I used to love horror movies. No, I still love horror movies, but holy shit, enough with the plausibly realistic horror. Intergalactic shape-changing monster stalks Antarctic researchers? Fake and wonderful. Youths stage a home invasion? WAY TOO REAL.

The best part (only good part) of going to the movies last night was the theater's choice of previews, because the second preview was for "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2: Someone's Washing These Pants, Right?" Does the audience for that movie have a lot of overlap with the audience for home invasion horror movies? The preview wasn't meant as a treat for the creepy dudes who go to horror movies and can't speak to women (perhaps because of a court order), was it? And why weren't the pants featured more prominently in the preview? I know the answer to that last one: it's because the sisterhood that's important, and not the pants. Duh. Thankfully, there does appear to be travel in the movie, so the title isn't completely misleading.

Mother to son: Be more funny!

I told my mom that next week I'm starting improv classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. She was very excited for me. Let me paraphrase what she said:

"I remember how you used to entertain everyone at the dinner table. We'd all be in hysterics! And you haven't been like that in a while. This will be good for you."

I think that's a form of encouragement. It's also kind of an insult, or maybe a lie. I can't think of a time I had a table full of family members in hysterics, unless it was 25 years ago and I was having one of those "Kids say the darndest things" moments. (To paraphrase Eugene Mirman: You'd say the darndest things too if you had no education.)

Conversations at the dinner table with my family resemble that scene in The Karate Kid where Mr. Miyagi has Daniel stand waist-deep in the surf, and Daniel keeps getting knocked down by waves. That scene didn't have the cultural staying power of "wax on, wax off" because it sucked. I think they only left it in because they had to pad the movie to get to 126 minutes. Seriously, have you watched The Karate Kid lately? It's fucking long, and I say that despite the Elisabeth Shue 20-minute shower scene that exists only in my mind.

Sorry, I got sidetracked thinking about The Karate Kid. Oh, Ralph Macchio. Whatever happened to you? (I don't care.) So yeah, conversations at the dinner table are like standing against the tide, where I'm the guy standing against the tide, and the tide is my mom steering the conversation toward all the fun parts of Ukrainian culture of the 20th Century: starvation, deprivation, oppression ... you name it. I think I gave up sometime in my mid-20s and let her have at it. I'm already making travel plans for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is so far away. I'm trying to imagine the weather. It will be cool. It had better be cool. It will be cool. Is that how The Secret works? Oh god I want it to be cool. This heat wave (a/k/a "summer") might be the death of me. And it's not just the heat; it's the perspiration that dries on your body and makes your skin sticky for hours after the heat has subsided. The UCB improv classroom had better be air conditioned, lest I make all my scenes about Ukrainians boiling shoe leather to make sandwiches.