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 I expect you’re waiting for a weather report, followed by the usual mewling. I am but your humble servant. So: it’s cloudy. But they’re not the heavy great clouds that press down like Chinese economic thumbs; they’re indistinct and fuzzy clumps that flow into one another without clear boundaries, like characters in one of those dreams your brain can’t quite get interested in. Bruise-blue and the sort of white you’d find on a paint chip at the Ralph Lauren department of Home Depot, wondering why they called this white “camisole” and how, exactly, it’s different than “mountain linen.” At least the clouds are low. I am no fan of the high clouds that hug the ceiling of the sky in a way that makes you think they’ve usurped the blue entirely. But no rain; that counts. Sixty degrees and change; that counts too.
It’s a Chuck E. Cheese’s night, which means I Gnat and I will play Skee Ball for an hour. I’m going to bring the good camera, so perhaps I’ll post pictures tonight. It’s also a column night, and since my wife won’t be home until very late, little time for this or any other fun. In fact I should be working at my column now. Or at least cleaning my desk. When I moved a few weeks ago I transferred the drawers to the top of the new desk, since I don’t have drawers at the new place. I should just throw the lot away, but workplace items have a peculiar gravity. I might want this book. Someday. I might want to read this book kindly sent for my review. I need to answer some of this mail. In short, nearly everything I see represents some form of obligation, both here and at home. Makes you feel slightly envious of the sociopathic personality, who sees obligation nowhere.
Anyway – Coke break’s over. Back to whatever the hell it is I do around here.
Later. Aw, man. I finally get a few minutes to answer mail and the Strib Emualtor dies on me. I communicate with the Mothership – sorry, the non-gender-specific-parental-figureship – via this ingenious Java emulator, but the other end of the system is the usual Medusa’s headdress you find in Windows, and one of the hissing snakes bit the cord that connected me. So just to answer the points I was hoping to address: I don’t know if the entire Symphony is still available. If not I’ll try to get permission to host the entire thing here at lileks.com
Now I’m doing this while Gnat watches the last of her Dora DVD. You know, if you only observe Dora from the periphery, every – single – fargin’ – episode – is the same. I’m not entirely sure why we need the concept of an animate, self-aware backpack, but: whatever. We went to Chuck E.’s tonight, and she wore herself out on Skee-Ball. I hit high score, thank you very much, but was only repaid with 45 tickets. She nearly fell asleep eating her pizza. I only got three pictures, the link to which follows at the end of this. The first was heavily photoshopped. I’ve been spending a lot of time in PS lately – recall yesterday how I was merrily redoing sites for the sheer pleasure of it? Woke up today, looked at what I’d done, and thought: eh. Krep. I have this template: title on top, illustration, text below, navigation button on the bottom. Everything I’ve done has been a tweak of that basic idea, and it gets irritating; you see the picture, scroll down, read the text, scroll back up to see the picture again, scroll back down to click next. What if –
Nah.
No! What if I do the unthinkable, and make the text a graphic? I’m still playing with this – it’ll mean larger file sizes, but maybe I should start to think ahead to a day when the majority of visitors have modems faster than a cold slug on sand. Here’s the old version. Here’s the new idea. It's still too busy, but you can see what I'm aiming at. (On second thought, having previewed this several times: nah.) It means more work – an incredible amount of work, frankly – but it makes the site look more like the book version I’d love to do.
Okay, Dora’s done. Excellente. Swiper no swiping. We did it, we did it. What was your favorite part? When the PRI suffered a crippling electoral defeat in a region expected to sweep anti-reform elements back into office! I liked that too. Off to bed for her, and off to the couch for me. It’s been a long day.
Oh, wait: I have a column to do. Oy. Well, fine; I like writing columns and I’m glad I have a job writing them. Can’t complain. Shouldn’t. Dasn’t. Be a fool to carp.
And why this merry Pollyanna mood?
At 4:57 PM, Thursday Afternoon, the clouds moved on and the sun came out. Birdsong and blue skies. I forgot: May always leaves with a wink and a kiss. You forgive everything.
Especially when you have this.
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Perm link: here.
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