I can’t even describe how tired I am of these. Sim City has always had them all the way back to 1995. This is not a new idea and it just gets more and more annoying.

Example: Picnik, the Flickr online image editor. Status message as it is s…l…o…w…l…y loading the interface over my terabyte connection here at work:

Applying sunscreen…

I think there’s another one along the lines of:

Unwrapping sandwiches…

I get it. The application is called Picnik, so all the status messages have to be picnic themed in order to have an integrated design based on this stupid application name. Right? WRONG!

This is not a clever design. It is annoying, and it sucks.

What is wrong with

Loading…

?

NOTHING! Loading is perfect! It gives you information and doesn’t make you feel like all these highly paid professionals think of you as a 3rd grader who is entertained by this crap.

I’m such a hater, but whatever.

Last week, following a night of tormented dreams, all of Julia’s fish suddenly died just before the slew of celebrity deaths. Sort of a grim prognostication. RIP, fish.

And in tribute to Michael Jackson, who although crazy was unquestionably a genius, I created Sparkleflask:

Benjamin Kunkel poses the question: Is my life richer with high speed internet? His answer: No. He is too brilliant and elite to concern himself with online content, which he considers to be inferior to practically everything ever published. Which suggests he hasn’t read much trashy fiction. And which is ironic since his diatribe against online content is found… online.

My life is infinitely richer with ubiquitous wireless internet. I do a lot of work on the computer- and I always have- and it’s nice to be in touch with people online. I like being on the computer. And just for the record, I like lots of other things too.

He writes:

“The truth is that we are often bored to death by what we find online”

His article is certainly a case in point.

As Julia puts it via text message:

shit like this is why i can’t finish grad school

I think that people who complain about how the internet and texting is destroying the written word are missing the forest for the trees. Yes, it is undeniable that texting doesn’t happen in Oxford English, but neither does practically anything else, and IT NEVER HAS. Idiosyncratic grammar is commonplace. The golden age of literacy is now.

How is this POSSIBLY GOOD?

Great, my battery needs replacing. I can’t WAIT to pry my computer apart or send it back to Apple for 2 weeks.

This isn’t “innovation”- this is “ham-fisted”!

This is what I would like– Apple, Microsoft, Zeus– whoever is listening:

Scenario: You are connected to your external hard drive. (Your computer, not you personally.) You need to leave RIGHT NOW but the drive is busy. You try to eject it, you get an error message saying something along the lines of “This drive is busy. Close applications and try again.” So you wrack your brains, wondering what file on the external you were using with what application. You guess wrong. You try again and again but no dice, you just can’t eject the drive, and then in frustration yank the cord out of the machine and leave, bellowing in rage and now late.

Powers That Be: Why don’t you PROMPT ME to quit applications that are using files on the external so I don’t have to TRY TO FIGURE IT OUT. You could say: “iTunes is using files on [your external.] Would you like to: Save and close; Force quit iTunes without save; Cancel.” So easy and graceful.

My music is already on an external hard drive and I got a new laptop. Here is how I got my new Mac working with my existing library located on my external. (I’m putting the instructions here since every time I change machines I wonder how I got it to work last time, and the articles online just send me in circles.)

If your library is on an external hard drive already:

Here’s how you make the old library work with the new laptop:

On your external, navigate to iTunes Music. Inside that directory find iTunes. Copy iTunes back onto your local machine at: user:Music/iTunes/iTunes Music (yes, the finished result will be iTunes/iTunes Music/iTunes)

Launch iTunes while holding down the Option key. This will cause iTunes to prompt you to select an iTunes library. Navigate to your external and select the iTunes Music directory.

iTunes should now work properly. But iTunes can be temperamental and it may give you a file-not-found error for each track (looks like an exclamation point.) If this happens:

Troubleshooting steps:

1. Relaunch iTunes.

If that does not work:

1. Go to iTunes>Preferences>Advanced. Change the music library location to your external.
2. Select “Keep iTunes Music Folder organized”. Select “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library”
3. Click OK.
4. Go to Library>Consolidate Library. Click OK.

If this does not fix the problem:

1. On local hard drive, go to: user:Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/iTunes
2. Open iTunes Library.xml with a text editor
3. Change the below string to the correct path:

Music Folderfile://localhost/Volumes/[Your External Hard Drive]/iTunes%20Music/

4. Relaunch iTunes.

3. If this does not fix the problem either, just copy all the music files off your external hard drive into the local iTunes Music folder, relaunch iTunes and start over with all the music locally. It’s annoying but ultimately faster and less frustrating than fighting with iTunes.

I had a bottle of awful wine* and decided to make sangria.

Sangria Recipe — translated from the Spanish by a legitimate Spanish major:

Take 1 bottle of putrid red wine (chilled)
Juice of 1/2 orange
1/2 orange (cut into small pieces)
1 apple (cut into small pieces)
1 20 oz bottle of lemon-lime soda
Several shots orange liqueur (Triple Sec, Cointreau, or whatever)

Combine all ingredients in an attractive pitcher. Serve over ice with umbrella straws at a sunny sidewalk cafe. I mean, drink out of the skulls of your enemies.

*Trader Joe’s 2 Buck Chuck. Whoa! It is bad.

Sometimes I get tired of all the doctored photography in the world and I want to put the camera on a weird brown setting and then be too lazy to correct the red-eye.

Like so:

But then sometimes I switch it up and fix the image.

Trying to leave the Black Hole Gravitational Vortex that is the house this AM I grabbed a box of vegetables from the freezer and threw it into my lunch bag. It turned out to be cheese-smothered broccoli, which I don’t like so probably bought by accident. The cheese to broccoli ratio was approximately 1:1. Gross. This is way too much cheese.

Conclusion: Cheesy broccoli does not go well with pizza.

We went to Voodoo Donut while we were in Portland. They had many unusual varieties. Here are the ones we tried, ranked in order of excitement.

1. Mango donut

Excitement type: Flavor explosion. This mango filling was incredible, like the ripest, sweetest mangoes you could ever imagine. It wasn’t a jelly- it had a firm texture.

2. Blood Filled Vampire Donut (I think it was called “Bag of Blood”)

Excitement type: Vampire-shaped. Stake through its heart made out of pretzel. Gaping mouth of agony and froot loop. Raspberry jelly blood filling.

3. Bacon Maple Donut

Excitement type: Bacon on a donut. Sounds kind of wrong but it wasn’t.

If you are going to put bacon on a donut, maple is a good flavor to go with it. I couldn’t help but wish it also had a bavarian or whipped cream filling.

4. Old-fashioned

not pictured

Excitement type: none. But it was excellent all the same.

These 4 donuts cost $13, by the way. Gourmet prices.

I like to take pictures of people who are moved by the spirit of public art projects, such as when my father joined the drama of this pioneer wagon statue last Christmas.

Here Mike becomes one with a Wavy Fence in Portland.

1.

2.

3.

See how his body hangs limp, rises, and falls. See how he emotes.

This is Art.

Julia brought me a Godzilla for my new office. Here he guards my Pop Tarts.

Swine Flu. It beckons.

Glitter does not photograph well. But thanks to Martha Stewart, it is available in lots of refined colors down at my local Wally World. Our culture owes her a lot.

My green chair finally collapsed.

The leg split into shapes that would be ideal for staking vampires, if it should come to that.