I have a bad case of ennui.

I'm fighting a cold, and have spent too many hours in front of the keyboard. The combination has made me sore, sneezy, and unwilling to battle the little crap life flings at me.

(Bear took full advantage of this and played Roller Coaster Tycoon for about 5 hours today - so much for practicing his handwriting every single school day of 2009, huh?)

Where's the path to getting out of this hole?

Posted by: Elizabeth at 02:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I woke up to an interesting mailbox.

The Case of the Novice Newspaper

First of all, my daily drop from my local newspaper informed me that the blizzard warning had been dropped. OK. That's gotta be good news - right?

Except: Horrible weather still predicted. Plus they spelled it 'Bizzard' - right there in the headline. Which made me briefly wonder if, as a cost-saving measure, they fired all the real reporters and hired eager high school kids instead. Then I slapped my head and realized - high school kids would actually know how to use the spell-checker.

I looked outside. The sun is blindingly bright over an inch of fresh snow. You're batting 0 for 2, Lee. (*Updated: They fixed it.) more...

Posted by: Elizabeth at 05:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I found this old picture while cleaning up my archives. Those jeans? Are paisley.

I'll give you a minute to wipe the milk out of your nose.

Almost as bad as the fact that I bought, and wore, and thought I was COOL in those terrifying pants is that I still had them in my closet in 1998.

I can remember, grudgingly, making more room for CD. He used a bureau. I hate bureaus. I like shelves and baskets. It seems all good on paper - but in reality, he's a clothes horse. The fashion encroached, and I had to make room.

And there I was, with paisley jeans in hand, thinking: I should save these. Styles always come around again.

Memo from Above: No, Virginia. Paisley jeans will not come back. Nor should they.

I was thinking about that as I've been working.

Schooling my son, figuring out how to crock pot a pot roast (because the oven's dying), and teaching myself about RSS and Digg and Slashdot and Tags vs. Keywords and meta crawling...

Paisley jeans. Will Technorati ever be like Paisley jeans? Will StumbleOn? When Kalisa and Helen and RP and Ben (both of them) and who-all-else and I all started blogging - 5 years ago, now - "social media consultant" was a made-up phrase for "spends too much time on the Internet".

I just organized 5 years' worth of mastheads. Watched as trends came and went, as my skill with photoshop matured...

For the first time in my life, my insatiable curiosity has become a little...sated. At least around the edges. My neck is sore. My brains is stuffed.

I need a good, stiff drink.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 03:33 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Although far from done, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. And it's not a train.

Disturbingly, I was looking at a magazine article the other day and began imagining how it would be coded if I wanted to use the layout online.

Time to take a break. And cut back on the Dunkie's. Cuz, seriously.

Oh, and last night I saw "Zach and Miri make a porno". Can I just saw that I never, ever needed to see Jason Mewes naked? Now I need an itty bitty scrub brush for my eyeballs.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 10:25 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Helen has declared it "International Internet Reveal Your Horrid Teenage Years Picture Day".

It would be crazy to go along with this - and I wouldn't - but a) I happened to be organizing my backups and found some old (old, old) pictures of me that made me all nostalgic (although wondering why - the good ol' days weren't particularly good) and b) after seeing what she posted of herself, I couldn't help but have a bit of a laugh. A lot of a laugh. So, it's only fair.

Here's me, about 2 months before turning 13. It's the last time I'll be cute for at least a decade.

Want proof? more...

Posted by: Elizabeth at 11:00 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Not even close, babe. Your teen years look happy, wholesome, and super-cute. Horrid has not touched you. Be glad.

Posted by: Helen at January 09, 2009 09:23 PM (aPO+r)

2 Definitely the girl next door that all the boys had crushes on.

Posted by: Angie at January 11, 2009 10:03 AM (x2XWI)

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Walking the tightrope. If you've visited lately (despite my radio silence) you have probably noticed that I'm editing live.

It's a long story why.

Don't I have a program in which to build this site before uploading? Why yes, yes I do. FIVE of them.

But Pixy, Dude amongst Dudes, hosts me on Movable Type 2.something. Pixy? Is faboo. I do not complain about MT 2.prehistoric. However, my site-building programs DO. They are ungrateful bitches, every last one of them. And reward my situation by confirming code that absolutely looks different (if it works at all) once uploaded.

So...armed with a text editor and sheer chocolate-fueled will, I have been weeble-wobbling a design. This front page is the prototype of the new site. It has not yet been propagated. Comments and archives are limping behind. But the core is here. The style sheets are lovely and simple. The layout is decided.

I would give a small kingdom (say, Lichtenstein) to be able to use American Typewriter (see Title Font on background) for my titles, Costa for my subtitles, and my all-time favorite, Optima, for my text. But it turns out that even in 2009, one can not have everything.

And I? Can have even less. Simply because I don't know what I am doing. It's my own dumb fault. While smarter folk were diving into the curvy deliciousness of CSS, HTML, and Java - I was sitting cross-legged with my massive SAN boxes while the EMC-rep crooned 'This Land is Your Land' to the data center.

So this is what I have so far. I thought it would take me 3 days to upload. It's taken me 3 weeks. And I'm not all the way there yet. But I've got my "Style for Dummies" book, a bagful of Hershey Kisses, and a half-full bottle of acetaminophen.

Yeah. Hit it.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 02:18 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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