General vent

Okay, so one of my web writing stories is up in ja_student. I bargained with Jim B., my instructor, to let me actually put it up on a blog so I don't have to fuck around with Frontpage.


I'll say it: it sucks. It sucks eggs. If it were up to me, I'd rip it up and start over. But it's already late; I got some extra time for being really sick a while back. I never ended up emailing/interviewing anyone because I got too sick to talk/get out of bed [edit: this made no sense before, I hadn't slept, forgive!], and...well, just so on and so forth, my luck is always all bad or all good at once. I honestly thought it was fun trying to track down the "paper trail" on the internet, but there was no real JOURNALISM involved in doing this. Good thing it's just for class.

I'm getting more practice this year at having things that suck get published, either formally or informally. This, the photo for the Weekly Albertan that was so horribly cropped, the story for Vex that I tore my hair out over (assuming that it got published...still don't know), and the United Way story.

(That is, being coerced, simply by virtue of being IN this program, into being a mouthpiece for the United Way's self-congratulatory shit. I got the privilege of wheedling people into telling me good things about the mental-health programs the UW funds in Calgary, just so I could write some peppy little story about it.)

Jim C. apparently liked my United Way story, but he's on crack. And all my sources have my phone number, so I think I'll just not be answering the phone for a while...

Because HE might think it's a great story - and I'll agree that I did what I could with it - but my sources are probably going to be thinking that I misrepresented what they said. Which I did, basically, because the United Way people are asshats. I SWEAR my sources were out-and-out lied to, given some of what they told me.

"I was told you wouldn't ask me for any details!" Um, glad they told ME that, lady.

"I was under the impression that I could vent about how much mental health care sucks in this city." Believe me, I'd love to write it...

"I didn't really take that program; the time it runs at is inconvenient." Uh...

And best of all:

"No, you can't take my picture. My first name is enough." Didn't they tell you - ANY of you - that I need a picture?! If pictures are so important, couldn't they at least find sources who aren't camera-shy or hiding from their entire extended family or something?

So I get to run out and take pictures next week because the UW is going to try and set something up again. I can't really refuse to do it, but on the other hand...I want to tell them to ram it sideways.

EWEWEWEWPHOBIA!!!

You know, up until two minutes ago, I would not have considered myself an arachnophobe. Not at all. And I'm generally against the unnecessary killing of critters, even the buggy types.

But...

Okay, I'm the only one still awake. And I just spotted this FUCKING HUGE SPIDER. The lights upstairs are dimmed down, so at first I thought it was a daddy-long-legs, so I thought, oh...maybe I'll carefully scoop it up (or let it run into a plastic jar itself, so it doesn't get harmed) and carry the little thing outside.

I mean, I wasn't going to kiss it or anything - ew, bugs - but letting it go outside, hey, no big deal.

Then I turned on the light. EW-OMFG-WTF-IS-THAT?!! It looks like a baby tarantula or something, with less hair or whatever it is that's on their legs. It's HUGE. It looks like it could practically eat one of my cats.

I don't want to be sexist here and say I freaked out like a little girl, but you know... I think I had less guts in general right then than most little girls. I ever marry, I tell ya, SHE'S the one with bug duty.

So I squished it. I went and got one shoe on and came back...and then chickened out further and went and got the OTHER shoe on that I didn't need and I squished it. Seriously, fuck the carpet...

And then I went and got an empty plastic juice bottle that was going out to be recycled, and a spoon, and I scooped its body into the bottle, and then filled the bottle half-way with water, and went outside and dumped it in the grass. And left the bottle outside, and went in and sterilized the FUCK out of the spoon, and washed my hands with anti-bacterial soap. And I still have creepy-crawlies.

I haven't been flipping every time I see a little spider somewhere in our house - if it's easy to snag, I've been taking it outside, otherwise I let it go. What's a little spider, they aren't hurting anyone, etc.

NOW I will be flushing every little damn bebe spider down the fucking can, now that I know they grow up to look like THAT.

I'm sorry to judge on looks, except...not at all. I don't think I'll sleep well tonight.

SPIDERS EVERYWHERE BEWARE.

New Layout

Okay, finally decided to bite the bullet and change my layout. I was putting it off because I customized the old one back when I was paid, and I knew I'd be loosing some features, but eh...I'm now so sick of what I had that I could scream, and my "About This User" sidebar was way out of date.

So! I'm using "Flexible Squares" for now. I'm still waffling on that. I'm not completely sure about:

-Colors. I don't want to spend hours futzing with them like I used to every time I changed my layout, but I also am one of those twits who wants all the colors to look good, AND coordinate with his icons. Impossible, since my icons are different colors, so maybe I'll take out the feature to show icons with every post, but that sure is a neat feature, but on the other hand, I only have three icons, so it'll get repetitive... *wafflewaffle*

-I can't change the text on the comment links?? WTF? Even the lowliest free account on the first system could do that if they had the brains to figure it out. I actually don't care, really, what the comment links say anymore, but I'm almost offended on general principle.

Pluses!

-I just checked my friends page, and each entry is in a separate table. No more sideways scrolling! Ooooh.

-I still have the blurb, and a link list - schweet. I had to give up about 10 links on my list to change it, but that's really okay, because I never used the old link list. I mean, it was all about having this long-ass link list just to prove I had a paid account, and had the POW-A, etc. I'm not above claiming it's bigger... But hey, I never used it. Maybe I'll use it now, since those are sites I actually go to.

"Smooth Sailing" is about 50x more customizable (maybe that's why I see it so much?) but it's kinda ugly (aesthetics!) and I don't like the links-to-the-past-few-entries sidebar (scroll, bitches!) or the links list being centered (bad visual design - left justify, dammit!).


Lalala. I should really be doing homework. *pretends to go off and start one of the stories he needs to write*