Quest-o-rama

About 1979 or so, I discovered a marvelous book. Called Ordinary Jack, it was the story of a normal kid living in a family of self-proclaimed geniuses. Poor Jack attempts to make himself more interesting by posing as a seer. The resulting attempts of this kid to gain the attention of his family could be rather depressing, but Cresswell made it hysterically funny. I devoured the book then and went on to read as many Cresswell books as I could find.

At one point, the dog becomes famous (and poor Jack get attention by default as the owner of the dog). Before that, the entire family begins entering every newspaper and magazine contest they can find and then re-gift each other for Christmas with the unwanted winnings. Their trip to Wales and confusion over the seemingly millions of people surnamed Jones was almost more hysterical than the wretched search for a ghost at their "haunted" cabin.

Unfortunately for me, Cresswell was a British author and finding British children's books isn't always easy. Since then I've managed to purchase Ordinary Jack, Less Than Zero, Bagthorpes Unlimited, Bagthorpes Vs. the World, Bagthorpes Haunted, Bagthorpes Liberated and Bagthorpes Besieged. Bagthorpes Abroad and Bagthorpes Battered are on the way from Amazon.UK and eBay.

But I can't find The Bagthorpe Triangle. I have searched, I have asked folks in Australia, New Zealand and the UK to keep an eye out. Nada. Looked through book services. Zilch. The only thing I can find is the audiobook and I want a real book, not a performance.

It seems that The Bagthorpe Triangle has indeed disappeared into that triangular zone where great children's books often disappear.

Next quest: locate the BBC television series ....

Open The Box- Now What?

This is actually a Microsoft webpage that I'm about to send you to.

We all know that Vista is Micro$oft's wild and crazy attempt at an operating system that does everything for everyone. Provided, of course, you can figure out which version of it you're supposed to purchase.

However, in an effort to stop them scurvy software pirates from absconding with the booty that is the Vista bum system, they've gone to new heights of software copyright protection.

You can't open the box without reading these simple online instructions. I can't believe they expect Windoze users to get this concept from static pictures. They should have made a video. sigh One day they'll get something right. (Of course, when they do the world will end.)

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/2e680b8d-211e-41c5-a0bf-9ccc6d7e62a21033.mspx

Seriously

Here's the thing, true story. Did you know that if you say Dick Cheney into the mirror three times he'll come back from the dead and waterboard you in the bathtub. Try it, I dare you.

Attack of the Show Quote
Olivia is brilliant.

Star Wars - Uncool?

My life is now over. Why?

Because Star Wars geeks have now become as stupidly nerdy as trekkies. (Trekkers can sometimes be ok ... sometimes.) No, no no no no. Dammit, we were the cool geeks with the sane fans. Now, since those damn "beginning" movies were poorly written and then aired on the big screen, we've lost a lot of cred.

And now we've fallen further.

Truly. They have started the Saber Academy in NYC. You can learn to be a "Jedi."

Click at your own risk. It's one of those homebrew websites which offends my delicate aesthetic sensibilities ALMOST as much as it offends my geek-meter. I mean, really. What good geek can't put together a website that doesn't SUCK.

http://www.nyjedi.com/

I'm going to go crawl into a corner and rip my Han Solo costume to rags now. sigh

Learning Photoshop

Let me put it this way ... I know guys at an ad agency who watch this every week - and who learn something from it every week.

The name of the series from MyDamn Channel is You Suck at Photoshop and these are some of the funniest tutorials I've ever seen - and they've taught me a couple of tricks I didn't know, too! Donnie's going to show you how to be better at Photoshop. While telling you that you suck - but trust me ... no one sucks at Photoshop as much as Donnie's life sucks. And he's going to make you laugh. And make you really, really appreciate your life:

http://tinyurl.com/34gw5r

A small warning - there are some adult situations in some of these ... but should be good for PG13 and above. :)

Whoops

I nearly forgot about this. New updates coming

eventually.

laziness

i am so lazy

but ... as i promised to help a friend learn HTML and CSS and skinning ... maybe something will happen here soon. :D