Is it too much to ask for an easy user interface? Seriously!

I installed a new version of wordpress, and it is not in the least user friendly. Why did they change up the navigation so much? They went from a nice, horizontal navigation menu that I found reasonably okay to navigate. This new one is vertical one is a pain in my ass! You click the link and the little box slides down giving you more features, but if you don’t click the right area of the box it goes to a different page. Not to mention the millions of links listed there in the first place. I don’t need all that junk, get it off my screen.

Just when I was thinking I was getting the hang of their design system, I have to give up on learning it so I can learn how to just plain make a blog entry, nevermind design something.

Would it kill wordpress to design consientiously? Remember not everybody out there is a computer tech who can figure out crazy interfaces in the blink of an eye. Even us who speak geek reasonably fluently will have a crazy time understanding it. They need to get a communications designer on their team who understands how to communicate product to the public, someone who understands how to design with a person’s pre-determined notions of how things should work (ie: Design, but keep the human who has to use the thing in mind).

Before their update, the navigation was simple and effective: Write, Manage, Design, Comments. Simple to figure out, even for the non-technosavvies in the crowd. Now it’s: Posts, Media, Links, Pages, Comments, Appearance, Plugins, Users, Tools, Settings, csformsII, Cystats, Database, CrybookSettings. I don’t even know what the last few things are!

Talk about headache and a half… *grumble*

Edit @ 22:35 ::

So I have officially given up on wordpress. It is too much of a hassle to deal with. I am currently in the process of transferring all of my archives over to blogger, and then will have blogger upload to my domain. Unfortunately it means that all my comments will be gone, but ... yeah... thems the breaks I guess.

It would come to figure that the first day of my holidays would finally arrive and… I start to feel miserable.

And here’s I”ve been trying to take it easy the past few days, and yet such a plight comes my way. This morning when I had to work (I worked until noon… so I suppose its *half* my first day of holidays) I felt just fine, if not a bit sleepy. But this afternoon after puttering away at my portfolio website, a rather fierce migrain decided to descend upon me. My left eye feels like someone is taking a saw to optic nerve or something. Even after a rather enjoyable nap, I’m left feeling sickly.

I’m also rather chilly, which I think is not right particularly when my family seems to be quite hot right now.

Ah well.. I have a few more days to recover before the actual trip, so here’s hoping this is only a one day only kinda special.

One of hte nice things about living in the Metro Vancouver area, is that no matter what area you live in the area, you will be no more than 20 minutes from some sort of water. (Granted that’s dependant on the traffic, but that’s something for another time).

In driving to school today I could pick up just enough of the smell of water. It was nice. A lot of the time the smell of the ocean can be very gross - overpowering of salt, the smell of decomposing seaweed and other water flora, garbage - but this time it was actually refreshing. As I stepped out of my car at the Ikea, the smell got just a little bit stronger, but it was still nice.

It was one of those moments where you just have to stop and take a deep breath.

My theory for this “gee the ocean smells nice for once” phenomena?

With the recent record setting hot weather in the valley, the air quality has plummeted to the extreme. When you’re outside and try to breath, you can feel the weight of the air and the grime. It’s really rather gross. That little bit of ocean breeze is enough to chase that grossness away and make the air lighter.

Thus for once the ocean smells good. Almost like Florida.

Curious a phenomena, but there seems to be two of me. Not intentional (or psychotically) of course. This realisation hasn’t been recent, though tonight has renewed my curiosity in how this happens.

“Gee Andrea, I’ve never seen someone so quiet.”

Definitely a comment I’ve heard numerous times in my life. Perhaps it may surprise you, perhaps it may not, but indeed I am a quiet person. When it comes to big group settings, that are not work related, I tend to flounder. Well.. perhaps flounder isn’t quite the right term to describe it. I more observe. Quite content am I to simply sit back and enjoy the conversation, throwing in my two cents when I deem appropriate - usually when prompted. I have never been someone to throw about words or witty repartees at the drop of a hat. I usually don’t know what to say, or find my attempts to say speak up end making me only look foolish: cracking a joke with my family about my sister-in-law and I only brought about funny looks all around.

Words just seem to fail me when I’m in a group.

Yet tell my close friends that I’m considered quiet, and they would scoff. Actually, most likely laugh in your face. When I’m with my friends - close friends - I become this entire other person. I can crack jokes and hold onto a conversation like the best of them, not caring that I might put my foot in my mouth or say something completely asinine. But yet, get a big group of us together and… I revert back to quiet Andrea.

Perhaps I’m just someone who enjoys the close company of a few friends instead of a large gathering. When it comes to big parties, I can sometimes come out of my shell, but I’d prefer to sit back and observe.

I think I had a point to make as I round out this entry, but as the moment has finally come to make it, words have failed me again.

I need sleep. Blarg.

Okay, so if skip_btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, skipAhead); that must mean that function skipAhead (event:MouseEvent):void {
gotoAndSto -

PING PING PING.

There are three target marketing strategies: shotgun, rifle, and integra-

PING PING PING.

She was comfortable. That was the first thing Julia was aware of when she awoke the next morning. The next thing she realized was that the sun was really, really bright, making it hard for her to open her eyes. The fuzzy feeling of sleep still clogged Julia’s head, and all she felt like doing was snuggling deeper under the covers-

PING PING PING.

I have always loved kids. Since I was young, even though I was technically a kid, I would always do my best to include the younger kids in any games the older kids were playing, went out of my way to help the younger kids. Just be nice to them. I suppose it’s one of those things that gets ingrained in you - you see how your parents were with you, and that’s how you are. Both of my parents are great with kids. I can’t wait until I have my own.

But if there’s one thing I hate about children, is their perfection for timing. They always do the most annoying things when you need them to behave!

Case in point:
My bedroom is at the front of our house. I have these two nice windows that look out into the culdesac. Most of the time, like right now, things are peaceful and quiet. I can hear the cars on the cross street as they zip by, sometimes the rushing of the traffic on the nearby freeway, and sometimes I can hear the sounds of the waterfall in the back. Seems like a reasonably quiet and serene place for me to be, particularly if I want to concentrate. Right?

No. Of course not. Whenever I go into my room for some quiet time, I don’t get it. The main reason for this? The two basketball hoops that reside on our tiny culdesac. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing - graphic design work, flash action script, studying for a midterm, or just trying to write - whenever I need the peace and quiet, I never get it. There will always be one of the neighbour’s kids out in the street playing basketball. All I get to hear is PING PING PING of the ball as it hits the concrete. And this drives me insane! I don’t know how they time it so perfectly, but it’s like they seem to wait until I’m looking for some quiet before they take to the street to start playing. ARG.

Earlier today I was quiet tired, so I figured I would take a nap. I had the window open, since I wanted the fresh, post-rain air. Just as I’m snuggled comfortably in my bed, without fail, PING PING PING. Did I get my rest? Of course not. I ended up just laying there trying to vedge, and eventually gave up and did some mindless wiki coding for a while.

Just prior to this entry, I was doing some Flash action script coding for a project. It was like as soon as I started coding the page, they were out playing basketball! I tried to work through the sound but I couldn’t. And then what happens as soon as I close down Flash to start blogging? They freakin’ go inside!

I don’t think that’s the worst of it. The most horrible time was the day I had two very difficult final exams to write, so I was trying to get as must sleep as possible so I would be nice and rested. What happens at 6 AM the day of my exams? They’re out on the street playing basketball. Who plays basketball at 6 in the bloody morning?

*seethes*

I’m okay, it’s all good. I like kids. Honest I do…

Just make the PINGING stop! Please…

There’s always something slightly intimidating when you come to a crossroad in your life. Sometimes, the decision of which road to take can be simple: you want a challenge, take the tougher road; you want it easy this time, take the simpler one. But what happens when both roads look like they’ve been built with equally appealing yet trecherous terrain? How do you choose between the steep mountain or the rocky valley?

Sometimes you can’t decide, and just have to flip a coin.

Right now I’m at such a crossroads. With my diploma program wrapping up in just over a month, I need to decide which direction to go in my life.

On the one hand, I have the comforts of home. Of course, that means I’ll still be living at home, but it also means I’ll have a house, a place to live, and I won’t be stretched trying to pay rent and food. I love where I live right now, despite its long commute into the city where most of the jobs in my field are (though there are a few out here in the valley).

Or on the other hand, I could go work for my dream company. That’s right. In 2007 I had the opportunity to live out my dream and work for the Walt Disney Company. It was great, and I would work for them again in a heartbeat. And of course, I happen to find a Job for them, in Canada, and also one that’s not in Toronto. The only catch is, I would have to move about 4 hours away over the mountains. Kelowna is not by any means a bad city, but I would be starting new. I would, of course, have my own place… but then, I’d have my own place and all the bills and stresses that came with it. I would be alone, and would have to drive four hours to visit my home.

I’ve been sitting on this decision for a week now. The worse that can happen is I can apply and they not contact me - easy, decision made. But if I don’t even apply, then I’ll always wonder if I stood the chance. Could I have had the opportunity to work for my dream company again?

You can’t always take both roads, no matter how much you want to. I think I’ll type up my resume, and take the road on the right.

I have recently come to the conclusion that portfolios hate me. It would explain why my attempts at a portfolio website thus far haven’t been so hot. But anyway, here is the story…

One of the assignments for a self promotion class I’m taking is to, what do you know, create a portfolio of design work. Hard copy (not digital), with printed out versions shining all nicely. Easy enough to do: find a bunch of work that I”m proud of, find some sort of case/book/display thing to put it in, and voila!

No. Not quite.

Last week I went shopping to find said portfolio case/book/ display thing. Deciding that $40 was a bit steep for even the cheapest of looking professional cases, I went with a binder: black, simple, but still nice looking. I got some of those clear binder pages, which are -would you know- for presenting documents. Then I splurged and got some black paper which is actually made for presenting in portfolios.

So today I actually got off my duff to put my portfolio together, fixing up pieces and printing them off, making sure they’re trimmed properly, mounted to the black paper and all that. I got to open the package of the black paper and something doesn’t look right.

It’s not the right size!

The paper is too small for the clear display sleeves. Er okay, it’s quarter to five. I can run to Opus Art store quick and swap it for the 8.5″x11″ size paper that I clearly need. Check.

Run to the store, exchange paper, run home.

Paper is too big! Dammit!

The fine print reads “Made for suchandsuch type portfolio. Actual paper size is 8.7″x12″.” CRAP.

Realise not enough time to go to Opus for another exchange, as store will be closing. Run around studio like an idiot trying to find equally suitable paper to mount designs to and insert into slip. Fancy black artists paper is too big. Wait. Fancy artists paper, while too big, is 9″x12″ and is… smaller than black portfolio paper? Portfolio paper’s measurement is WRONG.

Curses portfolio paper company for not making a portfolio paper for proper 8.5×11 size. Realises they did it on purpose so people could cheat the portfolio making system like I am. Run around studio and house like an idiot trying again to find some suitable paper to mount designs on. Find construction paper from when I was little. Black. Perfect!

Construction paper size 9×12.

Does black paper not exist in 8.5×11 size?

I figured I would just trim down the construction paper. It’s the best option, and free.

Oh… and did I mention when I was printing my stuff to be mounted, I ran out of the fancy photo printer paper? Arg. Thus why I’m posting, because my Mom so graciously agreed to pick some up for me, and a new black ink cartridge.

Good think this isn’t due until Friday…

Some people make New Year’s resolutions. I make weekly resolutions.

Yet if you think that seems peculiar, you might find it even stranger that I make the same resolution each week: I will not, will not, buy my lunches (or dinners, if the case) out!

Appears simple enough, one might observe. Particularly considering I still live at home, and get my meals and any muchies we have gratis. Meaning, I do not pay for my meals to begin with. So why should I take on the extra burden of expense?

Why should I spend 10 minutes whipping up a simple crab salad, when a quick stop at Subway will fulfill the same needs of nourishment?

You might say, “Andrea, it’s because you have better things to do with your time!” And for the most part I might agree with you. Ten minutes is ten minutes, and if you count time it actually takes to decide on what will be consumed, prepping the items, and then going through with the actual making of the lunch… the time adds up. And it’s not like I don’t schedule this time into my day. I do, very carefully. I decide, “Gee, I have to leave the house at 7:15, so I’ll give myself such and such time to do my kitchen stuff (Feed cat, make lunch, eat breakfast) and then such and such time to do bedroom stuff (get my duff out of bed, shower, put on clothes, etc). That means I have to get up at… 6:30″.

In essence, I give myself plenty of time to make the midday meal to take with me to work / school.

But the biggest conundrum of this equation is… I actually like to cook. It’s not like I’m avoiding prepping myself a lunch because I hate cooking. I don’t. Spending time in the kitchen actually brings me a fair amount of pleasure, along with reading cookbooks, and watching the Food Network.

So why can’t I save myself a few dollars and just make the meal at home?

I don’t know. But it really pains the pocket book.

Tonight I prepped a sandwich for lunch tomorrow. One small sandwich for me, is one giant leap towards keeping the resolution.

If there’s one thing in life that I’m passionate about, it’s books.

Each book as a personality all its own, and that’s not including the content that the author has filled its pages with. I’ve been reading all my life, but in the past half dozen years I’ve been captivated by books themselves. The look and feel, the smell: it’s all part of the experience that culminates towards the reading of a book. Admittedly, I get a little thrill when I get to hold a book in my hands.

Where does this thrill start? Well, we’ll start with the cover. Each one is different, from the size of the book to what makes up this protective packaging. Just the texture of the hardcover, or the sheen of a paperback. Even the new matte finishes that seem to be the trend these days give the sensory experience that’s just… wow. Its even better when you get a cover with the embossed letters, so that you run your fingers along the spine or the front and get to feel the various indentations that make it up. It’s almost like someone running a hand along my arm, gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

I do have to say that dust jackets bother me. They end up getting tattered and worn out. Granted they serve their purpose incredibly well (my Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy omnibus would be in tatters if it weren’t for the dustjacket). But the darn things are annoying, always flopping about and demanding special attention. The nerve of them!

Back on track. The next are the pages themselves. While the cheap paperbacks, with the recycled paper stock that turns yellow after a few years and fade the ink, tend to be less interesting than the very expensive stock would rather die than dogear, being able to compare the two makes you appreciate both in their own light. Paperbacks are so easy and versatile, they can be popped in a purse with ease, and if you don’t have a readily available scrap of paper, dogear your page and your’e set. But with the expensive hardcovers and ever increasingly trade paperbacks, the pages are much heavier. Usually the ink is more tactile to the touch, and if you’re lucky you’ll get that nice raw edge.

I love the look of them sitting on the shelf, I love the feel of them in my hands.

Perhaps tonight’s verbal diarrhea didn’t culminate in an ultimate point, but books = love. I shiver just to think of them.

Yay books!

I hate bad moods.

Which I realise is silly, because I’m in a bad mood and I hate being that way, it generally puts me in an even worse mood. And of course, a bad mood directly causes my creative tank to drain right down to zero, diddly, nothing.

The past month for me has generally been like that. Not that I was in a foul everyone-stay-away mood, not at all, it was just kinda… bleh. That meant FedSpace and my other creative projects such as Snowpirate all suffered for it.

Granted bad moods are to be expected. Creative people, unfortunately, suffer from them the most. They’ll go through creative highs where they manage to output terrific work, but like any high there had to be a low. And usually that crash is bad. Very bad. It would be nice if there was a way to mitigate that effect, to find a happy medium where you could still be creative and outputting, but not have to worry about the ever present trough in creative juices. Then again, if it was a happy medium that that awesome creative high wouldn’t happen either.

One possible way for me to mitigate that is to take creative breaks, do activities where I’m just relaxing and not putting my imagination to work. Then again, that usually means watching TV… If I read a book, or go outside for a walk, or just lay out in the sun, my mind will still be spinning up stories or coming up with ideas. But only when I’m not angry.

It really makes me wonder what our society is coming to, when walking through the hallways at school I overheard…

“I’m pregnant. It wasn’t an accident, it was planned.”

… I nearly laughed. When in the world did our society get to the level, that when a woman tells a friend that she is pregnant, that it’s no longer assumed that it was planned? Why did she need to first state that it wasn’t an accident? Couldn’t the lady simply assume that her friend’s pregnancy was planned? When did telling a friend about a pregnancy ever need a “it was planned” disclaimer?

I realise that “the mistake” has been around a lot longer than “it was planned”, but I just don’t comprehend why we need to inform people about this. Who cares? Obviously if you’re sharing the information with a friend in a cheerful manner, as this lady was, you’ve already decided that the baby is a good thing. If it had truely been a mistake, you probably wouldn’t be speaking with said disclaimer.

This post might not make a terrible lot of sense, but the statement puzzled me. Granted, I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation as I was merely passing by to head to the mac lab.

Just…. confuzzled.

I fire-up Firefox this morning, and what do I see on the Globe and Mail site? News on the budget that will be announced today, but also this…

Wow, do they really think we’re going to believe this is a candid photograph? That is this merely a meeting between the PM and some of his ministers? It made me giggle when I saw it. The image reminds me of promotional images television shows release to help hype their show and to preview what the main cast will be like. I can understand releasing an image such as this around election time, but now? Even Jim Flaherty doesn’t look like he can take it seriously.

I do give them props for trying to make Stephen Harper look normal. Even though this is an attempt to make him look “laid back” and a casual but serious kinda guy, I still think he looks like he eats babies.

My next ponder is… I wonder if this image has been photoshopped?

If you care to read the article, you can do so here.

We get all this lovely snow for over a month, it’s very honky dorey. Of course, we don’t have all that many snowplows and sander trucks to deal with such stuff. Which, I suppose is fine as long as you’re not like me and drive a car that is very low to the ground (despite that, my car did a rocking job throughout the ordeal).

There is two things that have bugged me out of this entire “Hurray! Look at all the snow!” ordeal.

One:
Fucking potholes! They’re seriously everywhere. I don’t understand how all these non-existant snow plows could cause so much damage to the roads. I mean really, it took almost a month before the road leading to my street was plowed… so how could one plow cause so much damage to the roads?

The answer is simple, one that I’m sure I’ve complained about to everybody before - out shitty street making material. Yes, whomever was the genius to use the crappiest concrete in the universe to make our roads out of should be bagged and sacked. Not only does it fall apart when only one snow plow runs over it, but when it rains it’s very difficult to see the road lines because it’s so shiney. Why not take a hint from places back east, pay a little bit extra to get the good concrete, and then you won’t have so many accidents and won’t have so many stupid pot holes to fix. Really people, it’s called planning ahead.

Two:
Whining about a snow budget. It seemed like this story appeared on the news for several nights, about how municipalities (ie: Vancouver, Surrey, etc) were complaining how they went over on their snow budgets. I realise we’re the west coast and not expected to get so much snow, but this is Canada after all, you know, the Great White North? We’re bound to get some snow. Vancouver budges approximately 2 million a year for snow removal. Winnipeg, a city with a fraction of the population of the Vancouver municipality alone, yet for 2008 budget was 36 million.

Yes, that’s right, thirty-six million! Compared to two million.

And yes, I know, Winnipeg gets dumped on every winter, while we’re lucky to get a days worth.

But really, do you need to whine?

Also, can’t you plan ahead (yes, plan ahead AGAIN), and put aside more money than you think you’ll need? That way, when you don’t have to spend it you can call it surplus or whatever, and use it for extra junk the next year (since you were so bright to plan ahead and already put aside money again).

And I do realise that there are lots of things that money could be spent on. But a city shouldn’t freaking shut down just because of some fluffy white stuff. Really people, it’s only snow.