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Ah, Spring!

NOT! Gods, I really hate this pollen. The last coupla weeks have been about setting our minds towards our goal of getting out of here. The top reasons:
1. We are sick of the ghetto.
2. We are sick of the South.
3. We need a better artist community.
4. We are desperate for a CHANGE in general.
5. We want better weather, as in, no pollen and less humidity.

There are tons of other reasons, but these are the top 5. That’s all I’m saying right now, but change is in the works. And it can’t come soon enough for me, I can tell you.

Change seems to be the theme of this year. LOTS of shakeups in friends and family situations: divorces, moves, new houses, spawning. Someone is even leaving Nick’s workplace (GASP!!). We feel that all this change in the air is only helping us do what we need to and we hope to garner as much of that energy as we can.

I’m even leaving my long time domain registrar bargainname.com. It’s become a zombie site that is part of Dotster, but even the Dotster employees don’t know about it. All domains are registered with Dotster in the whois, so apparently the site is somehow affiliated. But it’s totally unmanned and that makes me nervous. So as domains expire, I’m moving them to namecheap.com, which is a bit clunky, but definitely NOT a zombie site and has good prices. My hosting company’s pricing is a bit high, so I decided to continue my practice of using a separate registrar. It’s also better to keep your registrar separate so you can change hosts with minimal disruption.

Speaking of domains. What to do when an old client’s domain is up for renewal and you can’t get ahold of him? I’ve emailed the dude for 2 months and I’d intended to let the domain expire, but thanks to ME not turning off goddam autorenew, now he’s got a year of free domain. Harumph. He has not paid his GoDaddy account and the site is not up, but the GoDaddy account is still there. WTF? In any case, that’s $10 I’ll never get back. Dammit.

Our anniversary is right around the corner. We’ve booked at The Iberian Pig, as usual. I tell you, we’ll certainly miss our favourite restaurants and bars. The Porter, in particular, we’ll miss like crazy. We love those guys!!

But, change is good and change we will. We’ve needed it for a long time and have just been too complacent to do anything about it. When Wells Fargo (those asslicking sons of bitches) told us, basically, to fuck right on off when we asked for a refi or something to help us out, that sealed it for us. We can’t keep this place and if we’re gonna move, we’re gonna MOVE, ya feel me? Yah.

We’ve got our two cons coming up. Trek Trax is in a month and Heroes at the end of June. We have not a single thing new to offer as of now and I don’t think we will, period. I’m just not feeling it for the comics right now and I know for a FACT that Nick is not. He’s not drawn or written much of anything in MONTHS. The goal was to have Awkward Ninja Squad launched by now, but it’s not happening. The longer term goal was to have something for the cons – especially HEROES – but I have little hope of that. I think the comics are pretty much dead for the time being. It makes me sad and sucks every last bit of what small amount of creativity I have right out of me, but there it is. I can’t force him to do it. I can’t force a new comic or even the old one. I wish I could, trust me, but that’s not the way it works. :(

And finally, we’ve got to do fucking taxes this coming Monday. Buh. Our regular tax guy has disappeared (he could be dead, he was old and sickly) so we’ve got a new tax guy. It doesn’t really matter to me, we don’t have much to write off anyway with the bankruptcy taking all the cons and stuff with it. We did buy a bunch of equipment at the end of the year, tho, so we’ll get to write that off plus the usual office stuff, etc.

That’s the exciting update. Not much going on to the naked eye, but LOTS happening behind the scenes. We’ll probably be even more difficult to get ahold of from now on, so always use email as your first choice to contact us. I’m busy and I won’t stop what I’m doing to answer the stupid phone. I don’t particularly like FB messaging, either. However, I do like a good game of Draw Something, so feel free to find me there! :)

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Brain Dump

While we are having Quiet Time™, I guess I’ll do a brain dump post. I’ve got lots of little things knocking around in here, just nothing big enough for a full post. So let the info dump commence!

Nick is tired today, hence Quiet Time™. He’s back to not drawing. WTF ever. I’m about to give up that fight. He’ll do it when he’s damned good and ready. It’s the Way of the Taurus Weasel.

We have set some goals. Besides getting the fucking comics wrangled, we want to achieve escape velocity and GTFO of this stuck mojo place we’re in. We are comfortable and it’s killing us. Seriously. Sometimes you’ve got to do something FIERCE to get your life going. We are planning FIERCE. And VERY uncomfortable. We aren’t sure of the timetable, but we have the goal. I hope we can achieve it. It does NOT involve Atlanta. That’s all I’ll say at this time.

I had dreams of being in a new house with lots of room. There were people there (roommates?) that were annoying but seemed to serve some sort of purpose? Nick and I were rearranging furniture (very NICE furniture!) and debating over which pieces to put in storage. The other night I dreamt of not scary zombies. And Madonna. Madonna was NOT a zombie, sadly, that would’ve been cool!

I had a busy week. Lots of stuff to do for the bakery and the taqueria. Also had to get the magazine up as usual. I got stuff done LIKE A BOSS.

Graphicly has started a new thing where they will convert and distribute your book, magazine, comic, whatever to all the various digital outlets for $150 per document. That is the special discount rate and will go up, but let me tell you: even if it doubles it is an AMAZING deal. If you have thought of going digital, I strongly suggest you get thee to Graphicly right away and contact them about their new digital conversion business. [Graphicly died in ’13 or ’14, sadly. -A Feb 2016]

DJ is in his decline, I think. He’s eating well, but he’s still getting thinner. ::sigh:: He’s now got a small bump on his nose which is probably the Cryptococcus neoformans digging in deeper. I hope I’m wrong, but I dunno. A kitty mama knows when her elderly children are slowing down. There’s nothing to be done about it, I’m just saying it out loud to try and get used to the idea. Makes me melancholy. :(

The dieting is going along. I’m still not very disciplined about it, but I’m losing a little, so it’s good. Shakeology shakes are pretty good, but I can’t really see that they actually help with weight loss at all. Meh.

Missy has been a little bunghole this week. She has decided that 6am is the perfect time to get up. She wakes us up then runs and hides so we can’t put her in timeout (the bathroom). The other day, I gave food to DJ and grabbed her, tossed her in timeout and went back to bed. She was quite angry about this, so she pooped on the bathroom floor. I didn’t speak to her for a full day. We’ve since worked it out and she has not woken us up at 6am, either. Damn cat!

I finished the Steve Jobs biography. It was pretty dry and I’m not a huge fan of Isaacson’s style, but I still loved it. It’s really the story of Apple, you see, as much as it is about Jobs. It’s sort of like reading my own biography with Apple/Macintosh. And I also share some personality traits with Steve: coldness, binary thinking (it sucks or it’s the best), perfectionism, deeply sensitive (but well hidden) and some others. I can totally understand his behaviour despite never having met him. And I still mourn the loss of genius that really DID change the world. I know all you naysayers will pooh-pooh all of this, but just look at what his crazy head thought up (or modified or paid to have made):
GUI
the mouse
the trackpad
touchscreen w/ gestures
tablet
phone with apps
music device with apps
Gorilla glass (yep, he paid Corning to start making it again)
digital music
digital books, mags, newspapers, etc.
Pixar (and subsequently Disney)
and tons more stuff!
The sheer industrial design that Jobs came up with is amazing. Ives and Jobs changed the way technology looks. The world would not be full of these marvelous devices if Apple (aka Jobs) hadn’t had the stones to make it happen. His loss will be felt for a long, long time. Like it or not hatahs, he is why all of you have Droids and Kindles.

I read the Normal Mailer photo book Marilyn. While the photos are great, the actual quasi-biography written by Mailer is hideous. That man had some sort of hang up about sex. It was mentioned on just about every page – usually right along with his psychobabble about Marilyn’s supposed issues. I can’t believe that man won a Pulitzer! Marilyn was horrible to read. I gave up and just looked at the iconic pix instead.

The Weasel is up from his nap and I’m gonna wrap. It’s been a nice brain dump. Thanks for reading! Now it’s time for Super Bowl blabbing and GO GIANTS!

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Wow, another post?

IKR? I’m actually blogging! WTF?? :)

Today’s post is about some realisations I’ve had and more about the iPad goodness. First up, insights.

I’ve realised that I have no patience for scaredy cat types. People who are fraught with anxiety put me off in a bad way. I’ve known this forever, but I was thinking about it and I think the reason is that I’m so NOT afraid of anything. I tried to make a list of things that scare me and couldn’t get past one thing. (I’m not telling what it is.) That and typically people who are anxiety ridden won’t respond to logic or solutions to their situations which is irritating to a logical, solution finding person like me.

When dealing with an anxious person, I find myself frantically trying to offer solutions and comforting logic, only to be rebuffed or ignored. This pisses me off even though I understand intellectually that it is not me, it’s them. It makes me feel ineffectual and therefore I tend to take a step back from the whole thing – which could end up making the anxiety ridden individual feel abandoned. Which is ironic since I dealt with abandonment issues when I was young and gave a shit about such tripe. (I’ve dealt with it and moved on to other issues, which is another thing that pisses me off: when people can’t move past their own crap. Just DEAL WITH IT already or find a workaround. Gods.)

Nonetheless, I’ve realised that my logic and solutions probably seem cold and unhelpful to an anxiety ridden person since all they really want is someone to cuddle them. It seems like that is what they want? I have no idea since I’m not that way. At all. EVER. With being afraid OR cuddles. ::shrug:: (And don’t confuse my bouts of Fear and Loathing™ with anxiety. They are about depression and frustration.)

All I want to convey is that I’m doing my best to be helpful. So at least be aware of that if you are the anxiety ridden and I’m trying to be helpful. Since I have no experience with anxiety, I’m really working blind, here, so cut me some slack. Thanks.

And now: iPad2 goodness! I love it. It’s a bit large and will take some getting used to when carrying it around, but ultimately it’s worth it. I may actually have to get a BIG PURSE (gasp!) to lug the thing around in. It’s big and kinda heavy, but it does everything I need a device to do, so I am very happy with it. Kate and Stormy will be happy to know I’ll be in the BIG PURSE club with them soon. :)

Welp, enough blather. I gots shit to do! Like choose a different font for this site. The one I’m using is too tight and the spaces disappear, making all the sentences run together. Can’t have that!

Happy New Year to everyone! Be safe!

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Damn you, Oprah!

As is my custom every year as my birthday approaches, I begin to get depressed and anxious. Everyone knows this – especially Nick, my long suffering partner in crime. It’s not too bad this year, but I wouldn’t say I’m great. I guess I’m a 6 out of 10.

Anyway, the Fear and Loathing™ is not horrible, but I’m trying to evaluate my year and figure out how to proceed. It sucks being middle aged. It really, truly SUCKS. I have absolutely nothing good to say about it at all. It’s like you understand TONS more than you used to, but you lose any and all relevance to society and your understanding is therefore moot. Suckage.

This year’s new twist to my navel gazing is that I’ve been recording Oprah’s Life Class. Say what you will about Oprah, but the woman does have a clue. She speaks the truth. I won’t do the online thing, but I’ve been watching the shows and have gotten some valuable input. As well as some cryin’ time. Buh. Yesterday I watched the one about how your upbringing totally colours the way you deal with people. Yup: more cryin’ time. Damn you, Oprah. Continue reading “Damn you, Oprah!”

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We put the “mis” in misanthropy!

I’m having an intensely misanthropic day. I really do hate everyone today. Well, not Nick, I guess. But in general, I’m sick of the internets – particularly fucking Facebook – and pretty much every motherfucker on the planet. I’m on the verge of deleting the FB account again. Whatever. I can’t delete it, I run several pages. But I CAN delete every motherfucker on my friends list…

I don’t really have a reason for all this. Which means it’s probably fucking hormones. I’m still struggling with the Mirena. I’ll be the ONE patient in 100 who continues having periods and the associated misery. You watch. Would not surprise me in the slightest. I’m just that lucky. >:-(

DJ has Struvite Crystals in his bladder. This is common in cats and is caused by diet, Ph of the urine and how long a cat holds urine in the bladder before urinating. I can tell you that DJ is notorious for holding it, so that’s probably part of the issue. We’ve got him on Science Diet c/d for a few weeks to see if that helps. You know what that means: I get to collect another urine sample. DJ does not like the litter box; he goes outside almost exclusively. For those who don’t follow my Twitter or FB, let me regale you of the urine collecting. First, you give DJ lots of wet food and keep him in for a day. Then when he’s begging to go out at 6:30am, grab a small saucer and stalk him in yer jammies as he does his business. While he’s peeing, shove the saucer in the pee and get a sample. And make your neighbors certain that you are, indeed, a crazy cat lady. :/

We’re transitioning to Associated Credit Union. Bank of America can lick our taints. ACU is not nearly as slick as BoA, but at least they treat us with respect, which is a lot more than BoA can manage. I can’t WAIT to close the accounts there.

Heroes Convention is bearing down on us. We’ve got the banner laid out and ready to send off. We still need to get the button art ready and the book done. We’re also going to add one or two new t shirts, but we’re not taking any new stock to the show – just Weasel shirts. Nick is wanting to do some sort of prints for the show, but we’ve not worked that out yet. I’m taking my earrings and bracelets as well as several sets of coasters. I’ve posted a couple of shots on twitpic of the coasters. Here’s one:

And the banner preview print – sorry, crappy phone cam pic:

Another pain in my fucking ass is my vision. Or lack thereof. My eyes have decided that this is the perfect time to further complicate matters by becoming more astigmatic. Great. There is not a contact made that will help me now. Fucking sucks.

And the final insult was at the dentist yesterday. Good news: my teeth and fillings are fine. Bad news: my gums are fucked up in the back and I need $700 of treatment to fix them. Yay. Thanks Lawrenceville Hwy Dental for NOT fixing them years ago so that now I get to have a “procedure” done. Nice.

Ok, that’s all the bitching I’ve got. I’m out. ••••••••••••••••••••••••