Kicked ass in Flash today! We can now pass an flv variable through the url to a standard video player. Rock! Now I just have to get cracking on the other task set by my boss–recreating a cool app he found on the ‘nets. Sadly, I suspect this one won’t go as well.
ION, have a bear!
Oh yes! And the reason Denver is a “magical land” is because, despite eating and drinking anything I damn well pleased while in the Mile High City, I didn’t gain an ounce the whole time! How awesome is that?? Sadly, here in the less than magical Los Angeles, calories work a little more vindictively, so it’s back to salads and protein bars for me. Boo.
I’m home from Denver! You didn’t even know I was gone, did you? I was there for the American Assocation of Museums conference, where my boss led two workshops (with the assistance of myself and three others) wherein we gave away the source code for two of our online games. Go team us!
The conference was on the exhausting side, mostly because we were working on workshop materials up until midnight the night before the first one, followed by frantically making edits to the materials that didn’t work in the first workshop, in time for the second workshop. Also, there was a lot of drinking, and a lot of insomnia.
After the conference was over and I’d caught up on my sleep (thank you, Benadryl!), I spent Thursday morning at the Denver Art Museum with my boss and my coworker (our two associates had left the day before), where I was surprisingly impressed with their contemporary art collection, and where I purchased my Colorado souvenirs–a courage/fear ring and a statuette of the Big Blue Bear that hangs out outside the Denver Convention Center.
After the museum, we stopped at the hotel for our luggage, then made a mad dash for the airport (boss got his flight time wrong by an hour). My colleagues went on their merry ways back to L.A. while I braved the FREAK!SNOWSTORM to Enterprise rent-a-car to pick up my compact KIA Sportage (the snow freaked me out, so I upgraded to something with more weight). I spent the afternoon at a shopping center where I got my hair cut, drank chai, and browsed Borders, then headed to my friend Bastion’s for the weekend. It was a good call, given his heretofore unknown fondness for delicious cooking.
Friday, after having bagels with B and dropping by the hotel to pick up the stuff I’d left in the hotel room safe the day before (d’oh!), I drove down to Colorado Springs to chill out in the Garden of the Gods (chill being the operative word–it was freezing!). Friday night, after a yummy dinner (again cooked by B) we went to the local bar to play pool, but when confronted with way too many assholes, we decided home was a much better option.
Sadly, there was little sleeping involved in Friday night, but Saturday started with a delicious breakfast, followed by a drive to Red Rocks with Bastion for my version of hiking (picture much limping and resting), followed by a nap, some Halo 2 action, and more pool and yummy food at Wynkoop downtown.
It was a fun weekend with Bastion and his friends. Oh, and his (and his roommates’) adorable kitties–Grendel, Bastet and Mr. Grabby! But now I am home, and back to the drudgery of cooking for myself (bah!).
I haven’t really done much since the slouchy hats. Having finished the second hat, it’s still waiting to be blocked, and I haven’t picked up the sparkly market shawl all week, mostly because I left it at my least favorite point–having to work in another color. I HATE switching yarns/colors, because inevitably the edge looks wonky and the row is obviously thicker. I love lots of colors, but working colors in is too much a chore, so I almost always work in single colors. This is also why I adore variegated so much, with its many colors and infrequent yarn-switching.
That’s all the yarn-related news I have, so I think I’ll go off-topic for a bit.
About Shopping
I’m going to a conference in Denver soon, so I went shopping yesterday. Woot! Shopping is my sickness, so I try to avoid it unless it’s well planned, otherwise I go overboard and come away with a wallet hangover that lasts a month. I still went a smidge overboard yesterday, but there was room for it, finance-wise, and it was all for necessities–two pairs of jeans and a pair of shoes to replace my beloved yet beaten up black Aerosoles (all planned), and cute underwear and socks to go with the jeans and shoes (unplanned, but necessary given the styles of the shoes and jeans). Of course, now I’m wondering if I should go back for sensible shoes to go with my skirts (my skirt shoes were not made for walking, and the conference is not in the hotel), but the weather forecast for Denver does not look skirt-friendly, so I suspect I’m just looking for excuses for more shopping. I can’t go spending too much of the tax refund, ’cause most of it has been tagged for new tires.
About Digital vs. Analog
Last week, I bought a digital converter for my analog television. I applied for one of those coupons from the government, so it only cost me $25 instead of $65. So far, I don’t understand how digital is supposed to be an improvement. With my analog, a fuzzy signal meant a snowy picture with usually decent sound. With digital, when the signal fades in and out (which it does with varying frequencies on every station I’ve tried so far), the sound stops and the picture goes pixel. Holy crap is this annoying! Like, turn the tv off before I throw something at it annoying–a digital version of nails on a chalkboard. I’m considering giving up television entirely and just watching my shows online, but I hate to take such a step–I’d miss Diane and Robin in the morning (GMA), and Jeopardy while I have my dinner, two shows I’d never bother to catch online. Mostly, I’m pissed that analog is going away before they’ve perfected digital signals–I feel like I’m being pressured to go back to cable, but as long as it’s the monopoly it is (not to mention so ridiculously expensive), I refuse to yield.
About Work
I don’t like to talk about work too much, as I’ve seen too many stories of people who were fired because of what they wrote in their blogs, and while I’m sure those are isolated instances, I love my job and don’t ever want to jeopardize it. That said, work stuff has been claiming a big chunk of my energies the last few weeks, as we prep for the upcoming conference while working on a few other big projects simultaneously. The upside is that I’ve been working more and more with Flash, which is awesome because it’s exactly what I want to be doing. The more time I spend with it, the fewer questions I have to bring to my gurus. There’s one project in particular that occupied much of my time last week, that I managed to work out almost entirely on my own….before I hit the final roadblock that I couldn’t solve, but still! I’m very pleased with how far my skills are progressing.
Sadly I have no new pictures to show off, although I did have a glimmer of an idea–a goal, really– to attempt to take at least 100 new pictures this weekend, to try to jumpstart my motivation. It could still happen, given that it’s only Saturday morning.
Have yourself a marvelous weekend!
First, I hate the new WordPress interface. I feel like I’ve stepped back in time, design-wise. I wish I could revert it back. Blech.
Second, I feel the need to note that many of my posts are made when I’m avoiding something else–this time, my long list of weekend chores. At least I can feel like I’ve accomplished something once I’ve made a post, though.
Ok, so, more important than all that–I seem to have recovered from my knitter’s block–woot! While I was waiting for the Wildwood to arrive, I started and finished a Puffy Slouchy Hat (left) using my Berrocco Foliage that I bought at Handmade last fall. At first, I was verra disappointed in it–too small! WTH?! I still liked the idea of it, though, so I started another with a worsted weight variegated in pinks and browns, adding stitches, adding rows, essentially making it enormous. During this second hat, I realized my mistake with the first–it need to be wrapped around a plate to block the crap out of it. Oops? So I did that, and of course the hat came out awesomecakes! Except, then I had this enormous pink and brown hat to deal with. I finished it anyway, in the hopes that maybe it would work out fine by skipping the blocking step. Um, not so much. So, I frogged it back 3/4 of the way last night and now I’m making it more to the pattern (still with a couple of extra rows, though, given the smaller gauge)–the yarn was too damned cute not to try again. It’s like pink cammo!
And of course, the Wildwood arrived on Thursday, so once this hat is finished, I’ll be getting back to the sparkly shawl. I hope it turns out half as well as the hat.
Oh, and in other news, I realize that I never followed up on the Little Coco. Back in November, I posted about the hit count on my flickr picture of the Little Coco bag, and how absurdly high it was at 98. Well, the hit count is now at 2,673. And the reason my pink purse is so popular? Apparently Little Coco is also the name of a porn star. ?! BWAH! I had no idea, and I wonder if the designer of the bag was aware of this and did it on purpose. It cracks me up that people looking for something to whack off to are instead finding my cute purse.
Ok, that’s all I’ve got for today. I really should get started on that chore list now. *sigh*