Look, look! My redesign! It's all based around the colors fromthe "She's fast, she's good, she lives in da hood" graphic that Rob sent me. Wendy helped me with the coding and setting up my ftp, because I'm a big geek -- or actually, because I'm NOT a big geek, I'm a faux geek, a geek poser -- hence the problem. Andy helped me troubleshoot. If any graphics look wonky, it's because I did them myself with Microsoft paint or whatever pathetic software came with my computer.

I still have a lot of little things to fix -- there's no way back to the home page from my Australia pics except the browser back button, for example -- but I figure my public (all, what, five of you?) is intelligent enough to work it out until I make those fixes.

I have a new site, and it's an actual, honest-to-god site with multiple pages, too. This is so exciting.

John, Lotti's boyfriend, is shooting a spec commercial, and asked me to be a warm body/actor. I am the least actor-like person in our group of mutual friends, so I'm thinking it was at least paritally because I was the one most likely to be conscious at 10 on a Saturday morning. That was confirmed when I was the first person to the shoot, and the only non-actor. Go figure.

So actors are cool and funny, but intimidating as hell, because they're so ... on, so extroverted, and I'm so not. It was very odd. I ended up doing a lot of nodding and smiling. The only thing John needed me for was a wordless reaction shot, so I'm guessing it will be ok. We'll see.

Last night I indulged in the Buffy Season 1 DVDs and Wendy brought up a "Spike and Buffy -- The Good Parts" tape. Yum, Spikey goodness.

Tonight it's Lotti and John's to hang out and such. Today, I hope -- I really, really hope -- I can finally get my new redesigned site up. We'll see.

The latest thing that is driving me crazy: The word "should." We're having trouble with a tool at work, and the tech guys are trying to fix it. Here's how our conversations are going:

Me: Hey, Wilson, the CMS won't let me use the Assign Documents function for the Canada site.
Wilson: Hmm. It should be working.
Me: (beginning to froth at the mouth): I know it should be working! That's why I'm talking to you! Because it isn't!
Wilson: Well, did you try this?
Me: Yes.
Wilson: Hmmm. That should work.
Me: (sparks flying out of my ears) Yes. I know. It doesn't.
Wilson: Yipe. (Ducks under desk)
Me: Sorry. I'm calm. (Deep cleansing breaths) I know exactly what it should do. It should work. It should be an effective tool. It should make my job easier, or at least not 10 times more difficult. It shouldn't make me want to fling myself, my computer, or, for that matter, my tech department out the window from a great height. But is doesn't work and it is making my murderous.
Wilson: (peeking out from under the desk) I'll get back to you, ok?

I went to doublecheck something with Andy -- I wanted to make sure it wasn't just me who was having this problem -- and he said the same damn thing. "Wow. That should work." Arghhhhhhh. He escaped with his life, but just barely.

I don't want to get angry at Wilson -- he's a great guy, he's been dropped into the project, he's doing the best he can, and it's not like he's incompetent. It's just that this is at the bottom of tech's priority list -- and I understand why -- and we can't get it fixed. But that means we can't actually do our jobs in an efficient manner -- or at all, in some cases. Which pisses me off. If my actions are useless here, I might as well not even bother coming into work. I'd be much happier sleeping in, reading, watching Buffy, hanging with the cats..... if it weren't for that pesky mortgage/food/clothing thing. Sigh.

Hmmm. I may not have grasped the finer points of Googlewhacking. Are you allowed to put the search phrase in quotes, or are you just supposed to do term1 AND term 2?

I got sucked into working on my site again -- now I just have to figure out my damn FTP. I've forgotten my password. Harumph.

We did have quite a bit of snow last night, and I got up early to shovel -- it was still dark. I was one of the first ones out, and the block looked magical -- the think white carpet over everything, and everything so quiet. Plus, you couldn't see the malt liquor bottles and other miscellaneous crap left on the street.

The snow was perfect for snowballs or snowmen -- wet, heavy and easy to pack. That makes shoveling a bit of a pain, but I still enjoyed it. It's one of those "Look! I really am a homeowner!" things, I guess. (Plus, our sidewalk and steps really doesn't cover that much area.) That, and it's the first snow of the season, really, and it was warm enough that I could go out and shovel in my polarfleece sweatshirt, jeans, hat and gloves. I'm feeling it in my back tonight (no, mom, I'm ok, just aware that I've worked muscles that haven't been used for a while), and I'm sure I'll get tired of it if we have another foot fall on us anytime soon.

My car is buried but accessible. I learned my lesson last year -- I had parked my car out back, behind the gate, and then it snowed about two feet. Then folks drove through the alley, making frozen, hard-as-rock ridges of ice right outside our parking pad, and I couldn't open our fence. Doh! My car was trapped for about a month and a half. I prefer taking public transport when there's snow anyway -- even if I'm a perfect winter driver, I sure see a lot of people who look like they've just moved up from Florida or something and have never driven on snow before in their lives.

Latest Googlewhack: "Sylvan snowdrift."

I've been distracted from blogging, as I've been working on my revamped site. I just finished the Australia pics and the Jersild Day page. They will post soon, I promise. Really.

Speaking of Jersild Day, I will not be hosting a Chicago blowout as I wll be visiting my sisters in Philadelphia and Wilmington. I keep trying to get them to come out here for the occasion, and I keep failing miserably. I don't know what the problem is -- February in Chicago, what could be better? So anyway, Chicago folks, you'll have to create your own Jersild Day fun this year, ok? I know you can do it.

In other news, it's finally snowing. We're supposed to get up to eight inches tonight. I can't decide whether to go out and doa preliminary shovel now (it's still snowing), or just say to hell with it and wait to shovel tomorrow. Ah, the joys of homeownership.

Here's another thing to add to my "Things I love about Chicago" list: The Old Town School of Folk Music. I'm taking a harmony singing class there, and it's just so damn fun. I forget sometimes how much I enjoy singing -- it just makes me feel good, physically as well as mentally.

When I mention this to my mom, she oh-so-subtly brings up how I'd get a chance to sing all the time if I, oh, joined a church choir, for example. The question is, is the singing invigorating enough for me to give up sleeping in and/or not showering on Sundays? Wasting the day reading the paper and lounging with the cats? Probably not. Nice try though, mom.

Googlewhacking (Rich, what have you wrought?) I got one on my fourth try, with Armadillo flambe Sniff. I'm so proud. And it isn't even obscene, unlike Eric and Andy's selections.

Continuing with the "You gonna eat that?" theme, my Aunt Elaine chimed in with this:

The worst things I've eaten were: in Denmark--fried fish with a raw quail egg on top-fortunately I had a glass of Aqavit to wash it down, and in France -- raw sea urchin that was still moving (tasted like salty sand) and cooked octopus (like rubber). I hate fish nevermind urchin and octopus.

That sounds highly unpleasent. I'm not much of a fish person either. I've had octopus once, at Jumbo "Floating" Restaurant -- it's not actually floating, but it is on pylons in Aberdeen Harbour -- and it made me ill. I also had jellyfish in Hong Kong, which doesn't taste much of anything, but give you the sensation of chewing on rubber bands. I have not eaten enything that is still moving, but that is, apparently, a specialty of one of the hot restaurants here. Um, no thank you.

The quali egg and fish thing reminds me of balut [Warning: The pics are gross], a Filipino "delicacy" and hangover cure. Basically, it's a boiled fertilized duck egg. So yes, there's a fetal duck in there. And you eat it. Again, not something I ever tried, and I'm fine with that.

More contributions to the god-awful food question.

From Jeremy: weird food? what about gefilte fish? fish innards ground into a paste and then pickled in a gummy fishy gell. it was at every brunch at my grandmother's house until she died. no one under 40 ever touched the stuff.

Um, ew. That sounds truly foul. I'll pass on trying that, thank you.

And from Angie: What about Haggis as a gross thing. Isn't that like sheep intestines or something? British?

Ah, yes, haggis. It's Scottish, and I've actually had it. That, I think, falls under the "horrible if you think about it" rubric, but it doesn't really taste that bad. My one mistake was that I didn't realize the outside -- you know, the sheeps stomach bit -- was just for cooking, you don't actually eat it. Because let me tell you, you could chew for a long, long time before sheep's stomach is digestible. As for the stuff you're supposed to eat -- it's kind of like stuffing, but -- oh dear, I just looked at a recipe -- with nasty bits of liver and suet and such. Hmmm. It didn't seem bad at the time....

Angie continues:Ok -- from an American perspective, maybe any processed cheese product like Velvetta or Easy Cheez or whatever it's called. and how about the weird colors they make food for kids. I just saw a coupon for electric blue and shocking pink squeezable butter. uck.

These fall under "Foods that do not occur in nature, and would not occur if the world was not a twisted place and humanity was not a horrible species." "Cheese product" -- especially aerosol cheese product -- is pretty much a product of Satan. I mean, come on -- cheese is such a good thing, why would you bastardize it and put it in a shaving cream can? That's just wrong.

As for the electric blue/shocking pink squeezable butter (fourth item down), the bright-green ketchup, the individually wrapped slices -- yes, slices of peanut butter -- what are we thinking? Who needs this stuff? Who wants this stuff? Who really thinks that this is a good idea?

Of course, it occurs to me that I really have no authority to complain about unnatural foods, as I lived through college on a steady diet of bagels, Cap'n Crunch and Diet Pepsi. (But even I think sliced peanut butter is a tragic sign of the decline and fall of western civilization.)

It is a freakishly beautiful day here in Chicago. This would count as a fabulous day if it were to occur in, say, October or late March -- sunny, 59 degrees, light breeze -- but for the end of January, it's pretty much a sign of the apocalypse. I gotta admit, I'm pretty much ok with that. Last year this time I was waiting for the ice to melt enough that I could get my car out of the parking pad. This year -- bliss.

Went to Wishbone this morning for Christine's birthday, then came back home and wandered around the park near my house. I gotta say, Chicago does parks pretty damn well. While wandering around today and yesterday, I saw folks playing basketball, football, soccer, tennis and frisbee; driving remote control cars; flying wind-up airplanes; fishing; biking, rollerskating and scootering; playing with dogs; walking, running, jogging and strolling; sitting inthe sun, reading, sketching, and just talking; only one person drinking out of a brown paper bag; and only one act of public urination. Overall, not bad at all.

I also solved a mystery that's been driving me crazy -- there's this store I pass on the way to work that' always closed and that has the windows soaped up so light can get in but people outside can't see what's going on inside. Today, the gate was open, so i tried the door. Locked. I was walking away when the door opened. Turns out its a pastry shop of a sort, although they don't sell to the public per se -- only wedding cakes, and that's not the sort of thing you just walk off the street and buy. They also do a lot of trade work, for the big hotels and restaurants like The Penninsula and such. Very cool. The chef and her partner bought the building, and they bake downstairs and like upstairs.