EYEHEARTZOMBIES

No, I’m not dead. Not even close. Yeah, the usual excuses apply. You’re used to them by now, though, so don’t have to tell you about the deadline last week. Or the new video games that are taking up my time ( Ghost Recon 2 is freakin’ addictive). I guess I don’t really have much else to tell you about, then. Wow, that really destroys my posting ability.

OK, I guess I’ll tell you anyway. Last week was the never-ending deadline. On Monday last week I get notice that I’m supposed to create a full-page ad for another paper for one of our clients. Wouldn’t have been a big deal if it wasn’t deadline week and the ad wasn’t due that day. But, it was a big client that we need/want to keep happy so I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Oh, and I had no usable source files to build the ad from at first. I think they were finally emailed to me around 4 pm or so and I finished the ad around 6:30. That was on Valentine’s Day, so that was a bit of a let-down. Elaine and I came home and spent the evening together not really doing anything.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we got into work around the normal time and left between 8 and 10 pm. That’s pretty late for non-deadline nights but it helped us get some important stuff done. We probably would have been there a lot longer on Wednesday (we had packed for it even) but Elaine had come down with that cold/flu that seems to be hitting people at random. It’s like sharpnel or something, attacking at random. She was sick Wednesday through Sunday or so, but she’s feeling better now.

Thursday I went in by myself at 10 am and the other designer that helps out part time and I spent the whole day in a mad panic to get stuff finished. I left around midnight to get Elaine ’cause she was lonely and I wanted out of the office for awhile. We got back to work around 2 am and that’s when I got sick. I spent the next three hours alternating between the work computer and dry heaving in the bathroom. My stomach and back muscles are back to normal now, but it took a few days. I went home at 5, leaving the last edits in our assistant’s hands.

She calls us around noon on Friday and has a few problems. I walk her through ‘em on the phone then pass out again. Things are worse when she calls again at 2, so I go take a shower and go into work, dropping Elaine and Poly off at her mom’s beforehand. See? We’re not completely stupid. It’s faster to drive from work to her mom’s than from work to home, and I knew I was going to be there for a long time, so I didn’t want any crazy drive in front of me.

Get to work at 5 and there are still several pages to finish. Our assistant and I trade back and forth on the computer until a little after 1 or 1:30 am, when everything is finally finished. She and the boss leave for the night and I sit there for another 3 hours collecting the last two sections (12 pages each this time) and sending them to the printer. I got back to my mom-in-law’s around 4 in the morning (Tulsa is actually nice to drive through at the time of night. Especially when it’s misty out) and I ate the first food I had had (other than a Coke and some Red Hots) since around 5 pm on Wednesday.

See, I have this nasty habit/condition. If I’m stressed, I can’t eat. If I’m tired, I can’t eat. If I’m in a rush, I can’t eat. What happens if I do eat? You don’t want to see. I get very sick. So, during deadline which is a rush and a lot of stress, I don’t eat. And, as deadline typically goes for a day or two, I get tired, too. Wow, look, all three symptoms in one convenient activity. Anyway, I ate a few bites of microwaved chicken strip and a biscuit before going to bed around 5 am.

I work up about 3 pm, just in time to see Elaine and her mom off to some garden exhibit in Tulsa. I spent the day dicking around with some HTML for Ray and just surfing the web at excruciating dial-up speeds.

The weekend, what was left of it, was pretty ordinary. I decided to treat myself after the deadline and I picked up a couple of new Xbox games. I’ll write more on them later ( Ghost Recon 2, Mechassault: Lone Wolf, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2) after I have a chance to more thoroughly play them.

Anyway, we have had some excitement this week, but I’ll leave that to Elaine to tell you about. As for me, it’s just more of the same laziness and procrastination that you’re all so used to. I have finally nailed down some more ideas for the redesign, but they may end up on another site. We’ll see. I keep thinking about bringing the MP3 of the Week back, so maybe that’ll give me something to make myself do soon.

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12:45pm
OK, I’ve been here since around 10:30am. We left last night at about 6:30pm or so. When I left, all I had to do was the page 2s. When I got here, I still had the page 2s (obviously) but I had a few edits, too. No biggie. Well, I’m here and I still have page 2s, although fewer of them than I had.

Let me break this down for you. I work for a newspaper publisher. We produce 6 monthly newspapers. All six come out at once. This month, they have 32 pages apiece. Of those 32 pages, pages 1, 2, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 32 are different to each paper. So the rest are the same. Each different page, even if it’s not different (content’s the same, just a different name on the top) has to be built on it’s own. That’s 72 pages total to build. Right now, 3 are finished completely. One perfect, two finished with changes. I would be working right this second, but this slow-ass computer can’t handle me working on a page while it’s printing another one. Well, it can, but not well enough for me to do it. Everything moves way too slowly.

Just as I say that, the queue ends. I’ll be back with more today, so keep checking…if you care, that is.

1:39pm
Again I’m waiting on the queue. Done a few pages in the meantime, but I don’t think any are finished yet. Would have done a couple more but the computer crashed. It apparently equates opening a picture in photoshop with faulting the finder. What a fun machine.

Had the fun news of something happening to the server. Manny happened to see that his site (which is on the same server) wasn’t showing up; nil for eyeheartzombies and nil for gigantuan and I only assume nil for the august. But everything seems to be working now, so I’ll hope it was just from Manny messing around with his site. Probably was.

2:16pm
Well, another page, another print, another wait. The wait has been exciting this time. We’ve gotten in a few ads and a few approvals. Those are the best; the approvals. And I managed to get into a fight with Manny over images.

The catalyst was the images on his site. His new design is pretty nice, but the bottom border doesn’t show up. When I was looking at the code to see why, I discovered that he’s putting the borders on with images, instead of using CSS’s border property. Now, there’s technically nothing wrong with this method. It works (for the most part) and it keeps any nasty box-model problems from creeping up. It does, however, add a bit of size onto your images. I know, I know; and extra 10 pixels of solid color data can’t be that big…and it’s not. The size, however, isn’t really the issue. Now for those of us with slow connections (I boast a 56k modem at home), those extra k do add up, but not very quickly. We probably would never even notice the slight lag as the images load. Do it enough on a page (as Manny doesn’t) and it will show up, though. Still, do it sparingly and you’ll be fine as far as lag and bandwidth go.

We do pay for our bandwidth, but I don’t think Manny’s indulgence will cost us. If it does, I’ll just add to the money he already owes me ;). The problem, for me, is the principle of it. Manny and I are working on creating a site to teach people who do do good, compliant web design. We want to teach people to use XHTML and CSS to create useful, accessible pages that look good everywhere and don’t rely on browser-specific hacks. So, it kind of irks me that his site boasts something that’s very…old-thinking…from web design’s past. Something of the same age as table-based layouts and font tags.

I realize that it’s his personal site and he should be allowed to do what he wants (and he is. I can’t and wouldn’t make him change it). But…I don’t know…if people can hate Bill Clinton for the “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” thing, I can be a little peeved at Manny for using images where he could have used CSS.

Well, the queue has ended again…

2:49pm
I sound like such an ass in the last addition to this post. Well, I’m not. At least I try not to be. My only complaint with Manny’s method is that it makes changing the site harder. Case in point, when I pointed out to him that he should have used border instead of the images, he said “It’ll take too long to change them so I’ll do it some other time.” That’s what I’m getting at. By doing it with CSS he could change the size, the style, the color, whatever…whenver he wanted to. There wouldn’t be anything to it more than changing a few values in a text file.

Anyway, I guess that’s all I have to say for that. I still sound like an ass, but at least I’m an explained ass.

I think we’re going to take lunch soon. That’s right, lunch at 3pm. We do this every day. Our schedules and bodies are so out of whack it’s unreal. Get to work at 10, lunch at 3, home at 5/6, bed at midnight or so. We should be set back about an hour or two. We need Kenneth and Elaine Savings Time. Well, I suppose we’ll be normal some day…right?

4:24pm
So, back from lunch, already finished another page, letting it print. Takes forever. Oh well, gives me a sec to write here.

Well, Manny and I worked it out. Actually, he changed it while I was at lunch. I really do like his site. It’ll be top-notch when he gets that readability issue sorted out. That should be soon, though. Then no one will be able to stop him! Mwaahahaha! Or maybe they can. I don’t know.

5:06pm
Well, all the pages I have are finished. Just edits and the two pages that aren’t finished left. That’s good. That’s very good. Edits go a lot faster than building pages does.

7:05pm
I swear I’m not making this up. Now we have a tornado warning. I know. a warning’s nothing. We have hail, though. This is one screwed up day. I went out to see how the clouds were a bit ago, wasn’t raining much. As soon as I got to the other side of the parking lot, it starts raining hard and hailing (pea-sized, no matter what the radio says). I was trapped! It finally slacked a bit and I ran for it. Now I’m all wet. That’s not fun at all.

Well, we’re working on edits, but I think we should just quit for the night and start again tomorrow. The weather’s getting worse and I don’t want to be in this strip mall building if something bad does hit. Not to mention we want to be with our animals if it gets stormy there or something.

This is one screwy day.

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