Avoiding Work

This is what I do when I don't want to earn money.

Oh yeah, that’s why I quit.

Up until about 2 years ago I was a professional corporate web designer. Then I quit and managed to get a dream job as an art director at a cartoon. The cartoon was placed on hiatus last December, so until I land another I’ve been doing a little freelance web design.

If you ever want to be reminded why you quit a job try doing it as a freelancer. Here’s what I’ve had to do over the last month:

  • Remind adults that it’s not okay to call people at home at 11pm on a Sunday night, and that these aren’t regular working hours.
  • Explain to “communications experts” that I’m not constantly looking at their one project, and don’t know what they mean when they e-mail me, “Change the bottom-left to the bottom-right and make it 4/5s bigger.”
  • Explain to “in-house web designers” that they’re just as capable of changing a newsletter’s subject line as I am, don’t worry, there’s no scary coding.
  • Helpfully suggest that phrases like, “CDN Revenue Generation,” and, “Greater PPC reporting integration,” are not plain English, and really won’t do much to increase donations to a charity. I was completely iced-out on that one, by “communications experts.”
  • Explain why I both can’t and won’t teach the office how to use “Adobe” in a 90 minute conference call.
  • Point out (again to “communications experts”) that gunscopes and bright red targets are not the best imagery to associate with your baby-themed business venture.

And that’s just the oblique stuff. For some reason professional boundaries really set clients off. Like being a freelancer immediately entitles them to all of your time and energy.

fantastiquecollective: Imagine… if all five Brontë sisters had survived childhood. “These are my sisters Amelia and Deborah, Amelia owns London’s finest opium house and Deborah is Surrey’s first female boxer!” Or… “This is my sister Janet, she repurposes old paintings to make the subjects appear to be her as a young man posing nude with his comrades. And this is my… sigh… sister Rose, who loves horses. Together they help manage the Bronte-family fan club.”

fantastiquecollective:

Imagine… if all five Brontë sisters had survived childhood.

“These are my sisters Amelia and Deborah, Amelia owns London’s finest opium house and Deborah is Surrey’s first female boxer!”

Or…

“This is my sister Janet, she repurposes old paintings to make the subjects appear to be her as a young man posing nude with his comrades. And this is my… sigh… sister Rose, who loves horses. Together they help manage the Bronte-family fan club.”

Book of “Secrets”

I had a use-it or lose-it store credit at Think Geek last week, so I spent it on candy and a tiny book:

Worst Tiny Book Ever

This tiny book… I fucking can’t.

It’s called Book of Secrets, and it promises to lay bare some of the most compelling open secrets in the world. I was pretty much expecting interesting factoids, like a bathroom reader but conspiratorial.

If a boring person synopsized 100 Wikipedia articles and published them it would still be more interesting than Book of Secrets. I’m not overstating its awfulness. And it took 4 people to write!

One of the secrets they reveal is how to shop for food. Like at grocery store. Another secret is a fried chicken recipe.

fantastiquecollective: Birth Control in Fantasy: A Guide. Realm of the Elderlings: wizardwood navel ring Tortall: magic charm The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms: godwords Terre D’Ange: divine intervention Valdemar: potions One thing I noticed is that fantasy birth control tends to be infallible. Does anyone know any that isn’t? (Not including historical methods, just typically magical author-created methods.) Liveships absorb souls, right? If Althea is wearing a wizardwood navel ring does that mean that, at a certain stage of gestation, fetuses develop souls, which are then sucked out by the remains of a stillborn dragon? It’s probably not what you’re looking for, but ASOIAF uses tansy as an abortifacient. In the real world tansy had something like a 20-30% success rate, and was just as likely to make you drop an organ as a fetus.

fantastiquecollective:

Birth Control in Fantasy: A Guide.

Realm of the Elderlings: wizardwood navel ring

Tortall: magic charm

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms: godwords

Terre D’Ange: divine intervention

Valdemar: potions

One thing I noticed is that fantasy birth control tends to be infallible. Does anyone know any that isn’t? (Not including historical methods, just typically magical author-created methods.)

Liveships absorb souls, right? If Althea is wearing a wizardwood navel ring does that mean that, at a certain stage of gestation, fetuses develop souls, which are then sucked out by the remains of a stillborn dragon?

It’s probably not what you’re looking for, but ASOIAF uses tansy as an abortifacient. In the real world tansy had something like a 20-30% success rate, and was just as likely to make you drop an organ as a fetus.

angrynakedandpouting: I’m taking aim at this movie in what might be an unpopular opinion. I think the hubbub about it is unjustified. I think the book was poorly written and predictably cliched. The original Swedish film was interesting to me because it was set in Sweden, mainly; not because the plot of this movie or what it deals with is anything new at all. The character of Lisbeth is a your typical female victim who has been given Aspergers, which conveniently makes her more vulnerable to exploitation and allows her to act psychotically, both of which are always well-received from audiences. That’s hardly groundbreaking. You dont have to get off your comfy couch to find women tortured, raped and murdered every night on tv’s crime dramas,  you just have to go to the theater to find it even more graphically done. Which I think is the source of all this excitement. I think the hushed tones and barely concealed titillation in the voices of the people discussing the movie are due to the excitement over those scenes.  I think they’re turned on by the sexual violence toward women in this movie; the potential for it, but even more so, the reality of it shown in  graphic splendor on the big screen. There’s also a punishment fetish aspect to the first movie. People get off on seeing Lisbeth get revenge. The original movie series plays out like a 6 hour, decompressed episode of Law & Order. The first is all about the crime/investigation, the second concludes the investigation and reveals the deeper crime, and the third movie is pretty much just a court drama. I can’t help but roll my eyes at it, since it’s true to form as an inherently melodramatic and ridiculous crime drama, but for all that genre-baggage the series is not bad. I hope they don’t try to adapt the entire series. When they start exploring Lisbeth’s past is when the story becomes incredibly absurd.

angrynakedandpouting:

I’m taking aim at this movie in what might be an unpopular opinion.

I think the hubbub about it is unjustified. I think the book was poorly written and predictably cliched. The original Swedish film was interesting to me because it was set in Sweden, mainly; not because the plot of this movie or what it deals with is anything new at all. The character of Lisbeth is a your typical female victim who has been given Aspergers, which conveniently makes her more vulnerable to exploitation and allows her to act psychotically, both of which are always well-received from audiences. That’s hardly groundbreaking. You dont have to get off your comfy couch to find women tortured, raped and murdered every night on tv’s crime dramas,  you just have to go to the theater to find it even more graphically done. Which I think is the source of all this excitement. I think the hushed tones and barely concealed titillation in the voices of the people discussing the movie are due to the excitement over those scenes.  I think they’re turned on by the sexual violence toward women in this movie; the potential for it, but even more so, the reality of it shown in  graphic splendor on the big screen.

There’s also a punishment fetish aspect to the first movie. People get off on seeing Lisbeth get revenge.

The original movie series plays out like a 6 hour, decompressed episode of Law & Order. The first is all about the crime/investigation, the second concludes the investigation and reveals the deeper crime, and the third movie is pretty much just a court drama.

I can’t help but roll my eyes at it, since it’s true to form as an inherently melodramatic and ridiculous crime drama, but for all that genre-baggage the series is not bad.

I hope they don’t try to adapt the entire series. When they start exploring Lisbeth’s past is when the story becomes incredibly absurd.

(Source: irelandpearl)

fantastiquecollective: GRRM: I like to use sexual scenes to make my books more adult. Jacqueline Carey: You’re adorable. Yech… can we please have a deviants’ agreement that we’re not to show Martin’s face in conjunction with any suggestive content whatsoever? He looks like if Santa’s older brother owned a sleazy porno theater.

fantastiquecollective:

GRRM: I like to use sexual scenes to make my books more adult.

Jacqueline Carey: You’re adorable.

Yech… can we please have a deviants’ agreement that we’re not to show Martin’s face in conjunction with any suggestive content whatsoever?

He looks like if Santa’s older brother owned a sleazy porno theater.

daveholmes:

A very serious message indeed.

Norway’s “The More You Know” campaign is really confrontational.

WTF is so hard about this?

Hey Android app developers. If your app doesn’t allow me to save content to an SD card, or pull content from an SD card, you’ve fucked up.

Burn it down and start over.

winteriscomingbitch: Theon Greyjoy does approve. Haha, reminds me of a terrible image meme my girlfriend and I tried to start immediately after GoT, Unappreciated Theon.

winteriscomingbitch:

Theon Greyjoy does approve.

Haha, reminds me of a terrible image meme my girlfriend and I tried to start immediately after GoT, Unappreciated Theon.