we had some work thingy where we were supposed to stretch.  Now i'm usually flexible.  My shoulders don't seem to get that tight at work... hahaha
things were snapping and cracking madly as i stretched at the "workshop".  now my neck is painful.    How come I don't get this much stiffness when i go to the gym?..........
oh maybe cause i gym on the weekend.  And I don't stretch at work. .. and when i'm not at work i'm not stressed so much?  hmf.

I went and saw the new Bond Movie.
Holy Gods and green fishes.  A good Bond Movie?  A Great Movie?  Yes!   No bimbos? yes!   GREAT Dialogue?  yes!
and still it was a Bond movie?  Truth!   The women were smart.   Bond was an icy-hearted mysoginistic prick... and didn't get away with it.  Probably for the first time in the history of the series you had to Pay Attention to what was happening.  

Casino Royal gets a Nine out of Ten.  A bit long in spots.  but .. wow.  I'll see it again.   

...since I talked about my t-shirts.  i've been looking for local printers, and also thinking about printing them myself.  I also realized I want a few myself.  One of these days. :D


the exploding head is still one of my favs but one of the guys wants this one:



one thing about the guys at work.  they really go through the cash.   I've never seen so many people spend so much so quickly ... amazed they aren't all cuddling the PS3's this morning.   But evidently they are more interested in the games... and they said there aren't enough to be worth lining up for in the rain.

meanwhile, i'm getting out of a writing slump.

why does it seem i can :
1. write
2. design
3. do photography...

but I just can't seem to do all at once.  at least now, with the winter about to arrive any day now...  i can mostly put away the camera.
when winter comes... it is usually the time to write.

While wandeirng around Toronto I ended up in the Distillery District.  Its a neat area.  Anyway, they had this old rusty car there.   I love stuff like this.  anyway here's a pic:


There's something beautiful about old rusty cars imho,
though i'm sure enough people think they are odd.   At least a few people asked why I was spending so much time taking photos of an old wreck.


One day I'll scan some of the B&W's I took years ago down in Arizona.  Now that is the land of rust and age.














and that's it for today.  
though... i'm faking a 1 day Deadly Illness and calling in sick.  why?
is it the stress?
nope.  the sun is out.  and its a balmy 10 C!  whoo...
i feel myself recovering already.

There's a guy sitting in the next row over from me.  I can see the back of his head.   I am throwing mental daggers at it now.

He's playing a "nature soundtrack".   aka:  the never-ending loop of cricket noises.  it goes on and on.   I'm wondering just how long I'll tolerate it before I beat him with a cricket bat.   Some people here think its relaxing. then there is the section of us who can't tune it out.   Guess which one i am.


Still... it would make great hold music.  "Let me put you on hold....      ::queue crickets::"

I've had limited net access from home - and it's been crazy at work. no time to LJ really.    Last week I took a day off to go to the zoo.  That was fun, but damn its getting cold. 

hahaha



I love A Softer World... not all their stuff is ROTFL..  in fact a lot is strange and disturbing.  
 but this cracked me up.

Toronto has this incredible old theatre called the Elgin. Waay back in the day it was a vaudeville theatre, and then the upper theatre got sealed off in 1928. Its been reopened for years now - all renovated, but I'd heard they did tours. Saturday morning at 11am was tour time.. and so worth it.

anyway, a little photo of one of the images on the ceiling. Spooky!


I played around with it in Photoshop a bit. It was on the roof of the ceiling there and really pushed my camera's ablility to take shots. There was a concert scheduled... so we were limited in photos of this area. I also hadn't realized we'd be allowed to shoot whatever we wanted photo-wise,
so i had not brought a tripod. Hand-holding a camera for a long shot...
almost impossible under these lighting conditions.

still I'm pleased with a few of them


might post some later. 









I keep thinking this mask should have a laugh with it...


mwhahahahhaaaaaaaaaa

anyway, best $7 I've spent in ages.  2 hours of a tour, full of interesting stuff.

Happy Halloween!


so cause I'm sick and not doing much (my friend cancelled her party last week) and no one is doing anything at work (SUCK!!) I'm not dressing up this year.  so... memories of Halloween past:

Yeah...
haha

thats me.  sorta

I borrowed a sword


I don't know why I was wrinkling up my nose... prob to show off the gold teeth.
haha

well, I got an offer I couldn't refuse..   an LJ friend sent me a Halloween Card!

My first Ever!
I didn't mention it, but I've never *ever* gotten a card for Halloween.  Whooo!  :D

I guess I don't come from a card sending family.   I also suspect it just isnt' the same thing here in Canada... ::not sure::
I know I've gotten cards for xmas from friends in the USA... much more than I've gotten from Canadian friends.  I think I hang out with non-card buyers.  :)

Still, its made my day.  The card now sits in a proud spot on my work desk.

Grrr ... Arrrrg!

Spent 90% of my weekend trying to resurect the Dead....
the dead n dying laptop that is.   Its an older beast - almost 6 yrs old....... and it worked fine until I tried to remove a program and some files.  It appeared okay and then promptly started to fail.   It turns out to be disk-errors on the harddrive, but because I had to get all geeky I had to eliminate all other issues first.  Scandisk worked like a black hole - collapsing all in reach into the void.  A reinstall of the operating system went boom too.
That was my weekend.  the majority of it.  frustrations.

thank gods I'm one of the few people I know that keep multiple backups - I'm really paranoid.  I own a few computers - 1 now near dead laptop.  1 laptop (crosses fingers/knocks wood).  2 functioning desktops.  1 spare desktop and one sorta-fuctional desktop.  I've got a drawer of parts too.  Sigh.   

did you know that until 1999 I couldn't even check mail?  I was so ungeeky.   Beginning work for an ISP (billing support) was the downfall into geekdom.  Actually, I consider it an Elevation into Geekdom.   heh.

And because I could... i think i put together a kick-arse page on the basics of Halloween Makeup... tips, types, demo's and links as well as product descriptions.    It took a while... but it was fun too.  Its a good way for me to pull together stuff i'm interested in.. including halloween and makeup.  I never went Pro for makeup, but I wanted to.. and I've won a few prizes for Halloween - the most was a sweet $500... mostly, I am sure for the mask.  I was a raven, and it kicked.  Alas, I don't have time for maskmaking these days.

and now.. back to The Grind. 

Okay, so perhaps I'm far behind on the times... but does anybody know much about  www.squidoo.com?

It's a very different concept, and for those of you with a Cafepress design shop - oh both of you on my flist...  I'd suggest you take advantage of whatever you are expert in and set up some links to your cafepress  stores, pages, blogs and start tying it all together. 

For people like me, who hadn't heard about it, it is a very different way of viewing searching.  Most of the site encourages external links.  A person can post links and "mini-articles" on squidoo... and it seem eventually make some spare cash.

If you set up a squidoo account... let me know.  You can also go rank my crazy stuff if you have an account.  One is based on the Hallowe'en movie post I made and the other will be about... dumdumdaaaaa.. zombies.  heh
I'll probably post a few "lenses"  - one about the city where I live: Toronto.

anyway, strange and interesting concept. 
http://www.squidoo.com/all-things-zombie/
and

http://www.squidoo.com/top-horror-movies/


as well.. if you are selling ANYTHING.. go, check  it out... and if you sign up:

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/referral/Image_Girl

say i sent you :D

Because men aren't the only ones who need brains.


snerk.



this is a variation of the Aim For the Head featuring the male zombie.  








These are too much fun.

so much I did a Family Zombie ....



I am debating if it needs the fellow at the far left or if he just doesn't look Zombie enough..
hmf      I'll be posting up some stuff over on the T-shirt blog I'm keeping.   There are a few other images I have to stick up...




Anyway...
have a staggering good day!

Last year I was darned sick for Hallowe'en. The plague. Anyway, during that time I started to watch scary/classic/zombie/weird movies. This month, I'm back at it again. I've already started....

lets just call this the 

31 Movies of Horror for Hallowe'en

So far I'm slowly creeping my way through my Top 31 Horror movies.  Some of the list below I've not seen before.  These aren't in any order, really though.  Not a Top Ten, but rather a range of some good and some not so good... but enjoyable.  If any one has some I should look at watching ... let me know!  Next month will prob be SF month.  For now, in the Month of Hallowe'en.. Image-Girl... likes them scaaary movies.  Yes she does.   And some of these are "Things to watch"... just incase you think i am Glued to the idiotbox.  I'm not into the super-gore movies.  Those squick me too much.  But I like the ones that are a bit haunting, funny or just make you think.

I've decided to list the ones below that Don't Link to IMDB.  Some just go to the movie sites.  Some go to commentary.   Feel free to let me know What You Like....  These are NOT slasher movies.  I really don't like slasher flicks.  

Shaun of the Dead  (own it)
28 Days Later   (own)
Dawn of the Dead (own) (both versions)
The Shining  - contantly on TV 
The Exorcist  - rented - new DVD version with slight changes from the 1973 version
Nosferatu - 1922 (own)
The Thing - (own as of this weekend) 1982 - the one with Kurt Russel.  And gee I didn't know it was so DARK.  This movie gave me nightmares when i saw it .. um.. in 1982.
The Birds  - own - hitchcock
and my most recent fav-must get:
Near Dark - oh so good fun.  Bill Paxton rocks. A vampire Western... gotta love it.. it is so 80s.  fun.  Looks a bit dated, but you can tell these people LOVED making this film.  And the new 2nd disk has a great featurette with very funny stuff from the actors.

and i rented with reluctance SAW - which didn't do much for me and was semi-gorey and not my kind of thing.

on the list to be watched:

Suspira - as recommended by a person off a zombie community 
American Werewolf in London  - been a while so why not, eh?
Evil Dead - oh funny - Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell .. what more can i say?  makes me giggle.
Pumpkinhead  - which i have never heard of... and sounds really badly funny. might not get around to it. Lance Henrikson too.  Skinny, creepy Lance.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - silent film - one of the first horror movies from 1921- i've not seen it yet
Hellraiser - scares me to bits - might not be able to summon up the courage for it
The Hitcher - another old movie that most likely will not scare me now but did when i first saw it
Salems Lot - just never seen it
Zombie - by Lucio Fulci - italian. not seen it either - 1979 and gore!
Invasion of the Body Snatchers - another movie i've not seen in ages but its got Pod People!
Village of the Damned - 1960's version not the one by Carpenter.   I Love John Wyndom books.
The Cat People - dunno if its good.  talking about the 1942 version. Noir-ish horror B-movie
Videodrome - another older one from the 80s.  james Woods.  David Cronenberg.
Ginger Snaps - werewolves! not that scary but darned good.  Not a huge special FX budget but it works.  I love the opening - one of the funniest I've seen in ages.  If you are a woman.. you will appreciate this even more
The Howling - though ain't looking that good.  ..but it sounds funny.  I might have seen it. .. but who can resist a a country resort run by werewolves?
Frailty - though I'm not sure if it qualifies as horror.. but damn. Bill Paxton.  its got Demons.  And Bill.  You go boy!  Good  movie... bit slow at times but good.  One of the ones people seem to miss.
Carrie - been a while too
Night of the Living Dead - such a classic! Zombies!
anyone seen The Others?   I usually avoid whats-her-name but people keep saying its good.
Scream - gotta list a Wes Craven movie.  And having seen Scary Movie recently it will be twice as funny. never made me jump but its in a way a bit of a classic from the 90s.  And did you know that the original Working Title for Scream was Scary Movie?  snerk.  Its fun.
Bride of Frankenstien - been a while.. and its a debate if i should see it or frankenstein.  Come on .. Boris Karloff!  and the Brides hair.. whee!



There are others I'm not going to dig for links to --- but most of them are good alternates:
- most zombie movies
- Dracula - and its 101 incarnations
- Pycho (hitchcock)
- Misery
- Rosemary's Baby
- Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (not seen it.. no idea if its good)
- Polergeist
- Dead Zone
- Stir of Echos
- Scanners
- Re-animator

You'll notice a lot of these are older films...  mostly because I'm not so much into the newer ones.. and because I figure most people have seen the new ones.

Rant Ahead!

They've booked another co-worker off today and tomorrow. Thanks. My manager spent the morning on the phone. Good. Welcome to my world. Too bad she didn't have to deal with the 28 calls i took yesterday when our mail-servers crashed. As soon as I did get into work though she told me she needed a break. hmf. yes.

A few things that seem to make my work a bit different.
( full swear ahead )

The people I work with also - almost universally (including myself):
- read SF/ horror or fantasy. In fact they are some of the best read people I know.
- own comic books
- have 3 or more computers (i've got.. eek: 3 laptops, 3 desktops - most old but occasionally used)
- know DNS, use Pine, use Vi
- watch/know/discuss and are avid/rabid movie fans (usually genre specific: we all will watch SF movies, but only 7/10 saw Snakes on a Plane)
- everyone has desk toys - figurines (i've got an Alien, Starwars Lego, Trinity from the Matrix, 10 or so little plastic monsters/dinos/bugs)


I love working with these people. Sometimes though, the job itself is a grindstone against my soul.

:D
Its interesting what keeps us doing the things we do.
For me it is the people, not the corporation. The money helps too.

my co-worker is officially on vacation for 2 weeks. Now it all goes to hell in a handbasket. That and another co-worker quit last week. There's an admin leaving and gaps that are going to be tough to fill.
I expect much stress.

::shakes a fist::
Grrrr!

My goodness .. is there a campaign going on this week to convert Microsoft Wed designers over to The Dark Side?

Today brought the 3rd call from a designer in one week... 

"So, I've been coding my .Net site, and then I decided to use MySQL, and PHP and I was wondering how come I can't get it working on your crappy (microsoft) servers!  You people suck."

The call last Friday was from a customer who said:
"So, at my work they have these Unix servers.  Have you heard about them?  I was thinking it sounded quite good, so could you just move my website (made with FrontPage) over to one of them?  And does it support ASP and .net too?"

and last thurs:
"Hey, have you heard of Unix?  Whats the differnce between Unix, Linux and the Windows Server I'm on?  Could you just drop me an email about it?"

=========
it just boggles my Support brain.
that is all.

Heh heh heh


I always wanted to wear boots like these....
alas the problem started when a woman stepped on my feet years ago and broke the joint in my left foot, hit panic, and then stepped on the right foot, busting another joint.
Being a bit nutty, I didn't bother to get it checked until 5 or so years later when the pain got bad.

Still, these boots are just ... wicked.
I'd love to get a pair - you know... if i could pull it off.  Perfect legs, etc.
Sigh.

maybe in my next incarnation.



anyway, I thought: what the heck? and set up a new t-shirt shop for some of the images I had kicking around:
http://www.cafepress.com/little_naughty

I'll update my other LJ with some of the ideas for the business there.

wow, just wow.   
What is with the pursuit of suing that goes on?  i wonder what the long term repercussions would be now that someone's won a sweet $11 million - that they will never see - over words hurled over the Net?  If you think I'm joking, do have a look at the most recent cases in courts in the usa

$11 million Net Defamation - who's going to pay?

That's libel don't you know?  But there's further trouble on the horizon for Bloggers.  You and me.   Thank goodness I'm not the kind to stand on my soapbox and RANT about specific people, nor the kind to really get into written/verbal abuse.  Just not interesting to me.  I do have to wonder how it would cross the International border though....    if a journal server is say, located in Canada, the blogger is in say the UK and the person suing is in the USA?    I heard that the cases have already happened - in Australia.   Who does the wiping when the poo gets flung from all corners of the world?   Is it going to be another case of Napster - you remember napster - when there were threats being waved that companies would "pursue everyone!  No matter where you hide!"

Blog at your own Risk - be careful what you say

Most of us I think worry - what if my mom sees this post?  What if JohnQ-no-body, named so many times, sees this post where i tell everyone how terrible he was in the sack?   They will be soo upset!   This though, takes it a dozen steps further.  How will "Carey Bock" ever pay $11 mil?   My guess - she won't.  

I'm rather sorry I missed this roundtable discussion about the impact of blogging here in Canada

it sounds like something i would have been interested in hearing about.   Yes, the www is bringing us closer.  closer and closer.  I just wonder what happens when we hit critical mass.

Watch what you say, eh?  

============
I'm still working on the designs for t-shirts but there isn't anything new there quite yet.   
Considering maybe doing some silkscreeing myself.  but that would be a lot of work. So... maybe find a place in Toronto and talk prices.  hm.   
Where could i store 50 t-shirts... sigh.  

I'm working on more zombie t-shirt designs, took a poke at some last night but I've been tired.  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzombie.   heh

 Today's image is brought to you by the guy that almost ran me over.

Seeing as that happens fairly often, well... it should be a regular sign.



Thanks for not slowing down when you round that corner.  Arsehol.  



and thats enough ranting.  really, this didn't start out as a rant post! It just evolved that way.


Right now I'm sorta waiting for some inspiration to strike while poking at designs.  Almost like nudging a cooling corpse.  I joke around about that but in truth, i've not seen that many dead people.  The last one was my friends mom....  his grandmother dragged me up to the open casket and introduced us.  "Maria I want you to meet..."
hm.   Both of us were rather silent.

Last night there was a thunderstorm that shook 1/2 the city.  Literally.   People at work heard one crack of thunder - sonic boom like - all over the west end of the city.  Crazy.  Woke me up, scared the cat.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30.  I think my brain never woke up.  All day I kept drifting off... eyes glazing, head tilted, staring vacantly into space.  I can't remember the last time I was in bed before 11pm.  Its been forever.

I gotta get around to updating the t-shirt blog soon.   Probably later today.   It's interesting talking about a business blog.  I hope it goes somewhere.. one day.  

ttyl all.
I-g out.

i'm completely, utterly ready to fall asleep at work...Right NOW. When i was in kindergarten or grade one or something.. i remember putting my head down on my desk. and dozing.
well.. tis 11:20. I meet a writing group tonight. I could instead just fall asleep. here. now.

thanksgiving was good. too much food, even though we had a small turkey. Lots of family stuff.

i been lazy. no design work this weekend at all. mostly destressing from work. One big highlight is picking up a new SF novel:
Woken Furies
by Richard Morgan... who I think is one of the best writers to have popped into existance in SF in the last five years.
Morgan makes Gibson look old.

okay. back to the coma.