Not your old cookies

Thanks to Print Magazine on Twitter, I was introduced to: Helvetica cookie cutters.

Being a design/type nerd, I think these are pretty cute. If I ever brought them to a party, I doubt anyone would really get the significance, but if it was a party with designers I assume the effect would be a little different. Move over old letter cookies, we have TYPEFACES for our letters! Haha!

You can see what I'm talking about here.

An appropriate quote

I've got a little 'situation' going on right now, as I'll call it, and a little quote keeps popping in my head that is highly appropriate right now:

"If you're good at something never do it for free..."—Joker, from The Dark Knight

No Meat Today. Don't forget!

Merry Lent everyone!

Today is Ash Wednesday, and our first day during the season of Lent sans-meat. Sometimes it seems hard to come up with something to eat, unless you're a true vegetarian, so in honor of the day, I thought I would offer some suggestions :-). Add some of your own too if I missed them!

Grilled Cheese Sandwich  •  Egg Sandwich  •  Tuna Salad Sandwich  •  Peanut Butter Sandwich  •  PBJ  •  Waffles  •  Pancakes  •  Cheese Omelet  •  Scrambled Eggs and Hash Browns  •  Eggs Benedict  •  Eggs in general  •  French Toast  •  Cereal  •  Bagels  •  Toast  •  Vegetable Soup  •  Clam Chowder  •  Any "Cream of" Soup (minus the Cream of Chicken, haha)  •  Broccoli Cheddar Soup  •  Tomato Soup  •  Tomato Basil Bisque  •  Macaroni and Cheese  •  Buttered Pasta  •  Jamie Pasta (I might share my special recipe with you)  •  Fettuccini Alfredo  •  Spaghetti and Marinara sauce  •  Cheese Ravioli  •  Cheese Tortilini  •  Pasta con Broccoli with no chicken  •  Mashed Potatoes with Corn on top (not my favorite, but some people dig it)  •  Veggie Fried Rice  •  Shrimp Fried Rice  •  Fish Sticks  •  Shrimp  •  Seafood in general  •  Cheese Quesadilla  •  Veggie Fajitas  •  Fish Tacos  •  Nachos  •  Chips and queso/salsa  •  Cheese Fries  •  Salad  •  Tofu  •  Mozzerella Sticks  •  Bosco Sticks  •  Cheese Pizza  •  Pizza with any vegetable topping  •  Fruit

(I apologize if I made you hungry...)

I totally answered the phone at work like a Canadian today. I don't know where it came from and it wasn't intentional, but I was did not sound like I was from the midwest. I think I threw the caller off, too, because there was a bit of a pause before "Hi, I'd like to speak with..." Whoops!

Why oh why? (In textspeak: YOY?)

Today is day one of my new hours at work. So far so good.

My facebook finally changed over today. I knew it was coming because I was talking to my friend Paul the other day and he mentioned it, so I was sort of anxiously waiting for it to finally change over. And it did a few mintues ago. And I mean 'a few minutes ago' because about ten minutes before, I had closed out of the tab and it was still the [now] old version.

It's nothing drastic this time, which is nice. But I still must ask: why in the world do the developers there feel the need to change their damn site so much? I have never ever, in the history of my entire web browsing career, seen a site do an overhaul of their layout as often as FB. Granted, I wouldn't consider today's an overhaul, but even so, no site makes all these little changes as often. I truly don't understand it. It's not the like the new design improves functionality or speed or anything essential to make sure the site doesn't crash or the server isn't overloaded. The changes are always purely cosmetic, so to say. Sure, being a designer I care about the design and feel of a site, but their near-obsessive habit of changing things up is more of a nuisance.

Now that I've joined Twitter, I find it interesting how much facebook has been made to look like Twitter. You have your feed/home, you post your status/tweet, all of the profile pictures are square icons (all of those done by Twitter first,) and now with the new redesign, your Home and Profile links have been moved to the right. Wait... that's just like Twitter too! What's the deal?

Having been with the site (facebook) since nearly day 1 (I believe I joined about a year after it began) I have watched how the site has progressed and changed. And it has changed A LOT. Remember back in the day, when there was no "feed" and all of your updates (pokes, messages, friend requests) were in the middle column on your home page? Then they completely went nuts, added the feed (which creeped everyone out at first), moved all of your updates to the side panel, and took your profile info off of the main page and initiated the use of the tabs. Next, I remember the addition of applications, which some people went nuts with. It was bad design at first, because of all the tiny icons for every stinking application you added being located under you picture. And some people had, like, 90 of those dumb things! You would have to scroll down to infiity just to post on their wall. Then the Status was introduced, which also freaked people out at first. And then they had another overhaul and redid the entire site again, and everyone hated it. Much hatred. And then there was the chat, which was full of bugs at first and sucked. It's gotten better, though.

And there have been a lot of little updates along the way too. They dropped all the rounded corners on everything, thank goodness. Ever noticed how the button to post your status went from "Post" to "Share"? Seems like a much more friendly invitation *in soft floaty voice*: 'Here Jamie, share your thoughts with everyone.' And how it became "Connections" and not "Friends" when viewing your entire list? I guess they realized, in reality, most people aren't 'friends' with all of "Friends" on facebook.

Anyways. I'm kind of liking Twitter, now that I'm there. I will see if I stick with it, but for now it's like a shiny new toy and I'm enjoying it. It's got some good things going for it (which facebook might pick up at some point too, haha.) I like that you can customize your page a little, but not to the degree of a MySpace where most pages look tacky. The design is all very clean, it's not cluttered like facebook is, and there are no ads (hence: cleaner.)

And I like that I can follow Sesame Street. (Seriously, someone acts like they're posting as the characters, and it's awesome. Grover's posts crack me up!)

The end of the week, full of movies

If you didn't know it, I have Netflix. I love my Netflix. If you have Netflix too, we should be pals on there. Zip me an email about it.

Anyhoo, yesterday I watched Taken. I really liked it. It's not too often that a thriller/suspense/action movie does not go over the top on the action, but I felt that this one had the right amount. However, I did think the car chase when he is leaving in the Jeep Cherokee, pursued by the mobsters who own the brothel, was a tad drawn out. But overall this one is very good.

Being the person I am, though, I did find an issue with a couple of things script-wise. First of all, I realize that divorce can sometimes be a very unpleasant thing, and the former couple does not get along, but I felt the writing for Bryan and his former wife was a little over-the-top. A little too 'let's-make-this-really-obvious-they-can't-stand-each-other-and-he-is-the-victim-here' kind of thing. Secondly, I thought the girls' characters were really wreckless and... dense. Maybe I am that weird of a person, but are girls really like that? I am posing that as a question, truly; someone tell me if that's how things are with teens these days or no. But I was kind of taken (ba-dum-ching!) aback by how careless they were: they're in a strange place, they meet a guy, and completely trust him? And want to have sex with him, just because they're in Paris and "you might as well lose it sometime, why not in Paris."? If that's really the way teens are these days, heaven help the world. I'm not naive to think no one is like this, but the writing for them seemed like it was trying too hard to portray them as just your 'typical', silly, nonsensical (okay, downright stupid) teenage girls.

Second movie I finished today was Dor. I really like this one too. It was not your typical Bollywood film, which was kind of refreshing. It's good to know that not all that comes out of Bollywood is singing and dancing to the tenth degree, even though I enjoy it. Yes, this had it's songs and minimal dancing, but it was not the typical. I know foreign movies aren't everyone's thing, so I almost wish there would be an adaptation/replication of this one in America. The story is of two women. They both are married and both have to say goodbye to their husbands, for work I believe. Well, turns out the husbands are roommates, and one is killed and the living one is accused of his murder. He is then sentenced to death, but per Saudi law, he may be pardoned if the widow agrees to sign a paper saying he is pardoned. So, the wife of the accused sets out on a hopeless journey to get the permission from the widow.

It was such a great story, I really loved it. The music was quite nice, and I don't mean the songs they sang (though those were just fine too) but the instrumental songs played in the background. They were quite lovely, and incorporated a little of India tradition (think tabla and sitar) with classical tones from the West I felt. The only down side to the movie was that before the menu, there was about ten minutes of ads from Eros that you could not skip. Oh my gosh, they were so cheesy, haha, and kind of made me laugh. (But I realized how much I've been trained by American TV, because the ads seemed really long; a few were a minute long, another was about five minutes. Being used to thirty-second ads it was really difficult to sit through them and stay interested.)

Haiti

My heart goes out to those in Haiti. It looks so devestating down there.

I must admit, at first I didn't care. It just seemed like another natural disaster in some poor country. And then when we (the USA) said we were pledging ump-teen millions or billions of dollars of aid, I thought "We don't HAVE any money! How does this work?" But then I started looking at some pictures coming out of Haiti, and then I was interested.

There have been reports of looters also. On the surface, this sounds terrible. Why does it always have to be that any time something horrible happens, all the crooks come out in everyone and start stealing all they can? But then I really got thinking about it: if there was one bottle of water left in a store, and your family was starving, possibly dying, and you didn't know where else you would get water, what would you do? I am not condoning stealing something, but I think at that point when you are so desperate to help your family or yourself, your instinct and will to live kicks in and you are going to do whatever you have to. Just something I've been pondering.

On another note, don't you feel like an ass when you turn down people who ask for your donations to Haiti? I do. But, I already donated to another charity, so I already contributed a little even though they don't know it.

YES!

Thank you to Yahoo! News for bringing this up on my homepage.

Review: The Shining

Today I am home 'sick.' I say 'sick' because, well I'm not really sick. I have this odd allergic reaction going on right now that has caused my ankles/feet to swell up and therefore, it is very painful and I basically can't walk. I went to my doctor, and that's what he said I had, and sure enough, one of my meds lists "Edema, or fluid retention around the ankles and feet" as a side effect. It was so painful, I felt like I wanted morphine last night. But, it's much better at the moment, though, so I should be able to go back to work tomorrow.

So I finally finished The Shining today. I couldn't wait to finish it. As Jarrod said, if I couldn't wait to finish it, it must not have been that great. And: it wasn't. This was my first Stephen King book, and supposedly many people have voted this story to be one of the scariest/most horrifying of all time, but I just didn't get it.

But before I get to my thoughts on the book, I must bring up two points:
1. I hate scary movies and have never seen the movie The Shining. I think it has to do with the unbelievable amounts of blood and gore, although I'm not even sure that is it because I loved Watchmen. So maybe it is that I just do not like getting scared; I don't enjoy that shock that you feel when the hand grabs the girl from somewhere off-camera. I have never been to a haunted house either, and am pretty positive that if I went, I would end up crying because I would hate it and there would be no way I could leave in the middle of it.

2. I originally started reading this in honor of Halloween.

So, as you can gather, this is not my usual type of book. It was a bit of a 'shock' to my friends that I was reading this since it is supposed to be so scary. And I was expecting it to be so, expecting to have to throw it in the freezer at some point like Joey on "Friends", but it just never happened for me.

I did not find this book to be scary, I found it to be kinda boring.

I had been told and had read that Stephen King tends to get long-winded, which I will agree with. I kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the plot to pick up, but it just never did... until maybe the last tenth of the book. Being a full-time reader, I understand the point of a back-story; unfolding a character's ambitions, fears, and so on so that you, the reader, can identify with them and develop a connection. However, a lot of the back-story was so meaningless to me. King could have summed up the history of the Torrance family in a chapter, maybe two, instead of dragging it out through about half the book with small strange happenings of the Overlook interspersed. If I remember correctly, the boy finally encounters room 217 and the woman inside when I was halfway through the book. Halfway through the book you [King] decide to break out the first key piece to the plot? Halfway?! The rest of the strange things of the hotel reveal themselves slowly throughout the next good third of the book: Jack checks out room 217, there are the fake parties, the elevator comes to life on its own, Jack starts to identify with the hotel, Jack gets drunk and falls back into his alcoholic ways, Jack gets locked in the pantry. Then in the last tenth of the book, the hotel goes crazy, Dick shows up, Jack hacks through the door, Danny talks to Tony one last time, Jack tries to kill Danny, and all that jazz. The last bit of the book was probably the best part, but by that point, it was too late for me: I just wanted to finish the dang thing.

I think the problem was that I didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't care what happened to Jack because I thought he was an ass. I didn't really care what happened to the boy because I thought he was annoying. I didn't really care what happened to Wendy because I thought she was kind of annoying too and, in a way, brought this all on herself. The only person who I cared if they lived or died at the end was Dick, and he was only in the story for maybe 40 out of the 500+ pages! And as far as the scary imagery in the story (all of the 'creatures' of the Overlook) I felt they were... silly. And they didn't bother me. I understand that the book was about psychological terror and dementia and the monsters deep within us, but as I said, I didn't develop that connection to Jack, so I didn't care.

From what I've read on the movie, there are a lot of changes. First of all, it is room 237, not 217; an insignificant detail, but it kind of bothers me that Kubrick changed it. Apparently there is a hedge maze, whereas the book has hedge animals. Danny does not cry redrum constantly at any point in the book, neither does he begin to call himself Tony. Jack never says "Here's Johnny!" and I'm sure there are many more differences.

I was really going into this expecting to be scared out of my wits; I would have to put the book down and have someone tell me how it ended I'd be so scared. Complete opposite. Not only did I have no inkling of a nightmare, inclinations to check behind my shower curtain, or a newfound fear of elevators, I also had no emotional connection with the characters, leaving me just bored and feeling like I kind of wasted my time on this.

And also wondering if I'm ready to try a scary movie again...

Gearing up

Well, just like everyone else right now, I am gearing up for the holidays. Thursday there is a chance Thanksgiving might be at our house, so if it is, I will need to gear up even more.

I must say, I used to never like Thanksgiving much. I will assume this is just part of being a kid. As an adult now, I kind of like the holiday and am actually looking forward to it this year. It's a nice time to just sit back, relax, sort of pig out haha, but most importantly: catch up and visit with family. To me, there is no other holiday that has that as its main focus. Yes, of course we like to visit with each other come Christmas and Easter, but let's be honest: Christmas is more about the gifts and opening them and seeing what everyone got, and Easter is about chocolate, eggs, possibly what has now become a smaller version of an Easter egg hunt, or no hunt at all, and... that's about it. With Thanksgiving, we do not have these obligatory festivities. Instead, we get quality time doing whatever we feel like, whether it be sitting around conversing, cooking together, sharing a beer with one another, playing cards, basketball, or attempting to play Guitar Hero.

Oh, and there's food too.