Uhm ... yeah..... lol!

I say that with the dry "Office Space" boss character's tone... "uhm yeahhhh.. we're going to have to have you come in on Saaaaaaaturday".

It's the sorta tone you hear in the voice of someone speaking to you before they drop a bomb. The kinda tone that makes your shoulders tighten up in preparation for the weight that's about to be dumped on them.

My computer began to slow down badly last month. It had it moments. Notice the past tense term for "had". It's still "alive" but not well. I'm now typing on an expensive new system... expensive b/c ANYhardware & software seems outrageously priced to me... it's all relative. I only had to replace the tower.. but I had to pay a good deal to make sure all my work and sales data was safely transferred.

The irony? It happened on April Fools day. My geek squad geek came over and promptly showed me why it was failing to recognize the things (printer, camera card reader, etc) that were plugged into it. Only sometimes... which had made me hope it was fixable. APRIL FOOLS! (dry tone there again). It was not after all - the hard drive was either damaged or weak out of the box. I'd honestly believe it was weak out of the box. When I installed it before it was lightening fast until I put the programs in it... so something about it was gimpy from the get go. I don't care to learn too much about these things because guess what? (snorts with a smile) It'll all be different in another year. I used to learn and keep up with all this. Now I'm just disgusted with it all.

When I was getting gas yesterday I spied a sign on the credit card swipe on the pump -> it said "mini credit cards not accepted here". Now WHY on earth would you even want a mini credit card? It's thin/small enough? This trend towards too tiny to use & easy to lose is ridiculous.

That's all I have to say about that.

Meanwhile my biggest dilemma now is that my new tower has a Windows Vista OS (can't get older anymore at a store). I buy at stores now because if there are install conflicts out of the box they'll address it. The price difference isn't that much. And I needed new tiny card reader (phone card!) options my last one didn't have. Vista displays on my screen are MURDER on the eyes. I've fiddled some with my screen settings via the funky button game... that actually helped. It's still all got a shadow... tricks my eyes into feeling tired. Totally annoying. Switching to the 1 other display option doesn't improve any of it. I was VERY much ready to buy a Mac but I have old programs that are extremely expensive to replace/upgrade (to me anyhow). Web design stuff I use periodically and photoshop of course which I use near daily. Mac is learning tho so maybe soon they'll have more backwards compatibility. Another reason I hired the Geek Squad guy (it's a gamble who you'll get but I know a lot of techie dudes having been in web design for years and I really lucked out with a guy who knew his stuff)... it wasn't just about the diagnostics, it was about the options for what I need to do with what I have.

Now at least it's easier than ever to port my files (biz and reference stuff) around on a card too. And cheap! So that's good. I bought this external hard drive backup years ago after losing client data for shipping (hard copy print outs cut off some info). I never wanted to go through that again.


HEY! But good news. All systems seems to be going and now I can get back to what I'm really doing over here. It wasn't entirely a day wasted. Imultitasked during my time while uploading/configuring/and before that diagnosing and saving ... my little arab mare sat here beside me and I had a few books with proportions and a few favorite references.. while every proportion told me the head was the right length and width, I wasn't happy. I spent the time sitting there (watching paint dry on my computer screen).. to study & compare. Then a quick slice & removal to the right parts behind the poll and the angle changes giving proportions more pleasing. THAT said, these photos distort it a good deal but I'm not wasting time on doing better pics... I'm just sharing with folks & documenting this for myself right now. I like the angle a lot better, it adds "mare" to her for me somehow. I can't explain. But it also balances up both sides of the neck better imo (in real life anyways). :)




Annnnd a silly sneak peek of what I'm about to go photograph and offer over to my yahoogroup:



Of course I've got a whole photo of him somewhere below but whatever. It's fun to do sneaky pictures too! lol!

Ok! Well I seem to be back in biz here except for the misery of this computer display. Stay tuned for when little arab girl gets more lovin. I'm really starting to "feel" her again. :D