Poopy weekend

God, it is so damn gloomy out I want to hang myself. Seriously, the weather really affects my moods and it’s been raining all weekend. I had my camera batteries charged and ready to go … but for nothing. I ended up spending most of yesterday just cleaning and organizing (I hate hate hate clutter) while Joe worked on insulating and dry-walling the unfinished side of the garage. He’s almost done now. There’s nothing to do when it rains. Let me correct myself. There is nothing to do that doesn’t involve spending money and/or consuming fattening food. And after breakfast, it’s probably not a good idea to go out to eat, although if I don’t get out of this house I am apt to go a little crazy. I don’t know how those people you see on tv manage to live inside their homes for weeks, months, or years at a time without ever leaving. I feel like if I don’t go out and have some fun over the weekend that the time off was a complete waste.

Yesterday morning we decided to go out for breakfast after running some errands to return a few items. We originally headed for a local mom and pop restaurant but the line was out the door, so we headed over to this Mexican restaurant we like. I had the huevos la mexicana and Joe had something similar but with chorizo. Carlos Mencia wasn’t kidding when he said all good Mexican good gives you diarrhea. I think I’m going to throw out the leftovers we brought home. The food was delicious but not worth the pain, you know?

Bloglines

Forever behind in the times, I just started using Bloglines yesterday. I tried to sign up and it told me I already had … so god knows when I did that. But anyway, so far I really like it. I keep adding more and more of my reads to it since most sites have a feed now. Even Flickr shows up on there when someone posts a new photo! No more clicking on every site in my bookmarks just to see if they have updated. Whatever will I do with all this new found free time?

Published

It’s official: I’m a published photographer. :)

In early February, I was contacted by the Art Director of Chicagoland Gardening Magazine through my photo site, Perfect Pixels. She was interested in my photos of Klehm Arboretum for an article the magazine was planning. I sent her a bunch of photos and crossed my fingers.

Two days ago she followed up to let me know the magazine had gone to print. Today I got a copy of it along with paperwork I have to fill out so they can send me a check. The magazine ended up using three of my photos (two from my site and one I never posted) for the article. They can be found on page 88 of the May/June issue. It’s so cool to see my work, and my name, in a magazine! I’m planning on buying extra issues to send to my family.

NL loves me!

My friend at work has subscriptions to US Weekly, In-Touch and People, so she gives them to me once she’s done reading. Joe pointed out that Nick Lachey was on the recent issue of US and I bragged to him that I’d be getting it soon enough. I mentioned this to my friend, so she knew I was looking forward to it. So imagine my surprise this morning when I found the issue on my desk with Nick missing. She had cut him off the cover! I mumbled under my breath “that bitch” … and then turned toward my computer and saw this taped to my monitor. :)

Why iTunes is dangerous

Upon my readers’ suggestions, I downloaded and installed iTunes to my PC (running Windows XP) last week. Holy crap, do I love it! But it is dangerous because by default it uses one-click song purchasing, so if you’re wrapped up in a momentary “I love this song” stupor as you sample a 30-second clip, the next thing you know you’re downloading it and your credit card has been charged. Just like that, thank you drive through please. So I changed it to use a shopping cart instead. I can’t handle impulse-buying and they know we’re a generation of gotta-have-it-nows. In any case, there are eight songs sitting in my “Buy???” playlist because I have to seriously think about whether I want them.

While browsing through the lovely iTunes, I came across this song by Robert Smith, Perfect Blue Sky, that I had never heard before. It’s mixed by some guy called Junkie XL. I started listening to his album and now I can’t decide if I want to download some songs from it, or just buy the whole thing. I really like the song he did with Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode. Then later it occurred to me that my favorite song off my newest Oakenfold cd is mixed by this Junkie XL guy too. I recommend you check it out, particularly if you’re a Cure fan because it definitely has a Cure aura in certain parts. It’s called Legacy – (Junkie XL remix, with Infusion).