Computer-fried Brain

I have been staring at my computer for hours and my brain is fried. I bet a lot of people feel this way. I read somewhere that nearsightedness is up by 42% or something, and I’m sure it’s because of computers.

Twenty years ago if someone told me I’d be staring at a bright light for hours at a time, I would have thought it was some Bush Administration torture. My eyes burn and water, and the next morning everything is out of focus.

I’ve been chained to my computer creating this cartoon movie that took about 72 hours to make and is about 45 seconds long. If I can figure out how to upload it I will, but just in case I can’t, I’ll tell you the plot. BTW it was for an Adobe Flash class I’m taking.

There’s this Martian (from Mars) who lands a spaceship on Earth and starts walking. First a bumblebee stings him, then a dog bites him, then a skunk sprays him. So he turns around and walks back to his spaceship and goes back to Mars. The End.

Why did something so easy take so long? The Flash program is not really all that complicated, but you have to be precise with everything, and that was my downfall. It probably took my classmates three or four hours at the most. I had to keep looking at my notes, looking at the textbook, and still I couldn’t get it right.

Walt Disney this is not. I have a highly elevated respect for those guys now that I’ve done my own animation. Their cartoons actually move like something normal. Mine are just pictures yanking from one place to the next – a picture of a bee zigging a half inch here and zagging a half inch there. It’s actually pretty pathetic. I’m not going to upload it because I’ll be embarrassed.

So I’ll talk about the other fun things I did today besides work.

Well enough of that. I read a quote by Bob Dylan that went something like this: Money isn’t what’s important. What’s important is getting up in the morning and going to bed at night, and doing whatever you like in between. It’s a good philosophy, and one of these days, if I can figure out how to break the chains on this computer, I’m going to do what I like in between. Crazy thing is, I like working on my computer, I just don’t like looking at it, and I don’t like having a fried brain.

That is why I’m going to turn it off right now.

You Can't Trust Anyone

I’ve been posting this blog for 109 days and I’ve gotten some interesting comments. I’m not sure but I think people must find random blogs and try to get your to respond back to them so that they can infect you with some mischievous virus that causes your computer to hand over all your personal information and then start smoking.

I’ve gotten comments like, “Yes, to agree that a fine post but never before.” As flattering as it is to get comments in the first place, I’m not sure exactly what this means. This one is a mystery too: “bluilpile is chaper than you think. Click here!” Plus I got one that said, “Remember me? I’m Mary from Russia. Reply back soon.” I’ve had several like this, and, of course, one of them had the word, “Viagra,” in it because for some reason I cannot escape this word being splattered everywhere I look at a lighted screen – be it a TV, computer, or my child’s old Lite Brite that was invented before Viagra – before all the men in America became limp.

I have written a blog about Viagra already, and I’d like to repeat everything I said there, but instead I’m going to somewhat stick to my subject for once. These identity theft people are very sneaky. I have posted some ads on Craig’s List, and I’ll get responses like, “Yes, I am very interested in your item. Please email if it is still available.”

“Oh boy!” I think. “Someone wants to buy my item!” I reply in an email right away and don’t hear back, so I figure they’ve bought someone else’s item. Then about a week later I get an email from my email provider, let’s say Comcast, that reads: “We are updating our email security from before and wish to have your current login and password for our records. Please to provide and reply to this email. Thank you for your very immediate assistance. comcast.”

When I got the first one of these, I scanned the message and, I’m ashamed to admit, typed my user name in the space provided. When I started typing my password, that little voice of caution whispered in my ear, “ARE YOU NUTS?”

I re-read the email carefully and was able to pick up on a foreign accent, plus I thought the “comcast” wasn’t very professional, and there was no cute little logo on the bottom.

I forwarded the email to Comcast (not my real service – I’m trying to guard my privacy here), and they replied that it was a scam.

Now I trust no one. If my daughter calls on the phone, I make her answer a security question before I’ll agree to whatever she’s asking.

It’s a sad world when you can’t trust anyone or anything, especially if it’s on your computer screen. But I’d live without complaint even in these trying times if I could just get Viagra away from me. I want this company to go out of business right now!! I don’t care if they are helping billions and billions of Americans. I can’t stand them. And KY Jelly is moving up my list of despised products in ads. Back in the day, in mixed company, I used to think Kotex commercials were bad. Now I’d give anything to replace all the limp men’s commercials with feminine hygiene products. They could have as many side-by-side comparison tests where they pour a gallon of blue water in the chosen brand and it doesn’t leak a drop. They can show dozens of carefree girls in white pants doing squats or on a dance line kicking their legs up over their heads and I’d be delighted if it would just get rid of Viagra. I’d gladly watch a million hemorrhoid commercials if I could just go back to the good old days…

Awful Gadgets

This is a short article that was published in the technical section of The Oregonian newspaper. They had asked people to write in with complaints about any gadgets, and just the word "complaint" made me rush to the computer. A photographer came out and took my picture, which was just awful because I was wearing braces on my teeth for a bite problem and couldn't smile. The photographer coaxed me into smiling anyway and took the most hideous picture ever seen by mankind - and for some odd reason that's the one the paper published.

Here's the short story about my awful gadget:

A few years ago I bought a Sony IC recorder and a Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition program to dictate my book. I thought I could put on the headset while I was doing mundane tasks around the house and dictate the conversations that my characters were always having in my head – Nobel Prize stuff that I never could remember when I got back to my computer.

The quality of the recorder was great, but because it was so compact, Sony had to use small, multi-function buttons and toggle switches with descriptions I could barely see. I’d have to consult the manual regularly, which was frustrating and stifled my creativity.

Also, I found that those fantastic conversations my characters were having didn’t translate well to dictation. If I didn’t focus completely on the dictating, my recording sounded like this: “and, ah, then uh, Sarah said, uh, uh.” I couldn’t make a bed and talk at the same time, apparently.

In addition, the old Dragon Naturally Speaking program had a hard time with my accent. I was raised in the south, where simple words like “milk” or “bread” are spoken as two syllables: “Mee-ulk” and “bra-yud.” Dragon Naturally Speaking translated many perfectly coherent sentences like this: “The end we win end to the store or…” (Then we went to the store.) They’ve improved the program substantially since then, but not before I gave up. I typed the book, which took considerably less time and irritation.

I still have the recorder and bring it out occasionally to see if my accent sounds more Oregonian.

Mac vs PC and the Loser Is...Consumers

I’m getting a little fed up with the bickering between Macs and PCs. I have both, and I spend most of my day doing something on a computer – either playing Wordscraper on Facebook or doing projects with Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator – fantastic programs that let you be really creative once you take a couple of years to figure out how to use them (just kidding – I own stock in Adobe. They make fantastic products that I highly recommend to everyone, even infants).

The thing is, Macs do some things great, and PCs so some things great, and neither of them is great all by themselves. Everyone talks about PCs crashing, but just today I had to restart my Mac twice because I was uploading new photos and when I went to view them in iPhoto, my $2,400 Mac started pixilating – which means the whole screen looked like aliens had scrambled it. This is not the first time it’s happened. And I’ve had to reload my Leopard Operating System once with the reassurance from the guy at the Apple Genius Bar that he’s done his a bunch of times and it doesn’t do any harm. So the Mac is crashing to the point of having to reload the operating system, and Mac uses this as a put down for PCs? Shame on you, Mac!

My PC, on the other hand, sometimes makes me do extra steps, each one starting with, “Are you sure you want to…?” Yes, I’m sure I want to delete those twenty-three lousy shots of a duck. Yes I’m sure I want to close Internet Explorer.

But the Mac can be a real pain in the neck because it’s not happy unless you are dragging something somewhere. A website comes up and it looks like someone has taken an axe to the right side, so you have to drag the bottom corner to make it spread over the screen. If it would just come up like that to begin with, it would save that step. This happens in every program all the time. Even trying to look for a file in Finder you have to drag to see the whole file name, and according to the guy at the Mac genius bar, there’s no fix for that.

And DO NOT get me started on the Adobe programs on the Mac. In my opinion, they work better on a PC. Ouch, I felt that slap from every graphic designer in the universe. But you guys have always used them on a Mac. I started with them on the PC and they are easier there. Wanna know why? Because on the Mac you have to drag everything everywhere, that’s why. You open up Photoshop and you have to drag it to be full sized. In Dreamweaver, a website developing program, you have parts of the program spread all over your monitor that you constantly have to drag out of the way to be able to see. On the PC, the center of the screen is the website you’re working on, and your tools are lined up to the right and down below – and they’re always there. On the Mac, sometimes tools disappear completely and I have to hunt them down and find them in weird places, like in the kitchen pantry.

So in conclusion, Macs are a drag, and PCs are uppity and want to second-guess you all the time. We need a hybrid of these two, and if anyone wants to start a company that will bring the best features of both operating systems to consumers, I’ll buy a little of your stock. In the meantime, you boys doing your name calling in commercials should get your mouths washed out with soap for fibbing. Honestly, someone needs to send you to your rooms until you can learn to be like Thumper, “If you can’t say anything nice, get the heck off my TV screen.”