The Jamjar

User Guides: Contractors on Client Sites

Avoid the following when working as a contractor in a client's offices:

• talking
  
• cursing
  
• talking AND cursing
  
• grunting
  
• discussing your adult male friend's attraction to 14 year old girls
  
• talking
  
• attaching electronic equipment you were hired to install but forgetting to plug said electronic equipment into the power source BEFORE installing it to the ceiling mounted bracket where it is unable to be plugged into the power source then mentioning you'd forgotten to plug the equipment into the power source so everyone knows you cocked up.
  
• talking
  
• talking to me
  
• singing advert jingles for Mazda vehicles
  
• talking about other customers and jobs
  
• making jokes about present client such as "oh we don't have to bother about doing a good job of that, afterall, it's only [insert company name present client]"
  
• dropping stuff
  
• giving the impression you need my computer to test the data projector but, in fact, checking your Trade Me auction online
  
• leaving your grubby and numerous fingerprints all over the very very expensive new data projector.
  

Flirting with Photoblogging

By Popular Request

Warriors vs Broncos

Nonettes and cream

I had a lovely middle-of-the-day yesterday lunching with the ever-delightful Rosie and her daughter, Bella.

Having actually left on time (I seem to suffer timelapses when traveling up to Coatesville usually arriving much much later than expected - it's only a 50 minute drive) I arrived at Rosie's new house (following her exceptionally accurate directions) just on lunchtime. We chatted for a while, then she gave me the grand tour of her gorgeous new home before we piled into her car and left for the wonderful Kauri Gum Cafe in Riverhead for lunch.

It's *such* a delightful, comfortable cafe - ye olde worlde but in a GOOD way: even the music was fabulous. The food, of course, was delicious and the company relaxed and such a time-haven for me sandwiched between some, at times, hectic scheduling.

Thanks, so much Rosie - I really had such a nice relaxing time. Your house already feels so welcoming and warm - as all the homes you've had and I've been invited to do - you really are good at your job!

I left Rosie about 3pm and made my way back down the motorway Southbound. I had a series of scheduled stops to make and knew that the traffic would be tense as it was a wet Friday and anyone who lives in Auckland knows - we all forget how to drive when it rains. The traffic flowed well only slowing on the Harbour Bridge so I made good time 'til I hit Spaghetti Junction.

This is a tangle of on and offramps that is one of the bottlenecks (most outstanding Auckland talent is it's ability to perfect the bottleneck) and my car came to a standstill, and then graduated to a crawl all the way to Greenlane. I was to pick Jacqui up from her babysitting job at 5pm, and seeing it was 4:15pm already I decided to park and read and wait for her rather than attempting going home first.

Rosie had leant me a couple of books on technical writing and so I read through a few chapters while I waited for Jacqui. (i'm really writing about the details of my Friday to generally avoid mentioning my nervousness about starting my new job on Monday) Next stop, from picking Jacqui up was dropping her off at Eden Park - she was training for a waitressing gig at Eden Park for the sponsers of the Lions who are here touring and playing rugby. I *kind of* know where Eden Park is, and was surprised and impressed that although initially going left when I should've gone right and sitting in traffic for 5 light changes before getting back on track (did i mention traffic in auckland sucks arse?) found the Park, and the correct Gate, relatively easily and with lots of time to spare. We arranged a meeting time and place for pickup and then I was off to my next stop.

Clayton came to New Zealand and to work at TLC a couple of years ago. A more delightful, charming, genuine man you'll be hard-pushed to meet. He was leaving the company and the country to travel with his twin brother and have many girl-filled-adventures in Australia and had invited some of his friends and colleagues to the Loaded Hog for a drink. That was my next stop.

I left Eden Park at 5:45pm thinking happy thoughts about being at the Loaded Hog by 6:10pm and very chuffed at myself for being so "on time" given the awful traffic I'd already experieced. Famous last words. Needless to say, the Universe wiped *that* smile off my face by taking an hour to get from Dominion Road to the Downtown Carpark. If you don't know Auckland, you don't care but if you do know Auckland you know that my journey has been probably the worst route to attempt at rushhour on a wet Friday thus far.

Arriving at the Loaded Hog and finding Clayton with a few of his work colleagues and the ever wonderful James, my first beer didn't touch the sides. I was actually trembling from the last 3 hours of concentrating in the horrible driving conditions so, naturally, I had a second beer because well, what enhances the driving home *more* than drinking first.

30 minutes later I was back in my car and back driving towards Eden Park. The traffic was a wee-bit lighter and Jacqui had finished early and was waiting outside. The trip home was relatively smooth and I was feeding Mouse (did _not_ like having to spend a whole day on *only* one sachet of food and a bowl full of biscuits) by 8pm.

It was a good day though - and great to catch up with dear friends again.

Riverhead Gate

You like chocolate, right?

God dammit.. the box said "dark blonde" it did NOT say "dairy-milk chocolate"

News@Eleven

Formula One Fiasco in Indianapolis

OMG.. did you SEE this?? can you believe this? 3 Teams/6 Cars - what a joke!

***

Michael Campbell Wins the US Open

I don't know much about golf, but I know about time: last time a kiwi won a major golf anything was the year I was born so that was a bloody long time ago. Nice even par Mr Campbell!

***

Lara Croft Gets Married

Was it just me? or was there zero chemistry between Pitt and Jolie? Plenty of bullets - not enough bullet-proof vests. Bit like War of the Roses meets The Fast'r and the Furious'r [or something equally as dumb but with lots of explosions)

I think this'd be a great date movie: Pitt for her, Jolie for him - nothing to concentrate on so it's okay to make-out in the theatre.

LATE BREAKING NEWS: I did have a smile in Mr&MrsS - the guy wearing the Fight Club t-shirt. And hearing Joe Strummer's vocals on a couple of songs. Oh, and the extremely distressed walls of their hotel room in La Paz. But not in that order.

And now to the weather.. it's dark and.. cold.. and Mouse smells of winter: chimney smoke and outside.

Goodnight.

FQ TOPIC: Bad

FQ1: Something you like to do or say that's considered to be bad.

There's a word I use - rarely, but I argue: appropriately - that, in mixed company - hell, in _most_ company - is unacceptable. The wrath that follows its use usually comes from another woman within earshot and so I am careful where I use it. I nearly always use it to describe a man, funnily enough. It's a four letter word and I'm not going to say it here today.

FQ2: Something you like to watch or listen to that's considered to be bad.

I like to download midi files and listen to them over and over. That's actually more like a "dirty little secret" but now it's out, I'm sure it will be thought of as bad in some quarters.

I know my television viewing habits are considered slightly unusual given my gender (Formula 1, Top Gear, League) but I think it's my passion for the first few seasons of Fear Factor seems to get peoples noses screwed up as I describe the stunts - especially the food challenges!

FQ3: Something you like to eat or drink that's considered to be bad.

My food consumption is only considered "bad" by the company I am with. A vegetarian friend, for instance, might considering my order of rare lamb to be "bad". Or someone who doesn't like tamerillos having to watch me gobble those eggshaped droplets of tastey goodness into my mouth might consider that "bad".

I wished, for a moment there, I could have answered this question with "dolphin fillets" or "whale spam" or something.

FQ ASSOCIATION: Tell us something "bad" you associate with the following ten words:

movie: Phantom of the Opera

song: anything by Celine Dion/My Little Venus by The Feelers (I hear the word 'penis' when they sing 'venus' and the lyrics are just too painfully appropriate for an entire 3 minutes)

television: The Biggest Loser

place: the airport and watching my Love leave

book: The DaVinci Code

taste: Lemon flavoured Panadol Soluable

smell: bad salmon

sound: fingernails on a chalkboard

touch: Slime (long chain polymers *shudder*)

sight: 'dogeared' page folds/crooked pictureframes on a wall/bushy unkempt eyebrows

JUST

My pet peev at the moment is made from the culmination of comments that result in the idea that what I do is easy and shouldn't cost much.

And frankly, people - it's pissing me off.

Yes, you can just make a website and save yourself the $1500 the web-designer was going to charge you. Yes you can just "mess around" with Photoshop at home (ay?) to learn it. No, you don't *have* to pay a designer for your prepress artwork when you have Word on your machine (gag!) to make PDFs.

But

BUT

_IF_ you want YOUR website/photographs/artwork to LOOK professional and NOT like it just PLOPPED out of a dog's BOTTOM, you need to get your SHIT together and LEARN how to do this stuff PROPERLY or hire someone who CAN do the work and pay them ACCORDINGLY. If you don't want to do and redo and REDO work that becomes the laughing stock of your local printer then stop saying things to me like "this should be easy" when it's PATENTLY OBVIOUS you have no FUCKING IDEA what the difficulty factor on this task IS!

"Can you just take the A4 advert you did last January and make it A5. Replace that one photo with these four and change the text to this _much_ longer version i've printed out for you so you can just type it in. This logo has to be visible on the page too so I scanned it from our business card for you. This shouldn't take you long at all."

"I've told the customer you will give him three examples of characters so he can pick one for his training module. He's looking for a character like Word's paperclip, but something *original*. No, no.. there is no instructionally sound reason for using a cartoon character, we just thought it'd be a nice free "add on" for the project - quite frankly, they loved the idea and it clinched the deal! The client and I look forward to seeing the three original character drawings tomorrow at 9am."

"I've allocated 4 hours to "look and feel" and so that should be plenty of time for you to come up with several interfaces so we can show the customer. content? oh don't worry about that now, just do the interfaces, don't worry about what content we need to show, or how much there is, or how many menu items there might be, or how we're going to navigate around the site, or what kind of technology the customer requires, just do the interfaces so they can pick one."

I have spent more than 6 years learning how to make this look easy and I'll tell you something for nothing.. its NOT EASY. The software and training is EXPENSIVE and time consuming; the learning associated with a lot of it is EXTENSIVE and HARD TO COME BY and it NEVER STOPS! It's bloody HARD coming up with ideas and colour schemes and image placement and enhancement and type and creation and original artwork and cartoon characters and metaphors and themes and pitches to clients and novel ideas for an engaging online ex-fucking-peirence. It's hard translating your ideas (and i use that term loosely) like "it has to be 'wow' and have 'pazazz'" "it needs to be sexy" "it needs to get into the hearts and minds of our customers" into a tangible thing when you don't even supply any content, logos and other assets (even when asked - REPEATEDLY).

Lets face it: you don't even know what you want until I show it to you ANYWAY.

And that's not even getting into all the stuff I don't NEED to know to be a Graphic/Digital Designer. I know all this OTHER stuff because I'm smart, I've done the WORK and I have an ability to LEARN! I have the most VALUABLE and VARIED SKILLS in one package you'll ever have the MISFORTUNE of DISMISSING with your off-the-cuff remarks that devalue the skills needed to do what you need me to do.

So _just_ shut UP!

*deep breath*

I know I should have thicker skin. But I'm a "creative" and it feels like I'm being pecked to death by ducks - one peck doesn't hurt but the whole flocking lot is eating me alive.

Linky Linkbuckets

A bunch of links have crossed my path this week - some new, some revisits for me but all of them are worth a look-see:

• The Sith Sense - from the makers of the Subservient Chicken. (thanks to The Pit for the linkage)

• Having a bad day at the office? feeling alone and helpless? Clientcopia might help, if only to help you remember idiots are a global problem.

  <snippet> client: "you've sent me a proof of my print job, but my artwork was double sided and we've only got one side here". me: "turn the piece of paper over..."</snippet>

• This link carries a general warning: don't click this link! It contains snarky recaps of your favourite and not-so-favourite shows - I have fallen into Television Without Pity and I can't get up. (thank you truck, I think)

  <snippet> No, seriously. We get it, Opening Death Sequence. We know that you're all about the big fake-out, the zig when we think you're going to zag, the observation that even our own fragile mortalities are most entertainingly ripped away from us to the sound of the grim reaper pulling his hand away from what seemed an inevitable handshake but instead becomes the reaper smoothing the hair on the side of his head and yelling, "PSYCH!" We know that even the most precarious series of activities (hot tub, tequila, fat man sex, etc.) will eventually undercut our expectations for the scene. We know we know we know. So you don't have to pull the rug out from under us every week, okay? I look forward to this opening segment finally cannibalizing itself to the point where one caricature looks at another and observes among a series of unlikely near-death moments, "Man, this whole thing is turning into, like, a bad Six Feet Under opening." At which point, I will rise from my couch, stride over to my window, and leap through it, leaving an exact silhouette shape of myself behind, Looney Tunes-style. My fall will be broken by a woman wheeling a grocery cart, who will collapse to the ground below me, surprised but unharmed. The two of us will attract the attention of a passing motorist, who will watch us enacting our slapstick stunt and take his eyes momentarily off the road. When he looks back, we will note that he is about to strike a squirrel who has wandered in front of his car, so he'll swerve madly and barely miss hitting a crossing guard and a group of second graders who are just beginning to cross the street. Once safely on the other side of the street, one of the second graders will drop his lunch. Another child will pick it up and hand it to the crossing guard, who will instantly lapse into anaphylactic shock and die from a peanut allergy. The fucking end.

  Anyway, on to the actual show.

  A young girl pets an adorable kitten. From seeming nowhere, an axe hurls itself into the frame and lodges itself in the child's back.

  No, I'm kidding again. But don't tell me it's not possible. </snippet>

  (read more from this Six Feet Under recap.)

• Gay Boyfriend - I can't remember who showed me this, but yay, I'm so glad they did *hums along*.

• of course..what list of links is complete without George. (for Rosie)

26 Things - Holding back

Movie: Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith
(or as we say in the Old Country: "Danger, Wil Robinson!")

My expectations weren't that high, you know? the last two movies saw to that. I'd read some reviews - something I don't usually do before a movie - and the general opinion was this was a better movie than was expected: darker, stronger, better, longer etc.

Well.

10 minutes in I was saying it was dumb.

20 minutes in I realised it was even dumber.

by 40 minutes I was considering what else I could be doing with my time.

But I stuck it out.

I'm not sure I was *supposed* to find parts as funny as I found them - no.. not the cute corny stuff, that was just nausiating. No - parts like when Anakin spontaniously combusted; now *that* was funny. And how come they didn't take his burnt clothes off before patching him up and dressing him in his DV outfit? complete with voice-changer in the mouthpiece of the mask ($14.95 from The Warehouse)

I don't think I'm the only kiwi who cringes having to put up with Dr Ropata in space, ow.

Speaking of "ow" .. that's what the robotic troops say when they're diced by light saber "ow, ow .. ow ow o..." or.. if they get oil in their eyes.

It's just crap.

Oh and, if you do go and see it, check out that *everyone* has bad-plastic hair, just like Mr Lucas himself. Thank god that's over and he's never gonna make another one cos he's not good enough at it. Though, he's off to remake Indianna Jones - now he's learned how to ruin a good thing I guess there's no stopping him, or his hair.

tv tonight = me

Television knows I'm in tonight. It also knows to be nice to me as well, so it's lined up a bunch of my favourite shows to keep me happily ensconced on the sofa.

The Simpsons - the episode where Bart is put on the drug Focasyn and becomes first, the model child, then a complete paranoid, steals a tank and goes on a tankdriving rampage.
Antiques Roadshow - flicking between this and Fear Factor not really watching either but pleased they were on.
Lost Souls - seemed like a good idea and possibly still is but.. well.. i need to watch it some more. characters and script's a bit dodge.
American Beauty
Odd Fellows Gala

Jimoin

in my kitchen there's a drawer at the top
it has cutlery, forks knives, spoons the lot
the next draw has a big knife
with things that should go in the top drawer but don't fit
and the third drawer down from the top
is just fulla shit

Danny Bhoy
danny? wanna go for a run? why? are we being chased?
muesli
what the hell is museli?
want some museli danny?
what's that?
it's kinda sawdust and raisins.
that's not breakfast, that's scone mix!

The Empire Strikes Back
"away put your weapon, i mean you no harm"

Who said that?

Goodbye trumpet-player-i-don't-know. Now I know why your music is so sad. (jd - scrubs)

You toyed with my heart like.. a toy heart. (lisa - simpsons)

but i want your flesh, your warmth, to stay beside me (chris knox - not given lightly)

It's critter christmas, dude. It sucks ass! (stan, South Park)