welcome to camp telophase

We bought this for Toby's parents for Christmas--a puzzle made from a satellite map with your house at the center of it. It came in today. Naturally, they got the zip code wrong, so it's of a house with the same street address near Plantersville, and not the one near Huntsville that they actually live at. Sigh.

And it's not my fault: the correct zip code is on the order slip included with the puzzle, but the photo of the completed picture they include with the puzzle is of the wrong area and has the wrong zip on it!

It's not the only present we've got them so it's a minor annoyance and not a big problem, but I'm not sure now whether to get it replaced (and if the company will get it correct!) or just send it back and ask for a refund. I sent email into customer service, but don't expect a response back until sometime after Christmas (of course).

We were just looking forward to putting it togehter over Christmas!

So there's this online interior-decorating-stuff sell-by-membership thingy I subscribe to. The membership is free, but you have to log in to see the stuff, and they email you once a day with their new collections available for the next 3 days. Anyway.

They get a variety of things and lump them together into collections, and then rename the stuff in accordance with the theme of the collection, probably so you can't search for them easily online and realize how much of a discount you're not really getting--I've bought several things by seeing them here and then finding them elsewhere for a better price or for the same price but better shipping.

I usually just laugh at their names, but today they are featuring a French and Industrial collection, in which is this wall clock:( cut for clock )

The name of this clock? Bastille. Bastille. The prison. The symbol of the French Revolution. Given to a clock whose numbers are in an Art Nouveau font, a hundred years off-period. That's like handing me a clock with numbers in the Harry Potter title font and telling me it's the Alcatraz.

I know, it's probably named by interns who've got 12 hours to get this stuff inventoried, sorted, and posted, so they're just looking for "Frenchy" names but GAH

Insurance prescription woes. Not, in the scheme of things, a big one, as I'll still get all my meds at the same amount I've been paying for them, which I can afford, but an annoying one: my job's prescription coverage uses Preferred Pharmacies (which may be a new thing), and my pharmacy isn't one of them. So I'm going to have to transfer everything by the first of the year, and it's going to be one that I have to drive out of my way to, as there isn't one close by.

And my prescription coverage really doesn't understand I WOULD RATHER PAY MORE TO BE ABLE TO GET MY MEDS TODAY THAN TO PAY LESS AND TRUST THEM TO THE VAGARIES OF THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE (and my own inability to get my prescription mailed in on time - ADHD folks, it's a SYMPTOM!). They periodically try to suggest their mail-in service to me, and their latest attempt to make people switch was to force us to choose whether we want to use our own pharmacy or the mail-in service by telling them explicitly on their website. And when I did that, they STILL phoned me up to ask me the same question. And now this Preferred Pharmacy crap.

It's annoying enough that they switch brands of generics without TELLING me. I just want to use the most convenient pharmacy to me!

Problem: Con director updates Facebook with things like room party notices and upcoming deadlines but not the actual website.

Solution: editorial comment removed Figure out some way to grab items posted to Facebook and post them as new posts in Wordpress.

Complication: Several plugins exist that grab Facebook content and display it in a sidebar, but nothing I can find that scrapes it to make new WP posts, and I'd rather keep all updates together as updates.

Action: Whine about it on LJ and DW instead of doing anything useful. (I suppose I could take one of the plugins and rip it apart to see how they do what they do, to start with... Hrm.)



(Also: cannot find a magazine-style layout that suits our needs. Woe is me; would rather not try to figure out how to code nifty advanced features and instead merely tweak layouts.)

I really really really need to work on not holding the stylus (pen, pencil, etc.) so hard and not pressing it down on the tablet (paper) so hard. Not only is it limiting my ability to control my line, but it makes my hand hurt like HELL.

Not so bad when painting, but when doing comic-type linework and cel shading...? OW OW OW OW OW. And my first finger hurts really bad, too, right at the tip, where it presses against the stylus.

Of course, I haven't the slightest idea how to do that, because every time I try to lighten up, either my tablet doesn't work right*, within five seconds I've completely forgotten about my hand and it goes right back to normal heavy pressure**, or, more likely, both.

*whine*

--

* Yes, I know, you can adjust the sensitivity. I am completely incapable of drawing with the right pressure to hit the sweet spot no matter HOW the damn thing's adjusted.

** Potentially an ADD thing. I get focused on the art and don't realize how hard my hand is pressing on the tablet until, literally, hours later when it's sore like this.