Oh copyeditor, my copyeditor ... Why hyphens are so necessary:

On Shine, a Yahoo! site that posts a variety of stuff from health care to entertainment, I saw this blurb that functioned as a link:

Do you love or fear Jillian Michaels, the bad ass trainer from the Biggest Loser with the in-your-resistant-sobbing-face attitude and biceps of steel?

Now, from what I've seen, Jillian turns bad asses into good asses, so why is she a bad ass trainer??? It can't be that the author of this sentence was afraid of hyphens, as shown by the five-word compound modifier!!

Worthy Television Viewing

I very much enjoyed watching some of the Met's HD film/opera programming last night. A very dramatic and powerful Tristan und Isolde. I liked the graphical movie aspect of the production, and it's inspired me to try to catch more of that opera when I get the chance. As you know, I'm a sucker for romance.

The other must-watch show is, of course, coming June 8: "When We Left Earth" on Discovery. I know that you all will watch it ...

It drives me nuts when local businesses don't have Web sites. I mean, come on! You could generate so much more interest on the net, couldn't you? Now you are just making me get up out of this computer chair and go to the phone and actually CALL you to check on your hours and stock and stuff like that there. Like I have the energy to actually get up ...

Dear Fellow Freelancers,

Have you ever forgotten that you accepted work two days ago from two clients and then accepted other work the day before from another client and then had your doorbell ring every three hours because the (perhaps same) FedEx truck keeps swinging by? Looks like I have a hefty white layer cake on my couch, one box layer fatter than the other. Tomorrow will be what I call "break-down time," when I make up my schedule of how much of each project must get done and when. Luckily, I took a current project to the doctor's office today, just in case I had to wait, and (of course I did and) I got two days' worth of work done. :) yea.

Dumb Work Move of the Day

I just spent 25 min trying to figure out how to reorient my screen after hitting some crazy keystroke in haste while trying to finish a journal article edit. Somehow I got the screen to appear 90 degrees clockwise! After a while I realized that it was not a Word issue but a Windows XP issue, and so I found the right keystroke to fix it. Thankfully we have the other computer (a MAC!) back there, so I could research it online right side up! *humph*

Now back to work after wasting lots of precious time!

I took the time to go out last night to see the new Indy movie. That's crazy talk, thinking I'd miss that opening night! :)

I won't go into details so as not to spoil things for anyone, but I did like it overall. I thought the action was very good, and I love seeing real stunts with stuntmen instead of being inundated with CGI. Although there were very silly things throughout the movie, I could overlook them. (Like I told R, silly things I can smile about and then wave my hand at the screen. It's that type of Jar Jar Binks, Ewoks, Short Round annoyance that I can't stand!) Cate and Shia were fine, nothing spectacular. I wish it had been more historical and less paranormal, but all in all I'll take it.

One of the best moments wasn't even in the movie. We went to a newer stadium-seating theater where the seats are huge and wide and the bottom of the theater has a small stage area. Two guys came to the showing in costume--one in khaki with hat, whip, gun, and everything, and one in Middle Eastern garb with a black cape, fake black beard, large knife. Before the previews started, they ran down to this little "stage" area in front of the screen and acted out a fake fight, complete with the ending of Indy using the gun to take care of the knife problem. Everyone laughed and cheered. Our parents asked us if this happens all the time. I said not unless you're at Rocky Horror. I was actually happy to see that there were people out there who were trying to be creative and fun without being annoying young drunk jerks, as we have so many of around here. An interesting night overall.

Love it, love it! I may just have to order this great T from Space Pancake. :)

A Few Freelance Items ...

1. Freelance Freedom strip #53 is so me these days! (Well, I have PANTS on, just crappy sloppy pants). See this post!

2. Freelance Freedom strip #52 is even MORE me!

3. Interesting article by Logan Strain on looking at the stresses and realistic side of freelancing.

4. Dougalfish's post today about her working hours! I hear ya!

5. The Freelance Parent post on getting a helper. Scared me a bit but a good ending!

6. Well, not freelance, but great shuttle wallpaper!! Thanks, Tom!

The new computer is up and running ... much faster than the old one now that I have that duel core thing going. And it's a third smaller. Now I just hope it runs three times longer than the other one.

Because of this month's computer issues I have given up on trying to catch up with the 100 Words for May. It's disappointing but I just didn't have the access to keep posting and writing. (Yes, I know, I could have grabbed a pen and paper, but every second has been used to catch up on work. How sad.)

In the "Amy is moving toward a real life" column, I will be seeing the new Indy movie this week. Huzzah! :) Just the soundtrack should give me an energy boost, if only for a couple hours. ...

So things are great generally speaking, but my computer now overheats to the point that it will not stay on for very long, even with the case off and a large fan blowing on it. So ... this weekend W will come over and sell me his extra Dell at a friend price (I never wanted a Dell really, but I'll take this one in this case) and we'll see if I must stick with its Vista or if we can make a switch. It's also a bit sad because there are no extra bays for my current hard drives. I don't really care ... I just want to have the Internet back on my work computer and I'll worry about getting the info off my main one soon enough.

Right now I am slowly cranking out my tons o' work (I am WAY behind and too tired to stay up to get it done past 8 or 9 p.m.) using an older system with no Internet. I have to come back here and use R's Mac to post, research, check, download, email ... it's getting old very fast. Oh Nellie.

Today is beautiful, and I've taken time I don't have to water our pepper and tomato plants, clean up the porch, just generally breathe some fresh air. I'm getting excited about all the cool summer movies coming up, and I am very psyched to see some good concerts soon. My sis just got back from a Bahamas cruise, the lucky bee-atch, so now I'm wishing I could go away to an island too. The shore will have to do for now ... 

That's it. No more excuses. I am going back to writing on 100 Words this month, and I am not stopping again. It really is the only way (and this blog) that I actually try to be a bit creative at times, and I miss it thoroughly. I've just posted my first 100 words for May, so I plan to be closer to the top of the list with a lot of finished batches before long.