I’ll keep it short. I still have cleaning to do. And work tomorrow. Tuesdays that feel like Mondays are the ultimate festival of suck. So much so that they deserve a banner:

Again, some days are just a festival of suck. Tuesdays after a three-day weekend fit the bill. Also, days that are full of meetings and which leave me with 30 minutes to reply to all email. Also, days when I’m running on less than optimal sleep. And the first day back after being out on vacation.

Back to the Flickr obsession. Yes. I find myself checking my Flickr photostream several times a day (or an hour) to see how many views my photostream and individual images have had, and to look at my stats graph to see if I’ve come anywhere near my all-time high of 62 views in one day.

I know there are people who get a LOT more. I know it. But that’s a number I was very proud of. As much as I was proud of yesterday’s 53 views. Today’s count of 13 left me feeling a little low. And the fact that I’m experiencing an emotional correlation to that graph is a bit pathetic. Submitted for your approval, my Flickr stats graph which pretty much corresponds with my emotional state over the last week:

Sing it with me, “Rollercoaster… of mumble*… rollercoaster! Woo-hoo-hoo!”  (* because “love” doesn’t quite work here…)

Yes, I’m spending far too much time looking at pictures, tagging them, titling them, digitally enhancing them with Photoshop and Picnik (a fairly snazzy free web-based photo editing app - they partner with Flickr) to play up textures, colors, etc. I’m spending time doing that. Time I should be spending cleaning, running on the treadmill, etc.

Though, truth be told, I HAVE been doing a lot of cleaning, and I have been getting a lot of reading done to prepare for the labor assistant duty coming up soon. And the time I’ve had has been at odd hours not well-suited to going running. Excuses, excuses, but they’re valid for the time being.

Tonight, I am calling it. I’m closing the Flickr browser window. And Google Reader. And then this one. Then iTunes will be closed. And I’ll shut down the computer. Off. All the way. No more until tomorrow night. Discipline, bitches. That’s what I have to practice.

Photoshop has done this for me lately:

On the left, the original untouched photo. On the right, the same photo with some increased saturation and a fun multi-layer effect consisting of Gaussian blur on one layer, the “multiply” effect applied to the other layer and the brightness increased on the total package.

Eez very different, no? It gives it a surreal effect I enjoy. Maybe I’ll get craziness printed up and framed. Hrm.

Also - in the category of f’ed up things parents can say to their fully grown children, the following is a portion of a phone conversation I had with my father last night while I was on the train back from work. Said he:

“How much are you earning now? I’d like to be able to brag to everyone about how much money my daughter is making. The more you make, the prouder I can be.”

I wish I was kidding. This is quoted verbatim; uncharacteristically, he spoke this entire bit in English instead of Polish. There was no humor behind it (he doesn’t joke about salaries); he was quite earnest about making this a compliment for me. It backfired; I was dumbstruck and just said I’d talk to him later.

Friday. I haven’t looked forward to a Friday this much in quite some time. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. I’ve not been working out as much as I’d like and since I was getting angry at myself and aggravated at my lack of progress, I decided to take this week “off”. Come Monday, I’ll approach from a different angle and make it work for me. More running, more Pilates, more weights. It can be done. In the meantime, fun stuff!

• PAPERCRAFT STEAK DINNER?!??!? Yes. Fire up your color printer and assemble a paper steak to delight your friends and family. The site’s in Japanese, but you can figure it out.

• CROSS-STITCH! I’ve been thinking that once I finish knitting this baby blanket I’m making for my friends, it might be time to take up a new craft - like cross-stitch. To that end, I’ve been checking out the cross-stitch kits at my local craft stores. They’re all rather corny and so not me- “Footprints”? Precious Moments characters? A bald eagle against the flag? I’d prefer and old school grandma sampler, honestly. But that’s me. My aesthetic runs in a different vein. Just imagine my delight when I discovered this cross-stitch generator at Dark Lilac! I can upload a picture I create in Photoshop or a favorite image and it will generate a cross-stitch chart including the colors of DMC brand embroidery floss you’ll need. I have plans to create one of my gimpy wrist MRI (just have to resize in Photoshop) as well as one of brussels sprouts or other such food.
• SHRINKY DINKS. I stopped at Michael’s on my way home from work with my friend Krys. She was picking up scrapbooking supplies; I went in to buy unnecessary stuff. Craft stores and Target are perfect for that. I found they were selling packs of blank frosted Shrinky Dinks and my childhood came rushing back to me - like the fumes generated by sticking sheets of plastic into the oven to watch them shrink. That said, I bought a pack. I have colored pencils. I have an oven. I have jump rings. This means I can make pendants and keychains and other random crap - but however I want to do it. Crafty crafty! ($4.99 for 10 sheets)
• Summertime = bright nail polish colors. The new Essie colors for this summer left me a little underwhelmed. There was a color near the display, though, that attracted me. It’s not new for this season, but it fits right in and it’s awesome. It’s called Calypso - a bright fuchsia. It garnered compliments and that’s always nice.
• After much deliberation and whatnot, I’ve finally selected and ordered my new cell phone. Not a Blackberry, not the LG Voyager, not the Samsung Glyde. There were issues with each one (bulk, size, price, less than stellar reviews) so I did a Goldilocks kind of thing. In the end, I checked the Howard Forums and reviews for the phones I was considering - these led me to several people raving about the LG enV(2). It also had good ratings from c|net. It’s not as sexy as the others - it’s not a touchscreen phone; it doesn’t have a huge display on the front. But that’s OK. I wanted a full QWERTY keyboard - it’s got that. I wanted a larger display for web browsing and email composition - it’s got that when you open it up. I wanted a phone that’s easy to use AS a phone - this actually has a number pad for regular old dialing. And it cost me a whopping $49 after my upgrade discount. It arrives on Tuesday. Yippee!
• I’ve just pledged to be a part of Firefox Download Day 2008. It’s not a pledge to do anything other than download the newest version (that would be version 3) of Firefox on the day it’s released. Love love love love love. I love a browser. Hmmm. This might be part of the reason I’m single.