duck-shaped pain

Besides, I had plenty to do at home. So it's not like I got a day off, really � I just got a day without underwear, that's all. Some people might describe that as being akin to a tiny pay raise. Not me. I like to think of it as being the clothing equivalent of having actual creamer instead of Coffee Swirl available to put in your brew.

My old coworker, J., has been working on a website for the company. Nothing large, just a few pages describing what it is we do and how to contact us. Something one could easily pull together in a day or two, one would think. But no � this website has taken her ELEVEN months to complete. She started working on it before I broke my leg last February and it just now showed up this week. It's total circa-1995 web design, built for the kind of speed only a 24.4-baud modem can provide, something to look up while testing out the new copy of Mosaic you downloaded. I'm surprised there were no blink tags, because it's just that kind of classy.

So I thought, maybe I should be charitable. Maybe I shouldn't try to redo it. Said co-worker did this as a special favor to my employer, and if he likes it, so what? But it just hurt to look at it. So I started by just redoing the main graphic � ExCoW had tried to approximate the company logo and came close, but used a solid background that was similar to the pages' background color, but different enough to be sort of glaring. So I decided to fix it � she had sent the URL to be complaining that she hadn't been able to get the color of the graphic and the color of the background to match precisely (never mind that this will never happen), and said if I had any ideas to go ahead and work with the graphic � so I didn't feel out of bounds here. But then it just got out of control and I ended up redoing most of it. Not like I've shown it to anyone, but there it is, in all its circa-1997 web design glory. Hey, a jump of two years is better than nothing.

Time not spent fiddling with Photoshop today was spent playing The Sims. I bought myself a copy on Monday as an early birthday present to myself. It wasn't a lot, but since I'm recovering from spending money on Christmas and getting a smaller check than expected for last month (taking a week off does that to you), I had to think about it for awhile. So I told myself that I could get it if I didn't buy any books or clothes until the end of the month. I didn't think it would be a promise I could keep, but the horizon looks bright. Since starting to play it, I have only left the computer unwillingly and under duress. I'm pretty fascinated by it, even if I'm not quite to the point where my creations start stealing each other's spouses. Still, I managed to create some really nice big-ass houses. And it's another reason to be thankful for the Internet, for giving the weak-minded gamer instant access to cheat codes, enabling those big-ass houses to be built�

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