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Now that I’ve worked on it, I think it sucks.

…apparently

(okay, not my fault. Most of that is a bad paint job AND the medallion came from my roommate’s previous.)

[Edit: here's a cropped version that I like, sort of]

…and my friend, J, here is one of those people.

Washed out paleness can be blamed on me (I’ll work it out in Lightroom when it becomes free) and if there’s just a touch of pudgy in her cheeks, it’s due to being about 7 mo pregnant. We should all look so good.

[Edit: okay, the washed out colors (she has a pretty ruddy complexion) are, strangely enough, whatever JPEG rendering is going on in Safari and Firefox. Viewing the photo in Preview or Adobe Lightroom and it looks fab. The web sucks ]

Some more bad news about the unraveling of the U.S. economy:

I’m in bed listening to Placebo’s live version of Meds, recorded live at Carling Academy in Newcastle (UK, I presume). I can’t help but wonder if they were disappointed when editing this recording that they couldn’t remove the sound of the drunk girl in the front row singing along?

If you’re bound to disappoint, do you forge ahead anyway or just save youself the pain?

I don’t have the stomach for today. Or, at least, I don’t have the stomach for last night. Drinks with two lovely friends at a lounge, followed by a huge dinner, followed by more drinks. And I needed the night off, so it was not a beer evening. Oh, except with dinner.

Anyway, today I am at home staring out the window of my office at the pond nearby and listening to my stomach growl. All the while, a good friend who’s a credit/finance person keeps sending me messages on Facebook to tell me that she’s frightened that the entire U.S. banking system is going to collapse and she’s trying to figure out where to put her money. I can’t stomach that either.

CLICK for larger photos.

The Borg cube from Star Trek (via Wikipedia):

The nasty building that landed across the street from one of my hospitals:

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Here’s the MasterCard commercial:

- One brand new 3.0T MRI scanner, sited, installed, and running: $3M
- two research slots: $1844
- Having two and a half hours on a quiet Sunday afternoon to scan two newborn premie twins: priceless.

My life is starting to get better.

People who’ve been reading for a while know that I love talking about lies and the culture of lying. I thought I’d compile a list of the top customer service lies and see if people can chime in with theirs. So far:

1. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I’ve actually had software say this to me, recently, after it informed me that it had encountered an error and was about to exit (losing all of my work). It’s about as insincere as it gets.

2. We are experiencing unusually high call volume.

If this happens so frequently that you have a message built into the phone system, then it’s not unusual. Hire fewer telephone switch programmers and more actual customer service reps.

3. Your call is important to us.

Since I haven’t spoken with anyone, you have no idea what my call is about and it can’t be terribly important to you. If I accidently dropped off the line, would I be missed? Would anyone cry? I want tears!

4. There is another bus/train directly behind this one.

Local bus/train drivers often shout this at patrons when they realize that their bus is now full. Not surprisingly, it’s often a load of bull. I can’t imagine that the driver of a bus has any clue how far back the next one is (here in Boston) unless he collided with it earlier.

5. Please listen carefully, our menus have changed.

No, no they haven’t and you’re wasting my time.

Alright, that’s all I got for now. Feel free to submit your own!