Skoo Does the Oscars

Did you know the Oscars are on tonight? I damn near forgot.

Anyway, this year is no different than last year in the sense that I have not seen the majority of the films up for Best Picture. I've heard about The Aviator, mostly about how long it is. I couldn't tell you about what Finding Neverland is about. I've heard about the "twist" in Million Dollar Baby and am at least interested in seeing this movie. I have seen Ray and flat out loved it. Jamie Foxx finally got a staring role and thrived in it. Lastly, I have heard about Sideways. People have told me it's funny, but, I just haven't got around to seeing it yet.

Basically, I watch the Oscars to see what I should of seen this year.

I'm also rooting for Hotel Rwanda to win a lot of awards as that is a deep, deep film.

I'm also looking to see who Chris Rock clowns on.

Lastly, I wish everyone luck... Especially Jamie Foxx.

Bow Down!

Just taking a second to gloat a little bit.

Yesterday, the Washington Huskies clinched at least a share of the Pac-10 Basketball regular season title by knocking off Arizona in Seattle. If Washington goes on to sweep both Stanford and California next weekend, they will win their first regular season conference title in 20 years.

Another note: With the win over Arizona, Washington finished the year undefeated at home while extending their home winning streak to 22 games.

Go Dawgs!

I hate printing

I know that "hate" is a strong word for how I feel, but, that's how I feel. I'm like a cat in a filled bathtub when it comes to working press.

The only reason I'm in this press class is because I have to take it. Believe me, I tried to duck my way around it by taking other classes.

There has to be a reason for me to speak on this right? Yup. My press blew up today. Well, not like smoke and fire... Just a nasty paper jam that made the water in the machine go flying in every direction. Usually, the paper just sticks to the ink roller. Today, it made it's way all the way into the water reservoir, which basically turned that paper into pulp. Talk about a mess.

So, of course, me and my partner had to disassemble the machine to clean all the bits of paper from the rollers. This made clean-up take much longer than it usually should. It also reminded me why I hate working with any kind of large machinery. No matter what precautions you take to make sure everything goes right, something almost always goes wrong.

I just cross my fingers and hope that I pass that class.

Procrastinating again

Not really a whole lot to say. I'm supposed to make a rough for a newspaper layout for a class project that's due next week. Simply put, I'd rather do this than do that rough.

Sad part about it all is that it would only take about five minutes. On the other hand, the last time I procrastinated I saw my work picked out to be presented, so maybe the genius is really working. But, seriously, I'm just plain tired and therefore don't feel like doing any homework right now.

I'm not really looking forward to tomorrow morning. Mom is in KC for a couple days and will not be back until tomorrow afternoon. This means, I have to ride the bus to class. Really, I don't mind the bus. I just wish everything didn't have to go downtown before going where I want to go. The other thing I don't like is that I have to leave here at about 7 am. Compare this to the 8:30 am leave time that I usually have and you can see why I'm a little grumpy about the issue. I'm used to waking up at 7 much less leaving at that time.

I guess I'll live, right?

A Yak?

From the "Only in Nebraska" section (I knew I'd use that phrase again on here) I have this. Something I've found as of late is that small town newspapers often don't have many reporters. Infact, many times, these newspapers will rely on the citizens for their articles. This is one of those cases where I question the rationale of typing up such an article.

It appears Ronda Graff and her family had just seen their family dog run away. Sad I know. Well, it didn't take long for the family - and the community - to come up with suggestions for a replacement. Ronda's 4-year old son had a rather good suggestion - another small dog. Makes sense right? Apparently it didn't make much sense to Ronda and her husband.

Not only did they pass up another dog...

they also passed up a cow...

a goat...

an emu...

then this...

After months of discussion, my husband finally persuaded me that a yak would be the perfect animal. It just so happened that the yak's arrival came a mere week after the passing of our dog -- and it was not a smooth transition.

No, it wasn't. While on vacation, THEY LOST THE YAK!!!

I wish I was making this up, but look...

He called the owners of the yak and found out that, yes, the yak had been delivered and they were on their way to help with the search.

As we ventured out in the falling snow, looking for a yak we had never seen, my husband and I still maintained our sense of humor: We had just lost our fluffy, wandering dog and now we were looking for a fluffy, wandering yak.

You may be saying to yourself: It's a yak. How hard could it be to find a yak in Southwest Nebraska? This isn't the Alps.

This is where it gets tricking. Remember, we were gone when it was delivered, had never seen this yak and the closest we had been to a yak was in a lasagna dinner the year before.

Yak lasagna? What in the...

But seriously, what was wrong with having a small dog? And to think, there's more to this article. Before this, the only experience I've had with yaks was on Ren & Stimpy. This is taking it too far.

*sigh*

So, that's what that smell is...

This article is a few weeks old, but I had to share it with you. This is one of those things that makes me say, "only in Nebraska". But, I see they set cow poop on fire in other places as I've learned from this article. Yeah, flaming cow poop. The funny part about all this is that this made national news. Have a look.

Urban dwellers who enjoy dining on filet mignon at five-star restaurants would probably just as soon not know about David Dickinson's dilemma.

Bad for the appetite, you know.

But Dickinson, who makes his living in the cattle business, has an environmental problem on his hands that is vexing state officials: a 2,000-ton pile of burning cow manure.

Dickinson owns and manages Midwest Feeding Co. about 20 miles west of Lincoln, which takes in as many as 12,000 cows at a time from farmers and ranchers and fattens them for market.

Byproducts from the massive operation resulted in a dung pile measuring 100 feet long, 30 feet high and 50 feet wide that began burning about two months ago and continues to smolder despite Herculean attempts to douse it.

While city folks might have trouble imagining a dung pile of such proportions, they are common sites in rural states.

In July, crews fighting a blaze in a three-acre manure lagoon at a dairy farm in Washington smothered the flames with more of the same — a blanket of wet cow manure. More here.

And to think, I thought that smell was the Huskers football squad.

Woohoo!!!

Good news. That poster I finished for my printing class on Wednesday (see here) is apparently good enough for the program chair to want to use it around the college. This goes the one extra step of just being shown off at the open house to say, "this is what you can do here". In the beginning, I wanted it to just be good enough for the open house. It appears I outdid myself in this case. *golf clap*

Anyway, there isn't too much else going on right now. I finished my newsletter about my cat Hershey. That came out pretty good, especially considering I've only used Adobe InDesign once before. I also finished my billboard designs for Monday. Nothing too spectacular there, it was actually somewhat sarcastic.

Well, nothing more to say. Be good.

Finally, I'm branded

One of the things that has bothered me about my blog it that I've been working with templates and I had really nothing to distinguish my blog from any other.

Well, I'm still using a template... it's Douglas Bowman's Minima (white, duh!) template. But, I did make a few edits to get it to my specifications.

The other thing I did is I finally created a logo. Branding is something I've been learning a lot about in my classes as of late. Branding in short is logos and logotype. Finally, I had an idea of my own logo idea and it just all fell together for me about an hour ago and wahlah... I have what's at the top of this page. I was wanting something that I could change-up for different seasons and events, much like Google or tequila mockingbird, and I can do that with what I've created here. And yes, I already have ideas. For example baseball season is coming soon... Love: Braves "A" logo, Life: a baseball, and Happiness: that World Series trophy from '95. See what I'm getting at? I can have fun with it... and believe me, I will.

I've also made a couple more changes on here.

First, I've gone with a service called Haloscan for my commenting system. There was nothing wrong with what Blogger was offering, this is just a little more personalizable.

Second, I've gone with another service called BlogLinker that allows fellow bloggers to add their links (duh!). Basically, it's a way to boost traffic so that I don't have only about 5 people reading this thing religiously. That way, I don't feel like I'm doing this more than for my own self gratification even though that's really what blogs are about.

Lastly, I brought back the tag board from my old page and cleaned it off, so, you folks have a fresh litter box to play in.

Overall, I'd have to say I'm fairly happy with things right now. As always, leave your comments and enjoy.

Sad day for a hockey fan

Just found out that the NHL has finally canceled it's season. I do realize that 2/3 of American sports fans and even less of the entire scale of Americans care about hockey, but, I do. I'm a complete nut when it comes to the Colorado Avalanche. I'm religiously dislike the Detroit Red Wings and I'm going to miss trading barbs with a friend of mine in Canada who's a Wings fan come playoff time.

Thing about it all is this was highly expected. I think hockey fans everywhere saw this coming because both sides (the NHL team owners and the players) were not willing to budge from their agendas. It's unfortunate for the league and it's fans because this civil war could very well kill the league. And then what? College hockey is ok, but it just doesn't have the level of excitement to me that the Stanley Cup playoffs do.

On the other hand, baseball is coming right around the corner. My team, the Seattle Mariners, will report to spring training tomorrow. So, I will fill the hockey-less void. But, it's still going to be strange come June when there's no cup hoisted above somebody's head. Just strange.

Peace,
Skoo

Yep, I'm bloggin' in class again

I found some down time, so, I'm passing time by typing here.

Thankfully, I received the last of the notes I needed for my presentation today. It would have made things interesting had I not received those.

Anyway, I got to class (half a hour early) and did my presentation with my group. At first, I thought I'd be ok talking in front of the class, but, after a while I felt like I was sweating like a 10-pecker billy goat on an August day. I'm not even sure what it is about it. It's not like I was up there and end up having everyone ridicule me or hurl week-overripened tomatoes at me like they were Roger Clemens with Mike Piazza at the plate. No, I'm simply reading my notes off and for some reason, my voice breaks up and I get really fidgity while wishing I was somewhere other than in front of the class giving a presentation. Just think , I have another for next Monday. Yippie!!! (sarcasm)


I finished my poster today in the class I'm in now (see above). Glad to get that done. Sounds like I could be bringing that to film, at least, on Friday. If you want, you can leave your critiques in the comments.

So, I'm just bloggin'... waiting to get out of here... and just bloggin'. These are the times I hate... ok, dislike not having a car. I have to keep reminding myself that as soon as Summer that I could have one. The whole not-having-a-car thing really stagnates me at times. Especially when I'm the type of person who doesn't like waiting on other people since people have their own agendas. If the world revolved around me, things would be different, right? But, it doesn't, so I'm in class... bloggin' for you beautiful people. All this while my instructor is behind me playing with some "I Love Pigs" web site that's full of flash animations and sounds reminiscent of a kids game. Yeah buddy!

Well, I'm going to try to occupy myself another way now.

Peace,
Skoo

My brain is completely fried...

I never thought that simply typing out notes would drain me the way it has. I guess the anxiety of having this presentation done for tomorrow got to me more than I expected. In anycase, I'm almost done. I'm just waiting on the final section of notes from one of the members of my group. I was told I'd have that by tomorrow morning... I'll keep my fingers crossed. Unfortunately, I just found out that mom has a CPR class tomorrow at 1pm and that she wants to take me to class as soon as she can so she can get some sleep (she works nights) before that class. This means, I'll be up even earlier.

*sigh*

I finally did get around to registering for classes for Spring quarter today. I signed up for a Monday-Wednesday-Friday Microsoft Applications course and a Monday-Wednesday Pre Production Techniques course. I'll basically have a Thursday - Sunday weekend since I only have the hour and twenty minute Microsoft class on Friday. Overall, I can't complain.

Anyway, I'm beat.

Peace,
Skoo

Priorities? What Priorities?

I should really be registering for classes today. As of right now, I'm eating breakfast before I head into work. I'm one of those people that don't want to be bothered before I have to do something else. I think of this as my down time.

I don't know, maybe I'll register on my lunch break. Maybe I'll wait until after work. I may not even take a lunch being that the boss is away today.

I have to put a web page together for a presentation tomorrow in class. Nothing spectacular, just something I'll throw together in Mozilla's web composer. It's good enough to make tables in.

You know what? I need a vacation.

Peace,
Skoo

Congrats Kanye!

I just want to take time out to congratulate one of my favorite and most talented musicians out there. Kanye West won three Grammys last night taking home awards for best rap album, best r&b song (for production on Alicia Keys' "You Don't Know My Name"), and best rap song ("Jesus Walks").

Kanye West has been a breath of fresh air when hip-hop needed it most. Simply put, he's made it fun again.

Peace,
Skoo

Happy Valentine's Day

Almost forgot it was Valentine's Day. I'm single, so, it's not like I'm inbedded in with all the hoopla that goes along with this day. About 99% of me is actually thankful of that. I'm just too damn busy to pay attention to anyone but myself right now.

Anyways, I'm going to cut this one short. For those of you that have love, enjoy your night. For everyone else, love yourself.

Peace,
Skoo

Just Procrastinating

I'm supposed to make a poster representing my college out of this picture. Incase you're wondering, it's an archway outside of the main entrance of the college (does every college have an archway?).

The only problem I'm having right now is that the picture came through at a resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch) and my poster is supposed to be at 300 dpi since that's the standard dpi for printing. This means that when I enter the photo into the document it looks really small compared to the size of the poster. I'm afraid that it'll look pixilized (or grainy) if I scale it out to fill the space I want it to fill. Since this is being handed out at the open house for the program, I'd like it to be really good.

*sigh*

So now, I'm procrastinating by blogging about this issue. I almost feel like saying "fuck it" and just browse the web instead. On the other hand, I'd like to get this thing done and over with as soon as possible as this is my final project.

In anycase, I'll give you folks updates periodically on how this thing is coming.

OK, that's it.

Peace,
Skoo

Not sure what to do...

Well, as you can see, the page is just a blog right now.

I'm just not really sure what to so with this place at the moment. I tried hosting a message board. It went over good for a while then fizzled out. Nobody's posted on it in weeks. It's kind of frustrating when you advertise by instant messenger constantly and you get nothing in return.

I'm also vexed when it comes to my design on here. I was tired of the all black I had going so I've gone to this template. But, I'm too lazy, not to mention occupied, to make this my entire page. So, I'm just leaving things with this.

It looks like I'm going to be rather busy this week. The whole college thing has kicked into high gear. In my first class, it looks as if I'm going to have at least two projects due this week. One is a newsletter that I have to design on my own. I don't mind working solo so that's fine. The other is a group presentation for a chapter in our textbook about advertising. I agreed to put together a simple webpage since we can run the teacher's computer through the projector. I figured that beats having to write all the notes on the board like all the previous groups have had to do. The only thing that's keeping me from putting that together is that I haven't received the notes from two of the three people in my group. That's kind of leaving things stagnant there.

In my other class I'm supposed to design a poster that is inspirational or represents my school or my program. This is something that will be given out at my program's open house, so, I really want to make this as perfect as I can. I pretty much know what I want to do, it's just figuring how I want to lay things out. Maybe I'll bring the rest of the page back when I complete that and put it with my other past designs. Should be fun though.

Anyway, I think that's it. Feel free to leave you comments at the bottom of each post on here. I like to interact.

Peace,
Skoo

It's official... I hate Windows

I'm sitting here working on my annual report project for class tomorrow, right. It's getting to be about 8:30 pm, so, I'm getting to the point where I'm getting tired and would rather be doing something else. So, I find myself a nice stopping point thinking I'll smash the rest out in the morning. Then... BOOYAH!!! The infamous blue screen of death!

I reboot my computer thinking I'll just open the file back up and make those last minute edits I was going to make for the night then shut things down on that side. Well, Mr. Bill Gates' operating system decided it was going to play retard on me and act like it couldn't read the file. I fought through the process of trying to open the file, watching Works freeze, force shutting down Works, then trying the process again only to fail once more. Finally, I go into one of my ftp programs and changed the suffix on the file from .wps to .doc and continued to try to open the file again. I click on the icon, Works sits there for a moment... wahlah, it finally opened. I made my last minute edits and got the hell out of dodge before this computer decided to do anything else stupid.

All this said, I'm getting a Mac. Even if I do have to pay $200-something for PhotoShop this summer.

Peace,
Skoo