You know what gets under my skin? Online advertisements with sound. They are the most obnoxious things ever on the internet, far worse than those flashy MS Paint ads that tell me that, yet again, I’m the 1,000,000th visitor on the website and that I just won an iPod Touch.
Here’s how a typical experience with sound ads rolls:
Phase 1) You are roaming da internetz, updating your Facebook status or whatnot, and have your favorite song playing on iTunes. Suddenly, a second voice completely tramples all over your music.
Phase 2) You think, “WTF?! What is that? Where is that coming from?” You pause the song and realize the voice is trying to sell you a new brand of glass-cleaning fluid, of all things.
Phase 3) You search frantically for the source of the advertisement. Of course you have 15 tabs open in Google Chrome at moment and have to scroll down each one.
Phase 4) You find the annoying little b*****d at the bottom of a lyrics website which you opened when you couldn’t figure out what that lady was singing in French in that one song. You look all over the ad for a pause or mute button and…
Phase 5) “%&#@!! It doesn’t have one! WHY DOESN’T IT HAVE ONE?!” You don’t want to close the page because you’re not done with it yet, but you have to do something. So, instead, you…
Phase 6) Refresh the page. Yeah. That oughta do the trick! You enjoy the silence. But then…
Phase 7) It returns! Go back to Phase 4 and repeat until you realize that the ad has won this time.
Phase 8) You close the tab. Defeated.
Safety scissors. Remember those when you were growing up? If not, here’s a handy diagram:
Basically these things were designed to keep little children, like younger Jackie, from cutting their fingers off. Well, safety scissors were successful in that they couldn’t cut fingers, but failed in that they couldn’t cut ANYTHING ELSE.
Using safety scissors always follows the same story:
You’ve a got a piece of construction paper in one hand, safety scissors in the other, ready to cut out your brilliant crayon masterpiece to show off to your mommy. You attempt the first cut and… Success! It cut! You’re almost there! You pause to admire your work in all it’s kindergarten paper-cutting glory! Enjoy it while you can, little child, for it’s all downhill from there. You attempt the second cut and suddenly cutting paper has become the most difficult thing in the world. You try every angle, every manner of holding the scissors, hoping to find the sharpest spot on the blades. Ha! Alas, the paper gives in and bends every which way, permanently wrinkling the brilliant magnum opus of your short life. Of course, it’s only made worse by every futile snip. Mind you, you are cutting PAPER, a material so delicate and fragile that something like perforated pages can cause complete obliteration.
After 15 or so minutes of wrestling with an instrument devised only from the deepest pits of hell, you end up looking like:
Okay. Got the blogging music playing. Let’s do this.
First, Project 365 is done for me. I haven’t taken any pictures during the past week. I just lost my interest in the whole project. My life runs on the same routine day-to-day, so finding new and exciting things for my photos was difficult. It doesn’t help that I’m not a “picture person” too. Some people love taking pictures, all the time. Others don’t. I belong in the latter group. I’m really bummed I didn’t follow through with it, but I’ve got other website project ideas in mind (i.e. a doodle/sketch blog)!
As you may have noticed, I absolutely love reading. This semester is a bit more laid back than my last, with oodles of free time between classes, so I’ve had a lot more time to read for fun.
Usually, when it comes to books, I’ll go through “phases.” Last summer it was fantasy, a few weeks ago it was travel, and now it’s mystery, particularly the novels of Agatha Christie! I’ve read some of her works in the past (The ABC Murders, Five Little Pigs) and now I’m hooked again! If you haven’t read any Agatha Christie novels, I highly suggest you do! Her novels are usually very short, therefore it doesn’t take very long to get to the good stuff. In the past two books I’ve read, a character kicked the bucket a couple chapters in, if not the first chapter. Also, Christie’s mysteries are suspenseful, yet simple enough for the reader to take notes and make his/her own guess about the murderer’s identity. I’ve just finished A Caribbean Mystery and now I’m on A Pocket Full of Rye. Afterwards, And Then There Were None. Yes!
So what brought on this sudden interest in Agatha Christie? Well, not too long ago, I caught the second half of a Miss Marple film, Murder, She Said, on one of those old movie channels. I just loved the idea of little, old lady solving murder cases! Here’s a YouTube trailer for the films 4:50 to Paddington and Murder, She Said (You gotta love the 60s music/cheesiness!):
Do you guys like mystery films/books? I’d love to hear about it! :D