Funnyquote Friday

Seen on a used car advert at the grocery store:

"Too good to be true!"

It never ceases to amuse me when I unwittingly discover that I've been an ant farmer for, well, who knows how long.  This morning, when I took out the garbage, I found that the traces of tuna salad that had clung to a disposable plate that had been thrown away a week ago was the source of a formic parade extending from my trash can to a nearly imperceptible crack in the wall.  Thankfully the vespoids had not been there long enough to attract other critters, namely predators like centipedes and spiders.  That's one surprise I wouldn't welcome with such a humor.  (Ugh, just writing about them already has me jerking my head at every sudden shadow, afraid it's another octoped intruder.)

I'm finding this ordeal of being the Design and Layout Editor of the Serious Ting to be somewhat daunting.  NEWSFLASH:  I forgot how poor I am about managing open, very unstructured tasks.  And what I'm faced with, every time I go to typeset another article for this edition (due to go to print at the end of this month), is a blank page.  Not a wireframe template, not a sketch drawing, just a blank page.  And it's ferociously staring right back at me.  Mind you, it's not the blankness itself that is intimidating; this text-entry page is blank every time I sit down to it, which is considerably often.  Rather, I think, it's the nearly infinite possibilities that can go onto it, each with their own pros, cons, flair, authorship, contrivance, taste, look, and feel.  Should I use a background?  Should it be a full-page photo?  Or should it be a soft gradient?  Should I go light to dark?  Should it be a vertical or a horizontal gradient?  Or should it be circular?  Should it be behind text, or should they be separated by an opaque text box?   Should the box have rounded corners, or square?  Or should the box have a soft, embossed edge with no stroke?  Should each item have its own box, or should they be all in one?  Should the thumbnails be fully enclosed in the box, or should they hang over the edge?
...
Or should I use a border instead of a background?

Do They Have a 4th of July in SK?

Just another day here.  There were some fireworks at the OTI, but no plans for big celebrations apart from some volunteers heading down to the beach.  The policy is such that, as we are U.S. Government volunteers, we are allowed to request the 4th of July off as a home-national holiday – I just had no reason to ask off yesterday.  Instead I was happy to begin poring over the most recent course records of the NSTP in search of contact information useful in bolstering their client database that I prepared for them.

For my part, I am enjoying my first day of summer vacation with my first morning run in half a year, and by lounging in the sun (real tough here) for a couple hours.  I promised myself that, come the next visit to Hiawassee, I would actually have something to show for my time in the sun– (and thanks to the backlash from Arlene, water–) -drenched Caribbean.

I was invited by the primary school I volunteer at to attend their graduation proceedings next Tuesday.  The good news: a catered dinner precedes it, commanding EC$95.00 a head to non-faculty, but they waived my fee.  The bad news: the MLB All-Star Game is that evening, and I was looking forward to getting to see that this year.  /whine

My girlfriend got sick with a hacking cough this weekend, so I spent the better part of it trying to nurse her back to health.  At least she felt up to seeing the new X-Men film with me on Saturday night.  Conclusion: it really is the best one of the five, by a little bit.  Go see it for a cheesy action flick.

Funnyquote Friday

Your first funnyquote of the second half of the year comes from one of our lecturers during IST.  She is referring to individuals, any individual, that is overtly self-absorbed:

"We have a special term for them in St. Kitts: 

We call them 'I' specialists."

Well, the D. Connor Iron Band saga took a bizarre run down the homestretch yesterday.  What with a mere two weeks of school remaining, and less than 50% of members regularly showing up for biweekly practices, it was becoming clear that the air was beginning to run out of the program, at least for this school year.  But (in sticking with the balloon allegory) I was hoping that the trip to Challengers, and playing for the Girls' Brigade there, would see the school year's activities end in a *BANG* rather than a Fizzle.  Instead, upon arriving at school 2 hours in advance of our departure time on Thursday, I was informed by no less than six of my band members that they would, for various reasons, be unable to join on the trip.  Furthermore, of the remaining four, only two expressed concern over my decision to cancel the excursion.  Not interest in going, mind you – just concern over it being canceled.  And so they ought; the proposed benefactors of our performance had planned to put up EC$100 towards taxi fare for the students' trip, and provide everyone with snacks for the evening.  Suffice to say, they were anticipating an enjoyable experience to close out their own year, and we were unable to fulfill our seemingly simple end of it.  And while my anxieties of a disastrous showing are summarily relieved, my spirits are subsequently dampened by falling so very short of many people's expectations of us.  Though I do intend on using these experiences to guide my preparations towards further bolstering community involvement and, in due course, buy-in, in order to try and avoid this outcome in the future.

And what a surprise! The June highlight video is complete on time! As so many of you requested seeing the Iron Band's actual performance with no accompanying music, here is the June 3rd performance in all its raw glory.  Enjoy.