Useful Stuff

So for months, now, I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to figure out what in the world has been hogging my hard drive. I’m using a Mac G5 with a relatively small amount of space (80g), so have been very careful to try and keep things uncluttered. All my photos are stored on a removable hard drive, along with a ton of other stuff, and iTunes isn’t taking up that much space. But somehow, around 30g was unaccounted for, and the two or three precious gigs I kept freeing up by deleting anything extraneous were disappearing for no apparent reason. Maddening, especially when I need that space for big upcoming Photoshop and InDesign projects.

Today I discovered the wicked culprit. Mac Mail. It keeps a hidden library of thousands of copies of every email in my inbox, eating up a monstrous 24 gigs of hard drive space. My iTunes library is only 18.

For frickin’ email.

So today I downloaded the free version of MailSteward to archive what I want to keep, and am ruthlessly purging the rest, both from mail and from the library that’s been hoarding the stuff. Right now, 153,209 items are preparing to move to trash. That’s not even all of them, but it takes me up to this month, at least. it’ll probably take all night for them to actually disappear.

It’s possible that Mail may freeze up as a result, but I’m willing to risk it. Worst case scenario, I just have to check it online. Annoying, but vastly preferable to wasting space.

Now if only losing weight were so simple…

I Was a Mad Scientist in a Past Life…

Cruel looking device

just made my life easier.

Careful where you step!

-o.o-

Every once in a while, I have a good idea.

So yesterday, I wasted two nicely-cut sections of drywall by misplacing or mis-sizing the outlet holes. As DH can attest, I was about to have a meltdown. So I did a Google search to see if anyone had good advice about how not to screw it up. (And to preempt any well meaning advice, the outlet boxes are already wired, so the handy lipstick trick is useless. I can’t put the drywall flush against the outlet boxes). The first thing that came up was this brilliant tool.

“Perfect!” I thought, “my woes are over!”

Of course, being a Sunday after five, there was nowhere to purchase the amazing tool (Home Depot doesn’t carry them. I asked the guy in the drywall department – he said “Wow – that would be really handy. I’ve never heard of one of those…”)

So what’s a girl to do when she just has to finish the wall before dinner, without ruining yet another piece? She buys a $.69 faceplate, turns it over to note the convenient little circles that correspond to the edge of the outlet box, and starts pounding nails. Then, when the drywall section is properly cut, she attaches the pointy face plate to the outlet box (so don’t lose the screws!), lines up the drywall, and gives it a push.

Ta Da! You should have six little puncture marks to show where the outlet hole should be cut.

You’re welcome.

-o.o-

@!#$%&!!

Alternatively titled, “How to Block Annoying Phone Calls from Scam Artists”

I don’t know who got hold of my phone number over the weekend – I don’t fill out online surveys, and I haven’t been shopping or even browsing; I am on the “Do Not Call” list, and my number is (supposedly) unlisted – but starting this morning at 7:45, I’ve had about ten different calls from various shady businesses. You know the ones, they all seem to have the same script:

“You signed up to request information/ you entered a contest, maybe you don’t remember…” Grrrrrr, that pisses me off.

No. I. Didn’t. They call my house, they lie to me about my own activities, and they think I’m going to give them personal information?!? As soon as they open with that load of crap, my usually polite demeanor turns frosty (but even then, I’m far too polite, I think). This morning, I was actually woken up by the call, so when she asked how I was I replied, with a hoarse and irritated growl,

“Sleeping.”

Any sane person would have apologized, but she didn’t even skip a beat. Just happily chirrupped that she had information about the product design I had requested – didn’t I remember? Maybe I signed up for something and I had forgotten, but that’s okay, they just wanted to send me some information…

“No, I didn’t request any information. If you want to mail me something (which will go straight into my shredder), fine, but I’m really not interested.” Click. (See, much too polite; a tiny part of my brain worries about shooting the messenger, which overrides the entirely reasonable part of my brain bellowing that the “messenger” in this case is willfully participating in, at best, atrocious business practices, and at worst, attempted criminal activity. I really need to come up with a good script of my own…)

I stopped answering after the first one, but I always Google the number (in case it’s legitimate) before blocking. With some businesses, equally annoying but “legitimate” (such as Bank of America’s insurance sales callers), you can call the number back and request to be removed from the calling list (the Do Not Call registry doesn’t apply to companies with whom you do business, so credit card companies and banks with whom you have an account get a free pass). They must comply, and with any luck they’ll leave you alone in short order.

But the jerks who are calling me today are not legitimate. So the next best thing, if your phone company offers this option (and I think most US companies do) is call blocking. Immediately after the annoying call, dial *60. An automated voice will tell you whether this service is active, and will then tell you how to block the number that just called. If you ended up on someone’s sucker list, you may have to block a lot of calls, but the result should soon be an end to the annoying ringing, the hang-up calls, the abusive marketers (seriously – google the number; the comments are almost always enlightening), and the empty messages on your answering machine.

Happy blocking!

-o.o-

Wednesday’s Work: Mixing Flesh Tones

I didn’t paint yesterday, but made up for it today, I think. It’s still got a ways to go, but getting the faces right is two-thirds of the battle, and they’re pretty close now.

I finally got smart and made a flesh-tone palette before I even picked up a brush; it made all the difference.

(Color mixing advice follows)

I was finally able to figure out why the skin tones were so cold: I originally used cadmium red medium (the four lower left samples) to mix the tones. As you can see, the result is surprisingly cool. Today I worked with mainly the cad. red light mixtures (the four across the top). On the left are alizarin crimson mixes, which look much darker on the screen than in real life, and are the coolest in tone. For any frustrated painters out there, here’s how to mix flesh tones:

Generally, caucasian flesh is a mix of equal parts red and a darkish yellow, with a dab of green or blue to tone down the reds. For this palette, I mixed the reds first with yellow ochre, then with raw sienna, then did two version of each mixture, one with a dab of sap green and one with a dab of ultramarine. The lighter samples are a dab of each mixed color added to titanium white. If you’re having a hard time getting just the right skin tone, this is a good way to find it. Plus, if you take a picture you’ve got a cheat sheet for future reference, to save you from having to mix all those colors again just to find the one you wanted.

-o.o-

Wounded Dog Ears, Part the Second

But first, Zoe wishes to show off her new t-shirt,  which DH put on her this morning on an impulse. She loves it; in her mind, it probably means she’s going to wake up in human form (or at least with opposable thumbs) any day now.

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Alas, the other pooch is not so perky; she wouldn’t look at me while I held the camera for this shot, and only turned toward me when I put it down again.

(Read on only if you’re actually interested in gory details about bleeding ear tips)

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Caring for Wounded Dog Ears

(Obligatory disclaimer – I’m not a vet, nor am I a medical professional in any way, shape or form. Seek the advice of a real professional before trying this on your dog. Thank you!)

I’ve searched for good advice on this, but haven’t been very successful, so I thought I’d post what works for my dog in the hopes that someone else will find it useful too.

I have two vizslas, but only this one tends to have ear problems. It starts with the itching – she gets a lot of waxy buildup along with allergies, especially at this time of year – which also leads to a lot of high-speed head shaking. When I clean the ears, of course, more vigorous shaking inevitably follows. The sound is rather like a small string of fireworks going off. The speed at the tips of her big dumbo ears is probably close to breaking the sound barrier, much like the tip of a properly-snapped whip. Combined with the fact that she often doesn’t care what her ears hit while she flaps her head (table edges, door jambs, box corners, etc.), it is inevitable that she will occasionaly cut the tips of her ears.