Cosmic Kitty » Jibber Jabber

Fussing

abberdab — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 03:08:44 +0000

As someone who obsesses over minutiae, I found this affirming:

“Don’t bother, it’s just a little thing!” … “It’s not worth the time, no one bothers with that.” In that case, you must spend the time! … if no one else bothers with it, you probably just found your competitive edge! —Don Schenck, Signal vs. Noise

Welcome!

abberdab — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 20:29:18 +0000

This website is viewable only by registered users. Fortunately, my membership roster is not exclusive. Having met me is a good part of the admission requirement. This way I’m able to quell my ambivalence about my natterings begin open to the entire world and still natter on with abandon. Welcome, friends!

Update: Okay, make that *some* of the content will only be viewed by registered viewers. My better half (who is simultaneously more anonymous and more public with his site) has convinced me that a non-public web log is a downer and counter to the spirit of the web. I guess I’ll take his word for it. Now I have to make the decision about what will be public and what will be private — eh — something I was hoping to get around. It’s not that I have anything to hide mind you.

Pure Nerd

abberdab — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 00:02:24 +0000

Pure Nerd
You scored higher than 99% on Nerdiness.
95 % Nerd, 21% Geek, 17% Dork

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally
smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up
all of the traits and tendences associated with the “dork.” No-longer.
Being smart isn’t as socially crippling as it once was, and even more
so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be
replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations!

Thanks Again!

THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

Strangely Enough

abberdab — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 16:36:56 +0000

So, this has been my summer of post-graduate soul searching… What do I really want to do? While in school I was adamant about not wanting to get stuck doing web stuff after graduation. I wanted to design tangible, holdable things. However, it became clear at school that I had an advantage over most design folks when it came to easily comprehending software and technical issues. And what do I now find myself doing? So far this summer, I have installed Wordpress four times (for myself and others — for fun, heh!) and installed MYSQL on my home machine in order be able to serve and test WordPress locally. I am now researching sendmail on OS X so I can test cgi scripts locally (I want to be able to send formatted email via a web form, for example). I spent 3 solid weeks immersed in PHP, a language I had no familiarity with, and CSS positioning (for which I had only a passing famliarity) creating my identity-based WordPress template for www.abbylarsen.com. Yesterday I spent waaaaay to much time in PHP scripting land… Uh. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about I’ll translate: Geek, Geek, Geek.

Sigh.

In my defense, I have involved myself in a number of artsy, craftsy, hands-on things, too — I’ve taken a marbling class, completed a couple of beading projects, sewn a skirt, and made an illustrative logo of which I am quite proud. I just wish I could figure out which skills would fulfill me most when employed to make a living. Economically, it’s a no brainer. The technical bits of me will always be in higher demand and, correct me if I’m wrong, technical skills are more lucrative (because they are more tangible?) than artistic ones. So, I suppose it is no mystery why I ended up in web design before — it seems the best way to marry the two. But I should also thank Mr. Guy for the sexy new computer. None of this time spent bathing in phosphors would have been as engaging if my computer didn’t KICK ASS.

Anyhoo, back to my OS X web/mail server setup…

Hulloa.

abberdab — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 02:02:33 +0000

Stay tuned for house happenings, gardening gab, cat capers, craft chat, general jibber jabber … in short, nothing that most folks will care a lick about. If you are one of the few who do, you are in luck!

Birds Everywhere

abberdab — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 18:08:09 +0000

Every so often, I notice that a particular visual motif appears with increasing frequency. For the past couple of years, illustrations of songbirds, crows and chickens have been attracting my attention from all quarters and I wonder why such unassuming subjects seem suddenly to be so popular. In many cases, our humble feathered friends have acquired a seemingly hip caché as they associate with contemporary artists and the denizens of bars and nightclubs. Are these birds to the 2000s what owls and mushrooms were to the 1970s? What is it about these creatures that resonates with the current collective psyche? Is it their shyness? Their fragility (often emphasized by delicate line and color)? Do they symbolize the bucolic desires of city dwellers? Is this back to nature, Aughties style? Do we wish for a little art in our natural science?

A modest cross-section, from local to corporate:

The Crow Bar — PDX Bar

Anna Cangialosi, Illustrator

Nocturnal — PDX All-Ages Nightclub

A Bolder Bird, Lord Whimsy

Andrew Brandou, Illustrator

GE Advertising Campaign