Thursday, February 19, 2009

The magic land of Photoshop

In the morning, as well as the 26 other times I go online during the day, there's an order to my surfing. Email - FacebookFacebookFacebookCrackbook - email again (In case anyone has send me earth shattering news sometime within the 15 minutes since the last time I checked it.)

Yes, I'm on Facebook a lot. In fact, I must assign blame to checking the status updates as the reason I'm writing on this blog so inconsistently. I mean, if I update my status, what else is there to tell? One little sentence and there you go.

Worse than Facebook is Photoshop. I got Photoshop for Christmas for the simple reason than it's cheaper than plastic surgery. Kidding. Sort of. Anyway, I'm taking an online class because I'd sooner get an A in Calculus than know what I'm doing with Photoshop.

Photoshop = Black hole time warp. I swear I sit down at 7:00pm and when the smoke clears it's midnight. I'm not even doing anything amazing and this is only the basic course.

But I'm so proud of my little creations. I want to post them every time I finish one. It's like macaroni pictures you made at school. All you want is to achieve a gallery show on the refrigerator.

Two years of a minor in illustration. Two years of endless nib problems and covering my hand and ruining my pictures with black, inky blobs. Now? One click and my minor is as useless as my major in journalism.

Must go back. . .must click on photo. . .

Monday, February 9, 2009

Coffee break sans coffee

I'm here writing a buncha stuff anyway so I might as well blab on here as well. Hey, I don't have it too bad - I'm writing about cycling. Just what's up with everyone thinking the 15th is a great day for a deadline?

One of the sponsors for Team Hotel San Jose is Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop here in Austin. Wowwww, this store contains nothing but bike porn. And the coffee is pretty good, too! Cyclists are picky about their coffee. Unless your legs are dying during a century ride. Then the Shell station becomes the new Starbucks.

I've start doing Computrainer training (Computraining?) at MJ's with Kevin Livingston. If you've never trained on Computrainer, it's a trip. It's like a video game only the controller is you on your bike. There's a cartoon dude, too, but I was this cartoon chick in yellow spandex. (Not 80s spandex, true, but definitely not something I would wear in a race.)

Then you follow this real life course only drawn cartoon style. They actually have real courses from Ironman races and stuff. I still don't understand how the telephone works so this techno stuff is going way over my head.

There's also a sad, depressing screen that he switched over to that shows your pedal stroke and the push v. pull. He asked if I wanted to keep it there and I told him that I'm aware of my mashing problems but I just didn't want to face them at the moment. Now I need Computherapy.

I went to an endocrinological nutritionist (probably not the correct term) as the last step of Send Tamirra to Kona. She's got me on all these weird supplements. Do NOT look at the ingredients. There's a whole lotta bovine in one of them. One got stuck on my tongue when I was trying to wash it down. Gross.

One reason I went there is because of my massive sweet tooth. She gave me this stuff called Gymnema, a pill made of an Indian root that's supposed to help with cravings. They've been using it to cure diabetes since like the year 3 or something. She said it worked best if you chewed it and I know why. Peoples' diabetes was cured because they cut their tongues out once they tasted this. It cured them with nausea followed by unhealthy doses of mouthwash, dish detergent, two-year-old Harvey's Bristol Cream - whatever was readily available. You don't touch sweets again because God forbid you have to put this in your mouth again.

Ok. Time to write for real.