Mac Talk

So here's part of the Mac set up. I'm an old die hard Macintosh fanatic, I've been using and supporting them since 1984, mostly from a publishing/advertising/graphic arts focus. I never understood how Jobs (and Amelio and those after him) could never get a marketing campaign together that really focused on the core of the Mac experience, EASE OF USE! Criminy, what does it take to get a clue at Apple marketing? After 20 years they FINALLY come out with a two button scroll mouse?! They almost got it a couple of times (like the two guys setting up the PC and the secretary walks by a several times throughout the day and as she leaves for the day she says, "You should have bought a Mac!"). Yes, yes, their beautiful to look at, but even in the early days, when everyone whined that Macs cost more, they weren't even doing an Apples to apples comparison. Macs came with networking, sound, video, modems, microphones, etc. and those were all add-ons for PCs. By the time you added it up, Macs weren't all that more expensive (maybe $100-$150) at a time when personal computers cost $3,000 ENTRY level and you were lucky if it had a HD. Now, they get it. The new ads are AWESOME. My very special favorite is the Virus ad because it is so stinkin' true. How much productivity is lost in the PC world while IT and home users pull out their hair over viruses, spyware, malware, etc. Guess what folks--never been a problem on a Mac. Unless you want to talk about the WDEF virus and ony the old and worn among us probably remember that. You could get rid of it by rebuilding your desktop on bootup. We're still working away while your PC has the blue screen of death or has just performed and illegal operation (now that's a scary one, first time I saw that, I was looking for the cops...). Now, I know there are those of you peecee owners that sniff about how we have less than 10% of the computer market, but we're still at the top when it comes to service and reliability. How many pc's do you know that are 6 years old and still pumping out huge graphic files at print shops? Eh? None, because they died of E. Coli four years ago. And do you think PCs are doing all the compositing for X-Men, Chronicles of Narnia, The Hulk, (insert blockbuster film name here)? We may only have 10% of the market but Hollywood is a pretty large chunk of 10%. And as a reminder for those who don't know the storied history of the Mac, Microsoft Office came out on a Mac first. Before Windows ever existed. Yes, that's right, Macs ARE business machines! We can read, write and format PC disks, open practically any PC file and you're darn tootin' for sure that PCs don't do the same with Mac disks and files. With the advent of the Mactel machines which can dual boot into WinXP, who would want a computer that can only run one OS? (ok, technically two if you stick Unix on it in a dual boot--but Mac OS X is already BSD Unix.) Of course, with XP your still back in virus hell, but hey, that's your choice now, because you *could* be running the OS X side and being productively happy finally learning why Mac people LOVE their Macs. You don't hear PC people going, "OH, I just LOVE my new PC! It hasn't crashed in the last four hours, WOW! Hey, come over here and check out the movie I just made this morning."

I am not completely antagonistic about PCs. I've built 3 from scratch, I currrently own three (one desktop and two laptops) along with my other Mac gear. Since I do software training, that usually involves both platforms so reality dictates that you have to do both. The applications work the same so it is really a non-issue in most respects. I do however draw the line at working with critical color. Bill Gates wouldn't know a color engine if it slapped him in the face, whupped his rear and sat him down. Color calibration without expensive software for the PC is a joke if you have files that are headed for offset printing. I positively pee my pants when I hear people using Publisher who think they're going to take that to a commercial printer and get it printed. I will say, for those who scrapbook, I am positively impressed with Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 for the PC (and yes, I have it for the Mac too, along with the Adobe CS2 suite). Adobe has been doing color for 20 years, they know how it's done. There is no other product or manufacturer in the PC marketplace that has a image editing product that touches what Photoshop and even PSE4 can do (which, by the way, is based on the CS2 code). I've been teaching a lot of scrapbookers how to fix their pictures using PSE4 and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I've decided that I think I could do that most of the time and really get a kick out of it. That's the teacher in me who loves it when people find out they can do something they didn't think was possible. It's so cool to see their faces light up when they see the results of what they've done. Epson has some great printing products that make using PSE4 with digital cameras and scanners a joy. Add a Wacom tablet, a media card reader, a nice Belkin USB powered hub (the one wit the slot on top for slapping on that flash drive we all have without picking up the hub and flipping it over)--assuming you're using a laptop where USB ports are at a premium. Arharharharharh! Love the gadgets!!

So here's the rundown of the current set up: PowerMac G5 Duo 2.0 ghz, dual layer dvd, 2gb RAM, Radeon 256MB video, 160MB HD with a 250MB external Seagate, external 52x Lite-On CD-RW, Stratitec media card reader, Wacom Graphire3 6 x 8 tablet, D-Link Print server, Epson 2200 wide-format printer, Epson PictureMate Deluxe printer, HP 3800n Color Laserjet, Epson 3400 Photo Scanner, Yamaha speaker system, HP 23" LCD monitor (rotates to portrait), Belkin USB Hub, PowerBook G4 15" 800 mhz laptop with 768mb RAM, CD-RW/DVD ROM, external LaCie DVD-RW, and Canon EOS Rebel XT digital camera with an additional 300mm zoom lens and external flash. There's more but that's what I use on a regular basis outside of the aforementioned PCs with their own tablets, Epson scanners and printers, etc. I also have some historical pieces like an orignal Apple Laptop, the first Apple Powerbook (100), the first color PowerBook, a 11ci, 300baud modem, etc. Now, if I could just kick out a few cats and start a museum in the "cat" room (aka, the room with more than one litter box). A couple more years and someone will have to check me into the museum room...

Craftin' with Cats

I just had to post this picure of the paper purse I made at a Creations class. It wouldn't be me if it wasn't anything but cats or Macs. And since I am pretty sure Apple hasn't published Macintosh scrapbook paper, I had to go cats. I guess if I had time, I could make my own Mac paper (ohh, what a great idea, I know I could get to this before I turn 50). Anyway, this is my favorite cat paper, it's from Flair and it has cats doing all the things they actually do, including using a cat box, showing their butts, licking their private parts, clawing up the furniture, rubbing their pheremones all over every last surface in the house, sleeping, grooming and getting into bags and boxes. MY kind of cat paper. If I'm lucky, it won't get hole punched or dragged around the house or squatted in. Or groomed. That fringe looks pretty inviting to the fuzz balls here.

Cat Mania

Since I gave it up for Maki, Coon and Pewter, I thought I had better post some pics of my other darling babies. Yes, having cats is like having babies, they make "messes", they puke, get eye infections, bite, kick and scratch each other (or morph into Tasmanian Devils), yell at you when they don't get fed when they want to be fed (we refer to Pewter as "Firetruck Pew" during feeding time as he goes Merwowowowowowowower", about a ten second hang time there). They're almost as bad as spouses when you come home. Pewter gives us "the business" when we get home which includes the Firetruck meow, the barking meow and the meow he does that sounds like meow with a burp in the middle--we call it a chirp. To top it all off on the babies scale, they seem to be teething all the time. There is not a book or magazine in this house that has not been "hole punched" courtesy of Maki or Pewter. Pewter has also chewed on every corner of furnture we have. What's worse, he looks right at you, waiting to get your attention before he chomps. And they KNOW what they're doing, I think they spend all that time sleeping faking it while they think of things to annoy me. But I digress. Here is a picture of Mr. Sniffy.
It's a kind of sad story about how we got him. We found out four years ago at Christmas that our seal point Himi, Cappy (Cappaccino) had a very rare cancer and was not going to make it through the holidays. He wasn't even a year old and we were heartbroke. So we decided we needed to get another kitty. We went to the Humane Society and found the cutest gray tabby kittens. So we took home two, a boy and girl. Well, it was quickly evident that the girl kitty was very sick, so we took her back. Because we still had Cappy, we kept Mr. Sniffy (whose name was King at the time) separated. A good thing too, as he also turned out to be real sick, but we ddn't have the heart to take him back, too. So he lived in my craft room for three months, sneezing blood, sneezing in general, but VERY affectionate. Because he was so snotty for so long, and you could here him sniffing around the room even when you weren't in the room, he got the name of Mr. Sniffy and it stuck. We also ended up getting Pewter at the same time, and when the people we purchased Cappy from found out he was terminally ill, the gave us the pick of their next litter. So, we lost one and got three. Plus two (Coon and Kahlua) made five, about two more than we had intended on. Luckily we have a pretty big house or it would be chaos.

Now, let me tell you, Mr. Sniffy thinks he has the finest butt in town. He shows it to EVERYONE. He has a sucker punch, he comes up and head butts you, and when you reach to pet him, he whips around and presents his butt. We have the weird habit of talking for our cats, so we know Sniffy is thinking, "Check out my fine looking butt. See how my tail makes a perfect question mark over it and how my _____ makes the punctuation? It's the best tail in town. I KNOW you're gonna like it. Come on, take one more look, maybe two--did you see my baggy pants? Yes, all the girl kitties call me Hamma', 'cause I be down with the baggy pants." Well, we find it a humorous pasttime. Yeah, we're lame.

Our other cat is Kahlua, she is a tortie Himi. She has spent most of her life under the bed. She's 9 this year and only in the past year or so has she finally come out from under the woodworks and begged to be petted. She's still afraid of everything, but when there aren't other cats to terrorize her, she can be downright demanding for the loves. She likes to sleep in the sink in the bathroom--I'm not sure how that factors into the 'fraidy cat psyche, so I can't talk for her. Looking at her is like looking at an empty bubble. I got nothin'.

So that completes the Cathouse. Five cats, six boxes (two auto boxes), one squatter (that's Peko Orange Tea--I'll post one of him next time). You know it's bad when your neighbor's kid introduces you to her friends at church as, "This is my neighbor Vicki, she has 5 cats!" And then later, you're talking with someone else at church and you mention that the Pastor is your neighbor, and they say, "oh, so your the one with the five cats." Yep, that's us. We can't have kids so we've over compensated with cats. But at least they are all very nice, agreeable, affection cats, not like the Satan cats my Mom keeps getting. And that is another story...

One of these days, I need to talk about my Macs. I'm a certified MacAddict, a Macavist to the core (ha, no pun intended!).

Also Starring in the Cathouse...

These are pictures of Pewter, our Lilac Himi. This is a cat with Catitude. He doesn't walk around the house, he sashays. The hair on his tail is about 8 inches long, looks just like a duster. He has had several names since we got him. He started off as Pewter (because of his gray points), but then it was Pew-Pew as he had a major gas issue as a kitten. At the same time we also called him the "little Eeper" because his meow was more like an eep eep eep. He never walked anywhere--he ran, in circles around your feet, back and forth from the bedroom to the bathroom going "eep eep eep" the whole time. I just had to sit down, he made me so tired. Then, with the switch to the new dried food, he became Poo-Poo as his stomach took some time to get used to it and the big D word was the norm for a week or so. When he was younger, he liked to fetch. But it was only one certain mouse toy, one that was spotted like a Dalmation with a hot pink tail. All you had to say was "Mouse?" and up he'd come and you could throw it 20 times and he would always bring it back. By then you're like, "I'm trying to go to sleep." So then he'd throw it up in the air himself and off the bed and bring it back up etc. There was little sleep to be had during that time.

Now, he sometimes is known as Puker. When he gets too nervous about something, or a hairball that's too big, he just pukes and pukes and pukes. Like 7 or 8 times a day. Sometimes we have to take him to the vet and get him all waxed up. But mostly, he's our boo-ti-ful Pew-Pew. He so soft, he feels like a huge cotton ball. He rarely mats up and he loves to give kitty kisses. In fact, he likes to clean your teeth, so kisser beware. You always know when he wants to give you kisses. He gets that goo-goo look when he looks up at you with his eyes half closed and his ears turned sideways. Well, we think it's cute. Except the teeth cleaning bit.

Cats & Spats

It's getting real catty here in the Conquest household. Not that having 5 cats wasn't catty enough. I'm going to *try* to post some pictures of the purrpatrators involved in the latest catcaphony (please pardon my intentional misspellings).

Of our 5 cats, Coon, our black and brown tabby, is our oldest at 15 years. He IS the keymaster. He is the master of a thousand paw-slaps. If you're not *in* then don't even look at him. When he gives you "the look" (and ladies, we all know how to give "the look" so you know what I mean), all the cats visibly pull their heads back and blink, some are even known to step back and even run away (chickens!). The only cat Coon has ever let near him is Maki. She's a seal point Himi with a flat face and a tooth that sticks outside her left lip. She's like the brain dead kitty. He could give her "the look" all day long and she would be thinking "Oh, he loves my butt!" You all DO realize that the most important feature of a cat is their butt, right? If you have cats, you should be smellin' what I'm steppin' in. Coon even let her groom him.

So, to make a long story longer, Coon has recently decided to lick all the hair off his right hind leg. And I do mean all! That leg looks like it belongs on one of those hairless cats (perish the thought). So after a week of wearing the cone head collar (that's another story) and making "messes" (polite word for the big D and I don't mean Dallas word) all over the place because of the medicine that I had to pry open his jaws to give him (yet another story), we decided there had to be some other solution. So, the vet gives me this spray-on stuff, supposed to be part antibiotic and mostly stuff that tastes bad to cats so he would quit licking it. So I get home, have the obligatory wrestling match where I try to get Coon to give me his back leg, I spray it on him (an me, and the couch, etc.), and then he jumps off running and shaking his leg like he's doing the Hokey Pokey. And being the smug, fart smeller I am, I thought that was pretty easy. I was about to be given the hair raisin' of my life.

Since Maki has butt-sniffing down to an art form, she proceeded to run behind Coon trying to sniff his butt. She has to run because her legs are shorter and stretch up her head because Coon is taller. This itself is entertaining, especially when you get the butt train going where three or more are in line. This has to be seen to fully appreciate how she gets her flat face right up under the tail of the other cats--if it were any other cat, it's nose would be buried a half inch up the other cats rear. Then, after a good long whiff, my dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks, sweet-as-sugar-pie cat Maki turned into Damianna Omen herself. She started hissing, then growling then went into some high-pitched screaming and then I am sure it was the Devil himself howling in the most unearthly sounds I have ever heard come out of a cat. She jumped right on top of Coon and was clawing and spitting and yowling and he was running down the hallway with her firmly attached to his back like he was going to run out from under her. He was dumbfounded. Cliff and I were running down the hall trying to catch them to pull Maki off his back and she was still moaning and howling and hissing. Poor old Coon couldn't even defend himself, he's declawed and lost both of his top fang teeth several years ago. Maki has all her equipment (well, excepting the reproductive parts). But when it first started, Cliff and I couldn't figure out what that noise was, we were thinking maybe the Tornado Siren was going off. Then we finally realized it was coming from the smallest cat in the house. Let me tell you, the other cats split the scene so fast, they left their whiskers behind! Now it's kind of like one of those Cialis ads where Maki has gained some new-found respect. Everyone is giving her a good wide berth. She's still growling at him and she positively hates it when he sits by me. She jumps up there and starts whacking him on the head with her paw, like Chinese water torture until he gets tired of it and leaves. Then she leaves. What's up with that? You can't have her but I don't want her? I'm starting to get a complex. I'm just not sure where I stand in the household pecking order...

Flying Face Plants

No, it's not a new genus of flora, it's my new impromtu acrobatic act. My partners—a HP Color LaserJet 4500 and the DH. The DH and I were performing our balancing act with the printer as we were attempting to nimbly prance down our brick stairs from our porch. Well, let us say that somewhere our act got out-of-balance and I flew through the air like a bird in flight (possibly a pigeon) and proceeded to firmly plant my right jaw into the concrete of our driveway, closely followed by my right shoulder. Somewhere along the line my right knee clocked either a stair or the printer. I'm sure I was a vision of grace and beauty as I slid across the concrete and laid there like a gutted fish. Do fish see stars? This one did. My DH just stood there and looked at me like, "Hey stupid, what do you think you're doing down there? Get off your butt and help me get this thing in the truck!" He did finally ask me if I wanted help up but I was still doing the fish mouth "what just happened?" impersonation. I finally rolled up to a sitting position and let him help me up. We picked up the #$*&@! printer and put it in the truck. No more printer dances for me. They're brutal. Our neighbors will be reporting spouse abuse when they see me with my chin shiner. And for those of you looking for the Timex of printers? Buy an old HP 4500. They take a licking and keep on clicking out those color pages. What REALLY sucked was having to cancel my class at Creations. We were doing this nifty explosion friends box. I was afraid that if I had sharp tools I might go wild and cut up the place while trying to get up and get a drink from the fridge. They should thank me for not showing up. I'm a loose canon.

Power Tools R Us!

I almost love them as much as I love my G5 Duo with the 23" LCD. Almost. I'm trying to finish tiling my downstairs snack area. I did half of it as the house was being built, 4 years ago. I just never got around to doing the other side. So it has sat there with the hardibacker on it collecting cat hair, cat toys, various cables, routers, magazines, and the tiles that were supposed to go on it 4 years ago. Minus a few, of course, as they were casualties of the cat wars. Today I was inspired (by a looming deadline of some in-home PSE4 training for some friends) to clean it off and relayout the tiles to see what i needed to replace. Then it came to me why I didn't finish it. I cut the hardibacker a half inch larger than it needed to be for the counter top. I suddenly lost interest as I couldn't think of a quick way to fix it, so there it sat, taunting me for these past 4 years. Thanks to several Lowes gift cards we finally stocked up on some REAL power tools. I was told my Dremel tool didn't count. So now we are powered up, table saw, miter saw, circular saw, power stapler, shop vac, orbital sander, AND, a Jigsaw! Still waiting on a router, saws-all and a drill press (hint, hint, hint to the fam). Pretty much if it plugs in or uses batteries I'm all over it like Tim the Tool Man, ARH, ARH, ARH. So, ignoring every saftey rule about using tools I commenced to shaving off that extra half inch with my new favorite hand tool. In walks the DH. "You should be wearing a mask," he says. Well, duh, of course I am. But I am a Mac user, and not only do we not read manuals, we don't read directions on power tool safety. We ALREADY KNOW about power tool safety and we know when we can break the rules. I did get it done, but I blew out a couple teaspoons of mortar dust out of my nose (I did use my safety glasses), and I'll probably be coughing up premixed mortar for a few days. But it's done. Now, I have to go rent a tile saw from Home Schelpo...ARH, ARH, ARH!

Where's the Easy Button?

All I wanted to do was post to a friend's blog and somewhere in the registration process, here I am with with a blog of my own! That is just about how my life goes. You start out doing one thing and end up with something entirely different. It keeps life interesting. Once I figure this thing out, I'll have to put up something more intelligent. It's like being caught with your pants down. You didn't plan it and neither did the other party, but there it is and you're all standing there with your mouths open, totally berefit of anything to say that would sound remotely normal. "Hey, I uh, like those little cats there, uh, on your underwear..." Duh. As soon as I pull my proverbial pants up, I'll try another post.