How Do You Spoon?

As the person who, for the last 20+ years has been in charge of my mother's computer fixing/helping/education, I take issue with this image that I'm sure we've all come across on Facebook:

It seems to make a good point, but  I taught my mom to copy and paste for the first time in about 1995. She's still not sure about it when she has to go from one document to another to paste. She freaks out when she has to attach a file or download a file. I guarantee you, if after 20 years, I still wasn't sure on the use of a spoon and I called her from college yelling at her that she broke my spoon when I was the one who just wasn't good with a spoon, she would yell at me just as much as I yell at her when I ask her for the 600th time, "WHERE DID YOU SAVE THE FILE!? NO! IN NOTEPAD ISN'T AN ANSWER! YOU CAN'T SAVE FILES IN A PROGRAM! THEY GO IN A FOLDER! WHERE IS THE FILE!!!!???"

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Sucky, Suckier, Suckiest.

Last week was one of the suckiest of suck weeks in my life. I just had to add suckiest to my dictionary, because really, it needs to recognize degrees of suck. So yeah, it started off innocuously enough with awesome stuff on TV. I don't watch all that much TV any more, but Sunday evenings, I am there from 6-midnight, pretty much. It brings me joy.  The rest of the week, not so much. 

So yeah, I am back to being destitute, and my mom has thyroid cancer. She goes in a week to have it removed and hopefully that will be the end of it. They assured us that although it is a very large tumor, it is unlikely that it has metastasized, so she should be just fine... hopefully.

The husband losing the job is another matter all together. It took him a year to get a job last time, and places around here aren't really hiring, so I am trying to convince him to go pick up applications for jobs where he obviously isn't going to get hired wearing a magician's cape, since I figure he might as well be amused if he is going to be rejected. Also because flourishing a cape while introducing yourself and asking for an application sounds incredibly fun and the man seriously needs some fun.

So if anyone has an adult sized magician's cape they could loan us, just let me know!

Hanukkah 2012: 1st Night- Gangsta Hanukkah

HAPPY HANUKKAH, BITCHES!

I like you guys so much that I got you two videos to watch for this, the first night of the Festival of Lights.  They are verbally offensive, which makes for the best videos really... so unless you want your kids repeating  foul phrases for the in-laws, you should probably watch these sans kids (or people who get upset by the n-word). 

The Hanukkah Bush is a sensitive subject for me. Now, I grew up in Miami Beach, which means that pretty much everyone I knew was Jewish, and it also means that until I was a teenager and went to school in Greater Miami where they actually had Christians, I knew pretty much nothing about Christmas traditions... except for Christmas Trees, which I knew mostly, from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas," because we didn't watch any other Christmas specials in my house. The Grinch, that was it. 

I didn't care about Santa, or wreaths, or stockings, but the idea of having a tree in your house that you got to decorate was of great interest to me. But my mom was having nothing of it.  My sister and I plead our case, but we were met with "There is no such thing as a Hanukkah Bush!" which I think was code for, "I'm not spending money to put a dead tree in our living room just so you can hang shit on it."

My first winter in my own apartment, I got my own Christmas Tree. It was totally worth it, too.

Don't forget... there will be a present every day for EIGHT WHOLE DAYS, so don't forget to come back after sunset each day!

Life Lessons: That's What She Said

"That's what she said!" is, somewhat unfortunately, one of my favorite jokes.

Although my mom is very smart and I got a good part of my sense of humor from her, she found my seemingly random outbursts of "That's what she said!" to be very confusing.

And then, I explained it to her... and then she said it in a doctor's office, and in front of my nephew.

And the lesson is: There's a time and a place for "That's what she said!" and some people just can't be trusted with it.

International TYFNKP Day

We seriously need a MAJOR holiday for people who do computer phone support, internet phone support, phone support for anything technological AT ALL. They need parades, and large cash prizes, and pretty much anything they want that is not totally illegal.

I come to this conclusion after trying to help my mom, over the phone for an hour and a half, to download and transfer two files. At this point, I want to destroy planets, take up smoking, and find an orphanage so I can kick some really unfortunate children.

The fact that technological phone support people have not killed us all is a testament to their patience, kindness and over-all awesomeness. Thank you, IT support. For not killing people. You're the best!

And on a completely unrelated note:

So, last year I won Blog of Note from Blogger. I found out a couple days ago that this year, I won Voice of the Year 2012 from BlogHer.*

Actually, I won it in Visuals, so I guess I kinda won Visionary of the Year. Doesn't that sound more impressive than "Voice of the Year for Something You Look At?" The piece that won me this honor was "Occupy the Holidays" which you are all welcome to go look at again (or for the first time, perhaps).

*My "sponsor" aka the people who put those ads on my blog and promote my work and provide my income of 20 bucks every 3-6 months

Thank you BlogHer, for choosing me as someone worth listening to, or looking at, or something. I am very honored and I love it when you guys tell me I am awesome (and send me money*). <3

*Nope, didn't win any money, just thanking them for paying me every 3-6 months.

JRose in Wolf's Clothing

When I was a kid, I used to try to trick my mom into thinking I was dead. I would lay on the bedroom floor with my legs at weird angles and send my sister to go get my mom to report my untimely demise. I'd lie there, my tongue sticking out, giggling, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling as I waited for my sister to cross the expanse of our house to go get her. I don't think my sister was really selling it though because no one ever came running, it was always just a saunter in to the doorway, where she would look in, nod and then leave. She might have given me an "Oh no... JRose is dead." in a totally unconvincing voice... but I really wasn't that great of a thespian. I wouldn't bother with blood, or bones sticking out, or vacating my bowels. I pretty much stopped at not blinking and holding my breath, all the while grinning.

Some day, I fear, I will fall and end up dead on the floor and she will find me and think, once again, that I am kidding and I will lay there rotting until someone else notices.

_____________________________________________________

And once again, I am entered in an art contest that requires clicks to get me back to NYC. 

A click would be friggen awesome.

Just click COLLECT ME at the top to vote for my art to be shown in Times Square.

[link removed]

And tell your friends... tomorrow maybe, so they don't think it is an April Fools joke.

Skynet 1.0: Abuse of the RedBox

After watching my mother try to rape the Redbox Kiosk with the movies she was returning for me, because I have my nephew's cold and didn't want to get out of the car in subfreezing temperatures, I am fairly certain that this sort of thing  is the beginning of the Skynet Incident.
They didn't show it in the Terminator movies, but clearly, the repeated abuses of these machines are going to lead to a revolt where machines start attacking and murdering humans.

At the very least, RedBox should set up hidden cameras to record and broadcast, for our amusement, the various ways in which people are unable to figure out the operations of their machines.

The Good, the Bad, and the Cheeseblarg takes Manhattan.

The bad news: Despite all the wonderful people willing to back me with a total of $974 (plus $40 more sent directly to me) and the news story on me by my local news station (thanks Marnee!), I did not meet my goal amount on Kickstarter in time and all of the pledges were canceled.

The good news: Thanks to Kelly providing a ticket for me, I was able to convince my darling mother that it would be a travesty of justice if I didn't get to go to New York City for my debut art show there, and she begrudgingly agreed to accompany me and eat Greek food* and pay for what I couldn't at this point using her credit, which is thankfully better than mine.

The bad news: I may very well be an indentured servant for the rest of my life until I pay off this trip so all of my posts will be about washing dishes and crying from now on.

The good news: "Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan" is still on!

Artist's rendering of self in NYC

If anyone would like to take advantage of the rewards below, still, your money will go directly to the trip/project and your art will be delivered in the time windows indicated, just like before. 

GIVE $1 OR MORE

A digital donation badge featuring art from the "Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan" series.

Estimated Delivery: Nov 2011

GIVE $10 OR MORE

A postcard from the "Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan" series.

Estimated Delivery: Dec 2011

GIVE $25 OR MORE

A postcard and mini print from the "Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan" series.

Estimated Delivery: Dec 2011

GIVE $50 OR MORE

A 12" signed print from the "Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan" series (of your choice).

Estimated Delivery: Dec 2011

GIVE  $75 OR MORE

A 12" signed print from the "Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan" series (of your choice), plus a postcard and mini print from the series.

Estimated Delivery: Dec 2011

GIVE  $200 OR MORE

One signed museum quality giclee print (of your choice) from the "Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan" series up to 24 inches.

Estimated Delivery: Dec 2011

BACKER REPORT

GIVE  $1,000 OR MORE

A set of limited edition signed museum quality giclee prints from "Cheeseblarg Takes Manhattan" series. (approximately 10" each- 200 in edition- set includes 5 or more prints)

Estimated Delivery: Jan 2012

Please be sure to include your address so your art can be sent to you!
And thank you again, for all your support!

I will be blogging at least once from New York, and will be updating the Facebook page and twitter with pictures and stuff.  I leave Monday. Any New Yorkers (or localy people) are welcome to come to meet me at art show Monday night (will post time I'll be there on facebook or twitter). I promise I'll try not to throw up on you.

*and Indian food, and German food, and Katz's Deli, and whatever street food we can get our hands on... ad nauseum.

Can I take your order?

There are times that I wonder if things just happen to me to give me something to write about.  It is really like my life is one big chain of weird event that have no apparent reason other than to give me material.  Today I went out to lunch shortly after noon and we got stuck in a giant line.  I really wanted a bacon cheeseburger so I just stood there patiently.

After five or ten minutes of waiting, an older lady walked up with a stack of paper.  "Are you two together?" she asked us and we told her we were. "Okay, I'll start with you then."  We were smack dab in the middle of the line of about twenty people and the women in front of us turned around, incredulous. It seemed a nice touch though, that in a fast food place they would send out "Hostess Vicky" to expedite orders to get us all out of there soon. So she asked us what we wanted and we told her our order which she wrote down in lovely wide looping cursive and then, after she had written it all down, she handed the paper to me. Not to the people in the back, not to the cashier. She handed it to me. What the quack was I supposed to do with it?
I guess she was bored and wanted to seem useful? Maybe she was taking a census? When we got to the register, we had to order again, even after handing them the mystery paper, to clarify, and then, of course, they got our order wrong.

I insisted on taking a picture of it to prove that I don't just make up this stuff.

Don't Get Attached.

This morning, I tried to convince my mom to stop using crapo.com for her email service after talking her through the set up for a gmail account.  She pays 10 dollars a year for crapo-mail and has been using it since 1997.   It won't attach more than one item at a time. It sends forwards as attachments.  It takes up to two hours to send emails to my hotmail account at peak hours. It is, in fact, a piece of crap, especially for a paid service. She thinks it is fine.

I think that there is a fundamental difference in the way my generation uses computers compared to that of my mother's generation.   When I use a computer, having had access to them the majority of my life, I want the process to be completely efficient. I want to avoid erroneous clicking and mouse movements and downloading anything, ever. If I am forwarded something, the last thing I want to do is download a file to my computer that I have to open with another program to read a joke about a cheeky octogenarian ordering milk for a bath.  We don't even have milkmen anymore! And who the hell sells unpasteurized milk!?

My mom, on the other hand, is used to reading mail the conventional (read:old fashioned) way.  She expects to open an envelope, unfold a letter, and flip through the 6 different attached Sunday Funnies clipped from the newspaper, so she has no qualms about having to click 4 different things to get a stupid joke forward to open.  If she could do eBay via postcard, she would.  She won't, however, click links that I send her in emails.  Somehow she has learned that downloading things on her computer is fine, but links are super dangerous, especially those sent by your computer savvy daughter. Or maybe it is because crapo-mail doesn't generate clickable links in their incoming emails and she doesn't know how to copy and paste them...

How I learned to wear green on St. Patrick's day.

My mom convinced me, one year in high school, that orange was just as suitable for St. Patrick's Day as green was.  Something about catholic and protestant Irish...

Not unsurprisingly, it takes more time to explain this than it takes someone to pinch you.

It occurs to me now that I may have just pissed my mom off shortly before this (I was a teenager, par for the course, ya know), and it may have been a revenge plot of some sort.