Domestic Geek

In case you've been wondering why I haven't been posting as much the last few days, I'm in the process of finally setting up my craft blog that I've been wanting to do forever. Marcus even set me up a subdomain last December and that's as far as I got with it. I really want a place where I can chronicle my craftiness and hopefully inspire me to actually finish some of my many projects.

I'm using WordPress as the CMS so that I can become more familiar with how it works, so I've had a lot of work to do. It's using a theme that's not my own, but downloaded from the Wordpress themes site. I hate using canned themes, but I really just want to get this thing going. There's so much to learn because I've never seriously blogged using WP and only have a basic understanding of it. I can't wait to learn about all the different plugins and figure out this widget stuff.

So, help me out, dear readers! If you use Wordpress, what plugins/widgets must I absolutely have?

I'll post the URL later today when I've got it ready to go.

OK, a friend posted a link on a message board to which I belong to something hilarious that I just have to share here. For it to be funny, you have to like or at least heard a little bit of the musical group Smashing Pumpkins.

"What If That Guy From Smashing Pumpkin Lost His Car Keys"

Enjoy!

I was bored at work yesterday, so I was checking out some of the new features in Illustrator CS3. I'm not entirely thrilled with these new "panels" that are docked on the side, but that may be just getting used to them. I can change them to a more palette type of interface that I'm used to if I just can't make nice with them. There are some cool things that have been added that will really be helpful when I illustrate. For instance, when you hover your mouse over a path's endpoint, a large box appears to make it easier to click on just the right point. That was always the biggest pain with earlier versions. There are some cool color features that I can wait to experiment more with. There's some sort of color scheme thing that I haven't quite figured out, but it looks intriguing. It generates related color swatches based on a color you pick. Very helpful when trying to find complimentary colors for a design. Anyway, if I can sneak in some more time tomorrow, I'll see what else is in there.

So, I found another used book store today that I had never been to before and found a couple of more Stephen King novels. It's called Half Price Books and sits just a little bit East of Broadway on Girard. They had a lot of books there. It's really close to work, so I'll have to go back when I have more time and money to spend. One was called Black House and I was totally shocked to actually find it. It's co-authored by Peter Straub, the author with whom King teamed to write The Talisman. I also found The Dark Half.

As with many of my hobbies, I've let pleasure reading really slide in the last few years. I've decided to allow myself to get back into it and have hit a few used book stores and Amazon the last few weeks and have gathered a few books to keep me busy reading this summer. The Stephen King books are part of my goal to catch up on all his works that I've missed.

Thirteen Books I Bought to Read This Summer

1. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, author of The DaVinci Code. I really enjoyed that book and am looking forward to reading another of his works.
2. Prentice Alvin by Orson Scott Card. I started reading this science fiction series about Colonial America that believes and uses folk magic back in college. I'm excited to get back into it since he's written several more books in the series.
3. Alvin Journeyman by Orson Scott Card.
4. The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower II) by Stephen King. I've only read the first book in the series. I put off reading the rest until he finished writing them, but the series drug on for over 20 years. He's done now, so time to read them.
5. The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower III) by Stephen King.
6. Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower IV) by Stephen King.
7. Four Past Midnight by Stephen King. A short story collection.
8. Nightmares & Dreamscapes by Stephen King. More short stories.
9. Needful Things by Stephen King. I used to have this and somebody stole it. I don't remember the story, so I'm reading it as new.
10. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King.
11. The Regulators by Richard Bachman (OK, really Stephen King's Pseudonym). It has a companion book called Desperation that I read a while back.
12. Cell by Stephen King. Told you I had a bunch to read. There's still a handful to get yet — eight, I think.
13. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. The seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series. OK, it isn't used and I don't have it in my possession yet, but it will be in a little over five weeks! Since I've already ordered it, we'll go ahead and add it to the list.

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