Ad Madness
I’ve been reading instead of writing this week, trying to finish up a book I’ve been looking forward to for a while. But I wanted to share this little gem with y’all.
One of the drawbacks to being the web designer is that when the spambots go trolling for e-mail addresses, mine is always on the list. I get ads for everything from textbooks, to new ways to improve our Google rankings, to strange science-y things whose functions I only vaguely comprehend. I’ll usually skim for anything that looks promisingly tech related, and delete the rest. Sometimes though, the spam is particularly eye catching.
You have to hand it to this company’s graphic artist. They really know how to put the “Spring” in their sale. When I first opened this, I thought I’d accidentally signed up my work account for a fabric store’s e-mail list. Props to the artist for limiting the fonts to three, although the font on the deleted logo brings that up to five. I tend to ignore logos in that respect, however. An artist can’t help how many fonts the hiring company uses. Most of the deleted text was blue, in the same sans serif and sans serif bolded font. The three colors all nicely compliment the central image with the blue keeping the orange and green from clashing too strongly. Using two shades of gray text plus black is a bit much for my preferences, but I tend to go for simpler color palettes.
I understand the intent of layering the central text over the bounding box. There are lots of other elements crossing this line, and it’s supposed to be dynamic. But everything else crossing the bounding box is curving or organic, so having the hard text cross this line just feels sloppy to me. I personally would have nudged the top line of text up so as the keep it from touching the line, or extended the p and the g so that the line crossing is clearly a deliberate choice. This would work better if there were another word with a descending letter to bracket the sentence. I’m not sure about the swirly bit behind “highest.” It’s almost as if someone said “There’s not enough swirly in this general area. Add more.”
One of the things that might be hard to see (depending on the contrast level of your screen) is the background layers of flowers, leaves, and vines in the lower corners. This all leads into the tangled mass in the middle, which frankly looks like someone went a little overboard with their custom shape brush, but the visual impact of the single bright flower from the dark brambles is undeniable. Over all, it’s a very eye catching, fairly well done ad.
It’s just not the sort of ad one would expect to see for fetal bovine serum.
Y’all Ready For This?
By now most of you have probably already heard that Dallas was hit by tornadoes on Tuesday. Here, 2 hours south of Dallas, we were pretty safe from the weather. The worst that we got was some heavy rain and hail. But I have lots of friends who live in Dallas, so those few hours between hearing about the storms and hearing from my friends were very tense.
There was one set of friends that I was not worried about. Since our recent con had been survival themed, he and I had a chance to talk about his survival preparations. I knew that if things got really bad, he and his friends and family would be safe. There was a kind of peace in knowing that they could weather the storm.
After the fires raged across Texas last summer, I spent some time making sure that our Go Bags were ready. We need to find a better bag for Moose, and there is a list that I keep on Amazon with some of the things that I want in order to finish out our bags. But I know that at least my bag will keep me for 4 days if we have to leave very quickly.
My conversations with my friend also led to me thinking about the food storage in our house a little more seriously. One of our major food storage issues is that Moose and I don’t eat a lot of canned goods. After talking to my friend, and reading some very good things that he had written in his blog, I realized that we eat more canned goods then I thought. I picked up a few cans when I went grocery shopping, with an eye towards what we would be able to do with them in a year when they would need replacing. I think that over the next few months, I will be able to get a good stock of food that will rotate into our pantry smoothly.
I do not feel like I could be called a survival nut. But with all of these natural disasters that have happened in Texas lately, I do feel that it is in our best interest to be prepared. There is a kind of peace in that, knowing that we will be ready for just about anything. I would like it very much if I could give that same peace to people who I care about. Disaster survival is something that most people don’t even think about, right up until they have to. Now, while the storms are fresh in your memory, would be a good time to ask yourself.
“I Think I’m Being Followed”
I’m going to tell you a story. And I want you to understand that while some aspects of this story may seem silly, or strange, or inconsequential, the core of the story is very real, and very scary. Regardless of how you feel about what I have to say at the end, I hope that you at least read through this and try to understand that in this experience, I am not alone.
When I was 17 years old, a man followed me. It wasn’t the first time, and it was far from the last. But this is the one story that I can point to and say “This. This right here is why I am always aware of my surroundings.” This is the one single time that I knew, without a doubt, that I was in danger. That if I had been less aware of my surroundings, been less careful, been going anywhere else, I probably would have been on the evening news. I have been in situations where I felt I was in danger, which people have dismissed as paranoid, but this is the one single time where the actions of the man in the story are clearly, demonstrably suspicious, even if they don’t seem to be at first.
In order to understand the setting of this story, you have to understand the stretch of road as it was in 1997. Now it is teeming with shops and car lots and clearly visible neighborhoods. Back then, the city seemed to cut away abruptly just north of the point where I first noticed this guy. It was probably not as sparse as all that, but in my memory it is one long ribbon of highway slicing through the trees, with no good place to turn around. You also need to understand that while the distance we traveled was only about 8 miles, the traffic conditions and speed limit on that road at the time meant that the first part of this experience lasted between 20 and 30 minutes. It seemed longer because I had missed my street at some point and wasn’t quite sure where I was going. And finally, while I say that the guy “followed” me, he was in fact in front of me the whole time. It was part of the reason I was so afraid to turn around.
I first noticed him at Stella Link. My car windows were rolled down as they usually were on a warm day, since my car had no AC. It was the first time I had ever driven in that part of town and I couldn’t resist a cry of “Stellaaaaa!” I saw a guy in the older model truck in front of me look into his rear view mirror and I realized that he had heard me. Whether or not he had noticed me before this point, I can’t really say. I know he had been in front of me for a bit, but prior to this point he was just some guy in a truck. After that, he was some guy in a truck who had heard me being a great big dork. Pretty soon, he would become some guy in a truck acting pretty damn scary.
The really suspicious behavior started when the road diverged. I was pretty sure I had missed my turn and was going the wrong way, but I wasn’t positive. The split in the road caught me off guard and I was worried about getting lost in the wilds of south west Houston. This was long before Google Maps and the best thing I had for directions was an old street guide that my father insisted I keep in the car. A book which was generally pretty useless if you weren’t sure where you were in the first place and rather difficult to use unless you had a free hand and a spare set of eyeballs. So when I suddenly found myself on the feeder road to another street, I rapidly switched lanes back onto the first road. And he changed lanes, too.
Keep in mind that I was taken off guard by this interchange. I was young, had only had my license for about a year, and not yet used to watching for these sorts of intersections. I was already pretty far along the entrance ramp when I switched lanes and my father’s excellent teaching about keeping track of other cars helped me make this lane change pretty smoothly. He was considerably further along the entrance ramp, and crossed about 10 feet of space from the entrance ramp lane back to the original street. He might as well have crossed a whole other lane of traffic to get back into my lane. Even this in and of itself wouldn’t have been suspicious. After all, a guy changing to the lane I’m in isn’t really all that weird.
Except that he kept doing it.
Every single time I would change lanes, he would change lanes in front of me. After a while, I got suspicious. Not long after that, I got scared. Again, it was a long stretch of highway with very few places to turn around. I was well outside of the city by this point and while I had grown up in the area I was driving towards, I was 11 when we moved away. I had managed to stay on the same road the whole time so I couldn’t really be said to be “lost.” Just outside of the area I knew. If I could find a place to turn around, a place where I could pull out my street map and figure out how to get back to where I was going, I would be fine. But I was worried. If I just turned around, I might get even more lost. What’s worse, the guy would now be behind me and much harder to keep an eye on.
Even at this point, I wasn’t absolutely sure that he was following me. I did know that I needed a place to stop and that I didn’t want to give him the chance to pull in ahead of me. Signs of urban life started appearing again, and median in the middle widened to the point where there were shops and restaurants. And gas stations. I pulled into the left lane, looking for a good place to pull into. A gas station came up on my left. I quickly pulled in without signaling and parked right out front. I remember grabbing for my street map and getting out of my car, looking to see if he had driven on. Only to see that he pulled into the gas station on the other side.
I ran for the convenience store.
Inside, the girl behind the counter couldn’t have been much older than me. At least, that’s the way I remember her. I remember she had medium brown skin, black hair, and dark eyes, but I can’t remember exactly what she looked like. I think I startled her when I rushed up and declared “I think I’m being followed.” I don’t remember exactly what I said after that. But I do remember telling her about the guy in the truck, and looking out of the front window to indicate the gas station across the street. To see him driving slowly through the parking lot just outside, looking in at us. The two of us looked out at him, watched him turn out into the street, and then looked back at each other. In that moment, I think both of us shared the horrible understanding of just what it means to be 17 years old, female, and have a strange man following you.
I wish I could say I did something clever, like wrote down his license plate number, gave her a description of the guy and his truck, called the cops. Something. Anything. At 17 years old, my cleverness did not extend to this sort of situation. All I could say was “If you see my face on the news, please tell someone.” I wonder sometimes what happened to that girl. I wonder if I was just a weird story she told her friends later. I wonder if she took me seriously, or if she later dismissed the whole thing as my paranoia. I wonder if she watched the news, searching for my face.
I left, wanting to get back to my car before he decided to make another lap. Looking across the street, I saw that he had pulled into the other gas station again, and was just sitting there, watching. I looked around, assessing my options. The gas station had entrances to both the north bound lanes and the south bound lanes. I needed to go back north and I needed to lose this guy. I was driving a 15 year old red sports car, which made me hard to miss. But he was probably expecting me to continue south, so I had that in my favor. And there was a soda truck parked over by the entrance to the north bound lanes, which would block his view of me leaving.
I was probably not as clever as I thought I was being. But I did manage to catch a break in the traffic and slipped out into the north bound lanes within seconds of pulling out of my parking space. For the next 20 minutes, I scanned my rear view mirror, praying I had lost him. Eventually, I figured out where I’d missed my turn, and was able to get where I was going. Through the twists and turns of city traffic, I was able to reassure myself that there was no way he could have followed me. Still, I remember watching in my mirror for his truck once I was on my way home, terrified that he might still be there.
Even now, 15 years later, there is still a part of me that whispers that I misinterpreted the whole situation. That I couldn’t be absolutely sure he was following me, that I can’t say absolutely for sure that he intended to do me harm. I can’t say for certain what he would have done if I’d still been in my car when he pulled through the gas station parking lot. Maybe he would have been some nice man who would have given me directions. Maybe he was an off duty cop, and I had done something to make him suspicious of me. I can’t say for sure what I would have done if he had actually approached me. Would I have tried to blow him off? Act nice? Not make a scene? Or would I have taken a more aggressive stance and demanded to know why he was following me? Because no matter what the little voice inside whispers, no matter that he wasn’t actually behind me at any point, that is what he was doing. Following me. Tracking me. Stalking me.
It never fails when I tell this story that someone will tell me that I was just being paranoid. Or worse, that some guy will tell me of the time he followed a pretty girl on a lark because he thought it was funny. I simply do not have the words to express how completely ignorant I find that sort of behavior. Women are told over and over again what happens when a strange man follows them somewhere. All too often, they are told that allowing a strange man to follow them somewhere makes whatever happens afterward her fault. Her fault for not noticing. Her fault for not avoiding. Her fault for not getting away. Having a guy tell me that he has followed a strange woman somewhere like it’s no big deal tells me that he cannot begin to comprehend just how scary it is to be followed by someone bigger than you, someone stronger than you, someone whose intentions are unclear but have a very low probability of being positive.
Over the years, this experience has led to me being more aware of people who might be following me. I notice cars who seem to be following a bit too closely and take a different, more complicated route home. On one occasion, I made two laps through a neighborhood before the car finally turned off. While walking, I notice cars that seem to be following me. Cars that are going much too slow down the road, cars that suddenly speed up when I try to get a good look at the driver. I notice guys hanging out in front of grocery stores who are still there when I come out, guys who follow me out into the parking lot, and suddenly turn back when I make a point of trying to see their face. I notice because I am afraid of what will happen if some day I don’t. And I react, because I know that noticing is not enough.
I’ve told you this story so that I might, in some small part, help someone out there to better understand that no matter what happened between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman during that final few minutes, I will never, ever be able to see George Zimmerman as anything other than an aggressor. I may not know what it’s like to be automatically viewed as suspicious, but I do know what it’s like to be followed by a stranger. I know what it’s like to look behind you and see a potential threat. I know what it’s like to take another path, drive another way, try to lose someone who may or may not mean you harm. There are people who talk about not having all of the facts, who talk about not knowing what happened between the time Zimmerman hung up with the 911 dispatcher and the time the gun went off. These people are willfully ignoring the one fact that has never been in dispute. That before Zimmerman got out of his car, he had nothing to fear except that the kid in the hoodie might get away. It was Martin who had everything to fear. Including for his life.
Movie Review: The Hunger Games
Warning: There are some spoilers for The Hunger Games in this post.
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Wednesday, instead of writing a blog post, I finished off Hunger Games. I’ve been meaning to read it for a while, but last weekend my friend Mira loaned me her copy. And since Moose wanted to go see the movie, I thought that it would be good to finish the book before we went.
I thought that the book started off a little choppy, but was quick to hit its stride. I’m not sure that there is much that I can’t say that hasn’t already been said by people who read the book long before me. I have some issues with the construction of the world in which the book is set, especially the socio-political system that allows the Hunger Games to exist. That sort of analysis requires more time and research then I have for a morning blog post.
I did want to say that I appreciate the character of Katniss Everdeen. While there is a bit of the Mother Protector trope in her relationship with her little sister, it is well balanced with her role as the provider of the family. I have read reviews which complain about how shallow Katniss is. I have the feeling that the people who write these sorts of complaints has never really known what it is like to have to be strong. Not just physically strong. Not just emotionally strong for a little while. Not just strong for yourself. Strong for your family, for yourself, and for your life.
This weekend, Moose and I went to go see the Hunger Games movie. I thought that the book was surprisingly well adapted. It did highlight somewhat the long build up to the game itself. I felt like the book used this time to let the reader get to know the characters a little better, whereas the movie used this time to let the watcher get to know the world better. I wish it had spent a little more time on the inner workings of the characters. I know that it can be hard to translate a first person point of view to a movie, but there were quite a few of the motivations that were lacking. I liked the addition of Haymitch’s behind the scenes deals, the conversations between President Snow and Seneca, and the riots in District 11 (which I assume are discussed more in the second book).
I did find myself a little surprised by my reaction to Rue’s death. In the book, I didn’t get very attached to the character because clearly she was going to die at some point. It was only logical to not get attached to that character. In the movie, I felt a better connection to the character because Amandla Stenberg did such a good job of bringing her part to life. I was not the only one in the theater with the sniffles after that scene.
After the movie, I quizzed Moose on what he thought of certain aspects of the story, since he had never read the book. He said that he felt like something was missing from the story, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. We both agreed that if you went into the Hunger Games expecting something action packed, you were probably going to be disappointed. He did reassure me that he could tell that Katniss was just playing along with the love story. While watching the movie, I was concerned that it was not quite clear.
Over all, I think that I am a new fan of the Hunger Games. It is refreshing to see a strong female character that is not motivated simply by love for a man, or a baby. While there can be some argument to be made that Primrose holds a surrogate child role in this setting, it is quite clear that she is viewed as the little sister and not the child.
As a final note, I had read several reviews that complained about the lack of diversity in the Hunger Games. Specifically the statement I read was that black people only came from District 11. So I was on the lookout for racial makeup of each of the districts as they were shown. And while District 12 was primarily white, and District 11 was primarily black, neither were completely one or the other. The capital of itself was also quite diverse, though it was hard to tell in the crowd shots due to all of the brightly colored hair and makeup. I think it would be interesting to see a breakdown of the extras used in these three areas, but I’m probably weird that way.
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Some unimportant notes: The first half of this post was written on Thursday off last week and edited this morning to reflect the delay. Moose and I are still trying to get our workouts synced together so that we both get the amount of time we need. It is interesting to discover that I get quite a lot of writing done in the last 15 minutes of my 45 minute workout.
The Rules of the Con
A few months ago, I had a very nasty cold. The cough medications provided by my doctor, and our life difficulties during that time combined forces to make me very loopy and a bit off the wall. So when I sat down to Facebook one afternoon and saw that we still hadn’t written the rules for the con, this is mostly what came out. The rest of the convention staff helped to polish the rules and gave some great suggestions for things to add.
I am still not entirely happy with the way the harassment policy is worded, but I think it got the message across.
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Badges must be displayed at all times while in the convention space. Badges much be clearly visible and in a location where security may easily identify it as one issued by this convention. Please refrain from adding your badge to your badge collection until after the con. Security reserves the right to request that you relocate your badge to a more visible location. After three requests, security reserves the right to request that you relocate your badge to their custody and remove yourself from the convention space.
Convention attendees are requested to engage in regular grooming habits to maintain their personal hygiene and limit body odors. This includes bathing or showering at least once per day and changing into clean clothes afterwards. If you need assistance in obtaining a space in which to properly clean your body, please feel free to ask your friends if you can borrow their shower. Clean clothing is available for purchase in the dealers room. Febreeze is not considered an acceptable substitute for showering. Neither is Axe.
Cosplayers are reminded that this is a family friendly convention, and care should be taken to ensure that costuming is appropriate to that environment. Security reserves the right to request that you made additions to your costume in order to provide appropriate coverage. Security reserves the right to fashion additional coverage for you from paper towels and duct tape for repeated violations of this rule.
Convention staff reserves the right to request that attendees limit public displays of affection to socially acceptable levels. Anything past “first base” should be taken somewhere more private. The elevator is not more private. Neither are the stairwells, parking lot, public restrooms, empty panel rooms, or the back of a stranger’s truck. Whether or not your room is considered more private is entirely up to your roommates.
This is an alcohol free convention. Please limit consumption of alcohol to non-convention spaces. Any incidents of underage drinking that are brought to the attention of convention staff will be reported to the appropriate authorities. The convention staff also requests that other beverages be confined as much as possible to containers which can be closed and sealed when not in use. A container which can be closed and sealed is defined as one which can be briefly turned upside down when closed and won’t spill. Please do not test your container over any location which cannot be easily cleaned.
All weapons, including concealed firearms, must be approved by security. Persons in possession of a concealed firearms are politely requested to bring proof of registration to the security lead or a designated representative. Any non-concealed weapons must be either clearly fake, or secured. All bladed edges and pointed tips must be covered and the covering secured with ties. If the covering or fastening is not approved by security, covering and fastening will be provided in the form of duct tape and zip ties. Security is not responsible for any damage to improperly secured weapons caused by duct tape and zip ties. Security reserves the right to provide more complex coverings and fastenings for additional violations of this rule.
Certain areas are limited to adults over the age of 18. Persons under the age of 18 may only enter these areas while in the company of a parent or guardian. Security reserves the right to request ID or other verification that the accompanying adult is, in fact, a parent or guardian. Attendees wearing badges marked as “Field Trip” are barred from Rocky Horror and the 18+ area of art show without exception. Proof of parent/guardianship includes, but is not limited to: IDs with identical last names, embarrassing pictures you were saving for their first date, funny stories of wrong answers they gave on their test last week, and stretch marks.
Harassment of any kind will not be tolerated. This includes stalking, bullying, and sexual harassment. If you feel that someone at this convention, whether an attendee, a guest, or a member of the staff has acted inappropriately, please do not hesitate to contact someone on the convention staff. If the incident is beyond the authority of the convention staff, then they will help you to contact the appropriate authorities on the matter.
The convention and security staff reserve the right to request that you cease any behavior deemed to be inappropriate, overly disruptive, or otherwise disturbing to the enjoyment of other convention attendees. Repeated requests may result in revocation of badge and removal from the convention.
Last Con Standing
Moose and I are trying a new workout routine this week. Instead of me getting up early every other day while he sleeps in, we are both getting up just a little later in the morning every week day. We hope that this will motivate Moose to get out to the gym while I will be working out. It means that my workout will be a little shorter each morning, but I will be adding two more workouts a week. I’ve had a few months to get used to the speech to text system, and I am hoping that the be slightly shorter workout won’t affect the length of my blog posts too much.
This past weekend was the big local convention that I help out with. We had a slight miscommunication as to when the dealers needed help to move in, so on Thursday it was just me helping move boxes for a few hours. It was definitely more of a workout than I normally get on the elliptical. Of course, for the rest of the convention, I was walking around the dealers room every hour or so. I like to do this in addition to our security because then I can spend a little time talking to each of the dealers and catch any problems before they become major issues. It also helps me to get a read on the flow of the room so that I can adjust which dealers are where the next year. There was a tendency for certain tables to get missed along the corners, and I think I might need to make sure that the dealers in those spaces are large enough to catch the eye once it gets past that corner.
But the real advantage of these hourly trips is that I spend time getting to know the dealers and guests. At my other conventions I get to spend a little time with each attendee as they pass by the front of the table. Here, I get to spend a little time each hour getting to know the people behind the table. Even when I complain about certain types of behavior from the vendors, I still enjoy getting to know them. And of course when you have guests as fun as we did, it is always a pleasure to stop by their tables and see what sort of zany conversation is going on.
Over all, it seems that pretty much everyone who came to the convention had a good time. I complained a lot about how much my feet hurt at the end of the day, but I still got to go to see a few panels being put on by other people, and even got to play for a bit in a LARP being run by a friend. I felt sad when I got tired at around 11 and decided to go home to sleep, but I figured with all of the exercise I was getting and the fact that I am still having a little trouble sleeping, it was the adult choice to make. Sometimes being an adult kind of sucks.
On my last trip through the dealers room, I spent time getting some good ideas from the dealers for ways to make next year so much better. That’s always the goal for a convention. To have a good time this year, and work to make next year better. If only half of these ideas work out for us, I think we will be well on our way to having a really spectacular convention next year.
Today I am back to my real life. But if I want to help make these plans happen, then convention planning will probably start back up again tomorrow.
Walking While Suspicious
On Thursday and Friday morning last week, instead of getting up for my workout, I went for my long walk down to escort. After escorting on Friday, I walked over to the store to pick up some supplies for a project I had been working on. It was a very long walk, much longer than I am used to. The walk home was even harder for me since I was burdened with the bag with my shopping.
On the long walk, I had lots of time to think about what it’s like for people whom these long walks are a way of life. I passed quite a few of them, since my neighborhood is a patchwork of lower and middle income housing. You can see the evidence of their long walks sometimes, abandoned by the side of the road. The grocery cart will usually stay there for a few weeks, empty now of the pile of groceries intended to get the purchaser through the next few weeks. A mute testimony to a person who didn’t want to make the long walk any more often than they had to.
I pass a lot of people walking as I drive in my neighborhood. It’s something I’ve been noticing a lot more in the past few days. I used to get frustrated by the people walking in the street, but now I realize that our neighborhood is sloppily stitched with sidewalks. The people in the street aren’t obstacles in the way of my driving. They are people trying to get to work, people trying to get to school, people trying to get something to eat. People who might just be going to get a bag of Skittles and some iced tea from the gas station.
I will never know what it is like to be automatically viewed as suspicious. On those mornings when I wear a hoodie on my walk, I am still too obviously female and my hands are very obviously white. Even the women I pass will still make eye contact and we will trade the wary tight smiles that you give to a stranger. I do not smile at the men. The men not are automatically suspicious, but they exist in that somewhat neutral space where most women I know put a strange man on the street. The one that weighs his size and age and considers whether or not you could escape in case of trouble.
I imagine that when George Zimmerman got out of his car, Trayvon Martin made a similar judgement. He saw a man who had been following him in his car. He saw that Zimmerman was 10 years older, and 100 pounds heavier. And I cannot help but think that young Martin saw the look in Zimmerman’s eyes. The look that says “You are suspicious. You do not belong here. You are out of place here.” It is a look that is unmistakably hostile. And it breaks my heart that it was probably not the first time that Martin had seen that look in someone’s eyes.
Martins was a young man just walking down the street. A young man who wasn’t able to or didn’t want to take a car on a simple trip to the gas station. Zimmerman was a man in a large vehicle with the advantage of age and weight. And he had a gun. In all ways, Zimmerman was the person in control. He chose to get out of his car. He chose to ignore the instructions of the police dispatcher. He chose to bring that gun out there with him.
There is some discussion that Zimmerman might not be found guilty because of Florida’s Stand Your Ground self defense law. But even if it is eventually declared that Zimmerman didn’t break the law, what he did it is still a crime.
