I'm going to sound like an anti-progress curmudgeon with this statement but I hate animated gifs. Hate them! Nothing will get me to leave a webpage faster than an animated gif. I see that movement and I'm already clicking on another link to get away.
This shouldn't really be a problem for me but I'm seeing them more and more frequently. A drawing blog I follow has had two or three posts including animated gifs recently. A couple bloggers I follow have used them. It's a good think I don't follow any of the cute cat websites anymore because they seem to be the number one producers of them. It hasn't happened yet but I could see myself narrowing down my blog list if I find the author uses them frequently. I hate them that much.
You would think I'd be okay with them (not love but at least be okay) because I'm such an animation fan. Okay I'm really more of an animation junkie. I can't stay away from the stuff. Given my choice of movie it's always animated. But there is something about the repetitive movement that turns me off. The ads that use them will never ever ever receive a single click from me. And the artists who create animated gifs, even if they do amazing work outside of that, will never end up profiled on this blog. I know it sounds grouchy of me. But the next time you see one, just watch it for a couple minutes. Tell me if you feel nauseated. Tell me how fast you click off the site.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Yet Another Rant
I'm up on my soapbox again. Just consider yourself warned.
I came home from work last night to find that all the beautiful old trees along my street have been ripped out. Huge, mature trees have been pulled up by their roots and scattered along the roadside waiting for the wood chipper. I am disgusted. And why did they do such a terrible thing? Simple, they need to widen the street. Apparently two lanes is not enough and well...as you know, progress must take precedence. I was awful to see all the dead trees and I was a bit angry. Then I saw the creek. They are also pulling out trees along the creek that don't even come near the road. And now I'm pissed.
We chose this house because of it's proximity to the creek and the wooded area that borders the townhouse compound. I love that I get deer in my yard some evenings, either foraging or simply laying down. I can sit out in my front yard and watch tons of birds and the occasional animal. To see them tear out some of these beautiful trees just makes me ill. Add this to the fact that I had to spend some time on the DNR's website yesterday and happened to find their wildlife report. I thought that would be interesting reading. I could read about the reintroduction of peregrine falcons or how we are starting to see more mountain lions returning to the region. But a good chunk of the document instead covered deer. More specifically how well the herd management program was going.
And that, combined with the trees, just made me furious. Why are we the only species that doesn't watch it's population size? Our population has almost tripled in the last sixty years. From 2.5 billion in 1950 to an expected 7 billion shortly after 2010. We plow and pave gigantic sections of the world making them only habitable for humans. We call rabbits and deer pests when they eat the flowers we plant or when they step in front of our cars. And we can't understand why they would do that. Perhaps those roads cut off access for them to food sources. Perhaps the flowers we plant are regular food staples for them. I'm scared to see how many deer will die on the newly expanded road in front of my house. And that will only bring more legislation on herd management. We won't seem to see our involvement. We drive out creatures who are only looking to survive so that we can expand.
I'm not having children for a number of reasons. Some are selfish, some are not. But one of the reasons is that I feel that we humans have grabbed a little two much of the planet for ourselves. We push animals into small stretches of land and then get angry when they step back into the ever larger chunks that we steal for ourselves. I see other creatures constantly forced to make do with our scraps while we build ever larger freeways and push our cities out into the farmland. I hear of nature preserves losing funding and that extra money going toward bringing in new construction to destroy even more land. And sadly it seems never ending. According to a forecast done by the US Census Bureau, the world population will reach 8.5 billion during my lifetime. And I wonder what will be left of the planet to support them. And with 8.5 billion, will there be enough room for the other species.
One of the comics I read daily is Non Sequitur. Wiley Miller does some incredibly funny stuff but he can also be incredible poignant. He did this comic almost a year ago and I had to save it. It fits so perfectly with some of my thoughts. (for a larger size go here, I know it is hard to read)
I came home from work last night to find that all the beautiful old trees along my street have been ripped out. Huge, mature trees have been pulled up by their roots and scattered along the roadside waiting for the wood chipper. I am disgusted. And why did they do such a terrible thing? Simple, they need to widen the street. Apparently two lanes is not enough and well...as you know, progress must take precedence. I was awful to see all the dead trees and I was a bit angry. Then I saw the creek. They are also pulling out trees along the creek that don't even come near the road. And now I'm pissed.
We chose this house because of it's proximity to the creek and the wooded area that borders the townhouse compound. I love that I get deer in my yard some evenings, either foraging or simply laying down. I can sit out in my front yard and watch tons of birds and the occasional animal. To see them tear out some of these beautiful trees just makes me ill. Add this to the fact that I had to spend some time on the DNR's website yesterday and happened to find their wildlife report. I thought that would be interesting reading. I could read about the reintroduction of peregrine falcons or how we are starting to see more mountain lions returning to the region. But a good chunk of the document instead covered deer. More specifically how well the herd management program was going.
And that, combined with the trees, just made me furious. Why are we the only species that doesn't watch it's population size? Our population has almost tripled in the last sixty years. From 2.5 billion in 1950 to an expected 7 billion shortly after 2010. We plow and pave gigantic sections of the world making them only habitable for humans. We call rabbits and deer pests when they eat the flowers we plant or when they step in front of our cars. And we can't understand why they would do that. Perhaps those roads cut off access for them to food sources. Perhaps the flowers we plant are regular food staples for them. I'm scared to see how many deer will die on the newly expanded road in front of my house. And that will only bring more legislation on herd management. We won't seem to see our involvement. We drive out creatures who are only looking to survive so that we can expand.
I'm not having children for a number of reasons. Some are selfish, some are not. But one of the reasons is that I feel that we humans have grabbed a little two much of the planet for ourselves. We push animals into small stretches of land and then get angry when they step back into the ever larger chunks that we steal for ourselves. I see other creatures constantly forced to make do with our scraps while we build ever larger freeways and push our cities out into the farmland. I hear of nature preserves losing funding and that extra money going toward bringing in new construction to destroy even more land. And sadly it seems never ending. According to a forecast done by the US Census Bureau, the world population will reach 8.5 billion during my lifetime. And I wonder what will be left of the planet to support them. And with 8.5 billion, will there be enough room for the other species.
One of the comics I read daily is Non Sequitur. Wiley Miller does some incredibly funny stuff but he can also be incredible poignant. He did this comic almost a year ago and I had to save it. It fits so perfectly with some of my thoughts. (for a larger size go here, I know it is hard to read)
Friday, April 10, 2009
6 Parts Gin to 1 Part Vermouth
Okay, soapbox time. It's time to trot out a little pet peeve of mine. I went out for drinks with friends on Tuesday. We went to one of those kind of places with pages upon pages of drink menu. For the record I had New Belgium's 1554, an amazingly hoppy beer that makes me incredibly happy. Seriously I should buy stock in the company. Or at least a lovely gift for my little sister for introducing me to it.
So one whole page of the menu was dedicated to martinis. Except that there was only one actual martini on the menu. And here is where my rant starts. A martini, for those who don't know, is made up of gin and vermouth. I will even allow for a vodka martini but that's really stretching it. Now I drink my martinis dirty, with a little olive juice and an extra olive or two. But the basic elements of the drink are still there, gin and vermouth. Here was one of the martinis listed on the menu: Stoli Vanilla, Starbuck's coffee liqueur, a splash of coffee, with a lemon twist and a sugared rim. Okay so we have the vodka. Beyond that no gin or vermouth. Soooo.....NOT a martini.
Seriously people, just because you create this concoction and put it in a martini glass does not mean you should call it a martini. And yes I understand that you can charge more for a drink by calling it a better name and putting it in a pretty glass, but really.... From now on I'm going to start creating my own wine drink. Mix up a bit of bourbon, flavored vodka, and some seven-up, put it in a wine glass and call it good. I could even sugar the rim for the fruitier concoctions. By the restaurants standards as long as I serve it in a wine glass, I can call it wine right?
I have no idea why this bothers me. I go out to restaurants and bars and flip through the menu and always cringe when I hit the martini menu. Jeff gets that scared look in his eye because he knows the rant that is coming. He's heard it a hundred times if not more. Other who haven't been with me for one of these rants listen politely and roll their eyes. But grrr. Call them specialty drinks, call them libations, call them "this will f*%$ you up" drinks, but please please don't call them martinis. Unless they have gin and vermouth. And maybe a blue cheese stuffed olive. Mmmmm
So one whole page of the menu was dedicated to martinis. Except that there was only one actual martini on the menu. And here is where my rant starts. A martini, for those who don't know, is made up of gin and vermouth. I will even allow for a vodka martini but that's really stretching it. Now I drink my martinis dirty, with a little olive juice and an extra olive or two. But the basic elements of the drink are still there, gin and vermouth. Here was one of the martinis listed on the menu: Stoli Vanilla, Starbuck's coffee liqueur, a splash of coffee, with a lemon twist and a sugared rim. Okay so we have the vodka. Beyond that no gin or vermouth. Soooo.....NOT a martini.
Seriously people, just because you create this concoction and put it in a martini glass does not mean you should call it a martini. And yes I understand that you can charge more for a drink by calling it a better name and putting it in a pretty glass, but really.... From now on I'm going to start creating my own wine drink. Mix up a bit of bourbon, flavored vodka, and some seven-up, put it in a wine glass and call it good. I could even sugar the rim for the fruitier concoctions. By the restaurants standards as long as I serve it in a wine glass, I can call it wine right?
I have no idea why this bothers me. I go out to restaurants and bars and flip through the menu and always cringe when I hit the martini menu. Jeff gets that scared look in his eye because he knows the rant that is coming. He's heard it a hundred times if not more. Other who haven't been with me for one of these rants listen politely and roll their eyes. But grrr. Call them specialty drinks, call them libations, call them "this will f*%$ you up" drinks, but please please don't call them martinis. Unless they have gin and vermouth. And maybe a blue cheese stuffed olive. Mmmmm
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