I am grumpy.
It’s partly my own fault, and partly not (at least, I think it isn’t). The part that I think is not my fault has to do with the refusal of my blogging software to upload pictures, despite several hours of trying different formats with the supposedly-easy-built-in-uploader. The software finds the right file, crunches it, produces all the right information…except there’s NO PICTURE. I’m bummed.
I am bummed because I had an entire book group show up for my talk/autographing at Excelsior Bay Books this weekend, and they took pictures, and I wanted to put them up. Also, I want to post pictures of my closets one of these days.
Yes, my closets. See, the sister who lives here in town is an artist who made her living painting theater scenery for a while, and she has been painting the insides of my closets to be … well, to be well-known children’s books. The front hall closet is Oz; the guest bedroom is Alice in Wonderland; the master bedroom is the interior of the wardrobe from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (complete with a lamppost that glows in the dark).
So I want to post some pics of the closets, and I think I’m going to have to call tech support to do it. I have this mental block about calling tech support; I don’t like doing it until I have tried every last thing I can think of first. And I have, and I’m going to call them, and that makes me grumpy.
The other part, the part that is my fault, is … kind of embarrassing. I was frying some eggs for lunch, scooped them out of the pan, dumped the plastic scooper-thing back into the pan, and left to go eat. Without turning the burner off. At 4 p.m., I finally went to see what was smelling funny in the kitchen…
The worst of this is, this is at least the fourth time I’ve done this in my adult lifetime. At least this time, I didn’t actually melt the pan, just the plastic utensil-thing. (The aluminum pot and both teakettles ended up with their bottoms melted out. My friends then bought me an electric teakettle that shuts itself off once it’s started to boil, which has prevented subsequent tea-related disasters. Doesn’t do anything for frying, though.) The pan is nonetheless ruined, and the plastic thingie isn’t even a lump — it looks sort of like cheese that’s been melted in the microwave until it spreads out flat all over the plate. I am going to be hearing about this from people for MONTHS.
At least it gives me a good excuse to eat out tonight while the house fumigates itself. (Or should that be de-fumigates?)
You could always tell people the blob of melted plastic is your contribution to modern art. 🙂 The closets sound really cool. I have a friend who paints scenery on her walls. I am amazed by her talent. I can draw, but painting is beyond me.
WordPress’ UI for uploading pictures is not exactly intuitive. On my old blog, it took me something like ten tries the first time to get a picture to post. It turned out that I wasn’t clicking the “Insert Into Post” button on the uploader dialog. I’ve worked in the software biz for a couple of decades, and I totally blame their UI for not having the button in a reasonably convenient place! 🙂
I don’t even use it.
I upload my pictures to where I want them to be, organized how I want them, and then I link to them in my blog entries.
Those sound like some pretty awesome closets! When my little brother was small, mom and I painted his room to look like it came from Robin Hood. There was a boy shooting an arrow at a dragon (which I think I copied from the back of one of your books), a castle, a treasure hoard, and three monkish figures. Now the parental units have sold the house, so the mural is no more
Sorry to hear about your photo issues — but the closets sound fabulous! What a fun idea!
Dana and Michelle – The problem turned out to be that the software was uploading pictures to one directory, then looking for them in a different directory. The manual fix is easy enough (go into the html and change the directory name) that I may never get around to figuring out how to make the software do what it’s supposed to.
accio_aqualung and odette – They are indeed awesome closets! I probably won’t have time to post pics for a few weeks, what with the holidays and all, but soon…
According to this entry [http://community.livejournal.com/denvention3/133323.html], you are on the list of folks who have a check from Denvention 3 that needs cashing before the account goes away. Maybe it’d replace the utensil & pan.
Filkferengi – Thank you; I’m not on LJ and don’t normally read much of it, so I only get notified of stuff like this if someone mentions it to me. I’ll have to see about that.
I see you’re using an older version of WordPress. You could try upgrading to the latest version. That may help.
You should be able to upgrade automatically by going to your WordPress’ admin and selecting Tools → Upgrade from the menu.
PS: You may have already done this if you found out where the files go, but you can also check the settings in Settings → Miscellaneous to make sure they’re correct.
mdawaffe – Looks as if you’re right – it’s the settings. I KNEW it would be something simple…once I found it. Thank you!
Your spatula experience made me laugh (although I understand why it made you grumpy). I have done the same thing not once, but twice. I have also shattered a glass plate by putting it on a hot burner and burnt the entire handle off a big kitchen knife. The last incident spewed small bits of polymeric ash all over my apartment coating all my furniture with fine waterproof dust that smeared when I tried to remove it. awesome. It is funny now in retrospect.
Don’t think of it that way, just think this: You must be very talented to be able to have done that four times already! 🙂