JackTales

Not that much going on lately that I’ve felt the need to post. I’m kind of that way. I’m not motivated to comment on the news, tech issues, whatever.

So here’s what’s been going on. In late November, I uploaded my entire Bettie Page collection to Flickr. That’s 6,000+ photos and artwork.

Now Flickr has two ways to upload pics. You can batch upload using the website, or there’s a Windows app that allows batch uploading.

Each has flaws. If you upload using the website, everything is available to everyone the moment you upload it, before you’ve had a chance to set title, description, category, tags…or worse yet, safety level. Safety level is a means of self-moderation. You can flag photos safe, moderate, or restricted. So, say, a nude can be flagged as unacceptable if it’s set as safe instead of moderate or restricted, and another member complains about it.

Simply put: Using the web uploader, you can get dinged for a photo before you’ve even had a chance to take control of it.

The Windows based uploader allows you to control the safety level of pics before you upload them, but it can’t handle a large amount of pics at a single upload, it balks at certain file types and resolutions, and has been known just to choke off and die, leaving you with no idea of what you finished uploading, and what didn’t make it, giving you the possibility of uploading duplicates or just abandoning the upload as a whole.

Simply put: The Window app sucks.

I uploaded Bettie pics using the web uploader and got dinged before I could go in and set the safety levels, and had my whole account restricted. I had to do a lot of begging, and deleted my entire 6,000+ photos before I could have my account restored.

As a new feature, they’ve found a way to temporarily set your account default safety levels until you’ve completed an upload, then you can set individual photo safety levels, and unrestrict your entire account.

In the meantime, I’ve slowly slugged my way through about all my Bettie collection, reclassifying her, with the exception of about 200 photos I’m just too burnt out to finish classifying at this time. I’ll try the massive upload another month.

Oh, back to the safety levels on Flickr. The staff went through and manually changed some individual levels on some photos non-Bettie they thought were a little too risque. You know who you are, and you’re very popular. Ahem.

On another topic, I go to get my thyroid checked out Monday. There’s probably nothing wrong, I’m just getting older maybe, but I’ve been having a lot of symptoms common to hypothyroidism. And weird dizzy spells too.

My car broke down last month. $2500 in repairs. More than the car is worth, but I love my Caddy. Still a few bugs, but she’s running nice again. Got her throaty purr back.

Lessee…got a company coming up to jack up the house, as it’s settled 3 inches over thirty years. Then again, we don’t know how much settling may have occurred during the Nisqually earthquake, so we’re shoring up the house.

Also have a landscaping company coming out to completely trash out our yard. Die blackberries, die, die, die. I’m going to have the damn yard Astroturfed. Or bricked under. Blackberries themselves are yummy, but only for a few months each year. The rest of the year you’re plagued by the nastiest-looking creeping vines, with thorns capable of piercing shark gloves.

The only manual way to deal with them, short of dragging the damn things out with heavy machinery like we’re going to do, is to get a herd of goats to mow the stuff down. Seriously. A herd of goats. Really good business to get into around here. So much so, that there’s a shortage of goat herds. Leaving only the heavy equipment. That’s okay, I’ll get a great deal of satisfaction watching the stuff get chewed up and swallowed by some machine. In the meantime, I’d still be suspicious of some guy living in Ohio with nervous-looking goats. Ohio, where men are men, and the women are goats. Go Purdue.

Hmm…time for more medications. My train of thought is starting to derail. Nervous goats, risque photos and throaty purrs. And Ohio.

Let me preference this that for 6 years I ran a mental health support website called ‘Broken Wings & Fallen Angels,’ which covered dozens of disorders, one of which was OCD. Now, I don’t have OCD, er, I think. I’m Dutch, which is sort of the same thing.

That being said, when I came across this video, I laughed my ass off. This is an excellent example of one side of OCD; obsession with cleanliness (which is why being Dutch is darn near OCD). At least she isn’t scrubbing her door stoop.

Work’s been pretty rough lately. I’ve been very frustrated and depressed. I’ve got doc appointments next week, so I hope that’ll help. In the meantime, I’ve been listening to some pretty, longing songs. I stumbled across this band and have really enjoyed them.

The Way I’ve Felt: Lucid Chrysalis