Hit and Miss
Dec. 5th, 2003 12:14 pmSo... Most of the week has been kind of down I guess. I've been sort of depressive and angsty. Anyhow, yesterday I got Stacey to come visit me for a very very late lunch. We went and wandered around Palo Alto a little. Poked in a bead store and they had a sort of 'drawing sale'. You pull a random card and that's the discount you get on whatever you purchase that day. So... I drew their maximum discount 40%.
So, okay, it's a gimmick and that store is way overpriced but they do have a lot of the sort of beads I like. Rough-cut semi-precious stones. Their tools on the other hand are actually reasonably priced. So I got myself a strand of labradorite stones and a carbide-tipped auger and some little files. Even at 40% off, the labradorite was 2 to 3 times ebay prices. On the other hand, ebay has shipping costs and you can't be certain of the quality/clarity of the stones . So the 16" strand cost me $10 and I'm happy with that. I got some antiqued silver beads to go with it and I'm going to have Stacey pick out a moonstone pendant for a center piece and build it all into a necklace. I think it will look pretty sharp when its done.
After that, we went to school. For a change, my instructor didn't totally hate my work. I guess ostriches are a cartoony-enough animal for him. Or maybe he was surprised that in one evening I could build an ostrich, rig it (with no prior experience) and animate it. Anyhow. not so bad. Last night was one of the best classe sof the quarter I think. He was just discussing stuff with us and talking about the actual animation instead of standing in the front poking at things weirdly.
After school I told Stacey I wanted to unwind and go watch a movie. So we went to see The Haunted Mansion It was fun and I was really enjoying it right up until the climax scene, when I was really into the movie and suddenly... The fire alarm went off and they made everyone exit the movie theatre and stand outside in the cold for a half hour. With the spindown time of the project and the spin-up time of the projector we missed like THE 10 seconds of the movie, and while I could piece it together, the mood was totally utterly shattered. I asked before they started the movie up again if they would rewind like 2 or 3 minutes of it so the audience would miss it and they said 'no'. so I whinged and got two free movie passes out of it. Still kind of sucked. I got all wound up again. Ohwell. I guess I can look at it as just like the beads, I got something massively over-priced at around half-priced making it acceptably overpriced. :)
In retrospect, all in all it wasn't a bad day.
So, okay, it's a gimmick and that store is way overpriced but they do have a lot of the sort of beads I like. Rough-cut semi-precious stones. Their tools on the other hand are actually reasonably priced. So I got myself a strand of labradorite stones and a carbide-tipped auger and some little files. Even at 40% off, the labradorite was 2 to 3 times ebay prices. On the other hand, ebay has shipping costs and you can't be certain of the quality/clarity of the stones . So the 16" strand cost me $10 and I'm happy with that. I got some antiqued silver beads to go with it and I'm going to have Stacey pick out a moonstone pendant for a center piece and build it all into a necklace. I think it will look pretty sharp when its done.
After that, we went to school. For a change, my instructor didn't totally hate my work. I guess ostriches are a cartoony-enough animal for him. Or maybe he was surprised that in one evening I could build an ostrich, rig it (with no prior experience) and animate it. Anyhow. not so bad. Last night was one of the best classe sof the quarter I think. He was just discussing stuff with us and talking about the actual animation instead of standing in the front poking at things weirdly.
After school I told Stacey I wanted to unwind and go watch a movie. So we went to see The Haunted Mansion It was fun and I was really enjoying it right up until the climax scene, when I was really into the movie and suddenly... The fire alarm went off and they made everyone exit the movie theatre and stand outside in the cold for a half hour. With the spindown time of the project and the spin-up time of the projector we missed like THE 10 seconds of the movie, and while I could piece it together, the mood was totally utterly shattered. I asked before they started the movie up again if they would rewind like 2 or 3 minutes of it so the audience would miss it and they said 'no'. so I whinged and got two free movie passes out of it. Still kind of sucked. I got all wound up again. Ohwell. I guess I can look at it as just like the beads, I got something massively over-priced at around half-priced making it acceptably overpriced. :)
In retrospect, all in all it wasn't a bad day.