Too early?

The election is over. Campaign commercials have been replaced by Christmas ads. Apparently, though, my mind has not yet made the transition. While sweating it out on the recumbent bike at my gym this weekend, I was struck with what I think is a brilliant idea. An idea that would change the course of politics. An idea, I think, whose time has come. And you, lucky readers, are the first to hear about it.

What if each party had to run the campaign for the opposing candidate? Imagine what a different election season it would be if Candidate X was responsible for spending Candidate Y's campaign dollars. If Candidate Y had to write Candidate X's campaign commercials. There would be a rule against running a negative or slanderous campaign, so anything that was said about the candidates would be truthful and realistic. Campaign donations would be spent conservatively, if at all. Commercials would speak to the simplest positive aspects of each candidate:

"Candidate X had never had an overdue library book."

"Candidate Y never cheated on his spouse."

"Candidate Z's plan for balancing the budget might actually work, even if her ideas on health care are a little out there."

People could make real informed decisions about who to vote for, based on actual facts. Of course, we'd also have to get the media, political advocacy groups and the various political parties on board . . . but we've got four years to figure out the details.

Is it over yet?

Have you ever had a project that should have been simple, but just wasn't? I just finished two (frantically trying to find some wood to knock on).

My recent poster/postcard/web graphic project--and another project I was simultaneously working on for the same client--were both plagued by miscommunication and technical difficulties. For example:

• The client provided the majority of the copy for the pieces--but changed it three times throughout the course of the project.
• I wanted to create the files using Adobe PhotoShop and InDesign, which I don't have--meaning I had to rely on friends and other clients who do have the software, which was a logistical nightmare. Especially in light of the fact that I had to make multiple rounds of changes.
  
• The client communicated to me, in writing, that several logos were supposed to be on one piece but not on the other--and when I delivered a proof according to those specs I was told the logos should be on both.
• I delivered the final versions, in PDF (per specifications), on a CD--she wanted to email them to her printer, but couldn't open them so she had to take the CD to her printer (fortunately, her printer was able to open the files).
• The other project required very minor pricing and text edits to an existing brochure (which, incidentally, I did for her last year). When she reviewed the file, she realized she'd forgotten to tell me to update one section, and she also saw that I had missed some subtle wording changes.
• I revised the brochure and emailed her the file as a PDF, but when she tried to open it she got a message that said it was damaged. I opened it from two different computers, and it opened fine. I burned it to a CD for her, and when she opened it she noticed that the font of one text box had changed. I removed it and emailed it to her (it opened fine this time).
  
• She asked me to email her the invoices for both projects--when I did (they're Word docs), she said my contact info was cut off and that she couldn't move the text herself. When I opened the docs, they looked fine to me. I PDF'd them and sent them to her that way--she couldn't open the PDFs. I ended up having to fax her the invoices.

It got to the point where I grimaced every time I saw there was an email from her in my inbox. I think the freelance gods had it out for me for some reason--hopefully they've been appeased and will leave me alone for awhile.

I guess I'm gonna stay "it"

I received this comment from Embee in yesterday's post:

You've been tagged! Check out this blog to find out what that means:
http://musingsofawould-bewriter.blogspot.com/

Have fun ... and don't forget to let me know when you've completed your 8!

Curious, I followed the link and read her explanation and the "rules" of the game. It seems to me to be the blog equivalent of chain letters and chain emails, but I decided to comply . . . to a certain extent. Because it saves me from having to come up with a topic for today's post (I promise, I'll think of something good for Monday), I'm going to list my eight "facts" . . . but I'm going to break the rules by not specifically tagging others. The instructions for participating can be found at the bottom of this post--if you want to participate, by all means consider yourself tagged!

Eight Facts About Me

1. One of my hobbies is making jewelry.
2. My ideal fast food meal would consist of a Wendy's cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato and mustard, McDonald's fries and a Jamocha shake from Arby's.
3. My best friends and I spoke a "secret" language all through junior high and high school.
4. I have almost 50 pairs of shoes.
   
5. My favorite movie of all time is Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
6. My husband calls me "The Badger" because I'm small and cute, but can be mean as hell when provoked.
7. I could spend hours in The Container Store.
8. I don't forward chain emails, even when they promise special animations or money from Bill Gates, or threaten years of bad luck if I don't send them to a specific number of friends--which is why I'm breaking the rules in this game of tag, too (sorry Embee)!
   

The tag rules are as follows:

• Each player starts with eight random fact/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog post, you need to tag eight people and list their names.
  
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’ve been tagged and to read your blog.

Thursday funny

I'm a little too mentally exhausted to think of something to write about, so here's a cop-out cartoon:

Modest success

As you no doubt understand if you read my blog with any regularity, I'm not a math person. So it was with much grimacing and some under-the-breath cursing that I decided to put aside my fear and loathing of math and crunch me some numbers.

I started my freelance business in June of 2007. I knew there would be no way to immediately match what I had been earning at my cubefarm job, so I determined what I spend in a typical month (utilities, groceries, car payment, mortgage, etc.) and made it my goal to at least make that make that much every month. I was . . . intermittently successful at meeting that goal. Fortunately, my husband picked up most of the slack, so with a little curtailing of "unnecessary" spending we were able to keep our house and cars, eat on a regular basis, etc.

I retained last year's goal for this year, and added a goal of making more per month than I did last year. To determine if I am meeting that goal, I compared my earnings in two ways:

1. In a straight comparison of the last six months of 2007 to the first six months of 2008, I made 8.4 percent more this year than last.
2. For an "apples to apples" comparison, I looked at what I earned from June through October 2007 versus what I earned June through October 2008. For that period of time, I made 13.5 percent more this year than last.

Not drastic increases, but it makes me feel better to know that I'm doing better this year than last. And the last two months have been the best yet, so I am hopeful that my end-of-year calculations will show even better increases.