Can't be happy about losing on Senior Night
I wish I could feel better about it, but my team is worrying me. They have had the absolutely shittiest week ever. I feel absolutely terrible for the seniors, but they know that the responsibility lies with them. I didn't even get my quintessential Evtimov game - three or four heart-stopping three-point shots and lots of standing up and screaming. We looked like we didn't know or care what we were doing. Boston College had our number all night long. I don't think we scored the last eight minutes of regulation. The overtime sessions were better - we scored 5, but they scored 7. And then it was over.
The past few home games, I have been counting Engin's shots in warmups. He's been shooting lights out then, easy-peasy, but during the game he's not taking shots until the very last moments of possessions in the very last moments of games. He's being too unselfish.
I can't believe I am saying this about my favorite player, but I digress. I'm worrying that our coach isn't a game coach. I'm feeling like we have no chance to go deep in the NCAA tournament. But I still believe in them. I know they have it in them to play better. They just have to dig deep and find themselves again. Maybe a week off will help. They have no choice now but to try to win the whole darned ACC Tournament and shut everybody up. Man, I wish that would happen. I really, really do. I won't consider Tony, Cam and Ilian failures if that doesn't happen. But it sure would be nice to see.
[nc state wolfpack]
Usability Hell: A TechComm Primer for Yahoo! Search Marketing
Yesterday I signed up for a Yahoo! Search Marketing account. I neglected to write down the user name and password I chose. It was never e-mailed to me. I received a welcome message that listed the keyterms I had chosen for my first campaign, and an HTML-coded marketing message directing me to learn how to use the system. In the email was a login url.
At the login url I entered what I thought was my user name and password. It is apparently incorrect. This is when I entered the seventh circle of user hell. I received a re-loaded page with one new feature: a bolded red line of text that read:
Login failed. Try again (Note, it didn't say please).
After three attempts, I clicked on the Forgot Password? prompt at the bottom of the login box. I got to a new html page with a two-line form that read:
Forget Your Password? Please enter your user name and e-mail address below. If a match is found, we will supply your Password Hint.
I entered what I thought was my username and my email address. The feedback I received was this:
Username must be between 3 and 20 characters.
There is no option to insert my account ID. There is no help link.
I returned to the home page and clicked on help, and there is no link to anything that lists "password." Help does not contain a search box, but only links to directory items. I clicked on "account management." I got to an FAQ that seemed like it would help. It read:
What if I have forgotten my password and/or Yahoo! ID?
You can get a new password, a Yahoo! ID reminder, or both. Go to the Sign-in Problems page and supply some basic verification information, such as your birthday and the ZIP code you provided when you registered.
Make sure to provide the same information you gave during registration or when you last updated your account. Without the correct verification information, you will not be able to obtain a new password.
I clicked on the hyperlink for the sign-in problems page. The page only reloads. I tried this three times in frustration. I can't login to my damned Yahoo! account. I don't know if my ads are running. Someone is going to get very nasty letters from a very pissed-off law firm marketer. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Elevators
I had an gynecological appointment today - don't flinch, I'm not going to get gross. In my doctor's new building there are brand new elevators. The walls of the elevator are dark mahogany and the lighting is recessed. The elevator is carpeted and quiet. A perfect setting for terror.
When I was a child and we lived in the projects on Staten Island, the elevators frequently broke down. They were dark and damp and scared me to death. We lived on the fourth floor. There were wide stairs, right next to the elevator bank, and I insisted we walk up them in the dank humid heat instead of in the cool, dark, dank elevator that lurched and groaned. Because the elevator was a coffin, a sealed coffin riding in a sealed box with no way out if it got stuck between floors. I would dream, and my dreams were full of suffocation and death in that dark, dank place. My mother would allow me to cajole her up the stairs and she would drag my sister Dianna up the stairs one at a time while she slowly progressed up the stairs with Christine in the stroller. I would race up the wide, well-lit, airy stairs to the fourth floor and wait for them to come up. Until one day my mother complained, and my father decided to cure me of my fear. He threw me in the elevator. And of course, you must know what happened. The elevator got stuck between floors.
I found out later I was only in the box for about 45 minutes. There was a fire department nearby and my father worked for the Post Office and knew a guy who knew a guy and they were there very fast, considering it was just the projects and nobody really gave a shit about who got stuck in an elevator in there.
Let them rot. I am 39 years old, and I still dream of being stuck in that long metal box, between floors in the dark, with no air and no way out. So I walk a lot of stairs.
And no one is ever going to put me in a coffin, dead or alive.
ptsd
