Watch your users run screaming from your site.

I have a client who has suddenly become a web expert and whose latest request is to add three (THREE!!!) pop-up windows to highlight special deals.

Never mind that even motherfucking Internet Explorer now ships with its pop-up blocker enabled.

Never mind that mobile devices by and by large don't even support pop-up windows.

Never mind that it's a now well known given that pop-up windows annoy the fuck out of your users and the vast majority will only click on them to close them.

Never mind that I have shown you the most clicked on areas of your homepage and they certainly weren't the shit-ass in-house graphics (that I've had to correct your English on) you have sent to me to be placed where you designate on the page, in spite of my advice on the subject.

To hell with accessibility. Actually I don't even think they know or care what that means or why it's important, despite my attempts to explain.

What the fuck rock have you been living under that you've suddenly decided to ignore (again) my advice about how to increase your slumping online sales with a more user friendly, cleaner redesign and instead slap one of the most annoying, proven-to-drive-away-potential-clients-in-droves advertising tactics held over from the early Noughties?!

I could even get around this shit request by sticking it in a modal dialog if it was just one pop-up. But THREE?!?!?!?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

That rhythmic sound you hear is my head repeatedly smack my desk...

My new Boss is a Total Bitch and Other Snippets from the Front

The two of you that actually read Favoloso Mondo might be wondering about the latest news in this galaxy of slack that is this blog. So as I'm totally slacking today, here's a helping of quickies of news since erm, December. (Slack slack slack. Or not...)

---

So we've established that the Henchwoman was visiting in November. Three weeks later the majority of SO's family came to visit; his older brother for a week, and his youngest sister and father for around a month. There were times I was really thankful that I don't understand [insert language that isn't Italian or English here], namely during family arguments, and other times were I would rapidly stop wondering if they were talking about me and instead would be bored off my Keister.

We've also established that his Dad's a wee perv. There were a few times when his family slept at my place as we would have dinners there (being bigger). He perved on all of my flatmates. Subtly, but it was definitely perving.

We had to warn the girls that SO's dad was prone to nightly bathroom excursions that didn't involve A) locking the door (as he's not a generally well man and thus keeps unlocked doors for safety reasons) and B)turning on the lights. So there was a distinct possibility of my flatmates walking in on an elderly pissing perv.

Microsoft I Hate You

This has been said far more eloquently by others but:

I hate you for your fucking opaque copyrighted terminology making googling a problem a vertiable nightmare.

I hate you for making me phone to to get a goddamned fucking patch to make the very expensive software we bought from you work correctly.

I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

File Under: Bitchery, of the Work Variety

One of the many hats I wear at my job includes what's commonly known as SEO or Search Engine Optimisation. It's an area of web geekery that is rife with scam artists, nefarious practices, & plagiarism or something damn near close to it.

I practice none of the above, naturellement. And still manage to beat the (very stiff) competition 95 % of the time.

I've dealt with outright plagiarism before* and gnashed my teeth over the damn near close to it variety. But we'll file this under the 'Highly Amused' category.

For ease of picking my site out of the search results line up as well as the secondary benefit of users being able to do the same, I capitalise the entire name of the place of business.

Just about everyone of our competitors has followed suit.

Imagine that.

I should change to all lower case letters just to watch the lemmings fall off the cliff.


* and won. Duh. Maybe I should just tattoo 'Don't Fuck with Me' on my forehead so certain parties get the picture

The Dog Ate My HomeworkBlog

Yar.

Okay, I have no idea where that came from. Apparently the PMS is entering the Pirate Mood Swing. Yar. Yar, I say.

Anyways, I apologise for the sparseness and brevity entries around these here parts, but I have yet another work trip coming up on Sunday and am still trying to wade through the backlog created by the Austria trip.

Off to Dublin this time, which is a bloody nice change from the annual Damn-It-Can't-They-Choose-Another-City London jaunt which has gone tits up. This trip should be fun because:

It's Call Reciprocity Motherfuckers

(Though knowing me I completely fucked the spelling.)

A little bird has told me that certain parties have developed the DT's due to my sparse updating lately.

What's going on:

- I have a 950 page manual in Italian to read by Sunday so I can configure work's new Windows 2003 server.

- I'm thisclose to bitchslapping the BG for various work reasons as wells as the fact that she can't be arsed to used a screwdriver (but can be arsed to kevetch)

- I haven't heard from Shithead.

- I'm on the rag.

- Next week I have an appointment to get my legs waxed, followed by a fun little Pap smear test on Thursday.

- I have just realised that I have:

a work related trip to Athens beginning of December
a trip back to Dallas mid December
a work related trip to Austria beginning of January
and a work related trip to Dublin end of January

which leaves me the rest of this month and next to:

get the new server up and running
get the new management software up and running
redesign our websites
redesign the side project website
redo our flyer

...

Updating sparse? You don't say.

Make y'all a deal. See that little link below that says "Comments"? Gimmee feedback. I don't even know how many faithful readers I have garnered with Google referrals like:

- is it possible to fuck your own belly button? (no)
- bruce willis' belly button (ick?)
- mother daughter perm (one handed typing eh?)
- oozing snatch (ick.)
- leaking belly button (see a doctor people)
- how to get a pretty, hair free belly button (Nair.)
- leotard padding (socks.)
- my belly button lint smells (why the fuck are you sniffing your bellybutton lint?)

So F-E-E-D-B-A-C-K y'all. Gimmee something, anything to bounce off of as my brain is doing the equivalent of the BSOD* on blog topics/entries. And no, you're not really motherfuckers.

I hope.



*Windows infamous Blue Screen of Death

Quickie: Waiting to Exhale

After a hectic trip to Amsterdam weekend before last and organising a minor work conference here in bella Roma this weekend past, I can sort of see the light at the end of the Stress Tunnel. Or at least a brighter dimness. A light gloaming?

Who the fuck am I kidding. It's only slightly less darker than the inside of Satan's asshole*.

Work keeps piling up. I am contemplating the purchase of a computer for home for side projects, but I am really not looking forward to installing a land line for the necessary Internet connection. I have tangled with Telecom Italia before and they make ACEA look like bloody rocket scientists sent down from on High amidst singing cherubim and seraphim.

On the plus side, during the conference my boss volunteered me for a work trip to Athens, which should take place either the end of this month or the beginning of December.

Living with the BG is proving to be a bit challenging, in the sense that I see her 24-7 now. And maybe she's also currently hormonally unbalanced, but I swear to GodInexistant I'm about ready to slap her upside the head. Preferably with a loaded IKEA box. Maybe then she would understand that using a screwdriver is not that fucking difficult?

Shithead has neatly placed himself on my ShitList once again. After I had warned him last Sunday that I was busy for the rest of the week either organising for or being at the conference, he texted me Friday whinging about how stressed out he was and if I was in the neighbourhood I should stop by so he could tell me about it. When I curtly replied that he had obviously forgotten that I was Rather Fucking Busy this weekend, he decided to joke that I must be busy because I had forgotten to send him a kiss.

We are not amused.

I put off replying back, thinking maybe the hormornes were causing the lack of humour. Sunday rolled around, and well shucks, I still wasn't amused by that little I'm-Emotionally-Needy-Oops-Just-Joking-Aren't-I-Cute Gag. I sent him my first text.

So what are all these 'problems'? Another accident, the tax boogeymen, another kid, or Viagra is insufficient for all your lovers?

He gets appropriately pissed off (entirely too easy) and asks what's gotten into me.

Too bad karma is biting you on the ass again, but i didn't find your little joke about the kiss very amusing & so I made a little joke of my own. The next time you make a shitty joke about a forgotten kiss after having bitched about being really stressed out & busy, try to pull yourself out of the center of the universe and remember that you have already been advised that others are also stressed out and busy.

I am the center of the universe, dammit. Sometimes you little people just need reminding. Of course i'm joking (somewhat), but I did feel less cranky after my little SMSrant.




*(Please excuse any hyperactive mood swings in this entry. I am on the rag and the hormones are going on their monthly rickety rollercoaster ride wearing a very frayed lap belt...)

Work Peeve #(Random Number Pulled Out of My Ass)

I loathe with the white hot heat of a thousand suns (or the flame of G.W. Bush's crack pipe; your pick) emails soliciting link trading.

Mondays Can Bite My (Currently) Lilly White Ass

As if Mondays in general don't suck enough anyway...

The Room

The room I rent is very very close to my place of work, which is handy as I have a tendency to hit the snooze button 50 times a morning. I've been living at this place for over 3 years now. The flat is inhabited by a Romanian couple (also co-workers of mine, thanks to me switching to my current place of employment 2 years ago) and life-long bachelor Mr. Pervy Bear, thusly nicknamed as he resembles a bear and is a bit of a perv.

How Does One List "Professional Cocktease" on One's CV?

Time: Friday Night
Place: Work Conference Welcoming Cocktail Party

Caravaning in three cars, we manage to get ourselves and all of our transportation-challenged colleagues out to the party venue with some room to spare. Mr. Boink Buddy rode with our boss, whether out of fear that I'd rip him a new asshole if he came within 2 feet of me or what, who knows.

As the Best Girlfriend & I have a reputation to maintain at these conferences, I was sporting the white pleather pants, studded belt, 4 inch stilettos, and enough cleavage in which I could feasibly lose at least a few dessert spoons.

Fine, a dessert spoon. It was enough.

Wherein The Resident Dictator Comes Off Like a Whinging EuroSnot

Why oh why does a last minute work conference have to be held yet again in London? I am getting superbly bored with London. It's cold. It's rainy. And the Weights n' Measures law as applied to tots of spirits should be reported to Amnesty International.

No imagination, I tell ya. Why can't these things be held somewhere warm? Preferably with surf, sand and tight little cabana boys bringing me outrageously decorated drinks and massaging suntan oil onto my buns. Fuck, I'd settle for Paris. Or Amsterdam. Anything but London again.

Fuck, I've already been once this year for the usual annual conference trip, and as I prefer to see my boss get the most of of his money, I'd rather have an all expenses paid trip to somewhere new. Yes, I know I should be slapped for this whinge. Tough shit. London is just not my cup of (really fucking expensive) teas, darlings.

Fuck me upside down with a chainsaw three ways 'till Sunday

I
Hate
Compiling.*

*weeps quietly while banging head against new keyboard*

Geek Woes

Warning: Extremely boring geek bitching ahead.

So sometime later this week our new office should be done. Which is good news for the pigeon allergy, but really annoying news for the webgeek in me.

Snippets

*I want a soundtrack to my life. Barring that a big strapping Negro fellow following me around with boom box. Or an iPod with speakers. Whatever. I just want music following my every move, so that I won't just be some spaz who starts waltzing down the street to the music in my head.

*Why a big strapping Negro fellow? Well, are you going to fuck with a chick who has a big strapping Negro fellow following her around with a boom box? I thought not.

*I hate the Euro. Everything has doubled in price. Excepting of course, my salary.

*Above thought prompted by the discovery that floor tickets for Ani Di Franco tomorrow night are 30 fucking Euros. 60,000 Lire. 60 bucks old skool money for Ani Di.

*And I'm going anyway. By myself. How's that for loserville?

*The sector of tourism that I work in is not only fucking incestuous in terms of competition, it's also rife with copycats. Case in point? The new websites I did. There are already three -count 'em - THREE other places that have flat out stolen the text I did for our sites. Can we say "copyright infringement notice"? I thought we could.

*In other Evil Webmistress related news, I take perverse pleasure in redirecting certain people *cough*oldwebmasters*cough* to a special 404 page when they try to look for a way in to the admin side. One that says "The page you are looking for IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS. Thanks for logging your IP with us. Have a Nice Day."

That's fairly nice. Little script kiddies and spammers looking to exploit formmail get sent to Tubgirl (don't go googling for that unless you really really really feel the urge to scrub your eyeballs with steel wool and Clorox.)

Hey! Who put my face on that milk carton?!

I've only half dropped off the face of the earth. Promise.

See, I was *just* about to upload The Work Website That I Have Been Working On Forever when the boss decided to change his mind about the layout and logo I had done. Which means I get to redo them. Which sucks.

Like nails on a chalk board

My work involves a computer. It requires concentration, which is why I have been coming in late afternoon and working until the wee hours; coming in earlier will just result in me fucking up somthing easy when I get distracted by the 300 people traipsing through the office looking for my boss.

normally this works out great as the guy that works reception during those hours doesn't bother me and does his own thing surfing the internet. Then he goes home and I lock up when I get tired.

Tonight is proving to be annoying. There's a different guy here. Let's call him Overgrown Ren Fest Boy. That name alone should tell you why he's annoying. But it's not too bad when it's just him. The problem is that he's sitting at reception talking with two fellow Overgrown Ren Fest Geeks. Loudly. Dramtically. For the past two and a half hours.

Two and a half fucking hours of affected speech, 'obscurely witty' culture references (pop and otherwise), general looking down the nose at those not as 'intellectual and artistic' as them, Italian bashing*, and geek flirting (one of the other two is female).

This last bit is painful. We have two Overgrown Ren Fest Boys vying for the attentions of Overgrown Ren Fest Female. The geek mating call is embarassing to listen to. The earnest preening and displaying of quirky! yet sensitive! and artistic!, the self-satisfied "Aren't I clever yet vaguely tortured?" chuckle, the witty repartè and attempts at verbal oneupmanship.....

Any minute now I fully expect one of them to whip out a pair of ten sided dice and wink at ORF Female. "My charisma is...."

Shit. I just heard the shuffling of cards. Either they're about to play Magik the Gathering or someone's about to get their Tarot read.

*groans*

...........

In other news:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE RESIDENT DICTATOR'S HENCHWOMAN

I've bought you and the twins a really nice Calvin Klien bra; what's your mailing addy again? ;-) Wuv you snookums. You need to get your ass over here so I can steal the nice digital camera from work and then post pictures here of The Lesbian Incentuous Twins (We're Not Twins!) Mad Hijinks in Roma.

.............


*which I really fucking hate - you are living and working in this country fuckhead. if you don't like it, don't let the door hit you on the ass as you leave

And the reason why I got Jack Shit done today is...

...do you have any idea how hard it is to find an Italian company that will do promotional printed condoms? Google gives me fuck all.

Jumping apostolic orgies, Batman. Talk about your Catholic countries.

And in vaguely related news, Italian web designers (or at least those that do web sites for promotional materials companies) suck ass. Horrid navigation, broken links, AND WAY TOO MUCH FUCKING FLASH. People who want to have kids and people who want to use Flash in a website have one thing in common: a licence should be required for both.

Gee, updates are gettin' frequent around these here parts. And yes, I am still deeply disturbed by yesterday's entry.

Fuck You Steve Jobs

I wanted a video verison of the iPod. Instead, you give me YET ANOTHER FUCKING BROWSER TO CODE FOR.

Not just another fucking browser to code for, but another fucking browser to code for that I cannot currently download and test on my WinXP box.

FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCKS.

This had better be the most standards compliant motherfucking browser ever made. But the fact that a 'Let Us Know About Bugs' button is included on the menu bar gives me the heebie-jeebies.

--This diatribe brought to you by the word "Fuck", a PHP script that I can't get to do what I want, and the number 2, as in the number of hours that I slept last night without dreaming of databases, do while loops and directory stuctures.

I'm off - Finally

Strikes are a pain in the ass.

Yesterday on my way to meet a colleague at the airport, we found out that yet another goddamn Italian strike is taking place at the airport today, cancelling our reserved flight tickets which we had been assured we could pay for the day before (long story). I ran all over the frickin' airport in heels for 3 hours trying to find a flight for my colleague that gets him to Rhodos by today, since he had meetings on Sunday morning, and then trying to find another two practically non-existent flights on Sunday for me and another colleague before the conference starts on Sunday night. I now have two ripped blisters on the backs of my heels which bleed through my socks into strangely eye pleasing patterns. (After 17 years of ballet and pointe shoes, I don't notice when I rip blisters on my feet: it takes ripping a new blister on top of the previously ripped blister for me to pay any attention. Sort of like almost getting a stress fracture before you get your aching shin splits looked at by your orthopedist...I digress)

So I'm off to Rhodos tomorrow bright and early. Okay, so early for me means rolling out of bed at 8 am to leave at 9. I usually don't haul my ass out of bed until at least 10 am. Which mean this week is going to be an exercise in "Can she resist the temptation to throw her alarm clock out the window, and, more importantly, will she remember that her cell phone *is* her alarm clock, therefore it would be more prudent to pluck her lazy ass out of bed and turn the squealing piece of technology off in an appropriate manner?"

6 days of 5 star hob-nobbing and networking, which, in this field, tends to degenerate into a game of "Who can get Cirrhosis of the Liver first?" and "Who can get the highest bar tab and still write it off for tax purposes?" after 6pm. Before 6 pm, it's all business and key words and paradigm shifts in future market trends....ick. Consider my fake shit-eating customer service grin to be (mostly) in place for the next week. Here's hoping my big mouth doesn't get me in trouble.

Time to go squeeze a buttload of promotional materials in with my clothes and shoes and toiletries.

Wish me, luck y'all. A dopo...

Check-in

Hallo. Still batshit busy.

I am procrastinating on the speech. I like writing, but I'm finding a massive mental block has sprung up thanks to the subject matter concerning business (I'm not good at "professional" apart from web content and short ad blurbs) and the small, itsy, weensy detail THAT I'M GOING TO HAVE TO SAY IT OUT LOUD IN FRONT OF A LARGE GROUP OF PEOPLE. Did I mention I hate my voice? And as last years conference was video taped, I don't relish the idea of hearing my voice on tape either. On the plus side, this was good for a laugh or two (right after I seriously considered it for about 30 seconds. But I don't think I'd be able to keep a straight face while saying When you reach the end of the year, it's my experience that three things happen: You speed up, Then you tally up, and then, all things being fair, you find some time to rest up... ick.)

And in other news, a good friend of mine (and a girl friend of his) were in a major motorcycle accident last Sunday outside of Rome. My friend ended up with a busted shoulder, broken vein in his neck and basically opened up his right leg from groin to ankle and came damn close to dying from the blood loss. The girl was luckier and only broke her femur. My friend is doing better, but the doctors are keeping a close eye on his leg, as there's still a risk of it becoming infected and gangrenous, resulting in him losing his leg. We haven't had a chance to see go and see him in the hospital yet, but we're going tomorrow. The stupid driver of the car that ran into them said "Oh, I didn't see you." And had his insurance company call the hospital to make sure my friend had survived the night. Fuckwad couldn't even have the human decency to call in person and see if the victim(s) of his crappy driving survived. And I thought *I* had a small conscience. Next to him, I feel like Mother Fucking Theresa.

Anywho, back to speech writing, company researching, web site coding, ripping my hair out, and realising that there's not a 'professional' item in my wardrobe, nor a decent cocktail dress.

The "sexual favours that I won't follow through on in exchange for VBA and Word Macro advice for form templates" offer is still open. I'm desperate. *bats eyelashes so fast and furiously they fall off*