The story goes like this:
Nightshade managed to hurt her back leg somehow. Most likely by trying to jump up to a high counter. She does it all the time and often manages to slip in the process. The mystery incident left her limping badly, and me in a mild state of WHAT-THE-FRAK.

Of course, it’s a weekend evening and the Vet office is closed. A little online research and leg checking later, and it looks like Nightshade pulled a muscle.

While I’m doting over her to make sure she doesn’t try to jump on anything and hurt herself more, I post a tweet saying that I’m playing nursemaid to my cat and go back to my cat sitting duties. Not too long after my tweet goes out to the world, I get a reply from a Vet that follows me. A Vet I’ve never met in my life, but who is still concerned about my little office manager.

My Office Manager: Nightshade the Cat

This amazingly generous Vet — who will remain unnamed to help avoid people taking advantage of her generosity — offered help and advice 140 characters at a time over several days without asking for anything in return. Yes, the world is filled with mean, bad and selfish people, but there’s lots of good people out there, too, and I consider myself lucky to cross paths with the good ones from time to time.

Its been almost a week since Nightshade managed to gimp herself up, but she’s getting better every day. In fact, she seems to have forgotten she hurt herself and is pretty annoyed that I’m still stopping her from jumping on the counter.

For my Twitter Vet:
If we ever meet in real life, I owe you a big hug. And a drink. You know who you are.

OK, now here’s the kicker: People have been telling me they want to buy my drawings so they can wear them. On their bodies.

Sometimes, even I can take a hint, so I set up shops at Zazzle and Cafe Press. Why both, you ask? Because I haven’t decided which online store gives me the best balance between product quality and choice.

Yes, I’ll add more stuff over time, too, because I draw like I talk: I just can’t stop.

Go ahead an point your trusty Web browser on over to Zazzle or Cafe Press and wear me. Just like you’ve always wanted to.

I’m all excited about presenting at this user group meeting, not only because they’re all cool and excited Apple fans, but also because this will be my first time speaking at this group. Also, I’ll finally get to try out Keynote for the iPad in a real-world environment. What could possibly go wrong?

The Denver Apple Pi user group meeting starts at 7PM at the Consolidated Mutual Water District building at 12700 W 27th Ave. in Lakewood, Colorado. Directions to the meeting along with additional information about the group are available at the Denver Apple Pi Web site.

See you there!

Just point your Web browser to The Scale of the Universe and zoom in to see the smallest object in the universe (quantum foam with a Planck length of 10^-35m), or out to see the estimated size of the universe (10²⁶x9.3m).

Get this: The largest known star in the universe? VY Canis Majoris at 10¹²x3m is big enough to fill most of the distance between our sun and Pluto. That’s frakking huge. Zoom in and you’ll see that your eye lid is only slightly thicker than a single salt crystal, but that’s still substantially thicker than a human hair.

OK, enough talk. Go check out The Scale of the Universe. And why does everybody keep looking at my pants?

View Photo Album

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The MacJury podcast episodes ( Part 1 and Part 2) were loads of fun thanks Chuck Joiner’s ability to throw together just the right mix of people to ensure an, um, eclectic mix of gift ideas. I was lucky enough to get to rub virtual elbows with author Joe Kissell, Jean MacDonald from SmileOnMyMac, TUAW’s Steve Sande, Pat Fauquet from MacMouseCalls, Julio Ojeda-Zapata from the Pioneer Press, and TMO’s own Nancy Gravley.

The holiday gift guide over at TMO includes staff picks for the Mac, iPod and iPhone lover in your life — and it’s only part 1, so there’s more to come.

Even if you don’t celebrate any gift giving holidays, the lists still include some fun ideas for tech stuff you can pick up for yourself. And if anyone is keeping track, I don’t have a TARDIS USB hub of my own yet. *Cough*

The PTE Charles gave me is actually a photographic table, which adds the extra coolness of being able to see the elements instead of just referencing their properties. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that elements like Rutherfordium, Meitnerium and Einsteinium actually look like real people. Amazing!

You can pick up your own photographic PTE at periodictable.com. It’s available as posters, 3D lenticular posters, place mats, and decks of playing cards.

The first problem is that clients quite often have absolutely no idea what it takes to design a creative and unique product, nor do they have a clue about the knowledge and expertise required to design something that can actually be printed. A good designer will consider how the content balances, why target resolution matters, how trapping could change the layout’s overall appearance, when to use spot colors, how the stock will impact the finished piece, what kind of press the job will run on… You get the idea.

Many clients, on the other hand, think that anyone with a computer is a designer, and do-it-all-in-Word-so-I-can-tweak-everything-later-thank-you-very-much-oh-yeah-I-laid-everything-out-in-Excel-to-save-you-time-that-means-you’ll-charge-me-less-right? They probably also have a cousin/nephew/niece/out of work brother/neighbor that has some great design ideas you should hear. OK, that’s probably just a little over the top, but I’ve seen it happen. Even the Excel thing. Really.

The point is that the client really, truly, has absolutely no idea that graphic design is a profession — a career, not a job — that requires training, a specialized skill set, and talents that not everyone has. Sure, some people are just pricks that want to take advantage of you, but by and large I’d wager most clients are just in the dark.

The trick is getting your clients to see the value in what you do, which is usually easier said than done. The idea of potentially upsetting a client and losing them — and their money — is pretty scary. But what I learned over the years is that a little fear is OK, because in the end you’ll weed out the clients that aren’t worth the time you invest and end up with quality clients that are easier to work with and pay what you’re worth.

It’s OK to charge what you’re worth, and to stand firm. The people that appreciate your talent and skills will stick around. The ones that only care about the lowest price will move on. At first, watching a problem client move on can be a freaky feeling, but they’re usually time vortexes that eat away at your availability for other projects, and they eat away at your profits, too.

Also, you know what you’re charging right now? Yeah, it’s probably too low. Too many quality designers charge far less than they’re worth because of that ever-nagging fear of not landing the client. Charge too little, and people will assume you aren’t as good as your competition.

Once the problem children are out of the way, you have more time to spend working with your quality clients. They’ll probably recommend you to other potential clients, and if they don’t it’s OK to ask them for referrals.

And another thing: If someone wants you to do a job on spec, walk away. A spec job is just another way of saying “I don’t value your skills enough to even consider paying you.” The line about being able to add more great design stuff to your portfolio is a load of crap, too. Designers never win with spec jobs.

If you are a designer, go hug your clients that treat you well and pay you what you’re worth. If you are a design client, go hug your designer and consider giving them a raise even if they don’t ask for one. Sometimes designers are a little shy and don’t know how to ask.

And don’t forget: Friends don’t let friends design in Word. Or Publisher. And especially not in Excel. OK, go design something, and let’s be careful out there.

Stephen’s map visualizes the distance between McDonald’s restaurants for the continental United States with glowing orange lights. The brighter the lights, the closer the restaurants are.

While the sheer density of McDonald’s locations in the U.S. is staggering, I was equally impressed with the technology that went into whipping up this map. Stephen was able to get ahold of the raw data from AggData, massage a CSV file with some coding magic, and build a map that shows there are plenty of places all over the country for people that think they really do deserve a break today.

That said, there’s a frakking ass-load of McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. I can only imaging what the map would look like if it also included all the Burger King, Wendy’s, Chik-Fil-A and KFC joints, too.

Holy crap. I think my arteries are clogging just thinking about it.