sweasel.com

As little time at myself as possible. Dual screens are the way. I have spoken.

I try not to make eye contact with myself.

That way leads to madness.

Make that a very cute tiny doodle!

I haven’t zoomed yet but it probably will happen eventually what with the timid medical types doing “telemedicine” these days. I’ll be sure to have a Taiwanese flag in the background.

@Pupster — Tangential thought: it might be entertaining to hold up a mirror in front of the web cam.

The few times I HAVE to turn my camera on, it’s all I can do to not let my facial expressions get me written up. Otherwise, I turn the camera off and treat it like an old fashioned conference call and do other stuff while listening. This is the way.

I have yet to Zoom in all this. We use MS Teams for all of our teleconferencing. I don’t use a camera.

I feel like I need to expand on this – Zoom will never replace sitting around a table in a conference room. There are unlimited distractions to make a meeting tolerable face to face – that knot in the table, that piece of spinach in that guy’s teeth, the clock, that weird buzzing sound coming from above the ceiling, those huge knockers you never noticed before. All while maintaining professional composure: All while paying close attention to the tone and presence of the people you are meeting with. I’m a natural born smartass and have made that a feature instead of a bug over my career face to face. I just can’t translate it to Zoom

First you take a picture of yourself at your desk with the equipment you use to Zoom.
Save it.
Then in zoom settings, use that picture as your background.

I started out using the rec room on the millennium falcon as my backdrop, but then i still had to sit at my desk.

It’s also good for a laugh when you walk in front of the camera to take the seat over your doppelganger ikage.

The “me” backdrop works much better so you can putter around without sitting there.

Oh it’s also good for a chuckle to walk in front of yourself and sit down for real.

Woo hoo! I got my dicks in the mail today!!!

If you’ve not won one yet, I cannot begin to express the giddy excitement you will feel when the handmade envelope appears in your mailbox. Right away you know it’s something. A well crafted envelope with foreign looking markings. A customs declarations notation and the UK post mark let’s you know this isn’t some Publisher’s Clearing House come on.
Dicks 3,4 and 5 all in one package. And Swease obliged me by even sending me two drawings that I specifically asked for.
So I humble brag my 5 dicks (so far) and can now get to framing my priceless collection for imminent display.

@thefritz,

Woo hoo is right! The dick Sweasel sent was done up with such tasteful precision, I was nearly as thrilled with the packaging as I was to have one of Sweasel’s original drawings in my clutches. Every inch of ink and paper is treasured as a memento of the rarified info, camaraderie and humor enjoyed chez Mustelid Manor. Congratulations!

@thefritz and @catnip, ditto! What a treat! I don’t get Royal Mail every day.

Thank You Ms. Stoatie, these are beautiful, I will likely put them in little frames, they make a nice collection. I am actually fascinated by chickens.

I can’t wait for more celebrities to kick off!

Oh! I shall be watching my mailbox for my three dicks 🙂
We get post office preview—an email that tells us what is on the way. So I should know when the package hits the US.

@ Deborah HH

I too have USPS preview but the dick’s didn’t show up there so I was delightfully surprised.

Dicks are coming? Finally, something good this year!

Hail to the Royal Dick Winners!

Are these dicks in an envelope and not a bag? Whoever heard of an envelope of dicks!

I’m going to put a wildlife cam in the back of my mailbox so I’ll know INSTANTLY when my Dicks get here!

Hmm. I bet I could get some ad revenue if I set it up as a fully connected webcam and called it SpottedDickCam.

@Gromulin:

Zoom will never replace sitting around a table in a conference room.

Yup, never happen. I’m retired now, but when I called my people in for a staff meeting only illness, death, or incarceration worked as excuses for not being physically present, because I wanted to smell their fear!

Just kidding. I made a point never to have staff meetings, and we got lots more good work done that way.

Fortunately for me the person-to-person Zooms are usually to discuss a technical problem so we are both staring at somebody’s screen instead of a face. For larger meetings I refuse to turn my camera on, so everyone gets to see my favorite image of “Accident at the Gare’ Montparnasse”. What can I say, I’m a QA engineer and it shows…

***IT*** came Thursday: a magnificent bull, accompanied by a foot, clasped hands, and an imaginative portrait. All in an envelope inscribed with a friendly weasel. So five original artworks! And of course the official certificate, and a rubber stamp of a chicken.

Glorious abundance of dick1

Yeah, a bunch of dicks went out last week. There is another stack that *hasn’t* gone but is almost ready, so don’t let your heart sink if it doesn’t turn up this week.

After that, I’ll need help going through my records to see who I left out. (I can think of a few whose addresses I can’t find).