You know how usually critters are sooooo cute when they're tiny... even the ones that grow up to be sorta awful? Well, some of 'em just don't even get the chance to be a cute baby. Somehow that just ain't right.
I don't know if this has anything to do with Design. Certainly with Offensive Aesthetics.
Lots more on Freaky Martin's blog.
(Dude. Nice collection).
I just love my "Stumble Upon" browser plug-in. It's entirely too much fun. Here's where it pointed me today: Writer Rhymes.comIt's such a simple, elegant page, and it works -- even on my Mac! Type a word, option-click it and it gives a list of words that rhyme, divided up into 1, 2, and 3-syllable groups. Yes, I know there's a rhyming guide in the back of my dictionary, but it's not COOL like this.
Monday: end of sunny; nastytackysoggy by the weekend. Drip-dry trick-or-treaters. Best gas price $2.53 and holding. Just finished playing: DVD "Stardust" -- Robert DeNiro as a "whoopsie" pirate captain, cool!
[[[ Hi Sees... we're first to comment on each other's brand new blogs! Let's see which one of us has an "Oh, Horrors, Child" post first. Got any upcoming misbehavior on schedule? ]]]
Just did a snoop of the source code for another designer's web site. I've been randomly checking to see who is using Doctype declarations. Not as many as I'd expect, but the transition is definitely underway. My own site is still just html, not xhtml, although I do at least have some style sheets in place. I haven't decided what the next incarnation of my site should look like yet. And now I don't get to just think about the design... I have to showcase some more sophisticated coding. I'm not sure why learning to do that is less exciting this time than it was the first time ... back in the previous century when there was no such thing as Flash, or DreamWeaver, or even PageMill yet, I tracked down a web site with a rudimentary tutorial on html that some programmer had been kind enough to post, and started to figure out how to make a web page. It was fun -- like hacking through the jungle, trying to make a way. Now it's more like being lost in a strange city, filled with too many signs and a zillion people who already know where they're going and don't have time to give directions. I don't speak the language and the mountains are in the wrong direction.
I hear there are brilliant programmers out there who really don't like to design. I need to meet these people. I'll bet we could help make each other's lives more fun.
Closing of the weekend. Best gas price $2.53. Now playing, "Space Lion" by Yoko Kanno & Seatbelts.
My iTunes "Genius Sidebar" has no idea who Seatbelts are and has nothing similar to offer me... but wonders if I'd be interested in its best sellers, including Beyonce, Britney Spears, P!nk and a few others. Well, no, thank you. Frankly I don't know who else I'd suggest to myself to complement Seatbelts, but it certainly isn't Britney Spears or any of the other folks on the best seller list. I bet they won't have any suggestions to go with E.S. Posthumus either. I just don't like what the industry is trying to pass off as my best options. I think that's OK with them; I'm not their market.
However... every once in a while, I come across something I really, really enjoy. There are folks putting this stuff out there, and folks besides myself who buy it. So I don't have absolutely, completely unique and unmatchable preferences. There are others. We must be a market. I wonder... whose market are we? And how do we find each other?
The massive maintstream entertainment industry here in the states pretty thoroughly overshadows everything else... formulas exist to make big sales in music, movies, books... original ideas too risky to be picked up by a major studio or publisher have to find their own outlets, and their voices are harder to hear than the cacophony of the big boys. There are a lot of ho-hum small voices, but every once in a while there's something astonishing. Probably more than every once in a while, if I knew more where to listen.
This is a good spot to say THANKS TONS to the Live 365 radio stations "Imagine Avenue" (I have now greatly expanded my collection of movie sound tracks) and "The Anime Radio Nook" (found several real gems -- I'm now a Yoko Kanno fan).
Oddball note -- first response I got on this blog was from the automated Blogger spam-sniffer, telling me that there were "elements of spam" on this blog, and apologizing since obviously there was a real person reading their letter but I needed to verify that I wasn't a spam-bot anyhow so they could remove the warning... I wonder what it was about that first post that set their spam sniffers off? I don't see anything to make into a nasty sandwich, but who knows. Maybe the gas price note. I did that because it makes a sort of interesting time reference for looking back, sort of like using stamp prices to put a date on something. Oh well. Maybe my opinions are spamesque? Awk. I sure hope I'm not spam's market.
Just to tie things together -- the Seatbelts music I'm listening to is from the sound track to the Cowboy Bebop anime series that I was watching during the last post. Japanese jazz. And iTunes still wants to sell me Britney Spears.
Middle of October, best gas price $2.64. Now playing: Cowboy Bebop: Pierrot LeFou. Japanese audio, English subtitles.
"Hello World" -- that's how the computer programmers start, isn't it?
I'm a graphics geek with really annoying timing (I finished my degree in 1983. The Mac was launched the NEXT year). Now I've got over 2-1/2 decades of print graphics experience, but what's needed now are web developers. Fine, I learned html before there were any WYSIWYG apps; I think I can take on XHTML. Actionscript may take a bit longer. Funny; I spent all that time getting a fine arts degree ("emphasis advertising" -- that's what they called it), and now I get to learn to close all my brackets. This SO wasn't in the brochure.
Discovered an artist today -- Eyvind Earle. I picked up a DVD of Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" and watched the 2nd DVD of extras. Earle was the key to the amazing graphic style of this film. The backgrounds are so beautiful; not the usual 50s Disney fare. I searched his name out on Ebay; his prints are quite the hot ticket. I will have to try his technique for doing trees. The style may be half a century old but it's still wonderful.
Pierrot has just run amok.
