Bookmarks and coffee

Cereal.
Coffee.

At work, consuming both, and taking a moment to myself before heading into the plethora of tasks ahead of me. Though I enjoy my Sundays off – allowing myself to overindulge on laziness, cuddling, and day-long brunch – being in the office isn’t bad either. It’s usually quiet enough to get real work done and consider a Plan Of Action for various projects. That doesn’t mean I want to spend all my Sundays here, it means that the rare times I have to come into the office aren’t completely horrendous.

Plus I get Monday & Tuesday off.

iGoogle is my homepage here, and one of my favorite widgets is the “Most Recent Public Bookmarks” provided by del.icio.us. Sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) it tosses up a great one, and today was no exception.

Here it is.

Booooooom.com gives you 17 Creative Websites To Bookmark (Unless You Are Dumb).

Just like it says – unless you are dumb. Mimes are excluded in this case.

I skimmed the list, got about a page deep into Meathaus and immediately closed my browser because it was causing me to go into Artsy Mind Convulsions. A quick scan of the other sites proved much of the same.

Give yourself some awesome – GO TO THESE SITES.

Anyway, back to Cup 2 of coffee, and using my destruct-o rays on the disaster that is my inbox. Happy Sunday, kids.

Bees, a brief history of

This is for all those who doubt bees have wings and I know you are out there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HoneyBeeAnatomy.png

“Bees all have two pairs of wings…” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee

My next magical trick will be to debunk this myth of Thanksgiving. Stay tuned.

Parasitic Telepathic Octopii

Just wanted to let you all know that a coworker let me borrow Stephenie Meyer’s new book, “The Host”.

I’m about 2 chapters in, and my subject line seems to sum it up accurately so far.

It is late, and that is all. Tomorrow: more.

Nadya Suleman Is A Retard (Apologies To Any Current Retards)

First off, the stimulus package will be voted on tomorrow:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/12/stimulus/index.html
Secondly, here’s what it would entail.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/11/news/economy/stimulus_individuals/index.htm?postversion=2009021122?cnn=yes

And thirdly, the link that almost made me put my fist through the monitor… remember that chick who decided that having EIGHT MORE KIDS was awesome? Apparently she can’t pay her bills with unconditional love AND IS ASKING FOR DONATIONS ONLINE
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/12/octuplets.mom/index.html

THAT’S FUCKING *IT*, KANYE-STYLE ALL CAPS, I’M STARTING A DONATION SITE FOR MYSELF RIGHT NOW WITH THAT PAYPAL BUTTON (more info to come but seriously it works though)
ANYBODY THAT DONATES TO HER, MATCH YOUR DONATION TO ME
Seriously, send any donations via PayPal to larissa.young@gmail.com.

Except I can provide you with things! A sob story, a website, a logo, transcription, a book, a blog, art, makeup, photos, cook your dinner ….hell, I’ll even mow your lawn!

I am so COMPLETELY FLABBERGASTED at this that I want to just go curl up in bed until the world wears off.

Pending, Indeed.

1. The American economy is indescribable.
2. I suppose Chris & Rihanna are relevant because if we take our minds of the insane economy, we need to look at someone else’s relationship instead of our own.
3. 1. Jessica Simpson isn’t fat, can everyone just shut up now?
4. Not just poor people should experience this.
5. Can I have a Kindle, but maybe not the super-expensive one that does the same thing but is a little less shiny? I’m okay with that.

In summation, the economy is insane (even though it really doesn’t feel like it to a lot of people), 15 minutes of fame is can sometimes be extended to 20, technology is advancing to a remarkable state, and the reason I haven’t blogged anything of worth in the past couple weeks is because searching for a house makes me CRAZY.

A New Day

Being three hours behind (and waking up at 1030AM PST), I had to watch the inauguration via clips on CNN.com, so the build-up of the entrance, oath, speech and eventual exit weren’t the same as if watching on TV. It DEFINITELY wasn’t the same as being there, but honestly my apartment is much warmer and I can watch in my house clothes, with a cup of tea. You give, you take.

For what is such an epic event, it doesn’t convey that way electronically. The speech was progressive and inspiring, and though I caught some people yawning you have to figure that they’d been standing or sitting in the freezing cold for hours, and then previously travel from wherever to arrive. Yawns happen, so there is no blame there.

I was pleased that everyone behaved themselves on camera, and pleased that we have someone in office with enough confidence and courage to take on what is probably the toughest job in the world right now. It doesn’t seem like today has a shiny new sheen on it, because that feeling was back in November. The day after the elections is when it felt like we had A New President, even though today is the official date. Also I’m off work today as a comp day for yesterday’s holiday, so I’m in that final ‘long weekend’ phase, where you try to get all the stuff done you didn’t do because everyone else was off.

The thing about this election, this inauguration, this moment, as blasé as I sound, is that it really is historical. It makes me sad to think that so many people are speaking petty thoughts against this man who has done nothing to them (just because of color or faith), but it gives me hope that we might become not the nation we once were, but a better, more solid and more majestic nation than ever before. I think it’s a sign of good things that this man, before he’d even taken office, made people not only care about politics, but about their nation, and about other people. They may not love everything about everything, but they’re finally paying attention.

Who knows, he might even make little kids once again start saying that they want to be President when they grow up.

In summation, this is from my first email of the morning, and it wins.

The Struggles of a New Year

Over the past few months I’ve been working on my company’s website. Essentially what they had going on was the same content (and layout) they’d had for the past six years, and in those six years there were only a handful of changes made. The webmaster had built a somewhat user-friendly access portal that allowed the employees here to make very minor changes when necessary (mostly consisting of changing some text on the main page), but for the most part all other updates would be done by him. If they needed new pricing online, they’d send him that and he’d put it up. It was an easy & convenient solution for everyone and really required no effort on their part.

After writing, re-re-revising and finally deleting most of a large pseudo-rant, I’ll just go on with saying that I am relearning web design and development.

To make a long story short, it’s like discovering Internet2. It’s the same feeling as when I first figured out not just how to upload photos in 1996; but why I was doing it and what the difference was between live and local links.

In college my focus was on design for the multimedia world, something that was just coming into being when we finished up in 2001. Our class finished with less than 20 students – mostly guinea pigs for this new Web Design & Multimedia program. We learned the basics of developing websites; JavaScript, Flash, Dreamweaver, Director, those were all in there, but nobody considered us pioneer developers by any means. I suppose we were digital artists more than anything – not saying coders today don’t make works of art in their own right, but it’s different. The majority of us came out of non-digital graphic design backgrounds and moved over to the multimedia sector where we tried to incorporate both worlds.

Skip past a lot of failed website attempts, most made with image maps and crazy Photoshoppery, and step to the world out there today. I don’t think CSS was something we even talked about conversationally during my two year tenure, which might explain where I’m at.

So now we’re at that point where I still love illustration and typography and good design, but am now trying to self-instruct myself on the industry standards for design (and do things the easy way as well). It’s a good pain, much the way an intermediate workout feels when you haven’t moved off the couch all winter. Mostly it’s frustrating because the people I’m asking for help are advanced to the point where it’s difficult to tutor me. It’s not that they can’t, but explaining your second nature to someone isn’t the easiest task in the world. I liken this to trying to teach someone to drive that’s never seen a car before.

Now for some linkage, and don’t laugh if it seems outdated. We all have to start somewhere, even if it’s for the second time.

http://www.csszengarden.com/
http://www.cssnewbie.com/
http://delicious.com/popular/css
http://elementiks.com/web_resources.php
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/14/web-design-trends-for-2009/

To me, this feels as if I’m on the fringe of some giant inside joke. Here is my state of mind at the moment:
-I know if I like a site aesthetically when it shows up on my screen
-A lot of the sites I like aesthetically are made with CSS
-I know that not all browsers are created equal, but there are things you can do to make it so the users don’t notice
-I know you have to design for EVERYONE, even when you don’t want to
-Designing with SEO in mind is a good thing
-My main tools for building a site are Dreamweaver & Photoshop. I’ve got DW CS4 at work and DW8 at home, which makes for interesting results because you build differently.

My biggest hurdle right now is being able to build without fully understanding the process behind it. I can snag bits and pieces of other code and edit them somewhat (ex: if I need a photo gallery to work a certain way, I’ll find a template or tutorial to help me achieve results), but I can’t build things from scratch yet.

That ‘yet’ is a huge deal for me. It’s not enough that I get ’square block goes into square space’, but I need to know why. So…

A) Do any of you novice designers have similar problems?
B) What tools/sites/resources are you using to help get through your hurdles?

Almost…

Heading out with a friend from high school to celebrate, but here’s to making it through another year. Remember, your year is only as awesome as you make it.

Happy 2009!

Stephen Colbert Tells Kanye To Sit Down & Shut Up

…praise the lord!

I won’t even get into a full rant, because that would require too much energy. He just needs to go away now. My bitterness towards him might not be so overwhelming if my neighbors didn’t play his crap every weekend on the same looping playlist with MIA and Daft Punk and T.E.C.H.N.O. Not even anything good, just the kind you’d hear if somebody was doing a parody about it. They’re starting to put some older Smashing Pumpkins in their playlist now, which makes me sad because I like Smashing Pumpkins.

I digress. This is not a post about my neighbors, this is an anti-KW post. Oh, btw, I enjoy lots and LOTS of music, just… on my own schedule and maybe not cranked all the way up starting at 10PM.

Alright. So, “American Boy” is a good song, and only because Estelle sounds so good has it redeemed that garbage where Kanye stole “sampled” the beat from Daft Punk. “Slow Jamz” was good and only because of Twista and the beatz. Kanye himself was good when he had that one song out, “If iiiii ruled the world…”

Oh wait. That was NAS.

Anyway, I LOVE YOU STEPHEN.

Sunglasses display mannequin ftw, haha!

Teakettles, Vampires, and Anti-WSYIWYG

This is the ‘manic’ stage of my bipolarity. Despite dealing with (being bipolar) for more than half my life, that word still looks silly to me. Nonsensical. Still, there it is, and there I am. If you’ve followed my blogging for more than six months, you might be able to follow the stages – digressive, abrupt, link-filled during the manic times, perhaps with various illustrations or crafts, while the lower periods will tend to be short and cryptic.

As enjoyable as the productivity and elation of the extreme manic times can be, the fear of the inevitable downswing always dulls the excitement of Really Getting Things Done. It’s similar to (that classic story whose name escapes me) now, in which the main character could never really enjoy time off of work due to the inevitable return to his job.

–

Thinking now… my grammar and spelling are not perfect. My hands have crafted many a typo (though admittedly, I’ll do my best to avoid that), and occasionally – okay, sometimes more than occasionally – I’ll have to look up the proper spelling or punctuation marks. My (now-no-longer-secret) personal goal is to phrase my writing so as not to use the proper noun “I” so many times.

You know what used to be really fun for me? Diagramming sentences. Some people like football, some people like to split up the independent clauses and make cute little trees out of their words. These days, my ability to chop up a sentence’s structure (in visual form) is rusty, but the faint recollection is there. Oh Google-fu, come to the rescue!

Anyway, that whole bit was mostly just to say how much I completely abhor what younger people today have done to the English language. LOLcat is for macros, sarcasm is for flavor. Please check yo’self.

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A week (or two?) ago, a programmer friend of mine mentioned Notepad++. I thought he was making a funny, “Uh huh, remember using Notepad in your Angelfire days, it went real well with that winged baby devil, hahaha, yeah, you call yourself a web designer, whatever Miss DREAMWEAVER 4, har har har.”

Days later I sigh, and admit to a total lack of knowledge in the coding department: http://notepad-plus.wiki.sourceforge.net/FAQ

Also… since phase 2 (/4) of the site I’ve been working on is almost complete, I’ve suddenly had a craving to learn code.
All of it.
This reminds me of the CollegeHumor video someone forwarded to me, The Matrix Runs on Windows.
“I’m going to learn… Ubuntu?”

–

Last week a coworker somehow convinced me to go see Twilight with her. Why, exactly, isn’t something I’m entirely sure of: thanks to The Internet!, a preview of the trailer was readily available and convinced me that bad, bad things were afoot. Note here (because it’s so awful I don’t care about spoiling it) – just stick with the books.
We’d devoured all four of the aforementioned books and though spending $$$ for a small popcorn, ticket, and bottled water wasn’t on my financial priority list, I somehow found myself in the theater, mentally trying to prepare for the flick that was ahead.

Two words: BAD. MAKEUP.

In the book, vampires are supposed to be basically… made of marble. Cold, pale, et cetera, and a major scene is how the main vamp sparkles in the sunlight. With all the money they raked in, I was thinking it would be a nice shirtless display of body shimmer and well done MAC.

Two more words: CGI TWINKLES.

My final verdict is that I feel bad for Pattinson, because it was cinematic garbage. I almost walked out, but at least got a good ab workout from all the laughing.

Oh, it’s not a comedy? …oops.

That’s about all you’ll get from me as far as an in-depth analysis or detailed review. If you’re really interested though, stick with the books, and stay away from the malls for the next month or two.

Here’s a little clip with Daniel Radcliffe talking mostly about Equus, and a little about how the teenybopper girls he knows are starting to really get on his nerves with their Pattinson-obsession.

http://twilight-movie.org/2008/11/28/daniel-radcliffe-talks-about-twilight/

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Finally, since “Winter” is now upon us (quotation marks for the San Diegans in the room), I’ve been renewing my love for my favorite beverages – hot tea & hot cocoa!

Check out this neat tea maker/warmer from Adiago. It’s not my beloved Tassimo (yes, I still want it), but it’d be a nice consolation prize.