well, i'm back. i have returned $1k poorer, and 1 sister-in-law richer. not bad for a 5 day trip to vegas. especially since 1/3 of it was spent on the wedding dinner. i've got so much to catch up on, that i think i'm going to wait until tomorrow. 07:06 pm

every time i come to vegas i realize how much of an addiction gambling can be. the excitement of hitting a number on roulette, or a slot. the feeling that if you just play a little longer, a few more quarters in the slot, another spin of the wheel, another roll of the dice, you'll win. because it's time, you've lost for a while, so it's now time for you to win. when you lose, as you inevitably do, the urge to pull out money that you don't have is overwhelming. just enough money to keep you going, until you win. because you're sure to win soon. i hate losing. 07:00 pm

mike pointed out that there is another big difference between an llc and an s-corp. shares in an llc can be owned by other companies, shares in an s-corp can't. he also reminded me of the all important bottom line (which i should have remembered to write yesterday): consult a real live attorney & accountant before making decisions like these. 09:58 am

interesting info gleaned from my accountant: the only real difference between a sole-proprietorship, an llc, and an s-corp is the amount of liability you're covered for. so, if you don't expect to get sued, you only really need a sole-proprietorship. *but*, creating an s-corp only costs $1500. so, if protecting your ass is worth $1500 to you, then you should go with an s-corp. besides, you're much less likely to get audited. 10:38 pm

apparently, burying different body parts in different places was a common practice in europe. bryan mentioned that royal body parts were traded around like religious artifacts, and nick (who has no content yet) sent me this dead europe article. yuck.

jason was kind enough to dig up a program called fakecd. you basically put it in the directory that you want to use as a cd drive, run it, and voila! i should have known there'd be something like this on the web.

sigh. blogger's down again. 19:48 10:35 pm

i know that many people will regard this as a sin, but i couldn't make it all the way through a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. i read about 3/4's of it on the way to sxsw, fluctuating between interest and boredom, but never picked it up again. then i took it to australia, but i never opened it. then, i left it in the airport in sydney. i needed to make room for 2 elizabeth george books that i found in the airport bookstore. 03:11 pm

hmm. so much going on but never mentioned. let's see we've decided not to sell the house, since we're basing jungawunga in santa cruz, our commute will be dramatically reduced. so we're now in the process of refinancing it. mostly because the house has appreciated enough for us to be able to wrap our 1st and 2nd mortgage into one. thus getting rid of the 11% interest rate on the 2nd.

unfortunately, refinancing the house means delays in starting the business. for some reason they don't look too kindly on you when you only have one steady income.

we've started looking for office space. necessary because we have no connectivity at our house. downtown santa cruz seems to be a popular place, most of the leases we called had already been rented. we're going to look at one tomorrow morning. oh yeah, and we're going to meet with our accountant this afternoon to figure out all those icky financial details. 02:17 pm

proof that the web was completely dead yesterday. dave linking to my post on how dead it is. 01:44 pm

have i mentioned i'm leaving for vegas tomorrow? i don't think i have. i won't be back 'til sunday. i will be bringing the laptop tho. so i might actually update. when i'm not gambling. 1:29

eneri is quite beautiful. both poetically and visually. thank you katie. 1:25

blogger seems to be down right now. sigh. 1:21 01:29 pm

it would be much more helpful if they provided actual color swatches when they forecast the year's colors. but, even without color swatches, i notice there's no orange on the list, which means, they're not exceptionally accurate. via anil. 01:04 pm

while it's amazing that they could discover so much from dna testing louis xvii's heart, all i can wonder is why the heart was removed, saved, and passed around for 200 years. via rebecca. 12:41 pm

it used to be that you could get around the cd requirement by copying the cd to your hard drive and installing from there. apparently, game companies got wise to this. i do find it really annoying tho. it's not like you need the ms office cd in your drive to run it. and that's way more expensive than a $30 computer game. 11:39 am

i finally got q*bert last night. surprisingly, the new adventure games are more interesting than the classic. maybe that's not so surprising. annoyingly, it requires the cd to be in the drive in order to play it. which means if i install it on my laptop, i have to cart the dock around with me. hopefully, i can circumvent it by copying the cd to my hard drive. 11:19 am

is it just me, or has the web been totally dead today. no email, no interesting stuff, no news, no good memes. maybe i'm just not looking in the right places. 07:52 pm

in case you were still wondering about the issues i vaguely alluded to monday, i've finally written about them. 11:59 am

i decided to play the sims again last night, using all the cheat codes, of course. unfortunately, even if you set their autonomy to the highest setting, they still don't bother to go to the bathroom, or go to bed when they're exhausted. but, with huge amounts of money, you can build some pretty cool mansions. :) 10:45 am

after a month of waiting for netsol to change my dns server over to pair, impeded by the fact that jason never updated his contact email from 4 years ago, they finally switched it. unfortunately, i was *slightly* unprepared. sigh. 09:28 am

pete's bozlister is cool. if only to stare at the pretty flashing squares. but, it would also be a good way to hit a random blog that has been recently updated. too bad it's only blogger blogs. via mike. 11:33 am

i'm keeping my fingers crossed, but i think i've finally fixed all my netscape problems (like tripped out scrollbars, and not being able to use blogger without it crashing, and having it crash whenever i open a javascript console). i was so frustrated last night that i was actually contemplating moving to ie. anyway, the thing that i hadn't been doing when i uninstalled and reinstalled (several times) was deleting the netscape registery entries and the netscape folders. i'm pretty sure it was the registery tho. 11:29 am

i finally realized something i should have realized a month ago. half the stuff i was hitting every day never got updated. so i actually took the time to set up spys for all those pages that don't update every day. it cut my browsing list in half. duh. talk about not using the tools available. 07:40 pm

ironic. i just realized that the site i just linked to is done by ellen. the same ellen that jorn would rave about every couple of days, and i would never bother to look at. maybe he still does. 07:34 pm

when i see things like this, i first want to thank the creator for creating something i can happily stare at for several minutes, then i wish that i could one day be so creative, then i realize that learning flash might be a good start. although it probably isn't anywhere near enough. 07:30 pm

well, this is what i've been devoting all my time and energy to for the last 2 weeks. the only question now: would this site make you hire me? well, would it? 07:16 pm

thanks denise. i had never heard the story of da vinci's last supper painting. 05:13 pm

phew. vegetarianism averted. the alpha centauri thing is based on the fact that "they, like us, are herbivores". but, this clearly states that we're omnivores. 05:20 pm

i've never seen a thought experiment before, but this alpha centauri one did a good job of making me analyze my actions. not being in favor of animal testing or hunting, i didn't need to justify those, it was the "farming for food" that i can't really find a good reason for. i think i may have just discovered a really compelling reason to become a vegetarian. Hopefully, by tomorrow, i'll have forgotten all about it. short attention span and all. thanks mike. 05:12 pm

i'm surprised jack had to explain the relativity of "celebrity". i assumed that everyone knew that "celebrity" was an amusing joke, not a true state. 02:45 pm

wow. i made Net Culture's sites of the week. since i've only got 2 hits from it so far, i'm not holding out for a huge boost in fame. 02:40 pm

it seems like my method of designing sites focuses around coming up with a concept, perfecting it, then looking at it and saying "i can do better than that". (or alternatively, having someone else say the same thing.) at which point, i scrap everything and start over again. 02:33 pm

jesse has put together a really comprehensive information architecture resource page. thanks rebecca. 10:17 am

figures. i get sick of the sims because it's too much effort to earn money and keep them happy. and jen mentions cheat codes. i should have know there'd be cheat codes. 10:13 am

in a serious fit of nostalgia which seriously dates me, i just bought Q*bert. 03:57 pm

so, after reading mark's post, i really expected to be disappointed by this personality test. in fact, i think the questions were really annoying, but, the results just seemed so apt. 03:35 pm

no matter how many times i tell myself that it would be easier to update regularly, i still end up adding 70 blogs at a time. sigh. it's not like you don't have anything better to do, right? the other thing i notice whenever i update is that there are so many new blogs that i wish i had time to read. oh, and i got rid of the redirect link that was tracking clickthroughs. i haven't looked at the numbers in about 4 months, so i figured it was more annoying than useful. 03:25 pm

why is it that when i finally get around to updating the portal, people start submitting stuff? i've had 5 submissions since i started working on it. what are these people, psychic? and, no, i'm not done yet. 03:08 pm

i haven't been writing much lately. mostly because i've been dealing with a lot of stuff. planning a business, designing a website, worrying about going freelance, worrying about finances, dealing with relationship issues that haven't been addressed for months, but should have been, figuring out how i'm going to get through the next few months at work when i'm completely bored. anyway, lots of stuff. maybe, when i have time, i'll write about it all. 01:56 pm

big brother or just useful implanted identification technology? 01:41 pm

another one from zeldman: iStockphoto.com. royalty free stock photos. 12:45 pm

eNormicom. hee. via zeldman. 12:39 pm

Hollow.Com. from interviews with ceo's, george colony discovered that dot com ceos "lacked depth, experience, and common business sense". i could have told him that. it does a good job of explaining both why the valley is like it is right now, and why the stock market had such a huge correction. via lilly. 12:31 pm

oh wow. this is just amazing. Gravilux. via peter who got it from jason. 11:42 am

something about this is cool, but scary at the same time. 08:33 pm

it seems that in the flurry of excitement from my australia trip, i forgot to put up the april archive. sorry. 12:45 pm

don't go to this page if you are easily revolted. in fact don't go to this page if you are even moderately hard to revolt. dogslut's homepage describes his self-castration. 11:48 am

finally. someone debunks the digital divide. every time i hear or read something about this, i always think "but, it has nothing to do with race or income, it has to do with education. via dori. 11:27 am

mr. peanut is gay. i can't resist spreading a meme that lance started. besides, if he's not gay, then he's a womanizer. thinking of him as gay will keep my image of him as positive. 04:41 pm

dan gillmor writes a very apt article about the recent stock market crash. 02:18 pm

denise has some interesting and accurate comments about sorting the web into categories. this rant coming from a reaction to the phrase "get the web". obviously, i can't speak for others, but when i use that phrase, i mean that a person understands the unique properties of the web and isn't trying to force it into a familiar real world model. for example, companies building brochureware sites don't get the web, they don't realize how much more potential there is other than serving up print collateral. 01:31 pm

heh. it seems like whenever i have a feeling, i immediately find someone else feeling the same thing. on 4/14/00 elan says, "I am bored reading this stuff, because I feel like they haven't said anything new in a few years.". he was talking about this interview with jakob nielsen and others. 12:59 pm

ah. i've finally figured it out. the portal like directory appears to be categories of different spies. now why was that not completely obvious to me? 12:40 pm

has anyone else found that with the Spyonit redesign, it is impossible to add a new spy? 12:38 pm

lately, i find it is much too much effort to even bother reading jakob's alertboxes. the summaries i see on mailing lists are more than enough data. 12:25 pm

i'm beginning to wonder if the metalog ratings are accurate anymore. as nikolai points out alice is number 1. which is great, but she hasn't updated in almost a week. maybe i'm just grumpy because i've dropped to #16. oh the horrors of being unpopular. 12:13 pm

i'm sure everyone will be linking to this interview with derek. but, i found it to be really interesting, so i had to blog it. via tom. 11:40 am

you know what's really sad. i've finally rediscoverd and embraced my creative side, and i have less opportunity to use it at work. for the beta launch, they're not actually going to launch the company. so, it'll probably just be a page with a company name, brief marketing line, and a login & registration form. i don't have to have the real site ready for another 3 months. so much for having something to do. 12:16 pm

i've been spending a lot of time designing a site for our new venture. that and constantly thinking about business strategies, things to do, marketing copy, and all the other stuff that goes into starting a new business. like conversations about who should quit first. which is why my blog has been fairly inactive for the past couple of days. no time to surf and blog when you're spending 8 hours a day on a site design. not that i would work on personal stuff at work or anything. 12:11 pm

ok. so now it seems like a requirement to go to metafilter before you blog something. i just blogged the deepleap launch, go to metafilter, and see it' already been posted and has 24 comments. sigh. 11:53 pm

oh yeah. deepleap launched their beta. right now, the most useful thing i'm using it for is a bookmark manager. ironic. 11:39 pm

Troubles in Silicon Valley. 10:44 pm

grim. 10:37 pm

i have no idea what this article says since it's in spanish, but it's definitely about weblogs. 10:11 pm

ok. so i'm reading through this article, which is largely-based on info gathered at the weblog panel at sxsw, when i read the line "weblog fans - from buttoned-down businessmen to tattooed, purple-haired Gen-Xers". and, i've got to wonder, the author was looking around the room at sxsw, the two people who stood out as extreme opposites were the guy in the business suit and me? maybe my self-image is just completely different from how others view me, but i would never have placed myself at the end of the spectrum. 10:06 pm

the dao of web design. an interesting read. although, i still have trouble with the whole font size thing. i want people to be able to adjust their font size, but i got more complaints from using points than i did from using pixels. people don't *want* to take the time to change their font size. 11:14 am

the meeting in sf i went to yesterday was with a design company called extension 11. i'd forgotten what it was like to be around other creatives. it was very revitalizing. i also learned a lot about incorporating a sales pitch into every aspect of conversation. very slick. 10:51 am

i think i'm in information overload. i find myself going to blogs and reading them but not bothering to follow the links because i don't have the time or the energy to look at them. i feel very burnt out. 10:49 am

i haven't blogged at all today. mostly because the t1 was down for a while at work, and then i had to go to a meeting, and then i had to go up to san francisco to meet with the branding company. by the time i got back to work, the t1 was down again and it was time to go home anyway. 09:56 pm

steve recommended the Computer Consultants workbook. it looks like just what i need right now. 06:26 pm

best title ever: cynical evangelist. 04:02 pm

i think we've definitely decided. at least it seems like we've definitely decided. jason and i are going to go freelance. start our own web shop. it sounds like we'll be open for business in june. so, i won't be selling my house. which is probably a good decision. but, i will be dealing with the stress of wondering if we'll get enough jobs. any advice would be appreciated. this is all new territory for me. 01:52 pm

i think, conveniently, we can all just blame microsoft. 01:44 pm

speaking of stock, does anyone else get the impression that the bubble has burst? i haven't seen anyone mention it. is everyone ignoring it and hoping it goes away? 01:41 pm

to make it all worse, i couldn't sleep last night. too many details. too much planning. which wouldn't have been so bad if jason's dad hadn't called at 7:45am. most people are polite enough to realize that before 9 is not a good time to call. jason's dad seems to think that before 7 is not a good time, but after that is fine. he called to ask why cybersource had a lockout on selling stock. because the stock market is taking a huge dive, duh. cybersource has gone from $50 down to $19. i'm depressed. 01:36 pm

ouch! my brain hurts. my tooth hurts. i am in post-dentist hell. there's nothing better than sitting in the chair having the dentist build up the core in order to do a crown, and having your gums bleeding. bleeding so that he can't but in the filling, bleeding so that he tries 20 or 30 times and has to take deep breaths in order to not explode and then starts talking about just doing a root canal then and there because then he wouldn't have to worry about bleeding, it could bleed all it wants. and with his fingers in my mouth i can't scream "nooooo. i don't want a root canal". i hate the dentist. 01:32 pm

at least i'm not the only one who gets rejected by the cool companies. "they said i suck and would never hire me because i'm such a loser" is such an apt description. and adam, you really do do a good imitation of ben. 10:34 pm

so, jason ordered some clothes from international male and we now get catalogs at least once a week. flipping through these, i start to wonder, who needs porn when you've got a catalog full of images like these? for some reason (which only liz will understand) the phrase "nice package" comes to mind. 10:23 pm

ok, so i was scared to find myself linked off of someone's resume, but this is even more scary, being linked on a syllabus! 09:42 pm

i don't think i mentioned it, but jason took the pictures in adelaide. so, this beautiful sunset was none of my doing. alas. 09:35 pm

why is it that i can go hours without using blogger, but the moment it goes down, i have 10 different things i have to blog.

i found a recipe for a quick fuck. several people have offered up a b52 as a substitute. it consists of bailey's, kahlua, and grand marnier. i can live with that kind of substitution. more interestingly named drinks...slippery nipple, blow job...

media collective makers of the web design pad have an online swatch. useful.

but, will they listen?

oh god, someone stop neale, he was so *nice* in person, he had me fooled, but, now he's done this. 09:33 pm

interesting article about speed in business and speed in personal life (way at the bottom). the one thing i take issue with, the author constantly says that first to market is better than best to market, even when the data clearly shows this isn't true. 05:08 pm

i finally got through all the blogs i had to catch up on, and all the email that i had in my inbox. maybe now i should do some work. nah. 02:15 pm

never ever buy a mitsubishi. they are the worst piece of shit cars that constantly break down even when they're only 3 years old. and never get them serviced at the mitsubishi dealer on auto-mall pkwy in san jose. they put the wrong transmission fluid in it which destroyed the transmission. then claimed they couldn't possibly have made a mistake, and therefore they won't fix it because it's just normal wear and tear. so we're supposed to pay $2100 for a rebuilt transmisison + labor. bastards. bastards. bastards. 01:50 pm

fred also wrote about how he's become everything he once despised. what worries me is 6 of those 10 apply to me. which would mean fred once despised me. anyway, i'm very glad to see fred's back, and i really like reading about his "crummy life". 01:28 pm

fred put up a sxsw recap and has finally updated his weblog again. yay. anyway, he did a really great job of capturing people's personalities. 01:24 pm

denise (who has a nice redesign) pointed out the mac website. i've been hoping that they'll sell their cosmetics online. so go fill out their survey because they ask if you'd buy stuff online. 01:09 pm

how do you answer something like this? it's from an email sent to jason by his mom. i mean, it's hard to explain anyway, but this is too overwhelmingly difficult to react to. not to mention the fact that now i have to wonder whether she'll be reading this.

"I went to web site, all I see is a bunch of writting from brigette. Like she is talking to someone. and very unhappy in her job. your web seem hard to get around in. I saw one time your stuff on pantera, but I couldn't find it later to show larry. the site is very strange, and why would brig want all her writting on it for everyone to read?"

this new rim device might make me replace my palm. 12:30 pm

vacation. 12:12 pm

so, now i'm jealous of jack as well as matt. actually, i'm not that jealous of matt right now, it sounds like he's getting all the boring work that the other guys don't want to do. 12:01 pm

interesting. web fashion colors follow clothing fashion colors. thanks matt. 11:20 am

this may be old news to people, but gile turnbull (formerly of gorjuss) wrote a bbc online article about blogging. 11:22 pm

remember, you never know when something you write in email will get posted on the web. not that i wrote anything i don't want posted, just disturbing to find it posted. i'd love to hear other opinions on the topic. 11:19 pm

damn. now i know where to find an idea for my own business. i especially like the tip on "special sauce". who would have imagined that "a better place to buy software" would be a liability. 11:10 pm

they're disgustingly full of sunrises, sunsets, and beaches, but here's my pictures. 08:15 pm

i've been reading elizabeth george for the last week. if you like mysteries, these are incredible. beautiful imagery, well done characterization, and plot twists that leave you thinking you know who the killer is, but you're never right. i will be forever grateful to jill for recommending her to me. 07:25 pm

evil skins. 06:36 pm

hmmm. from reading this article, one might get the impression that ziad actually had something to do with the decision to move to java. a decision that was made long before he was hired. one might also get the impression that it was a painless effort, "four engineers six weeks", if one didn't realize that those weeks were 16 hour days and included weekends. 06:10 pm

cindy competes with pb in the photo talent dept. 05:45 pm

i have a ganglion cyst on my left wrist. i was worried it might be a tumor. i think it's related to emacs pinky... 05:16 pm

i discovered a new drink in australia. actually i discovered lots of new drinks, like the heron fantasy, mint crisp and numerous other "drink of the day"s. but this drink was special. it's name, quick fuck. quickie or qf for short. i don't know if they have these over here, i've never run across one before, but, the recipe is quite simple. take a shot glass, fill it half full with kahlua, add a thin layer of midori, and top it off with bailey's. yum. if anyone knows what they're called here, let me know. 05:09 pm

to everyone sending me email which i'm not replying to, i will, honest. just as soon as i get my laptop back... 10:09 am

oops. i've been corrected. it wasn't mad, passionate sex i was offered, it was mad, passionate love. love sounds much better: the seine, red wine, 400-year old restaurants... 10:07 am

hmm. i go away for a week, and i get compared with a barfly and offered mad, passionate sex next time i'm in paris! (030400) i should go on vacation more often. 06:04 pm

i'm back! and, i've discovered how disgustingly dependent i am on my laptop (which is still being repaired). downloading eudora, trying to remember my pop account settings, having no filters for all the mailing lists i'm on, over 600 emails. ugh. australia was wonderful. being blogless was not as excrutiatingly painful as i thought it would be. and i have so much to write and pictures to upload. but it probably won't happen 'til i get my computer back. 06:01 pm