after over a month of going through the "naming game", they've finally chosen a new company name. they paid a huge amount of money to a company for them to come up with a name (one of the names they came up with ended in "ent", but i think i managed to convince them that it would be considered a joke). after all that time and money, the one they chose was the one i came up with 6 weeks ago with a co-worker. maybe i should be charging $100k for this service. 06:57 pm

one downside to taking lots of vacation, you end up owing money to the company when you leave. luckily, i got to just give them a credit towards future services. :) 06:51 pm

i'm really irritated. i can't get the camera software to connect with the camera. it just doesn't want to see it. i tried it at home last night, i tried it today on my docking station. nothing. grrr. 02:13 pm

jason bought me flowers again. it's become a tradition. this is the third year in a row that he's bought me a huge floral arrangement for my birthday. so now i've got another ugly vase to add to the 2 sitting at home that i haven't thrown out yet. the stupid thing tho, is that the arrangement is too big to fit in my car. so i will probably have to leave it here tomorrow. 07:25 pm

i always feel sad when i pack up my stuff and clear my desk. all my toys look so sad when they're piled into a box with my books and cds. that my presence of 4 months can be wiped out in 5 minutes with no trace but the dust and the huge box of business cards that never got used. sad. but exciting too, because i can look forward to unpacking it all in my own office. but, right now it's sad. 07:23 pm

the more i think about it, the more i think that victor is right. the arrow is replacing the swoosh/swirl/jumping man. --> --> --> 04:59 pm

this weekend we watched the thief. i'm having trouble finding words to describe it. it's about relationships, the struggle to survive and the different outlooks on life people have. i really enjoyed it. 04:52 pm

it's very strange when you have a thought in the morning, then in the afternoon you run across the answer even tho you never asked the question. this morning i wondered if there was anything like imdb except for music. on may 24, graham linked to cddb. 02:52 pm

i was all set to upload my new york pictures today. i brought my camera, the software i needed to install. but, then i realized, i forgot the cable. doh. 02:21 pm

as i was going through the fry's receipt last night, i noticed that we got charged for 2 copies of cold fusion. since we didn't buy *any* copies of cold fusion, i was a bit concerned. it turns out that the sales guy who printed up one of those itemized sheets entered a 3 instead of a 2 on the sku number. so our $5 /ea ethernet cables, cost us $395/ea. fry's is "researching" it. 01:33 pm

today we bought an orange ibook. i've never owned a mac before. 11:27 pm

i woke up this morning with the phrase "what was old is new again" in my head. for some reason it seems important. 11:25 pm

today was shopping day. we went to ikea to get office furniture. i will *never* go to ikea again. the place is hellish. after just getting back from new york, crowds aren't bothering me very much, but they did at ikea. we went in the wrong door, so we missed the entrance with the handy little map which is required for store navigation. we also missed the forced tour of all their wares. even with a map (stolen from someone else) i still couldn't find some of the departments. over half the stuff that we'd carefully selected from the catalog was out of stock, and the other half took an extraordinary amount of time to find. fry's was heaven compared to ikea, and that's saying a lot. 11:20 pm

one of the coolest things i picked up in new york were Benders. the ultimate desk toy. 06:35 pm

this vacation has been exceptionally fun. i'm not sure whether it's because i've quit my job so have no stress to return to, whether i just really feel at home in new york, whether i'm just enjoying spending lots of money, or whether i'm excited to get back and start working on the business. it's probably some combination of all those things. we've got a meeting with a potential client on the 5th or 6th, so i'm no longer so stressed about having work to do. 03:48 pm

i've decided that i could actually live in new york. after the first couple of days, when the sheer number of people was stressing me out, i've learned to ignore everyone, learned to stop dodging people and just plow right through and learned the art of jay walking. i've also had 2 different tourists ask me for directions, so i guess i must fit in pretty well. 03:43 pm

last night, after dinner in little italy, we went to the wetbar and made up stories about the different people sitting around the room. the two call girls who introduced themselves to two older, unattractive men and stood around chatting with them. the 35 year old who looked like he was dating his friend's daughter. the old man with the rug on his head... sometimes people watching can be so much fun. 03:39 pm

today we did the brooklyn botanic garden and wall st.. the botanic garden just re-opened their japanese garden which was beautiful, although the plants haven't had much time to fill out yet. wall st. was, well, wall st. lots of big tall buildings. not very surprising. 03:37 pm

i'm soo tired of walking. walk. walk. walk. walk. taxi. walk. walk. walk. subway. walk. walk. my feet hate me. but, i'm definitely having fun. today we did central park, grand central station, little italy and, of course, more shops. if i could stand being surrounded by so many people, i'd like to live in new york. well, except for the weather. i'll just make sure to visit my sister a lot in spring and fall. 11:00 pm

well, the blogbowl is over and was a lot of fun, despite the name and the location. i even took some pictures with the digital camera i bought this afternoon, but i can't put them up until i get back because i need to install the software. anyway, elan, david, cam, damien, grant, amy, jim, mary beth, neil, bill, and... i'm definitely forgetting some people, all showed up. 10:41 pm

this one showed up in my referrer logs. freebase, from what i could tell from the limited info, looks like it might be a useful tool. but, i'd have to download it to find out. it can wait. 09:59 pm

walking past a store in manhattan today, i saw an advertisement for a wireless modem for the palm v. it's called OmniSky which sounded exciting, 'til i went to their site and realized it was just a minstrel modem. what's worse, it doesn't work in santa cruz. 09:36 pm

i may have jumped to conclusions because of the prejudice i have against bowling. i've been told that the Bowlmor is "enjoyable from a visual point of view". since their site says "an art gallery you can bowl in", i probably should have realized that it wasn't a run-o-the-mill bowling alley. but, why would i have looked at the website of a *bowling alley*? 09:30 pm

pacbell's dialup in new york sucks. lots of lag, kicked me off 4 or 5 times, refused to let me on a couple of times. sigh. 05:07 pm

ed recommended Eureka Lab Books which he loves, and a store in sf called Kinkoshimura (sp???).

although, i just went into a store called Kinokuniya which may be the same store. they had wonderful pens and notebooks. yum. 05:01 pm

apparently, what was supposed to be having a drink has now become a BlogBowl. somehow, i never really considered bowling as entertainment, but if you want to join me in my pain, come along. 04:46 pm

in case you were anxiously awaiting the incoherent ramblings from my plane ride, i posted them. i'm still not sure why, but you have been warned not to waste your time. 10:39 am

michael recommended the Colorado Pen Company. which looks interesting, but i don't know for sure because it's too much effort to dig through the site on a 44k connection. 10:37 am

now, i *know* i'm not charging enough. hot-shot designers are charging $350,000 for a homepage and 5 templates. ouch. thanks sanj 05:35 pm

hee. 05:12 pm

i confess, i have an obsession with high quality paper and pens. there's nothing that compares with the pleasure of writing on rag paper with a very fine rollerball pen. i have such a hard time finding paper and pens that i like, and on the web it's almost hopeless. there's levenger, but i can't find any others that have decent catalogs. 05:02 pm

this is the second time today that i've been surprised by ui changes. first, at spyonit where they relaid out their add a spy page, and now at amazon. upon 1-click ordering my dead kennedys cd, instead of the usual page reload with a thankyou, i get a thankyou page with 6 recommendations that i can also buy w/1-click. very nicely done, although i already have the suicidal tendencies cd, i could use that black flag... 03:56 pm

this dead kennedys lawsuit is just sad. maybe i'm just feeling nostalgic for their music. i think i need to go order the cd. i'm certainly not going to get my "kill the poor" fix from my lp, since i don't have anything to play it on. via jack. 03:50 pm

ever wonder where those odd phrases came from? well, look no further. who knew that "let the cat out of the bag" came from a con trick. 03:28 pm

htmlhell. more on independent content by zeldman. 03:17 pm

i hate it when i get online, goof around for an hour, then get off, shut the computer down, and realize that i forgot to do what i got online to do in the first place. i am glad that i got back on and checked the weather in new york. for some reason, since it's been 90+ here in san jose, i assumed it would be steamy in new york, instead it's going to be rainy and cloudy. life is good. 11:16 pm

michael has an interesting discussion on weblogging and the sharing of experiences. i know, it's another link about weblogs, i can't help it. besides, i'm trying to avoid packing for new york, i hate packing. 10:41 pm

more on the starting a business thing, we went down and got a business license this morning and then dropped into the local bank to open a business account. for some reason they required a stock declaration thingy which we didn't have. so we call the lawyer, get his secretary, ask her to have him fax it to the bank, and fill out all the paperwork and write the check to open the account. all good right? nope. the lawyer calls and says that it will take 6 months for us to get that stock thingy from the state and that the bank shouldn't need it anyway, and if they insist, ditch 'em. tomorrow we'll be opening an account at a different bank. 08:29 pm

i'm coming to the conclusion that there's this dividing line between being an independent contractor, and being a development firm. the trick being to fight off all the contracting agencies who want to sub-contract an independent and to cultivate the companies that want to hire your firm. the importance of networking is becoming more and more apparent. good connections seem to be the key to starting a successful firm. dice is the key to being an independent contractor. 08:25 pm

zeldman reminded me of this a list apart article on setting fees. the article pointed me to the web price index. so now i feel much better about what i was thinking of charging. 08:06 pm

i'm discovering that setting hourly rates is one of the most stressful things i've ever had to do. if i charge too little, am i underselling myself, if i charge too much, am i in fantasy land thinking people will pay that. and, how do you judge people's reactions to your quoted rate, if it's an agency, do you ignore their protests that you're charging too much because they're going to turn around and slap a 30% increase onto it, or do you assume that they've got a finger on what realistic market rates are. why is money such a taboo subject anyway? you're not supposed to ask how much a co-worker is making, you're not supposed to tell anyone what you're making, you're not allowed to talk about salaries or hourly rates on *any* mailing list because then the list-mom's have to worry about price-fixing accusations, and you know that all the salary surveys are useless data points because most of the people taking them are underpaid anyway. sigh. 07:13 pm

we watched boy's don't cry last night. i didn't realize until the end credits that it was based on a true story. something that made it even sadder and more disturbing. i decided that i don't like hillary swank, but it may just have been the accent because she did actually play the role very well. 06:01 pm

it just occurred to me, mostly because i hadn't thought about it until i read heather's wonderful letter to pacbell, and lilly's threat of dsl trials and tribulations, that the dsl installation at our new office may not go as smoothly or as quickly as i would hope. 05:54 pm

i'm beginning to wonder if i'm strange. actually i know i'm strange, but in this case, i'm wondering if i'm strange because i just don't care about napster. everywhere i look, people are talking about it, linking to stories about, daily there's new exciting news about it. so, if everyone else feels they need to discuss it daily, why am i just not interested? 04:29 pm

while i applaud the sentiment behind positive blogging, i have to wonder about two things. (1) why would i pledge to something that i already tend to do? and if i do tend to be mean, would pledging not to be mean change my underlying personality enough to stop being mean in the first place. basically, i just don't get the whole affirmation, proclaiming to the world thing. it's not like i'm only going to read blogs that are positive or that i really need to hear if someone's pledged this thing, it's really not that hard to tell by reading. (2) why would you pledge to limit your content in any way? if i need to bitch about someone whether it's a blogger or a co-worker or a customer support person, i consider the consequences of writing about it and then either write or don't write depending on if i can deal with those consequences. besides, i can see always being nice increasing the boredom factor immensely. 02:31 pm

Ben writes a how to for all those people who are tired of linking to him and just want to be him. 12:42 pm

hey, matt finally proposed! congrats! 12:31 pm

enormicon makes the ny times. maybe after seeing it in such an august publication, companies will stop with the "ent" and the swoosh. although everyone will probably just switch to the spiral or the jumping man. via matt. 11:52 am

while a lot of it isn't really applicable, there's a few valuable nuggets in this: How to Succeed as a Freelancer. thanks sanj. 11:11 am

one thing i can always count on, when peter links to a modern furniture site, i'll have plenty to drool over. do you ever look at something that has perfect lines, perfect flow, perfect simplicity, and then go into a state of complete awe? maybe awe isn't the right word for it. ecstacy? love? whatever it is, Pure Design takes me there, both the site and the furniture. 10:33 am

clearly, we're all insane, it's just a matter of degrees. 10:06 am

something else that runs along the lines of lack of content. in will the artists please rise?, teresa martin describes how content used to be "something inside a container". with the separation of container and content, valuable pieces have been reduced to generic "content", while empty containers are misnamed "content". a web page is a container, a blog is a format for that page, but without the content, it's useless. via zeldman. 02:37 pm

according to anita, those postcard things are actually really effective. i'm definitely surprised, but since i'm very biased against printing web pages, it's probably not all that surprising. 05:33 pm

Me, My Brand And I. i'm surprised the writer of this article didn't interview ben. his brand is phenomenal. 04:24 pm

i just don't know if i want to hear about the health violations of my favorite restaurants. i'm sure it's just new york restaurants that have vermin problems, toxic chemicals, and spoiled food. definitely not california restaurants. and most definitely not my favorite restaurant. 04:15 pm

so i get another piece of spam in my mailbox (the one that i filter spam into), and as i reach for the delete key, i take the time to focus on the title. just in case it's actually important email in which someone forgot to use my email address. the title reads "full color postcards of your website" (capitals and exclamations removed). so i do a double take. someone can't *really* being thinking they'll make money printing postcards of websites, can they? well yes, yes they can. 03:57 pm

i remembered yesterday why i was so happy to get out of the printing industry. we're trying to get business cards done. so i created artwork, picked a pms color close to the rgb color on the website, printed out separations on a 600dpi laser printer, and gave them to a printer who's supposed to be one of the best in the bay area. all good, nice and easy, right?

so, he calls up yesterday morning and says the lines are too light and he's worried about them showing up so we need to go straight from electronic to film. unfortunately, i designed the cards in corel on windows, a 5 year old copy of corel. so jason starts calling around service bureaus trying to find one that can handle a corel file, or at least a windows ai file, and he gets the usual mac service bureau snobbery "well, *nobody* uses windows in this business, everyone uses macs, you really shouldn't have done that in corel...". the same story i've heard for the 5 years i did print work, but it's amazing how many service bureaus had windows machines with corel installed even 5 years ago. did they throw them all out or something?

we finally get someone who can handle the corel file, but we need to split it into 2 files one for each color plate. why? i have no idea. maybe they can't figure out how to print separations with corel. jason sends them off, and forgets to include the fonts. while really annoying, it's a common mistake. so, the printer calls and whines because the service bureau called him and yelled at him because they wasted their time opening a file that didn't have the fonts included. huh? what ever happened to professionalism? i resend the files, include the fonts, and even send copies of the files that have the fonts converted to curves, just in case they can't handle truetype fonts.

the printer calls this morning and complains because they're charging him an extra $16 for the time they wasted. like it's some huge deal, i mean come on $16? as i was telling jason last night, even when you've worked closely with a service bureau on a regular basis, there are *always* problems. i would send manuals to the same print company in the exact same format and they would still have issues with them. apparently, this hasn't improved in the last 4 years. ugh. i'm glad i don't do it anymore. 01:58 pm

and i thought it was just me. btw, i'm just linking to ben because he's *so* funny and *so* cute and *so* smart. i mean, how can anyone *not* link to ben. actually, i'm sitting here wondering why i assumed it was all in my head. i think i need to talk to people more. 10:13 pm

you know when you read something and you realize that it's exactly what you were thinking:

"... blogging has changed my life. It's turned me from a passive to active participant, it's forced me to delineate my ideas more clearly, it's shown me how repetitive and limiting my depressed thought and life habits were and challenged me to move on from the same-old-shit."

have i mentioned that i'm going to new york next week? i'm taking a red-eye tuesday night and returning sunday morning. 02:46 pm

do i have good timing or what. yesterday layoffs came close to home. i've never been at a company that laid people off. except for that layoff that wasn't really a layoff but was a layoff at clip2. i realized this morning that tuesday, when my boss asked me whether those pages i did for that presentation were a real, workable ui, he was actually defending my position so that i wouldn't be laid off. this is all assumption of course, but i imagine the following conversation happening:

someone: next employee, brigitte. is she essential?

someone: we can layoff brigitte

boss: what about the fact that we still need a ui?

someone: haven't we already got one? we can use those demo pages she made.

boss: i don't think that's a usable ui, but let me doublecheck that with brigitte

hee. via derek. 02:15 pm

the recording of the connection weblog talk is online. the people who called in were interesting and ev, brad and rebecca did a wonderful job. 01:50 pm

it's amazing what a little bit of boredom can do to stimulate interest. 08:45 pm

wow. graham spewed out a stream of consciousness that totally encapsulates the '90's into one (very long) paragraph. i'm impressed. (5/18 scroll down) 08:43 pm

CyberCoders.com has an interesting salary calculator. according to it, i'm making $50k less than i should be. 07:55 pm

and then there's the one's that you have no idea how they got there: Erkrankungen. 07:47 pm

sometimes i go through my referrer logs and find unusual things. like this http://benbrown.com/sex/. my first reaction being, ben is writing about sex, *why* am i getting linked to? 07:43 pm

precocious writes

"Why are the most popular blogs so popular? It sure as hell isn't about content, because Eatonweb, Metagrrl, and Evhead are some of the dullest reads on the planet, in my opinion. Some of those "top" blogs lack complete imagination when it comes to design, are stale and are as overplayed as a Britney Spears or Backstreet Boys song on your local Top 40 radio station."

Myth of the big screen. fascinating article which makes you wonder what our gadgets would be like if they weren't based on bad design. 06:45 pm

i'm starting to wonder if i need a break. i'm just tired of weblogs. tired of hearing about them, tired of reading them. i'm not tired of writing one tho. so, the obvious answer would be to take a break and stop reading other blogs for a while. but, there's a catch-22, i read all these people's blogs to keep up with their lives, if i stop reading them, i lose that. maybe i've just got too much to do and that's why i'm feeling so uninterested. speaking of too much to do, i have to get back to coding... 06:31 pm

i realized last night that i was actually scared about starting my own company. scared about dealing with marketing, scared about interviewing clients, scared about writing proposals, and scared about whether my work would live up to expectations. but, that was last night. today i've been fielding requests, ordering business cards, and generally feeling in charge of my life. it's not so scary anymore. 04:27 pm

no matter how many times it happens, i'm always amazed at what a small world it is. back in january (i think) geoff who reads my weblog turned out to be chatting with jason about panteras. geoff is in santa cruz this weekend for a wedding, and my sister called last night to say that he's staying with one of her best friends. it's just freaky. 11:12 am

woohoo! i've finally taken the plunge. i quit today. i'll be out of here as soon as i finish this ui. probably in 1-2 weeks. as far as leavings go, this was definitely the most enjoyable one i've experienced. it's unusual to have a manager who is understanding, supportive, appreciative and sympathetic all at the same time. now i just have to whip out this ui as fast as possible. 05:05 pm

i really have trouble understanding *why* someone would build this Subterranean Fortress. via rebecca. 03:34 pm

it seems that lots of people discovered the post eating bug in blogger this weekend. 02:51 pm

taylor points to nadav who wishes jakob would stop with the default link color thing. this is what i was going to bitch about on sunday when blogger ate my post. the other thing that irritated me was that the default link color had no relation to the study he was talking about, and he didn't link to the study inline, but he states in the third paragraph about how important it is. 02:45 pm

i've been using pixels for fonts for the last 6 months, it's the only css font definition that doesn't cause a furor of complaints from people not wanting to change their browser settings. but, everywhere i looked, people kept saying don't use pixels use keywords or percentages or font tags, so i felt kind of guilty going against the wisdom of the masses. today i feel much better because zeldman has spoken "Until all browsers support standards, designers will be stuck using pixels or FONT SIZE tags.". 12:31 pm

i had written a nice little commentary about how irritating i find the latest alertbox. but, blogger has a nice little error that completely destroys postings, as i discovered yesterday when writing this. anyway, i'm too irritated to rewrite it. in fact, i'm in such a pissy mood that i'm seriously considering going back to hand-coding. 09:58 am

why do i find it so irritating that i'm inconvenienced, forced to log in every time because other people are using a browser with a security hole? it's like not being able to receive email attachments because some people use outlook. 11:33 am

while reading the latest alistapart on the 5k contest, i realized that i'd never linked to the winners. then i wondered why not. i realized that a lot of what i used to link to ends up on metafilter long before i get around to blogging it. after reading a complete discussion on a topic, i don't feel the need to link to it. it's become uninteresting. 10:48 am

so, i wasn't going to blog the fact that halcyon won a webby last night. i figured one more 'congrats, halcyon' would just get lost in the 1000 others. but, after reading so many blog entries about the webby's, i realized that they're about as interesting to me as the oscars. which is not at all. i like heather's sundance-of-the-web idea, tho. 08:02 pm

myportalzone. 02:50 pm

sigh. i take the day off and i still get pissed.

them: if it's needed/wanted functionality, we'll have to figure out how to do it. ok?

me: just keep in mind that marketing requests functionality, engineering decides how best to implement it.

them: while marketing shouldn't dictate implementation, they can say "we need a web-based way to do this".

since everyone else at work was taking the day off, and since i've had such a horrible week, i decided to take it off too. 09:58 am

you know when you think you couldn't possibly get even more pissed off and then you realize that you weren't anywhere near as pissed off as you could possibly be.

"me: so why would we make the user have an account when all that functionality can be done with an email client?

extended period of discussing the whys and why nots

them: well, i think there's value in them having an account

me: and, what exactly are you basing this thought on?

them: well, i'm basing it on my opinion.

me: yeah, but i'm basing it on my *job*. it's my job to tell you what a user will and will not do. to tell you why a user won't use a piece of functionality. it's not based on my opinion, it's based on experience and knowledge. and you just told me that my work is useless because it carries no more weight than your *opinion*!

brigitte's head explodes

them: well, this is marketing's decision so, i'll take it back to them and let them decide."

i knew there was a good reason that i'm still using netscape. other than the stubborn refusal to change that is. 01:13 pm

i have just returned from dentist hell. after much pain and suffering, my dentist explained that he didn't like to use very much novacaine on me because he didn't want me to have a seizure because of the stimulant. hence the severe pain i've been putting up with. thankfully, he'll be increasing his usage in the future. i just hope it takes a long time for the novacaine to wear off. i'll be dying when it does. 12:46 pm

i think i've reached a new low. being reduced to begging for freelance work in my blog so that i can be released from the torment of my job. sad. 05:42 pm

right now i'm just hating life. i hate having to throw out a wonderful idea in order to start working on an ok idea. i hate people doing my job (i.e creating personas) without involving me until after they're done and want to run it by me. i hate people not realizing that you can't completely switch focus from benefiting the user to benefiting a company and still maintain the same interface and the same model.

"me: if there's no value for the user to have an account, why would we build one?

them: just because we can.

me: so, you want to waste development time in creating something useless?

them: wow. i never thought to hear engineering say that.

me: oh ok. how about, i can't design a ui unless i can see some value in it for the user, some purpose, some goal that it will solve?

them: oh and by the way, we'd really like you to start designing the ui in conjunction with us defining the functional spec.

me: umm. how about, i can't design a ui without a functional spec, it's sort of dependent on all the funcionality being defined. you wouldn't ask the backend team to start work on the backend w/o a functional spec would you?

them: well, i see your point, but we really need to get going on this as soon as possible."

is it just me, or is anyone else disturbed by the new design trend in cars? i'm talking about the sharp creased edges combined with curves. like the new toyota celica, the trunk edges are sharp but then the sides and the bumper are all curvy. either one on it's own could give a car beautiful lines, but the two together are just extremely jarring. 04:21 pm

a good reason not to put the weblogs.com ads on your site. when it goes down, your site does too. 12:33 pm

why is it that when you put weeks of thought and design into a ui, no one compliments you on it (ok, maybe some people complimented me, but it was so long ago i don't remember them), but when you throw something together in 8 hours, purely based on what your ceo needs to show in a presentation the next day, something that barely has any logic, would be incredibly difficult to use, and is missing huge amounts of key functionality, everyone loves it? maybe i'm just that good. yeah, right. 12:20 pm

i don't know why my color is brown. i just don't see how it could be anything but black. so, i retook the test, changing some of the answers that could have gone either way, and i still don't come up with black, i come up with blue. blue at least sounds a lot more like me. 12:09 pm

"Yesterday...
All those tech stocks seemed the game to play
Now my net worth has gone away
Oh I believe, in Yesterday.

Suddenly, I'm worth half of what I used to be
Margin calls are hanging over me
The NASDAQ crashed so suddenly

Why it all had to go I do not know
Correction is what the analysts say
Now all my moneys gone
And I long for Yesterday

Yesterday
The need for profits seemed so far away
I thought that Bull was here to stay
Now I believe in Yesterday.

(C) 2000, Jesse G. Robbins. Redistribute freely. ;-)
jesse@worldcontrol.com

graham, you are not the only one who pronounces riothero rio thero, i thought i was the only one. although i've been trying to break myself of that habit... 07:16 pm

good advice. 07:12 pm

like peter said go "right now" and play with this. 06:54 pm

how come when someone says "you know you want to", you suddenly feel compelled to? 06:30 pm

something annoying about the new blogger: i always used to be able to tell that the ftp had finished when the list of entries reloaded, now i have to look at the little arrows. 05:40 pm

how could i have missed UberSearch? it's better than referrer logs. via josh. 05:21 pm

execution vs. concept. zeldman reminds us all that technique shouldn't replace communicaiton. via xblog. 05:11 pm

adam's gen i post got me thinking about how stupid these kind of classifications are. i've been called a member of gen-x, the slacker generation, the 80's generation, and now i fit into the gen i demographic. now what happens in 3 weeks when i turn 31? does that mean i'll no longer be "irreverent, dynamic and hate to be talked down to"? maybe i'll actually start enjoying being talked down to. 04:46 pm

why is it that a mysimon search on aeron chair comes up with 2 quotes of $879 & $789, but i can get it from herman miller for $749? 04:37 pm

so, if i link to taylor's post on how stupid bi-directional links are, am i linking because i agree with him (which i do) or am i linking because i just want to see how well his script works by getting myself onto his page? seriously tho, i don't see anyway that bi-directional links could be implemented effectively without complete information overload. still it would be nice to be able to link to all those cross-blog discussions. then again, you could just implement a discussion board. 04:24 pm

we put a deposit down on some office space this morning. we should have the paperwork for the s-corp done by the end of the week. and as soon as the stock check hits the bank account, we can start buying stuff. and if corel hadn't destroyed my business card file, i could actually get some printed. every step completed makes it seem that much more real. now if we only had some clients... 04:03 pm

GraphicDesignGate.com is one of those useful sites that links to all the sites you need but have forgotten about. via zeldman. 03:59 pm

Inconspicuous Consumption. waste some time reading about the why's of different products. haven't you always wanted to read about the history of the swing-a-way hand-held can opener? via lilly. 03:52 pm

jason talking about remembering his dream, reminded me that i've had two weird dreams in the last 3 days.

in the first, i was staying at a hotel which was haunted and in my room i saw the ghost going through the motions of killing someone and then turning and looking at me. when i went to bed that night, stupidly in the same room, the ghost tried to steal my body, and i had to resist him taking it over. so, i resisted him and thought that had made him go away for good. silly me. the next night he tried it again. i woke up after the second time. ugh.

then last night, i dreamt that one of my front teeth had been knocked out and the other one was moving over to fill the gap, but it was really loose. so when my dentist reached in and pulled on it, it came out.

maybe i shouldn't write about my dreams, there's too much potential for people to analyze them and conclude that i'm crazy. oh wait, they might be right. 03:02 pm

dot.com layoffs. in a similar vein, i discovered today that our bonuses aren't actually based on putting out a beta on time, they're based on that + the company getting funded. minor detail. although no funding could equal no pay... 07:56 pm

They're Crammed in Like Cattle. moo. 07:53 pm

Twenty Questions is a knowledgebase that actually learns from your answers. it's actaully quite good at figuring out what you're thinking of. 06:31 pm

i wonder why the need to redesign becomes such an obsession. an obsession which causes me to spend all weekend doing it instead of playing. 02:47 pm

subterranean notes is also back up again. 07:12 pm

yay! Virulent Memes is back! (i really need to go through the new blogs more regularly). 06:35 pm

finally, an answer to that deep, meaningful question "why do some people have "innies" and others have "outties"?". all you people with outties had lousy doctors. 05:22 pm

Pompeii reveals ancient luxury hotel. pompeii and herculaneum (on the other side of vesuvius) are one the reasons i wanted to be an archeologist. 05:01 pm

i wonder if this is similar to my mum's theory: in order to make money, you have to spend money. 04:58 pm

meg mentions the new game panty raider and how offensive it is. it's being discussed on metafilter. 04:53 pm

i should have mentioned this the other day when i emailed it to someone who needed the info, but pam, who i used to work with at clip2, has a book out on affiliate selling. 04:34 pm

deja vue. all over again. doesn't matter if the users are the only element that makes this idea work. screw 'em. sigh. i've been here before. 03:59 pm

i'm also feeling very unloved. ever since i dropped out of the top 20, nobody emails me anymore. and now that adam is no longer a member of "sucky unhireables, inc.", i don't know who i'm going to whinge to. note to self: going on vacation makes everybody forget about you. 01:49 pm

ugh. i feel sick now. marketing is having a bbq. i should have known that eating cheap frozen hamburger would not be good for me. i really despise company functions. more than likely because i'm an introvert, but i just really dislike being forced to have fun and socialize. especially since it's all the extroverts who think it's a good time and want to force you into attending. 01:43 pm

i don't know if i can handle waiting until september in order to become a god. 11:58 am

i would love to have an embedded computer. imagine never having to take another pill again. 03:03 pm

i can't understand how or why someone could take so much enjoyment out of playing with people. maybe i'm just much too brutally honest and have found that lying usually causes more problems and distress than telling the truth. 02:54 pm

i wonder if they ever considered the theory that online readers focus first on text because they've been trained that graphics are just pretty filler? 02:25 pm

i wonder why altavista thought it was better to use a new brand: Raging Search instead of their well known brand? 01:06 pm

i hate being wrong. or more accurately, i hate overlooking something that makes decisions i made wrong even though they were right based on the data i had. does that make any sense? actually, i just want to bitch because i thought i'd avoided the whole 2 different user roles thing, and now i realize that it's the best way to handle the ui. now i just have to figure out a way to do it *other* than the tab1: for x, tab2: for y, thing. i wonder how many poor ui decisions are made because the designer has seen something (i.e. tabs) done poorly so many times that s/he cringes at the thought of having to use them? i wonder if that is a bias that comes from having a graphic design background? hmm. more self-analysis to avoid doing actual work. 07:47 pm

scary. via taylor. 07:25 pm

hmmm. following derek's astrology link, i decided to check my own horoscope. i think i just discovered why weblogging is such an appropriate obsession. i'm a little worried about the report card thing tho... 07:07 pm

i had to drive all the way up to the city this morning. ugh. parking in sf sucks. i was meeting with extension11, the company whose launch party jake weaseled into, but couldn't remember who they were or what they did. well, jake, they're one of those companies you pay lots of money to and they come up with a name, a brand, a logo, and a strategy, all of which you could have done yourself for much less money and with much better results. they were presenting recommended names for the company. sadly, their number one choice came out of the nametron 3000 and their number two pick had a 2 on the end, which brought back lots of cool memories of handling clip2's brand. so, i'm going to be the evil person who says "you know, all these names really suck.". i'm just making so many friends lately. 05:19 pm

i'm finally managing to dig my way through my inbox. i just have to catch up on the mailing lists now. sigh. not that i have time to be reading email, i'm just avoiding the huge ui changes i have to design and build. 05:04 pm

so, here i was happily going along thinking the only thing i had to do over the next few weeks was design a site, when, while sitting in a meeting trying to figure out how a piece of functionality should work, i got this feeling in the pit of my stomach. an "oh fuck" kind of feeling where i had to block out what everyone was saying to me so that i could follow my train of thought to the horrible conclusion that i missed something. missed a teeny weeny little scenario which will happen in a majority of cases which can't be accomodated by my ui. now i've got to redo the major part of the ui. sucks to be me. at least i won't be bored. 07:35 pm

sarah finally put up her SxSW Report. it may have been a long time coming, but she describes the experience of sxsw really well. 02:20 pm

walking back from the deli (which is what passes for fine dining around here) and i saw a butterfly. it reminded me that the world is actually beautiful but i rarely take the time to appreciate it. 02:07 pm

cool. i wish i'd taken the time to download some of the sims extras. i want my sims to catch a virus. via tom. 01:46 pm

alice finds the idea of marshmallow spread nauseating. but marshmallow fluff was the only thing that made peanutbutter sandwiches edible. i have fond memories of fluffernutters, but i've never been able to find fluff in california. too bad they don't understand the concept of ordering on the web. 01:43 pm

the first five chapters of orson scott card's new book, shadow of the hegemon, are on the web. via dandot. 01:06 pm

why is it that i always feel the need to redesign when i really don't have the time to actually do it? 12:48 pm

i had written i nice little rant about why i was so pissed off yesterday, but then i realized it was much too long, so i moved it to a more appropriate place. 11:39 am

ugh. not enough time. too much stress at work. stress caused by overblown, non-issues about how i interact with marketing. being pissed off all day. only reading 10 or so blogs when i've got about 60 to catch up on. tired. hungry. haven't even caught up with email. let alone digging through media sites. so, if you're looking for something original or up-to-date, come back on wed. or thurs.. otherwise, if you don't really care what you read, you can listen to me bitch about work and rehash old memes that i missed in the past 5 days. actually, i probably won't post them, but i will go through them all, which takes time, which means that less time will be devoted to new and exciting things. i think that i should consume more than coffee, water, and a chocolate bunny during the day, it's affecting my thought processes which is resulting in this overflowing stream of conscious post which is completely pointless but makes me feel like i've actually blogged today without actually doing any real blogging because i've been too pissed off all day to actually do anything other than be pissed off and plan how i'm going to yell at my boss without offending him, and and... damn. gotta go eat. 08:11 pm

adam may be trying to compete with neale, but the articles on waxing are actually interesting. 07:48 pm

iBrator. in candy colors. 07:44 pm

sally answers the truly deep question: when will it all end?. 07:11 pm

we were just discussing baccarat. i watched some people playing it in vegas and couldn't figure out how it worked. so, here's the basics of bacarrat. 07:10 pm