I was a raccoon named Match for Halloween. So there.
Maybe I should check my posts next time. Sorry for the briefly broken image.
Oct 05
Parties, pool, googly eyes, badgers, Frankenstein’s monster, stroked-out cats, raccoon heads.
George was over working on a dress (a Halloween costume? I don’t know… she’s always sewing)…
Abe’s dad called me with great urgency yesterday to tell me about a black Volvo 740 or 940 sedan for sale. I wasn’t wholly excited given the price, but figured I’d go check it out. Turns out it was a Volvo 850 Turbo, which, had it been in decent shape, might have been mine by now. Unfortunately, there were just too many little nagging things wrong with it, plus a cracked windshield and nonfunctional A/C, so I had to pass. Too bad – this is the second 850 I’ve had to pull myself away from. They’re such great cars when in good shape.
I swear, Bender has to be the freakin’ Volkswagen of cats – always something wrong.
Somehow he managed to get a hole in his epidermis that was promptly sewn up by our vet. How does he get himself into these things? Anyway, sorry – I warned you it was gross.
Fall is here, so is the internet dead? Nobody’s blogging, nobody’s emailing. I guess we’re in hibernation.
Nope, no lulls here! Anyway, here’s a Land Cruiser from back when they were still good.
So many things today, what should I write about? More new Apples? The ‘Just For You’ feature of the iTunes Music Store? My jam session with PDF aka Dirty Grooves?
How bout none of the above? Rather, I’d like to coin a phrase, and that phrase is: Inverse Voltron.
What at first sounds like two random words strung together will make more sense after an explanation. First you need to know what Voltron even is. Essentially it’s a giant robot made by combining 5 other robots. Voltron is but one example of this – see also the Transformers Constructicons’ Devastator: or, more recently, Power Rangers. The point, and maybe you see where this is going, is when you add all the parts together you get one ridiculously awesome whole.
So with that logic, an Inverse Voltron would be quite the opposite. Like a group of musicians who are great soloists but horrible together or, more to the point, a series of design elements or designs strong on their own but terrible when combined. Yes, now you’ve figured out where this is coming from. It’s rather frustrating to end up with two comps for a project and, rather than using one or the other, they want you to use the first comp but make it the color of the second. This isn’t always a disaster but in this particular case it was, resulting in a rather unsightly Inverse Voltron. But you know, they got what they asked for, even if their giant robot couldn’t save his own files, let alone the world.
Every so often when I’m not devoting my mind to anything in particular I’ll start to play the ‘if’ game. The very first question that pops in my head is also the biggest and most life-changing.
What if my parents had never decided to move up to the middle of nowhere from Waukegan? I would’ve grown up in the suburbs, would’ve spent more time with my family (since they’re all down there), would’ve been hit harder by their tragedies and been more involved in their successes. I could’ve turned out a totally different person – someone who didn’t care about an education. If I had been the same, I imagine I would’ve ended up in some nice school down there, but who knows?
I might’ve never found an interest in art. The very first drawing I remember is when my mom showed me how to draw a picture of our house. What if she hadn’t? Would I have developed a talent for something else? I would’ve never made the decision to go to UW-Marathon. That’s what led me to meeting Abe and my other friends, and it’s what brought me to this city in the first place. I could’ve gone to Point right away, however unlikely, or MIAD, or some other school far, far away from Wisconsin.
There’s a perception, and I like to believe it, that we live in just one of an infinite amount of parallel universes, all of which vary from eachother by one and only one decision. It’s a mind-boggling concept, imagining these parallel worlds totally in sync with one another as they divide and divide with each decision made. If it’s a reality it would be quite amazing to see my parallel selves. I wonder how many of me are writing this right now?
Anyone who enjoys the show Whose Line is it Anyway? may want to catch The Green Screen Show on Comedy Central. It takes the comedic improv elements and cast from WLIIA? and drops them onto a greenscreen. After the show is taped live it’s given to some animators and, in the spirit of films like Sky Captain or Sin City, the sets and props are dropped in. It’s a neat idea, and I hope it takes off. In addition to material that actually makes my jaw hurt from laughing, each of the ’scenes’ are done in different animation styles.
As a car enthusiast, it pains me to see cool cars gone to waste. I came across this Jetta GLI today (here’s how they looked in their heyday) and it was just beat to hell, which is sad. It was sitting in the budget corner of a car lot, and it’s one of the many times that I wish that I had the resources and ability to restore it to its former majesty.
Say the name Jack Thompson, and you’ll elicit a variety of negative reactions from gamers everywhere. If you’re not familiar enough with him to have the same reaction, you will be after this interview.
Jack is a Miami-based lawyer whose favorite thing in the world is censorship. Rather than deal with problems directly, he’d prefer to just smash examples of them while not exactly dealing with the issue at hand. In this case he’s after Take Two Interactive, publishers of the notorious Grand Theft Auto series. You may remember the earlier rant I went on with this subject, but that addressed that game directly.
My issue this time is with a particular lawyer who’s taken it as his responsibility to bring down Take Two. Jack’s problem is with violent video games causing violence in minors, as well as sexual content in video games apparently also contributing to violence in minors…? However, his intent is not to crack down on retailers selling the game to minors, or even to spread a message to parents to pay some damn attention to the game rating on the box because prehaps they’re there for a reason.
Jack is to busy trying to convince me that releasing the game Bully is a fatal move for the company. Let’s forget for a second that going on a rampage about this game is only going to raise public awareness of it for good or bad, and that Rockstar and Take Two couldn’t have paid for this kind of publicity. How is banning the game, convincing them not to publish it, whatever, going to take care of the violent video games that have already been released? In the aforementioned interview, Thompson spend at least 20 minutes rambling on about how horrible this game is/will be for society when, by my count it’s still half a year away.
Shouldn’t he be spending his time and resources on something else aside from worrying about The Sims copyright violations and games that aren’t even close to being released to the public? He discusses his dismay at pr0n sites modifying The Sims in an alleged collaboration with EA, because it contributes to violent behavior in minors and that’s everything he stands against. Wait – how does that contribute?
He is unhappy with modders, Take Two, EA + the pr0n industry, ESPN for running ads for GTA:SA at 6:30 PM, and hell, why not the internet as well? For some reason AO as a rating is drastically different than M in spite of the fact that parents (or grandparents) should not be buying them for kids unless they know damn well what they contain. This is the same as any other age restriction on any other product. Oh, you let you’re 12-year-old drive the car and he crashed it? You’d better sue Toyota because you gave the keys for your Camry to little Billy!
In closing, give this a look. Then tell me this title doesn’t fit.
EDIT: More on moron Jack here.
Anyone with eyes will note that I’ve managed to pull yet another new refresh out of this site (looks familiar, eh). I swear to God, CSS is both a gift and a curse to someone as perpetually dissatisfied with their work as I am.
Literally the day after the last update I was already trying to figure out how it could be better. I’ve worked around the issue that resulted in the background shifting as the browser window narrowed by assigning a background to the wrapper instead of the body. This resulted in the problem of the background not extending the full length of the screen, but this new taller footer fixes it for all but the one-sentence slacker entries.
I mentioned before that I was considering moving to a different column structure. As much as I want to, I cannot do five columns. 1050 pixels is simply to wide for anyone who’s not me. The other natural option was 3 columns, but I don’t see that being a satisfactory solution at this point either. So for now I stick with four columns and hope that I don’t need to redesign again for another, say, 3 months.
I say that with an air of friendship. It’s been a long, frustrating wait for the new iPods, but I managed to survive (though not without needing a fix back in March). Overall I like this new version. The proportions are a bit odd, but so are those of the nano. The larger screen is a welcome addition, as is the slimmer form factor – these new ones are the closest to sexy yet. I especially like the new treatment of the front area, how it’s more a of a flat plane set on top of a chrome base. That, along with the new black version, makes this the most cosmetically consistent iPod lineup ever.
But let’s talk about the video, since that’s the big deal here. The music videos kind of hit me on the sour side. It’s a nice idea to be able to play them on the go but I’m not big into paying to see them. I was really surprised (pleasantly) by the TV show idea – that actually is pretty clever. I wouldn’t hesitate to pay a couple dollars to own an episode or two of Saturday Night Live (hopefully NBC will sign on) or something along those lines. My other big hope is that Turner takes advantage of this because they have so many good shows. Just give me Adult Swim and I’ll be a happy camper.
Every iPod update is not without its drawbacks these days. First they dropped the dock and charger, and switched to USB cables. Now, as with the nano, this new iPod cannot (I repeat, CANNOT) be synced via FireWire. LAME. On the plus side, I actually have free USB ports on my computer so I don’t have to daisy chain it with my hard drive anymore, and it will still work with my wall charger that NEW IPODS DON’T COME WITH. Fools!
Enough with the yelling! The iMac got updated too, and they have this remote thing now, which maybe will turn out to be nice once I figure out why I need a remote for the computer I’m sitting two feet away from. The Bluetooth Mighty Mouse is nowhere to be found (yet), but can you say “makes a great Christmas gift”? I knew you could. Nothing happened with the laptops either, which I think was a letdown, but wouldn’t have really fit with this presentation and almost would’ve been too much at once.
The Audi TT Shooting Brake Concept is an amalgam. Defined:
Amalgam n.
A combination of diverse elements; a mixture: an amalgam of strength, reputation, and commitment to ethical principles. See synonyms at mixture.
But you knew that, so let’s dispense with the formalities. I am really disappointed with the exterior styling of this car. The overall appearance is OK but just doesn’t fit with the old or new Audi lineups. It’s as if, at the concept meeting, everyone was asked to bring different cars they liked, and those included the Euro Ford Focus (headlights), the BMW 1 Series (side sculpting), Volvo XC90 (the overall taillight to back window area), Maybach Exelero (grille), and Mazda 3 (side window lines). None of these cars are particularly bad; in fact, most of them are very decent. I’m also not saying that car companies can’t ‘borrow’ styling cues from other vehicles; more power to them if they make the car look better. In this case, however, they don’t. The style seems too borrowed from other vehicles, so much so that it hardly even feels like a TT anymore. I guess they tried to bring it back a little with the taillights and the hipline, but it doesn’t have the distinctiveness of the current car.
And why the shooting brake bodystyle? They already have one of those – it’s called the A3. There’s also that GTI thing that sister VW has. Not that I don’t like the idea, but it didn’t seem to work out so hot for the M Coupe – the mid-luxury sporty touring car game seems more receptive to a more conventional profile (current Audi TT, Acura RSX, Cayman S, etc). The 2-door wagon look in this iteration makes it look very downmarket, like it should be competing with Civics and Scions rather than its intended competitors. And the grille. Dear lord, that grille. Why? Why why why why why? I just don’t get it. And now it’s got chrome on it? Was that necessary? It just gets worse and worse, but at the same time, it can only get better from here.
On the good side of things is the interior. Gorgeous, from what I can tell. The last new Audi interior I really liked before this was that of the A8, and then they got all lopsided and swoopy with the new A6. I like the subtle mixing of materials rather than the high contrast, almost overdone look of the original TT. I also notice that rather than the shield shape on the steering wheel as other new Audis have, this uses the traditional (circa 2002) chrome circle. Thank you for that. Just get rid of the nav and we’ll call it a day.
I’m so hard on Audi, but they make it so easy. Like kicking a dog with no legs, and it’s losing its hair and overweight and ugly so you don’t feel real bad about doing so.
I promise, no more phone pictures after this.
Anyway, I’ve been noticing Honda’s seemingly newfound advertising talent. They’ve been pushing the new Civic like crazy, of course (even the months-away Si), but what I am even more impressed by are the recent set of spots for the updated Honda Element. They’ve added a new trim level that makes it resemble a baby Hummer even more.
But rather than doing a straightforward, smack-you-in-the-face type of ad that shouts “body-colored panels” they’ve developed some very irreverent and memorable commercials in which the shiny new Element has a brief chat with its various wilderness friends. See them here (thanks to BoardsMag):
Also, Cow and Chicken is on. That’s… weird.
I have this nagging desire to widen the site to 1050 pixels. That’s a lot. I can’t do that. I could take a column away and be at 630 pixels instead, but I don’t know that that’s the solution either. But what is? Eight? No. I guess I sit here trying to figure it out.
♥
First, a definition:
Flourish n.
Embellishment or ornamentation: a signature with a distinctive flourish.
If you look closely at any lovingly designed collateral or media, you’ll begin to notice little touches like this everywhere. It’s something that we, as designers, love to do. The little details of a site, or a brochure, or a poster are what really make it look complete and well-designed. They’re symbols that getting the product to its final state took a lot of time and thought. Examples of this are the little AL logo I put on my comments, or the little gusts of wind on either side of the headers on classic ES CA PE. It’s just a little something extra, the final touch.
It’s all well and good, until you consider the tight deadlines that designers as a group seem to be constantly battling. Time crunches mean cranking out design after design, all of which have to stand apart from eachother and please all the people all the time. Not an uncommon situation, and not necessarily a bad one – you’re continually pushed to try new things that you hope will work so you don’t have to start over. But the problem is, what about the flourishes? Somewhere in this hustle and bustle they get left behind (usually), so while I’m turning in work that I’m generally happy with, very rarely do I end up with a project I’m genuinely finished with and think “this is portfolio material!”
What’s funny is that my favorite projects are usually the most unlikely. The project I’m currently battling is fairly high-profile, which of course means less room to play. Some of the other things I’ve either just finished or just started are much more flexible and as a result the design will be able to grow instead of being forced. That means flourishes and as a result, portfolio fodder.
In the end, and I’ve said this kind of thing before, the best designers learn to flourish under fire.