Mike Rundle's Weblog

Some Happenings

I think the tough thing for me now is that I don't have a lot of "personal" things going on, rather everything that is exciting that happens to me usually has something to do with my work. I guess that's my excuse for not posting here more often, because interesting things happen and I post then over at Business Logs. That's my reason and I'm sticking to it :)

In other news:

New Cellphone

My old Samsung flip has had a broken and totally unusable screen for about 8 months now, and since I don't use my cellphone much (I use my Cisco VoIP phone when I'm at home) I never found the push to get it fixed. Well when you're a gadget geek like me, and you actually *have* to purchase a new cellphone (instead of just *wanting* one) well, then it takes you awhile to find the one you want.

I ended up switching service providers from Verizon to Helio and buying their new Helio Kickflip cellphone. Helio is a new MVNO that sits on top of the Sprint PCS network and offers phones with very nice user interfaces and lots of cool features. I'm still in the process of porting my number over from Verizon Wireless to the new phone, but even though I can't use the Kickflip to call out yet I already think it's fantastic. Expect a review on Business Logs soon.

New Car

Since Eleni got her Pontiac Solstice I've been fiending to get a new car as well. After being *this close* to getting a 325i, I ended up being screwed by BMW and instead got an Infiniti G35 Coupe 6MT. Here's a pic of a red one; the car I got is the exact same thing (19" wheels, spoiler) but is black. I'm so glad I got the G35 over the 325i since the coupe has about 40% more horsepower and is way faster :)

New Personal Site, New Business Site

After years of not having a proper personal website to call my own (sorry phark.net but you never did it for me), I've finally finished and launched the new himike.org, which is my new personal site. It grabs the latest entries from 9rules + Business Logs (and, soon, this weblog) and puts them all front and center. It also features my new linklog on the right side, and a quick portfolio overview on the left side. What do you think?

A day or two earlier BusinessLogs.com was relaunched, sporting a bolder and less blog-like look while still keeping with the overall theme. It was tougher for me to put together the new look for this site because Business Logs has had a certain look about it since the day we launched two years ago, and I didn't want to lose that. Yes, the footer's bigger and darker :)

Bush Approval Rating Skips The Drain, Goes Straight Into The Toilet

A new ABCNEWS survey just found that only 38% of America approve of the job that President Bush is doing. No, I don't make up any part of that 38%. What do you guys think? Do you think we'll be pulling troops out soon? Think that he'll handle the Iran nuke situation with diplomacy? What's up?

Dick Cheney Shoots Another Elderly Man In The Face

Dick and his friend were hunting, and by accident our Vice President sprayed the 78-year old hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets. Guns don't hurt people, Dick Cheney hurts people!

BREITBART has the story.

Personal Goals For 2006

For the past 4 years, I've been making lists of my goals for the upcoming year. Since I'm accustomed to the year starting in September and ending in May (college time) I normally make goals for that span of time. I guess this year I should adjust my personal calendar to match the rest of the world considering I've been out of college now for about 10 months. So here are my personal goals for 2006:

Be healthier. This is the de facto goal that includes eating less junk, working out more, and just being a bit more active and all-around more health conscious. I've been working from home since June, so the routine is bogging me down a bit. I gotta change that.

Execute 9rules Strategy. The guys and I have big plans for 9rules for the upcoming year, and my personal goal is to contribute to the overall plan the very best I can. Without giving too much away, we have some really great stuff coming next month, and we honestly can't wait to tell everybody. Normally we leak screenshots or information to our friends and whatnot, but not this time. It's totally hush-hush.

Have a Steady Income. The world of consulting has its ups and downs. Sometimes I make five figures a month (not as often as I'd like!!), sometimes I make zero figures for a month or longer, it's completely flexible. My goal is to execute some sort of plan where I know what kind of money I have coming in for longer periods of time than just "a few weeks" or so. This would help out in estimating what kind of car I can buy soon ;)

Better Time Management. Working from home has a ton of advantages, and one of them is setting your own hours. Right now I'm writing this at 3am while finishing up some 9rules stuff, so obviously I don't work the normal hours like normal people. Some days I'll work from 11am - 5pm, then jump back from 11pm - 2am, and some days I'll work from 9am on through the whole day, it totally depends on what's going on. I probably wouldn't *have* to jump back on after my girlfriend is asleep if I managed my time better during the day, so that's my goal. Better day-time management.

Purchase a house, or be in the market looking for a house. Eleni and I are moving down to Raleigh at the end of February and we'll be renting. By this time next year, when our lease is almost up, I'd like to be in the market to purchase a home. The housing market down there is so amazing right now that I'm confident that we'll be in the position to do so. Let's hope all goes well!

Get the ball rolling on Pieceful. Pieceful.com is the project I started back in the summer, but didn't get very far due to lots of work and whatnot. I can't give out any specifics, but I can say that the idea/concept really blows my hair back, and that's very difficult to do. As soon as 9rules starts paying the bills and consulting work can halt, work on Pieceful will commence. I can't wait.

Make a million. This isn't really my goal for 2006, but I might as well strive for it. Being a millionaire was originally my goal for by the time I turned 30, but last year I fast-tracked that goal and now I want seven figures in my bank account by the time I turn 25. Two and a half more years to go :)

So what are your goals?

A Little Monday Excitement!

My girlfriend Eleni just got her IBM job offer letter for a software engineering position down in Raleigh, so this solidifies a few months of wondering, "where are we going to be moving in Spring???" and now things are a bit less up in the air ;) Woot!

She's worked at IBM for her RIT co-ops for about a year and a half total, and this past summer I lived down there while she was finishing up her last block of co-op before we both returned to Rochester so she could finish school. She graduates at the end of February (early graduator just like me!) and we'll be moving down to the Raleigh/Durham area at the beginning of March.

I'm really excited because, to me, North Carolina is like the promised land. Beautiful weather, extremely friendly people, a booming economy, ludicrously cheap housing (like this beauty!), and it just feels right.

Is it odd to have already lived in 5 different states when you're only 22 years old? ;)

Eddie Guerrero Passes Away

Man, what a shocker, Eddie Guerrero — famous WWE wrestler — died unexpectedly this morning in his hotel room.

Normally this wouldn't really get to me, but just a few months ago I ran into Eddie in Tampa when out of the blue I saw him walking next to me down a terminal in the airport. We chatted for a sec, he was nice to me, and then we went our separate ways.

I'll remember that interaction forever. I'll miss you man.

Welcome to Kansas, Where the "Separation" in Separation of Church and State Is Meaningless

Intelligent Design is now taught in Kansas high schools, right alongside evolutionary theory. This means that high school kids from that state will now go off to college and ask questions in college biology classrooms like "the Universe is too complex, fuck evolution it was GOD!!!!!!!" and "why aren't you teaching Intelligent Design theories here?" to which the professor and all other students will react by throwing ninja stars at their pupils and laughing heartily once they bleed to death.

Okay, maybe a bit dramatic, but you get the point. Damn. Sucks to be living in Kansas. Sorry Jeff!

For another post on this subject check out Business Logs.

Hollow Ween

I bought a rubber mask that goes over my nose shaped like shark head, and a toy sword that looks like Sting from Lord of the Rings.

I call my costume: Eclectic Procrastination :) What are you guys going as?

Harriet Miers Has A Weblog, And She Sounds Like An Unintelligent 12 Year Old Girl

I don't have much time to write this entry, but I wanted to send everyone over to Harriet Miers' weblog where she writes in giddy schoolgirl fashion about her undying love for our President and Cheney watching her dance at the White House.

A little background on who this is in case you were wondering.

My favorite part of her weblog was when she was wishing Jewish readers a Happy Rosh Hashanah by saying "Happy Jew Year!" as if that is even remotely funny or inoffensive. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go lay on my back and vomit until I asphyxiate.

UPDATE! Many people are saying this is real, many people are saying it's fake. I don't know 100%. Take with a grain of salt!

Forget Terrorism, Let's Fight Pornography!

Attorney General Gonzalez' top priority in office isn't fighting terrorism, or drugs, or poverty, violent crime, or anything else on my list of The Top 20 Things America Could Do Without. Nope, his goal is to eradicate pornography. Not underage child porn which is awful, but the multi-billion dollar consenting adult pornography business. From a Washington Post article:

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Mischievous commentary began propagating around the water coolers at 601 Fourth St. NW and its satellites, where the FBI's second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

That's always useful. Take agents working to fix the real horrors in this country and get them to do your political bidding. The Post article continued with this gem:

Christian conservatives, long skeptical of Gonzales, greeted the pornography initiative with what the Family Research Council called "a growing sense of confidence in our new attorney general."

Yes! Now we get right down to it! Gonzales needed to pick-up some points with the religious right, makes perfect sense. Next time I'm smuggling drugs in from Cuba, I'll make sure to leave the Hardcore Hunnies Vol. IV at home, because we don't want THAT trash coming over to this country, hell no.

Newt Gingrich Said Something I Actually Agree With

A quote from Newt Gingrich, regarding governmental aid efforts for Katrina victims:

"I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" — Newt Gingrich

World Bank Nominee Has No Economic Background

It seems as though George Bush isn't content with screwing America, now he wants to try and screw the world's economy as well. He recently nominated Paul Wolfowitz to lead the World Bank — an organization that deftly ruins developing countries by strong-arming them to sign economy-busting loan contracts. Wolfowitz is the Deputy Defense Secretary and was a "key architect of the U.S.-led war in Iraq."

Wolfowitz has no formal economic background, and was partly responsible for the Iraq war for which the administration grossly underestimated funding. So he's got 1) no economic background or knowledge, and 2) sucks at budgeting a war for which he was a "key architect". Sounds like the perfect candidate to me!

In other news, Michael Jackson was nominated to take over Wolfowitz' current position.

Paris Hilton's Sidekick Hacked!

If you haven't already heard about it on Gawker, then here's the skinny: a group of crackers managed to gain access (they say they used social engineering, which means "we got her to tell us her password") to Paris Hilton's sidekick phone. This means they gained access to her latest photos (including nice topless ones!), her Hollywood A-List address book (I emailed Lil' Bowwow and told him he sucks as a rapper), and a personal notebook that includes such fantastic posts like "call maroon 5, get birth control kill pill". Fun for the whole family!!

Link to Paris Hilton's Sidekick Hacking Page!!

(BTW: Most sites are not divulging this link, or not republishing things, so this page might go down quickly. If it does, don't worry ..... I made copies of the best stuff haha)

Iraq and 9/11

Now that Iraq is "free and sovereign", does that make you feel any better about what happened on 9/11 and the WTC attacks? When we were terrorized on that day, did you say to yourself, "Damn, I hope we go into Iraq now and set them up with a nice Democracy, cause that'll show 'em!"

Cause I didn't. 9/11 was planned by Osama Bin Laden, and Bush is not even concerned about him. Thousands of Americans have died in order to make a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks a Democracy?

Hell, even the citizens of Vietnam had an 83% voter turnout, but look how that ended up.

Economic Plan for the Amer-i-can

The US dollar is at an all-time low against the Euro, and is also at a four-year low against the Yen. Last week, $20 USD was worth $23 Canadian dollars, the worst US-to-CA exchange rate that I can remember in my lifetime. America imports way more than it exports, and our budget deficit will not be getting any smaller anytime soon (even though John Snow, our Treasury Secretary says otherwise, but I'll believe it when I see it.) Social security is no longer considered "secure" by people in my generation, we know it's going to go broke way before we retire, and yet we're still paying into it.

So we owe other nations trillions of dollars, our national currency is getting weaker and weaker, the Social Security money I'll be paying between now and when the system goes bust will never be given back to me, and it's really cold outside. What to do about our nation's problems?

Classes Are Over

Well I somewhat successfully finished out my second-to-last quarter here at RIT, I say somewhat successfully because my GPA for this quarter is like a half point lower than my cumulative GPA, but who cares! I got a lot accomplished outside of school (b-logs, TCB, special projects of which I cannot speak) so this fall just reinforces a concept I've been familiar with for awhile, that my work unrelated to RIT is infinitely more valuable than classwork.

This fall was very good for one thing, and that's sleeping. When I don't have any classes, I usually go to bed around 4am and wake up at 2pm, then repeat the cycle over. If I do have a class, I still go to bed at the same time, but just take a nap after class :) A few days ago I slept for 14 hours straight without opening my eyes once. I think I should go get paid for some scientific sleep testing, I hear they pay well.

Many programs at RIT (including mine) require students to do blocks of co-op, or internship at a real company, before they can graduate. Because of this, a ton of students in my major will not be graduating on time and will need to stay for the summer or an extra fall. I'm kinda proud of the fact that not only will I be not staying here for an extra quarter or two, but I'll actually be leaving a quarter early. I could have left two quarters early, but I don't know how beneficial that would have been, so instead I've been just "taking it easy" with 12 credit quarters which has really given me time for more important work. This winter I've signed up for three classes so far: Survey of Economic Thought (with Adam!), Network-Based Multimedia (with Joe, my roommate!), and Yoga. Yup, yoga. I'm psyched.

And on a completely unrelated note, here is a picture of my desk while here at school, with a bunch of notes attached to the picture explaining what's next to me and why.

I'll be going home (hopefully) soon and you may not hear from me for awhile cause dialup at home is painful, and I'm sure I'll be busy anyway. I think the last time I said that I ended up posting everyday from home, so maybe you should disregard anything I say. Later y'all.

What a nice surprise! I wake up this morning (afternoon) to see that both Fark and Boingboing have linked to my Business Logs post about Mark Cuban being fined for a blog entry. Nothing like 15,000+ unique visitors in a few hours to jumpstart the day :)

Conservative Group Gangs Up on ABC For No Good Reason

The epic movie Saving Private Ryan was aired on ABC the other night, unedited and uncut, and also given a TV-MA rating that denoted the type of content to be found therein. There's no way you could watch the movie and not stumble over an ABC message that said "don't watch because of the violence, language, etc. etc." so basically everyone who watched it knew what they were getting into.

The American Family Association — an ultra-right wing conservative Christian group — has taken the initiative to get their braindead militia followers to petition the FCC and have ABC fined for its actions. Here's a quote from the AFA webpage that discusses the "indecency":

We believe Saving Private Ryan accurately depicted what happens during fierce battles between two armies. The graphic depictions of atrocious injuries, mental stress, profane language, and brutality are likely common occurrences in war.

But ABC crossed the line by airing at least 20 "f" words and 12 "s" words during prime time viewing hours!

So basically they're saying violence that accurately depicts real war situations (limbs being blown off, blood gushing from bodies, The Passion of the Christ kinda stuff) is fine, but saying four-letter words societally deemed to be "bad" is crossing the line. An appropriate analog is bleeping the f-word out from a porn movie. It just doesn't make any sense.

If I was a parent, I'd rather my child hear the f-word than see someone's face explode on TV, but that's just my opinion. You can make your own judgments I'm sure.

Media and American Culture

I have an essay to write for class, but I'm not going to write it yet because I'd like to first comment on some recent "news" that doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

When Yassir Arafat died a few days ago, a CBS news producer cut into the end of the television show CSI in order to tell the world that he was indeed dead. Now reports have come out that say CBS fired this woman because of her lack of judgment. This layoff happened after there was an uproar from enraged CSI viewers, which made kowtowing CBS executives jump to their feet at the sound of their 1% TV viewing audience dropping. Um, guess what folks, the leader of the PLO dying is bigger news than what happens at the end of CSI, and if you don't think so, then turn off the damn TV and go read a newspaper. Go inform yourself.

We have soldiers dying in combat in Fallujah, so to get the latest news on the war I pull up CNN.com. Instead of learning of the additional troops who died today, I see that Scott Peterson was found "GUILTY OF MURDER" in large type on the homepage. For you non-American readers out there, Scott Peterson is a caucasian male who murdered his wife — he is someone who the media deem to be important because he has money and God forbids traditional media outlets informing the public about the real news stories of the day. There are unspeakable crimes committed everyday by American citizens, but for some reason, every major news outlet granted Scott Peterson celebrity status instead of discussing more about American citizens dying in Iraq. I'm sure the parents of deceased soldiers really care about whether or not Peterson was found guilty.

Does this bother anyone else?

Into the (Creative) Void

If you are a designer, or pay attention at all to what the design community (read: the weblog community) has been saying today, you'd think the entire world went into a state of repugnant shock and Armageddon was fully upon us. Bottom line, if you are a designer, an artist, a musician, a writer, or any type of creative at all, you voted for Kerry and are devastated right now. The vast majority of my friends around the country and world fit into this category, and the depression felt by all my professional colleagues right now is palpable and thick. Pea soup meets solid lead thick.

I certainly didn't get much work done today, because I'm depressed and sick over the election results, and after talking with a bunch of my designer friends, they didn't either. Now here's the hypothesis I pose to you, my loyal readers (who are mostly of the creative persuasion): because of the election results, production in the creative industries will drop 50% this week, and the following weeks. By creative industries, I mean design, music, writing, and the rest of them.

I don't feel inspired to do work. I've got projects after projects that need my design skills applied to them, but they're at the back of my mind right now because how can I exercise the liberal part of my brain when the entire liberal section of my country was so soundly defeated? I expect many designers to feel this way (and I know many do) so we'll see what the creative output of this country is the next few weeks.

John Kerry for President

This Tuesday, if you are living in America, I urge you to go out and vote for Senator John Kerry. I'm 21 years old, and I already feel as though this election is going to be the most important election of my lifetime, simply because of what is at stake — our freedom and security.

After George Bush lost track of Osama bin Laden, he gave up. Bin Laden was the person who gave the order to the al Qaeda terror network in order to blow up the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and we haven't found him. Not only did we not find him, but George Bush was quoted as saying that “he's not worried about him anymore” I am an American citizen, and hearing my Commander-in-Chief say that he's not worried about the person responsible for the worst foreign attack on our soil worries me more than anything else has worried me in my lifetime.

Bush wants to take women's rights over their bodies away. Multiple Supreme Court Justices will be replaced by whoever is elected next, and you can bet the farm that George Bush will find conservative pro-lifers who back his views 100%. This could mean an amendment to the constitution that would ban abortion in all its forms, that would not be able to be struck down by our system of checks and balances at the Supreme Court level.

All of my gay friends — please make sure to go to the polls and vote for Kerry. He is the candidate who will stand up for your rights more than anyone else, and it is paramount that your voice be heard.

The Bush administration lied to the American public in order to go to war in Iraq. We were told that there were direct and inalienable ties between Iraq and WMDs, when there were none. Vice President Cheney said that Iraq was "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11." The bipartisan 9/11 Commission found that Iraq had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks and no collaborative operational relationship with Al Qaeda. Source.

George Bush has said that nuclear proliferation is the biggest threat to our nation in the upcoming years. However, the Bush administration has openly opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, undermining nuclear nonproliferation efforts. Source.

The current administration has crippled state budgets by underfunding federal mandates by $175 billion. In my home city of Utica, NY, both of my parents work in the public school system, and tell me of how elementary classrooms have 30+ children in them, sometimes with and sometimes without a teaching assistant. Special Education budgets have been slashed, and now the children that need help the most in our public schools are being crammed more to a classroom with a higher teacher-to-student ratio. No Child Left Behind is not funded well enough to function, and is defeating the self-esteem of children trapped in it. Source.

In 2000, candidate George W. Bush said "the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum." He passed the tax cuts, but the top 20 percent of earners received 68 percent of the benefits. Source.

Comments are turned off on this entry because this is not a debate. This is my plea for you to please go out and vote for John Kerry this Tuesday. Please read 100 Facts and 1 Opinion which is the "non-arguable case against the Bush administration" from which most of my data is compiled from.

Good luck everyone, for if Bush is elected again — mark my word — this nation will go down in flames.

The Team America "F*** YEAH!" theme song. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. Also, the unofficial campaign song for the Steven Stiffler presidential campaign. Thanks, Honus!

Where's John Wilkes Booth?

The latest Guardian UK article tromping Bush. Are there countries in Europe who honestly want Bush to be re-elected? I know a bunch of my readers are Dutch, so please enlighten me, because I don't think there are.

And don't bother mentioning Poland because <insert your own Bush joke here>.

The Car Blog: Launch and Design

The Car Blog is a go! TCB (The Car Blog) is a blend between a car forum, a weblog, and an online magazine, and is a place for car people to go and vent or rant about the world of automobiles. I did a better job of explaining the site on the About page, so go check that out if you want more. This blog entry isn't about explaining what TCB is, it's about giving you the nitty-gritty about the design decisions I made, why it looks the way it does, and the CSS ballyhoo and tomfoolery that powers the visuals. So let's get into it!

Beginning Design Thoughts

Successful car site design incorporates heavy imagery and a deep sense of visual amazement, because when it comes down to it, we like to buy and look at cars that we think look good and car websites are the same way. When I started out sketching initial concepts for TCB, I knew that we needed a solid header graphic that incorporated big-time car imagery for some off-the-bat visual punch. I went over to my favorite photo resource, stock.xchng, and found this gorgeous photo of a Ferrari 360 Modena against a blue sky. After some Photoshop color-shifting and slicing, I achieved an effect that I think lures your eyes down the page more because of the slicing's vertical orientation.

The typography choice for the logotype is DIN, even though I was originally considering Interstate. Both typefaces are examples of auto-specific fonts, where in the U.S., Interstate (or an identical twin) is used on all interstate highway signs. Just look up at the green rounded rectangles next time you're driving, and you'll noticed the slanted ascender tops which are its dead giveaway. I ended up choosing DIN because it is the German equivalent of Interstate, and I love German cars. DIN is one of the most recognizable sans-serif typefaces out today, and if you just look around a little bit, it'll pop right out at you. Oh, and the B-Logs font is Myriad Pro, but you already knew that ;)

Advertising Design

I've never been fully in control of a website that has advertising on it before, so I was really excited to make the ads on TCB not as ugly as other ads on the web. Coudal and John Gruber have done a fantastic job deploying text-only advertisements on their pages that are integrated into the design, and I went to school on their examples in order to make the TCB ads work as well.

We have three different ad placements on TCB, and each one has their own design style and physical area on the page. The "Premier Ad" is underneath the Leading Article area on the homepage (as well on top of the content in the individual entry pages) so because of its placement, it needed to be tightly integrated with other elements on the page so I wouldn't throw-up when looking at it over and over. I reused the blue from the header graphic and navigation to get the color scheme for the Premier Advert box, and then kept the rounded-box metaphor going as well. The top part of the div was done using a background image (nothing fancy), and I used a superfluous display: block'd span element underneath it to round the bottom as well.

The advertisement at the top of the Shortlinks box needed to 1) not look like an "ad", and 2) blend into the style of other shortlinks. What I did was simply use the same style as other ones (except not in an unordered list, and no light grey background) and add a background image on the bottom that alerted users that it was an advertisement in the same manner as the Premier Ad on the left. If your gamma is correctly adjusted, the background of the rounded "ADVERTISEMENT" rectangle should match the lighter grey underneath other entries over there.

And then underneath the Shortlinks box we have our third category of ads — the least intrusive, and also the least "styled". I made these simple because once your eyes get to the section of the page where those ads would be, you're most likely reading the main page content and I didn't want to force a visual saccade over there which would throw your reading off. These don't have rounded edges like everything else, or do they? And this brings us to our next section.

CSS Tomfoolery

When we were talking about the design of this site way back in the summer, we decided the baseline browser would be IE6, which makes development a whole lot easier. The cool thing, also, about developing for high-level browsers is that we can do things with the CSS that we normally wouldn't think of. Some of that stuff included Mozilla- and Safari-specific styles to spice it up a bit.

-moz-border-radius — A Mozilla-specific style that rounds the corners of a block-level element. It was used in those instances where I felt multiple divs just to accomplish a rounded corner effect wasn't necessary (like the light-grey shortlinks entries, as well as the advertisements underneath the shortlinks). Also, enough people are out there using Firefox so I thought a nice segment of the population would benefit from such stylings. And if you're like me, and use Safari instead of Firefox...

text-shadow — This effect was implemented in the latest version of Safari (Jaguar users, I think you're out of luck) and it looks wicked cool. I actually use this effect extensively on the homepage: the current navigation tab text, the leading article title, the leading article subtitle and category, the author/comment count div, the sidebar links, and also in the footer. So if you're using Safari, you get an extra treat that others don't :)

The navigation of the site uses an inverted tab style that I've used in the past, and thought it would work well here too. Sliding doors are in effect, however I've been using that technique since before Doug gave it a name :) Some really intricate-looking design effects were achieved quite simply by using background images. For an example, the navigation tabs appear to overlap the underlying color, but that entire unordered list just uses this background image to make it appear complicated. Also, to make the Shortlinks header appear to be offset from the Leading Article header, I just stuck that image in the navigation's background as well. Boom! Effect achieved with no CSS headaches.

Even though in the header you can click on both the TCB and Business Logs logos, the top header graphic is all one image. In an effect similar to the old imagemap idea, there are two divs up there with transparent backgrounds that "cover up" where the clickable areas appear to be. You can see this for yourself if you hover about 20px left of the left edge of the B-Logs logo ..... it's still clickable.

Final Thoughts

This wasn't the most complicated CSS design I've worked on (the gov't work I did was, go figure) but it's the design I'm most proud of. My test for a website is if I get sick of the design before I even launch it, but for this one, I was excited to show off my work and see what people thought and haven't gotten sick of it yet :) This site is also really rewarding for me because our writers are very influential people in the design community (Jason Fried, Carlos Segura, Didier Hilhorst, to name a few) and working with them on a project was really great.

This site wouldn't look like it does now without the help of my usual beta testing and feedback team: Paul, Matto, Nigel, Mike, and Alex. Thanks guys.

And that's it. What do you guys think? What would you change? Any bugs? Let's hear it, good or bad.

For the Windows users in my audience, here is a screenshot of what the site looks like with Safari-rendered text-shadowing. Makes you want to buy a Mac, eh? :)

Try to Spin This

I told myself I wouldn't post another political entry, but now I have to. As soon as I heard John Kerry say to the President last night this quote, I turned the volume up to see what President Bush would respond with:

“Six months after he said Osama bin Laden must be caught dead or alive, this president was asked, "Where is Osama bin Laden?" He said, "I don't know. I don't really think about him very much. I'm not that concerned."”

I've read that quote before and it sickens me. Here is the full quote from where Kerry was referencing:

“Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him.  And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure.  And, again, I don't know where he is.  I  —  I'll repeat what I said.  I truly am not that concerned about him.  I know he is on the run.”

It comes straight from this Whitehouse transcript. Now let's see if the President acknowledges saying this:

“Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.” And when he said "kind of one of those" he did that patented arrogant prick head slides and side-of-your-mouth smiles. God I hate this President.

Does any right-winger out there have the rocks to try and say Bush didn't lie about this? Cause I can't wait to hear your argument.

Cheney Goofs on Web Address

So last night, if you watched the debate, you probably choked on your saliva when you heard our 107 year old Vice President tell his audience of millions to go to factcheck.com to see how wrong Edwards and Kerry are for America.

Too bad it was the wrong URL. Come to find out, factcheck.com re-routes users to George Soros' website. You know, the billionaire investor who hates President Bush and has a massive anti-Bush banner at the very top of his site?

Cheney meant factcheck.org. Ha, oh well! Bigass hat tip goes to Boing Boing for pointing this out!

TOP STORY: TWO SHOT AT RIT

RIT CAMPUS, TWO HOURS AGO (6AM): TWO PEOPLE WERE SHOT DURING AN ATTEMPTED ARMED ROBBERY LESS THAN 200 YARDS FROM MY BEDROOM WINDOW. MONROE COUNTRY COPS AND NY STATE TROOPERS ARE EVERYWHERE OUTSIDE MY APARTMENT.

Three masked individuals, at 6:08am this morning, robbed two Crossroads Market (cafeteria, print shop, and mailing center) workers at gunpoint. They directed the two employees inside, and had them give the robbers the cash register drawer.

From a source I cannot identify, I have been told the burglars also broke into a safe that was hidden inside a secret area in an office inside the building. The only people who knew of the location of this safe were Crossroads employees so this means that it might have been an "inside job". Also, nobody would really care about knocking over a small college cafeteria unless they knew it would have a specific $10,000 deposit in the safe from concession sales that weekend. My source told me that certain funds are deposited to this safe on Friday afternoon, and over the weekend other money is put in there as well from concessions. This money is taken from the safe every Monday at lunchtime, so the crooks would have known this.

The two employees were both shot: one had a bullet graze the back of her head, while the other was shot in the hand. The third employee present hid and called 911.

Don't Forget Poland!

I was pretty jazzed up to see the debate tonight, because this will be the very first Presidential election that I've been able to participate in. Also, I knew that Senator John Kerry was a very good debater, but I wanted to see first-hand how good he was. Wow, let's go over some points:

It seemed as though President Bush ran out of material 45 minutes through the debate. He reiterated how "tough of a job" being President is at least 3 times, and didn't seem able to keep up with the direct numbers Kerry was spewing. And that number about 100,000 trained forces in Iraq, yeah, I don't think that's remotely close.

Senator Kerry is a better speaker, hands down. When Kerry is speaking, he seems full of fire and passion regarding the topic. He is extremely knowledgeable, and that makes him sound and appear presidential. On numerous occasions President Bush would start out with a quip, and then stop for 3-4 seconds because he just realized "holy shit! I have to keep talking!" And then he'd come back by reiterating something he just said, but in a more drawn-out fashion.

President Bush mispronounces the word "nuclear". Yup, I don't care how inconsequential this is, but I do not want the leader of my country mispronouncing a word that is so very important. By the way, if you think it's pronounced "NOOK - u - lur" get the hell off my weblog right now :)

Kerry has been criticized for his apparent lack of a position on Iraq. But in the debate tonight, he specifically said that he supported our efforts in Iraq, but wanted it to happen with more support from transnational entities like the UN. He agreed with going there, but disagreed with how the President handled it, especially with no real exit strategy.

We need to have an open forum discussing North Korea disarmament. Kim Jong Il said he would during the Clinton administration, but hasn't followed through. Also, it's "Kim Jong Il", and not "Kim Chung Ill", or "Keeem Schlung Il", "Kim's Schlong, Eeek!", or "Yan Can Cook" or whatever Bush kept saying. I swear he said his name three different ways, three sentences in a row. When speaking of foreign leaders, no wonder he doesn't like America — you can't say his name right!

From CNN:

And let the spinning begin ;)

Osama Bin Forgotten

So I was in the shower this morning thinking about the absentee ballot I'm chomping at the bit to complete, and I wanted to raise this question to my readers: Why do you think the United States cannot find Osama Bin Laden?

We are the most powerful nation in the entire world, with the most powerful military, with the most far-reaching intelligence connections, yet the man responsible for the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil is still free.

Liberals, independents, centrists, socialists, conservatives — maybe we can all band together to form one central answer to this question. Let's try and combine our powers for good this time, and maybe we can hash out some theory.

Overturned Sodomy Laws and The Right to Privacy

We are currently investigating privacy rights in my Ethics class, and our assignment this week is to define three premises relating to privacy, and then draw a conclusion based on those premises using logic. I'm a big proponent of homosexual rights, so I thought I'd take a stab at the laws banning homosexual sodomy still around in some states, and refute why they are still in existence.

Premises

1. Sexual relations between two consenting adults are private.

2. The right to privacy in American society is a basic right.

3. Basic rights cannot be infringed upon by government regulations.

Conclusion?

Sexual relations cannot be regulated by the government.

References

"Supreme Court Strikes Down Anti-Sodomy Law"

"Supreme Court considers Texas anti-sodomy law"

"The Right to Privacy"

Argument

In 1998, the case called "Lawrence and Garner vs. Texas" began when a neighbor made an intentional false claim that John Lawrence's home was being broken into by an intruder. The police entered, and discovered Lawrence engaged in sex with Tyron Garner and arrested both men for violating a Texas anti-sodomy law. The sodomy law in question in Texas is one that deals exclusively with homosexual acts, thus making sex between two consenting homosexual men illegal.

Laws must be made such that they have a rational basis in protecting the welfare of the people. Sodomy laws were not historically directed at homosexuals, however this Texas sodomy law was. Because it discriminated against the group of consenting adults who are homosexual, it is a violation of the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment.

In the Lawrence case, the State argued that "we aren't penalizing homosexual status; we're only penalizing their particular conduct." If this is the case, then why aren't we destroying skunks not for being skunks, but for spraying their skunk smell everywhere. Sexual relations and urges between members of the same-sex is the very definition of being homosexual, so you cannot have it both ways.

On June 26, 2003, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to strike down this Texas sodomy law banning sexual relations between consenting adults of the same sex. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the court's majority decision. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."

So what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms is not a threat to national security, nor does it infringe upon the rights of others. It doesn't pollute, it doesn't threaten the lives of others, nor does it have anything to do with laws banning drugs or automatic weapons. State laws in place that ban homosexual activity are in place because lawmakers "don't approve" of it, and not that it is a threat to the people of the state.

Let's keep the government out of the bedroom, okay?

9/11 Remembered

A moment of silence. Thanks Honus.

Some RIT Students are Morons

I thought that I would escape from my post hiatus by ranting about something that just happened in my Ethics class that really upset me.

We were discussing a person's right to privacy, what reasonable privacy is, and the various issues affecting that privacy in this day and age. The topic was drug control. I will go out on a limb to say that 80% of my 35+ student class was in support of legalizing marijuana, and literally NONE of them could understand how there were any negative effects of smoking the substance:

[1] "If I smoke pot at my house, who cares, it's my house!"

[2] "If I have over an ounce of pot, and am not planning on selling it, I don't really have the intent to sell now do I?"

[3] "If it's legalized, then the prices will go down and drug lords will lose the grip they have on their country's governments!"

Okay, time to take these arguments one-by-one.

[1] By saying smoking pot at your house is fine, you are misunderstanding the reasons why drugs are illegal in the first place. Controlled substances like marijuana affect your judgment and behavior, and can momentarily cause you to disregard immediate dangers to you or people around you. For example, while sitting on your couch smoking marijuana, you don't feel like getting up to pick up the phone when it rings. Oops, it was your brother and he's in the hospital — too bad for him. Or you stop paying absolutely full attention to your little sister when you're supposed to be babysitting. Oops, she fell out of the crib and is hurt. Lucky for her she has such a great brother to look after her in such a diligent manner.

[2] The ounce or two of marijuana you purchased from your neighborhood dealer came from somewhere, and that somewhere was most likely a third-world country run by a corrupted government and paramilitary organizations. The connection between the baggie in your hand and the plundering of a country is tangible, and the United States government passes laws in order not to promote that destruction. That is why they go after the dealers and drug lords, because they're bad people and are ruining someone else's life thousands of miles away.

[3] Ever heard of supply and demand? If we legalize (or "decriminalize") marijuana then we are opening up drug usage to a much larger segment of people who are of the sentiment that "if it's not illegal, than it must be good for me!" Now that the demand is pushed up significantly, and price can start jumping so drug dealers and lords make even higher profits. Then there is such a demand that new drug lords pop up, making even more money, and screwing things up even more.

We're All Going to Zell

"Democrat" Senator Zell Miller from Georgia spoke at the Republican National Convention the other night. Surrounded by attacks on John Kerry, was the following quote from his speech:

“For more than twenty years, on every one of the great issues of freedom and security, John Kerry has been more wrong, more weak and more wobbly than any other national figure.” Source

But only three years ago, Miller was praising Kerry as being one of the country's heroes:

“My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders – and a good friend.” Source

This is just another example of dirty and misleading politics in this country. If you want people to support the President or any other national figure, backup your dogma with facts and not made-up and flip-flopped opinions. I'm not just bashing the Right in this entry, I'm saying for both sides and all parties, this was just a good example.

Bienvenido a Virginia

After almost 8 hours of travel time, I finally made it to my new home for the summer — a townhouse in Fairfax, VA.

Last time I drove down here it only took me 6.5 hours (from Rochester) and that was with little traffic and gratuitous amounts of speed. Now that my parents were following me and we were driving on Memorial Day weekend, needless to say it took a bit longer :)

Right now I'm sitting on my deck, with my Wifi-enabled laptop in front of me, and not a care in the world. 1 o'clock in the morning and 70 degrees, what's better than that?

I brought my dad's 5MP Sony Cybershot down for the summer, so expect more pictures on this blog than ever before. I took a few for a soon-to-be-written post, but tonight I want to show you what my bedroom currently looks like:

Note the blow-up air mattress .000001% inflated, the Powerbook resting on the camping chair, the G5 crying in the corner from lack of network access, "A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram (thick black book next to red bag) just dying to be read, "Time Travel in Einstein's Universe" peeking out of the duffel bag, and a box full o' clothes with no home.

This summer's off to a great start already!

Gays Losing Hospital Care?

To summarize this article I found on blogdex, there is legislation underway (Ed. — it passed on Wednesday) in Michigan that would make it so "Doctors or other health care providers could not be disciplined or sued if they refuse to treat gay patients".

From the article on 365Gay.com:

"The bill allows health care workers to refuse service to anyone on moral, ethical or religious grounds."

So not only does this mean Doctors could refuse to treat homosexuals if it was against their relgion to do so (Catholicism), but if they felt the need not to treat a brown-skinned young man with a turban on, they wouldn't have to.

I don't even want to think of the ramifications associated with this.

Homosexuality in Ancient Greece

In my Ancient Philosophy class, we are discussing the role that a more intimate Student/Teacher relationship played in the philosophy of that time period. After each lecture, we are expected to post our ideas and opinions to the online discussion board, and/or respond to other people's posts. One student was bashing homosexuals and gay rights activists, and I thought I'd take 'em down. The following is an excerpt from the post I wrote in response to what he said.

"Homo-sexualuality in Ancient Greece, A disturbing image indeed"

You talk as though it was never prevalent in society until current times? The fact of the matter is, homosexuality dates as far back as history has recorded, and at different time periods it has been regarded and treated differently. We are living in a time of social change, and the sexual minority in this country is simply searching for equal rights under the law.

"For some reason I thought being gay was more Ambiguous at here time and in the closet of an ordeal and not something you show off too in front of you authority figures unlike today we're gays can get married"

Being a homosexual is not something to be ashamed of, it is simply who you are. If the rest of society gave you the impression that something you did was taboo or forsaken, would you not want to show it off — show off your individuality — once others like you started taking pride in who they are?

It's just like being left-handed. You have a certain DNA sequence that describes which side of your body you are more familiar and adept with, and you use that side more than the other. There are studies currently being conducted that are trying to link DNA strands with homosexuality, and if they do find a connection, how is being a homosexual any different than being left-handed? To me, the discrimination is the same — laughable and ignorant.

Gay Rights and the Power of the Internet

The American Family Association (self-proclaimed "America's Pro-Family Action Web Site!" [sic]) doesn't like the idea of gay marriage one bit. Not even gay marriage, but also civil unions between homosexual couples. So, to accompany a presentation they had in the works for Congress, they thought they would host a gay marriage opinion poll on their website so that everyone that has the association's website as their homepage could cast their obviously one-side opinion, and that would count towards an open polling of the American people.

Boy, did they not have any foresight.

Wired magazine recently had an article titled "Gay Marriage Poll Gets Annulled" on their website, which detailed what exactly happened to the AFA and their poll.

Wired pretty much sums it up in this quote from their article:

But the AFA never counted on the power of the Internet. And once the URL to the poll escaped its intended audience, everything went haywire. As of Jan. 19, 60 percent of respondents -- more than 508,000 voters -- said, "I favor legalization of homosexual marriage." With an additional 7.89 percent -- or 66,732 voters -- replying, "I favor a 'civil union' with the full benefits of marriage except for the name," the AFA's chosen position, "I oppose legalization of homosexual marriage and 'civil unions,'" was being defeated by a 2-1 ratio.

It seems that the AFA didn't realize that they were, in fact, running this poll on a public website (imagine that!) and that anyone could voice their opinion, and then use their democratic right as a weblogger to tell others what they thought. Ofcourse the AFA didn't realize the power of weblogs and social software, so when Gabe Anderson (semi-famous blogger) posted the poll on his website, it spread across the GLBT community like wildfire, igniting the opinions of over 500,000 gay marriage supporters to flood the site and toss in their $ .02.

The AFA's goal was to generate data that supported their argument, and then present the findings to Congress. Fortunately, Democracy got in the way, and their plan back-fired.

The State of the Union

For those of you know who know me (actually know me, not just "weblog" or "email" know me like I know a ton of people), you'll automatically do a double take if you saw me writing or discussing my political opinions in a public forum. I'm a very open person, however I don't really discuss my political ideas or affiliations often because, as a rule, the political arena isn't as interesting to me as other topics.

Having said that: I am a registered democrat, the upcoming election will be my first Presidential one, and the following are my thoughts on the President's State of the Union address.

"I propose larger Pell Grants for students who prepare for college with demanding courses in high school. I propose increasing our support for America's fine community colleges, so they can train workers for the industries that are creating the most new jobs. By all these actions, we will help more and more Americans to join in the growing prosperity of our country."

How long have I waited for someone to say those words? I took a few AP (advanced placement) courses/tests in high school (Calculus AB, American History, English), and my Pell Grant didn't reflect my scores on those tests whatsoever. I think it would definitely give highschoolers an academic reality slap-in-the-face if guidance counselors could say "if you do well in X Y Z, the government will give you money for college". I was definitely more motivated to excel in high school than a lot of my friends, but obviously not a lot of students realize that grades in high school = money for college. Its difficult to instill that sense of gravity into a young person's mind, but doing so would help motivate them to achieve something more for themselves.

"Since we last met in this chamber, combat forces of the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Poland, and other countries enforced the demands of the United Nations, ended the rule of Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq are free."

I have supported the war in Iraq since the beginning, and this is why. Every person on this planet has a social and moral responsibility to help make the world a better place for everyone else. Whether "everyone else" includes your children, your friends, your business associates, or people being killed on the opposite side of the world by a terrible dictator — the effect is the same. That is why I support President Bush and our thousands of troops in Iraq. Saddam is a tyrant, a bully, one that needs to be stood up to. He has killed thousands of his own people, negatively impacting the present state of the Middle East, and the world as a whole.

Many people don't think that the US were the ones that had to stand up to him, but I feel differently. Regardless of what others may think, the United States is the most powerful nation in the world and has a proportionally large responsibility in its affairs. If we didn't believe that Saddam needed to be taken out of power, what country would have stepped forward? Bush says that America doesn't "back down to bulliies" and I agree with him.

That's all for right now :)

See Also: Nicole Swan's take on the State of the Union and my very opinionated friend Honus' blog.

Chad, Amanda, and Adam's Test

I've been meaning to turn this blog a little more towards my college life for awhile, so I think this is a good start :)

If you don't know, I live in the fattest on-campus apartment RIT has to offer. Three roommates. Four bedrooms. A massive living room and kitchen. Free laundry. Free cable. The whole nine yards.

My three roommates are Chad (weblog), Joe (website), and Adam (no site, he's a business major... go figure!). I'll be posting some pics of them in the upcoming days, but for right now, here's a pic of Chad and his sister Amanda to tide y'all over:

And then after they heard I was posting their pics, they got really excited!

So Adam comes back from class today: "DUDE!!! Look who's a business man now!!!" as he shows me that he got a 98 on the first test of the quarter in his World of Business class. He was so happy, he put it right up on our refrigerator. But, upon further inspection, I now realize why he got 2 points off... check out the pic closely :)

Well, that's it for now folks. I'll make sure to profile Joe soon so he doesn't feel left out :)

Oh I Get It!

Best Pakistani political cartoon of 2003.

Who said 'Bah Humbug'?

Well its that time of year again.

Time to get the family all gathered together. Eat some great food, tell some great stories, and then get all huddled up around a bright and glowing..... menorah :)

<next thought />

So I'm on my two week vacation, however it doesn't really seem like that much of one. I have work to do over break. No, not school work mind you, but other work. Important stuff like article outlines for editors, CSS coding for friends, uber-public and influential website redesigns, blah blah, et cetera, et cetera. Nothing I'm not used to though; my entire life is devoted to the advancement of my professional career which is no skin off of my back. I'd much rather be working on this stuff then sitting on my butt, in front of the TV, watching the Packers kick some Monday Night butt (go Packers!!!!!)

Okay, time to go post on my other site :)

J. Kottke and Me

(11:34) Jason Kottke: thx for the report. it seems to be a problem with amazon actually...i'm using an mt plugin that queries their system.

(11:34) DJSdotcom: oh weird, oh okay, it happened while i was trying to post a comment on the Picassohead story

(11:54) Jason Kottke: comments should be working again. take a look at the picassohead thread again and if your comment didn't show up there, feel free to post it.

(11:55) DJSdotcom: okay cool ;) thanks a lot... i know it might sound kinda cheesy, but i've really been looking up to your work since like '99

(11:56)DJSdotcom: you gave me a lot of inspiration as a highschooler, and now as a college student ;) just wanted to let you know

(11:56) Jason Kottke: thx. i hope the recent downtime hasn't negatively affected your opinion... ;)

(11:57) DJSdotcom: lol, nah :) thanks again

Assorted Links for Thursday

And here they are, in an unordered list.

• Techno Grooves mixed by my buddy Nigel
• designobject industrial and packaging design at its finest
• Tons of diecast cars for all of you collectors out there
• Diesel Sweeties this episode from back in the day actually features Zeldy himself.
• Streams.com redesigns. I worked there last summer.
• HCI Master's Degree at DePaul University in Chicago. Where I want to go in about two years.
• chokeSPEAK is a slick little blog.
• Firewheel Design = great work.
• Method... job?
• Web Design Practices is a must-read for anyone working on the web. So do it already!
• Snowman Generator coolest flash app this Winter!!!

Enjoy!

Howard Dean on Hardball

Chris Matthews: "Howard Dean, when you walked into the office that day for your draft physical [Vietnam, 1970], were you hoping to be deferred [because of Dean's back problem]?"

Howard Dean: "I was not looking forward to going to Vietnam, I..."

CM: "Were you or were you not hoping to be deferred, yes or no?"

HD: "Yes"

Now that's an honest candidate.

USATODAY article re:Eolas

I'm not sure if I mentioned this here before, but a few weeks ago I was interviewed by AS Berman, contributing writer for USATODAY and the Gannett news service. Mr. Berman was writing an article for the "Tech" section of some of the newspapers you guys read everyday — he was discussing the Eolas patent lawsuit against Microsoft, and the potential trouble it spelled out for web developers.

I guess when he was researching his article, he searched for the words "Eolas" and "web developer" on Google and this post on my weblog popped up as one of the top hits.

That entry is a copy of the open letter I sent to a generic email address at eolas.com. In it, I described the perilous downfall of the web and subsequently web designer's livings if the patent were to go through and if IE were to be crippled as per the lawsuit states.

You can read the article here... scroll down for the good parts (my quote!).

I prepared some things to say ahead of time; and desperately made sure to get something in there about how hacking your HTML around the lawsuit makes your XHTML hopelessly invalid.

Too bad he didn't link to my blog at the end... oh well :)

President Bush giving sleazy interview

What a freakin' moron. Does he not have anyone in his cabinet that can make him aware of The Sun's reputation in England?

For those unaware, President Bush has granted an exclusive interview to The Sun, one of the mother country's most "highly-respected" tabloid newspapers. Never read it? They have topless women showcased everyday on Page 3.

John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Mass Communication

Its 1:31am and I have a 3-4 page paper due at 8am. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

Update (11/11/03): The paper ended up being about two pages, with an additional page for the Bibliography. When I handed it in, I told my prof (very cool guy btw) that it was terrible, and I apologized for wasting his time when he has to read it. I explained that I was extremely sick when I wrote it (I mean that in the health sense lol). He kinda chuckled a little bit and took it anyway.

We took our final today, and when I handed it in he told me my graded paper was on the table. I hurridly picked it up and walked out the door, awaiting a letter grade on top that came deep in the alphabet.

I got an A. "Well written," he wrote, "clear and smart."

I walked back into the room, and said "you really gave me an A on this paper?"

Prof: "Yeah, it was good, short and to the point, and it detailed everything I wanted it to."

Me: "Wow"

Prof: "Well, you gotta realize that the grade was given in comparison to other papers I received (smile)"

I'm still not sure how to take that last comment.

Creative Spam and Panther Woes

From a recent spam message I received:

Hello Dear!,

Finally i've found possibility to right u, my lovely girl :)
All our photos which i've made at the beach (even when u're without ur bh:))
photos are great! This evening i'll come and we'll make the best SEX :)

Right now enjoy the photos.
Kiss, James.
vcwvpgap

Spammers realize that you don't even open up their emails anymore so they felt they'd get a bit more creative than the usual penis enlargement.

Update: After doing a little research on the topic, I found out that this little spam actually is a Windows virus. And I've got a Mac. Muwha-ha-ha!

And on a different note, Panther might delete the data you backed up in preparation for it. Man does that suck.

Crikey!

Apparently Donald Rumsfeld hasn't a mojo. As if that's a surprise to anyone.

Finally

Herman Miller's Aeron chair is arguably the most saught-after office chair known to man.

It was only a matter of time until they came out with the Aeron Wheelchair. Hat tip: Jason Kottke.

Oh, and holy crap I want one.

Flaming Pumpkins, et. al.

For all of you guys who spend 18 hours per day at your computer with no windows or clocks, here's a little head's up — Halloween is coming! (me: wait... what?)

To celebrate the special occasion, Extreme Pumpkins has added a few more to its gallery. Let me introduce you to Suicide Pumpkin.

He was feeling really empty inside, and couldn't take it anymore :)

Update: New design!! Tell me what you think :)

No Posts and Lotsa' Work Make Homer Go Somethin' Somethin'

Go crazy?

Don't mind if I do!!!!

Sorry everybody, the past few weeks have been really hectic (as evidenced by a previous post) so I chose to neglect my TypePad blog rather than neglecting the multitude of midterms that have been raining down upon my head for about 10 days. I can finally say that I safely negotiated the treacherous waters of my exam schedule, and came out with an 88.75 average for the four. I'm definitely slackin' this quarter, don't let my sub-A grade be any indication of the type of work I usually produce :)

And an a completely different note, PlanManager is coming along slowely but surely. I wish I didn't have so many other things on my plate right now because I could probably get a nice chunk of the app done if those 16 credit hours weren't staring me back in the face.

I'm gearing up for a phark.net redesign launch mid-November, so make sure to hold your breath. The usual mumbo-jumbo: totally semantic XHTML strict, validating CSS, Section 508 (and probably AAA compliant)... "Mike, can I please have a screenshot?" You sure can. Note: I love JPEG compression.

<nerd>
My favorite Magic card out right now is definitely Crown of Suspicion. Its extremely effective at nabbing a whole hoard of weenies with one fell swoop, and if your creatures can withstand a little -2 or -1 knocking on their toughness, it can pump up your attacking fleet for only two mana. My roommate plays a tournament-proven White Rebel deck, and this card can mow through his attack like a chainsaw through butter. If you go to ccghouse.com (my personal fav), you can pick four of them up for $ .36 total. Not bad considering if you cast two of these on two different creatures of the same type, you can kill off a couple 3/3 baddies, and all their 2/2 friends without breaking a sweat. Or, cast two of them on your Hypnox, and you'll have a 16/4 flyer that is unquestionably a game-ender.
</nerd>

The updates should be coming fast and furious from now on, so keep on checking!