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Sunday, June 28th, 2009
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5:39 am - What a douche.
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If the owner of a small company said this . . .
"Corporations don't have the freedom to call potential customers idiots, but I do."
. . . how would you respond?
This is the same guy who got all pissy when a few of us called him out on ripping off other company logos and using terrible type placement.
Guess some people don't really need my business.
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| Thursday, June 25th, 2009
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12:41 pm - NO WAY.
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Sunny Day Real Estate got back together.
current mood: confused
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| Sunday, June 21st, 2009
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6:35 am - Another trip south
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Pete, Noriko and I are going to spend the weekend of the 4th of July in San Francisco. Pete's looking at art schools in the area, Noriko's spending time with friends and family, and I need to make up for spending the whole time in the suburbs on our last visit.
How do you make a girl go insane? Stick her in a car for eleven hours with two type-obsessed designers. We'll be talking fonts the whole trip.
Unrelated: "Annan Water" gives me chills every time I listen to it. Especially the mandolin part after the first chorus. Chills.
current music: Decemberists: Annan Water
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| Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
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6:29 am - More listing
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In addition to the previous wishlist:
New pants. I just stitched a four-inch hole in one of three pairs I own, and the others aren't too attractive either.
A rowing machine. It's my favorite kind of exercise machine, and they make them pretty small.
A second monitor. It's a really superfluous desire, but once I'm a little more comfortable at home (read: living somewhere else) I'll want a more efficient desktop setup, and a secondary display will really help with the design work. Especially Flash. Damnit, Adobe, why did you destroy the panels in Flash? I don't like being forced to use vertical panels when they've been horizontal up until now.
I know there's more I could think of. But if I don't write these down somewhere, I'll forget completely once the checks start coming in.
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| Monday, June 8th, 2009
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10:31 am - List time
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In anticipation of a much more gratifying job and much more substantial paycheck, it's time to plot out all the things I'd like to blow my money on, once I've started catching up on my loan payments.
I need at least one Project 2. It's the new One Drop yo-yo, it was released yesterday, and I know I told people (like Steve) that I was finished buying yo-yos, but this is a special case. It's the successor to the local underdog story of the decade. Take that, YoyoFactory. With your terrible logo ripoffs and horrendous type placement.
I should get a new computer. Parts of this one are coming up on a decade old, although the most important pieces are considerably younger. But the whole setup just doesn't feel like running anywhere near as fast as it used to. It's just time for a new setup. And I can use this one as a media center, Ubuntu box, or scrap it for parts.
I also need shelves. Lots of shelves. I've got crap I just can't put anywhere, and it deserves to be stored in an inconspicuous and dignified manner. Not in the middle of my floor, where a decent person would put a bed.
A new plotter would be nice, but I really need more practice on the tiny one I've got first. Someday, I plan on having a four-foot cutting plotter. That'll be awesome.
Since my headphones broke, I'm stuck with these shitty earbuds that came with my Sansa. I hate earbuds so much, and these make my ears feel funny. I need clips. And it's kinda hard to find them these days.
Oh! And a bread maker! I'd love to make my own bread.
That's about it. I guess my dreams aren't that unattainable.
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| Saturday, June 6th, 2009
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4:08 am - Someone has a new job.
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And that someone is me.
current mood: giddy
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| Monday, June 1st, 2009
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12:16 am
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I need to go to sleep, and I've got a terrible reason for not doing so. I've just been sort of bummed about a couple things this whole trip, and it seems I'd rather stay up dwelling on the fact that I'm bummed than just sleep on it and hope things get better soon.
It's really sort of foolish. I'm just trying to work out my feelings about a couple friends. My close friends have been whittled down to a small handful in recent years, and when one's friends number so few, one puts much more energy into each friendship. But that energy isn't always returned in such large amounts. Guess shit happens.
Alright, I'm gonna force myself to sleep now. Leaving for Portland in about twelve hours.
current music: Ween: She Wanted to Leave
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| Sunday, May 31st, 2009
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10:22 pm - It only gets better
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I finally went downtown today. I'd been wanting to walk around Castro ever since I got here, and I finally got the chance to do it. I don't want to live in SF any time in the foreseeable future, but places like this are what make it worth visiting now and then.
So while I'm stuck twelve hours from home on a laptop that doesn't do anything I need to do, I've got an interview to follow up on, I need to ask for half the week off from my current job, and apparently a client is wondering why my contract is taking so long. (The change order came in on Friday, so that one's not my fault at all.) So I need to get going as soon as possible tomorrow.
Thanks California. You're a wonderful place in small doses.
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1:28 pm - Berkley makes me a child again.
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I've been in the Bay Area for two days, and I haven't even set foot in SF. Don't know if I will this time around. No matter where you are, suburbs suck. While the suburbs alone here are larger than Portland, they still have this similar mood that sets them apart from their engine city. They don't feel complete.
Berkley's super rad, however. The very fact that I've finally seen 924 Gilman makes me want to listen to all my old Pansy Division and Operation Ivy tapes.
The Grocery Outlets here are insanely well stocked. Since they take overstock and rejects from local sources, of course they'd have tons more stuff here than the stores in Olympia and Portland. I'm gonna stock up on food before we head back home.
I'm still working on learning MS Expression Blend. It's basically a clunkier, dressier version of Flash, still with no right-click support, and really no obvious advantages to Flash. Plus I'm gonna have to learn a new language to make it do anything worthwhile.
Back to my training videos.
current mood: meh
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| Friday, May 29th, 2009
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12:47 am - Leaving for San Fran
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in about . . . four hours.
current mood: excited
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| Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
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5:47 pm - To the Essef
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I'm getting a ride to San Francisco on Thursday. I'll spend the weekend there and get back on Tuesday. I'm hoping to get a feel for the UX community and available jobs down there, but I don't expect to land anything. It'll take a gigantic salary to pull me away from Portland. I don't know what constitutes a gigantic salary just yet, but I had to borrow three dollars today to buy dinner, so anything's an improvement over where I am now.
But I'll mostly be there to just be in SF. I know I've got a few LJ friends down there, and I wouldn't mind making some friends near the Bay.
(Also, company names would help, as I haven't done much in the way of research yet. Adaptive Path is my favorite company in SF, so anything along those lines.)
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| Sunday, May 24th, 2009
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12:50 pm
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Every time I do situps, a find a quarter on the floor. It's because I only have a quarter, and it falls out of my pocket when I do situps. But if I just forget it's always the same coin, I feel like the gods are rewarding me for exercising.
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3:39 am - Bay Area Job Hunt 09
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I've got a chance to snag a free ride and a place to sleep next weekend in San Francisco. I've been hoping to get down there and start looking for UX jobs. I don't know if I should, since it won't be an absolutely free trip (who could refrain from spending art least some money in SF?), but it won't cost me any time at work (three days a week is harder to chip away at than a full-time gig), and I'd really love to take a road trip, especially to San Francisco.
So I've got about five days to decide. I can already tell it's gonna come down to flipping a coin.
current music: Ween: Nicole
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| Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
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6:51 pm - Oh man so many germs stay away
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I just saw a lady in downtown Whole Foods wiping the handle of her shopping cart with an antibacterial cloth, pinky raised, while her other hand held a venti Starbucks, her brow so furrowed and her lips so pursed you'd think she actually envisioned herself fighting a horde of germs on the battlefield.
My first thought was, "Man, what a loser." Then my second thought was, "I'm gonna blog about this from my phone." Then my third thought was, "Oh shit, I'm the loser."
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| Saturday, May 9th, 2009
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4:34 pm - I shoulda gone with Vimeo.
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One of my yo-yo videos was removed by YouTube today in response to Stage Three Music's claim that I had violated their copyright when I posted a 30-second clip of a yo-yo trick called "Infanta."
Who the fuck is Stage Three Music, you ask? Who the fuck, indeed, for I asked as well. And I'm still a bit confused. They represent the band to some degree, although this wasn't always true. In fact, by the only images I've been able to find linking one party to the other, it happened when the band signed to a major label that has nothing to do with the question at hand.
So I wrote YouTube back. And according to their nicely-worded site, even responding to such an accusation may be legally claiming my innocence, therefore setting myself up for perjury later on. But I wrote anyway, because while I may not be 100% in the right, it sure isn't these stiffs to declare it so.
My missive to the Tube:
Does Stage Three Music have the right to file a copyright claim to a song on the Kill Rock Stars label?
I'm not going to claim anything that'll put me in line for perjury, but I know the band and label are fine with this usage. The only reason Stage Three found it was because I entered the band and song title in the video's description.
If it's that big of a deal, I'll go to Kill Rock Stars and get them involved. Otherwise, I think Stage Three is being a little overzealous in flagging 30-second yo-yo videos with a song recorded well before they became involved with the band.
****
So that's it. We'll see if they flag any other videos (I've got a couple major label acts in my yo-yo project--Foo Fighters immediately comes to mind, but again, it's 30 seconds), and if they do, I'll just rant some more, maybe post some reaction videos. You know how it goes.
Oh, also, Colin still owes me a pretty big favor. I'd hate to waste it on such a foolish game, but if I can still watch entire episodes of Home Movies on YouTube, they aren't playing very consistently.
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| Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
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6:20 pm
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I find that Tuesdays I'm at my absolute nerdiest. Today finds me at yo-yo club talking about jQuery (while yo-yoing, no less), walking around downtown taking pictures of Neutra Display (suddenly more common than Helvetica), and now waiting at the Hotel Monaco for Lullabot's Drupal workshop.
Yeah, I'm a nerd. It's a little awesome.
current music: Death Cab for Cutie: Bixby Canyon Bridge
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| Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
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5:29 pm - I'm an uncle.
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The kid was born half an hour ago. Sounds like everyone involved is healthy, if not tired as hell. Why don't they ever pop out during the day?
So I'm an uncle, which means my brother's a dad, which means my parents are grandparents, which means my grandparents have one more family member to shun for not being 100% white. Their loss.
I promise not to bore anyone with pictures or stories of the kid until he's old enough to be interesting.
Oh and I made this yesterday:
It's for the other Ian's web startup. I also made this, but it turns out he'd already ditched the name. I'm using it in the portfolio anyway, because it's kinda fun:
Time to sleep. Five hours until the alarm goes off. More than I can say for my brother, who won't have a decent night's sleep for some time from now on.
current music: Decemberists: Sunshine
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| Thursday, March 26th, 2009
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1:15 pm - Burned his body for incurring my wrath
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I went to Music Millennium yesterday for the release of The Hazards of Love, and got a CD and poster signed by the band. Colin even wrote "Thanks for the URL" on my CD. I'm such a fanboy sometimes.
It seems The Decemberists aren't pushing too hard to earn a bunch of new fans with the new release, which doesn't feature much in the way of radio-friendly music. It'd be hard to take one track out of the album's unbreaking sequence of songs and play it on any commercial station I know of. It would be like taking one fifth of The Tain and playing it in between Red Hot Chili Peppers and Creed or whatever crap music they play on those stations.
The Hazards of Love is a lot like The Tain in its sequential storytelling, but with a (slightly) more cohesive story, having not been translated from an Irish epic, and having multiple vocalists and a lyric sheet that attributes each line to its respective character.
I'm not trying to write a review on it or anything, although I'm sure I could. Point is, I'm still crazy about this band, and it seems there's nothing they could record that I wouldn't wait an hour in line to buy on its release date.
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| Monday, March 9th, 2009
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11:21 am - I made a picture.
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Here it is.
I'm gonna take a crack at Threadless again. I wouldn't mind having this on a shirt.
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| Sunday, March 1st, 2009
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4:03 pm - 28 Things Everybody Should Know
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My February project is finished. I loved doing this, but it's good to know I don't have to do anything tomorrow.
1. The Send button goes on the left, and the End button goes on the right.
2. Respect the hand cursor.
3. Third-person testimonials don't fool anyone.
4. If you hold it like a gun and fire it like a gun, it should be a gun.
5. Quotation marks are for quotations, not slogans.
6. Red and green = stop and go. Red and blue = hot and cold.
7. Not all browser windows are maximized.
8. Users should never wonder if the system is broken, unless it actually is.
9. Door handles should look like door handles.
10. Blue LEDs are more abrasive on the eyes than red ones.
11. Avoid forcing users to click more than they really have to.
12. Don't limit options when any key will do.
13. Embrace tactile feedback as much as possible.
14. Navigation layout should reflect the movement it represents.
15. Drivers need a lot of time to make decisions.
16. Screen edges and corners can drastically improve functionality.
17. Don't fight the operating system.
18. Drunk people are users too.
19. Users expect navigation either above or to the left of the content.
20. Interaction should enhance the user experience, not hinder it.
21. Try to break your system before someone else does.
22. Dangerous products should be harder to engage and easier to stop.
23. Options, hints and warnings should be unique and easy to tell apart.
24. Some conventions just aren't worth messing with.
25. Users can play their own music on their own time.
26. Language, not just type, should be optimized for efficient reading.
27. You'll never find a system that suits everybody.
28. Roman numerals: great for game titles, and that's about it.
So that's it. 28 days of the crap that goes on inside my head all the time.
I need a sandwich.
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