Super Happy RTF 319 Blogging FunShine!

Photos of an Unknown Family Who Probably Owned a Liquor Store

2005-06-06T15:05:00.000-05:00

some guy bought a couple of albums and some photos of an unidentified family at a swap meet, and has posted their photos online. i just thought the whole concept was kind of funny. at the same time, whose jerky grandkids put up their family albums for sale at a swap meet? or maybe the albums were forgotten about in some box when someone moved. i prefer the jerky grandkids theory, though.

via popculturejunkmail.com.

portfolio link!

2005-05-17T00:13:00.000-05:00

i have sufficiently owned my history final, despite my frequent mind-wandering in class to storyboard flash projects and the like.

anyway, here's the portfolio link.

i'd also like to take the time to apologize for my heartless dreamweaver comment. i like dreamweaver, and it probably would've taken me half the time to do my portfolio in dreamweaver instead of by hand, but as a general principle i personally just really like to hand code stuff myself. it sucks time like a black hole, but i get this insane, godly feeling of accomplishment when i do it. i considered doing it in flash at first, actually, but realized quickly that would probably suck more time out of me than was necessary. also, my flash disk is broken :( must obtain new one... (off to dc++!)

slightly altered after effects

2005-05-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

so no matter what i do, the audio is still a little glitchy. but it doesn't get as thrown off now, so this is the updated link for it.

scientists have created a self-replicating robot

2005-05-12T16:26:00.000-05:00

which i think sounds pretty groovy. read for yourself.

also, the most amusing thing i've run into today (gacked from one of my livejournal friends) is How to Destroy the Earth. you know, in case there's anyone else in the class who would like to know how.

i've been wasting my tuesday

2005-05-10T15:31:00.000-05:00

tooling about on the internet, and wound up on a blog called threadbared that takes those vintagey clothing patterns you can buy at the craft store and makes fun of the packaging.

one of my personal favorites was this one:

“You’re shitting me! I’m going to be on the cover of Doll Crafter magazine!?! Tell me you’re not shitting me!! You have got to be shitting me!”

also, the guy over at x-entertainment went to this store out in the middle of nowhere and wound up finding a treasure trove of items that are about a decade too late for our time. things like ninja turtle postcards, mario napkins, and salsa flavored sunflower seeds, for example. go see.

old news story from ~5 years ago

2005-05-08T15:06:00.000-05:00

Student Suspended Over
Suspected Use of PHP

friends don't let friends do PHP.

adobe vs. macromedia: top 10

2005-05-07T12:11:00.000-05:00

i belong on the mailing list for experts-exchange, which if you google (i'm too lazy to link it) will turn up a site dedicated to answering any and all computer-related problems, issues, glitches, what have you. they also have the occasional article of some sort, and in this last e-mail someone wrote up a list of what adobe should do now that it has macromedia. it's cute, so i thought i'd post it.

From MHenry, Macromedia Page Editor
Adobe Vs. Macromedia - Top 10: Surely everyone has heard that Adobe will be buying Macromedia. The real question is, what is this brute going to look like when all the dust settles. Adobe, sit up straight and pay attention, here's my wish list.

Please don't get rid of FreeHand. I love this program. Everything about it is sexy: Multiple pages, no switching between direct select and the arrow tool -- trust me, this program is the Swiss Army Knife of vector illustration. The only justificatin for using Illustrator over FreeHand is that most printers don't know what the heck to do with a FreeHand file.
If you are going to dump Fireworks, at least incorporate some of the tools into Photoshop. Wouldn't it be great to have the gradient control of Fireworks in Photoshop? Or the vector tools?
Let Macromedia use the tabbed panels. Remember when Adobe sued Macromedia to prevent them from using their interface? Hopefully, we can get rid of the God-awful interface that MX+ users are faced with.
Get rid of all the garbage that Macromedia spewed out this last year or so: FlashPaper? Contribute? Captivate? Flex? Who cares? Apparently, Macromedia thinks all us freelancers are a bottomless pit of money. Incorporate these tools into Flash and Dreamweaver the way you should have in the first place or get rid of them.
Quit pricing upgrades differently. I don't care if I have version 1.0, quit charging me like I never bought anything from you. Let me upgrade if you are offering an upgrade! Hey Adobe, want to make some quick money? Let users of Director 8.0 and prior upgrade. Now that Director supports DVD, there's a legitimate reason for some of us to buy the newest version.
Upgrade Fontographer and quit charging so much for Adobe fonts. You'll be making plenty of money now, so cut us a break!
It's Dreamweaver, ok? Not GoLive. Don't even think about it. We all switched to Dreamweaver because it didn't muck with our code. Of course, in MX2004 we now get stuff like ">!--DWLayoutEmptyCell--> " in blank cells. Hmmm, wonder if Pagemill is still around?
Not every program is worth $400 or more. Sure, Acrobat Professional is a nice program but it doesn't do anything! You can't even create a PDF from scratch using it. It's a plugin, nothing more. Price it accordingly.
Please don't get rid of FreeHand.(see #1)
More complete manuals with purchase. I hate buying "studio" versions. You get this scrawny little book that doesn't cover half the features. If you want to encourage me to buy the studio, then give me all the manuals. At least in PDF format.

Ok, so it was more of a rant than a wish list. The truth is, I'm hopeful that this merger will bring good things to the community. I really do hope that Adobe will incorporate some of the more useful Macromedia tools. I wish that Adobe will be able to build quality apps with a smaller footprint. I hope that Macromedia's innovation and Adobe's quality will combine to build apps that are superior to what we have today.

And I wish I would have bought Macromedia stock a couple of weeks before the news broke!

Contact MHenry: MHenry@experts-exchange.com

issues with the sound

2005-05-06T16:13:00.000-05:00

that i can't seem to fix. you hear it immediately when it starts; the song skips back a couple of times and since i've tried exporting in several different ways in several different file formats and the sound is still glitched, i've deducted there was a problem with the original song file in the first place. ARGH. that's frustrating, especially since i cued a lot of the "actions" to the music.

this project underwent some changes--it was first intended to be about solar power and how much it rocks, then it went to hybrid cars b/c i didn't think i'd have enough time to work in solar cells anyway, then it went to the atomic bomb b/c i couldn't get the amount of footage i wanted for hybrid cars, and then it wound up being somehow related to how the simple maneuver of "duck and cover" will save you from the sun exploding and killing everything.

in case you're unfamiliar with its history, "duck and cover" is this short from the '50s instructing schoolkids what they should do in the case of an atomic bomb being dropped on their heads. apparently, crawling under your desk and putting your hands over your head as you assumed the fetal position was enough to save you from nuclear fallout. it's kind of cute and kind of... well, no, it's really dated, and insanely silly, especially 50 years later. practically all of my footage came from that short; the footage of the "sun exploding" is footage of the a-bomb going off in japan (whether it's hiroshima or nagasaki i'm not sure). this page has more information on the original short, as well as a link to the site where i got all the footage. everything there is under a creative commons license, so it's totally free for public usage and viewing.

i was kind of aiming to poke fun at the ridiculous idea that the mere act of ducking and covering would save you from an atomic bomb being dropped on your head, so i took the duck and cover rule and applied it to the equally ridiculous idea of the sun exploding (of course, it could happen millions of years after we're already dead anyway)--and so i guess it's doubly ridiculous that ducking and covering would save you from the ridiculous notion that the sun would explode in our time? and the beatles' song adds that oh-so ominous tone--"here comes the sun, man. you're so frickin' screwed."

i have to shower the s.o. with good things for allowing me to utilize his webspace, as i am sorely out myself.

remember kids: duck and cover!

i'm going to try to fix that audio glitch in time for the portfolio presentations, though i imagine all i really need to do is to grab another copy of the song, preferably off the actual cd this time rather than the marvelous world of file sharing. i hope it's ok i'm using a copyrighted song; it's not like this movie is going to start making the rounds on the internet and generate insane media buzz, after all.

mickey mouse land

2005-04-25T15:28:00.000-05:00

i think the whole idea that Disneyland exposes America as a media space is a little too subtle for people to grasp at first, since when you're in Disneyland, Disney is the only one grabbing your attention, and since you're in the park already, they don't have to work that hard to in the first place if you've already forked over the $50 per ticket it took you to get in there.

media spaces strike me as being much more competitive--Disney's exposure of America would be more overt if it was more like Times Square, with Cingular and Cup o'Noodle ads jumping out into your face from all over. the whole idea behind Disneyland teaching us about mediated spaces in America seemed a little silly, because it came across like that's what Disney set out to do in the first place. obviously it's just some person's reading into the existence of Disneyland, so i guess the main issue i have with it is i disagree with it.

other than that, non-places being defined by their content rather than their history or location, that i can dig.

someone made a wedding cake out of legos.

2005-04-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

it's pretty impressive looking, especially since the cake is actually solid legos, rather than lego-shells. and apparently he does this for a living...?

there's a link to one of his birthday cake projects on that page too.

there's also a funny entry from The Sneeze Blog/Zine about the new thing McD's is doing: affixing your receipt to the bag with a sticker that says, "i'm lovin' it." in response, the poster made a bunch of different stickers that are far less presumptuous, including, "i'm just datin' it" and "i'm wishing we used protection." funny stuff, people!

also, the japanese have this new pac-man product that basically looks like he's eating your head.

and finally, if you enter in any url at this site they'll take that page's content and make a rap song out of it, no joke.

all these links came from the pcjm blog, which is linked in my sidebar.

oh wait, i'm not done spamming you yet. on The Japan Times Online they had an article titled "For a Life Less Ordinary, Marry an Otaku."

Her husband: a smart, gentle gijutsu-kei sarariman (corporate computer engineer) in his mid-30s, is an avid collector of figya (figures) of various animation and action heroes with a special penchant for Star Wars and Gundam. He knew seven of the great classic ani-son (animation theme songs) by heart, and liked to sing them out loud, at the top of his lungs while driving. He never failed to get up at 7:30 on Sunday mornings to watch a cult '70s anime rerun on TV and seriously considered dressing up as Kamen Raidaa (The Masked Rider) for his wedding until his mother wept and begged him not to.

reading this article reminded me of why i don't date hardcore otaku. then again, does anybody?

not quite up to schedule

2005-04-15T23:52:00.000-05:00

i'd meant to post an edited version of my flash up today by 5, but it wound up not happening. my s.o. called me up this morning sick, so i dropped him by health services, met with some friends to celebrate a birthday, then took him back home and hung out there for awhile. then i got to drive home in rush hour traffic (yay!). on the plus side, i got gas for $2.08/gallon (diamond shamrock on corner of old spicewood and some other street). in any case, the flash is as it stands, unfortunately. my entire fridays are free, so i'd been reserving today for revising it--adding some more sound and fixing the one buzz glitch on page 4 and a sky and clouds and stuff like that, but otherwise i'm pretty okay with how it turned out.

Two Flowers and a Bee is my oh-so-creative title for it, and it's back a couple of posts, if anyone's interested. and on a random note, i've completely forgotten the "exporting your after effects file" procedure now.

maybe it's me

2005-04-13T15:37:00.000-05:00

but i was having a bit of trouble connecting the meaning of bricolage with its usagein the article. as i understand it, bricolage is an amalgamation of things available to someone that they appropriate for their own use and derive meaning from (of course, there may be problems with my understanding of it, which would explain the trouble i'm having putting it in context here). i guess i'll ask today; it'll be made clearer in class.

in other flash-related news, check out a very cool website at mypetskeleton.com. there's a game called a murder of scarecrows hiding somewhere on it, i think (immediate link not with me at the moment). in any case, the flash is puuuurty.

edit: the link to the game is theskeletonshop.com.

edit: never mind, i get the bricolage thing in the article. apparently double reading helps.

i'm up, i'm up.

2005-04-07T02:56:00.000-05:00

i've been sleeping for most of the day, since every time i get up my stomach makes me feel like i want to die horribly. i've been up maybe 3 times--once to call the doctor, once to force feed myself, and now. so somewhere in the realm of unconsciousness i was reminded of the flash project's due date, and i hustled on up to upload it.

here it is.

if you want to view it bigger just change the .html at the end to .swf.

i was thinking/planning on adding more sound to it today, but seeing as how my body decided it would be better to make me suffer miserably, that didn't happen.

enjoy the flash; i would've put a pre-loader on it if i knew how to. but it's not like it's that big anyway.

back to sleep for me. apparently this bug or whatever i've got is going around, so watch out for germy college kids, fellow 319ers.

cool flash junk

2005-03-30T20:02:00.000-06:00

orisinal.com is already in the sidebar; the other awesome flash game site is eyezmaze.com. go, partake.

other places to find cool flash junk are girlshavecooties.com (check out his flash movies, they also have some really cool pre-loader games) and legendaryfrog.com (more flash movies, and some really great spoofs of the lotr films). a flash cartoon that's just cool to look at because of the smoothness of the animation is the icecream machine. the only problem is that it's hosted at newgrounds.com, which has the tendency to plunge you into pop-up hell.

for any harry potter fans (and non-fans!), hopefully you've all heard of potterpuppetpals.com?

there's a neat story behind the guy who did the end of the world flash cartoon: he was contacted by nike and hired to produce 3 flash ads for them; those can be found here. he has a website now, but it doesn't really have anything on it except for a neat, pretty flash intro (it's fluidweb.net if anyone's interested).

and if you haven't seen the stick figure kung fu death flash, wow, where have you been?

zomg, i wrote a semi-related paper for 305 all those semesters ago.

2005-03-30T15:50:00.000-06:00

wednesday's readings brought up the term 3rd wave feminism, which i hadn't heard in a long time, but i remember identifying myself as one for a time in high school. at least till other self-proclaimed feminists started pissing me off, so i started shying away from the title/category altogether.

anyway, the first i'd ever heard of 3rd wave feminism was from heather havrilesky via salon.com, which is mostly a cool ezine about a whole mish mash of stuff. (liberal slant, just warning the conservatives out there.) and in all honesty, the only reason i read the article was because at that time i was just itching to see the powerpuff girls movie, and henceforth was devouring any and all manner of summary, article, and review i could find, positive and negative. because, you know, i'm a freak.

i stumbled across havrilesky's article (the link to her blog, rabbitblog.com, is in the sidebar) and first came across the notion of a 3rd wave feminist. having had mixed feelings about the feminists i'd met so far, most of which came across as hostile women who overly resented the fact that men had a penis, 3rd wave feminism sounded pretty cool. and plus, havrilesky was relating it to the powerpuff girls. i was totally sold.

the article was an interesting read for me (well, for obvious reasons) and touched especially on the representation of kickass females in the media (which wound up being the topic of my research paper for 305). at the time, charlie's angels, alias, and the powerpuff girls were big, and sending out interesting messages about "the notion of being powerful and pretty." like i said, it's an interesting read, and here's the link to it (since salon requires you to have a subscription, non-subscribers have to watch a short ad to enter, then reenter the link in the toolbar. it isn't that much work, suck it up).

crap crap crap

2005-03-28T14:44:00.000-06:00

chris, i didn't realize my logo wasn't posted, which i could've sworn i did last week. i don't know if blogger ate the post or what, but anyway, my logo is as follows:

it's a logo for my blog, and it's a happy sun with party hats for sunbeams, because rtf 319 is like a big, happy pary. i mean, the title is super happy rtf 319 blogging funshine, after all.

mostly flash related fun stuff

2005-03-28T13:57:00.000-06:00

all that kept sticking in my mind throughout the reading was the likelihood of someone providing these alternative media groups with false information. i mean, you have to do a hell of a lot of research to verify the information. well, maybe not a hell of a lot, but you have to do a thorough research job. i mean, what was that thing back in the 2004 election, where the onion was quoted by cnn or some other bigshot broadcaster? cbs? abc? i don't remember. anyway, stellar research that team did.

in regards to flash goodies, just yesterday i found this blog dedicated to flash games online, creatively titled jay is. neat stuff, check it out.

also, for a belated freaky easter goodie, here's a digustingly cute korean flash about, erm, eggs. and how awesome they are and how much we all love them, especially when they dress up in little teddy bear and cowboy suits. ... yeah.

soda vs. gatorade? which causes more cavities?

2005-03-23T20:01:00.000-06:00

so apparently, drinking gatorade is more cavity-inducing than soda.

read for yourself

gilmor response

2005-03-23T19:17:00.000-06:00

so i am confused by gilmor's statement about the drawbacks of rss feeds on blogs--they destroy their idiosyncracy how again? confusion.

all the "original" input i have on disruptive media is made less original by the fact that i'm drawing from an article in wired magazine i read months ago, where they interviewed the guy who's responsible for bittorrent (who's apparently a mildly autistic genius). the thing that stuck with me from the article was that not only is there an availability of television shows on the internet via bittorrent, but you can obtain a specific clip from a specific show, rather than get the whole episode. that was a really haphazard way of explaining it. attempt at clarification/simplification: bittorrent (and other file-sharing programs) are threatening television networks, who can't gauge how popular shows are because they can't measure the numbers of people tuning in (cable specifically, since satellite tv doesn't measure ratings or anything like that). people can just get the same programs off of the internet, and can watch them at their own leisure. sometimes, they don't even need the whole program--all they need is a clip.

i'm doing an exceptionally poor job of explaining this. ok. the example they give in the article is of jon stewart and his infamous insult of one of the hosts of CNN's crossfire, who he called a dick. obviously, only the people who were watching the show witnessed it happen. a few years ago, everyone else would only get this information via word of mouth and how the media chose to explain/present it. maybe someone taped it, but who the hell tapes crossfire? now, however, they can get the real thing via p2p networks on the web. plus, crossfire's viewership isn't exceptionally high. the distribution of this clip on the internet gave millions of people the chance to see it for themselves.

i'm getting the feeling i got way off track here. anyway, disruptive media! p2p networks vs. television. you can get your tv when you want it as long as you have a hi-speed connection and a reliable internet source. obviously the choice for people lacking in tivo.

edit: found the article! you can listen to clive thompson articulate this all better than i (and then some). it's interesting anyway.

oh yeah, the photoshop collage!

2005-03-12T00:24:00.000-06:00

so, here be the collage, in all its hazy shrouded glory:

general process of editing to come later. and i admit chris, the images were garnered off of google, which i now just remembered was originally supposed to be in there. ah, well.

anyway, here's the list of where i got the images from:
the lovely b&n image
foot locker
frederick's of hollywood
jamba juice
sonic
starbuck's
polo ralph lauren

if you're wondering what exactly is the connection between all of these (and google), examining this might make it a little clearer. oh, and the thumbs up pic came from gettyimages.com, a must for all your royalty-free graphic/image needs.

interactive net.art

2005-03-07T14:42:00.000-06:00

with regards to today's readings on net.art, i was reminded of zefrank.com, a site that's home to a bunch of flash "toys" and games. a lot of the interactive ones let you create things and post them on the website, like the flake maker, the scribbler, and flowers (all under "interactive toys." he also fools around with typography a bit; check out quotes.

mostly flash based stuff, obviously. i'll probably post some typography links up later once i locate them...

tawny peaks sells size 69HH breast on ebay

2005-03-04T00:00:00.000-06:00

tawny peaks was a former playboy model/stripper, who in 1998 was sued by a man who basically claimed he'd been pummeled by her massive 69HH breasts. that's right: 69HH. why am i bringing this up? well, she's now put one of her superhuman silicone implants up on ebay, and the bidding's up to $14,500. i mean, holy crap.

the full article's here, and of course i had to go find the ebay auction for it.

not only that, but there are a few other auctions up directly related to this auction:
this one's just plain evil (see note, and note price)
and this one's just plain stupid.
and here, someone's put up an auction for the perfect vehicle to display your newly acquired 69HH breast implant on.

people are frickin' weird, i'll tell you that.

comic booky art. oh, and furniture porn. and sushi.

2005-03-02T22:10:00.000-06:00

these are a couple of the artists on devart i was talking about posting a couple of entries back, suddenly made that much more relevant by the recent ereserves doc + discussion about comic books today. i really dig their art, mostly because of the cartoony look to it. greatlp has more of a comic artist's style while thweatted's style is more cartoony. her sketches are positively awe-inspiring to look at (but that may just be me). she does a good number of art for old cartoons (does anybody remember the snorks? alvin and the chipmunks? yeah, i'm a geek). anyway, they're both definitely worth checking out.

there are two artists' galleries i used to frequent who eventually became comic book artists for their respective fandoms. i didn't know them personally, but it was still kind of surreal seeing their names appear in print after knowing their names via the internet for a couple of years before. /digression

(seriously, check out the links. who could possibly pass up the furniture porn?)

edit: the sheepman just pointed out a site to me called austinsushi.com. basically, it's a sushi guide to austin, as it so clearly states in the lower right corner of the banner at the top, and holy crap, it makes me happy (i'm a big sushi freak). i'm at the same time saddened, because while it lists practically 20 locations in austin for sushi, i've only been to 5 of those. clearly i need to go do some extensive city hopping, very soon.

blog layout status: complete!

2005-03-02T12:43:00.000-06:00

everybody needs to check out the groovy little links in my sidebar. especially the furniture porn one. yes, you heard me. furniture porn. that's right. pr0n.

the art of pen spinning is cool too, better if you have broadband.

the ♥ tag doesn't show up on a lot of macs.

2005-02-23T13:40:00.000-06:00

so in relation to scaff's article, i'm pretty sure most of us are familiar with deviantart.com (online art gallery for the uninitiated; home to a few million galleries all of varying skill--seriously, anyone could get a devart account). anyway, on the topic of art and authenticity on the internet? you're lucky if you can get it to exist, because you can have an extremely difficult time enforcing it. there are so many "art thieves" out there, and devart has more than its share of them (hopefully i don't have to explain what an art thief is). you see people's works with the signature/watermark cropped out, pictures where the thief has mspainted over it so it looks like someone has a different hair color (god, they always do a shitty job, too), and one time i came across a person's gallery where one of their "art pieces" was a desktop wallpaper i'd used ages ago that came from another website. it was an actual screenshot of a cartoon character from a tv show, and they were trying to pass it off as their art. WOW. IDIOT. i'd been up late that night and feeling pissy and sent her a really nasty e-mail, and later the gallery was gone. wow, i don't think the internet could be any safer without me around.

anyway, it's gotten to the point where a lot of artists just plaster their signature or watermark right in the middle of their art because they're so fed up with it. other people have done something to their html code for their site that prevents you from saving or hotlinking their images. that creates an accessibility problem, because most internet surfers don't have the know how to adjust their internet/firewall settings to get these images to show up. that, or their desire to see a particular artist's work is not so great that they want to take half an hour trying to configure their internet settings right. and everyone has the art thieves to thank!

there are a few devart galleries i frequent (mostly cartoony artists who are currently studying animation or applying to work at some major comic book industries) that i'll link to later.

walter benjamin is making my head hurt.

2005-02-20T15:02:00.000-06:00

first, however, here's a link to a game a friend of mine mentioned to me: you're an elite ROFLer who needs to destroy wave after wave of LOLLERskaters and LMAOplanes by dropping WTFbombs and OMGmissiles. comes with very own 80s power ballad music to add to the 1337ness.

now, the business. so i can better retain the info mr. benjamin is relaying to us, i'm going to try a tactic my bf (hereafter known as "the sheepman" need i ever reference him again) recommended, which basically entails writing a sentence about what i got from each section.

I
art and its complexities becomes more accessible to your average joe with the introduction of first lithography and later photography (essentially methods of mechanical reproduction).

II
reproductions of the original work of art serve to deteriorate the authentic beauty of said original at its exact moment of coming into being, sometimes referred to as its "aura."

III
SOCIALISM BAD (in that it dictates the replication of an original is as equal as the original; neither is superior nor inferior to the other. this section gave me a mountain of trouble, so i could be way off the mark here).

IV
art was first produced for religious purposes and has now evolved to the point where many operate under the idea of "art for art's sake," where no underlying purpose or meaning exists.

V
reproduction of art increases its accessibility.

VI
the meanings of reproductions are constructed by their context (?)

VII
some believe films have a spiritual nature to them that is either unrecognized by the audience or the actual filmmaker (not likely...).

VIII
in film the performance that the audience perceives is the camera's rather than the actual actor's.

IX
film is not as artistic as stage acting--the film actor approaches his work in disjointed pieces rather than the stage actor, who approaches his work as a whole.

X
as it becomes more accessible and widespread, the "art" now constructs the artist, rather than vice versa. (still could be totally off the mark...)

XI
film, as opposed to arts such as painting, creates the illusion of reality by diminishing the distance between the creator (the equipment) and the audience.

XII
the "mechanical reproducibility" of art (in general) allows for a public to come together (right now...) in a shorter period of time.

XIII
essentially, film allows us to see things in ways we wouldn't otherwise.

XIV
film can be seen as a form of dadaism, one that bombards their audience with images/ideas constantly, with no time allowing for contemplation on the image.

XV
films distract their audience, then deliver their message verrrrry stealthlike. also, duhamel hates movies.

ok, so what i gathered about the 3rd section way back there is now nullified. btw, this is no attempt to provide anybody w/a sparknotes version of the article; it's mostly for my own benefit since i appear to be cursed with a less than stellar memory.

now i am off to celebrate with watching american dad, recently bequeathed to me thanks to the beauty of the internet. internet, i ♥ you. (fyi, it is now 10:30 in the evening. i read this article in pieces. or i could just be lying about the whole "it took me over 9 hours to read this, WEEP" thing.)

my photoshop collage! 11 minutes late, but i can explain.

2005-02-16T02:09:00.000-06:00

some girl dinged my car (otherwise known as the T3 (not a reference to the latest terminator movie with that hot kristanna lokan chick in it, but the toyota corolla '03 model)) at the arboretum where i was parked (YES, only semi-legally, but come on, t.g.i. friday's doesn't exactly need all that extra parking space), and i got home around 10p and went through the process of contacting her to get the insurance info and everything. so that set me back a bit tonight. ANYWAY.

so instead of doing a photo, i went with a wallpaper from cartoonnetwork.com, because hey, i love cartoons, and, um... well, mostly i love cartoons. this particular cartoon is foster's home for imaginary friends, created by craig mccracken, the almighty father of the powerpuff girls. (someone humor me and guess what the subject of my blog layout will be. no, really.)

first, the original image:

and now, the altered image:

read top to bottom for the first column, bottom to top for the second, then top to bottom for the last two (i'm a confusing person sometimes).

1) ocean ripple. pretty much self explanatory; you'd use it if you wanted to emulate looking at an object underwater.
2) craquelure. it gives the image the look of being painted on stone, as if it were a mural. it kind of reminds me of chris' wiener car pic, only in color.
3) solarize. i pretty much think you'd use this effect if you were passing out flyers to a lot of high people.
4) lens flare. i've seen this used for cheesy images where you put a sparkle in someone's eye or smile, or add it to text to make it look "cool." i like to think that mac (the boy in the picture) has his own little zelda game fairy or something. but i can also see where this effect/filter, if used correctly, would give your image some depth... ok, maybe not.
5) charcoal. i really dig the color, and the effect. what can i say, simplicity gets me. i can see personal website owners utilizing this to make a simple splash page or background, so it doesn't really interrupt the content of the site. it'd be cool if someone did this in chalk on the street, or in their driveway!
6) diffuse. it takes the sharpness off the image and gives it a really soft look, like you were working with old crayons. i like this a lot too, it looks like you'd use it to emulate a kid's drawing.
7) wind. i picked it because wilt's running, and hey, i might as well add in a ridiculously cheesy effect to make it look like he's running REALLY REALLY FAST. although i'll admit, i have seen people use this effect well to give their images (usually icons or avatars) some style. but for the most part, i think it's kind of lame. since the bg is affected too, it looks more like you're driving by wilt really fast, rather than him running. then again, i guess there's something else you could use this effect for: emulating driving in a car. and, um, taking pictures while you're driving in that car.
8) clouds. this has got to be the crappiest filter ever. they don't give you an option to mess around with the filter's opacity unless you put it on a separate layer altogether, and it can be used for one thing only: putting clouds in your damn picture. so half of wilt's leg is lost in the sky.
9) shear. this lets you not only give the image some curves, but it repeats it on either side. kind of neat stylistically, but all it really seems good for would be to muck around with a photo of someone you don't like. it might make an interesting bg for a site, though, if you toned down the opacity and added a few other filters. actually, i just realized it's good to use as a tiled background for a website, since you can line it up after itself (going left to right, in this case) and the continuity of the image isn't effected.
10) fragment. kind of hurts my eyes, to be honest. good to use to basically make any picture look like it's out of focus, almost to an excess. could be utilized well if you wanted to drown out the background of an image and bring out the object in the foreground more.
11) lighting effects-omni. i'd never been aware of this effect till now, and i have to say, that is sweeeeet. i love how it gives you a light source and manages to do a decent job of shading accordingly (at least omni and spotlight do; directional seems pretty useless). this does a much better job of giving your image depth than the lens flare i used in mac's section.
12) texture-canvas-scaling at 141%-relief at 9-light direction at top left. the filter says it all--it gives it a texture, in this case, canvas, and sort of gives it the look that you might've painted the image on an artist's canvas. i don't think it does a particularly good job of emulating an artist's canvas, though; the colors seem to go down too deep and the edges are too clean. it's pretty easy to tell it's a photoshopped image.

readings response and the color pink

2005-02-13T22:34:00.000-06:00

no, i hadn't forgotten about my blog, i'd just put off posting anything in here for awhile. then we got the reading assignment for this week, and my brain said, "hey! that's right! you're supposed to post things about the readings here!" henceforth, i ventured bravely back.

i've always liked webmonkey, but i can't help feeling i would've gotten more out of that (thankfully short) article if i had a better background in .css. same with the second article, although i think it did a better job of relating .css to accessibility. matt's article (i just realized both the author's names were matt, in this case i'll clarify by christening them "matt 1" and "matt 2")--matt 1's article basically seemed to talk about things you could do with stylesheets: doing this brings up a picture, doing this brings up sound, doing this prints something, etc. etc.

matt 2's article was more straightforward, and less about how you can control what your site looks like and more about, well, website accessibility. it's obviously geared toward non-personal websites, because personal websites would worry less about accessibility. wouldn't they? it seems to be the natural order of things. no, i suppose it's debatable. if, you know, a personal website owner was trying to get famous/popular via the internet by detailing every facet of his life, ahem. accessibility would be an issue in those cases, but as for people who are catering to a specific audience, accessibility would be less of an issue.

example: a girl makes a webpage about the color pink. she's crazy about the color pink. she belongs to a web ring (do people even join those anymore?), she puts up photos of pink things, and she blogs about dying her hair pink and all her misadventures about shopping for pink panties that match her entire pink ensemble. she's got a pink layout, with hot pink on pastel pink or vice versa if she wants to spice things up a bit. pink girl isn't going to be worried about the purple guys or the blue meanies (HAHA IM SO KEWL) enjoying her site. worldwide accessibility isn't an issue with her. at least i hope not. website makers hankering for as wide of an audience as possible would hopefully have the sense to not make every bloody thing on their site in pink. it's not impossible, of course, but so very few people do it well. neon colors are bad for the web, mmkay?

matt 1's article will probably make more sense after we've had a little .css experience (which i'm sure a handful of people in the class have had already, though i'm not one of them).

my "personal relationship" with .css is just fiddling around with and changing colors of my lj layout, but ever since livejournal implemented system 2 for changing your layout, i don't mess around with the raw stuff anymore. well, wait, that's not true. i continued messing around with the raw code until my birthday last year, when one of my friends bought me a paid lj account. now that i have access to all the cool paid account layouts, i don't mess around with the raw code via system 1 anymore. alack and alay!

that was probably more info than anyone wanted to know about my piddly little ".css experience via livejournal." cooler stuff next time, maybe.

i will say that i'm looking forward to playing around with .css! html wasn't that big of an issue with me, but .css always tended to leave me stumped. probably because i was too lazy to try and pick that up after screwing around w/html so long. some of the prettiest websites i've seen have been made with .css (though no links immediately come to mind), so i've always admired people that can use it well, but loathed it when i tried to do ANYTHING with it.

in extra non-related news, xin nian kuai le! (like a week ago.) and happy early ♥ day, too.

whoo, webpage!

2005-02-02T20:16:00.000-06:00

so the webpage is up and running. also, not to denounce chris' color picker or anything, but my personal favorite for html related stuff is visibone.com's, because it allows you to click on multiple colors so you can see how text in a certain color will look on a bg of a certain color. not trying to undermine your authority or anything, chris. do not take offense and unleash your rage in unmitigated fury upon my final grade.

where's the super happy funshine?

2005-02-01T03:56:00.000-06:00

upon reading i decided my blog for this class sounded a little too deadpan and not very super, happy, or fun. this needs to be remedied, ASAP!

ok, so links! i get a ton of these from popculturejunkmail.com, so if you already frequent Gael Cooper's little mish mash of pop culture news complete with links (and it's got some really cool links, let me tell you), whatever i link here may very well be things you've seen/heard of already. well, you'll learn to deal with it, i guess :D (see? i put a smiley there. that's happy and funshiny, isn't it?)

that's a link more related to last week's readings, particularly ms. blood's article.

anyway, in regards to the html portion we hit on today in class, i dug up (not really, it was right there in my bookmarks) one of the first links i hit when i started reading the feed for her blog in my lj (yes, i have a livejournal. feel free to ph33r m3 (we'll get to the 1337 link later!)). unfortunately, the link was down. FORTUNATELY, i located another one!

for any of you familiar with Billy Joel's lyrical amalgamation of political references spanning roughly 40 years, We Didn't Start the Fire, this page has not only the lyrics, but links to each and every reference mr. joel makes with a token amount of background information. there's a hell of a lot of links in there, and maybe next time i'll upload the song, provided i can find a copy (shh, don't tell anyone about the music piracy, man!).

finally, my boyfriend sent me a link earlier in the evening, and i thought it would be a neat way to introduce some of the n00bs in the class to 1337, the Language of the Internet. more like the Language of the Internet Geeks, but anyway. this is inspired by chris' changing of "hyper" to "hyp3r"--i noticed half of us laughed, and the other half made confused faces. anyway, hopefully 1337.org will serve as an adequate explanation.

i only just realized it was tuesday roughly an hour ago, for anyone who's interested. WHOA! HAPPY FEBRUARY!

edit: i just realized the billy joel page? yeah, it links to everything, but unfortunately, the pages it links to belong to the original link, the website of which seems to be down. mmyep. sorry folks. i guess that wasn't a very funshiny thing.

and this week: last week's readings!

2005-01-31T15:33:00.000-06:00

i tend to be a procrastinator, so i've put off talking about last week's articles for, oh, almost a week now. true to the nature of my procrastinatory being, my memories are fuzzy at best, so i'll have to go with what i remember standing out rather than pull the articles up again. (i tend to wind up reading the articles over again and losing the motivation to respond).

i initially disagreed with the cheung article about discovering your identity through your blog, at least until i heard his argument. i especially thought it was interesting that ms. blood fit in that latter category too (when she mentions discovering what she was interested in based on the links she was posting on her blog).

it's interesting when she talks about the popularity a blogger can receive via the internet--there was this popular artist online whose gallery i used to visit waaaay back in the day, and one time when i was reading her blog she put up a survey she'd gotten from a friend (ah, the meme) in which she revealed that she actually kept her art endeavours a secret from her real life friends. i don't know if this is the case with everybody--keeping your online triumph a secret from your friends and family--though i imagine it is the case with a lot of them. i was a little disappointed blood didn't continue along this line about personal expression online and personal repression offline, but then again, she was talking more about the blog itself rather than the blogger in the article.

i'll post some links later today, if i can muddle through my bookmarks and find something relevant (and non-embarrassing to put up--see my self-presentation awareness in action!)

obligatory first post

2005-01-26T21:24:00.000-06:00

just testing to see if it works--i'm starting to think i made the title too long.

oh, well, apparently we just got our first assignment. personal history with computers? ok, the earliest computer i can remember sitting in front of were the ones at my elementay school, and all the kids ever did was play number muncher on them. that, or we got on a program called kidspix or something like that (just googled, it's kid pix). i used to play around on my aunt's comps, which were old yet entertaining thanks to the casino games they had on 'em.

this isn't really going anywhere; we officially got our first computer when i was in middle school, though thanks to occasional use of computers in school i didn't feel like a complete idiot using it. i rejoiced when we finally got internet access (some 2 years later?) and i remember staying up till 4 am on our piddly little 56k modem the first night. erm, thanks to ut, i'm relearning how to view macs as tools rather than just cool shiny things that are pretty to look at. i'm fairly competent at using pcs, but the journey entailed the utter annihilation of our first dell thanks to me (bad program installation, wasn't pretty). my laptop is the second dell i've used for significant amounts of time, so i'm hoping dell doesn't have this secret vendetta against me for what happened years ago. i'm rather fond of my laptop, even if it has the unfortunate tendency to break my back.

i don't really need this class academically, but i wanted a refresher course in fooling around with computers (and, of course, using macs). or, "i wanted to be introduced to digital media." does that pretty much sum it up?

as an afterthought, sorry chris. i don't have any pictures of cats to upload for you. also, this is way longer than 350 words.