24-- I never even saw the show last year. I must have been properly brainwashed by the media into watching it. It was actually pretty good. Although what passes as 'smart cinematography' is oftentimes us looking at a scene from through the slats in a chair. Nice overt use of the handheld camera though. Much easier to swallow than Blair Witch project. Stupid as it seems, I also watched the 3 minute commercial afterward by the sponsor, Ford. I actually think that's not a bad idea. I watched the commercial because I appreciated the company that gave me the entire show uncut. Would somebody PLEASE give me a Bills game unedited by commercials. I'll watch a 2 hour commercial for the flowbee afterwards if I have to.

1:40amSniffSniff-- Here it is...my Mason-got-me-sick-again blog. What do you know, the zipper has caught his son's cold again. Straight out of the petri dish called day care. If I didn't know any better I'd think it's me who taste tests another kid's face who has snots running from his nose clear into his mouth. It's me who picks up 3 day old cheese from my high chair, rubs it around in my apple juice, and jams it into my mouth...with fingers that were last checking the side of the toilet bowl to see how smooth and silky it is.


My wife never gets sick. Maybe that's because she doesn't have time to. What a load of crap. I was just thinking to myself the other day. "Gee, zip you've really got some "extra" time on your hands. What you really should do is go get sick." Tricia has definitely developed an immune system of steel. Come to think of it, my Mom wasn't sick very often either. I've done an exhaustive Internet search to find out why, but I have come up empty. Either my searching skills suck or my browser has a headcold too.

Busted-- Friday was interesting...Tricia calls me in a panic that someone called her at home, saying that he wanted to talk to me. Come to find out it was a guy from Rochester that was surfing the web and found that a website he had asked to be taken down in the past was put back up. He was pissed that some of the work shown on the site was his and not the site owner's (the site featured pictures of high-end carpentry and trim work). Well, he found the right guy.

When I was just out of school I did a cheapo website for a guy that did high-end carpentry. He had given me the images of his work, which I never even had a second thought about disputing. I did, however use stock photos for navigation. I always worried about some rights police calling me out on those stock photos. Little did I know that the guy gave me photos of work that he didn't really do. So when I heard this guy's story on the phone through his clenched teeth, and 3 legal notices that he read me, I had a sinking feeling...

I had put up this guy's site a couple years ago in my online portfolio, under my student work. I didn't ask the site owner's permission because I slathered a huge yellow box onto every page that said "portfolio piece only, site not live". Apparently the Google crawler that powers Yahoo is so good that it found the site hidden in my subdirectories. It showed up in search engines as though it were put up again. I took the site down in 5 minutes, no big deal. I did learn a thing or two though. 1. Permissions from all parties on anything done on the web is a big deal. 2. This world is run by sue-happy people and the lawyers that fuel their habits. 3. It is so easy to get tracked down. Even if you don't live in the same town where you first developed something.

MyBillsObsession--My obsession with the Bills grows deeper week-by-week. My NFL Ticket is getting a major work out, and this weekend is no different - it's the Dolphins. Squish the Fish, F the Fins...whatever. I've come to realize that when the Bills are playing well and they have enjoyable players to watch, I'm like a housewife addicted to General Hospital. Luckily, Tricia is into the Bills too, so my obsession doesn't have to be a closet one. Since Buffalobills.com decided to be so gracious as to post all the Bills Backers Bars in local areas across the country, I'm pretty sure my next destination has to be Lincoln Station. Hey Trish, wanna go?

BeautifulWebDesign-- I wholeheartedly agree with Sarah Horton's 'Beauty is Only Screen Deep'. She laments about doing things in web design that confounds the medium. Particularly using graphic text for beauty, only to ignore the fact that users want to READ the text not LOOK at it. I too am frustrated, and I too am committing the same sins even in my latest web effort.

In the best case all web design should be using text as text, scaling to fit users' screens, allowing for users with disabilities to access it, etc. But right now I am struck by how web display technology is getting better, but is still the worst case. I am getting up to speed on CSS, XHTML, XML, DHTML, etc. And I'm finding that it still is far too similar to the days when people hand coded PostScript to get their layouts to print on early laser printers. While we "young" designers take for granted the fact that we don't have to do paper mechanicals, is designing for the web not almost nearly as bad? In those days making a mechanical took the designer away from conceiving of ground breaking communications, and set up the whole system of Creative Director (conceive of the concept), Art Director (execute the concept), Production Artist (execute the mechanical). In a pinch the Art Director could, and would do it all.

Now we have - just a few of the players listed here - the Creative Director (conceive of the concept), Interaction Designer/Info Architect (create the user flow), Usability specialist (test the experience), Art Director (execute the concept), and Programmers (execute the mechanical). In a pinch the "Web Designer" can, and will do it all. But wait, when trying to do so, you find out that the medium is STILL in the dark ages. The whole construct of the web and HTML was built to communicate text on screen, not visual experience. Even with all the latest standards and browsers, it still comes down to hand-coding in text, that which is meant to provide a compelling visual experience. It would be a totally different story if the web were built to be interactive based on a more visual platform.

Television works. It is completely designer controlled, and has dealt with device flexibility and accessibility. TV inaccessible? Turn up the volume, move closer to it, turn on the closed captioning, or the Spanish. What if Flash .swf + actionscript were the default web standard, natively supported by every browser without a plug-in? That's closer to the right kind of medium for on-screen display, and designer flexibility. Plus it provides a much simpler content creation approach. Making a red square box doesn't involve 13 lines of code.

Sadly, Flash .swf will not become the default web language. It is owned by Macromedia. Instead I encourage the W3C to provide whatever other positioning tags necessary within its standards to allow some great vendor to come in and make a completely free form HTML editing environment. The code that gets created must be perfect so that all the standards-nazis don't complain. So that all the programmers don't say "Oh what messy code that thing makes" (NetObjects Fusion anyone?). Give me Quark for the web now! Let it be accepted by all. Let it be the industry standard. Let it have all the options necessary to make the content it creates flexible, functional, accessible, and beautiful. When is the last time you needed a programmer to help you create a great printed piece? Let that be with the web soon! PLEASE!

OnBarbershopDiversity-- I had a really fascinating conversation yesterday with a co-worker sparked by her surprise that I went and saw Barbershop (which has a pretty cool movie site). She is black, and I am white. She was surprised that I went to see a "black" movie and really enjoyed the "black humor". I had the frustrating realization that my attitude toward black people is as much a matter of not growing up in a very mixed neighborhood, to not making a lot of friends with black people, to listening to rap music, but not really "understanding it". It's not that I am consciously different. It's that I am subconciously different. Likewise, I'm fascinated by my co-workers point of view having lived in Europe for some of her life. She's used to people being judged by different points of view, not different skin colors.

So her struggle in fitting in with the American "Black Community" is to pass judgement the way they do. Her opinion differs with that community oftentimes. This is a theme hammered upon in the movie. It is only within the context of the Barbershop that the black people voiced an opinion that differed from the Black Community at large. My co-worker's story of black people she knows being offended by these opinions-like Rosa Parks not being any more influential than any other black person that got kicked off a bus in the 60's, illustrates the homogenous opinion sometimes offered by the Black Community.

My struggle is to understand others in a much more meaningful way. Specifically, understanding the roots of modern attitudes about each other that goes beyond the civil rights movement. If anyone has some good reading on any issues surrounding this topic, let me know. By the end of the conversation I was convinced that she is a human, and so am I. Our struggles are humaan ones, not black and white ones.

5inaRow!--Saturday was awesome! Jim and I went to 5 movies in 10 hours.
(1) Red Dragon ** VERY similar to Hannibal.
(2) My Big Fat Greek Wedding *** Funny chick flick. Can't beat lamb on a spit in the front yard.
(3) Sweet Home Alabama **Boring chick flick. Need some lamb on a spit in the front yard.
(4) Barbershop ****The only unique thing I saw all day. Ice Cube rules, and so does the guy that looks like Frederick Douglas.
(5) Road to Perdition *Don't even bother. No lambs, no spits, no front yards. No fun to watch.

We topped off the night with my first White Castle ever. Those little mousemeat burgers may NEVER enter my body again.

Happy50thDad--Here's a shout out to my dad who turns 50 today. I hope I will have acomplished as much as he has when I'm 50. 2 kids out of the house, 1 VP job, 4 classic cars, 1 five car garage, and a new habit - car racing. Mid-life doesn't sound too bad. Happy birthday dad. I miss you! Here was his gift. A logo for his new habit:

Vindicated--Sometimes it's really satisfying to know you're right. Even if it is your own company's website that is getting bashed. It's sad that it takes an industry analyst to identify that which seems obvious.

NetworkingDynamics-- I just have networking so on my mind. The Chicago UPA meeting last night was interesting. I walked into a crowd of Usability people and learned about the history of the UPA, of which we are starting a Chicago Chapter. I might event join the organization.

I'm struck by networking right now both from a personal quest, and because we're working on a project at TMP that is closely related. I'm not a networker. I don't know how to "work a crowd" in a professional/meaningful way. I walk into a room of strangers - of people whose sole interest similar to mine is what we do for a living. I figured I'd be the guy who would go and just sit in a chair and eat the sucky finger food that was to serve as my dinner.

But, something happened. "Jerry" from GM Locomotive came up to me and started a chat on usability in trains. So, now I know a train guy. Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw Brain Joosse from Technotribe. I knew Brian because a coworker referred me to him after my dotcom bombed. Brian interviewed me to freelance with his little virtual multimedia - web company. Come to find out he is living the dream of working from home in a virtual company. I could have talked to him for a few hours. But this is the essence of networking. I don't even need to read a book that I've been meaning to get to written by a client of our dotbomb.

And isn't a blog a great form of networking? Uh, yeah. In a totally non-threatening way, you can read someone's history of thought, and who they know, and what they like, and what they link to. Anyone of these things can spark a connection with someone much more naturally than any message board, or even real personal contact. Personal contact is flawed in that you can't review someone's history based on what they are talking about at the moment. Think of how many Starbuck clerks would actually offer a mutually beneficial relationship, if only you knew that once they had lived in Western New York, and rooted for the Bills. Read others' blogs. It's Blogworking baby!

FoundingFather-- I'm heading to the inaugural meeting of the Chicago UPA tonight. I'm all for making websites usable, and networking with other Usabiligeeks. I'm thinking there probably won't be much learning going on. More like "What do we want to name the group?" Oh well. Everything starts small.

NoFramesNoProblems--Rachelle, this one goes out to you. I have removed the shackles of frames from my blog and I put in the permalinks. I'm slowly undergoing frame removal, CSS'ing, and general coolness upgrades to my site. Mark noticed my new comments feature. Thanks, man. The sidebar is getting built to give proper love to all that I care about. Next up is retooling my portfolio a bit to actually be updated, and frameless. Oh yeah, and still trying to understand this whole RSS thing and what it means to me.

GotFreshmen?--Yeah, last night was our first Quest meeting. 12 Freshmen and their parents all in our house. We even roasted marshmallows and hot dogs in our fireplace. I'm loving being able to make an impression on these "kids"...

YouAreAnAnimal-- Come to find out, Interaction Designers are sexy beasts. Mark got married this weekend. I don't even know Wendy, cause I've only met Mark in person once. But, he's the second of our fine TMP trio to be hitched. Is Walt next?

BloggerForHire?--It's pretty interesting that there may be room in this world for Professional Bloggers. This site makes it pretty clear that BlogMonster is right around the corner. I have some serious questions about the professionalization of something that was supposed to be empowering to the everyday writer. Part of the fun of blogging is fooling yourself into thinking that a.) someone is reading your stuff, b.) you are writing in a "professional" enough style to make your opinions seem to matter, c.) you might someday be recognized by people in some community or other as the author of Magnetic Poetry. As soon as there are "Pros" doing this, it kinda takes the fun out of it. Suddenly news stories about blogging or "professional blogs" about blogging will begin to refer only to themselves. Only professional blogs will be blogs of interest.

I wonder if that is the nature of things though. In the beginning of the web, people could express themselves through web pages, and even the suckiest sites were getting lots of love. As the medium matured, the only sites that got any play were the ones that were done by professionals, or came off as "professional". I think, in a way, that is what drew me to becoming a web professional. I wanted to be able to express myself in the medium in a way that would still warrant other people's attention. It remains to be seen, as I'm only a few months into this blogging thing, if I will wish to hone my skills enough to at least come off as "professional". I'm curious to see how this thing becomes a part of my life...