A web designer's web design

I browse the web, subscribe to design blogs, and get the pulse on the latest and greatest web designs as part of my job. There's a certain amount of inbreeding when it comes to the "best of" lists. All web-designers seem to go gaga for "clean," "elegant," and "hand-crafted" designs.

It can be a little difficult for me to look at sites with "fresh eyes". I'm curious to know what those terms mean for you. Does they make sense? Does they make us sound like huge nerds? Do they make us sound pretentious? Do you even care?

A few examples:

http://www.brilliancy.eu/

"Clean, elegant and to the point." It certainly is clean. No bacteria anywhere! Do you like how "clean" it is? Do you want color? Do you want bacteria?

http://simplebits.com/

"Handcrafted pixels." Do you like it when we make it sound like we're carpenters? Or does it sound gimmicky?

http://www.45royale.com/

"Clean, unique, usable." Is it usable for you? Is it unique?

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Oh Yeah

In celebration of this warm, beautiful day:

I have a new girlfriend!

Here she is! Just look at her smile---so wonderful. We're crazy about each other.

Treatloaf'd

Treatloaf started out when I came upon some really awful clip art and decided to put some captions to the worst of the bunch. Good for a few laughs. Check out the originals.

A year and a half later, I'm still doing it. 90% of the time I'm just making myself laugh. (The other 10% is spent digging out bits of celery from my teeth.) It's nice to make other folks laugh too, though, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't like having a few fans. The stats show that about 8 people visit the site every day on average, and about 13 people subscribe via RSS.

Today, however, Treatloaf was visited by over 3,500 people. Somebody on MetaFilter linked to my site, and whenever that happens, traffic spikes. The most interesting part was reading the comments MetaFilter users left on the thread. A handful thought it was good stuff, a bunch were unimpressed, and a few more thought it downright sucked. (It's really weird having one's little hobby be subjected to so many....opinions.) A lot of folks mentioned that Treatloaf is like a less-funny version of Married to the Sea. The truth is, it is. Married to the Sea was part of my inspiration to start posting funnies on a blog, but Drew's stuff is definitely more brilliant than my stuff. I'm not trying to compete. I just like making people laugh (and sometimes groan.) It's like pottery: somebody's always a billion times better at it than you are, but it's still cool to say "I did that."

Anyway, I just thought that was interesting.

First thoughts of Obama

First time I heard of Obama was shortly after he won his US Senate seat -- he was already a celebrity by then. I liked how young he was. After Kerry lost, I was chatting with a group of buddies (wearing a little white knit cap that made me look like someone from the Middle East) and one of the more politically-minded dudes predicted that Obama would be a great candidate in '08. I agreed, but at the time I thought it would be cool to see Hillary run (the first female president! wow!)

September of '06, I started watching clips of Obama's speeches and it had that crazy effect that so many people talk about: I felt "proud" about my country again --- which was at that point a rare sensation indeed. I won't gush --- you get the point. The rest is history.

I dug up my very first emails about Obama:

3:29pm 10/17/06
hey, i don't know if you'll be around tomorrow or not, but if you are, try to catch oprah. the guy i support for the next presidential election will be on: barack obama. i'd love to get your opinion on him. (of course, if nader runs again¹, i'll be completely torn!)

4:23pm 10/17/06
taping mr. obama would be much appreciated. if obama, nader, and tavis smiley² joined forces, i'd probably pop. (imagine how that campaign would sound: obama/smiley '08 --- sounds like something you'd get at Baskin Robbins³...."I'll have one obama smiley, extra sprinkles please.")

12:59am 2/16/07
No dodgeball on Monday....President's Day. I'd be willing to meet up for a brew or two, though, if you're up for it. We can toast to George Washington and our upcoming president Obama.


¹ Nader did run again, but I did not support his positions and tone. I continue to admire his fight for democracy, however.
² There ended up being a bit of a clash between Obama and Smiley when Obama passed on an invitation to the State of the Black Union. Smiley viewed it as an insult to the black community.
³ Baskin Robbins did not make an Obama flavor, but Ben & Jerry's created "Yes Pecan!" Seriously.

Snow Removal

Seattle has 27 trucks reserved for snow removal. Roads are not salted due to cost and environmental issues (runoff into Puget Sound).

Milwaukee has 250 trucks in operation, including 108 salt trucks.

Photo retouching.

Check out this amazing photo retouching sample from PhoJoe: