I’ve noticed an inordinate amount of spam comments coming in over the lines lately; most from a user name like Free-I-Phones-and-how-to-get-them. They are not immediately published, of course, but they still come through.
If anyone works with WordPress and knows of an excellent spam prevention plug in, let me know.
The ant, who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of his labor, against whatever robber assails him…[and] the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master, does constantly know that he is wronged.
Of course, Obama will never admit in word what he’s doing in deed. As in his rhetorically brilliant national-security speech yesterday claiming to have undone Bush’s moral travesties, the military commissions flip-flop is accompanied by the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy.
Pretty brilliant short film, made more brilliant by the process (in my eyes.) Watch the film then check out the making of credits.
Ever have one of those days when you regret purchasing a car that you really wanted? Well, I’m having one of those just about every day for the past few months. It seems like I’ve replaced or repaired more than my fair share of items on this vehicle. It’s definitely a money pit.
After a year and roughly fifteen thousand miles, the lower intake gasket on my 2000 GMC Jimmy has failed–again. This is a little frustrating to me as this repair probably should have lasted at least another forty-five thousand or so. Instead of taking it to the shop, though, I think this time around I’ll go ahead and take care of it myself. I’m fairly adept at dealing with cars–go figure–something I’ve started to get into the past few years.
Next on the list of fun and exciting things is that lovely coolant aroma inside of my vehicle. Yes, when I initially turn the heat on it’s a rush of coolant to the nostrils. It’s so sweet and lovely it’s disgusting. It assaults you from all angles and makes you want to rip your hair out–not from the smell but from knowing the heater core is leaking, but only ever so slightly right now. I hear this is a tough job and do not look forward to it. I may be able to put it off at least through the summer so that’s good.
Last, but certainly never mistaken for least, I believe my radiator is possibly leaking. I noticed a spot of coolant on the ground on the front driver’s side of the truck after coming home from work last night. It looks like it’s running from the front of the radiator and towards the engine compartment from multiple spots, but probably only from somewhere near the top. Whatever the case, I might be replacing this radiator. It doesn’t look like an incredibly expensive or difficult job, just kind of a bigger one than I’ve ever really tackled.
All I want to say about all of this at this point is: AHHHHHHH, no more!
I bought a cactus. A week later it died. And I got depressed, because I thought, Damn. I am less nurturing than a desert.
What better way to respond to the title than to say, “I’m not sure.” I think it has more to do with my desire to create. I’ve always done it. When I was young the medium was Lego. I would take my sets, destroy them, then build them into something else altogether: castles, planes, cars, trucks, whatever. When I got a little older, I started working on plastic model kits. Still do. At first, I just wanted to make the model car/truck/plane and play with it; I didn’t realize I was only supposed to look at it.
After a while I would take some of the cars and customize them with the various things a young boy would think was cool; I would use one of those little firecrackers to burn it, and subsequently destroy a good portion of it, and then paint some fake blood on it sprinkled with a little dirt for gore. Yeah pretty immature, but at the time it seemed pretty creative. Come to think of it, maybe I just wanted to see the things burn and the rest was an afterthought.
I–eventually–grew out of that, and started to build a real interest in cars and their mechanical operation. At that point, the best access I had to learning the various parts and their function was a model car; so that’s what I used. I built them, with care, and love, paying particular attention to all of the fine details. If a life-sized car had a certain characteristic, I attempted to apply that to the model.
The point I’m trying to make is that this innate desire I have to create, perfect, and interact with everything is a natural extension of design. I design, because I love to create. I create because I enjoy seeing the results of my work.
Why do I design? To see the resulting piece, good or bad, and appreciate what I put into its creation.
Wolfram|Alpha has been billed as a possible Google killer, and many many folks have commented on it in the web designer-sphere, but my take so far has been that this isn’t the case. It seems that Google and W|A are useful in their own ways.
Unfortunately, I do not know enough at this point to comment further. Take a look though.
I am currently in the process of upgrading my website. All over. From the portfolio, to the tumble-log-like blog. What prompted this most recent redesign? Well, on top of never being happy with one’s own work, I was particularly unhappy with the blandness of the previous design, plus…Wordpress.
I discovered the joys of using WordPress. I always felt like I had to hack through MovableType’s templating system, but with this I could actually build something using php. That’s something I can appreciate a great deal.
At this moment, however, I am manually transferring all of the links, quotes, and entries that I can. It is a LONG process. And of course one that is next to impossible to accomplish. I cannot simply import all of my old entries, although that seems to be what I need to do, because when I did so, it was not too successful. I may give it a try again, but it’s going to take some time to get it done right. Time that I have I suppose.
Oh well.
Via Kottke. Some of the most amazing paper art I’ve seen when you consider what it takes to create. Simon uses small folds in the paper to create the effect.