Bounty Towel.

I've never been in to potty humor, but even so, this is my new favorite Fischerspooner song.

February 28, 2003 | 9:02 PM | Link | 0 comments

Foodstuffs.

This article had me laughing my ass off!

February 28, 2003 | 8:56 PM | Link | 0 comments

Think before you speak.

This website disgusts me.

I'm going to go get ice cream now.

February 28, 2003 | 2:20 PM | Link | 0 comments

The cure for what ails ya'

I'm coming down from my cold, and all I want is chocolate. Normally, when I'm sick, chocolate is the furthest thing from my mind...

Wait... I just changed my mind. I want cheesecake now.

February 25, 2003 | 6:42 PM | Link | 0 comments

Health and leisure.

I finally booked my trip to New York. I'm going for ten days in May. That should be plenty of time to have fun and forget about my job. If anyone has any suggestions for fun things to do while I'm there, I'm all ears.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to get my usual I-hope-I-don't-get-sick-while-on-vacation jitters. You see, I tend to get a sore throat about once a month. It really sucks. I'm getting one right now. Post nasal drip, and all that jazz. If anybody out there wants to switch their functioning immune system for one with an affinity for colds and sore throats, I'm willing to trade.

February 22, 2003 | 8:34 PM | Link | 0 comments

Decisions.

I'm all ready to buy my tickets and plan my trip to New York. The only problem is I can't decide on which dates to go. It really doesn't matter, I know, but for some reason I can't get myself to pick between May 5-14, or May 3-12, or May 2-12, or may 3-13.

It's driving me nuts!

February 21, 2003 | 1:21 PM | Link | 0 comments

Jibba' jabba'

I was reading reviews of some bars in New York, when I stumbled across this little number:

From NYGREGWEBTV
on Sunday December 02, 2001 at 03:35 PM:
you dont know what its like to keep hiding behind a female you dont want just because I like it the other way but she a nice person ok to hang out with but for pleasure I want the real thing email me at nygreg@webtv.net this is the place to be.

For those interested, this was a review of a bar called Boiler Room. It makes me want to go there and stay away at the same time.

February 20, 2003 | 4:53 PM | Link | 0 comments

I just saw the hottest FedEx driver.

I wonder if he woke up one morning and thought "Damn, I'm sexy! I think I'll get a job wearing a uniform."

Probably.

February 20, 2003 | 9:18 AM | Link | 0 comments

Oh, Jesus!

I am morally opposed to tie-dye. I've never before worn it my entire life. I was unnerved to learn that I was going to have to design one as a trade-show giveaway. We asked the printer for a sample so we could more easily decide what color would show up best over the natural garishness of the dyes. They just happened to send this shirt as the sample! I nearly fell over laughing. As if tie-dye weren't bad enough as it is!

If, for some reason, you want to see a picture of me wearing this beautiful garment, you may.

February 18, 2003 | 5:29 PM | Link | 0 comments

Goodbye, Love.

It's amazing how much one person can affect you. Last night I saw my ex for the first time since "getting over it." It was oddly comforting to see him, yet today I woke up so sad.

I didn't realize he had hurt me until I had started healing. I didn't realize how badly he had hurt me until I was no longer in love with him. It's been a while since then, and I feel totally healed—my sorrow comes from another place.

Last night I learned that he is moving away at the end of the month. To the other side of the country. Though we hadn't spoken in quite a long time, I am really going to miss him. Through our brief romance, he had become most intimate to my soul. I had never felt something so profound. My love was so strong, it changed my entire vision of the world around me. I am still changed from that experience, and I am grateful it happened. I guess I didn't realize it until now, but knowing he was within driving distance, even though we hadn't spoken in quite a while, was very comforting.

Last night I congratulated him on a great show. We hugged tightly, he gave me his new phone number in New York, I wished him luck, we said our goodbyes, and that was it. I don't know if I will in fact see him when I visit New York in May, or if I will ever see him again. All I do know is that my world is going to be a different place without him in it.

February 17, 2003 | 10:17 AM | Link | 0 comments

The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

Last night I stumbled across a gem of a video. It is something I would have really cherished to have had as a teenager. It's comprised of interview segments of various queer youth. It shows their understanding of how society views them and how they fit into society. It is really interesting to see their various perspectives. I was taken back to my days of coming out in high school, and I was reminded of the feelings I had back then.

Kids Are Alright is something that should have been done long ago. It isn't a microscope over these kids that is meant to show us why they are how they are. It is simply a platform where the kids demonstrate how truly human we all are.

View Kids Are Alright (34.2MB).
Visit Adam, the filmmaker.

February 15, 2003 | 12:27 PM | Link | 0 comments

A new place to look.

This pic is from a screen grab I took from Apple's Netscape home page the day of the Michael Jackson interview. I don't think they were paying close attention when they picked those two headlines to go together. Later on in the day, the changed the second headline to read "Michael Jackson: Never Had Plastic Surgery." I guess somebody tipped them off.

February 14, 2003 | 1:15 PM | Link | 0 comments

23.

I've only had an actual valentine 8.7% of my life. I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by people I love 100% of the time.

Happy valentine's day to all my friends and family! I love you all!

February 14, 2003 | 11:45 AM | Link | 0 comments

For all the designers in the world.

I have had it with Quark! Quark can take its random crashes, its lovely "File Not Found" errors and crawl up Fred Ebrahimi's ass and die! DIE!

I was working on a rather important (and urgent) project today in the only classic program I have to use on a regular basis. It, of course, quit on me quite unexpectedly. I shrieked. I screamed. I created a new icon more suited to my mood. I really can't wait for the day we are able to move to a decent program at work.

Download Mac OS X icon: Quark.icns.hqx

February 12, 2003 | 6:58 PM | Link | 0 comments

I am a free man with a FreeHand!

In the beginning, I was a FreeHand user (that's Aldus FreeHand, for those in the know). I was a die-hard devotee. I never even laid eyes on Adobe Illustrator until version 6. At that point, I would look at it and shudder at its limited toolset and antiquated interface. It took a lot to convince me to swtich, but I eventually did.

What got me to switch? The facts that 1.) I was (and still am) in a corporate environment where Illustrator is the standard, 2.) FreeHand's interface became ultra-cluttered, and 3.) Illustrator's tight integration with Photoshop and standard Adobe interface outweighed its limitations. I let both FreeHand 9 & 10 pass me up. I once downloaded a demo of 10, and threw it to the side with all of the other crap-job Carbon ports that were being hurriedly (read: horridly) released at the time. Even though Illustrator, by that time, had become a pretty terrible piece of bloatware, it wasn't as bad as FreeHand had gotten.

Enter today: I logged on to maccentral.com, as I regularly do, and saw the headline Macromedia unveils FreeHand MX. Intrigued, I download the demo. I was quickly impressed.

They definitely understand that more features ≠ better features. Thanks to Macromedia's new standard MX interface, the new FreeHand is the most streamlined version ever. With the new object properties panel, you can apply multiple fills, strokes, and dynamic effects to a single object. You can even re-arrange them in the hierarchy. Click on the screenshot to the right, notice that I have four separate strokes of varying thickness and color applied to a single object. The top stroke has the dynamic 'Sketch' effect applied to it, which gives it its wobbly look. To give all of the strokes on the object the same sketch effect, simply drag them into the same level in the hierarchy as the top stroke. Drag the fill in there too, if you'd like. If you decide you don't like it, you can select the 'Sketch' item property and alter it, change it to an entirely different effect, or just trash it altogether, and your strokes will return to being plain old straight lines. The possibilities are endless.

It didn't take me long to warm up to the new FreeHand. I'm extremely happy I took the time to download the demo. The drawing program of my childhood has been born again. It's leaner than Illustrator could ever dream be, its interface cleaner than Adobe's, it makes proper use of Quartz and Aqua (again, more than we can say for Adobe), and anything Illustrator and FreeHand have in common, FreeHand does faster and more elegantly. I'm not saying it's perfect—I did run into a couple rough-spots I'm sure Macromedia will address soon—But after a day of use, all I have to say is thank you, Macromedia, I have returned home!

February 10, 2003 | 5:48 PM | Link | 0 comments

Rock that beat!

Last night was absolutely fabulous! I had tons of fun dancing my ass off to the funky-wonderful song choices of the venerable Princess Superstar. I had never heard her before, but I am definitely a fan! I never thought I could have so much fun dancing to Light My Fire!

After enjoying the Princess, and the wild company I was surrounded by, I headed over to another club for just a few minutes before rushing home to retire. Now I'm at work, fighting sleep. Of course it didn't help that today was Friday (and our meeting seemed to take longer than normal).

February 7, 2003 | 11:47 AM | Link | 0 comments

Of relaxation, dedication.

Today seems to be the start of a very good week.

You see, I tend to let my weekends waste away, and then regret it come Monday. Thanks to t-bam, that didn't turn out to be the case. He invited me over for a beautiful spinach and chive linguini, some music, a fire, some chocolate... Oh, and of course, some weeding. We carried on as I became amused and bemused at his inflatable bong. It's rad.

I got to sleep last night feeling quite content with my weekend, as well as with the plaid slacks I had bought from J. Crew earlier on.

Today was one of the busiest days I had had in a long time. It flew by, and before I knew it, it was 6pm. Time to pack up, go home, and bake a cheesecake. A chocolate cheesecake.

Those who know me know that I only bake from scratch. It was some effort, but in two days, when it is ready to be cut into, I am sure it will prove my work worthy...

That reminds me, it's time for the second tier of the cheesecake cooling process: pulling it out of the cooled oven, and onto the counter. Tomorrow morning, I get to put it in the fridge! Yippee! Hooray!