Posted from: Beijing

My political platform typically consists of the word “Meh”. I like to pat myself on the back for being too pessimistic to believe in anything except individual human responsibility. Governments shall rise and fall, shit shall happen, life shall go on. But the more I hear about SOPA and the Protect IP act, the more I sense my withered inner activist shaking off the coils of eternal slumber.

If you’ve never heard of SOPA or Protect IP, here’s the skinny:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Sad thing is, I think it’s only a matter of time before a bill like SOPA or Protect IP is passed. If it doesn’t happen now, it’ll happen when some unfortunate event occurs that opportunistic legislators can use to make everyone who opposes the bill look bad. The comments section of a website will spark a celebrity suicide, or some kid will download a pirated slasher movie and kill his parents or whatever. Name your tragedy. “We have to do something,” legislators will bluster, and they’ll set about happily paving the road to hell. What’s really kind of amazing is that it hasn’t happened sooner.

So yeah, I think it’s inevitable. But I’m not willing to see it pass without at a hefty dose of public ire.  

Posted from: Beijing

I spent the better part of Christmas Eve morning sitting in an empty concession stand outside of Solana shopping center waiting for the two very confused young ladies behind the counter to figure out how to bake a pizza slice.

“Why does this oven have so many knobs?” whispered one to the other, loudly.  

Posted from: South Carolina

I was just recently asked to design an ecommerce icon set for Smashing Magazine and after a several week long row with Photoshop during which I threatened to set its ruler states to “picas” and leave them that way forever, it’s finally done.

Doing design work for Smashing is terrifying in the way that asking Stephen Hawking to review your long division would be terrifying. You’d hand in your sad little equation, worn thin from your eraser, and pray only for the intelligence to understand all the myriad, cryptic ways in which he’s going to pity you.  

Posted from: South Carolina

If you asked my friends to describe my temperament, you’d be unlikely to hear, “cleaves to the heavenly bosom of the divine” or “spends hours in quiet contemplation of the spiritual”, and more likely to hear, “is really too stuck on the ‘that’s what she said’ thing” and “should stop eating after the second helping but doesn’t”.

And okay, so I get up at noon on Sunday. But hey, my MUD character goes on holy quests for arcane artifacts and mana potions several times a month, thankyouverymuch. And I have been known to positively crusade for cookies. So imagine my surprise at learning that, according to Google’s Secondary Connections list, it turns out I’m connected by a distance of only ONE PERSON to a smorgasbord of ACTUAL PRIESTS. Picture proof of my consummate holitude after the jump.

Posted from: South Carolina

If you’ve ever spent any time in a foreign grocery store, you may have noticed that design trends differ heavily from culture to culture. Packaging that says “nomnomnom” to an elderly Japanese woman says “dear god is that a cuttlefish with cartoon eyes?” to you. In terms of web design preference, the Chinese tend towards very busy portal-style page content, flashing ads, tiny text, photorealistic will-o-the-wisp-y light effects, auto-loading music and lots and lots and lots and lots of Flash.