Um, well, yeah, great. Traveling by train seems to have its risks. The recent Amtrak derailment runs the risk of derailing our ability to enjoy our upcoming trip….
On a brighter note, it’s spring, and it actually feels like it. See you in a couple weeks, Nick….
Happy St. Paddy’s Day—hope you get your fill of green beer!
Back on the “early days of the web” kick, remember random URL generators? What the hell is the point?
I was looking for last Friday’s A List Apart—Do you do web design? If yes, read A List Apart religiously! Anyway, it wasn’t there—Zeldman is at SXSW in Austin. [Why didn’t I go?]
However, he left several nice breadcrumbs in lieu of an issue. One of which is a link to the 5k, a contest for the best web design below 5,120 bytes. I’ll enter—why not? [Deadline: Sunday, April 8, 7 pm CDT.]
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Hey hey—we bought the train tickets and Amber & I will be gone March 29 through April 8!
Snow this morning. SNOW. It’s been falling since last night, and is falling as I write this. Why do I live here?
You may have noticed: No portfolio yet. I’ve been working on bringing everything into Photoshop from Illustrator, Quark, and PageMaker. It’s all coming together.
Ever thought about immigrating to Canada? You can’t just go there and become a citizen; it’s harder than that. They have a complex point system that takes into account age, education, language skills, occupation (including how much training your occupation supposedly requires, and how much demand for it exists in Canada), number of years of experience in your job, and up to 10 points out of 70 for “personal suitability.” They say it’s rare to get 10 points in that category.
For some reason they lump graphic designers in with illustrators (not that there’s anything wrong with that), which has the effect of lowering the number of points graphic designers get for the amount of necessary training (or ETF). So—if I called myself a graphic designer, I probably wouldn’t get in. If I called myself an art director (15 rather than 7 training points), I’d have 64 points without considering the personal suitability factor.
At that point, to be eligible to immigrate to Canada, a Canadian immigration official would have to award me 6 out of 10 points for personal suitability.
Think about that.
The necessity of the occurrence of that surreal situation as a condition of Canadian immigration is quite discouraging. Just the phrase “personal suitability” gives me weird chills. Not even considering the actual risk I might not get 6 points—they say on average 5-7 points are awarded. [Naturally, I’d make an excellent first impression, so I’m certain I wouldn’t have to worry about that.] However, there’s also the $1475 (Canadian) entry fee and minimum savings of $10,000 (Canadian) to think about.
Don’t worry; I’m not leaving anytime soon. The joy of Minneapolis is that it has all the disadvantages of Canada (cold) and the disadvantages of the US (traffic), but without the advantages of Canada (socialized medicine and so on). <sarcasm>Hey, at least we can freely elect our president.</sarcasm>
Happy Birthday, Will! See, I can do it…. [Posted retroactively—doh!]
Here’s an insightful take on the weblog phenomenon. The logical next step, of course, is another worthless award.
The logical next step from there, then, is the phenomenon (?) of dot-commers on heroin. Chilling, but more sad than anything else, really. Sounds like a boring life to me.
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Just figured out that a train ride to Berkeley would actually cost roughly the same as driving (thanks to the newly-announced “1-2-Free” promotion) and would be a lot more fun.
This whole “gohlkusmaximus” domain name thing is really motivating me to post.
I actually told a couple people about the site today. I also realized that I have a bias against serif fonts. Betcha didn’t notice. [Note: that only makes sense in the context of this site’s first design.]
On the travel front, I may drive out to Berkeley from Minneapolis with Amber sometime soon. 2043 miles, 37 hours, according to Yahoo! Maps. The trip, should we choose to embark, promises to be fun and romantic.
Okay, NOW I have news.
Today was the day the domain name went into effect. I’m up there for the world to see. Not that I’ve told anyone yet.
I love the band Of Montreal. Not only are they great musicians, and excellent songwriters, but they [have been known to] frequent their band’s discussion board. That is truly awe-inspiring and should be a model for… everyone.
Their [former] label Kindercore is [was] really great, too. Talented bands and free shipping!
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I really have to get in the habit of doing this at least weekly.
Nothing in the way of news that’s really interesting. I went on an eBay buying spree, and plan to get away to a warm-weather location SOON!
Advertisements. I’ve been fascinated with them practically since birth. My current attitude towards advertising, one of simultaneous love and hate, is one you might expect from a liberal, somewhat anti-consumerist web designer.
Parodies of ads, if done well, I love. And publications that deconstruct and use the mechanisms of advertising for social change? Adbusters: See for yourself.
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