thoughtcrumbs : january 2000

From local designer Charlie Campbell's website:

I know HTML, DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, ActionScript, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and a slew of other development tools on PC and Mac. I have digital sound recording and MIDI experience. I like people. I like words and images. I love design. I can write and think. I can speak Spanish, build a desk, and wire-in a dimmer switch. I volunteer my skills to good causes. I root for underdogs. I'm especially nice to the least comfortable person in a room. My sentences are evocative and concise. My basketball crossover is deceptive. My taste in belt buckles is surprising. I hand-code like a fiend. References available upon request.

This is one in a series of colloquial web resumes I've read recently (Megnut has another, extolling her pie-baking and dishwashing prowess along with her ASP and MySQL savvy). I particularly appreciate the informal turn these erstwhile starchy documents have taken; many of the best resumes reflect the cool people beneath the paper.

Companies, especially those with web-based applications, seem to be leaning this way as well: Blogger's status page also proves that you can maintain customer trust (even increase it) by speaking frankly (and including words like "sucky"). Marketese sours people's impressions of sites; even Nielsen finds that "promotional language imposes a cognitive burden on users who have to spend resources on filtering out the hyperbole to get at the facts." Granted, these resumes and company sites are promotional in nature, but they've found the secret spoonful of sugar: how to reveal their intelligence and value without an Enron-sized hot air balloon. These are people I want to work with and companies I'll support.

You can't lick your elbow.
Trust me. They don't have security cameras in my office, do they? More factoids like this in the August 19th post at Liloia.

Deadpan
On NPR this morning: "Iraqi officials announced that notorious Palestinian guerilla leader Abu Nidal committed suicide on Monday when Iraqi security men went to his apartment to question him. Taher Jaleel al-Haboush, head of the intelligence service, told a news conference in Baghdad that Nidal went to his bedroom to change his clothes, locked the door, and shot himself. Haboush could not explain why there were multiple gunshot wounds."

I never realized that "mayday" came from "m'aidez." Yay. Go French. That, and other idioms (like the perennially disturbing, "give my eye teeth") are explained at Wayne Magnuson's English Idioms page.

A software vendor just asked if I'd say something nice for his product review page. In fact, he asked me to say, "If I could marry this software, I would."

So, I'm a movie snob. With rare exception, you won't find me watching anything with an SNL cast member in it, and my criteria at the video store is the number of laurel wreaths adorning the box. (Additionally, I've mentioned before that a video's merit is often inversely proportional to the number of exclamation points in the summary.) So, here's the big shocker: Bubble Boy floored me. Not that it was profound, and granted, I chose it because I like Jake Gyllenhall, but it had me rolling around and snorting soy milk. A goofy hero's quest, it reminded me of my childhood favorites, Adventures in Babysitting and Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Favorite line, spoken by the turbanned ice-cream-and-curry deliveryman: "Have you ever been karmically bitch-slapped by a six-armed goddess?"

The conference yesterday was held on the PSU campus next to the football practice field. During our afternoon break, there was a pretty big contrast between the high school football players leaping at tackling dummies on the whistle's demand and us, the adjacent congregation of web designers. We were the nerds in high school, with secretly high self-esteem, although you wouldn't have known it from our awkward demeanor back then. We were just the opposite of these popular, sweating brutes. But now? Damn, we have good shoes.

Went to the WebVisions 2002 conference yesterday. And gosh darn, but Joe Shepter is cute. Aside from that, I came home inspired to redesign my website, and even (gasp) start using Flash. The conference tilted heavily toward Flash innovations and the often-maligned Flash user experience (as Erik Natzke said about novicee Flash designers, "You don't give a chainsaw to a three-year-old"). In general, I've avoided the tool, favoring HTML, Javascript, PHP, etc. for my websites, and using Flash's kissing cousin Director for interactive CD-ROM work. But the advent of Flash MX has made me realize that it's a serious tool that can be used for good, not evil. ActionScript is every bit as valid (and sexy) as PHP (although they have different applications). I think a Flash interface to something already graphics-heavy and immersive, like my currently tepid photo gallery, could fix a lot of the usability issues I've been facing. We'll see.

I don't think having a domain for my weblog separate from my main domain is such a great idea. Really, this whole site is one big navel gazing festival, and as a I have a good job, I don't need to separate my portfolio/resume from my goofy delusions here. Plus, I'm sick of the name "Musings of Moira," and the URL is just too darn long. So, expect some big changes down the line. But all of your bookmarks and links will resolve perfectly, cause I'm that good with server configuration.

If you're a web designer, don't cite MS Word's "Save as HTML" as one of your skills. You will cause me to convulse in fits of laughter and choke on my granola bar.

Perused a copy of Jane Magazine at my cousin's house last night. Disappointingly full of makeup ads and tepid interviews. The cover story: Lara Flynn Boyle bought a $137 bottle of under-eye concealer at Niemen Marcus and explained that she lost a lot of weight when she stopped taking birth control pills. Scintillating. Have independent thinking, gnatty sweaters, and DIY chic become so mainstream that Revlon capitalizes on it? Oh, how I miss the articulate irreverance of its predecessor, Sassy, a staple of my adolescence. And remember its clever brother, Dirt, edited by Spike Jonze (later to become wildly famous for a gazillion things)?

Photos of baby Averly and my escapades in Cottage Grove/Eugene last weekend are now in the photo gallery.

It's hard to make an ascii rendering of Alec Guiness. Check out Ascii Star Wars when you're not at work. Thanks, Andy!

David Poe's new CD, The Late Album, is beyond delicious. Soaring, suspended chords and lilting melodies with a catchy backbeat. Childbearing even made me cry when I read the lyrics.