graphicpush

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I Still Love You, I Swear

At some point in every blogger’s career, they go silent and then pop up like a bad boyfriend with an apologetic post explaining how busy they’ve been and how they promise to write soon. Well I know my audience doesn’t exactly wait on the edge of their seat for the next post, so I’m reluctant to say sorry, but I felt I’d make an awkward situation weirder by talking about some random stuff that has nothing in common other than it has nothing in common.

Active Projects

These are the things that keep me up at night and wistfully long for that 40-hour day.

  1. Day job (in-house senior designer). We’re down a designer so the work of five is being distributed among four. In addition, I get to interview people next week who will enter the company as my boss.
  2. Seven simultaneous client projects, some large, some small, some quick, some never-ending. Lot’s of paid Textpattern development happening, by the way, which is encouraging. Clients love the ease of use, the flexibility, the extensibility, the general all-around awesomeness of the CMS. Everyone in the TXP community: keep up the phenomenal work.
  3. Writing. Always writing. Methinks the day will come when I move away from design altogether and just write full-time. Maybe not even about design.

Football

OK, here are random thoughts about what’s happening in the NFL so far this year:

  1. First, I found it darkly comical that almost every football media outlet devoting ten-minute segments to the Terrell Owens circus spent the next ten minutes lambasting the same media for spending too much time talking about Terrell Owens.
  2. The announcers on TV need to shut up about fantasy football. It’s getting out of hand. When the Monday Night ESPN announcer is blatantly rooting Jake Plummer on, it becomes suddenly obvious that a bias is creeping into the play calling.
  3. Wouldn’t it be great if an NFL referee became a sports show host, or a game caller? We get all kinds of insight from former coaches and quarterbacks, but imagine the dark secrets that would be unveiled when the world learns what’s really being shown under those replay machines. (My money’s on Bugs Bunny highlights.)
  4. Week 5 playoff prediction: Bears destroy everything in their path to win the NFC (although my Eagles win the NFC East), Bengals win the AFC after a shootout with the Colts. The Bears then steamroll Cincinnati out of existence. Like Peter King said, Chicago is five miles ahead of everyone else in football right now. (Who would have said that about them two years ago? The whole dynamic of the league is changing. Even Arizona looks good this year.)

Random

  1. There is way too much of a focus on PowerPoint in our public education system. The madness must stop. Expect more from me on that topic very soon.
  2. The new Killers album is (very) surprisingly good. I thought their first was decent, but this one cobbles together the Beatles, Queen and the Cure into a post-goth tour de force. Now’s the time to get Sirius because this thing is going to dominate FM for the next year.
  3. Is anyone else tired of Digg yet? Instead of expanding the site to more categories, they should add better filters to slow the stream of pure crap being submitted by self-serving members.
  4. Textpattern 4.0.4 is frickin butters. Talk about improvements: everything from the improved admin interface to better tag attributes is rocking my world. Well worth the wait.

The State of the Union

Believe it or not, I have been giving this site some thought lately, and I wanted to give you a preview of upcoming content. First, a couple of book reviews are in the mix: Talent is Not Enough: Business Secrets for Designers (Shel Perkins), Beginning CSS Web Development, from Novice to Professional (Simon Collison) as well as that DOM book the guy wrote whose name I can’t remember. I’m also writing a bit on interview tips for designers, which was touched on briefly in another article, but deserves its own dedicated thoughts.

In addition, I would like to take this opportunity to open the suggestion box. graphicPUSH has always been about the business of design, and I would like to continue down that road, but I would like to ask the general readership if there are specific topics you’d like covered? Any nagging questions? Any subject that needs late-breaking investigative reporting only yours truly can deliver?

Comments.

Chris Griffin
wrote the following on Tuesday October 10, 2006

Random responses to your random thoughts…

How many hours do you work a day? 40 hours as an in-house designer and 7 simultaneous projects on the side? Do you sleep?

I wish announcers would shut up period. Some are too arrogant for their own good. If they were really that smart they would just be NFL coaches.

I hate Digg, there I said it. If I actually sat down and actually wrote an interesting blog post for once I would hope it would not be interesting enough to get dugg and bring all those digger idiots to my site to leave all that ignorant asinine comment clutter they leave.

Suggestion: You have covered bits and pieces of it but I’ve yet to see anybody cover the entire design process from start to end. I mean from the way you organize the folders on your computer, what tools you use, your processes and methodologies. Everybody has their own process but I would like to compare mine to somebody who’s been freelancing longer than I.

J Phill
wrote the following on Tuesday October 10, 2006

I will agree about the TO thing. I’ve quite sick of hearing his name, and it’s always something every single week. How has he not gone insane.

The Wife
wrote the following on Wednesday October 11, 2006

Chris- No, Kevin does not sleep. He works way too much. I vaguely remember what he looks like.

Shane
wrote the following on Wednesday October 11, 2006

T.O. is a baby and I can’t believe that someone actually pays him. The guy did absolutely nothing for the Cowboys against the Eagles and then complained because he wasn’t getting thrown to enough (oh, contraire…he got the ball on over 35% of pass attempts, more than any other receiver, including someone who actually gives a crap…Terry Glenn).

Just once, I’d like to see the NFL and the broadcasters focus on someone who casts professional athletes in a positive light. I’m not holding my breath though.

I agree with you about digg, too, but I don’t think it’s irrelevant yet. It still has moments of brilliance if you can filter through the slurm.

As for busy times at the day-job…the end of the year can’t get here soon enough, you know?

Les Reynolds
wrote the following on Thursday October 12, 2006

I agree with Chris about being interested in your process. I’d also be interested in learning how you work on your writing skills. It is something I enjoy and want to develop, but I’m not sure how. I like writing copy, but also enjoy creative writing, not sure whether a creative writing course would be good.

Keep up the great work. Your site has been invaluable as I am starting up. The sample proposal helped immensely.

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Remember
wrote the following on Saturday July 4, 2009

Metadata.

  • Posted: Tuesday October 10, 2006
  • Category: Random Life
  • Comments: 5

Synopsis

I am a naughty, naughty boy. I’ve neglected you for too long, precious readership and valued patrons. Lots of stuff going on around here, and as we all know, it only gets worse when productivity plummets during football season. (Seriously, how good are the Bears right now?)

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