Neatly Sliced

I’m not being arrogant, but I’m great at XHTML and CSS. What I’m not great at is the visual design.

I want to redo my site, but I need a designer to make the look and feel of my site. Then I can code it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my watermelon layout. I just want something that I made from scratch and not something I pulled from the WordPress theme machine and had to go in and fix to make the CSS valid.

So, all you designers-but-not-coders out there, if you’re looking for a bit of pro bono or portfolio building work, I need your help! Let’s work together and make something beautiful.

La vie en rose
Originally uploaded by Hugo*.

It was dim, but then it was light. It will be light soon enough.

I’ll tell you where I was at 0615 this morning - running terribly late for work and fueling my car in the freezing cold. I’m in the car, driving, and suddenly (seemingly out of nowhere!) an enlightened low fuel gauge!

“Woe to me,” I exclaim. “I shall never get my car started unless I fill my fuel tank.” So I turn around and head to the nearest, safest petrol station - but three blocks from my home.

Pulling up to the gas pump, I note the screen’s warning: “Pay Clerk Inside”. Groan. I never pay inside. Thus marks the beginning of a dreary day.

I go inside and enter the very short queue. Ahead of me is an incredibly ghetto fabulous customer.

“Sweetheart, get me a pack of Camels. And yea, a Smirnoff. Get me a Smirnoff, sweetheart.”

Yes, at quarter after six in the morning, this individual is purchasing Smirnoff Ice, likely for immediate consumption. Sun not yet risen, yet consuming alcohol. The cashier takes his money and slips his purchases into a brown paper bag.

“Sweetheart, don’t you got a plastic bag?”

“No, sorry. I’m all out.”

“Are you serious? Sweetheart, I gotta walk, and I can’t carry this paper bag,” he whines. “I mean, I could, but I really don’t want to.”

I’m not even kidding.

“No we only have the paper bag.”

He turns to me, “Aw I’m sorry sweetheart, I’m holding you up, go ahead.”

I prepay for my fuel. Exit stage left.

Seriously. Maybe next time he’ll think twice before buying a Smirnoff.

Perpetuum mobile can be defined in many ways. My new favorite classification is “Perpetuum Mobile” by Penguin Café Orchestra (iTMS). It is one of the most beautiful pieces of music that I have ever earned the pleasure of happening upon.

The band gleaned the title of this song from the compositional technique of perpetuum mobile (Latin), moto perpetuo (Italian), perpetual motion (English). I will hereafter refer to the song by Penguin Café Orchestra as “Perpetuum Mobile”, and the musical term as “moto perpetuo” in order to avoid confusion and redundant clarification. As one could gather through hearing the song, the moto perpetuo technique features a “continuous steady stream of notes, usually at a rapid tempo” (wikipedia - perpetuum mobile).

“Perpetuum Mobile” happens to feature moto perpetuo in regard to song technique and also with the composition. When a song is composed moto perpetuo, a piece of the music is repeated without a halt in the melody. Thus, the song may sound as if it goes on for a length of time that for exceeds the length of the repeated section - it may have been repeated any number of times. A repetition may change in pitch or tempo, as “Perpetuum Mobile” explicates.

Do try “Perpetuum Mobile”. It is beautiful. You can purchase the sheet music; it is available through the collection “Numbers 1–4 and other pieces”. It is available via Penguin Café Orchestra’s shopping site (currency in pounds) or Edition Peters (currency also in pounds). I have been unable to locate an American source to avoid importing and currency exchange and exploded prices, so anyone finding one - please, leave a comment.

So I said I was done with school. That’s not completely true. I am taking one more course this semester, but I’m not attending it; I am only doing the work.

The CDSource inspired ColdFusion site is for the ColdFusion course I am taking. Feel free to play around with it, but the cart isn’t working yet so don’t do that.

The admin section has no policing yet, so you can check that out too. Go ahead and add products.

I had fun writing the CSS for it. I am not a designer, but I like bringing design to reality. This was one of the cleanest stylesheet that I have written, although it was not difficult considering that there really isn’t that much to style.

I’m slowing getting into this JavaScript filled Web2.0 world before me. I avoided JavaScript like the plague before. Now it’s fun to make little things dynamic, such as the field on the product-type change to CD. So so very simple, but it makes me inexplicably giddy.

Russell Davies wrote a fascinating ditty on how to be more interesting. It includes ten easy steps to increase your interestingness. All of these steps are based off of the following two facts:

The way to be interesting is to be interested

. You’ve got to find what’s interesting in everything, you’ve got to be good at noticing things, you’ve got to be good at listening. If you find people (and things) interesting, they’ll find you interesting.

Interesting people are good at sharing

. You can’t be interested in someone who won’t tell you anything. Being good at sharing is not the same as talking and talking and talking. It means you share your ideas, you let people play with them and you’re good at talking about them without having to talk about yourself.

I’ll start with step one, a photo a day posted to flickr. I take more than I post, and many are under private viewing. However, as aforequoted, it is the sharing that increases interestingness. Photos kept to one’s self serves little purpose and decreases the possible joy derived from such photographs. There is greater joy in sharing.

The photo-a-day may be in conjunction with step six, “Collect Something” (which may include photos). I take many photos of the oddities found in the area in which I live, so these would be viable candidates for my posting.

The ten steps to interesting are quite interesting (redundancy?). Although, is it not futile to write a list of interestingness as though one can really acquire that stature by means of mere actions? Are we to speak nothing of the underlying unspoken interestingness of a person or object - an intangible entity that cannot be created or identified other than its sheer existence?

As reminiscent of that notorious senior video, can a hero really attain heroism by means of checking items off of a list? 1) Locate damsel in distress 2) Save her 3) Die the hero’s death in the interim. The question really lay in the heart condition - motivation - of the “hero”, or “interesting” person. A person’s interestingness or heroism ought to be happenstance of life’s natural unfolded events. If such qualities are sought after for the sheer purpose of acquiring heroism or interestingness rather than the self-improvements or goodnesses accomplished, the horizon has been defeated and the shallow shell remains.

To clarify: the ten steps are not bad in amongst themselves. But are we posting to flickr to be more interesting, or are we posting to share the photo-y goodness and to reap the self benefits of viewing the world in a wider spectrum?

The steps are brilliant, but I must ensure that my aim is true. I am upset that this article portrays interestingness as a skill. Improving one’s being engenders interestingness. Bear in mind the two keys of interestingness and the principles behind them. Ignore the view of skilled interestingness; read the article, as it lists good things to help reflect and to widen one’s view on the real situation that this world finds itself.

My Burner Kills Again
Originally uploaded by neatlysliced.

Burning a CD, I suddenly receive a warning: my burner has had an error.

I extract the disc, scratching my head. I look to see how much was burned. I discover a gnat, sliced by the laser of my burner! Note the skid path the gnat endured, from the middle of the disc and then resting where the burner quit writing (as it could not write beyond the gnat’s carcass).

This is one of the oddest computer related issues that I have personally encountered. Hysterical.