Apparently, Forbes has published an article called "The Creativity of Crowds" which quotes CrowdSpring (an online graphic design competition for cheap company logos) saying that graphic design is a "snooty business" and that the costs of it should be slashed.

I'm all for mom and pop startups & entrepreneurs — that's how this country was created. And I've ranted about this in a past post. But, for some reason we have this illusion that anyone with Photoshop or Illustrator and some sort of knowledge on how to use them is a designer. And, more often than not businesses looking for a cost-effective solution will hire these types of people. Why? Well, maybe because it's hard for most people to appreciate the difference in the 2 types of work. Perhaps this is on the same level as why a client will always choose the design that a designer likes the least (if given more than 1 option). As designers, we'll never really fully understand this phenomenon.

Well, Jim Walls did an interesting experiment, called the 50 Dollar Logo Experiment where he hired 50DollarLogo.com to create a logo for his business, Cheeses of Nazareth. This article was written in light of the Forbes publication. And, it is a perfect illustration of the quote — seriously, check it out.

Jim mentions in his article that designers, like me, shouldn't worry because the designers on sites like CrowdSpring and 50DollarLogo.com aren't real designers. So, perhaps there will still be real jobs out there for real designers who's talents and design education are fully appreciated.

In the movie "Helvetica", the director, Gary Hustwit, tackles a similar issue with the publics access to digital fonts. Does this mean that "we [are] all graphic designers now?" Maybe, but like most things, you get what you pay for. That is talent.

Also, worthy of noting: in the current economics times, are you really wanting to send US dollars over seas to Sri Lanka based companies and designers like 50DollarLogo.com?

1. Everything in my life is disorganized except for my Photoshop files. I'm bad at balancing my checkbook, cleaning my room, remembering to do stuff, folding and putting away my clothes, and more. But, when it comes to labeling and organizing my PSDs I'm extremely meticulous. Every layer needs to be named and placed in an appropriate folder. Folders and sub-folders need to be modular and easily moved, hidden, and modified. And I hate when there are thousands of folders that are not closed/minimized, flattened text layers, and unecessarily complicated layering of effects.
2. The auto-temperature control in my car must always be set to an even number. For instance, if 72 degress is too hot, then I have to adjust it down to 70 degrees. 71 just won't do—it's an odd-ball.
3. Sponges and dish rags left in the sink really bother me. Everytime I see one I imagine all of the dirty liquid and food that pours over it making it unsanitary to use in the future.
4. If dishes are left to be washed at a later time, they must be stacked in the side of the sink that does not have the garbage disposal. The side with the disposal must be left empty so that dishes can easily be cleaned on that side.
5. I don't like to tie my shoes. I usually just leave the shoes loose enough to slip my feet in and walk out the door.
6. I miss Legos®
7. I love tomatoes, but I usually never eat the whole peeled tomatoes that are slightly crushed; unless they're in chili.
8. My biggest annoyance on the road is left-hand lane drivers. They don't annoy me because they're slowing me down. But, because I find them inconsiderate to me and other drivers on the road. If they were passing, great, but they should move over when cars are trying to pass them. It's the rules of the road, and common courtesy. The left-lane isn't the "special lane" it's the passing only lane.
9. I love cool sweaters, jackets, and pullovers.
10. I'm claustrophobic and I hate to be too warm because it makes me feel like I'm enclosed in a pocket of heat. I don't like when someone sits on the bed covers while I'm under the sheets. It's all the same feeling to me. However, I don't mind elevators because they're usually well ventilated.

So, how did it come to pass that this word, "toboggan," can describe a warm winter hat? My assumption is that somewhere in the South the term "toboggan hat" got shortened to just "toboggan" and now "boggan." And the very same people (who probably have never been on a real toboggan) began thinking that this was a legitimate use of the word. It's not!

If you look it up, you'll find the same results I did. Except in Wikipedia (open to the public for editing) it has one line at the very bottom to please the Southerners. This line reads: "Southerners use this word as slang for a stocking cap or winter hat." Notice the word slang. Here are some other sources:

• Merriam-Webster's definition of toboggan
• Dictionary.com's definition of toboggan
• Oxford English Dictionary's definition of toboggan (One discrepancy here, they mention "vehicle on runners." But nonetheless it's a sled)

Also, if you do a search on Target for toboggan or REI you won't get any results dipicting depicting a winter hat.

You may then argue, as Billy tries, that it's totally up to a regional dialect to determine the legitimacy of a word. Perhaps. But consider this, if the entire country of England (where baseball isn't really played) began describing a baseball cap or baseball hat as a "baseball," we'd cry, "They're ignorant! Every one knows that a baseball is a round white ball! Would you wear a ball on your head?!?" Based on the definition of dialect, English and American English are both dialects. Is one more right than the other? Or is one just more ignorant (nothing against the British, just making a argument)? In the case of Southern verses the rest of the English dialects I would go with ignorance because you wouldn't wear a sled on your head.

So what is it called? Well, beanie, winter hat, skullcap, cap, toboggan cap, or tuque (as in Canadian French/English) would all work. Please, please stop calling it a toboggan! Because now you can't claim ignorance.

Before I go further I want to mention that there is a strict difference between parking lights (or parking lamps) and low beam headlights. Parking lights are used as "identification lights" to warn other vehicles of your presence on the road. In the case of parking lamps being on by themselves (since the late 1960's), they're supposed to signal a stopped or parked vehicle! "It is now illegal in most countries to drive a vehicle with parking lamps illuminated." If you're concerned about saving gas, it is impossible for a 14+ volt alternator (which generates 14+ all the time) to require more gas than normal to run a 12 volt set of headlights. 12 is less than 14.

Now, headlights are used for forward and lateral lighting of the road. These are used to see in low light situations. They also allow other cars to see you in low light situations like fog, dawn or dusk, rain and nighttime driving. In fact, it's actually illegal, at least in North Carolina, to drive in the rain without your headlights. Notice, in all of the links they mention "low beam headlights"!

Do the responsible and intelligent thing—turn on your headlights. It's really hard to see cars in low light situations without head lamps on. Especially grey cars (which seem to be the biggest culprit).

Why would we want to get involved?

No, seriously…go vote!

And in this time, just before the next Presidential Election, pay special attention to their criticisms of our government and the current candidates. Because who would be better at seeing through the campaign garbage than a couple of older ladies (who have seen it all)? Here's an excerpt:

If you are undecided - and I am at a complete loss for how you could be - please consider the following:

Which party has been screaming terrorist, socialist, Marxist, murder him and kill him… and which party has been talking about hope and unity.

Which party has been throwing everything but the kitchen sink at you everyday for the past two weeks hoping to scare you into thinking that there is an Un-American part of the country… and which party has been saying that there is no red America and no blue America but only the United States of America.

Which party thinks war is the answer to everything… and which party has suggested that maybe we need to sit down and talk this out to see if peace is possible.

…But McCain is counting on you to not check to see if he was telling the truth. He is counting on Americans to be fat and lazy. And as silly and ridiculous as that little lie is… what more do you need? He will lie to you to get your vote.

Helen, of Margaret and Helen

I usually prefer to not post too much political stuff on my site, but perhaps we should think about whether a candidate who "allegedly" has terrorist ties (Obama) or a candidate that terrorists prefer (McCain) would be the best choice for office this November. The author, Pamela Hess, suggests that al-Hesbah, an al-Qiada-linked website, regards McCain as the perfect, "impetuous" choice to exhaust our military "down to the last American soldier." Hoping that this would only strengthen their message worldwide. They would even "welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency." Pretty scary, eh?

Who you going to vote for?…Or is this Osbama's terrorist ploy to guarantee his victory over the Real Americans?

"Flow" is an award-winning documentary about our diminishing supply of fresh water and the world water cartel that takes advantage of this free, God-given resource. Not to mention the pollution created by the millions of plastic bottles discarded after we drink our Dasani and Aquafina.

Leaving Internet Explorer 8 behind — before it's even been finished by Microsoft — Mozilla Labs' experimental extension, Ubiquity, is proving why IE will never be ahead of the curve. This little slick application will allow users to perform web-related tasks more efficiently, like emailing, finding definitions, translating websites, get location maps, and more! And this is something worth IE's while to copy (like the whole extensions thing).

Visit Mozilla Labs' Ubiquity introduction.

1. Comic Sans

   

   Comic Sans is quite possibly the least professional font choice a "designer" can choose. It's rounded terminals and crooked stems just scream unprofessional, amateur, and in most non-designers' opinions — "cute." Cute is a horrible reason to pick a font.

   Comic Sans was created to give a comic book feel. It's meant for comic book usage, not packaging, book reports, or pretty much anything (really).

   I'm not the only one with a gripe about Comic Sans. There are plenty of people who hate Comic Sans with a passion as much as I do. The largest contributing factor to its overuse (#2 on the overuse list) is the fact it's on everyone's computer, since it was released by Microsoft in 1995.

2. Papyrus

   

   Next to Comic Sans, Papyrus is the 3rd most overused font on the planet (I believe anyway). The sad part is that most people who use it are not designers (or worse — think they are). It also shows up on everyone's font library by default.

   What does Papyrus look like? Well, try Egyptian/Biblical times. Hence why it's named after a type of paper engineered by the Egyptians. If this is so, the font should be used only in situations where the designer is trying to communicate that feeling. It doesn't communicate a beach-theme, a relaxed theme, or any other feeling besides the one it was named after.

   With that, it's also really, really illegible. Font should not only be chosen for the feeling it conveys, but also for how legible it is (especially when it's used in paragraphs)!

3. Trajan

   

   Trajan would be an acceptable Roman font if it wasn't overused so much. It has even been declared The Movie Font because of its over use on movie titles, posters, and dvd cases.

   The reason it's chosen for movies is because it "conveys [a sense of] drama" (10,000 Words). It has this respectably quality to it. However, when used, it tends to strip the respect from the designer who chose it out of habit. It's not like there isn't any other dramatic, respectful serif fonts to chose from. Be original.

4. Brush Script

   

   Brush Script, in my opinion, is the worst example of a brush script. It's like the fat cousin to a more elegant form of writing. If Times New Roman is too serious then Brush Script is too fat and lazy — as is, probably, the designer who uses it.

5. Copperplate

   

   Copperplate Gothic says "my business is ugly" better than any typeface. It is the quintessential logo font choice for amateur businesses.

   Whether you choose gothic light or gothic bold, it's a bad choice. But, if you want to add some shock value or a black trenchcoat-like feel, maybe you have the right to exercise your indiviuality along with everyone else who dresses like uses the same font.

6. Coolvetica

   

   Wow, another Helvetica cop-out! Why can't people just use one of the most brilliant fonts ever designed instead of trying to make their own lame version of it? Most PC's have it, so it's not a case of licensing.

   And more arrogantly so, Coolvetica just is not that cool. That's like me claiming to be an awesome basketball player. Hey Larabie, what's with the lower lip on the lowercase "t?" And the "G" has to have the most arbitrary descending terminal of all time!

7. dearJoe

   

   As 10,000 Words put it, dearJoe doesn't even look like handwriting. Well, at least not someone's who is sane.

8. Curlz MT

   

   Curlz is cute. This is exactly why you shouldn't use it unless you're trying to make something look like an over-frilled 12 year-old girl.

9. Snap ITC

   

   If I see this on another event poster or cheap advertising board I'm going to…[fill in the blank].

   I can't even begin to explain why people chose this font. It's like trying to find logic in an L. Ron Hubbard book.

10. Goudy Stout

    

    Substitute one letter and you get "gaudy," meaning tasteless. If Brush Script is fat, Goudy Stout is obese adopted child of what would be a more tasteful family without it. Too bad he was welcomed with open arms.

11. Arial

    

    I lied, there's 11:

    In a fight for an alternative to Adobe's PostScript font licensing, Apple and Microsoft opened their doors to clone fonts like Arial. Arial is a font with similarities to Monotype's Grotesque typeface and similar weights to the popular Helvetica. The problem is it's not quite as elegant or as classy as its better twin. But since the rise of the personal computer and its ability to make everyone a designer, Arial has become the widest used font in the world.

    The only 2 factors redeeming it from being higher up on my list is that it's not that bad and it's so close in resembling Helvetica that it is often confusing to tell them apart — unless you kow what you're looking for.

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I'll admit, I'm guilty of breaking this rule every now and then. And, even so, my designs aren't "world class" (eh, Jason H.?). But, every now and then, I do strive for this model. Today, however, I feel that I'm going to be forced against my will to break this concept. I really, truly, hate this about my line of work — giving in against the best interest I'm trying to protect.

This is what I get paid to do.

Unfortunately, the real issue is not in their political platforms anymore. We don't vote for presidents based on what they're proposing to do for the betterment of our country or for how they're planning to uphold the constitution and court judgements of past. We vote for candidates based solely on party involvement. We stick to hot issues like abortion, gay marriage, and terrorism. Apparently nothing else is more important than these 3 issues in this country. Apparently, Republicans are one side of the spectrum and Democrats the other. I wasn't aware of things being this black-and-white (pun intended).

With that, I find it quite ironic that Fox News has decided to accuse Michelle Obama for being racist, talking about her saying, "the sins of 'whitey'", when they're going to throw out an equally racist statement like "baby's mama." Of course this was all based on hearsay too.

There is one thing I don't agree with Obama on: "Americans are smarter than that." In fact, I think the majority of us are dumb and ignorant. How do I know? Well, I'm still seeing stupid forwards about Obama being a muslim terrorist or how he's the anti-christ. If we knew better or we smarter, we'd check our facts before sending propaganda based on lies or "twisted truths."

What bothered me the most was when a friend showed me an email she got from a Christian Bible study group. It was a forward of the Obama is the anti-christ email, based on an opinion piece by Ken Blackwell. The scary part is that this email supposedly quotes Revelations and how Obama is the anti-christ. Of course, no citation for this claim is given. Why? Because it doesn't exist, even remotely, in Revelations. The real sad (and frightening) part is that this email was being transfered by a group of Christians! Shouldn't they know or be bothered by such a claim?! Do people really believe anything that is told to them?

Please do America a favor and vote based on fact checking not ignorance and blind-faith. If you get any of these emails, don't forward them and help spread lies. Check your facts. You can start here: Snopes.com. Vote intelligently for either side. It's your duty and right not to squander our future.

Watch the video for yourself, then tell me how you think McCain is going to be "A Leader We Can Believe In"…

However, dork or not, you have to appreciate the awesome fully-functional replication of the all-so nostalgic controller (as uncomfortable as they were). But this one won't be likely to make your thumbs and hands hurt — it'll be more likely to make your back hurt! I'm so impressed by the full action, spring loaded D-pad and A/B buttons.

Thanks Guess for finding yet another random/awesome/odd link online.<whisper>I Want That!</whisper>

If you're not familiar with Kevin or Matthew, they're 2 illustrators who have made a name for themselves, especially among web designers and artists on the web. Not only are they talented illustrators, but they're brilliant web designers who have a passion for web standards and accessibility. Every week, I look forward to seeing Kevin's beautifully drawn characters and his elaborate hand-lettering.

The visual and litteral puns, however, are the most clever. Both artists excel at making hilarious heros with well thought out skills to top their foes. And, the occasional guest illustrator rises to the task as well. Check it out!

I had to post this link because this is absolutely amazing! They're brilliantly original, beautifully crafted, and definitely impressive. I just wonder, how long it took him to do each one? And how much time did he spend trying to figure out where certain words or images where to get his desired effect?

I'm not saying my design skills, my code, or my news posts are perfect. But at least I'm making an effort to do so somewhere along the standards of the web. And I'm not saying people shouldn't have freedom of speech [or posting]. That's a separate issue all together. What I am saying is that the web has markup standards that should be followed. And that certain people shouldn't be allowed to make websites or call themselves "web designers." I'll go into why I think this is a second. But, since the web medium is so vast, it's hard to pinpoint the culprits and it's even harder to educate them. Some could careless, and some just don't know these standards exist.

If you've ever read about web standards, ever dealt with clients in the web profession, or ever messed with a CMS before this may be nothing new. But, I needed to rant a little bit, and share the most absurd piece of code I've ever seen:

<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top">
<p>A Pic was here.</p>
</td>
<td align="top">
<p><span class="smallfont"><span class="StoryTitle">
<font color="#0000ff"><span class="StoryTitle">
<span class="smallfont"><span class="StoryTitle">
<font color="#0000ff"><span class="StoryTitle">

...<font color="#0000ff" size="+0">Some link</font>...

</span></span></font></span></span></span>
</font></span></span></span></font></span>
</span></span></font></span></span>
<span class="Homepage-itemdesc"><br />
Tidbit of information</span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
				

More: absurd code in its entirety + result.

Content Management Systems, which are most likely to blame for this incident above, are sort of a separate issue. I have yet to see one that can give a client full control over publishing without giving them too much freedom to produce junk without even knowing it. Perhaps this is the nature of the beast. Are these to blame? I don't know. But I do know that they've been allowing clients to add non-standard and ugly markup to beautifully crafted sites for years. And they create a bit of a headache for myself.

People that call themselves "web designers," webmasters, or any name that may dupe unsuspecting clients into hiring them have a hand in this too. Granted, this is America, "a land of opportunity" where anyone can build their own company. So, they have a right to do so. However, they also have a responsibility to learn their craft and stay current with the industry trends. If these professionals aren't with it, they could very well produce the above example — and to my horror, I've seen it before. But are they really to blame for everything? Not sure, maybe not for everything.

"Do-it-youselfers" are in a similar category as the so-called "web designers" (please notice the quotes) except that they may not be claiming to be professionals. And more than likely, they're not creating more havoc on the web than their own little corner. They wouldn't really be to blame at all, except that there are so many of them! It's a bit of a Tragedy of the Commons.

E-Commerce solutions programmers, wiki creators, and other programmers that don't really follow standards are in the same boat. And for me, this is the most annoying group of contributors; they're the ones that develop the CMS soultions (rather than the users or the beast itself mentioned above). I won't go into too much detail for fear of a long drawn out rant.

If you have any thoughts on this. I would love to get some more guidance on, relief from or what have you on this problem.

You look like gold to me
and I'm not too blind to see
you look like gold
you make me wanna sing
with all the joy you bring
you look like gold

like the rays down from the sun
when a new day has just begun
you look like gold

I've been fooled before
but now I know
I've made the mistake in the past
but now I know the difference
from gold and brass

not the kind of gold you wear
but the kind that can feel my care
you look like gold

some shine when the day is new
but fade when the day is through
but you look like gold

I've been wrong before
but now I know
I've made mistakes in the past
but now I know the difference
from gold and brass

you look like gold to me
and I'm down on bending knees
you look like gold
and I just want you to know
to me you mean so much more
than all the gold
you look like gold

Read into the lyrics how you wish — I wanted to post them for several reasons.

I'm not tooting my own horn — I still have a lot to learn before I consider myself really good (I'm my hardest critic). But, most of us would agree that Apple's designers are probably some of the best out there. And consumers can appreciate their ingenuity and simplisitc style in their amazingly intuitive products. This is good design. Simplicity.

In pretty much everyone of my design classes, and even from our Creative Director here at Atlantic BT, we're constantly told that "good design is not when there's nothing more to add, but when there's nothing left to take out."

This mentality seems to get lost in our educating of non-designers when dealing with all of the requirements, wants and dislikes, and most everything else clients want to cram into something. This isn't because they're wrong to want this, it's moreorless because they don't always know exactly what they're looking for or how to go about it. But, these situations can be both frustrating and rewarding. This is where creativity comes into play.

So, when Locke sent me a link to this humorous image about usability, I felt I should share it and my 2 cents. Why is it that client's websites and applications are so hard to navigate? Maybe because simplicity and the art of taking things out have been forsaken?

What are your 2 cents?

If this was the end of the story, it'd be pretty humorous within itself — based solely on Megan's observation and comment. However, it didn't end here...

We were on our way to Bojangles. Proctor ordered his usual, filet biscuit combo, add tomato and lettuce. Somewhere in his order they mistranslated "tomato" to mean "egg." How fitting. Here's the exact sandwich we were discussing sitting on Proctor's tray. After taking it back to get what he really wanted, we discussed the scenario more. In this case, what came first? The fried chicken or the omelette? We decided that the chicken clearly came first since it was on the bottom. But does this apply to the age-old dilemma? Just some food for thought; no pun intended.

We've been out of paper towels in the office for about a week. And sitting right next to the coffee maker is a small stack of the bathroom paper towels. You know, the crappy ones that you pull out of public restrooms. Anyway, these haven't been very efficient since they saturate too quickly and, quite frankly, they feel like we're using toilet paper to wipe up messes around the sink. So, needless-to-say, everyone's been a bit annoyed. Is our cleaning lady on a paper towel strike? Does this have to do with Al Gore's global warming? Who forgot to order the paper towels?!

So this morning, I was making coffee and I reach over to grab a crappy bathroom paper towel and there were none left. So I look up, ignorantly, expecting there to be some supple Quilted Quicker Picker Uppers. And all I saw was a note on the paper towel roll dispenser that read: "Wipe Hand on Pants."

I laughed for about 10 minutes! Turns out Herskowitz, inadvertently the funniest guy in the office, was responsible for this note. Haha!

I know you will do well, since you are so sweet — I know the people of Dade county know that too. Your hard work in everything you do is evident. Good luck Denise Martinez-Scanziani, I will be praying for your campaign!

What is truth? Apparently some people only need one person at church to tell them what they want to hear for it to be truth: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/02/18/why-we-do-what-we-do/. Or you can rely on the wonderful journalism skills of Fox News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhWaiULqkp4&feature=related. Either way, it is scary how quickly people buy into so-called facts without checking the validity of the source — which just goes to show how dumb and gullible we are getting. And the spinners rely on that fact.

I'm not pushing anyone to vote Obama, but rather to actually do some research for yourself before basing your "truth" on some ignorant claim created by a fool. "Who's the more foolish — the fool, or the fool who follows him?" People like this are no different from Michael Moore or Ann Coulter (both sides have their false journalism).

Get your facts like this lady and do something about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSj2jOrbkhQ.

This has got to be the lamest idea and commercial I've ever seen. Just how comfortable and productive could you be while you're constantly trying to maintain your balance and type at the same time? Kudos to Guess for finding another hilarious video on YouTube.

<sarcasm>I really think the movie industry should follow everyone else and use Papyrus! Comic Sans is so 90's, Papyrus is what's hot right now.</sarcasm>

If you answered yes to the above question, you need to get out more! Starbucks makes the worst coffee. And worst yet — it's more expensive than most places too! They've just reeled people in by their yuppy marketing. Just because it's the most popular doesn't mean it's the best (I could give the Beta vs. VHS argument).

I'm not pushing McDonald's coffee over Starbucks, because quite frankly they're about the same: Stale and burnt. Instead, try checking out places like Global Village, who get fresh roasted beans every couple of weeks. They also happen to be cheaper. And, support the local entreprenuer!

And if you would like to know more on what really classifies a good cup of coffee, check out "A Coder's Guide to Coffee."

I particularly found the margin collapsing and the hasLayout and margins of nested boxes very helpful in visiaulizing why IE drives me crazy everyday.

Kudos, Bruno. Thanks for the hard work to make it easier to deal with IE!

It seems to be a simple game of street soccer with 3 field players and a goal keeper. And with the number of homeless around the world, the number of organizations for bettering their lives, and the love of soccer (football) you can imagine it's got to be a yet-to-be-discovered awesome tournament. Check out the offical Homeless World Cup shirts (Copenhagen 2007 shirt).

What's even more awesome is that it seems that the number of homeless that get involved increase each year and decide to change their lives for the better. And they're supported by famous players like Eric Cantona and Didier Drogba. I guess soccer really is the world's game.

Photo taken from Street Soccer 945 out of Charlotte, NC.

First, I'd like to thank (not really) these idiot "Christian" thugs for making Christians look so good. Way to act like Christ! (with a tone of deep sarcasm). Now, in the eyes of the rest of the world, especially the Middle East, there's more reason to hate the US (which is apparently synomymous with their view of Christianity).

According to Adler, "[Happy Hanukkah]...those [are] fighting words." However, I'm not sure where "love your neighbor" and Christ's example of tolerance got lost in their Biblical translations. If someone says Happy Hanukkah to me, I'd simply smile and say Merry Christmas, back. They can celebrate their holiday in peace, and I expect they'd allow me to go about my own business.

But you know, Jesus was Jewish too...so maybe he'd celebrate Hanukkah? Just a thought.

In fact, I probably donate over 10-12 hours a day logged into the "matrix," but I can't seem to get a clue. So, I need to rely on people like Guess (who has an amazing ability to find at least 4 completely random and cool sites per day) to feed me with the latest "must see" websites. I also rely on Adam and Jason H. to feed me YouTube clips.

Aside from that tidbit (and the real purpose for this post), Guess linked me to Coudal Partners' Layer Tennis site — where designers faceoff in a battle of Photoshop layer tennis, trying to one up each other in "volleys" of the coolest 900 x 280 pixel banners to-date. Check them out, if you're at least a couple months behind times like me.

I haven't decided whether I'd really vote for him or not. But, I did find that some of the comments on the Indecision 2008 website post were convincing enough — at least for consideration.

• America will get truthiness — finally!
• More interesting (most likely hilarious) State of the Union addresses
• He's a good Christian - teaches Sunday school; hopefully his morals will be an actual influence on his decisions.
• Not a politician and has with no experience = good thing. Take our current office for example. Cheney and Rove have the biggest résumés of anyone else in the government — and look where we are now!
• However, he is politically savvy.
• He has no party affiliation since he's running as a Democrat and a Republican (I realize this is a joke, but so is our current system)

Just some food for thought. Most likely he has a chance to go as far, if not further, than Perot. He's a pop-culture icon! He has his own "nation" following him. And he has so much weight with the youth that they might actually come out and vote!

What do you think?

Can you imagine the day when we're not limited to just M$'s ugly Arial font, Tahoma, and Helvetica for sans-serifs and Georgia and Times for serifs?! I agree somewhat with Stephen Coles' statement about the possible danger in allowing web designers to have typographical control, but I think Dan offers a brilliant counter reason for the importance of this future CSS support. The web has alway been an open field for anyone to publish anything they feel like posting. While this can condone, in a way, a large amount of junk, bad taste, and falsities floating around; the same goes for the open possibility of utter genius-ness that was never so easily accessible. The web is about accessibility. Crap or not. I guess this just means that in order for people to have a chance, like Dan says, we need to allow the possibility of people ruining typography. But, who said the current type on the web was all that brilliant anyway?! I mean, take the widely supported Comic Sans and all its wrongly deserved glory for example! And, unfortunately, web desginers already have control over many of the traditions held so dear by typographers like line-height, leading, and relative font sizes. These get ruined all the time! I'm probably not the best typographer, myself, anyway, but I'm glad I get to take a stab at it.

So far, it seems that Safari's WebKit is the only one taking the initiative to push for this support. And I assume Firefox will be on its way shortly. But don't hold your breath for Internet Explorer, they're always a decade late.

If you'd like more info on how this works with CSS, check out the article posted on A List Apart — CSS @ Ten: The next Big Thing.

I'm not writing this to take away from the brilliant explanations of Andy Clarke, Patrick Griffiths, Eric Meyer, or Molly E. Holzschlag, but to merely supplement their posts with, perhaps, another angle. The reason that it seems so many people feel the need to re-explain this topic is because not many people are willing to give themselves a headache reading what the W3C has to say about specificity.

What is specificity?

To be brief, it's the applied calculation of the priorities of CSS selectors and how they cascade through a stylesheet. So, basically, selectors with a higher specificity will overrule other selectors in the cascading order.

How it works

The specificity is generally calculated using four numbers concatenated, like: a, b, c, d (W3C). I will explain further later on. And the other technique is to assign values to each type of selector and add them up. For instance, general elements have a value of 1, classes have a value of 10, ID's have a value of 100, and inline styles have a value of 1000. However, this value based "quick addition" technique is a bit misleading because it presumes that 10 of any value will override the next highest selector. For instance, 10 ID's in a style declaration will override an inline style, because 10 ID's are worth 100 x 10 which equals 1000 — inline styles being worth 1000. But this is not true, whatsoever. However, it can still be used as an easy way to get an idea of the specificity of a particular selector in a declaration; but it should never be fully relied upon.

The W3C states that "Concatenating the four numbers a-b-c-d (in a number system with a large base) gives the specificity." This is the correct method to rely on. The reason is because it separates the values into 4 categories: a, b, c, & d. The variable a is reserved for the number of inline styles and has the highest priority. While b is for the number of ID's, c is for the number of other attributes (including class, but not ID's) and pseudo-classes, and d is the number of elements. The order of specificity is in that order. And, pseudo-elements are to be ignored.

Let's focus on b and c, since a and d are so simple. ID (b) selectors are the most valuable asset to CSS, so they are given the highest priority, next to inline styles. ID selectors are written with a # infront of the value given to the ID. So, #content is selecting <div id="content">. This has a value of 100. These selectors, like all selectors, can be used in combination with any others. With this, #main-area #content would add up to 200.

Class selectors and other attribute selectors are assigned the variable c. These are given a value of 10 each. Class selectors are denoted with a dot (.) before the name of the class, like .box. Attribute selectors of CSS 2.1 are supported by most modern browsers, and when I say modern browsers I mean not Internet Explorer 6. These are declared with the attribute inside a set of brackets — [ ]. The usual form is for it to be written following the element that has the attribute applied to it, but it is not necessary. Neither is the attribute value, if you'd like to style anything with a particular attribute in general. This form, in its common use, looks like a[rel="friend"]. The = can be replaced with ~=, *=, ^=, or $= depending on how you're equating the value. A better concept of these can be found on 456 Berea St's CSS 3 selectors explained post.

The part about the attribute selectors and their specificity that confused me, at first, was whether or not using class= or id= in the attribute selector made it behave like the # or . of its CSS 2 predecessors. After doing some testing and reading, I found that the attribute selector has the exact same specificity as the class selector (the .), regardless to whether it says id= within its little brackets. It will always have a value of 10. Thus, div[id="content"] is less than div#content.

Here's an easy way to visualize all of this (in a poorly misunderstood table element):

Anyway, if you haven't seen any specificity charts before and this helped explain things further, then great! If you feel it was confusing or just plain wrong, please let me know. But, I do hope this helps — and check out the other explanations too, because Andy Clarke has an awesome one using siths from Star Wars. Maybe I'll make a diagram of my own someday.

The only thing that seems to be lacking is the intuitiveness of the "Fight for Kisses" game. The controls are a little odd, and the game play is a little slow, and you have to know French to really get anywhere. But it's still kind of neat to see...once.

While, the flash intro/trailer is pretty awesome, it seems to fall short in the viral sense they might have been going for. Especially since I'm only going to play the game once.

Amber's words brought to my attention the very struggle I always have when designing for the web. The very bane of my own website and the many sites I've thought of as brilliant ideas — that were never carried through. The issue at hand is...well...content. "Beautiful, lucid, [and] captivating [content]." On my brother's blog, he realized this a few months ago when he was trying to figure out why his reader comments were suffering. Why perhaps his visitors were declining. It's all do to content. Content is king! No, it's the "heart, soul, and breath" of our new medium — the web. Or at least it should be.

However, myself and many others out there, have begun to dilute the web with junk and marketing copy that serves no real betterment to our society. We just build sleak designs without knowing the purpose and heart of the website we're designing for. It would be like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. Cool technology without much of a purpose beyond the surface view.

Wizard of Oz:

As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.

Tin Woodsman:

But I still want one.

Well, Mr. Tin Woodsman, "a heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others" (Wizard of Oz). I want my work and my site to be loved and read. To be commented on and remembered. Without that connection with readers, what is the point of writing these words down?

I just got around to reading it this morning and felt like it was something worth sharing — if you haven't stumbled across it already. Snook breaks down the 6 keys to really grasping CSS and provides a lot of good links to information about these fundamentals. I think it's a must read for anyone who doesn't understand CSS-based layouts completely. But the trick is: you have to actually read and follow the resources provided, because Snook just gives a synopsis for each point.

Please take a gander and read the review at Brand New in their article Photoshop 2.0: The Wrong Kind of 2.0. My initial reaction seemed to fit everyone's comments too. This has got to be a joke! What's with the dumb comment/thought bubble? Why the bandwagon with using this symbol in logos?

Scroll down to read Von Glitschka's and Chad K's comments (I'd link, but for some reason they didn't anchor any of their comments on the site). They're freaking hilarious! Apparently they used their own PS filter called "Cheap Ass Logo" to create the bubble effect. Sweet! I can't wait to utilize that in the new version!

The worst of it is, I think Adobe (or John Nack) is actually proud of it! But I'm still trying to figure out why the thought bubble has anything to do with photo editing software. I guess when they bought Macromedia, they bought their cheap GUI icons style too.

So, with that, what say ye? We need a meeting place and a time/date and frequency. Locations would be preferred to have choice beer and/or wine and good food.

We also need a name.

Comments, suggestions, and questions are of course welcome!

In my transition from the "Dark Ages" of the table-based layout to the future-forward thinking of web standards and CSS based layouts, I've learned how to ask myself this question frequently. It was a long road of rethinking problems and getting rid of the bad habit of doing presentational markup.

While my markup may not always be perfect, there are different ways to do so in a more accessible manner. Every developer may have a good argument to why their markup is cleaner and better. But the point is that we, as designers/developers, are asking questions about and critically analyzing our HTML structure. We need to keep ourselves accountable for thinking ahead, being more accessible and helping standards develop.

The other day, I came across a problem, brought up by another designer at work, that we were unable to find guidance with on the web. There's so much out there, yet we couldn't find a single article pertaining to the correct way to markup and present a Venn diagram. We had to ask ourselves the basic question and then consider if trying to figure this out was in the budget. Was providing people with an accessible Venn diagram worth it? We could simply put the provided diagram on the web as an image, but then how would a blind person see the relationships or even read what the diagram says? How could search engine spiders crawl it efficiently?

After determining that this was a problem worth solving, we asked ourselves "How do you show the relationships on a Venn diagram?" An unordered list? While that's possible it doesn't really show "relationships," which is the whole purpose of the diagram. How do we show the overlapping areas and the shared areas between the different items?

Before I begin with our method to solve this problem, I'd like to address a common practice for providing accessibility to images. This practice includes the use of the longdesc attribute. This attribute can simply be applied to the img element and it points to the page (or site) where more information about the image can be found. The longdesc is used when the description of the image is too long to put in the alt tag. While this is a very good practice for accessibility and further explanations of a chart or graph, I feel that it could possibly be handled a littler slicker. So, how can we make the explanation part of the illustration of the relationships?

We came to the conclusion that we needed to mark this up as a table.

Now that you're done scoffing and wondering why on Earth we would resort to using the evil tables. What are tables used for semantically? Well, tabular data! Just because we're doing standards-based layouts with CSS doesn't mean we should NEVER use tables. It just means we shouldn't use tables for our layout. But if a particular part of the document requires providing tabular data or illustrating relationships in a table, then the best element for the job is the table (a properly marked up and accessible table of course).

A table here makes the most sense. Let's use a familiar example:

The Primary Color Wheel for Pigments/Subtractives

If we have a Venn diagram that looks like:

We'd want to first begin with determining the main categories. For the primary colors Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow we want to make them the main table headers. Then the secondary colors Red, Green, and Blue we should make headers along the side of the table. Their relationships should be shown by putting "included" on the rows underneath each primary color that makes up the secondary color of that row. And without excluding Black, we put it on the 4th row with "included" in each column, since it's acquired by mixing all the colors.

Here's what the markup would look like (Line wraps marked » —Ed.):

<table id="color-wheel-table" summary="This table displays the relationships »
 in the color wheel with the primary pigment (subtractive) colors. This is »
 an attempt at a more accessible Venn diagram.">
	<thead>
		<tr>
			<td></td>
			<th id="cw-cyan" scope="col"><a href="#" title=" »
			 Cyan, a primary pigment/subractive color">Cyan</a></th>
			<th id="cw-magenta" scope="col"><a href="#" title=" »
 Magenta, a primary pigment/subractive color">Magenta</a></th>
			<th id="cw-yellow" scope="col"><a href="#" title=" »
 Yellow, a primary pigment/subractive color">Yellow</a></th>
		</tr>
	</thead>
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<th id="cw-blue" scope="row"><a href="#" title=" »
 Blue, acquired when Cyan and Magenta are left because Yellow is subtracted."> »
 Blue</a></th>
			<td headers="cw-blue cw-cyan">included</td>
			<td headers="cw-blue cw-magenta" included</td>
			<td headers="cw-blue cw-yellow"></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th id="cw-red" scope="row"><a href="#" title=" »
 Red, acquired when Yellow and Magenta are left because Cyan is subtracted."> »
 Red</a></th>
			<td headers="cw-red cw-cyan"></td>
			<td headers="cw-red cw-magenta">included</td>
			<td headers="cw-red cw-yellow">included</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th id="cw-green" scope="row"><a href="#" title=" »
 Green, acquired when Cyan and Yellow are left because Magenta is subtracted."> »
 Green</a></th>
			<td headers="cw-green cw-cyan">included</td>
			<td headers="cw-green cw-magenta"></td>
			<td headers="cw-green cw-yellow">included</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<th id="cw-black" scope="row"><a href="#" title=" »
 Black, acquired with all colors together.">Black</a></th>
			<td headers="cw-black cw-cyan">included</td>
			<td headers="cw-black cw-magenta">included</td>
			<td headers="cw-black cw-yellow">included</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>
				

"Included" is used because it's a word that actually means something. There was much debate over whether a pseudo-checkmark done with the &radic; character was sufficient. But we came to the conclusion that the checkmark only means something visually. Thus the use of "included" in the common rows/columns has some textual meaning more appropriate in this situation.

Then to display the actual Venn diagram we use the Phark Image Replacement technique (http://www.mezzoblue.com/tests/revised-image-replacement/#phark2) to place the diagram as a background of the table, and we use a negative text-indent value to shove the text off the screen to the left. This technique, as opposed to the display: none; technique, is used because the FIR is no longer recommended for use due to its inaccessibility issues. An example of the non-recommended FIR is Doug Bowman's original version (http://www.stopdesign.com/articles/replace_text/).

The CSS for this would look like (Line wraps marked » —Ed.):

<style type="text/css">
	* { margin: 0; padding: 0; }
	
	#color-wheel-table {
		width: 436px; height: 436px;
		background: url(http://www.heyokadesign.com/uploads/ »
 color-wheel_venn-diag.gif) no-repeat 0 0;
		text-indent: -9000em;
		border-collapse: collapse;
	}
	
</style>
				

However, we'd want the user to be able to hover over each section on the color wheel to get little tooltip notes about the colors, or possibly allow them to click to visit another page. There only needs to be a few additions to make this happen (Changes made in bold, line wraps marked » —Ed.)):

<style type="text/css">
	* { margin: 0; padding: 0; }
	
	#color-wheel-table {
		position: relative;
		width: 436px; height: 436px;
		background: url(http://www.heyokadesign.com/uploads/ »
 color-wheel_venn-diag.gif) no-repeat 0 0;
		text-indent: -9000em;
		border-collapse: collapse;
	}
	
	#color-wheel-table * {
		float: left; display: inline;
		width: 1%; height: 1%;
	}

		#color-wheel-table th a { position: absolute; »
 left: 229px; top: 115px; display: block; width: 54px; »
 height: 27px; }
		/* coords and dims for cw-cyan */
		#color-wheel-table th#cw-magenta a { left: 71px; »
 top: 232px;width: 83px; }
		#color-wheel-table th#cw-yellow a { left: 267px; »
 top: 277px;width: 64px; }
			
		#color-wheel-table th#cw-blue a { left: 152px; »
 top: 163px; width: 46px; }
		#color-wheel-table th#cw-green a { left: 268px; »
 top: 198px; width: 58px; }
		#color-wheel-table th#cw-red a { left: 187px; »
 top: 280px; width: 43px; }
		#color-wheel-table th#cw-black a { left: 199px; »
 top: 215px; width: 52px; }
</style>
				

Briefly, what's happening is that we're positioning the table relative so that we can position each table header's anchor tag absolutely within the diagram. But in order to do so, we must float: left; display: inline; to get rid of the default table-cell structure of each element within the table. Then we position each anchor tag according to its location on the diagram.

At the beginning, most of the skills we were learning were a bit elementary, but we graduated up to more difficult maneuvers. Each exercise would build good fundamentals, and build on top of each other as we progressed throughout the day. We also learned some good practices and techniques to be safe, evaluate, and develop strategies to help prevent accidents.

We had a lot of fun and we got to ride bikes. So, it was pretty awesome. Plus, we can go hook up our motorcycle endorsement without having to do the riding test at the DMV! If you're thinking about getting a bike, or you have a bike and you haven't taken a course like this, I would recommend it. Our instructors we awesome, and really freakin' good riders. They have a lot to offer to any level of rider.

We rode the Buell Blasts. They were fun to learn on. A bit small and not as neat as the other bikes Buell has to offer. I'm definitely looking forward to buying a bike someday...not anytime soon...but maybe in the next year. I'm going to get a used bike for sure, but I hope I can find a Ducati Monster, Buell Lightning or Firebolt, Triumph, or Yamaha R6. I know they're all pretty different, but I dunno what I like the most yet. We'll see what I can find. I wonder how much an old Ducati RS996 costs?!

• Coal is about the use of coal to create energy. I thought that the line at the end was probably the most hilarious part: "Cheap. Abundant. Clean Cheap."
• MS Paint was sent to me by Guess, since it seems to deal with "graphic designers" and he knows how much I loathe Microsoft products. It's a sarcastic look into the world's worst graphics program. Although, it seems people have developed amazing skills to be able to draw in Paint. But I'm not sure why someone would waste their time when there's programs like Photoshop out there.
• And more...

With that, I realize some of my ideas might escape the so-called "scope" of what CSS is meant for and the same for HTML/XHTML. But, my hope, like all standardistas is to get a focused set of standards for all browsers to comply with (does such a Utopia exist?) and for these standards to give more power to semantic markup and more advantages to CSS.

I'll begin with HTML first, since semantic markup is the most important:

Custom Elements

I've read some of the working draft for HTML 5 and I must say that I'm impressed with some of the ideas that have been added. It's going to give more meaning to HTML code, which is precisely what web developers need! However, I did cringe at the proposed "header" and "footer" elements. I understand their purpose, but aren't the words header and footer presentational? For instance, what if at first I designed the footer to be at the bottom of the document. In the markup, perhaps it is. But later (for some odd reason) the client decides he/she wants that info to be moved to the top? Would this still be considered the "footer?" I'm sure there are several sides to the argument, but I've also read accounts where people, like Andy Clarke, propose the same notion. Footers should be "siteinfo" and headers should be "branding" or "masthead". In contrast, Dan Cederholm and Andy Budd still use "header" and "footer" on their personal sites. But, regardless to the latter two, I still feel these names are a bit presentational.

I really like most of the other elements like "menu," "section," "dialog," "aside," "datagrid," etc. They really give more meaning to the markup in place of the generic div's with id's. This will definitely give more power to CSS and more meaning to the document at the same time, allowing you to separate your styles with semantic element names, giving them unique rules with really low specificity, instead of making them arbitrary div's. This will give more control with id's when they're needed.

But my proposal is that instead of giving set element names that will always be up to debate on what's more semantic, why not give that power over to the developer? If a developer could declare his/her own elements in the head of the document, he/she could have more control. I envision it working something like this:

		<head>
			<elements type="elements/text">
				section : div;
				dialog : div;
				menu : ul;
				masthead : div;
				newelementname : baseelementbehavior;
			</elements>
		</head>
				

In this element named "elements" the code would be handled by the browser. It would read each line, separated by a semi-colon, and take note of the custom elements being declared and determine their base behavior off of the base element listed after the colon. For instance, the first custom item "section" would behave like a "div." This would give ultimate control to the developer to make his/her document follow its purpose semantically. This will also give way, opening up the possibilities for more microformats! A developer could utilize this to create <tel> elements, <adr> elements, <product> elements, and more, replacing the annoying <div class="product"> and more nested, loosely based classitis.

Definition List Item

I forget where I saw the <di> element once, but I've been unable to relocate it through my searching online. But I wonder why this element is still not supported well, if at all. And I didn't see any proposed plans for it in the HTML 5 working drafts. I feel, though, that this would be a good addition because it provides one more "hook" for styling and a bit more meaning. The definition item would separate definition terms and their descriptions from others. If I was creating a list of definitions, each term and its description or descriptions should be separated logically from its siblings. Thus the <di> element would encase and separate each item.

CSS Snap Declaration

My third proposal is for a CSS 3 style declaration called "snap." This may replace the need to use javascript to snap certain elements to certain non-parental elements. This snapping has been done via javascript on many old versions of dropdown menus. Now with CSS and better standards, the snap is no longer needed for menus. But the need for snap in other presentational ways is still around. What if I wanted to "snap" one element in the lower portion of the document to another element that was completely un-related? I could simply add it to the style rule:

		#snapping-element {
			display: block;
			width: 300px;
			snap: #host-element;
			left: 0; top: 10px;
			…
		}
				

In this example, the element with the id "snapping-element" will be snapped to the element with the id of "host-element." Host-element, however, probably should be positioned relative; And the snapping-element's position will be based off host-element's relative state. Much like how absolute works, except that absolute is limited to basing itself off of ancestral elements.

Column Hovers

Placing a hover on a table row is a cinch. But what if I wanted to create a triangulation effect for the rows and columns with a different hover state color? I can't! I've seen others mention it in posts, but I haven't seen any plans to integrate this into CSS. Why not? This would provide another layer of accessibility/legibility to users with a simple col:hover rule. Of course the colgroup elements must all be declared in order for this to work.

Javascript-type Psuedo-classes

My last proposal to CSS 3 is probably the most CSS-scope-defying of them all; what if there were more pseudo-classes available other than just visited, hover, active, focus, etc? Why not onclick? I realize focus is currently a bit of a Mozilla proprietary state, but it's a really good one! If javascript already handles onmouseover (hover) and onblur and onfocus (focus), why not onclick?! Man would this be powerful! All javascript toggling could be handled in CSS! But this event catching is a bit more daring for CSS's scope of just styling. But why not, eh?

Conclusion

Perhaps some of this has been mentioned before me. I'm not sure. If not, then I'm glad to be able to provide some recommendations. If so, I apologize for assuming credit, that's not my intentions. I do however feel that these would provide a lot more meaning to HTML 5 and more power and control for the visual and presentational experience to CSS 3.

Any comments, suggestions, critiques are happily welcomed. Just some food for thought.

I am, however, a little out of the loop on the Canadian perspective since I've never really lived there, and I claim citizenship through my parents and my unique position in my family as being the only American-born. Add all that to me being left-handed and the middle child and you get the constant need to battle. And my friends tend to make things worse by constantly making fun of me. But, since this has been happening since I was young and continues to happen anytime I use the word "eh", I've begun to ignore lame jokes/comments. My friends have obviously realized that I'm an easily heated target. One with a stubborn sense and a definite opinion.

But, in light of all this, I know that their comments are entirely in jest. They make fun of me because it's fun and we're friends. But I, for whatever reason, still feel the need to enlighten them with "facts" about Canada. And for most Americans, it seems that they either don't care at all or they just don't like listening to me rant.

The truth is, most Americans don't care. They should. But they don't. I feel that this failure to care is just a symptom of poor education throughout school and the symptom of the security in being the world's superpower. Granted that both are based on ignorance and could pose problems for our relationship with our closest friend, but how do you change everyone's mode of thought?

Perhaps the reason people in America don't care is because they don't have time to care. Everyone's so busy with their own lives, that the only bit of the outside world they get is through travels within the continental US or Hawaii, or from the American media-tube and it's limited scope. If they don't have time to form an educated opinion of their own (through extensive travelling to Canada or other countries), they're going to buy it from whoever's selling. Or worst yet, the one bad example they experience while on vacation.

But, that bad example goes true for everything in life. If I travel to Myrtle Beach, SC and see the most ridiculous people in the enire southern US all together in one spot — then I might assume that all of the south is that lame. Or, perhaps the west coast is just like they portray on Babewatch!

Do Americans, in general, really think all mounties ride horses wearing the red coats and funny hats? Yes. Because that's what they've seen in pictures and on Due South (that awesome show that used to come on TV about the mountie). Do they think that every Canadian lives in an igloo? I hope they're not that dumb to believe so. And what exactly is the capital of Canada? Well, it's gotta be Toronto or Montreal, because we hear so much about those cities.

Most Americans I've talked with don't know the capital, but they're really excited to tell me they've been there, and it's really beautiful, and the people were friendly (except the French), and that it was sooo clean!

Is it better to be an ignorant American? Well, as I was told by my brother a long time ago, "I'm not sure if it's worse to be too ignorant about my neighbor to the north or too presumptuous that I know everything about my neighbor to the south."

To further illustrate this point, Canadian Tar Heel mentions in his post Canadian Anti-Americanism some ideas about the other side of this relationship that I don't have the luxury to witness on a daily account. I'll rely on his research and opinion instead of limited travel and knowledge of my family's native country.

But then again, am I relying on a perception from the media? Regardless, Canada and the US have always been close — in proximity, most values, lifestyle, and trade. Why would we want to remain ignorant or worse anti-best-friend?

In Michael Ignatieff's essay, "Getting Iraq Wrong", he discusses his, as well as other politicians and commentators, failings on the Iraq situation. Ignatieff brings many theories about good judgement in both the political realm and private life, and how the 2 require a different set of principles, decision making tactics, and who their fallout affects more.

Good judgment means understanding how to be responsible to those who pay the price of your decisions.

Michael Ignatieff, "Getting Iraq Wrong"

If you haven't read it, it's well worth the read — a definite enlightenment to my narrow mind.

I'm sure most everyone, like me, remembers watching this show on Saturday mornings and swearing that we could perform the events better than the contenders. And I'm sure some guys out there will never admit that they used to think at least one of the women gladiators was kinda hot!

With that, I'm gonna sit here and watch.

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But it can't be real A.D.D. because I'm so good at focusing on one thing, that I forget about all the other things. It's always all or nothing with whatever my current passion is. If my passion is a particular girl, I lose focus everywhere else; my friends suffer, I forget to pay bills, etc. Crazy, eh? It's like "reverse A.D.D." or something. I focus so much one one thing, I lose focus in the long run.

I guess this "reverse A.D.D." makes me special. People should work around me. If I fail in life, my job, etc it's got to be because people aren't give me the "right" opportunities. That's right! They're holding me back!

I don't need to conform to the world's need for schedules and organization. I should be deemed "special" or something. I should get equal opportunities because it's only fair. Regardless to whether I'm lazy or never learned how to organize myself. It can't be my fault.

Yeah! And you know what?!? We should start a law that could be called "No Adult Left Behind." Then when I forget to pay a bill or show up for work (or worse: just not do my work) I can get a pat on the back and my boss can say, "that's ok Mark, at least you're here. You're special!" With a nice grin. Because, after all...the world isn't about survival of the fittest. It's not about competition. It's about everyone, regardless of skills, disabilities, race, etc. getting an equal playing field and a pre-determined excuse for when things don't work out when they don't try or improve.

Then I'll feel like I belong!

Canadian Tar Heel writes about his "Liberal Perspective on Foreign Affairs, International Law and Canadian Politics." And, of course, as a Canadian born, American raised bilingual law school grad he's got some pretty interesting point of views. Especially when it comes to some of the border politics happening between Canada and the US. If you're curious about this kind of stuff, check it out: Colby File.

Mike is a very talented woodworker. His site is a showcase for selected furniture pieces he's crafted. Each piece of furniture he makes is custom made using old world techniques. For some reason, he loves — and I mean loves — his hand planes. Second to those whould have to be his chisels. With these he puts a lot of attention to detail in his furniture. This close relationship with his work allows him to do awesome inlays and other detail work. Every joint, like dovetails and mortise and tenons are done by hand as well. He's a pretty talented guy.

So, if you're looking for custom made furniture from New England check out Michael Spencer Woodworking.

Bauer did real well! He, of course, was the main attraction — even over the huge great dane out there. But he played real well with all the other dogs, even the dane! He wasn't scared one bit.

When he plays, he gets this little Tasmanian Devil snarl that's pretty funny. But we're trying to make sure his play never turns into anything serious. We're trying to make sure he knows that Bayden is his older, dominant brother. Bayden has a tendency to be a big push-over since he's so sweet and gentle with little dogs, but we don't want the puppy to think he can push him around — taking his "chew-eez" and toys and stuff. We want to keep him in his place without allowing him to be aggressive. Perhaps due to a little fear that he might assume some natural pitbull tendencies.

Go ahead and call me a dork, but if Jack Bauer was real he'd be pretty awesome...like my dog. Bauer is fearless and a good fighter. He has no problems going right for the jugular. Well, he's just a puppy but he loves to play around with his big brother Bayden who lets him win sometimes. I just have big aspirations for his toughness.

No doubt though, he'll be pretty stout. He's half American Staffordshire Terrier (Pitbull) and half black Lab. Not entirely sure about which traits he'll have when he gets older but he's pretty awesome for now. I'm assuming he'll be about 60 lbs. when he's full grown. And mostly muscle.

Right now, however, he looks like a mini version of Bayden. Same white chest, floppy ears, black short haired coat. All he's missing is a sweet NC State collar — which I'll get later when it's not a waste of money because he's going to grow so quickly.

And in pure JB fashion, he needs no potty training. He's had few incidents in the house. He's a natural!

Look for more updates on the beast and his ninja-like skills later.

Here's my take: I was little upset they introduced Molly after last week, saying "she's the only one who can stop Sylar!" And all Molly's powers are is to locate anyone anywhere by thinking about them. Must be nice. Obviously she helps one of the pseudo bad guys (the older heroes and/or Bennett's organization) or one of the good guys (Peter and Hiro types) find Sylar. Big whoop. I was hoping she'd have some sort of awesome gift like...immediate death by thought as her M.O. Now that would be a finishing move. Hi Sylar...Death! But instead she simply finds him.

Now they leave us with glimpses of Peter glowing and Micah holding his hands up on top of some building. What do I think will happen? Well based on the future Peter, he "knows" he's the one who blows up NY. So he's obviously the one who blows up. Why he gets angry, I don't know...but he does and he can't control it. How does Micah play in to Linderman's "evil" plan? Well, Micah controls electromagnetic waves. That's how he can manipulte electronics. I believe he's forced, by Linderman, to amplify Peter's explosion at the right time to create a massive explosion big enough to wipe out NY.

Does Hiro kill Sylar? Perhaps, but all that will solve is the Sylar disguised as Nathan (the President) in the future. With Sylar's death by sword Nathan (as himself) will be able to be the puppet his mother and Linderman were looking for. Hence why Linderman wants Sylar too.

Who's the lesser of the 2 evils? I dunno. But geez, I wish it'd be Monday soon. With that said — I'm going to bed to speed things along.

Amendment: Oh snap! As I just discussed with my roommate: What if Molly's virus can be transferred to Sylar? If it stopped her from using her powers, wouldn't that stop Sylar? It'd be nice to use it on Peter too. That'd save NY! Bedtime!

Spiderman 3 comes out tomorrow! I'm going to the midnight showing. I have to admit, I'm real excited. I think this is going to be the best yet. The Venom part of the story seems like it will add the right amount of darkness and struggle that will make this movie worth my while. So far it's got an 8.2 on IMDB, which means it's pretty flippin' awesome.

My soccer team is going to the Railhawks game tomorrow. They're this new USL, semi-pro, soccer team here in Raleigh. What is a Railhawk? I have no idea, but it was apparently open to the public to name the team. If you ask me it sounds a bit ridiculous. This should be interesting to watch.

My sister just got back from the US Virgin Islands. She was visiting my parents who are cruising around the Caribbean, and have been doing so for a couple years. She brought along my baby nephew, Josh. He's gotten so big looking at the pictures of him. Last time I saw him he was a tired, wrinkly little baby. My sister, a UNC grad, mentioned in her blog that Josh loves the color red...I couldn't refrain from buying him an NCSU hoodie. It's only proper. Anyway, I have to send it soon before he grows too big for it!

I've used some CSS 2.1 selectors to try to move forward in my learning and progressing my site — making it forward compatible. I'm also happy to say I've served up a real lame design for IE 6 and below users. Since, IE has given me so many headaches, I've decided not to limit my designs in the future to its inability to do things according to standards. I mean, why should I be held back? IE's the one who sucks! Be sure to check it out.

You can read more about this little project here.

I'm almost there. The XHTML hasn't changed at all; well not for any style hooks, just some minor behind the scenes reworkings of things I overlooked.

Tomorrow we go live...hopefully.

On the brightside, this XML thing is pretty sweet.

I've read several books, which doesn't necessarily qualify me as a "guru", but it has created an obsession nonetheless. If you're interested in this subject as well, I suggest reading Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm first. Then move on to his other book Bulletproof Web Design. Next I would read CSS Mastery by Andy Budd.

I'm currently reading Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke which has inspired me to redo my site with "transcendant CSS" using MOSe

This is where my challenge comes in. I have decided to post my site "naked", a little early for Naked Day, with all its new found technical advances and standards compliant practices. And then release my new design for the May 1st CSS Reboot which would show off the abilities of XHTML and CSS. This would mean that content truly does come before style and the two should be separate. I will also be taking liberties of providing "Graded Browser Support" (or degrading and/or displaying different designs and enhancements based on browser compliance and capabilities). Therefore if you are using older browsers, like IE 6, you might be left with a less enhanced version due to its inability to perform with the new technologies. Not my problem:

An apporpriate strategy allows every user to consume as much visual and interactive richness as their environment can support. This approach builds a rich experience on top of an accessible core, without compromising that core.

…Support does not mean that everybody gets the same thing…In fact, requiring the same experience for all users creates a barrier to participation.

—Nate Koechley

With that said, more news will be coming...sometime. But I will be working on other areas of the site in the meantime. Isn't it beautiful?!