set one

i got a button maker for my birthday. finished the first go of it last night. i have plans for these little guys. more on that later.

my fortuna

iconbuffet is really kicking it up a notch with their new ibid feature. this little gem allows a member to display a good assortment of badges on their website/blog to advertise sets, profiles and even grab referrals. as you will notice, i have already included two versions of the available badges on this blog. the first is my profile at a glance (vip status, number of points, avatar) and will link you to my profile page on the site. there you can bask in the glow of my many badges and see just what sets i have to offer. the second banner will take you to a sign-up page where i will get credit for the referral. eventually, iconbuffet plans to roll the referral state into both the profile and standard banners.

“my weakness” moby (play)
“o fortuna” orff (carmina burana)

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unfortunately, until iconbuffet can fix some of the site-load issues, the scripts for the badges have been removed from this blog. it simply hangs the blog and can’t load it entirely. i will replace the badges with the simple img link i had before.

iconic promotion

make me an iconbuffet god!

sign-up now!

100 deaths

this past weekend, i attended the design ranch. i truly regret not going to any of the previous 6. a complete retreat/camp for designers; totally worth every penny (and a pretty one at that – for me). this year is my year of finally getting off my ass and being a designer and not just playing one on tv. so far, i think i am doing pretty well at meeting that goal.

i had been interested in the design ranch since its inception, but couldn’t justify the expense or time to attend. my first internship was with marc english about 2 years prior to his creation of this sleep over camp of genesis, connections and inebriation. the straw that finally sucked me into going to this year’s incarnation was mr. stefan bucher himself.

i suspect many of you that might have stumbled on this post have no idea of my history with the daily monsters. i penned a few stories, you see. those stories led to a great online relationship between stefan and i. months pass and stefan mentions his coming to austin in april. as it turned out, he was one of the magnificent 7 putting on a workshop this year. well, the horse head stared me straight in the face. a flip of the credit card and a click here and there, and i was set to meet an inspirational person.

his workshop was, unsurprisingly, a study in illustration. i have a hand. i have skills. i barely have any hand-skills, however. i very much want to be able to draw what i see in my head, but by the time i can sketch out something that could be mistaken as an illustration, the thought has left and the motivation to continue is gone. i took the first offering of the workshop at 9am on friday.

“100 truths” was a study in drawing 100 things either repeatedly or based around a theme on a poster. as in, you could draw a hundred eggs (which someone did - and did very well, actually) or draw a hundred items relating to a theme (vacation, nature, hairstyles, cross-polynomial variants in genetics). my choice was incredibly ambitious. i had no idea how lofty at the time i thought of it, but by the end of the 2-hour session, i was thoroughly daunted. ultimately, the free moments of the weekend were spent finishing the poster.

you know how hard it is to come up with 100 ways to die? after about 30, it becomes incredibly hard. throughout the weekend, other attendees would come up to me to watch me work and I would wrangle a death out of them (in word only, i didn’t actually kill anyone — this time). stefan and petrula vontrikis (“the lost suitcase” workshop) were very helpful. it was pleasantly creepy. i even paid tribute to stefan twice (one of his monsters eating the victim and another depicting death by toxoplasmosis).

i managed to get it done and i think it is one of the best pieces i’ve done – illustratively speaking, of course. clicking on the image at the beginning of this post will show you a larger, clearer version of the poster so you can make out the various methods one can cease to be. i’ll likely frame it sometime in the future to keep it safe.

a little extra: there are actually 101 deaths showcased in the poster.

murder 3000

a quick post to talk about the new link in the sidebar over there. the one for iconbuffet.

i have been a member of the free delivery service for as long as i can remember the “service” being put into action. the fine chefs over at ib have since come up with a new system and site to accompany. it looks really great. works cleaner. uses ajax. seems more community-centered. free delivery is a fun little ditty that i highly recommend to anyone who is into free icons, so please join the program. it’s absolutely free. the icons are fresh and can be used just about anywhere for any reason. and if you join through my blog here, i get points for the referral. what those points do, i have no idea.

will write a better, more complete entry about everything that has happened in the last week later.

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post title:
“murder in mairyland park” – sarah brightman (fly)
“storm 3000” – leftfield (leftism)

sxsw – day 04

some kick-assery panels today. i can tell, however, that the conference is winding down. they’re starting to lose their luster.

i did end the day with likely one of the best experiences from the event: getting strangled by douglas sarine. that’s right. a ninja. but not just any ninja. the ninja. he so looks forward to killing all of us soon, i had no choice but to oblige. who knows how many attendees were saved by my merciful act of sacrifice. or frisbees. pictures to come. i need a flickr account.

tomorrow is, of course, the last day for me. this means that it’s also the last chance to snag some of those swanky uhad buttons. and who got one today? why these lucky folks (again, in no particular order):
lance willett
andy clarke
dorian ramirez (film chum of james kersey)
chris mills
mark lentzner
glenda sims
mason wendell
douglas sarine
nick vahalik
sara taksier
naomi greenfield
brian sullivan
spencer nutting
dave maestri (plural for maestro)
john romanski

maybe i passed out more, and i really feel dumb if i lost a business card or forgot to right it down. also, if for some reason your actually checking this blog, see your name and don’t see a link – email me and i’ll update it.

elsewhere: the poor mouse and bug were home, feeling under the weather. if i don’t get better sleep soon, i might suffer the same fate. thanks for being the super mom, mouse!

sxsw – day 03

just a real quick post for now. gave out a good collection of buttons today (in no particular order):
jay west (was actually last night while in line – staff photographer for sxsw)
dave amos
maximo stephani
emily pepperman
dan cederholm
john marstall
brian brasher
cameron adams
paul mckey
stuart constantine
brian fitzgerald
ian lloyd
patrick lauke

on a side note, i had a really great talk with brian and john about iconbuffet and just what are the best sources for buttons. we agree that buttonbiz.com has the best diy kit/device as well as cafepress likely being the best price route for one-offs. i look forward to firewheel design and/or iconbuffet buttons soon.

ze frank at the 10th annual web awards tonight was incredible. the internet is losing a quality, daily (well, semi as of late) vlog.

sxsw - day 02

day 2 here at south-by. much better. incredibly better. the panels are really working for me here. first one at 10am: writing, better. great tips, advice, general knowledge on what one can do to just write better. i really felt like i got something from this panel.

next up: after the brief. another really informative panel. there is a lot i need to do to improve getting inspiration. some great tips here.

then it was a good long lunch with the mouse and the bug. it was awesome. katz's had some really great food today (not that their food is horrible on other days, just was really good today - maybe it was the company). the poor bug might be coming down with something, but the mouse is the best woman for the task of taking care of her. i'm having a great time, but i sho'miss 'em.

after lunch it was back to panels: mark boulton and khoi vinh talking about grids. i struggle with grids. grids are hard for me to figure out. i think i got it figured out - at least enough to actually work with them to figure them out. just another great panel. no ill-will towards friday's panels, but there was clearly a reason they were on the registration day.

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uhad is spreading the peace with every passing hour. the buttons are really serving well in meeting new people. not to say i wouldn't have tried to shake the hands of these people without some bribery, but a little token of gratitude is a great ice breaker. so, here's a list of the lucky winners of a uhad button so far, today:
kevin cornell (aka: bearskinrug)
shaun inman
jeffrey zeldman
greg storey
derrick featherstone
ethan marcotte
jeff croft
jason santa maria
dan rubin
rob weychert
josh williams
mark boulton

don't worry, i gotz lotz. just try to find me. it is really great to put faces to a lot of these websites that i visit so frequently. makes me want to get off me arse and finish mine.

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just met sean maggard. walked right up to, quite randomly, and started a conversation. it was great. i'm a nobody, so having anyone just come up to me out of the blue to just talk was really cool. thanks, sean! a button to you!

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went to the frog design hosted opening party. incredibly boring. the music was ok, and despite the free booze, i opted for water (was actually thirsty). then it was over to the buzzfeed/ze frank shin-dig. after a ridiculously long time, ze finally took the mic and comedy gold poured out of his mouth. of course, airlines are always a good source of hilarity for ze. and all i had was a button to give in thanks. pics to come.

while in line for the ze thing, i met three guys from dc (the capitol, not the comic books) who do stuff for the army. chris clarke, eamonn bourke and daniel drinkard (kick-ass last name, drinkard). good conversation all around. my house would be like 500k in dc. buttons were, of course, served fresh. on the way back to the parking garage, i ran into marc katz (of katz's deli & bar - 6th and rio grande). gave him a button. kewl guy, katz.

sxsw - day 01

friday is day one for the interactive festival portion of sxsw. so far, it's kinda boring. maybe because the actual "party" doesn't get started until tomorrow (all the panels that have the important people start saturday). i mean, this is just the sign-in/registration day, after all, right?

so, i made some buttons (it's my thing) to pass out at the event. mostly to yh!ers and those whom are part of sites that i visit on a daily basis (a post made over two years ago, my dailies have grown). if you happen to see me (knowing what i look like), say hi and you get a sweet uhad button. and speaking of; i've already given out 4: jim coudal and 3 folks that gave me a lift back from the carver library (daniel, nicole, sandy -- thanks!!).

with a internet accessible computer about every 5 feet, i should be able to post regularly on the panels.

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as you may or may not have noticed, the title is not the "usual" song title combo. well, duh. i'm not on my computer with my itunes library.

space angel

iconfactory is one of the kewlest icon sites around, pwning just about anyone on mac interface design. they have icons, desktops and even software available for your consumption. i was overjoyed to finally get a copy of iconbuilder and i dare say i haven't disliked a software package coming from their ingenius workers. enter frenzic – the first game from iconfactory and artis software.

“a frenetic journey that will heighten your reflexes and get your pulse pounding. Minutes to learn and months to master, Frenzic is an all new puzzle-based game for Mac OS X.”

ladies and gents – this game is addictive. this game is visually awesome (just look at the icon). this is a game born and bred for os x and it shows. and starting at $14.95 (with some hella-kewl features at $24.95), my wallet is likely to open.

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“space shanty” :: leftfield
“angel” :: sarah mcLachlan

two-fer

monster 62’s story went up late last night with monster 63’s just being posted (imagine this post isn’t some 45 minutes into the 20th).

i am seriously considering what it would take to get me to design ranch this year. my wife says i should go. stefan bucher even has a presentation and workshop this year. my first “boss” might even be there — he did create the thing, afterall.

twitterific seems odd. in many ways, it feels more convenient than twitter’s own site, yet i only get the top most poster’s comment in the display (leaving the others requiring a physical click to view, which then renders the updater from not displaying the latest comments) and for the last two days, it has consistently failed to receive/access twitter’s “feed”. if the flash badge that resides on this blog had an entry field (like twitterific’s), i would just use that. for that matter, if twitter’s public page would auto-update on its own, i wouldn’t even need twitterific.

festival attendance

just found out i am gonna be able to attend sxsw interactive this year. i have lived in austin for quite some time and have never made it. well, this year is my year. finally get to see all them faces to the blogs i read/post to.

uh… ya

this blog is looking a tad better than my website. why?

chonsom is having a grand opening, which is different from their soft-opening from last year. nice menu.

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it’s apparently national delurking week. no one posts here. feel free to keep lurking.

New Switch

i switched to the new blogger.

we’ll see how this shakes out.

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a couple of changes right off the start. i write dates as follows: 110|7. this is today’s date. january (1) 10th (10), 2007 (7). so the list of posts are listed first via year (which unfortunately slaps a needless zero in the tens place) and then the drill down shows the months via number.

i changed the color of the "template" to better reflect sitetamashii.com.

a “---” represents an addition and/or edit to a post already made live.

i am still playing.

EPIC Realism

The scary part is that EPIC looks like it could really happen. This is some fine motion-graphics work and worth the peek. All the ideas and theories could really happen. Just how far will this “internet” take the world? And will it be for the better?

Elsewhere, I received the most excellent piece of mail yesterday. It was a nice envelope with my address ink jet printed on the front in what looked like Apple Chancery. Opened it up and there was a trifold "letter" of the same paper and a vellum sheet in it. It was, for all intents and purposes, a wedding invitation. I was like, “Now, who do I know that might be getting married.” It turned out, however, to be the most clever direct mail piece I have ever seen. It was a “wedding” announcement for Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless. It was brilliant. And from the looks of it, they sent one out to every one of their customers. What a great piece of junk mail. I am definitely holding onto it.

Weebl & Bob give another history lesson.