March 30, 2007
I really wish I could've been more timely with this update, but I managed to get ridiculously sick on my trip back home and have been basically incapacitated. However, it's entirely worth it. This was my first AEA and it surpassed my expectations. I cannot express just how enjoyable of an experience this was.
On day 1, I forced myself to awake at 3am pacific time, which wasn't easy at all. My excitement kept me alert anyway, and I prepared myself to venture downstairs to get registered and have some complimentary breakfast. Oh how a fool I was. There were no lines to contend with for registration, and even if there was, it only took 30 seconds tops. The first presentation didn't begin until 9am eastern either so I had a good amount of time to kill. I ate breakfast slowly and tried to hunt down Greg and Brian but was initially unsuccessful. By chance, I had my laptop open and Brian IM'd me notifying of his and Greg's location. I headed back and soon enough got to meet the majority of the Happy Cog crew + friends. Brian and I were henceforth knows as 'the Brians'. I think the first guy I met was Jason and he initially complimented me on my Mastodon shirt. This was already going well. Shortly after, Rob complimented my shirt similarly. Fantastic. I'll have to wear this shirt at every conference.
The presentations that followed were great. I found each one informative and inspirational. While I've been slowly working on putting up more of an actual design for this site rather than the quick and dirty form it's in, the things I absorbed from the presentations definitely gave me a lot more ideas. The lunch break wasn't quite so eventful. The food was pretty decent, but the 'cafeteria' was loud and noisy. I wasn't so much a fan of the environment so I ate quickly and hung out in my room until the next half of the day.
After the final presentations, everyone quickly rushed off to make it to the hosted post-party. Food and an open bar were promised, but the food turned out to be mostly little snacks. We hung out for a little while, then decided to hit up some real food. At this point, I was introduced to the Flap n' Snap. I haven't laughed so hard in so long. The meal was decent, but the good times were better. Our noble party returned to the hotel for a final drink before calling it a night.
I woke up a little later on day 2, still tired but still pumped. The presentations continued to please but at lunch time the decision was made to skip the free, noisy lunch and just hit the food court in the mall attached to our hotel. The second half of the day began with a rousing Mario Kart tournament. I didn't participate, but I got a kick out of the mass of designers huddled around on their DS-Lites. That evening proved to me more fun as a handful of the attendees met up at a nearby restaurant for a final farewell of sorts along with another string of Flap n' Snaps.
The following morning, I got myself a more reasonably priced taxi but ended up with an absurdly long trip back home. I got progressively more and more sick as the day went on but it was bearable. However, by the time I reached home I felt like hell and it only got worse. Sad, but still worth it.
Some more photos of the event can be found here
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March 25, 2007
It figures that I neglected to double check the Trimet schedules until late last night. Apparently, on Sundays the buses don't start running until much later than normal. Although I could still make it to the airport on time, it would be cutting it close. At least everything was on time still even though it all started later. The trip to the airport was the usual uneventful MAX ride and I managed to get there with about an hour to spare.
It figures, my plane was delayed anyway. This is probably the only time where I've been happy to have a plane change along my trip. My plane to Chicago wasn't delayed enough to cause me to miss the second leg of my flight. I would still make it to Boston on schedule. If only I knew the terror that would assault me once in flight.
I don't think I've ever managed to fly [alone] and end up next to a truly desirable traveling partner. I suppose that's the same for most people. I don't mind it most of the time, but I was sure eating a hefty bowl of irony today. Behind me sat a trio of young brothers. Loud, obnoxious, and hyper. They literally did not shut up the entire flight. If one or two of them weren't making noise, the third one would be. Occasional kicks to my seat were very present as well. I prayed that they decide to watch the in-flight film quietly. To add to this situation, I had a baby sitting in front of me. Normally that wouldn't bother me, but as the flight began I started to sense the smell of feces enter my nostrils. Soon enough, the baby was crying (probably due to the soiled diaper) but the mother didn't ever attempt to do anything beyond hold the kid in an effort to calm him down. The smell kept at me off and on throughout the duration of the flight.
I attempted to concentrate on a book. I recently picked up The Mystery Guest and brought it along with me. I found engaging and humorous similarities between this non-fiction tale and my own feelings. It's a quick read, and I recommend it. It's translated from French but it's done very well. I didn't find myself caught on any strange cultural differences. Though the book was entertaining, it was still hard to concentrate with the three brats behind me. The baby's crying was somehow quieter and more bearable than these kids, and it's not like he could help it. I'd cry too if I shit my pants and couldn't change them. I groan as I hear the kids discuss such ignorant things as "Are there Jews in Spain?". "No, Spain is a Catholic country so there aren't any."
Kill me now.
Luckily, reading for extended periods of time makes me sleepy. I finished the book and tossed on some Isis to relax. I fell asleep soon enough and awoke to orders to stow away all electronic devices. Finally. As a final nail in the coffin, the brothers decide to try and all clap their hands the moment the plane touches down. Of course, this lead to multiple attempts as they jumped the gun a few times.
Get me off this plane.
When I finally get off, the delay has left me a matter of minutes to reach my other flight. I rushed quickly only to get knocked from behind by someone and I dropped my laptop. Fucking awesome. I didn't have time to worry about it now so I continued. I reached the gate moments before the boarding call was made. This leg of the flight turned out to be much more bearable except for the 20-30 minutes extra we spent on the runway before taking off and the guy next to me with a serious lack of deodorant. It certainly wasn't worse than the first leg.
Landed, finally. I head for the bathroom once I'm off the plane as I hadn't had time to do so in Chicago due to the delay. I'm also starving. Funny thing, they served pretzels on the second flight where purchasing a 5 dollar snack wasn't offered but neglected the same treatment on the previous flight. Whatever, I just wanted to get to the hotel. I find myself the most untalkative cabbie I've ever seen and give him my destination. He decides to arbitrarily punch in an extra 6+ dollars onto my fare. Awesome. I have just enough cash on me to cover my bloated fare and a shitty tip.
Once in the hotel I discovery they got my reservation wrong (set to check out a day earlier, during the second day of AEA) but they resolved it quickly. Once in my room I pulled out the MacBook Pro to discovery that, yes, it now has slight denting/warping. Nothing that hurts performance but it would've been nice to catch the face of whoever hit me so I had someone I could hate. Oh well, I went downstairs and got some food and now I'm back here.
Tomorrow promises to be a whole lot better.
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March 24, 2007
It's just a short amount of time before I hit the sack and scramble to the airport in the morning. I've got my wads of cash and socks full of quarters to ensure I have all the cab and bus fare I need in order to hit the other side of the country by 9pm eastern tomorrow. My camera is charged, my lame 32mb sd-card is empty, and I'm fully prepped to document my journey as best as possible. Hopefully pictures and more captain's logs will commence soon! Greg already promised me free booze and Ryan promised me a bagel as purchased by Greg, so now that this fact is published on the ever-powerful Internet the rest of you better step up to the plate and follow suit.
/sleep
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March 21, 2007
It's been known that Henry was making the move for a while, but now ESPN.com is finally promoting him and hosting his content. You can find Henry's new home here.
I remember building True Hoop long ago, in a land far away when Henry was first breaking into blogging, and he was one of the more pleasant clients to work with. Hopefully it won't be the last LexBlog client that gets launched to further success.
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March 16, 2007
Exhibit A: Layout as rendered in every standards-friendly browser in the neighborhood.
Exhibit B: Layout as rendered by Internet Explorer 6.x
Exhibit C: Styles for both of the visible boxes
#sidebar #search {
position: relative;
padding: 20px;
margin: 20px 0 0 0;
background: #dbd8cc url(/images/searchbg.gif) repeat-x;
}
#sidebar .subscribe {
margin: 20px 0 0 0;
padding: 20px;
background: #a6b0bb url(/images/subscribebg.gif) repeat-x;
position: relative;
}
Query: How the fuck does that happen?
Exhibit Giraffe: I decided to see what would happen if I remove that top padding. It looks to be about double the height it is in any other real browser. As a result, I foolishly assumed that removing all top padding would end up making the padding appear to be 20px in IE. Ha.
Code:
#sidebar #search {
position: relative;
padding: 0 20px 20px 20px;
margin: 20px 0 0 0;
background: #dbd8cc url(/images/searchbg.gif) repeat-x;
}
Evidence Locker 26: Ok, how about only 10px in the padding?
Normal browsers
IE renders as
Code:
#sidebar #search {
position: relative;
padding: 10px 20px 20px 20px;
margin: 20px 0 0 0;
background: #dbd8cc url(/images/searchbg.gif) repeat-x;
}
IE is rendering each pixel as 1 wide, 2 high. Isn't that wonderful? I wish people would stop using this fucking browser.
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March 12, 2007
Everyone knows about the constant series of filesharing fiascos brought on by music-hungry college kids and money-hungry major record labels. There's no need to discuss that whole situation any further than it's already been discussed. My goal is to talk about my opinions on one of the reasons the music industry's (specifically major labels/RIAA) business model is failing and how they could change their focus to possibly gain back some profits and respect.
A tall order, I'm aware, but just maybe I have a good idea in here somewhere. I'll start back with when I was a kid. I didn't grow up in a musical household like many musicians would say. My parents aren't musicians, and there wasn't all that much record playing going on even though my dad had a decent collection at the time. All my music knowledge came from television and radio. This ended up leading me to believe that no music was worth listening to unless it had the ability to get onto television and/or radio. The mass marketing campaigns of the industry continue just the same into today. It wasn't until later in high school when I realized just how brainwashed I had been. It was actually kind of funny to think about because almost all of the music I had listened to I really didn't enjoy much. I listened to it because I thought it was supposed to be good and I didn't have anything else. Combine that with being taught from an early age that unpopular music (once again, tv/radio) must not be good and I really wasn't able to enjoy music.
I still haven't reached my true point here, but I needed to give some backstory to help support my theory. I believe that if the industry focuses less on supremely expensive marketing campaigns that feed the notion that only popular music is good, they could end up with artists that are more talented, less expensive to support, and longer lasting. How often would you take a pop music artist seriously if they were playing in a dive bar? It's possible you could early in their career, but think about someone who hit it big then dropped down to obscurity again. Because of how the industry is built and run, they have no credibility anymore. Why? Because everyone is told if it isn't on tv/radio, it isn't good.
Labels spend millions upon millions of dollars to promote the ever-living hell out of their latest and greatest 'artists' (which many are artificially created based on physical appearance I'm sure) only to see the majority of them burn out into obscurity shortly after because they didn't hit it as big over a period of time as the labels wanted. What if, instead, the focus was more about funding production costs, managers, and tours? What if you did this with self-built artists and bands who already have the talent rather than taking some pretty faces and spending money to overproduce the fuck out of them? Take the approach of smaller, independant labels. The public that you're marketing to already will have to go somewhere for their music anyway, so you don't lose audience. You also gain audience from the sub-market of people who don't find popular music to be credible because they know it's just overhyped bullshit. Then there's the money saved from not having to buy so many radio and tv spots, not having to pay people to train your pretty faces to sing, not having to pay song writers to write songs for your pretty faces, and not having to pay Clear Channel out the ass for spins on the radio and spots on billboards. Take all of this, and combine it with the fact that your supported artist will also last a longer period of time because people won't stop listening to them just due to not being on the tv or radio anymore. Oh, and, people will actually buy your shit because there will be more than one listenable song on a record.
In conclusion, stop sucking, stop complaining, and put some goddamn integrity back into your business.
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