When you get a creative block, what do you do? I drive down to the gas station by the office and buy health food… namely, Little Debbie Frosted Donuts. So good. So good.

Today long lost friend Katie Brock sends me a one line email saying “what up yo?” and a link to here new website. One line emails make me smile most of the time… i’m not quite sure why.

Also, this month’s Yewknee special feature is up. I participated.

While the majority of the book, or any Elisabeth Elliot book, is ridiculously quotable… this particular quote from Passion and Purity stood out to me last night:

“I want to marry a man prepared to swim against the tide. I took it for granted that there must be a few men left in the world with that kind of strength. I assumed that those men would also be looking for women of principle. I did not want to be among the marked down goods on the bargain table, cheap because they’d been pawed over. Crowds collect there. It’s only the few who will pay the full price. You get what you pay for.”

Challenging all around, eh? I want a woman of principle, but I often wonder if a woman of principle wants a man like me. It’s difficult not to slip into the works-based attitude of “I must be like this in order for God to bring me a wife of noble character.” Most of the time I know that statement to be untrue. Most of the time. The rest of the time I think I think too much.

In completely unrelated news… tonight at the 220… Justin Timberlake: Live from London.

This new nav/menu bar thingy at the top… anybody messed with it much yet? After you find all you need to find on the blog you’re on, just start hitting the “next blog” button in the top right corner. Hours of mindless entertainment.

I’m curious if it just links to the next blog at random, or if, since Blogger is Google anyway, it’s intelligently linking to another blog with similar characteristics or posts or information. Now that would be interesting. Then again, I just played with the next blog feature for a bit and ended up on fansites for some Japanese Meneudo-esque band and Good Charlotte (could someone beat them to death with their own instruments?) so i’m guessing it’s just random. I’m hoping it’s just random.

I sent the Blogger Support folks an email at 7:31pm informing them of my issue with the new nav bar being in the wrong place. I received an email in response at 8:25pm with the fix for my problem. (Which was, by the way, not caused by anything on their end, but more so by a few misplaced lines of dodgey code on my part.) In other words… homeboy searched through a few hundreds lines of my not-so-pristine code to find the issue and then promptly responded.

Many thanks to Graham from Blogger Support. Sing Blogger’s praises. They’re seriously what’s for awesome.

More brand-new-you’re-retro gear… Panasonic’s Tube CD Receiver. Yep… in a car… a tube-driven receiver. If I had an extra grand laying around… and a vehicle… and they put this bad boy out with a silver finish instead of the champagne gold… and I was drunk… i’d probably buy one. Maybe. (Oh, and that site can’t spell, either.)

Hmm… it seems that despite my best efforts to break my contract with Blogger (by covering up their little Google ad banner with sneaky code all this time) they’ve struck again with… a very well designed, unintrusive menu bar? Good call, people. (And thanks for keeping my honest.)

Now I just have to figure out how to piece my code back together to put the menu bar in the right place. Meh… sleep is over-rated anyway.

So the next YCD@W redesign I was working on is apparently turning out to be the www.yourcreativitydollarsatwork.com initial design. It’s good to have goals… and getting that site up and running by Christmas is my newest one. It would end up being a bit scattered… which is most likely an accurate portrait of the author anyway… so far I forsee navigation for print work, websites, photography, music (finally), and the obligatory “about” page (which would end up containing the cheese “this is me” deal as well as most of the ever-changing pop-culture-ish information that’s found in the current sidebar here.) Oh, and then the journal of course… otherwise none of you would come to visit.

Making things work is fun.

I make no apologies for my love/hate relationship with the internet… its ability to be so shallow at times… its ablility to bring the amazing reality of other places right to me. There are so many things wrong with it, and there are so many things that are wonderful about it. Where am I going with this?

Lee from the afore-linked and much-lauded Lantern Waste Company has done a wonderful thing with October Wedding… especially with the best marriage proposal/story of all time. I kid you not, this is my favorite thing I have ever seen on the internet. Do yourself a favor and take twenty minutes or so to peek into why God is so GOOD.

This makes me happy.

I’ve been slowly working on yet another YCD@W redesign. It’s my favorite thus far, but the insane amount of work that’s been going on at New Spring has limited my time spent changing this site every time I want to. Perhaps this is a good thing?

I’m taking a week of vacation in October… either the first or second week. It will be nice. Suprisingly, unlike the last time I went on vacation, i’m not feeling stressed and so in need of vacation this time. Maybe because i’ve actually been taking my day off and resting? What a novel idea. It will be nice to get out of town for a bit and see some friends. Which is not to say that I don’t love and appreciate my friends here… lately there has been much in the way of consistent being around each other and it’s been wonderful. Quirks and all… I love my people.

All the technology in the world… and we get this? How very retro.

And I thought I was sexually frustrated. (Link shamelessly pilfered from Charlie, who says all that needs to be said about this topic and even manages to use the phrase “frothing about” while getting it done.)

The run-down goes something like this… Collateral rocked my face. Great acting, nice story, and typical Michael Mann pretty camera things… just a visual treat, which is saying alot considering he made Los Angeles look appealing. Go see it.

The Manchurian Candidate was a bit disappointing. (The opening credits and the CGI visuals on some of the campaign coverage were nice, however.) I suppose if you completely divorced it from the 1962 original, it might stand as a decent, suspenseful film… but it’s a remake… of one of my favorite films. So I was biased walking in… and disappointed walking out… admittedly, mainly because of the change to the original ending. I’m not one for spoilers, but suffice to say that I think the new ending is a bit too nice and PC and just… doesn’t… fit. This also marks the last Denzel movie that i’ll ever see on purpose. Somewhere in the mid-nineties, he stopped playing engaging characters and just started playing Denzel… in every movie.

I never got around to The Bourne Supremacy yesterday for fear that it too would suck. Another day perhaps.

Karl and LB came over and cooked dinner last night. They also did yoga poses on the floor, which was hysterical. Good times with good friends. Tonight… I will do my best to procure companions to the greatness that will be Alien Vs. Predator.

Tonight… i’m up for Collateral. 7:00 or 7:30. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Thursday… day off matinees of The Manchurian Candidate and The Bourne Supremacy.

Friday night… Alien Vs. Predator. You know you want to go. Stop kidding yourself.

I’m waiting for something to happen. Mcd and I were chatting about it at lunch. I’m always waiting for something to happen. When something actually does happen (which it always does) then I start waiting for something else to happen.

I’m so restless it makes me sick sometimes. I often wonder if i’m always going to be like this. It’s not so much of a huge deal as a 25 year old single guy… but what happens when i’m married? I can envision argument after argument that end with her going, “Are you ever going to be content?” I don’t want that to happen. I really don’t want that to happen.

In other, completely unrelated news, i’m becoming more and more fixated on Bill Simmons‘ writing at espn.com. I don’t even really like sports… i’m not a sports-hater by any means… but sports aren’t so much “my thing.” But Simmons writing is so dang funny and well thought out that’s it impossible for me not to read every word and laugh out loud while doing it. He’s the Jim Rome of the web.

Someone explain to me how I can get 8+ hours of sleep a night on a consistent basis, wake up and go to bed at the same time, and still be tired when I get up. I don’t get it, and it’s starting to get very annoying.

1. I don’t like power ballads. I think they insult my intelligence.
2. I do like Linkin Park, even if the white guy’s voice is annoying.
3. Humidity is evil.
4. All little boys should double knot their shoelaces.
5. I need a vacation.
6. Desiring God redesigned their logo and it rocks.
7. We’re getting involved with helping out Passion 05. I’m excited.
8. This week, we’ll get in a print run of 5500 8″x10.5″ glossy brochures for the captial funds campaign that starts on Sunday. That’s the largest print run of anything i’m proud of that i’ve ever done. I still don’t feel like a “professional designer.” Strange.

Meetings, meetings, meetings… the conference room is my mortal enemy. Ok… maybe it’s not that dramatic. Nonetheless, while i’m in meeting mode, ponder this… the world is sometimes upside down. For example, one of the comments a few days ago was from a great gent named Lee Gilmore, who has a lovely little site called The Lantern Waste Company… which I dig massively and have enjoyed for awhile now. Only he’s commenting to say he likes this site. What? The world is upside down. I’m supposed to be your fan, Gilmore. Something has gone horribly wrong.

Go see Lee… he takes amazing pictures.

Faithful YourCreativityDollarsAtWork readers, I present to you the Public Goatee Humilation winners and other participants. A round of applause for all who taped or rubberband-ed or otherwise affixed paper goats to their grills and took photographs for the good (and laughter) of the community. Your sacrifices do not go unnoticed.

Happy Monday.

Ok… i’m a big liar… but I seem to have run out of day. This normally wouldn’t be an issue, but i’m bumming rides from LB since the Trooper died a loud death this week… and when she’s ready to leave the office, it means i’m ready to leave the office.

Monday… Monday… it’s worth the wait I promise. Would I lie to you?

Scratch that… but it is worth the wait.

My design work to-do lists today? Decimated. An awesome day of work.