With the redesign, I slightly updated the look and feel of the Information and Dotcomrades pages. Be sure to check out Dotcomrades… the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd best websites ever are included in that list (and are so-named.) Also, any of you who are looking at at this site in Internet Explorer on a PC (66% of you the last time I looked) should revel in the fact that I did something just for you. The pretty, color-coordinated scroll bar on the right of this paragraph? That’s all you… the one thing in the history of the world that IE does that’s actually cool. (Albeit not standards compliant… of course.) Take pleasure in your uniqueness of scroll bar and hold it over the heads of those pesky Firefox and Safari users.

Then go download Firefox, join the rest of the happy people worldwide who are singing its praises, and wave a fond farewell to the pretty scroll bar. (And hello to a browser that… gasp!… actually works and makes your life easier. A fair trade.)

I have a present for you. At some point a while back, I linked a video of our former IT Assistant Jeff giving an unrehearsed one minute speech/rant on punctuality. I found the video again today and decided to use my lunch break and a bit of new code I picked up to give Jeff his own site. Ladies and gents, YourCreativityDollarsAtWork™ is proud to present:

The Importance of Punctuality.

I would be really happy if this spread wildly across the internet today. Go forth and share.

Doesn’t everyone want a $69,000 grilled cheese?

What’s the word? Ah yes… redesign.

Hmm. Tonight there is a lovely one-two-piano-punch of a show… a scant 30 minutes from where I sit (Vienna Teng opening for one of my favorite songwriters, Mr. Marc Cohn) and yet I find myself not only not moving, but fairly content sitting at my desk trading emails with a freelance coder and trying to fix a few last minute details before the ensuing relaunch of the New Spring site. Gosh… am I getting old?

In the meantime, since I have spent much of the last two weeks buried in web browser windows, I have a few fun links for you. At some point recently… car commercials became ridiculously cool. Granted… it’s stupid marketing if it doesn’t sell the car… but still mildly enjoyable.

In the wrath and wake of Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me (and various legal troubles) it’s been funny to watch fast food restaurants try to convince the world that they serve healthy food. Apparently… Hardee’s isn’t jumping on that bandwagon. And they’re certainly not being coy about it either with the release of their new 1,420 calorie-containing, 107 grams of fat-having Monster Thickburger. And no… I didn’t just make up those numbers for dramatic effect. (Um… yeah… can I get the Coronary Combo?) You sort of have to admire their “we don’t care what you say” attitude. Sort of. Of course, if i’m getting a $6 burger… there’s no way it’s ever going to be from a fast food joint. (And on the subject of Hardee’s, why has no marketing genius in their corporate office ever figured out that they should just serve breakfast all day long? It’s the only thing they’ve ever done well.)

Moving on, have fun playing around on the new Homeostatic site, check out the super-classy work of Houtson-based dynamic duo Otterball (who are currently working on Tara‘s long, long, long overdue redesign), and buy me this book for Christmas.

The soon-to-be-full-fledged web nerd in me is happy to announce that Chris Lea and Mike Buzzard are doing a one day intensive workshop called How to Build a Professional Database-Driven Website. Unfortunately… it is in London. And I am not.

Best email ever.

Shameless self-promotion… i’m selling my 1910 Gibson F2 mandolin on ebay right now. You know you want it.

Happy bidding.

Moving graffiti? You have to respect the creative mind who came up with this.

As an avowed Apple-user, even I have to admit that it’s pretty.

In other news… this is not pretty, but is most likely destined to be an internet classic. You know… for about two weeks or so.

I’m learning Flash today. Yep… the whole program.

Only completely not.

I got links like Jimmy Dean. (What?)

You should know how to use Google more effectively. You should look at some freaking awesome kids clothing. You should read every Deep Thought by Jack Handy, conveniently compiled here. And you should watch this video… a fascinating (at least for a typography nerd like me) look at what goes on in a small letterpress business. I’m captivated. Really.

The best video graphics I have ever seen.

A few random Veterans’ Day musings. I talked on the phone with my friend Hope for an hour and half last night. I hate talking on the phone… but it was nice to catch up on the last few months of each other’s lives. I watched the new Dawn of the Dead last night. What a great little zombie movie. I built the first fire of the season last night… having a fireplace and being able to chop wood in your back yard are two of the greatest things in life. Jeremy has some swank 20″x20″ photography prints for sale on his personal site. For the designer-types among you, the recent Billy Harvey site has some unique navigation and content (and a bit of not work-safe under the breath muttering from time to time) via the amazing kids at SoFake… which is actually one amazing kid who makes up half of WeFail. Also, as always, but this time in new form, Chuck Anderson continues to be better than you (or me.)

Um… so Shane and Shane last night? What the crap? So good. By far the best band they’ve toured with (Robbie Seay Band‘s Taylor Johnson… bearer of amazing Tele tone and great, complimentary guitar fill-ery and Chris Tomlin‘s former drummer Joey Parish. He hits real hard.)

It was a pleasant suprise to see Mat Kearney opening up. I admit to digging his album a lot more than his live show… but he needs a band to pull it off well live. Which is not to say he wasn’t good. Great voice. Sort of a sightly Oregon ghetto Chris Martin… who raps. What?

Exactly.

I love how Jeremy Cowart (aka Pixelgrazer) tries to play off today’s swanky redesign of his personal site as no big deal… but there’s a wealth of good stuff on there, especially the stock photography section. Love that guy…

LB and I watched a bit of Shrek 2 with Karl at the hospital last night. (We are a ball of social fun.) Tonight, Shane and Shane are in Spartanburg… that will be a nice change of pace. Hopefully we’ll get the pleasure of Will Hunt playing drums with them again.

And now… a long meeting. But a creative one.

As if all of the wedding photography on Lantern Waste Company wasn’t enough… there’s a teaser of their wedding video online now… and wow. A bit of a hefty download, but worth the wait.

Now i’m all teary in my office. Dangit.

I’ve been drooling over the new Print Magazine annual design review lately. There’s some truly fabulous work in there… but it’s odd to see probably 50% of the winning entires are gig posters. Small firms like The Heads of State have 20+ representations of their work this year. It makes me wonder if A.) the best in creative, compelling graphic design in this country really is coming from mainly small firms who work for clients that give them little feedback in terms of what they’re looking for and more so allow the designers to run amuck trusting that they’ll produce great work or B.) this is a false respresentation of the design world in America. After all, design reviews like this one are driven by submissions from the designers. What does a small firm have to lose, other than $30 an entry? I think the possible return on investment for a small firm who does good work is huge. That being said… I think i’m submitting some stuff for next year.

Also, it was great to see the wonderful Pixelgrazer logo included in the annual design review. Jeremy was wise enough to hire someone else to do it… and he got one heck of a great logo.

There are those of you who are regular readers and those of you who are regular comment-ers. For the second group, just to keep you “in the know” Karl (aka Karla) had surgery this morning to fix what turned out to be a ruptured appendix that she’s unknowingly had for the better part of a week and a half. She’s doing fine and in great spirits. Prayers for a quick recovery and no infection would be helpful and appreciated.

In other news, in between hospital visits today I saw The Incredibles. What an awesome little movie. Very entertaining, well-written, and just plain well-done. There was a great write-up on the film in Entertainment Weekly this week which had some interesting insights into director Brad Bird’s views.

“Animation is a strange medium in that people make assumptions about [something] simply because it’s in that medium. We shook a lot of people up with The Simpsons… but… there was a little show called Rocky and Bullwinkle that predated The Simpsons by a couple of decades. And a lot of those writers went on to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I think people have forgotten that [Bugs Bunny cartoons] were made for people who were about to see the latest Humphrey Bogart film. They weren’t made for kids. Animation is not a genre, it’s a medium. And it can express any genre. I think people often sell it short. But ‘because it’s animated, it must be for kids.’ You can’t name another medium where people do that.”

Tonight… the funny. Brian Regan in Atlanta.

I will laugh until I have a headache. And it will be glorious.