Chuck has something marinating. It looks promising. It’s called GODLIKE.

Bring it. Bring on the lithographs. Bring it boy-wonder.

Ooooooh… Nikelab gets a Lilliputian-esque update.

This afternoon was filled with meetings. One of which was a long sit-down with my supervisor to discuss impending deadlines. This was a good thing… up until this point in my job, i’ve had lots of creative freedom (thumbs up, not changing any time soon) but i’ve also had lots of deadline freedom too. The latter is not a good thing because i’m a procrastinator at heart and generally anything I deem to be “grunt work” gets pushed to the bottom of the pile and lingers there in obscurity. So… good meeting, I think i’ll like our new system.

What I didn’t realize was how much work I actually produce. I suppose that when you’re in it everyday, having an objective point of view is difficult. I fully admit to not knowing what life is like in the “real design world.” But wow… nice to look at a very long to-do list and realize that you’re earning your keep.

I love the weekend. I would date the weekend if it wasn’t an inanimate declaration of a specific amount of time. I spent most of the beloved weekend reading and sleeping and napping. (Punctuated by my landlord deciding that this would be the PERFECT weekend to start scraping all the trim outside so he can repaint. I enjoy waking up to that outside my bedroom window… three feet from where my sleepyhead was nestled… RRRRRkah, RRRRRkah, RRRRRkah, RRRRRkah. Truly soothing… like hedgehogs in heat have set up a local bar right outside your house.)

Mcd and Candice rescued me from the torment with dinner and a movie on Saturday. We saw In Good Company… a worthwhile way to spend $7. Thank you for your kindness, my friends.

It had to happen sooner or later… A Blog About Blogs.

From my friend Blaine, file this one under it’s funny because it’s true. “We’re all about love and freedom here… I know it’s hard to get used to.”

Rigid adherence to rejecting tradition is the new legalism.

I cut my hair last night. No, really… that’s the most exciting thing that’s happened recently. Tonight we play poker at Karl’s house. Don’t worry… it’s not that kind of poker. We’re good little church kids. You know… that gamble.

With chips. They’re just chips. STOP JUDGING ME.

Elsewhere, the BBC tells you 100 Things [You] Didn’t Know This Time Last Year. And don’t act like you did, because we all know you didn’t, you liar. (OK, I admit it… I knew a few of them… but i’m full of completely useless trival facts.)

The Corner Bagel Shop’s bacon, egg, and cheese bagel is ruling me right now. So delectable, so tasty, so bad for me. I think I designed my business cards yesterday. Not as in “i’m not sure if I remember designing business cards” but more so “I definitely designed business cards and I think I might actually get them made.” Designing your own business cards is some sort of odd, difficult task for designers. I suppose we feel like we’re required to pack every bit of our talent into a 3.5″ x 2.5″ 3.5″ x 2″ piece of cardstock. But seriously… not happening. We make life harder on ourselves than we need to.

Besides… i’m design-restless… i’ll get different ones made in a few weeks, right?

Blah, blah, blah, inexplicable lack of sleep, blah, blah, blah, everything feels like it’s in slow motion, blah, blah, i’m getting tired of this, blah, blee.

I’ve spent the better part of this evening researching lenses for the Canon Mark II that I want. And i’ve come to a realization… all of you apparently have NO DESIRE TO SELL LENSES TO UNINFORMED CUSTOMERS. Seriously, i’m basically a novice photographer wanting to improve my skills and upgrade to a much better camera with interchangeable lenses… and none of you seem to want to give me any information that actually helps me. That’s fine… lose customers because you won’t make information that you already have readily available to the people that actually need it.No love,Joshua

Apple is about to take over the world. A $499 Mac and a $99 iPod. Craziness.

Mcd and Candice the (soon-to-be formerly) Whitley are engaged to be wed.

And all the world is right.

Anything resembling a proper schedule has been absent this week. This culminated with staying up until around 6:30am last night (…this morning? How do you say that?) and then sleeping in until noon. In between all that madness, I managed to watch Angels in America… which was remarkably unremarkable. It won how many Emmy’s? Are you kidding me? Pacino gets an Emmy for… playing Pacino. Again. Only this time there’s a twist… he’s dying. (Oh, wait… Scent of a Woman… never mind.) There was some interesting dialogue along the way… but essentially a waste of six perfectly good hours of my life.

No worries… it was a restful day off filled with Cinnamon Life and a roaring fire and my couch. And 23 emails waiting for me when I looked. (Which is a lot for me… back off, i’m not that popular.)

New work to show off soon. Promises, promises.

The Return of Nutrigrain Ad.

My name is Joshua, I am a heterosexual, and I cannot stop listening to Justin Timberlake today. Nothing to see here. Just move along.

Faithful YourCreativityDollarsAtWork readers, today is your last day to vote for The 2005 Bloggies and help YCD@W win Best New Blog. Voting ends at 10:00pm. Help a brother out.

In case you needed other suggestions, I personally nominated Justwatchthesky for Best Designed Blog, Absenter for Best Photography, and Nixlog for Blog of the Year. (I mean… seriously… what a great concept he’s got going on. I wish I had thought of that.)

Here’s a Chemical Brothers video with some pretty amazing editing work… and huge boomboxes. Or here’s a truly bizarre video of a lip syncer.

You can pre-order The ZEN of CSS Design: Visual Beauty for the Web right now… a collection of the entries on CSS Zen Garden. If you like your education a bit less tech-nerd, did you know you can download the lecture notes/study guides for most of MIT’s classes? Their OpenCourseWare site let’s you get knowledge for free. And I don’t need an MIT degree to know that free is better than $42,700 a year. I’m currently sifting through Law for the Entrepreneur and Manager. Good stuff.

Ion057 has some tasty photography, although I can’t say I really dig the navigation… people, STOP MAKING IT HARD FOR ME TO SEE YOUR WORK.

As I was preparing to finally have a “real website” I began shopping around for hosting companies. It seems like about 97.562% of the design world uses Media Temple, and I talked with them… nice guys, decent prices, recommendations from a who’s who list of great designers, etc. However, when it came time to break out the plastic and purchase hosting, I didn’t jump on the Media Temple bandwagon. Why?Instant Messenger.Now what could IM and buying web hosting have to do with one another? Nothing, really… except for a Texas company called eleven2. You see, I ran across eleven2 for the first time when the Shanes launched a redesign. But I look at hundreds of websites a day, so to be completely honest, I probably didn’t pay much attention to the fact that eleven2 was hosting their site. (After all, I had Media Temple blinders on like most of the design world.)Nonetheless, I bookmarked their site… not because they were a competitively priced hosting provider, but because their site was extremely well-designed. (Little Thing #1) When I returned to the site later on I noticed the most unusual of features… at the very top of their contact information, before their phone number or their email, was an IM icon and the address for eleven2support. (Little Thing #2)I just signed on for a one year contract with a hosting provider because i’ve been able to have IM chats directly with the Systems Administrator Rodney Giles. I was able to ask all my questions and run some options by him in a few minutes and make a very informed decision to become an eleven2 client… all because of IM.Could I have gotten the same info and customer service from Media Temple or any other good hosting provider? Of course I could… that’s why they’re still in business. But that’s not the point. The point is that eleven2 got my attention with great design and then made it easier than anyone else to get in touch with them, get answers to my questions, and feel like I was informed by someone within the company who knew what they were talking about. I’m a web head… I spend all day online. As a company that basically exists to service people like me, it makes sense to have a great-looking site and let me contact that company in the way that i’m accustomed to. Having to pickup the phone just lost Media Temple a customer… having a FREE INSTANT MESSENGER ADDRESS just won eleven2 a customer.And that’s how little things can have a big impact. What changes can you make today to change the way the world sees you? And no, i’m not just talking about business here.

I updated the HRTWRK splash page again. I think that might be the final identity… I think. Whatever the case, it’s updated and I finished all the actual www.hrtwrk.com layouts today. Now for the fun part… coding and such. I’m getting some help on the content management system, so y’all are in for a treat when the site launches on 02.15.05.

A squirrel, a penguin, pigs, Dueling Banjos, Burt Reynolds in a canoe, Bo and Luke Duke, and some KKK KFC… faithful readers, I offer up The Duel for your viewing pleasure.

For all the locals, i’m playing a short set tonight at Anderson College opening for Chris Brown and the Borderline Levi boys. It’s a students thing, but i’m sure you could snag a seat in the Merritt balcony. It starts at 9:00.