Monocle Lad

Shamelessly stolen from slashdot cause whatever.  Personally I think that the video highlights pretty well how stupid and annoying the more and more agressive attempts to get people to switch browsers are.  I know when I see them I get annoyed because 1. ie7 and 8 always work well on the sites that try to ban them (granted there going after 6 in a ham fisted way but still makes me angry) And also because I CAN”T USE ANOTHER BROWSER AT WORK. therefore your advice = fail and actively worse then fail because now I’m frustrated at you(great customer experience guys, for serious).  and people who could use other browsers don’t even know what you are talking about and only use software that they have at work cause thats what IT gives them and those guys know about computers. :/

I guess that’s all I got to say, venting complete.

So on a whim after watching one of the newer “there’s an app for that” iPhone commercials.  In it there was an app that let you create outfits by clicking through different clothes which seemed pretty cool, so I found the free version of that and the free version of just about any fashion related app I could get.  I wanted something to help me come up with cool looks for all my characters, plus ways to generate lots of background characters.  None that I found worked particularly well for that, as most of them were pretty shit even for what there designed for, to help people find out about cool fashion stuff and buy clothes.

One app, which i sorta accidentally purchased, was pretty interesting.  It was a virtual closet app.  So you would take pictures of your clothes, and then you could use this app to manage all your outfits and stuff.  Its a pretty nifty idea and because I’ve started to begin taking a little bit of effort into my wardrobe potentially useful.

But it gave me more interesting ideas for a website me and nikki have kept threatening to each other to build.  This journal is mostly just written to put a stake in the ground, so we can start working on its design in a slightly  more productive way.  What we want to build is an internet fashion site that doesn’t suck.  Some how fashion sites are the place that the internet has forgotten.  They are ugly, impossible to navigate or set back in web design sense at least 8 years.  which is weird for a category of site that should care most about the way they look, right?

What I would like to do for a fashion site is to rethink the idea of a fashion site online.  I would like to start with a really in-depth look into the history of fashion, and compare the fashion styles to what was going on at the time to drive people to dress like that.  Stuff like this: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/32657 .  From there I’d like to get virtual closet concepts added in, where people could share there outfits and style sense. the obvious way to monetize would be to get affiliate links with all the clothing manufacturers and then inventive people to make outfits and then sell them.  The one thing I know the site WON’T be is a gossip site, or talk about runway models and stuff. that stuff is kinda boring, and there is enough people covering that, and that way lies madness.  I don’t want to end up with a myopic veiw of the world where I view everything through the lens of clothes.

So you probably noticed I didn’t update last week, which would normally mean I lost me and Nikki’s little contest, but I used the “I am moving and have no internet” exception. So I’m still in the running, but now I’m out of the habit, and posting a new update has been an uphill battle.  So because its saturday and midnight is the deadline I guess I’ll go with the only thing I can think of to write about.  which is why I need this deadline I suppose because this is as good a post as anything, really.

So I guess the easy part would be to transform the comment I never left at Nikki’s blog and turn it into part of this. Her blog was about what she wants to do with her life, you know simple easy stuff.  But I’m sure everyone thinks about that stuff, and people who have stopped thinking about it are boring and not worth talking about. or even to, anyways.  She wants to be an eternal student, but not a starving artist, I think I would like just the opposite personally.

The life of an artist is something I’ve always wanted, but never given myself real permission to do.  Its always felt like thats the easy way out. But I’m still not sure what else I would WANT to do with my life.  Meanwhile no matter how hard I try I can’t get away from comics. Perhaps, its time to admit that it is my true passion. I can be a successful comic artist, and what I’m scared of is the amount of ego it takes to say that with confidence.  Sure most comic artists online never make a profit, but thats because, even discounting people not trying to be great, everyone else really freakin sucks.  And I won’t be so self deprecating to say believe that those idiots are on an equal footing as me.

Maybe I’m wrong though and I’ll end up starving to death for my art, wouldn’t that suck. But I don’t think I will.  I guess this means I have to start prepping to do 5 comics a week in addition to any weird random side comics I’d like to do.  But I’ve been working a little towards that this week and I am beginning to think that doing 5 comics a week may be paradoxically easier then 3 somehow.  at the very least not updating 5 times a week is as easy as not updating 3 times a week.

I am growing more confident in this decision every time I think about it.  I know I can be professional, because I know how I want to be treated as the reader.  I’ve also been listening to web comic creators talk having found a few more web comic related podcasts, and I’ve realized that people with no confidence in there own work are boring to listen to. so theres no point in falling over yourself to be humble.  It actually comes off as a little insulting, to people who are listening so theres no point in it.  I really enjoy my comics, and would probably enjoy reading them if I wasn’t the artist. I don’t think theres any reason to be ashamed of that is there?

I also got other plans some involving this blog related to this.  I might put some piccys up of the apartment tomorrow if I can get a set of batteries that work.

I think this blog is gonna be one of my more tech centered themes then one about writting but I think I’ll wrap back to the topics of writing towards the end if only because I’ve been listening to brad and scott debate about the concept of writters block, and I’ve got some comment. I can probably link these two ideas somehow, using the power of akward transitions!

Theres been a lot of buzz on the internet recently about a growing trend that I, as an anti-social hermit, really am happy to see. Theres a growing trend of at least amoung the super web savy, about stoping this crazy out of control love for social networking, and pulling things back home where you can own it.  The idea being that participation in these things is great, but at the end of the day, why should strangers control your online identity. STRANGER DANGER!  Mostly this has been kicked off by that massive DDOS attack on a bunch of social networking sites after ONE GUY pissed someone off. Personally I never wanted to give up that control but, everyone else already had and I want to participate in the online society so I did what I had to. But now I can start hoarding all my data again and be seen as cool.  thats what we in the conflict management business call a win/win (win, because the negotiator also wins). ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

This is going to be a continuation of the discussion I’ve been having with Nikki over at her blog.  Its a conversation that I personally really enjoy having. The horrid way women have been written for in pop culture is something thats always kinda bugged me.  I always thought they weren’t even trying to write them well.  But the rise of webcomics show that they could have been much worse.

c’mon really guys? I mean I understand that we as nerds tend not to have much experience talking to women, but still, how could you think that was an acceptable potrayal of women?  Here’s a hint if you can have a suprise twist in the plot by making your character not hate the thing everyone else in the comic is into, then you have a sucky character. thats just regardless of gender.  people in real life are friends because they get along. That seems to be a step people forget when creating characters… Giving the characters any reason to hang around each other, other then there is some mysterious force outside the bounds of there universe compelling them to do so.

Which is why I’ve more and more been grudgingly accepting that I am in fact a “writer” as much as I already consider myself an artist.  I’m a pretty terrible writer, but being terrible never stopped me from calling myself artistic. so I’m a writer in the sense that I aspire to be a better writter.  Some guys gotta prove that writting a mixed gender cast isn’t some impossible dream right?  One time someone had told me that my character of Navi was a believable lady, and that really stuck with me and bugged me. I love navi but “she” is an insane robot, who was completely smitten with a 2-3 year old girl.  Navi’s percieved love for things were merely mirroring Missa’s intrests. I can do better then that, and thus I should.

I’ve been reading a series of books by Tamora peirce I’ve got through the first one and enjoyed it quite a bit. well except one teeny bit where Alanna got her first period, which weirded me out a bit. a fact that nikki enjoyed immensly.  But any small insights into the other sex is useful to help me write more realistic characters.  I mean I already know that the first big secret is that men and women aren’t as different as people make out. A lot of the differences are just very minor and subtle and thats what makes figuring them out fun.

I have  a lot more to say about this topic, but I gotta figure out how to get it organized better in my head.  I’m posting this bit now ’cause otherwise nikki would win our contest and I suspect that would be the end of both our blogs.  at the very least it would be the end of mine XD