Red Monkey

June 18, 2009

Blerg

I hate being sick.

I thought I could bull through it, forced myself to go to work. Thought it would be ok. Lasted about 45 minutes and then about ralfed. I know, TMI, TMI.

Hopefully this will be over with soon (I've mostly felt better this evening) and I can finally snap the pic I need to get the next post published.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:28 PM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble

June 7, 2009

By The Numbers

I originally started this blog after my teaching gig ended. I had an idea at the time that I would expose the mess that is our education "system" here in the U.S. (One problem, of course, being that there is no unified system - just as with our health care "system.") I quickly realized that I was too hurt and too close to the problems to write effectively about it.

So I did what I always do, wrote about whatever popped into my head. Seemed like my writing garnered some attention for a little while and I was accepted into 9Rules. At first Red Monkey blog was categorized as a personal blog, later it was categorized as commentary. The truth is it's a schizophrenic blend of personal, commentary and design. The blog changed as I did, which I think is how it should be.

Recent blog statistics:
Of the last 500 visitors, 87% left in under 5 seconds.
5% stayed 5-30 seconds.
5% stayed 30 seconds to 5 minutes.
About 3% stayed longer than 5 minutes.

The pages most frequently loaded and viewed are archive pages - "people say I have adhd but I think - hey look a chicken" is the most popular, followed by a Heinlein quote which is another category title: "never underestimate the power of human stupidity." A third category is also quite popular, apparently from people searching for pr0n based on the search terms that get him here: "storytelling - she was of course supposed to be sleeping." The search terms used are ... well ... *shudder*

Most frequently viewed articles include my disgust at Nerf for making a "toy" sniper rifle as well as my modification of a Nerf gun into a steampunk version. The other two articles that get much attention is a reposting of Jeremy Lavine's goofy "essays" and my frustration with AT&T.

I used to get around 500 hits per day ... I am now down to 50 - 100 hits per day and the bulk of those hits are coming from Google image searches.

I have enjoyed the interactions I've had and I have really loved the friendships I've made online. That alone makes me loathe to shut this down. But the truth of the matter is I'm not the best about reciprocation. I do read other blogs, but not very often and not nearly consistently enough. I rarely comment because, to be honest, most blogs I read get tons of comments already and I generally feel like I have nothing to add to the conversation that hasn't already been said. Of course, this means I break the prime rule of blogging - if you want comments, you need to comment. Blogging is about relationships and interaction.

Which leaves me wondering why I keep the blog open.

Great reduction in hits, next to no comments ... and my own inconsistency in posting. On the other hand, I got a comment while I was writing this post and thinking about the future of this blog. And, I have, according to the Feedburner chiclet anyway, more readers now than ever before.

I wonder now if I should have joined BlogHer when they first contacted me as that certainly seems to be where most bloggers I know online are at - and the network certainly seems to be really good. At the time I did not join because I wasn't sure my blog in all of its vastly wild topics was really a fit for something called BlogHer. I'm still not sure about that answer, although the fact that I follow a bunch of BlogHer folk over on Twitter certainly indicates I was/am probably wrong about this blog fitting into BlogHer.

So I'm asking my readers:
1) Do you want this blog to continue?
2) What kinds of posts do you want to continue to see?
3) What posting time frame works? Three times a week? more?
4) What is your opinion of the BlogHer network?

Your answers, either in the comments or via the contact link at the top of the page, will help me decide what I'm going to do next with Red Monkey. Regardless of what happens, thank you for hanging around. I do appreciate it.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:11 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | Stumble

May 16, 2009

Four Years Earlier ...

Here's the blog anniversary post for your enjoyment ... Jodi asked a few days? weeks? ago, why the red monkey ... here's the answer. Oh ... and the red monkey graphic? That's not the red monkey that I talk about here ... that's a vector graphic I drew for this blog ... based on one of my other passions: Fisher Price Little People. So now you know.

I love antique stores and junk stores. I have this thing for toys, particularly old toys. I'm fascinated by everything from the packaging and advertising to the toys themselves. The problem is a lot of those so-called antique stores - at least the ones that also sell old toys - are really antique store and collectibles store combos. So I'll see a booth full of Nascar stuff next to one with clothes from the 20s and 30s. Not a big deal, really, it's usually all interesting stuff - if it wasn't for the crazy prices some of the collectibles folks tend to charge.

Anyhow, this is about 1999 or 2000 and I'm walking through a pretty cool antique store when I round the corner to the biggest flippin' display of Ty Beanie Babies I've ever seen. And despite their frenzied, must-have popularity, some of these little guys are really cute and clever. I already had a handful of the things, ones I thought were really cool or cute. I have the otter, the Ireland bear and a few others. (Why haven't they made a dolphin yet??) I also have the first monkey they made, cuz I've always really liked monkeys.

So, in this display case they have this really cool new Beanie Baby I haven't seen yet, a little red monkey with a cute tan face and a little fluff of hair on top of his head. I have to have him. DId I mention that some of these collectible places think they can charge 4-5 times the retail prices on a toy that's just come out? Not a toy that's been out and then discontinued, excuse me, "retired." A toy that is currently being mass produced but just barely started hitting the shelves - those toys are worth the retail price. Not "scalper" prices.

So this scalper booth wants $20 or $25 for a $5 stuffed animal. I stomped past, growling and grousing about opportunistic scalpers and this kind of artificial supply and demand being among the worst of human impulses. I do not "have to have" something like a little stuffed animal so badly that I will pay 5x its actual worth. I would pay $1 or $2 more to have it now - I can be that shallow and that careless about my spending money from time to time. But this, this is not capitalism - it's stupidity. Stupidity on the part of the seller and on the part of anyone who gives in and buys the overpriced goods.

Yeah, my friends are tired of that rant, too.

So, later that night, my friends and I are sitting in the living room watching a movie. It's a pseudo-SF movie called Strange Days. It's an awesome movie set just a touch in the future when people don't just watch reality tv, they experience it through virtual programs on the computer.

Well, I'd seen the movie before and it was fast becoming one of my favorites, but I was a little restless and bored that night. So everyone's really really into the movie, the tension's building and I'm kinda looking around the room. I see my little beanie-baby monkey on the bookshelf.

"I really want that red monkey," I say aloud.

The whole room turns to stare at me in shock. "What?"

The movie had to be paused and rewound a bit. Evidently it was a really intense point in the flick.

"What?" I ask, all wounded innocence and surprised at their reaction.

"Where did that come from?" they reply.

"I was just looking around the room and saw my little monkey and that reminded me of the beanie baby we saw in that store today - " there's much eye-rolling at this pronouncement "-and I just realized that I really want that little monkey."

"We're in this intense part of the movie and you're talking about a stuffed monkey?"

Somehow, my explanation did not help my case at all. "I've seen the movie before" I point out helpfully.

"I repeat, we're in this tense and intense part of the movie and you are thinking about a toy monkey?" The room is staring at me now. Finally someone grabs the remote and flips the movie back to play, muttering, "You are so ADD."

You've maybe seen the t-shirt that says "They say I have ADD, but I don't think ...Hey look! A chicken!" Well, my chicken is a red monkey.

Interestingly enough, a year or so later I was diagnosed as ADHD.

Now, I have a McD's teenie beanie version atop my monitor at work and the regular-sized one in the home office.

So, that's the story of the red monkey.

And now you know lots of important tidbits about me.

So now you know.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:07 PM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

May 13, 2009

Nothing to Do

Things still to do ...

• work on advanced features and clean up for sherryk.com
• work on the header for a super-secret awesome blog concept (which was not my idea, but wish that it both had been and that I had time to help admin it)
• take a logo design pencil sketch or two for the Hugo Award and do them up in Illustrator - preferably before the deadline
• build the new entertainment center
• take everything out of old entertainment center, strew it all across futon & living room
• remove old entertainment center
• finish ripping out living room carpet which has been under entertainment center for 5 years
• pull up carpet tacking along wall behind old entertainment center
• put everything on new entertainment center - find new homes for many things
• find a new place to put Twofish, Bluefish, my betta
• hold the traditional sea burial for Flash, the red betta, who I'm pretty certain is now dead and will certainly be dead by the time I get home tonight
• find a dentist & get tooth fixed
• find a new family doctor
• create wedding invitations for my cousin
• create 2 twitter avatars for friends
• get stamps
• tutor refugee kid
• redesign Red Monkey - as per sketch I did umm, ages ago
• redesign CoyoteThunder.com homepage
• oh hell, redesign every fricking section of CoyoteThunder
• draw Grandma a get well card ... then a birthday card
• finish the choir tracks
• design the CD

And somewhere in there I should probably get some sleep. And write meaningful blog posts. And ... oh hell, time to go to work now ....

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:42 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

April 30, 2009

Poseidon and the Bitter Bug

The first song I heard by Indigo Girls was, like most folks my age, "Closer to Fine." And I have to say, I really, really liked it. It was infectious, it was fun ... and unlike a lot of "pop" music, it asked you to think a bit, too. While the music, the beat, the progression of notes all can sweep me away, the music that I enjoy the most is music that makes me both feel and think. Every Indigo Girls album from Strange Fire all the way through Poseidon and the Bitter Bug has more songs which make me think & feel than songs that don't. The fact that I have always enjoyed the way Amy and Emily's voices blend and the type of music they coax from their guitars, mandolins and even the banjo (and we all know how much I adore the banjo) ... and the way that they've grown as musicians, adding drums, orchestra (and even *gasp* electric guitars at times) have always remained amazing to me.

There are bands that I once loved, but which grew in a different direction than I did. Best example is U2 - I haven't liked anything they've done since Rattle & Hum - and I adored pretty much everything they'd done up to that point. There's nothing wrong with the music they've done since then, I certainly don't think they're a horrible band now or anything. But I adored the musical direction they took in Rattle & Hum and simply haven't been as interested in their direction since then.

REM is another band where I had to have everything they'd done once I discovered them ... but somewhere around Monster, I stopped buying CDs. I'm not sure why, but the intense connection I'd once had with their music just ... faded.

Indigo Girls, on the other hand, have grown as I've grown and apparently we're still growing in similar directions. I admit, I was frustrated with their frustrations with a big name label and I enjoyed the risks they took in their music and their ever-evolving sound (which nonetheless always remained uniquely identifiable as Indigo Girls) and worried that the record label would try to force them to make only clones of "Closer to Fine." So, I was very curious to see what would happen once they broke away from the big label.

Poseidon and the Bitter Bug came out a month ago and somehow I managed to not notice that until this past week. Interestingly enough, they released a double set - one disc as a "studio" album and the other as an acoustic album.

I find it interesting that the first review I read of the CD complained about the "over-production" of some of their previous albums - I assume the reviewer was thinking of Swamp Ophelia, for example. For me, I found the progression from Strange Fire (their first CD) through Poseidon and the Bitter Bug to be one of constantly growing musically. No album was some odd re-invention of what it meant to be Indigo Girls, but instead was an outgrowth of what had gone before. I found it interesting when their music took on new depth with new arrangements and new instruments added to the mix. This reviewer (I'm afraid I didn't save the link, sorry) enjoyed the acoustic version of the album more than the "studio" version.

And here's where I think Amy & Emily were simply brilliant in releasing this dual album. There are plenty of fans who prefer the simplicity of two voices and a couple of acoustic instruments. A kind of campfire, back to the roots movement. There are some folks who are sick to death of a voice and guitar and that's all there is. I don't quite fall into either category (shocker, I know). But I think it was brilliant of Indigo Girls to both continue to explore their music the way they want to - and to also give that segment of acoustic fans who've been with them since the Uptown Lounge (and earlier!) what they loved in the first place.

As for specific songs, once again, I'm going to have to listen to the whole CD in a place where I can concentrate and read the lyrics along with them. They always make me think. I have yet to get an album of theirs where I don't want to sit with the lyrics and get lost in the music and what they're saying (both lyrically and musically) - this CD is no different in that regard.

From my superficial listen at work yesterday, the songs that have particularly caught my attention are "Sugar Tongue," which wasn't at all what I expected - though I expect that to change again when I can really listen with the lyrics - "I'll Change," "Ghost of the Gang" and most especially, "True Romantic."

Let me tell you, I thought on first listen that Amy had actually swiped Radiohead's "Creep" with "True Romantic." And I'm not the only one who's made that connection. However, when I listened to "Creep" and "True Romantic" back to back - they're not the same song at all. (And, to be honest, I'd be beyond SHOCKED if either of the Indigo Girls actually swiped a song. It's just not who they are.) What amazes me is that as much as I adore "Creep," I think that "True Romantic" goes even further - it's an even better song. I would guess that it's a kind of riff off of "Creep," kind of an extension of it. Of course, I still need to sit down with the lyrics and really study it.

The weird thing, though, is that I have this odd tendency to hear lyrics that are not there. For example, in "Sounds of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel, I can clearly "hear" a space in that song for the words "fuck you." The words are not there, I'm not physically hearing them, don't worry. But I can hear the intention of them. I've done this a few times with Indigo Girls songs as well, including some alternate lyrics to "touch me fall" that are rather ... umm ... racy. (And then I found out that there were some alternate, private lyrics to that song that were rather close to what I "heard.") For "True Romantic" I keep hearing "True Believer." Dunno why, I've got to make some time to listen to this CD more carefully!!

At any rate, I think the CD is well worth the money and I love the fact that they added an Acoustic Sessions disc as well.

I fully expect this CD, like all of their others, to grow on me the more I listen to it. And I'm constantly amazed at how they grow as people, as lyricists, as musicians - and that we seem to be growing in the same directions.

And now, I'm late for work ....

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:05 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

March 30, 2009

Just Another Word

We have become a lazy people.

I am not speaking about bloggers. I am not speaking about the U.S. Or the U.K. or Canada.

I'm speaking about a good portion of the Western world.

Chances are this is not really a new thing. I probably shouldn't have said "become" a lazy people as I'm fairly certain this is not a new trend by any means.

I think, however, that with the increased emphasis on the concepts of "freedom" and "democracy," we've perverted those terms into something meaning "I have the freedom to do whatever I want to do." We seem to have lost sight that freedom is a responsibility not to ourselves to make ourselves as happy as possible, but a responsibility to build a community.

Naturally, I'm not talking about everyone, and of course, it's difficult to talk in generalities because there are always exceptions. I'm one of those people who as soon as I hear a declarative "This is the way a thing is," I'm looking for the exception to prove that sentence is not fully true. Oppositional, I suppose. So I'm going to admit up front this is not true for every single person nor even every country in the Western world.

But I think it is a large enough trend to be concerned. We have taken a few phrases that we like of political rhetoric surrounding freedom and democracy and turned them into an excuse to do what we want when we want. Furthermore, what many have learned from genuine efforts to create good self-esteem in children and young people is: I am most important; my happiness is most important; I can do anything I want to do; I should do anything I want to do; if you do something to inhibit my attempts to do what pleases me, you're against freedom and against democracy and probably a terrorist to boot.

While many of those statements are true, they are only true to a certain degree. Yes, I am pretty darn important to myself - but I don't live in a vacuum. If my happiness involves something against the law, how can my happiness be "most important"? It might be most important to me, but obviously the community in which I live thinks my happiness is not so important. If, for example, my happiness involves seeing how much stuff I can swipe without getting caught - things are not going to go well for me. I'm damaging the community around me. I'm not respecting the happiness of those around me.

Naturally, that's an extreme version. A smaller one (and one that is actually true rather than hypothetical) is I enjoy listening to my music rather loudly. A lot of us find happiness in that. It can be rather exuberant to lose yourself in the moment, own it.

But your freedom to listen to your music as loudly as you want might just interfere with your neighbor's freedom to live in a peaceful, quiet surrounding.

We have a responsibility to balance our freedom to do what makes us happy with the compromise required to live in community.

It's not just unfair to tell your neighbors, "You knew when you signed the lease on the apartment that I listened to loud music. If you don't like it, leave." It's not just unfair, it's irresponsible. You do not have the freedom to cause unhappiness in your neighbors.

I think we often forget that. We've become so centered on the individual that we want a political candidate to talk TO US. To OUR issues.

Really, though, politics is not about one candidate or one politician. Well, it shouldn't be anyway. Politics should not be about the individual, it should be about finding a way to build community. It should be about knowing there will be compromises - many of which we feel impinge upon our happiness because it's not exactly what we want.

And here's the really tricky part. Building community, understanding that politics is about compromise, does not mean that we don't speak up when we don't agree with what's happening or what is being decided. But there should be a balance between working for change and just being pissy that we didn't get our way.

We have to decide to act and to be proactive ... not simply react. Not simply whine, I'm unhappy. After all, everything is amazing. But we focus on what is not making us happy. We focus on the crappy economy, on our crappy jobs, on not having enough stuff, on not having enough space for our stuff, on how we're not appreciated for the wonderful human beings that we know we are ... but are we appreciating those around us? Are we appreciating the stuff we do have?

Or are we reacting because that's how we've been taught to live our lives? React to the news, react to the economy, react to people who have just absolutely FORCED us to not be as happy as we could.

Take some time today to appreciate someone who doesn't get enough appreciation. The person in the cube farm who's always so quiet. The crossing guard helping the kids across the street and who always holds you up when you're running late EVERY morning. (Because you know, it's sooooo the crossing guard's fault that you're late and they know it and they're obviously not helping the children get across the street safely, they're obviously out to get YOU.)

Hell, even your boss. Take one minute to act with deliberation today and appreciate just one person whom you usually complain about or don't even notice. Decide to foster community and decide to help someone else pursue a little happiness.

Live deliberately today and remember that yes, you do have the freedom to tell your neighbor to move if they don't like your loud music - but you also have the common sense to remember your responsibilities to live in community with others.

It's not all about you.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:19 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | Stumble

March 17, 2009

Whatever Happened to Dreamweaver

When I first started building websites, back in the days of completely grey backgrounds, Mosaic and that upstart Netscape, I coded a site "by hand," that is, I used a simple text editor and wrote all the code myself. It wasn't hard. You put < p > at the end of every paragraph (I know, I know!) and animated GIFs were the height of kewl. As the web left kindergarten and moved on to junior high, coding a design meant using tables to contain chopped up bits of images and the tables could get pretty complex. It was easy to get lost in the code trying to figure out which cell you were in now if you'd spanned 3 rows and 2 columns ....

And then there was Dreamweaver, Macromedia's way to make web design easier.

For most web professionals this meant you could visually design a table - and then flip back into the code and clean up the mess that DW had made. Not perfect, but much faster than trying to code a complex table completely by hand. Basically, you'd design the site in Fireworks (think Photoshop but instead of editing photos, you edited shapes and buttons and such). When you had the design looking all purty, you began thinking, "Okay, I want text to go here, here and here. So, let's cut these images here and here and then code a table to make the images "glue" back together and put the text where I want it."

What made this work was the fact that you could flip from the visual look of a site (WYSIWYG editing) back into the code, make a change and then flip back to the visual to make sure it still looked right. You see, most designers are visual people. That's kind of why they're into design.

As the web graduated and headed off for college and then the big bad corporate world, it matured. Both those who coded and those who designed wanted the language of the web to be more semantic, to make more structural sense.

Back in the day, the code to make a word bold, was < b >. When you wanted to turn off bold, it was . Pretty simple and semantic, but it could be better. You really wanted a strong emphasis on that word or phrase and that's why you made it bold. So today, the code is < strong > instead. Italicized text's code is < em > for "emphasis." But looking at the code: < td colspan="5" > is not really very semantic. What does that mean, really? The web began using something called CSS to structure pages, a way of styling different elements in a semantic way.

The first time I ran across CSS, I was webmaster to four university sub-sites, plus my own webspaces. I discovered it in Dreamweaver's interface - I could suddenly style text! I could declare a style .times14 and then every time I wanted to use that typeface and size, I could just click a button and Dreamweaver would make it happen. Wonderful!

The truth of the matter was that I had grown far too reliant on Dreamweaver and I wasn't keeping up with my handwritten coding as much. This was the smallest portion of what CSS could do even then.

Today, many sites (particularly most blogs) take full advantage of CSS, although the "quirks" of how it displays from browser to browser still cause as many headaches as the "quirks" of how tables once displayed still making coding a site a challenge. Now, you can create a "div" to contain a section of the site. For example, a div might be called "content" and you put all the styling you want for your content into that div (and its specific components). In other words, maybe the main column of your blog is your content div. You (or the person who wrote your theme) coded that div to tell the browser, "Hey, we want this to be 400 pixels wide and to appear about 10 pixels to the right of the left sidebar. Also, the background of that content area should be this particular nifty image (that is contrasting enough that the text can still be read easily.) In addition, every paragraph should be in the font Arial (or, failing that, Helvetica or some other sans-serif font). Also, the title of a blog post should be about 18 pixels high and dark blue and italicized."

In other words, using CSS meant you could place sections of your site, set backgrounds and even code the look of the font just one time instead of for every paragraph.

When I first started really utilizing CSS, I learned it the same way I did HTML: I looked at websites who used it and figured out the code that way. I began coding my websites by hand again, partly because I enjoy knowing I can do that (I am, after all, a major geek), partly because coding for the web was suddenly semantic and easy again, and partly because Dreamweaver's support for CSS seriously sucked. The "design view" portion of the program just didn't display CSS very well.

Now, I've been using Dreamweaver since oh, version 2, I think. I loved it for years. It beat the socks off Microsloth's FrontPage and Adobe's GoLive left me cold at first.

Today?

Well, Adobe purchased Macromedia back in 2005 and I wondered if it would be GoLive or Dreamweaver that would "win" the merge. I was rooting for Dreamweaver ... and then I used GoLive. It actually rendered CSS in the design view! I had never managed to get Dreamweaver to do that (except for some textual stuff - but never the placement of a sidebar, content, sidebar kinda thing). I wasn't an instant convert as I had far too many sites being maintained in DW and I didn't want to migrate everything, but I was definitely thinking of starting new sites in GoLive instead.

Dreamweaver, it seemed to me, had grown old and stale and was no longer really conversant with what designers wanted. Its original big draw was the ability to visually design something ... and have it write the code ... and then have the ability to go in and "correct" or simplify that code. (And then go back into design view to verify that you had not, in fact, screwed something up with your simplified code.)

So when I began working somewhere that used GoLive instead of Dreamweaver, I was not really concerned about it.

Unfortunately, GoLive is no longer being produced - Adobe has thrown itself fully into Dreamweaver. Even more unfortunate, they've left the best things about GoLive behind instead of integrating them into Dreamweaver.

Just one quick example before I head out to work:

The place I work now owns about a bazillion websites. All of the designers work on all of the sites at some point or another. Hence, we have a Websites directory from which we work on Brand A site, The Music Site, Brand B site, Our Main site, etc ad nauseum. This makes sense to me. We use a versioning software to keep conflicts between designers to a minimum and, in fact, merges our changes (in other words, I might be working on page x in Brand A for a project ... and another designer may be working on a project which also means he has to edit page x). We do not include our images folder on our hard drive or in our versioning software. Those are stored on an images server, and it serves out those images to all of the sites.

GoLive understands that our images are out on another server. And when we flip to design view, it knows where to get those images and display them for us so we can make sure the code we just changed still displays everything correctly.

Dreamweaver doesn't get it. It cries. It cries piteously and repeatedly, "HEY! HEY! HEY! You put the images folder outside of the main folder! HEY!!!!11!"

In addition, GoLive understands that when we pick harddrive/documents/websites/OURCOMPANY/brandA/ as the root directory for the Brand A site, that it's the ROOT directory. In other words, when a page is coded to refer to an image or a stylesheet (that's what a CSS file is called), it knows that it should look on the website at the top directory for it. Likewise, when it's looking on my hard drive to show me how a page will look, it will use the root directory I set as the "top" directory - instead of using harddrive/ as the top directory. (Basically your computer's hard drive is the top directory for your computer. When you code a site, you often code it to refer to the top directory of the website - so any design program you use needs to be able to say, Oh, you mean the top directory of the website, not the top directory of your computer.)

Dreamweaver doesn't get it. It won't find your stylesheets if you coded them: /stylesheet.css. Instead, it looks for your stylesheet in the top directory of your computer.

This means that NONE of the styling in the sheet will work in Design View.

Which makes the visual editor pretty much useless.

And the Dreamweaver team seems to think this is actually a selling point - you can see your page uninhibited by all that pesky design.

And if you absolutely insist on viewing it with the stylesheet, well, you can manually add it. Manually. Add. To. Each. Page.

And, if you're unlucky enough to be working on a huge e-comm site wherein different pages use multiple stylesheets? Add each stylesheet manually. Separately. You can't even multi-select from the dialog box!

So now we seem a bit stuck at work. GoLive is old enough now that it is pretty common for it to crash. Dreamweaver totally screws up our workflow and doesn't understand much of what we need it to understand. Do we limp along with crashes for now and hope Dreamweaver gets it eventually? Do we bite the bullet and make the switch now? Do we completely change the way we code AND the way IT has all of our sites set up?

I don't know.

But I no longer think that Dreamweaver is the best WYSIWYG web program. In fact, I'm thinking right now, that it's more than a little over-rated.

Too bad our sites are too complex to just code by hand all the time.

Maybe now is a good time for us to simplify ... of course, that would mean a total redesign of every site ....

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:38 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | Design | Stumble

February 24, 2009

If Mom Says OK

I need to take a moment and give a huge thank you to a stalwart reader and commenter. I met Tara through the great site Cre8Buzz (sadly now defunct). Through the last year or so, when I have not been very regular about posting and, in fact, when many of my posts were not really up to par, Tara kept coming here and leaving an incredible amount of comments. If I tell a story, she comments and connects with it. If I share a photo or a drawing, she is always there being encouraging and making wonderful comments.

I really appreciate that.

I personally suck at interaction and don't read everyone else's blogs nearly enough and am rarely bold enough to comment ... which, of course, in the blogosphere generally means that people lose interest in my blog. (And I don't blame them - the interaction is the best part of blogging. I'm just an introvert online and off.) So I really appreciate the time that all of you take to drop in and have a look around Red Monkey. I appreciate it when you do take the time to comment and know that I do try to get to your blogs ... I'm just slow and more talkative on Twitter than I am in commenting on blogs.

At any rate ... go give Tara a look-see. Tell her I sent you.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:41 PM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

January 17, 2009

Catching Up

Frantically trying to get this freelance site completed, hence all the extra energy I have right now is heading into that site. I'm hoping that by next weekend, it will be completely done. (And then I can show it off as well as get back to blogging.)

This week has been intense. We've had at least two days where the temperature didn't break ZERO Fahrenheit and more snow and ice than I ever want to think about. We probably have well over a foot of compacted accumulation on the ground and my morning drive to work has been just incredibly stressful. I love doing 70 on the bypass in good weather ... this past week there have been times when 40 was not particularly a smart speed. I've seen a couple of nasty wrecks and yet still see people try to do 70 despite the ice. Coming home at least there's enough sunlight to see the road conditions - but the conditions haven't really been any better.

I'm hoping to have some breathing room after this freelance site is done ... and then I can get some drawing time in (and finish writing the last segment of House Made of Web as well).

Heck, I've even been too busy to take a picture of all this snow!

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:50 PM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble

January 10, 2009

Why I Hate AT&T

And I do, I really, really, really hate them.

We left for Ohio last Friday in something of a rush. After returning home Sunday afternoon, the DSL modem/router glared its evil red middle eye upon us. In addition, the land line was intolerably static-y. Like to the point where you'd never be able to hear someone, should someone actually call us.

Also, let me point out that me without internet is a scary, scary thing. I am online constantly. It doesn't matter if I'm processing photos in Photoshop or reading a book ... the internet is my constant companion in the background. Without the ability to check IM or email or Twitter ... my brain begins to shut down, cut off from the world.

So I went to an undisclosed location, logged into the internet and attempted to file a trouble report. But AT&T wants you to do so from your home line. Ummm. Can't. Can't hear on the landline. Can't get internet. I dinked around on their wretched help site which kept sending me back to a page which was supposed to help diagnose my DSL ... assuming that I was doing this from my DSL. Umm, if your DSL is DOWN and NOT WORKING, then your stupid ass web page won't help! Good lord.

I finally found a "generic question" form which let me post our landline & DSL problems. I told them I could pick up email between 8 and 5, but to PLEASE call my cell number after 5 eastern time, because I could NOT get internet after 5 because THEIR damn DSL service was DOWN.

They emailed me at 5:15 p.m., so of course, I didn't get the email until Tuesday. Grr. All it said was we'll send a tech out by the ninth at 8 p.m. Wednesday there was a message on the answering machine which said we'll be there between 8 and 5 on the 9th. Way to leave it until the last minute, AT&T. I emailed them back and reiterated that the tech was to call me on my cell if he needed access to the house and I would be there within 15 minutes. (They thought the problem was outside the house, but I wanted this FIXED.)

Oddly enough, after attempting to use the landline Thursday night (someone called the house), the DSL miraculously started working. WOOHOO! Of course, the landline was still screwed up and needed repair and I wanted to make sure that the line was properly fixed so the DSL stayed up and running.

I eventually got a cell call Friday that I thought might be AT&T, but when I picked up, the person on the other end was speaking in Spanish. And it was a recording. Definitely not an AT&T technician telling me he needed access to the house. I get ready to leave for home after work and called the other half.

"You're gonna be pissed," she announces. "The DSL is out again and I've been home since 2. I can see that someone pulled into the driveway, what with all this snow, and they walked around the house to the back. So I guess they were here. But they didn't leave a note or anything."

The entire way home I began plotting my call to AT&T. It began with "Let me talk to your supervisor because I doubt they pay you enough to deal with me right now." It rapidly went downhill from there. A week without internet at home does not do good things to me.

I get home, picked up the landline - the static wasn't completely gone, but it was somewhat better. Hmm. I turned around, walked back to the living room (that's like three steps from the phone line) and went to glare at the eVile red glowing eye on the...

Three green lights.

WOOHOO! The internet was back.

A few hours later, in the middle of attempting to fix the mess I'd made of the blog configuration and database, it went out again. I called AT&T.

Have you ever seen The IT Crowd? Practically the first words out of the Help Desk woman's mouth were: "Have you tried turning it on and off again?" Grrrrr. Yes, that didn't help. It's been out for a week. The phone line is effed up as well and is probably screwing up the signal. It came up Thursday for no apparent reason, but went out during the day Friday.

In the course of her going through the questions they have to ask according to their scripts but which I had already dealt with (is it within 5 feet of your DISH receiver? No, the DISH receiver is in the basement. So that's more than 5 feet away from the DSL modem? YES! The receiver is in the BASEMENT, which is FAR away from here. - yes I was a bit testy.), the damn green light came back on.

So of course, after I say that, she says, Our tests indicate you are getting a weak DSL signal now.

Here's the deal. I don't pay an exorbitant monthly fee for a service that is giving me a weak signal. I want the damn thing to WORK. The lady hems and haws around for a while and finally says "I'll put a trouble ticket in and the techs will run a remote test tonight."

Of course it was working then. Of course they want to close out the ticket.

So, I'm attempting to download a copy of my blog's database (something I do not do often enough, stupid me), and at 185 mb of a 200mb DB, the DSL goes out again. Download is destroyed. Crap, crap, crap.

Thinking I might sense a pattern now, I pick up the landline and call my cell phone. Sure enough, within about 10-15 minutes of making that 15 second call, the DSL is up again. Intriguing issue.

I start the download again and go to bed. Upon getting up? No middle light (at least it wasn't red again). Luckily the DSL crapped out AFTER the download was done, so I do have a good backup of the db. (Of course, I now know that it's a corrupted db and that's why the blog was screwed up, so I have to delete it anyway ... but that's another long story). I call my cell phone again. Other half points out the internet is still down and tell her to wait about 10-15 minutes.

What do you know? The internet comes back up within that time frame. It appears that using the landline somehow "activates" the line enough that the DSL picks up a signal again. I have no idea why or if that's what's really happening. Maybe it's a coincidence, I don't know.

At any rate, I'm going out today to pick up a cheap wired phone to see if perhaps the cordless phone is somehow sending out interference now. (It's worked fine for the last 5 or 6 years since we've lived here. Maybe it's just degraded, who knows?)

In the course of writing this post? DSL went out, I used the landline ... it came back. After I get a new phone and make sure the cordless is not the issue, hopefully I'll be able to keep the DSL up long enough to file an update to the trouble ticket at AT&T and let them know what I think of their "fix" this week ... and crappy service.

By the way, if you're a Help Desk employee somewhere, don't ask me to give you a good survey review about your service calling yourself excellent ... that's kinda presumptuous. The woman who read her script with me was good, a little attached to her script, but good. Until she ended the phone call with "God Bless." Umm, you do not know my faith belief so let's not get a bit ahead of ourselves, okay?
(I don't know why that always bugs me, but it does.)

So, anyhow, I'm kinda back online. And apparently the blog is fixed now.

Phew!

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:57 AM | Comments (13) | Blog | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

January 8, 2009

test

Well, well, well. We appear to have internet again ... and whatever has been freaking out with the blog when I was trying to publish a fast "I have no internet" post, has also apparently been fixed. Now if the CRON Daemon will stop emailing me about a config error on line 322 (there are no variables, there dammit, Mr. CRON Daemon, so shut up!), then I'll be a happy camper.

'Tis nice to be back online.

Real posts sometime this weekend ....

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:45 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

December 23, 2008

House Made of Web (segment five)

House Made of Web is a series of posts explaining the web design process. Many seem to think it's a kind of arcane, magical process ... but it really shouldn't feel like some secret thing. This series of posts should help the non-designer and non-coder understand the process by which a website comes to life without getting too terribly techincal.
The previous posts in this series are:
House Made of Web - the backstory
House Made of Web (part dos) - Information Organization
House Made of Web (chapter tres) - Beginning Mockups
House Made of Web (numero cuatro) - Beginning Mockups

House Made of Web (segment five) - Development of the Mockup

In my last post, I spoke about the problems inherent in giving a client two mockups and how that can be a good thing or a bad thing. In the case of my client, Sherry K, this worked out well and I came up with a more refined design that she really liked.

The process of building the mockup is, for me, the really fun part. Generally speaking, I start out in Photoshop and begin building the various pieces of the site. I tend to start in one of two places: either the themed colour palette for the site or I go looking through the client's images searching for something to build around. In this case, I started with the splash of lime, thinking about pianos and her Kirby Lu Productions logo. I flitted around on iStockPhoto to get some ideas ... but I found a nice vector piece which I thought I could adapt to help create a really nice banner piece for her.

Using a stock piece is a risky thing in design. Anyone can buy a stock piece (vector or photo) - which means you often wind up with a design that looks a lot like every other design. There's not enough style which speaks of the client because it's something that was created specifically to be general (and thus the most use to the most people).

You'll notice in the mockup that the banner has a piano which is kind of grainy, fuzzy and has iStockphoto's watermark across it. Mockup 1c

When you're building a mockup, you do not want to purchase stock photography (or, in this case a vector graphic) before you know if the client likes it. Instead, you take a "comp" version of the image and insert that into the design. A comp image is one that you are allowed to use for a mockup in order to sell that image to the client, but it's provided in a smaller format to protect the copyright owner from theft. Obviously, I wouldn't want to use that comp image in all of its graininess - I want a sharp, clean look which I can only get from purchasing the image.

In this particular case, the stark white piano with the dramatic angle was something I thought could work really well with Sherry's site - and I thought I could add that splash of lime to the piano to further personalize it to my client. After getting approval from Sherry, I purchased the image and began editing it in Adobe Illustrator, adding the bit of green to the black keys and a hint to the front of the piano as well.

The Sherry K branding to go across that piano was also created in Illustrator.

For those who don't know much about graphics, you've probably been wondering about "vector graphics" and Illustrator. Why not just use Photoshop?

An image in Photoshop is essentially a lot of little pixels. It's great and you can do a lot with it ... but only if you have the right size image. You can't really enlarge the image much ... because there are only so many pixels.

A vector graphic sounds complicated, so hang on whilst I explain it. A vector graphic is a series of points and a mathematical formula to determine the lines and fills and shading. But a lot of artists are definitely NOT math majors - so how do they do the formula? Illustrator does it for us. We draw the image with our mouse or a graphics tablet ... and Illustrator does the math. What this means is we're not limited to a set number of pixels. We're only limited by our own precision. A vector graphic can be made larger almost infinitely.

So, I built the treble clef/Sherry K branding in Illustrator so I could continue to use it in multiple sizes and not have to re-create a large version in Photoshop later.

I also knew that the logo designed by Cary Zartman at Z Factory was not just important branding for Sherry K, but also personally very important to her, so I wanted to use the Kirby dog in the banner as well. Like most great designers, Cary had created the logo in Illustrator, so using Kirby was easily done. (Most logos are vector graphics so that they can be printed on a banner or billboard as well as they are printed on business cards.)

Also in Illustrator, I created the lime for the background image and the little juice drops. Then, I brought everything into Photoshop and began laying the pieces out and fine-tuning details. By the time I was done with Mockup 1c, I was pretty happy with it.

So was my client.

The next step for a small web design house is a complete flip in thinking. The pure design is done at this point. Next up is coding the thing into a real website - right brain/left brain flip time. Larger design houses will hire a designer for the design segment and a coder for the second (and possibly a programmer as well depending on what the site needs). Tiny places use one person for everything. I wind up spending a fair amount of time researching different nuances of code so I can make the design come to life.

Next time ... the fun of coding!

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:03 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | Design | Stumble

December 21, 2008

House Made of Web (numero cuatro)

House Made of Web is a series of posts explaining the web design process. Many seem to think it's a kind of arcane, magical process ... but it really shouldn't feel like some secret thing. This series of posts should help the non-designer and non-coder understand the process by which a website comes to life without getting too terribly techincal.
The previous posts in this series are:
House Made of Web - the backstory
House Made of Web (part dos) - Information Organization
House Made of Web (chapter tres) - Beginning Mockups

House Made of Web (numero cuatro) - The Problem with Mockups

In my last post, I spoke about creating two mockups for my client, Sherry K. I had planned to spend this post talking about some of the drawbacks of submitting two mockups (which I alluded to in the last post) ... and then I got a tweet from the delightful Mike Rohde, who was pointing out a fantastic article on Fadtastic about the perils of the industry standard (submitting 2-3 mockups).

Despite the fact that the industry standard is to offer clients multiple mockups in order to better allow them to make choices ... it often doesn't work very well. As Darren Hoyt (in this Fadtastic article) states, allowing the client to pick bits and pieces of your designs can mean that the client "settle[s] on a mishmash Frankenstein product" and that they get "bogged down with a maze of choices" rather than the unified design you intended.

In my case, I've worked with clients who were single entities - a website for one person. Generally speaking, offering a single client two to three mockups and asking them to choose or to mix-and-match is often not quite as dangerous as when dealing with a larger entity with multiple people who will be making the final decision.

The few times I've worked with large e-commerce companies, my fellow designers and I generally pitched only a single design at a time - or two variations of essentially the same design. Design by committee - the default when you have multiple people making the final decision based on several mockups - almost universally yields a Frankenstein design.

The key in both the case of a single-person site and a company's website is listening to the client BEFORE the design process begins so that you really understand what they're looking for. If they can't tell you, it's your job to elicit responses from them before you begin the mockup process. Darren states they show clients "select sites from CSS Beauty or Most Inspired or Best Web Gallery" and they pay close attention to aspects of various sites (colour, layouts, mood, etc) that the client responds to.

Basically, I'm saying you've got to adjust your process to your client and know the pitfalls of working with a group approval (as well as the benefits) and the same for single clients. The key to both is to spend a fair amount of time in the beginning really getting the feeling for them, who they are and what they want.

In the case of my working with Sherry K, for the first mockup I spent a tremendous amount of time creating a workable e-commerce style site for her. I then spent some time working on a second mockup which worked with her personality a bit more and played with color. I was pretty sure that neither mockup in their entirety was precisely what she was looking for. Even with as much time as we'd spent going over her needs, I'd not been able to get a good sense of what she wanted in terms of look - and we ran out of time before we could look at a site like CSS Zen Garden or Most Inspired. That fact, combined with the fact that I was working with a single person led me to offer her two mockups - I needed a better idea of what she wanted and since she couldn't spare the time at that moment, I took the time that I would have spent discussing design with her and made a second mockup.

Flexible. Particularly as a freelancer, you've got to remember that there is no one, right way to go through the design process of a website.

So, last time, I showed the two mockups - both of them quite rough. Sherry loved the use of colour inherent in the second design, but liked the layout of the first ... but she didn't want either design as it was. That's okay, neither did I. From having her look at those designs and answer some very specific questions, I got a much better feel for what she wanted.

First off, a better green was fine with her. She wanted some colour and didn't mind the green. If I hadn't been so fearful about using my favourite colour on her website, I might have nailed the look and the layout with the first mockup. D'oh!

The next version changed up the look in some places, adding accents and refining ideas. For one, I swiped the nav bar from the second mockup and included it in the tweaked version of the first mockup. I changed up the backgrounds of the major elements ...

... and I decided to use a splash of lime for real.

No thumbnail this time, but the full image will pop up in a new window (or tab, depending on your preference set). Mockup 1c

This version energized the client. She really liked the splash of lime (and I still need to work in a shaker of salt somewhere). Her favourite part, I think, was the bright green gloss button in the promo area.

Next time ... an overview of how the mockup was concepted and created.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:54 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | Design | Stumble

December 19, 2008

House Made of Web (chapter tres)

I've spent the last two posts getting into the backstory of my history in web design ... and then the beginnings of design process - the information organization. In order to walk you through the process of site design, I'm taking you through the re-conception of Sherry K's website.

I really like the kind of lengthy tag line she uses in her emails and newsletters: Sherry K: piano with spirit, piano with soul, piano with a hint of lime and salt. Since she originally had no direction to give me in terms of iconography, colours or the like, I actually had a bit of a harder time coming up with a concept. I knew I liked the lime and salt piece and wanted to use it. I spent a lot of time thinking through where I wanted various pieces of the site to go ...

She's got three CDs for sale, each with a CDBaby and iTunes option for purchasing. I wanted to have some kind of promo area to advertise her availability for booking. She has a paragraph she's fine-tuning to let people know who she is - and for SEO purposes. Then of course, there's the navigation which took a little tweaking to make manageable ... an MP3 player and she wanted her email list sign-up to be very prominent.

A bit of terminology before I explain the next step I took. A mockup is an image of a website. For me, I'll open up Photoshop and begin building pieces of the site in the places I want them to be. I'll mess with the font (staying within the realm of the "web-safe" fonts) and sizing and begin choosing colours, images and different effects to get close to the look I want. This gets saved as a plain image ... just to give an idea what the site can look like.

So as I began working on the first mockup, I did what I always do - spent too much time perfecting the layout of the first design. The aesthetics of the first mockup I forced myself to not spend too much time making exactly perfect. The whole idea of a mockup is that it WILL change. It's an approximation and both you and the client (and if you're working with company, chances are there are several people who need to approve the mockup) - you're all going to change bits of it. Spending time making it exactly perfect is mostly a waste of time.

On the other hand, you want it to look good enough that with minor tweaking, you could publish it as is and be happy. It's not an easy balance and I know a lot of designers who pour their heart and soul into a single design ...

... and then don't want to change a single pixel. (Which always reminds me of the Cyrano deBergerac quote: "my blood runs cold,/ To think of changing even one small comma.")

In most cases, you want to present a client with two or three designs to choose from - different takes on their needs. Then, either one design can be tweaked, or some mixing and matching can go on. (Or, you've completely missed the mark and have to start over completely.)

My first take on Sherry's new site was one I really liked the layout ... but I was still wavering on the execution of the aesthetics. My hesitation was over a very simple matter ... I seized on the "lime and salt" and wanted to work that into the design. I love green. I also love virulent lime green. Most people ... not so much.

So, I wound up with this for the first mockup: (click to bigify)

I was trying not to make the site overwhelmingly green - after all the tag line is a "hint" of lime and salt, not a nuclear explosion of neon green. My love of green led to a fear of overdoing what I liked instead of what the client wanted. Because I was fearful of overdoing it ... the colours here were, frankly, just all wrong. I did like the use of Kirby (the dog in her Kirby Lu Productions logo - designed by Cary Zartman at Z Factory).

And, of course, I overdid it on the layout. This, I was sure, was darn near the perfect layout for her site. So, when I went to do the second mockup ... I was stumped for a bit.

And then I decided I was really tired of the boxy look so many websites have. Sherry's music kind of bursts some boundaries ... maybe her website design should as well. Also, while the white with hints of lime was a nice look, I wasn't happy - Sherry's a colourful person and that design just didn't fully encompass that.

So this was mockup number two:

I liked some aspects of this ... but the layout just wasn't as good. The whole design was just not very coherent, although I did kind of like the border of the top banner being broken open by Sherry's music. I had a LOT of tweaking to do on those lime eighth notes ... but I was pretty sure this design was not going to cut it, so I forced myself to not waste time perfecting it.

What I did really like was the navigation bar. Several ideas suddenly popped into place there.

I wrote up an explanation of each design and sent that text plus the two designs over to Sherry, explaining positives and negatives of each design, different aspects of the layout, difficulties we might have in the coding process and so on. Then I invited Sherry to spend at least a day or two thinking about the designs and my explanations before getting back to me.

Some of the issues I pointed out included critiquing the use of gradients on the first image (the green fading into white at the top & bottom of the various boxes). I wasn't convinced of that shade of green ... and I didn't think the promo area was quite right yet. I pointed out the colour flaws in the first mockup and felt that the second one could be made MUCH less boxy (particularly since the original idea had been to disrupt boxiness) if that was a feel or look that she liked overall.

Next time I'll go into the changes we discussed ... which design was picked, tweaked ... and where the project stands now.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:43 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | Design | Stumble

December 18, 2008

House Made of Web (part dos)

While I said I was done with the back story last time I lied. But this will be short. Wanna see an UGLY 1998 website: here's my old syllabus. Key word - OLD. Web.archive.org has loads of old gems. Scary stuff.

At any rate, I said I would discuss how a website is conceived and constructed today. This is obviously my process, although I'll also be talking about how other professionals work as well.

Generally, the conception starts out as the easy part. It gets a little more complex, but of course, they all start with something like: I want a site where I can show off my talents, career, thoughts, hobbies, whatever. I want to tell people something or I want to sell something. (Sometimes it's selling people what you want to say!)

I'll use one example to walk us through this process. I happen to go to church with an extremely talented musician, Sherry K. She recently decided that she wanted to completely revamp her online look. She wants a website similar to what she has in terms of content, but she wants something that will really reflect her personality and style of music. We sat down one day and discussed her needs in terms of what the website should be able to do, what her goals were for the site ... and what her level of computer and website skills were.

In Sherry's case, one of her goals is to be able to update the site herself - and not just in a "content management" kind of way, but she wants to be able to understand at least some HTML and CSS (the most common and basic "languages" that websites are written in) herself so she can apply that to MySpace as well as her website. Like many people who want to advertise themselves, she doesn't want to have to rely on others to fix every little thing or make every tiny adjustment.

Most graphic designers and web designers have a "creative brief" they use to understand the creative project - be it a website or a company logo. David Airey has a short form he uses on his site, which you can read here. A portion of it gives the designer the feel for the customer/company requesting the work - who their competitors are, what their company is about, project timeframe, colours, icons ... various little details that the customer might not have thought about beforehand.

In my case, Sherry had some distinct ideas about marketing and SEO (search engine optimization) ... and she knew a few sites that she liked their marketing techniques - but she hadn't given a lot of thought to the aesthetic component of the site. I took a couple of pages of notes during our discussion - and she sent me another few pages of marketing notes that would affect the design process in some way or another.

My first goal was to organize all of these notes. Sounds like studying for a test, doesn't it? A great deal of web design revolves around information systems. How do you organize your information to meet a certain goal?

Sherry has two major goals: sell her music and get people to book her for gigs.

After looking through the notes, I listened to her music again, looked over the design of her CDs and her MySpace, and studied the language of her current site and some of her email newsletters - all to gain a mental picture of who Sherry K the performer was.

Now, depending on the complexity of the site, a designer can do one of two things - build a wireframe or actually begin both the organizational building and the aesthetic design all at the same time.

A wireframe is essentially just a map of where different elements of the site will be and how everything fits together. On the e-commerce sites I've worked on, this was an absolutely crucial element of the design process. Different people in the company had distinct ideas of what information should be seen "above the fold" on an 800x600 sized monitor - although many sites now design as if 1024x768 is the smallest (and most common) size monitor. On an e-commece site you want the logo and tagline, search feature, the most important shopping buttons, the cart button and at least one "specials" or "ad" area to show within the top of the page so they're seen first.

When you have several people who need to approve the design, it's best to figure out this information puzzle before adding the complication of aesthetics to the issue. So a wireframe generally is a series of boxes - here's the area for our promotion, and it's going to be this size. Another box shows where the navigation will be, another the exact space for the logo and tag line. The barest of wireframes won't include colours or fuss over font - it's literally just a jigsaw puzzle map.

Once that wireframe has been approved (likely things have moved around and changed sizes during the approval process), then comes the thematic design.

Sherry's site was simpler than an e-commerce site and I had some pretty good ideas from her excellent organizational notes where things were going to need to go. So, I decided to work both the wireframe and the design all at once. I latched on to the line she uses in all of her newsletters and emails: Sherry K: piano with spirit, piano with soul, piano with a hint of lime and salt.

I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to do ...

... and I'll get into that next time.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:00 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | Design | Stumble

December 17, 2008

House Made of Web

I saw a little tweet from David Airey the other day: "@davidairey Ever wonder how your website is constructed? http://www.sitonomy.com/ " - and I clicked through, thinking this was perhaps a web designer talking about the process by which a site is built. Instead, Sitonomy is a nice little app which breaks down the various pieces of technology used to build a site.

But that got me to thinking ... perhaps I should explain how websites get built.

I know a great many folk who think it's some magical or terribly arcane process - but it shouldn't be.

First, a little backstory. Because I enjoy backstory and by golly, you wouldn't be my reader if you didn't enjoy backstory too. (Right? you like backstory, right? Crap. Just me. Well, there are people STARVING for backstory somewhere or another, so you just eat this all up and enjoy it and think about those poor backstory-starving people in Narnia. You're the lucky one, remember?)
I got my start in web design back in the Mosaic age. (Think Neolithic period of the web.) It was 1996 and I thought the web was a great place to store my class syllabus so my students couldn't lose it. Most of the students at Notre Dame in 1996 had computers in their rooms - and those who didn't seemed to constantly be in one of the computer labs scattered all throughout campus - so this seemed like a nice "bonus" I could do for my students. It also gave them the added benefit of being able to access their syllabus from home - or show it off to their parents.

Of course, I came up with this brilliant plan most of the way through the fall semester and decided I'd have it up and ready in time for Spring semester. I had been reading the source of most web pages and it looked pretty simple to do. In the end, however, I had to use a program called Navipress in order to get the site done in time for the semester to start.

Over the course of that semester and the following summer, however, I began writing all of the code for my site myself ... and it quickly expanded beyond just a syllabus site for my students.

This was, of course, the days of grey backgrounds everywhere ... horizontal line dividers marking divisions in pages that went on for screens and screens and screens ... and, for that matter, screens that weren't much bigger than 800x600 for most people. Oh the excitement when we could make text BLINK at you. And change colours! OOOOOOH! and looky at that nifty animated gif of a man digging a hole at a construction site.

Yeah, even "Under Construction" pages on a website were fun and exciting back then (instead of the incredible no-no they are now).

So, I learned HTML through looking at other website code and the crappy HTML that Navipress had written for me in my haste to park my thoughts on the information superhighway. I eventually found my way to the HTML Writers Guild and started learning how to code well.

A guild! My geeky Dungeons & Dragons heart overflowed. I was joining a real-life modern-day freaking GUILD!

I learned a lot over the next few years and became a very strong web advocate within my department, encouraging our publication of more and more department materials and resources on the web and very much encouraging our instructors to put their syllabi on the web as well as handing them out the first day of class.

As much as I loved teaching, I was utterly fascinated by the web and how we were starting to use it. My first lessons in user-interface were not through some book about good design - my first lessons were the tough ones handed out by my students. It seemed no matter how hard I tried to organize the growing amounts of information I had on the student segment of my site, the more complaints I heard.

Actually, I think the harder I worked on trying to make the site better for all, the more I took complaints and criticisms to heart.

All of my students used the site in different ways. One wanted the site to tell him when everything was due in one big list. Another student wanted it broken down by assignment. Another wanted it listed day by day.

And none of them were wrong. They simply had different methods of processing information and differing ways to parse logical data.

As much as it could sometimes frustrate me that I had "gotten it wrong" yet again, I found this real-life course in information systems to be fascinating and endlessly engaging.

How DO you put together a site so that every single user will find it - if not easy to use, at least understandable and logical once they get the hang of it. (And get the hang of it quickly.)

I hope that I taught all of my students something useful and positive about writing and about reading. I hope that I didn't kill anyone's interest or discourage them.

I know they taught me a great deal in return - even when I was discouraged by their apathy. (I mean come on, doesn't everyone just LOVE taking first-year writing classes?)

Next time I'll go into the modern process of how a website is conceived and constructed.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:17 AM | Comments (4) | Blog | Design | Stumble

December 16, 2008

MS Recommends Using Another Browser

(Well, duh. I've been saying THAT for years. Nice of you to jump on the bandwagon, Microsloth.)

Mention Internet Explorer to any web designer and watch that person begin ranting, gnashing their teeth and wailing.

There's nothing worse than fine-tuning the code of a website to match your design ... only to realize that YET AGAIN, the non-compliant Internet Explorer has totally bolloxed the whole thing up. Works fine in Firefox. Looks sharp in Opera and Konquerer and Safari. You're a frigging genius of the ether ...

... and it looks like pants in every version of Internet Explorer. And we're not talking some Red Monkey Jeans hip pants that all the cool kids are spending $300 a pop to look just as cool as everyone else kind of pants. No. We're talking hideous 1970s plaid pants from Herb Tarlek at WKRP kind of pants.

And. Every. Single. Version. of. IE. Has. A. Different. Problem.

Every. Single. One.

It's enough to make me go utterly stark-raving mad.

So the fact that today the BBC has an article wherein apparently Microsoft has discovered a security flaw so bad they have not yet released one of their crappy-ass half-complete updates, makes me laugh.

Instead, Microsoft suggests that you download and use another browser.

Lemme tell you something. Once you download Firefox, just keep using it. Please. Don't go back to IE. Import all of your bookmarks and preferences and passwords and all that good stuff.

And then just delete IE from your computer and never use it again. Please. PLEASE? I'm begging you. Do it for the children. Do it for the good of standards-compliant browsers around the world.

Do it before I go bald trying to write a new stylesheet for EVERY SINGLE VERSION of IE instead of writing just one stylesheet that works for all browsers the way Los Interwebz intended.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:43 AM | Comments (4) | Blog | Design | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

December 1, 2008

meh

I hate snow.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:13 PM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

November 20, 2008

Teh Funneh (tm)

I have not Teh Funneh for you today. But Katie does.

Seriously. While I am guilty of typing LOL far too often when I really only smiled or perhaps let out a quiet chuckle, Katie regularly has me laughing to the point of tears in my eyes.

And the really sad thing is ... it's NOT really a funny thing. She's had a headache for EIGHT frigging weeks ... countless visits to countless doctors and through it all? She's kept her Funneh.

In this selection, her doctor has decided that biofeedback will cure her eight week headache. (This after he insisted it was her sinuses and her ENT guy said, umm, no, it's not that - but geez, these are some insanely interesting sinuses, thanks for coming in, hey, while you're here lemme stick a camera down each nostril and get some pictures of this.)

We conversed at length about my medical history and she said she just wanted to evaluate my "muskles" and soft tissues today and then we could develop a plan. So the first thing she does is stand behind the chair I'm in and starts whoorling my head around in circles.

She does not tell me what she's doing, she doesn't say to relax or to oppose her, she's just slow-motion whiplashing the shit out of me. And continuing to ask questions THE WHOLE TIME.

Seriously, I'm thinking if you do biofeedback, you might want to read the file on your patient before you start trying to, oh, I dunno, start twisting her head in the place where the two vertabrae were removed from the Chiari Malformation corrective surgery.

Anyhow, check out Katie. Despite living in Suckville for the last eight weeks, she's kept her funny. You can thank me later, after you wipe the tears out of your eyes.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:30 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

November 8, 2008

The Job ...

Since I have had it forcefully pointed out to me by a dear friend with whom I don't speak often enough any more, I figured I should log in and make one final post about the job situation.

I have never in my life met so many genuinely kind, sweet and friendly people in one place in my entire life.

Yes, I'm serious.

After 16 months of freelancing, I expected it to be quite difficult to get used to going back to a full-time gig. I had a short first week partly to give myself some time to prepare for going back to work (getting some clothes, for one) and to have my birthday off ... and to make for a shorter first week. Since I'm not a very outgoing person, I was more than a little nervous of being back in cubicle-ville.

I needn't have worried. People are still coming up to me to introduce themselves with a genuine smile and a "great to have you here." Our team leader (she doesn't like to be called boss) got everyone in marketing to sign a birthday card for me - and I tell you that it nearly made me tear up. I do not tear up. It's just not something I do - but the genuinely sweet welcome and notes in the card just kind of overwhelmed me. I tacked it up to the cube wall already to remind me on the inevitable days in every working life when things are not going so well.

I've been working on very simple, minor projects so far to give me a chance to get used to the system and the department procedures. Relatively dull work, but I would MUCH rather learn the system on some "dull" project and feel confident about everything when I tackle a more complex project! So, their training falls right in line with how I prefer to be trained. The procedures for working on projects and project approval are also right in line with how I would prefer things to go. Seriously, it's like I was supposed to get a job here. Communication is primarily by IM and email - again, my preferred methods. But the designers still turn 'round and chat about projects as well.

I'm a weird blend of shy and can't-shut-up - so I'm not sure what my co-workers think of me just yet. I mean, we seem to get along - I certainly think they're pretty cool. But I go through spells of sitting, facing my computer and zoning out ... and then when I do join a conversation, I fear that sometimes my storytelling self might take over more than I would really like. (Oh, that reminds me of "this time at band camp" ....)

The gentleman who does the Spanish translation of the site is already starting to speak to me in bits of Spanish since I made it clear that I need to practice and that I honestly enjoy Spanish. I think he grins at me every time he sees me.

All in all, the company workings and the individuals all seem beyond my wildest imaginations. I will miss doing some print design work - but hopefully I can, after things settle down a bit, get some freelance commissions to do some of that on my own time through Oppositional Design. I have to finish the freelance commission on a website before I can accept anything else right now, though.

Hopefully my body will start getting used to the new schedule soon and I won't be quite so exhausted. And then things can FINALLY get back to normal around here. :)

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:55 AM | Comments (9) | Blog | Stumble

October 31, 2008

A Flood ...

A flood of relief.

After nearly 16 months of worry, panic, rejection and work ...

... I begin my new job on Wednesday, the day after my 40th birthday. What a beautiful present. I got the finaly official start date/time just a little while ago.

The relief is palpable in the house.

Details? Not so many as I don't really blog about work. I'll just say that I'll be one on a team of web designers for a major e-commerce company. And I'm just beyond over-the-moon about it. I think this team seems really awesome and I'm really looking forward to it.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:53 PM | Comments (5) | Blog | Stumble

October 28, 2008

Change Is Coming ...

Change is afoot here ... and I want to thank HaikuTimes.com for giving me the inspiration to do some sketching needed to finally get around to revamping the look here at The Red Monkey Blog. Be prepared for a completely new look ... soonish. I will try to give you a warning at least a day or two before the new template goes live.

And - to Lisa - I haven't forgotten my promise to return to the excellent conversation we were having on trans issues - particularly in light of some research I saw on BBC the other day.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:59 PM | Comments (1) | Blog | Design | Stumble

October 10, 2008

Monkeehub?

All right, people, quit dropping off the face of the earth.

The latest hit to my favourite links is Monkeehub. Laith Bahrani began Monkeehub as a portfolio site which quickly became a freaking web icon. Laith is the man behind the awesome video to the brilliant "The JCB Song" by Nizlopi. He's also behind the incredible video to Radiohead's "Creep."

Now, every domain I know to be Laith's is only a domain parking page. Monkeehub is down and has been for a few weeks. Low Morale is down as well. And Everloving is actually timing out completely. He's not logged in to MySpace since June, I think ... and he also hasn't had anyone leave him any comments since then, either.

This dude is simply too talented to suddenly drop off. Running a Google search showed scores of articles about him and interviews with him.

So ... anyone know what's going on with Laith? Is he so busy he forgot to pay the hosting bill? Is it rampant xenophobia which has made him deny access to Amuricunz?

Seriously, I need my Monkeehub fix.

UPDATE 10/13/2008
I've heard through the ether that the issue is simply a crashed server and, of course, crashed backup server. Laith Bahrani has apparently been working on an involved project and hopes to get the server issues worked out soon and get his wonderful presence back on the web again.

*phew* I'm glad that's all it was.

As for the rest of you, consider yourself on notice. No more disappearing.

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:37 AM | Comments (4) | Blog | Design | Stumble

October 8, 2008

Fifteen Months Later

Fifteen months is taking its toll on this blog. You would think that not having a steady gig would mean I had more time to write. Unfortunately, it means that I'm not getting the constant stimulation I need to be able to write. Despite the wide variety of topics and issues I would normally need to write about ... I am oddly quiet.

Every sentence I start to write about how my partner and I actually bought a house we could afford instead of doing what many of her co-workers did ... buying the house they were loaned money for, along with two brand new cars ... I think, "I should be working on promoting Oppositional Design" ... or "I should be reading my Typography book" ... or "I should build a newsletter or a new logo or something just to add it to my portfolio." Or, even worse, "I should clean the house."

After an incredibly warm job market a few weeks ago, I'm back to wondering where I've gone wrong and if it's something I can change or is it just this crappy economy?

I have no way of knowing.

I really wish I'd manage to land the job doing emailers for a large musical instruments company. I think I could have had a LOT of fun doing that ... but it was apparently not meant to be. Again.

I am profoundly grateful that my partner still has a job. I wish she could get out of there as it's, I feel certain, contributing to her constant migraines ... but there's little out there for her, either. The market is simply too tight.

I am profoundly grateful that we purchased a home within our means - and that we were somewhat conservative about what those means were. Sure, I'd love a home with normal dimensions instead of something so small - but we can afford this and it's ours.

I'm not a big stats person ... but I do feel regret that I've managed to slip from a pagerank of 5 back down to a 3. I'm no longer getting 500+ hits a day ... I'm lucky to get about 200. And while I still get hits for those damn Red Monkey jeans - I get more hits from Nerfers about modifying their Nerf guns now. (And most of them want to bitch at me and miss my point altogether. Let me repeat: I DO NOT WANT TO BAN NERF GUNS OR NERF WARS. Geez. I just think more parents should be more aware of what their kids are doing and what they're playing with. I also think that there is no such thing as a "toy" sniper rifle. On the other hand, I enjoyed modifying my Nerf Maverick into a steampunk looking thing.)

The blog is a bit adrift and aimless at the moment and I apologize to all of my readers, old and new. Right now, I'm afraid that I am a bit adrift and ... not exactly aimless ... but feeling somewhat lost.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:54 AM | Comments (5) | Blog | Struggles | Stumble

October 3, 2008

It's Always the Same

Melancholy has set in again. Fourteen point five months is a long freaking time. Too long.
So ... whilst getting ready to go to my youngest cousin's wedding, Sick Puppies "All the Same" came on. It seemed to fit my mood, so I share my life's soundtrack with you today. Some of the lyrics fit my mood, but it's really the feel of the whole song that suits right now.

If you've not checked them out before, I highly recommend them.

"All the Same" - Sick Puppies
I don't mind where you come from
As long as you come to me
But I don't like illusions I can't see
Them clearly
I don't care, no I wouldn't dare
To fix the twist in you
You've shown me eventually what you'll do
I don't mind
I don't care
As long as you're here

Go ahead and tell me you'll leave again
You'll just come back running
Holding your scarred heart in hand
It's all the same
And I'll take you for who you are
If you take me for everything
And do it all over again
It's all the same

Hours slide and days go by
Till you decide to come
However long you stay is all that I am
I don't mind, I don't care
As long as you're here

Go ahead, tell me you'll leave again
You'll just come back running
Holding your scarred heart in hand
It's all the same
And I'll take you for who you are
If you take me for everything
And do it all over again
It's always the same

Go ahead say it
You're leaving
You'll just come back running
Holding your scarred heart in hand
It's all the same
And I'll take you for who you are now
If you take me for everything
Do it all over again
It's all the same

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:38 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble

September 24, 2008

In Which I Say Little

Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac. School shooting in Finland. Marriott blast in Pakistan. Lehman Bros. AIG. Getting off my crutches. Lohan coming out. Palin speaking. Heroes starting back up.

It's not that there's nothing to write about - rather there is so much that I've been somewhat overwhelmed by where to start. And, frankly, most of my time the last week has gone to continuing to finesse Oppositional Design and revamping my printed portfolio. I went to an interview yesterday for a job that I want so badly I can taste it. You know, the kind of job that just excites you, the kind you can't wait to get up in the morning and go to work ... the kind of job most people dream of getting.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I think it went well. Of course, she's interviewing some 6 or 7 other people as well. I just gotta say, 45 minute drive be damned - this is the job for me!

I've also been ruminating about elementary school again ... and I know there's another one of those posts brewing, but it keeps getting interrupted by more pressing demands.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:41 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble

September 14, 2008

Srsly?

I know. Srsly. Who is surprised?

Should I be concerned that the social line is red and I am waaaay over in the red zone? *snort*

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:17 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | Stumble

July 30, 2008

Hodge Podge

This utter blog quietness is starting to freak me out because I realize that my brain is just slowly zoning out. Some of that is the tediousness of having a broken right leg which means that I'm getting less stimulation from the outside world than normal. Some of it is being worn out from freelancing instead of having a regular 9 to 5.

Some of it is because I spend much of the day in quiet contemplation - and forget to write it down. I "write" in my head for a few hours, purportedly to get my thoughts in order ... and when they're in order, well, I'm not so interested in writing them down any more.

In addition to that, several of my best online buddies have more or less disappeared over the last few months and I miss them. It makes my being online a little harder - like when your best friend moves to a new town and you kind of avoid the place you used to hang out together. I suppose it's a form of mourning and I suppose that's a big part of why I've avoided some of my favourite online hang-outs (like Cre8Buzz).

Today I'm going to attempt to clear out my work area again - it keeps getting clogged up since my mobility is so reduced. Then I've got a comic to draw for GeekMomMashup, a tattoo design to finish for Real World Mom and, of course, finally complete the baby book para mi sobrino. Preferably before my sister kills me. Which she can't do until she gets back from Colombia. I have time. Photoshop work is something I always dive straight into. Hand drawing - as for GeekMom and my sister? It intimidates me still and I have to spend a few days gearing myself up - get over the stage fright, as it were.

What will make today incredibly long and stressful, though, is my li'l baby girl is sick. We took her to the vet Monday - she's got a stomach bug. Unfortunately, that is the tip of the iceberg. Last night I thought she was moving her back half oddly. So I stood her up and made her walk a few steps. Her rear left leg is just not functioning correctly - she's kind of dragging it. I'm hoping it's just a muscular strain, but I fear it's probably a hip issue. Still, I'd rather it be a hip issue than a back issue - and since she's a dachshund we bought at a freaking pet store we knew there would likely be problems. (No, I don't think buying pets at a pet store is a good thing. Trust me, she has an amazing mojo and she called me to the pet store and informed me I was bringing her home. I have been wrapped around her little paws since the first time I saw her. And I go to utter pieces when she doesn't feel good. She is beyond pitiful.)

Meanwhile, I'm going to attempt to do my thinking with my fingers this week and post more frequently. If nothing else, I need the distraction from poor Scoutie and her bad leg. Dammit, the dog was not supposed to emulate me in THAT!

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:17 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | Stumble

July 6, 2008

Flickering Glimpse

So, I hate memes. But I saw this one on If Mom Says OK and promptly swiped it.

What you do:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page, pick an image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into this mosaic maker.

My Answers:

1. What is your first name? Robin
2. What is your favorite food? buffalo chicken
3. What high school did you go to? lamar
4. What is your favorite color? green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? gina gershon
6. Favorite drink? diet vanilla pepsi
7. Dream vacation? Ireland
8. Favorite dessert? pixie stix
9. What you want to be when you grow up? graphic designer
10. What do you love most in life? skateboarding
11. One Word to describe you. me
12. Your (blog) name. Red Monkey

Oh. The interesting thing? Some of these bear no resemblance to the word I originally searched for (particularly, #2!!), but I picked the the image that most matched up to me rather than the specific word picked.

Click to bigify:

1. The Long Arm of the Law, 2. Love changes everything----SCMP, 3. Lamar High School Cheerleaders, July 4 Parade, Arlington, 4. ♫ YO Yo yo, 5. Gina Gershon 6, 6. SirMimseyPepsi, 7. Rossbeigh Long Exposure, 8. Addicted, 9. if you're on fire..., 10. Me Then (1978) and Now (2008), 11. That's, uh, some lightning you've got there., 12. Douc Langur

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:12 PM | Comments (2) | Blog | Stumble

July 4, 2008

Homes

We lived in Albuquerque for all of about 3 months when I was 3 years old and I've never been quite able to shake the New Mexico dust off of me since. Don't get me wrong, I will always, always be drawn to the Austin area ... it always gives me a feeling of home and safety. But New Mexico - more specifically the Dinetah - touches me on a level too deep for words to explain, even to myself.

This last month has been something of a blur with the "sprained" leg that turned out to be badly broken, surgery and then just a couple of days later, I spent three days in a mini-van being driven first to Terre Haute, Indiana ... Oklahoma City ... and finally Dzilth-na-o-dith-hle in northwestern New Mexico.

As we left South Bend, we wound up traveling through four of seven towns I lived in growing up. First, we drove through Carmel, Indiana; then Oklahoma City; Amarillo, Texas; and finally through Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Out of all of those places I lived, only two have really grabbed me and said Home. And even with as glad as I was to finally reach our house and sleep in my own futon (since I can't really elevate my leg in the bed), the places that I have most felt a connection have been in Austin, Texas ... and the Dinetah.

Austin is easy for me to understand. Rolling, green hills ... creeks, rivers, swimming holes. Despite some rotten events that happened to me there, it always felt safe to me.

The Dinetah, on the other hand, is harder for me to understand. When we first began traveling through the mesas last week, I instantly wondered what it would have been like ... to be the first Europeans coming through this area on horseback. No maps, no roads, paved or otherwise. How to find water? Did they notice the elevation (even before climbing to one of the mesas) or was it gradual enough that they simply wondered why they needed to drink more water and felt less endurance than normal? Or was it gradual enough that they adjusted as they went?

And can you imagine riding a horse through the mesas and having the Navajo ... or the Pueblo ... or the Apaches ... after you?

At first blush, the area seems desolate. But as I sat out on the "porch" off the dorm kitchenette one evening, I realized that the area was all green. Pale sage greens, but green and teeming with life, nonetheless. Very different from the brilliant greens of Austin - or the cornstalk greens of Indiana.

Was it just an overwhelming sense of history (with a large dash of childish romanticism) that made me connect to the mesas so long ago? Was it the fact that it was so different from everything else I knew? Or was it, perhaps, simply the fact that the mesas themselves looked like such fun and such a challenge for me to climb? Or was it something else altogether?

I have no idea.

The strangest thing for me on the trip was realizing just how many "homes" I have. Austin will always feel like home to me. And there were certainly times whilst on the trip - particularly when I was too hot to sleep with my blasted leg elevated properly - when I wished to be "home" in Indiana, despite the fact that I shudder to ever think of this state as "home."

Strangest of all was the feeling of being "almost home" whilst at the school on the rez. I was there ... but "home" was just out of reach, complicated by my current situation which made it more difficult for me to socialize - between the altitude and the broken leg, I was mostly stuck in the dorm for the week. I couldn't explore the landscape and could barely make my way to the cafeteria in the next building (and I couldn't do that without someone to help me up the stairs). And then, there was my shyness as well. It's hard to connect with the community which makes a place a home if you're so afraid you'll "bother" them or annoy or offend, that you can't hardly speak. And, of course, I have such a garbled historical knowledge of the people and the area - but history is not today and cultures are fluid and mercurial.

I suppose, really, this trip to the Dinetah was much like a trip my mom and sister and I made to Austin the summer after I graduated from high school. I was ecstatic to be "going home" if only for a few days. I demanded that we drive by the old house ... and we saw it from the street. So very close to being "home," only unable to walk inside to the place that had been home for us in the 70s. Like that time in Austin, this past week in New Mexico, I was there and not there

Of course, I still don't know what calls me to the Dinetah ... just that I had a brush with another one of my chosen homes ... that I'll need to return again one day when my body is healed and I'm better able to set aside my doubts and fears and fully step into that feeling of home, less afraid of making mistakes, less afraid of being thought of as overly earnest and one of "those" biligaana.

I'm afraid this post is still a bit of a garbled mess despite the fact that I've been working on it for days. But I've decided that it simply represents the garbled mess in my mind when I think about last week - or when I think about the concept of "home." And, really, what better post is there for the U.S.'s Independence Day except ruminating about home, ethnicity, culture and landscape?

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:53 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | Stumble

May 27, 2008

Circle of Discussions

For just a moment, forget the circle of life and beautifully scored Lion King music. Let's talk about something more immediate for the rest of us netizens.

The circle of discussion board topics.

Seriously, have you ever noticed how some topics keep coming up no matter how little interest or how much division/derision they stir up?

• religion (primarily Christianity)
• politics (primarily U.S. with a smattering of U.K. or Canada)
• life after death (usually a subset of religion)
• make money on your blog (which some elevate to a subset of religion)
• user name or blog name origin
• surviving/getting Love
• whining about a technical service (might be from that particular site, might be about another site)
• insomnia questions
• RTFM questions (sprinkled with legitimate user questions which aren't in "the manual" or found easily thru search)
• Adsense (ought to be part of making money - but it's darn near it's own category anymore)

What's interesting is watching the community react to historical conversations. Those conversations might get ignored, causing newer people to either dominate that discussion or to feel slighted at being ignored. If one of those historical conversations has been contentious (particularly in the recent past), a lot of "oldster" may react with seemingly out of place frustration or even hostility - causing newbies to wonder WTH is wrong with this particular discussion board.

It's interesting to watch as cycles of new "immigrants" "invade" an online community. I hadn't thought about it quite this way before, but it suddenly hearkens back to the waves of immigrants coming through New York (for those of you familiar with U.S. history). I very much see knots of users on most forums which more or less correspond to when they started participating on that forum - OR who were all involved in a pivotal conversation on that forum and so became a kind of "ethnicity" for that particular board. "We are the people who participated in the ThreadName debacle." And when newer folks start up a thread or make a comment which somehow touches on a part of that particular incident, that "ethnicity" of forum participants suddenly comes out guns blazing.

Of course, it's more fluid than that example, but if you've been online long, you probably get what I mean.

I've seen many an established member of an online community "move out" of the community when a wave of new "immigrants" changed the tenor of the community into something other than what it had been. It's not so much, I think, a moving away from the new as it is finding a place which suits your interests better.

Then again, if you only "live" where your interests are, how do you discover new interests?

I often wonder if we're too fast to leave when things change ....

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:47 AM | Comments (7) | Blog | Stumble

May 20, 2008

Changing Styles

Depending on how your browser caches images, you may have noticed a few small tweaks around here. The red monkey logo is now wearing jeans. (A nod to all the crazy people who want the damn red monkey jeans.) The sidebar colours have changed a bit, and most startling (at least to me), is that I've changed the look of the old paper background here in the middle of the blog design.

As much as I loved that look, it was difficult for people with vision issues to read the blog easily - and I do prefer that the blog is easy to read (at least in terms of looks).

Over the next few days, I will probably also change the head banner ... and perhaps then I'll address a complete revamping of the blog. My stylesheet has gotten a little glutted and with some of MT's changes, I can build the site much more efficiently than when I first opened things up in '05.

I've enjoyed the disparity of the circuit board with the old-looking paper - connecting the traditional diary and letter and manuscript formats ... with a nod to the new-fangled ways of living. There have been plenty of people who really didn't like that juxtaposition - but hey, ya can't please everyone so you gotta please yourself. (I'm apparently thinking in song lyrics again this week ....)

Red Monkey blog is a disparate kind of a blog. I've talked about personal issues, written commentary on current events, talked about design, talked about art, shown photography. So it's a bit of a challenge to come up with a unifying visual theme for Red Monkey - beyond, of course, the red monkey himself.

First, though, I have a contracted website to finish up (on the home stretch now) and a baby book to finish up. I might do a new banner here in between those other projects ...

... but don't be surprised if you drop in sometime soon only to discover a whole new look.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:36 AM | Comments (6) | Blog | Stumble

April 30, 2008

Ye Olde Family Recipe

We interrupt this program to bring you ...

... a cooking show. I know, I know.

I have never been a big one for cooking. It's usually long, involved and tedious (at least when your attention span for such things is about that of a hyperactive gnat). However, there are a few recipes that I'll suck it up for.

Koogali, is our one "old family recipe." I used to think that we also had a pecan pie "old family recipe" and a chocolate cake "old family recipe." The pecan pie recipe is apparently the standard Karo syrup recipe, and my grandmother's SCRUMPTIOUS chocolate cake recipe (coming from someone who doesn't really like cake) is really just Texas Sheetcake made in a 9x13 pan instead of a sheetcake pan. (No nuts in the icing, please. I like nuts, just not in this recipe. Besides, they tend to make the roof of my mouth itch. Wha? I keep telling you my body is NOT wired like normal people's bodies ... oops, I've digressed again, haven't I?)

My grandmother's family came to the U.S. from Lithuania. I cannot for the life of me remember if Grandma Rosie was born in Lithuania or the U.S., however. The Americanized form of the surname became Kalasky (and if you've watched Rugrats, you can probably guess that I enjoy pretending that I'm related to Arlene Klasky), but no one seems to recall what the original last name was. Makes it kinda hard to trace our roots back to the old country. The one really big thing that was passed down was our Koogali recipe.

We had this every year at Thanksgiving and Christmas and it was usually a family production to get it made. I usually proposed that we didn't need a ham or turkey or whatever, that we should just make a meal of the Koogali. Sadly, I was always shot down.

What is it? Well, the short form is that it's a Lithuanian potato dish. Serious Old Country cooking, mind you. Bacon and potatoes and an onion. Then, my other half discovered a few years ago, that it's actually spelled Kugelis ... the link goes to Wikipedia's recipe. Turns out, it's the national dish of Lithuania. Eh, who knew? The name means "flat potato dish" and that about sums it up.

Here's our recipe, complete with photos of the process. Keep in mind, you have to process the potatoes VERY quickly once you've peeled them or they begin to turn brown. It's not that they go bad that fast, but it doesn't look as appetizing and it can affect the flavour.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of bacon (I used low salt this time around - didn't notice a difference, really)


• 4 eggs


• some starch (old world recipe, remember? this equals a palmful to me


• 1/2 of a large onion


• 1 T sugar


• handful of white flour (your guess is as good as mine)


• 6-8 large potatoes


• 1 1/2 cups of milk


• 1 teaspoon of baking powder (NOT baking soda, Chelle)

Fry up all the bacon and then save the grease. I told you this was an old world recipe, right? You should cook the bacon until it's pretty darn crispy rather than chewy. You're going to be breaking the bacon up and it's easier to do if it's crispy. It's gonna wind up soft when it's baked inside the mixture anyway, so you might as well make the shredding part easy on yourself.

Cut up the onion and fry it in some of the bacon grease. I used a shortcut of pre-cut red onion this time. We usually use the white onions, but I like the stronger flavour of the reds, myself.

Next, beat the eggs until they're foaming, then add the sugar, milk, starch, flour and baking powder. Mix this really well.

Now comes the tricky part. You need great timing here and that's why we usually had a slew of family members in the kitchen working on this.

Peel the potatoes and then grate them. You have to do this quickly so they don't turn brown, but if you have about 3 or 4 people doing the grating, it goes fast enough - this is definitely the best way to do it. If you don't have enough people to do it this way, you can use a Cuisineart to "grate" the potatoes, but the texture of the finished product is not as good. Look, I'm not one for the finer details like texture, but even I can tell the difference between the cheat method and the grating method. Grating rocks.

Since I was making this alone, I had to use my bitty tiny Cuisineart. Which is fine, because as you can see, we have a bitty, tiny kitchen as well.

Gotta stop here for a funny story. One of my mom's cousins was making Koogali one year. He was doing it mostly from memory and he SWORE up and down that they had to boil the potatoes first and then grate them. His wife looked at him like he had lost his fricking mind. He insisted, "That's how we've always done it." So they boiled the potatoes and then burned their damn hands trying to grate the things.

There, that bit of family history is now preserved for the ages. Grate boiled potatoes! LMFAO

Oh, you should probably flip the oven on now. Preheat to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit).

Anyhow, I had either five or six of the biggest damn potatoes I have ever seen. I'm telling you these were frigging TEXAS sized potatoes. Normally it's 6-8 large potatoes. I peeled them, cut them up into pieces the teeny tiny Cuisineart thing could handle and put those pieces in water to keep them from turning brown. As you do this, you'll notice the water turning murky-white. This is normal, it's starch leeching out of the potatoes (which is why you put starch in the liquid mixture earlier). Here's the shredded potatoes:

And you can see just in the time it took to take that picture, it was starting to go brown.

Now, quickly, mix that liquid mixture up some more, to make sure the semi-solids didn't fall to the bottom. (This is the milk, egg, flour, baking powder, sugar, and starch concoction from earlier.) Pour the onions and bacon in with the potatoes. Mix with your hands. Using a big-ass spoon does not cut it. Use your clean hands.

When that's nicely mixed, pour in the liquid concoction as well and mix with your hands. Then, take some Pam and spray the heck out of a non-stick 9x13 pan. I mean spray like you've never sprayed before. The original recipe calls for greasing the pan with the leftover bacon grease. Umm, in an attempt to not completely and totally clog arteries, use Pam. It works. After you've Pam'd the pan, pour in your concoction.

Now comes the bacon grease. I have tried multiple ways of using Pam instead, but it's just no good. The recipe completely dries out on top and does not taste very good. So, you need to use the leftover bacon grease and pour some of that on top of the Koogali. Spread it out over the entire top, a nice thin layer like so:

Now put it in the preheated oven at 350 ... for about an hour. When is it done? Well, you'll need to cut into the center to check it. It should be moist, but not runny. The top should look something like this:

Thought we were done? No way! While the Koogali is baking, we have to make the topping, but this is an easy-peasy deal. Take a tub of large curd cottage cheese and an equal amount of sour cream. Mix together. There ya go. The topping is ready. (We usually pour it back into the sour cream and cottage cheese containers and mark them with a big K.)

Now, just let me take a moment to tell you this: my dad HATES sour cream and DESPISES cottage cheese. HATES them. They are nasty spoiled uckiness to him. But even he swears by this mixture on top of the Koogali.

And now, I present to you ... the finished product:

But, we're STILL not done. I know, this is like an old Ronco commercial, isn't it? But wait! There's MORE!

Anyhow, every year there is an argument over whether or not Koogali is better the first day, fresh out of the oven ... or the second day.

Prepping for the second day is simple: cut a rectangular slab of Koogali out of the pan, Pam the heck out of a frying pan and make sure to fry the Koogali on all four long sides. After you've done that, you can attempt to fry the short ends, too, if you're silly like I am. The fried Koogali is generally solid enough that you can at least get a touch of browning on those sides before it falls over or your relatives tell you the damn thing is cooked and get the hell outta the way so that they can cook theirs.

I probably shouldn't have put the fried version on my favourite green plate ... but you get the idea:

And there you have it. My family's one claim to ever-lasting fame: Koogali.

(Unless it turns out that we really are related to Arlene Klasky and then she pretty much outshines anything else we've done. Well, unless you take into account that my aunt gets interviewed on NPR and has been quoted in USAToday and ... oh heck, so SHE's famous. The rest of us are schmucks.)

P.S. Want to try the recipe and you don't wanna wade through this long-ass post? Click here for the PDF recipe, text only, no side commentary. :)

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:56 AM | Comments (5) | Blog | Stumble

April 23, 2008

Toooooooo Many Questions

I saw someone answer these over at Cre8Buzz and since I enjoyed reading Piper's answers, I thought I'd answer them, too. I actually wrote the answers yesterday, but then managed to be too busy to actually post them until this morning. Yes, I am a dork.

Have you ever had mono?
Nope.

The last place you were (besides now)?
Hmm, in the house or out of the house? Last place I was in the house was the kitchen to do my breakfast dishes. Last place I was outside of the house was out and about for our seven year wedding anniversary last night. (She wanted Red Lobster. Then I got to go to Toys R Us.)

Do you remember anything from being 3?
A LOT, actually. But my favourite memory from being three is this:

We lived in Albuquerque for three months when I was three, and my mother was terrified of the "dirty indians." One day, she decided we'd go shopping up in Santa Fe, in this mall that she'd heard so much about. Turns out, it wasn't the kind of mall she was expecting and as we wandered from "garage sale to garage sale" (she didn't approve of the folks who laid their stuff out on blankets), I grew increasingly more fascinated. We paused to look at one man's booth and I began asking questions. "What's this? What does it mean? Why does it look like that?" He was quite patient with me and I think somewhat bemused. Mom, however, had wandered off, blithely assuming that I was paying attention to her rather than her paying attention to me. She came back just in time to hear me tell the man, "When I grow up, I'm gonna be an Indian, too!"

How many times a day do you drop your cell phone?
.00001 Seriously. It's pretty freaking rare for me to drop it.

The top three things you spend the most money on?
Mortgage. Electronics/Computers/Software. LEGOs.

Last food you ate?
Grilled Steak Taco from Taco Bell. 2 of them. For breakfast. (Bought them yesterday cuz there was nothing left to eat in the house.)

First thing you notice about the opposite sex?
This is a trick question, right?

One of your favorite songs?
ONE????
Oh bleeding hell. Well, at random, first one to pop into my head is: Unwell by Matchbox 20.

The school you attend(ed)?
Kindergarten, first grade - Austin - Pillow Elementary
Second grade - Austin - St. Louis Catholic school
Third grade - Austin - Pillow Elementary
Third grade through sixth - Arlington - Butler Elementary
Seventh, 1 semester of eighth - Arlington - Nichols Jr. High
Second semester of eighth, ninth - Arlington - Shackleford Jr. High
High school - Arlington - Lamar (there was a threat to move to Singapore my junior year, but we all told Dad hell no.)
Undergrad - University of Texas at Arlington
Grad - University of Notre Dame

Your cell phone provider?
Nextel. We get a discount through my other half's workplace.

Favorite store in the mall?
Ewww, the mall??? GROSS!
If I have to pick something, I guess Hot Topic. Or the Build-A-Bear shop.

The longest job you had?
I taught for 9 years, I guess that was the longest of the two professional jobs I've had.

What do you smell like?
I have a really really really really crummy sense of smell. So, I'll go with the oddest smell that I enjoy: road tar. Smells kinda like bacon frying to me.

The biggest lie you've ever heard?
I've heard so many doozies, it's hard to pick one. I suppose it would have to be when a certain person told me that he and I were saving the world, only it was a secret.

The last time you cried was because why?
When I was in fifth grade and my great-grandmother died.

In your opinion, do long distance relationships work?
They can.

Do you drink coffee?
Ewwww. Umm, I mean, hellz no.

What do you wanna say to your most recent ex?
I hope that one day you are comfortable with who you are and can quit looking for a personality in other people. I hope you find peace and happiness.

What do you remember from being 19?
A lot! Getting chicken pox for the second time; moving out of my parents' house; the first apartment; my first cat; working until midnight and getting home to listening to my ex say how many times my mother had called (starting at 10 p.m.).

Favorite color(s)?
Green.

First person on your missed calls list on your cell phone?
Don't think I've missed any this week.

Who is the last text message from?
I refuse to do text messaging.

How many pillows do you usually sleep with?
Two. A regular pillow and my "baby" pillow. I actually kept the "baby" pillow that my grandma made for me until I was in my 30s. By that point the, fiberfill stuffing was ... well, hard as a rock, lumpy and impossible to get comfy. So, I made another one to the same specs and placed a few pieces of the fabric inside with the stuffing of the new one.

Yeah, I'm overly sentimental and attached to things like that.

What are you wearing now?
Green Addidas t-shirt and dark blue running shorts.

How many pets do you own?
Two miniature dachshunds (Scraps is 6 and Scout is 4). Four cats - blended family there - my other half had two when we met and I had two. (Tux is 13, Mishu and Gabby are around 11, Rio is 9) A betta fish named Flash. He is the most stupid and irritating betta I have ever owned.

What are you doing tomorrow?
The same thing we do every day, Pinky.

Can you play ping pong?
Duh. Wait, do you mean competitively? In that case no.
My favourite set is still my Nerf ping pong set.

Favorite food?
Mexican.
I will do damn near anything for really good guacamole. Place some of that in front of me, and I think I would probably continue eating it until my stomach exploded. I have no will power when guacamole is in front of me.

Do you like maps?
I have always adored them. They fascinate me.

Do you like strawberry banana smoothies?
I have never had a smoothie. They don't really sound good to me.

Have you ever attended a themed party?
Nope.

Have you ever thrown a party?
Mmmm, a couple of house-warming parties. Otherwise, no.

When did you wake up this morning?
3:40 a.m. as usual. The other half has to leave the house at 4:30 a.m. to make it to work by 5 a.m.

The best thing about winter?
Ewwwwww. Winter SUCKS.
I guess going snowboarding is the best. But we didn't even get to do that this year.

Last time you were in trouble with the cops?
Never.

What color underwear are you wearing?
Grey.

Do you think Ryan Sheckler is hot?
Dude, he is a mad skater! Love him. Hot? Dunno, I'm not really the person to ask ....

What are your plans for this weekend?
The same thing we do every weekend, Pinky.

How many days is it until your birthday?
196
And it's ruined already. Stupid fooken election wrecking my 40th.

What do you want to be when you "grow up"?
A kid.

Are you on a laptop?
I'm using one. But if I was on it, it would probably break.

Are you smiling?
Too sleepy for smiling. Besides, I'm concentrating on this. Duh.

Do you miss someone right now?
Of course.

Are you happy?
Relatively. Be happier if I had a damn job, though.

Have you ever been in the hospital for an emergency?
Twice. First time I was 13 and the neighbor's dachshund bit me whilst I was babysitting the kids. On the upper lip. Perforated the inside, even. Ow.
Second time was for a severe asthma attack.

Last time you ate chicken?
Yesterday. I love chicken.

What jewelry are you wearing?
My LiveSTRONG bracelet.

What are you going to do after this survey?
Go back to bed.

Song you're listening to?
The dogs snoring.

The car you were in last?
My Civic.

Do you like avocado?
Duh. It's the main ingredient in guacamole.

How long is your hair?
Dunno. But I'm getting it cut today. (It's above my collar, but I'm not gonna frigging measure it. Geez.)

What's on your mind right now?
This survey?
Getting a job.

Last show you watched?
Deadliest Catch.

Last thing you drank?
Diet Vanilla Pepsi, the nectar of the gods.

Where did you sleep last night?
In my house. Umm, duh.

Bonus Question ... What is the one phrase you say to your kids, animals, other half that you never thought would be a regular addition to your vocabulary?
Scout, quit trying to bite his weenie!
(The younger of the two dogs, who is also the girl, plays dirty!!!)

When was the last time you smiled?
A little while ago. Watching the dogs play and wrestle. Smiling at the other half as she left for work.

What did you say last?
Yeah. (She wanted me to lock the door after her, since her hands were full.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:23 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | Stumble

April 13, 2008

Gender: M / F / ? (part 2)

Continuing from Thursday's discussion about the differences between biological sex and cultural gender-roles:
So it does seem that throughout our human history, there have been quite a fair number of individuals who did not fit into the cultural gender role specified by their biological sex. I am not discussing sexual orientation, which to me, is a separate (although related) issue.

What strikes me about all of this is an issue which has always irritated me and is demonstrated most aptly by a modern example: the About Me box prevalent on every website with any real level of personalization. You can see the problem if you surf through Blogger blogs, MySpace, Friendster or the like. Some people have short, pithy About Me boxes - either their world is easily classified and categorized, or they've given up in frustration. Other people have About Me boxes which trail from the top of the page, down below the fold and then some, a long, skinny tail attempting to balance everything that person is.

The reality of humanity is that we are rarely easily categorized. People are so very much more than their religion, their race, their nationality, their ethnicity, their profession, their marital status ... and more than their sex or their gender.

So, what is it to be male or female in terms of expected gender roles? Well, obviously this changes from culture to culture.

My first-year college students, some 5-8 years ago, had to read a seminal article discussing how gender expectations led to male and female students learning and behaving differently in the classroom. When it came time to discuss the essay in class, the students immediately let me know exactly what they thought about the article: it was hopelessly out of date.

It was one of those moments in teaching that you can't plan, but when they happen, you wish you'd had a video camera to record the whole thing.

The students began by all agreeing that such preferential treatment of boys over girls simply didn't happen any more. It very quickly morphed into "boys and girls are better in different areas because boys and girls are interested in different things."

Girls don't like math.
Boys don't like reading.

As the students made these generalizations, I could see some of them starting to squirm in their seats. However, as first-year students, not all of them were willing to "take on" the entire class and it seemed like everyone else was agreeing.

And then one of the male students said, "Well, you can tell boys and girls are different just by what they play with when they're little. I mean, girls don't like to play with cars or get dirty or climb trees."

Before he could go on, there were a couple of mini-explosions across the room.

We spent the rest of the class having a great discussion on gender-roles and how those often differ from the reality of individual personalities. With a class that included several female engineering students, several international students and a couple of males in "non-traditional" fields, there was a lot of sharing of stories. My students left the class that day, still discussing the issues - a happy and semi-rare day for a required first-year course.

I think many people in the western world have come to the conclusion that it is not necessarily a trait of males to want to have a career. It's not necessarily a trait of women to want to stay home with the kids.

So, while some traits might be more prevalent in men or in women, they all seem to have not just exceptions (which implies they are not common) but that these traits might be tendencies, whether hard-wired or learned.

So what does hard-wire the male and female brain to be different?

Some research indicates that men use more grey matter, leading to a tendency toward more information processing; women tend to use more white matter, leading to more connections between various processing centers.

So, those people who say men and women think differently are right - in general. The problem is that there are always biological exceptions which muddy the waters.

For myself, I cringe when any survey asks me: M or F. I am not that easily categorized. They are not usually asking for my biological sex as that rarely matters in a survey. They are often asking for gender and I don't think that the majority of people in the western world truly fit into the expected gender norms. I know too many men who are "too sensitive" and too many women who enjoy the outdoors "too much." And if a researcher is simply quantifying us by M & F we're going to get pink Hello Kitty compound bows sized for a woman - which might make some of my friends happy (you know who you are!!), but which would just piss me off to no end.

Ultimately, what makes us what we think of as male or female is more complicated than our biological bits and there's a lot more overlap in both directions than M or F would indicate on a survey. As a species, we are programmed to look for patterns and to put everything into hierarchies. The problem is, most of our methods of classification are too simplistic to truly encapsulize who we are. There is no better example of this phenomenon than Thomas Beatie - someone born female, but felt like a man. So, he had his breasts removed, began the testosterone therapy ... but stopped short of a "full" sex change, citing that one day he might want to bear a child.

Is Thomas a man or a woman? Biologically, the answer is fairly simple as we sex people by their genitalia. However, if we were able to look at all of Thomas's systems, would we find all the hallmarks of female, or would we find female knees and reproductive organs, but a male brain?

Is the woman who is outside more than inside, who hunts deer and delights in dune buggies more male or more female?

And ultimately, does it really even matter? Aren't we simply ourselves?

Why should the exterior trappings of male and female dress or appearance matter to anyone short of potential mates? Why do we care?

In online communities, I try to not say if I'm male or female because I feel the question is far more complicated than the simple biological answer. I catch flak for it and I don't particularly care. If there's a shoutbox or live chat feature to the community, I generally find myself the center of a controversy - is "ender" male or female. People get angry when I won't answer the question. Eventually, I pose one question to them: "If I'm not looking to date you, why do you care? I am still the same person I was before the debate started here. Why does it really matter?"

So far, no one has been able to answer that question ... and they have all (so far) decided that it doesn't matter after all. They're still curious, of course, but we are an intensely curious species - and that's a good thing.

[Some further reading:
from the BBC
from

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:10 PM | Comments (1) | Blog | Struggles | Stumble

April 10, 2008

Survey Asks - Gender: M / F / ?

It's a question that sounds ridiculous and yet it is one which has plagued me all my life and turns out to be more complicated than it sounds.

What is it, really to be male or female, man or woman?

We know, of course, the biological bits which make someone a man or a woman. We know there are people born with the sexual organs of both, making the biological definition of man and woman a little bit more complicated.

If someone can be born both male and female in terms of biological bits and pieces - sex - why do we seem to find it so difficult to believe that there are people who are born with a social construct gender path which does not necessarily match their biological sex?

Let me back off of that question for a moment and discuss the difference between sex and gender. Obviously a person's sex is a matter of factual record. You either have a penis and testicles and an "overabundance" of testosterone, or you have a uterus, vagina, ovaries, your breasts develop and an "overabundance" of estrogen. And then, of course, you get people who are born with both sets of sexual organs and a cacophony of hormones.

But it's pretty obvious how to differentiate man and woman. Factual, even. Examine the reproductive bits, classify as M or F. Easy.

Gender, on the other hand, is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Each society defines gender and since there are two visually and easily identified sexes, most, but not all, societies have simplified gender to match sex.

Now we have the first complication in what I see as our modern viewing of sex and gender. Many people insist that sex and gender are, indeed, one and the same. They often claim that it has always been so and to suggest otherwise is an unnatural and modern perversion of humanity. However, if we look to the ancient Greeks, we can see that there were shades of grey both within the gender of Greek males and, of course, within their sexual preferences. Those who rigidly insist that Male and Female gender is defined by Male and Female sex, have a tendency to dismiss the Greeks as perverted and sick.

Yet these are the same people who insist that suggesting sex and gender are not necessarily the same is a modern concept. Ancient Greeks, I propose, are dismissed simply because they do not fit into the paradigm of the rigid Sex=Gender people. The ancient Greek and Roman golden period did have its share of what we classify as debauchery and perversion - but they also gave us the concepts of democracy and many of our ideals of fair governing - along with a history of what demagoguery and tyranny and imperialism can do to a country.

I think it's disingenuous of us to dismiss what we dislike simply because we disagree with it.

Historical and cultural indications that gender as a social construct is NOT a new idea:
• Man-hearted woman: Agamemnon by Aeschylus
• Revolutionary war: the example of Robert Shirtliffe/Deborah Samson - a female who enlisted in the American forces and fought through a great portion of the war - as a man, because that was the only way to be able to act as she felt called to act.
• In the Sioux tribe, gender was not completely cut and dry. Some men were thought to be blessed by the moon during their vision quest and they lived as women - and were thought to be quite clever people - there was no cultural negative repercussions for being such a person. On the other hand, some men who showed cowardice in battle were punished and ridiculed by being forced to live as women - the lesson here being that you could be called to a different gender by something outside yourself - or you could act in a manner which didn't correspond to your call or to your biological sex, and be ridiculed for that.
• Many Celtic tribes did not particularly have the same gender role expectations that we think of today. Women were leaders, fighters and generally the equal of their male counterparts.
• Some Eskimo tribes had women who resisted the marriage and child-bearing expectation of their sex, and it was not uncommon for these women to "live as men" in terms of the expected gender role - they hunted and they dressed as the men did without societal repercussion.
• Likewise, many Native American tribes had men who lived according to the expected societal gender role of women - dress, behaviour, et cetera.

But if all of these "primitive" cultures included gender-role-swapping, why isn't that in the history books? Well, according to Caitlin Howell:

Many of the accounts are written by missionaries who unrestrainedly express their disgust with homosexual and cross-gender individuals. One Jesuit priest wrote, "...men were seen to wear the dress of women without a blush, and to debase themselves so as to perform those occupations which are most peculiar to the sex, from whence followed a corruption of morals past all expression... these effeminate persons never marry, and abandon themselves to the most infamous passions, for which cause they are held in the most sovereign contempt." (Katz 290)

It is likely that white disapproval of homosexuality caused Native American homosexuals to disguise that part of their identity, and tribes gave white anthropologists and ethnographers the possibly mistaken impression that they shared their disapproval.(Blackwood 28)

In other words, what made it into writing was the "modern" or victorious society recording their disgust at the "primitives." Also, since the disgust was so vehement, and the missionary culture so pervasive, the original culture felt it necessary to bury their gender definitions in order to reduce battles and tensions.

I'll end today's post by saying this: despite the modern attempt to define the societal gender-roles of male and female quite rigidly according to biology, this does not appear to be a universal truth, but a cultural tendency. Some cultures (modern and ancient) have very strong societal constraints put on males and females. Other cultures may define male and female roles strongly, but allow a fluid meaning of male or female and not restrict that meaning to biological sex.

I intend to follow up this post with examples of just how muddy the waters can be ...

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:26 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | Stumble

March 23, 2008

Hope You Had a Good Weekend

I'm not writing this post to upset anyone nor to make anyone feel bad. I'm not writing it to attack anyone. I know some people say those things to cover up the fact that they are, in fact, doing exactly those things. I'm not one of those people. This is a think-piece, not an attack piece. :)

All through a variety of public discussion groups this weekend, I have seen one message over and over and over again. It's a wish for a good weekend. It's a wish for fun. It's a wish that solidifies a solidarity amongst a very great number of people.

But that wish also makes a huge assumption about others.

It is, in my opinion only, one thing to say Happy Easter on your blog - it's your blog and you should say Happy Easter or well wishes for a pleasant Purim, even a great Wiccan Sabbat of Eostar. It's all good. It's your blog and you should say whatever you like there with no doubt.

However, when on a general discussion board or a even a Friendster or Myspace analog, WHY do people insist on leaving comments which indicate a Christian religious preference on the profiles of friends when they don't know for sure what tradition that friend follows?

It's a nice gesture, don't get me wrong. It's never amiss to wish someone a good day regardless of what day that happens to be.

But I have dear friends who are Jehovah's Witnesses - they are Christian, but do not "celebrate" holidays. It always bothers me when I hear people wishing these friends a Merry Christmas. They, of course, are used to it. They know they are in the minority about their beliefs regarding celebrating holidays and while it gives a momentary "I'm not at the Kingdom Hall" moment, at least my friends tend to take it relatively in stride.

The same, to a certain extent, with my Jewish friends. Most of them know the wish is a genuine wish of goodwill.

However, there's always that moment of cringe. That moment of realization that your friends may mean well, but they don't get you. That moment of remembering that you're an outsider after all.

It's not a bad thing to wish someone a good day, a good weekend. But when we attach a certain personal significance, a religious significance, to it when we don't know that person's belief system ... it's not quite the well wishing we might have thought.

And I do honestly hope everyone had a great weekend and this post didn't upset anyone. It's just a little thought-piece - but one I felt needed to be said.

UPDATE:
As at least two of my commenters mentioned, there are also other reasons that wishing someone a happy Easter or hope you had a great Christmas, or whatever. If you're coming to this post from the main page, please click through to the comments and read their experiences as well. Thanks!

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:49 PM | Comments (5) | Blog | Stumble

March 14, 2008

Don't Feed the Trolls

My bedroom in high school and the first year of college, was, more often than not, pitch dark. It wasn't for the lack of trying to lighten it up - my mom bought the most sheer curtains she could find. And when I demanded "bed dressing" that matched my personality, Mom made matching curtains out of an extra set of the sheets. (White, with a stripe of rainbow down each long side ... yeah, I know. Early indicator?) Stark white walls, mostly white comforter, sheer curtains which let in the light from the street light at the corner of our front yard. But my favourite way to be was laying on my bedroom floor, all the lights out, just the glow of my "jambox"-stereo's equalizer dancing up and down. And that last year of high school when I scrounged together all of my money to buy my prized Magnavox Videowriter, I would sit at my desk, adding the amber glow of that cheesy word processor to the dim light of my room.

When my creative writing teacher first told us how he would go to an all-night Waffle House to immerse himself in the biomass (to borrow Stephenson's word), I was appalled. How could anyone write with all of the cacophony of activity and light around them? F.J. insisted that it was a valuable way to observe characters, to practice dialogue. Being far too much of an introvert, I could not really wrap my head around this enough to do it. That was about 1986 or 1987.

A few years earlier, my dad brought home a stunning new toy - a Commodore 64. He was amazed and gleeful like a little boy on Christmas morning discovering his new Red Ryder BB gun or Radio Flyer sled. He practically squealed as he opened up the package and pulled out that brick of a keyboard/computer. A whole 64k stored in this sucker! He explained to me, in one of our rare actual conversations, it used to take a machine the size of about half our house to do what this little sucker could do. I remembered one of those rooms - Dad took me to work with him once ... an icy air-conditioned room filled with huge metal cabinet-things. Punch cards. Later, rolls of paper tape.

Mom forbid the acquisition of a modem as efficiently as she'd forbidden cable television - but the boy across the street had a modem and I watched as one letter after another would pop onto the screen from some distant person. Heh, and watch those letters disappear as the person hit backspace to correct a typo.

But it wasn't until I was nearly done with my seven year stint at university before I discovered MUDdog and email and just how fascinating this online Waffle House could be. That was somewhere around 1992-4.

I've been hooked ever since.

This morning, once again, I've turned off all of the lights. I have the band Sick Puppies blaring on the stereo, though not as loudly as I'd like - my neighbors are still sleeping. The glow of my keyboard and laptop screen - and the blue glow of the stereo are all I want. I'm writing against the deadline of sunrise, remembering how easy it was for me to get lost in my introspection as a teenager and 20something in the dark. How much easier it was and is to reflect honestly on myself and my actions as well as the biomass I observe around me.

I recognize that I'm damaged
I sympathize that you are too
But I wanna breathe without feelin' so self-conscious
But it's hard when the world's starin' at you

To me, this is the most interesting thing about the internet. You have all of these people with their foibles and faults and strengths ... you have these intercies, these nodes, of common interest where this diverse mass of individuals pour their thoughts into shared pixel representations.

Why do we do this? Why do we strive to share our experiences and thoughts with everyone else? Why do we strive to get people to understand what we're thinking, feeling, wanting?

It seems to me that no matter how introverted or extroverted an individual is, we all are reaching for some connection beyond just our self - to know that we are not totally alone in our thought or experience or feeling. That someone groks at least a fraction of who and what we are.

What I constantly strive to understand, and I'm not sure I'm capable of really understanding it, is why some people are literally so lost in their own individuality that they cannot hear the experiences and feelings of others.

I can't even begin to recall how many times I have read the pixels of people who define their world by "I'm right" and you're either 100% with me or 100% against me. So when I see one of these people laying their pixels down in a frantic dance of light and dark dots, I'm sucked in by my own curiosity and confused fascination. When I watch as they blithely ignore the community around them and choose to take disagreement as attack; when they insist on reading a helping hand as condemnation.

And, then, of course, all of our shared human foibles come to the fore. The helping hand and the civil disagreement becomes frustration and anger - which does become attack and condemnation. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that leaves the outer edges of the community in confusion and often shock. It's like seeing the "perfect couple" have a real fight finally. You see sides of these people that you never suspected lurked beneath all the letters they've strung together on the internet.

And when the smoke clears and all the participants who are able to do so actually sit back and take a look at what happened and how they contributed to the explosion, they are left with this conundrum:
How do I both "protect" my self, ideas and beliefs ... and balance my emotional reaction ... and walk away from the trolls who only want a fight and to get everyone riled up?

How do we differentiate motive on the net without body language and tone of voice to help us decipher our pixelated world?

In my experience, it becomes about building a context. If one person's response to disagreement is to always either ignore or attack, with no middle ground attempting to bridge differences and create understanding, then that person is probably simply trolling for trouble. It's a subjective thing. And, in online communities, it's a dangerous field to walk across. Newer folk are going to tend to side with the troll when the old hands attempt to slap down the troll out of frustration. The old hands know the history and have often decided to take a stand to defend their community and hunt the troll until they've left the community. New people, not knowing that the troll may be currently presenting the mask of the maligned victim in order to garner support and thus keep the battle going on longer, may openly side with the troll in an effort to defend their new community from bullies.

The term troll is highly subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. The term is often erroneously used to discredit an opposing position, or its proponent, by argument fallacy ad hominem.

Often, calling someone a troll makes assumptions about a writer's motives. Regardless of the circumstances, controversial posts may attract a particularly strong response from those unfamiliar with the robust dialogue found in some online, rather than physical, communities.

Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore him or her, because responding encourages a true troll to continue disruptive posts — hence the often-seen warning "Please do not feed the troll".

Frequently, someone who has been labelled a troll by a group may seek to redeem their reputation by discrediting their opponents, for example by claiming that other members of the group are closed-minded, conspirators, or trolls themselves.

No matter how even-handed ... how just ... we try to be, the fact of the matter is, we are not perfect. We snap. We jump to conclusions. We get tired and cranky. And what separates us from the trolls? We are able to step back and re-evaluate our behaviour, to try to learn from our mistakes, to learn when to stop reacting next time and walk away from what we feel is trollish behaviour.

To creatures who seem to intrinsically need to be understood, it's a hard thing to walk away from that chance at communication. But some battles are won only when they aren't fought at all ...

The light is beginning to make the curtains glow ... so now I leave you with this ...

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:26 AM | Comments (7) | Blog | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Sketches | Stumble

February 17, 2008

Welcome, Nephew!

After a long wait ... it appears that the Red Monkey has a li'l nephew-monkey. My sister called about 11:15 p.m. eastern time on the 16th to say the li'l guy had finally made his full monty appearance. She sounded exhausted but content ... of course, that could have been the morphine. Hopefully I'll have more details tomorrow. Or later today, I mean.

WOOHOO!!!!

UPDATE 9:30 a.m.
Just got off the phone with baby-sis and here are some details:
He is 8 pounds, 8 ounces, which was smaller than they'd originally thought he'd be.
Don't have a length on him, but baby-sis says he's got the LONGEST arms and legs of any newborn she's ever seen. I'm assuming he's gonna be a futbol player considering how much he kicked her during the pregnancy. Dunno how she feels about putting his name publicly, so I'm not posting that, but I will say I love his name.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:00 AM | Comments (8) | Blog | Stumble

February 14, 2008

Cre8ing Some Buzz

Yeah, yeah, hush. I used that 8 on purpose because I'm talking about the site Cre8Buzz today. So there. Hmph.

Anyhow, Cre8Buzz is a pretty cool little site for bloggers. Generally speaking, MySpace, Friendster, Dogster (no, sadly, I'm NOT kidding), FaceBook, blah blah blah, they all bore me. In fact, they remind me of the silly days of GeoCities when everyone pretended to put their websites into little neighborhoods like all those li'l pixelpals were really hanging out kinds of buddies. So when my buddy Jodi said, OH you just HAVE to try this one, I rolled my eyes at first.

Wow. You still get the tons of gratuitous friendings, but most of the people who friend you either stop by your profile and/or your blog on a pretty regular basis. I, of course, suck at keeping up with all of the people on my friends' list, the same as I suck at keeping up with all my pixelpals' blog. (And yet, I'm irritated when they don't keep up with mine. I know. I'm an arrogant jerk sometimes. *sigh*)

Anyhow, I'm really digging the Anthill, as we affectionately call the Buzz (after their logo mascot, Antman). Well, not digging like an anteater or something. I meant to say, I'm enjoying it. Sheesh. Gotta watch the metaphors around you lot, don't I? If you want to check it out, gimme a buzz and I'll send you an invite.

Meanwhile, the Buzz is having a t-shirt contest ... and here's the design I'm entering ... make sure to click to get the larger image to pop up (still a fast load time on it, though) ... squishing it down to 400 px to fit into this template layout killed the detail of the logo. Wish me luck, the winners are announced on Monday.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:27 PM | Comments (6) | Blog | Sketches | Stumble

February 11, 2008

A Book

Okay, so no one tagged me with this meme, but I saw it on Jod{i}'s blog and stole it. Now, she knows I hate being tagged for memes so she's prolly kicking herself for not tagging me with it and busting my chops over it. To which I say, Nyah!

Rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open it at page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence/ phrase.
4. Blog the next four sentences/ phrases together with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig your shelves for that very special or intellectual book.

Heh. I've been on a drawing and internet spree for the last year and haven't had my usual tower of pisa stack of books by my chair, but I'm kinda juggling a million things at the moment, and happen to have:
In the Beginning: The Navajo Genesis by Jerrold E. Levy right here at hand.

page 123, fifth sentence through the ninth.

It is also a means by which the creative or good side of chaos is retained as part of Blessingway.
When corn was created, Talking God was told to sanctify it but failed. Coyote, in company with Begochidi, was then asked to perform the sanctification:
"Go ahead, old man, you must be of use here," [Coyote] was told.

I'm really, really hoping I get to go to New Mexico in June to work on the Navajo rez for a week. If I could just land a damn job!

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:29 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | Stumble

February 7, 2008

The Tower of Conceptual Babel

Back in 1993, I was finishing up my bachelor's degree in English in a state school. Not the fancy-pants University of Texas at Austin - known as UT. But the school we perceived of as the poor cousin, University of Texas at Arlington - known as UTA. It wasn't that the school wasn't as good, but we simply didn't get the press that UT did. We didn't have a football team. We were a commuter school. We weren't in a cool town like Austin, but out in the 'burbs between Dallas and Fort Worth. Our concept of ourselves was based on what others thought of UT ... we were obviously a poor outlying satellite.

Despite our concept of ourselves, we had some cool stuff going for us. One of the other tutors at our writing center told me about this nifty thing she'd discovered. It was called a MUDdog ... you got on one of the dumb terminals over in the computer science lab, logged in, entered a few commands and you were suddenly immersed in this text world. I was unimpressed. I had Zork on the Commodore-64 at home, thank you very much.

This was different, she insisted. Through the campus connection, this text world was populated with real people from around the globe. You could talk with them and interact with them in real time!

I tried it for a lark one Saturday when I didn't have anything else planned. Walked up to campus ... logged in ... and eight hours later I finally looked at my watch.

I've been hooked on various types of online communities ever since.

As someone who is always fascinated by human interactions, as someone who can't help but be an observer as well as a participator ... as a writer ... I am utterly enthralled by the microcosms of society that we set up online.

MUDS, chatrooms, IRC channels, "Web 2.0 sites," blogs, shoutboxes, forums (technically that's fora, but I try to go with the flow).

General public, special interests, moms, dads, writers, non-writers, artists, dog-lovers, cat-lovers, extroverts, introverts, introverts who become extroverts online.

Invariably it happens.

Invariably someone trots out their fervent belief in X. And X might be a product, a method of doing something, a religion, a favourite actor or politician or writer ... or whatever.

And just as invariably, someone else takes a polar opposite view.

Now, things can go a couple of ways at this point. It might be we have a nice, logical, rational discussion about the pros and cons of X. Of course, this is the least likely scenario, but it does happen.

Another option: things get heated. X is vilified. X is extolled. Vilified. Extolled. On and on and on. Neither side listens to the other and you literally get an extremist jihad, crusade, holy war of whatever flavour you wish to call it. Sides are drawn up. The inevitable rhetoric gets trotted out: "you're either for us or against us" ... "there is no middle ground" ... "well you know what I mean."

The option that goes one step beyond that is this: X is vilified and so is "that damn dipshit who said X was good." "You're delusional and anyone who thinks like you is delusional."

It seems that even when we speak the same language, we still live in a tower of babel. We still struggle to make our words understood ... to feel that we are being respected and heard and believed. And often, despite what we are sure is plain language and crystalline logic ... other people fail to get our point ... fail to agree. And obviously, the failure is almost inevitably theirs, as we have been perfectly clear and rational.

Over the last two weeks I have watched as two of the three online communities I participate in had serious melt-downs. Honestly, it's nothing I haven't seen before. Ideas being denigrated, people being denigrated, people feeling sure they were denigrated when they were not ... all because emotions were running high.

Often, it's like watching a bunch of junior high age kids (13-15 or so). Kids that age are still learning the finer social mores and how to converse without pissing people off. They speak plainly and say exactly what they mean ... but often their vocabulary does not include any grey area at all. The idea that words have connotations generally escapes them. The concept that words, despite our best efforts to deny this, words do hurt us. Or at least they frustrate us. (And please note that there are plenty of teens who do get this concept ... and there are plenty who don't learn this concept ever. This is merely a developmental stage and a generalization.)

Online, we add to this type of social group the fact that there is no good way to discern body language and vocal tone ... and often we misinterpret words that were not meant in the ways we see on the screen. And, sometimes, no matter how hard we try to craft those words to elicit in every person who reads them exactly and precisely what we mean ... all that work is simply lost in the babel of pixels and previous experience and the mind of the individual reader.

It is in watching these explosions happen online, where you can see each piece of the misunderstanding beginning to unfold and then to blossom and the fruit to explode, spreading its pollen of dissent over the entire participatory community ... it is watching this microcosm mushroom online that we truly see the babel of concept and idea which in the so-called "real world" leads to fighting and war. It's an amazing and, when put in this light, terrifying event to watch.

It starts so very simply.

And it is played out over and over and over again. As soon as one segment of a community finally "gets" how these things get started ... when a few people suddenly realize that they ways in which they phrase things matter AND that they become more capable of trying to take the other side's ideas as something to respect despite disagreeing (and perhaps disagreeing vehemently) ... as soon as this happens, another group comes along who has not yet learned these concepts ... and the battles begin anew.

It is the curse of our relatively short life spans and our frequent procreation and our different rates of learning and comprehending - as a race we seem compelled to play this scenario out over and over and over again.

Whether it's the mud-slinging of an American presidential "season" ... whether it's "your tree's leaves are falling in MY yard" ... or "your people are creating problems" ... or "your actions are eroding the atmosphere" ... "we don't want your sort here" ... "you don't believe as we do."

We bag and tag and categorize each other out of existence so that we don't have to listen to the conceptual babel and weigh all sides.

And even when we have learned the lessons and we try to stay calm and rational ... there is always human frailty, exhaustion ... and a point when someone else's rhetoric finally crosses a line beyond which we feel a moral imperative to call them on it because to not call them on that particular phrasing or concept is to allow an intolerable situation to thrive.

It doesn't ever end. And it feels like "we" never learn.

But whether the babel is language based or conceptually based, it is a constant of human existence. We are locked into our own skulls with wiring and operating systems only somewhat compatible with the others around us.

Our lives are never-ending attempts to connect and to forever try to understand and be understood in the face of failures and partial compatibilities.

Our strength lies in our stubborn certainty that we can finally find the right cord for connection and the right version of the operating system to achieve a true and deep melding.

I'm reminded of a book I never really liked, but I adored one single line. (Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero)

"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles." Though that sentence shouldn't bother me, it stays in my mind for an uncomfortably long time. Nothing else seems to matter.

We are individuals afraid to merge ... and yet seeking to be understood so fully that we do merge ... which frightens us more and makes the need to be understood more fervent and powerful.

People are afraid to merge. To lose some aspect of their true selves? Fear that to understand all is to dislike? To find out some idea we might have about that person is false?

People are afraid to merge so we build these towers and walls to protect our thoughts and minds and feelings ... our individuality.

And then we wonder why others do not see things our way, not realizing that the bricks and stones and concrete of our towers and bunkers are simply not transparent. They don't just protect us and shield us, but they blind us to where others are.

Even our most fervently held beliefs are simply stones in the wall, often preventing us from understanding someone else. And when someone doesn't understand us when we think they should ... so often we begin casting our stones at them, trying to bury them in our beliefs - sometimes without even realizing we're doing it. Of course, this only makes us build our own walls thicker and higher ...

... and people are afraid to merge.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:51 AM | Comments (12) | Blog | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Struggles | Stumble

January 27, 2008

New Explore T-Shirt

I started out on CafePress quite a while back. Posted some designs, sprang the $60 per annum for a "pro" site that let me put Design A on a baseball shirt ... and Design B, too! (If you don't spring for the pro shop, one style of product = one design ... boooooooooring. At least, that's the way it used to be. Then they pissed me off, took an extra year's $60 from me and I won't have anything to do with them anymore. Bah)

Anyhow, after I left CafePress, I went to GoodStorm. (What is with all of these companies and software packages and such smooshing together two words without a space but still capitalizing both words? Oh, I know cuz then it's easier to make a web address, but still. WordPress, CafePress, GoodStorm. Bah)

GoodStorm had some incredible artists designing stuff. More shirt colours, but fewer shirt types. And no "ancillary" products like bags and pillows and mugs and posters. But, the company was way cool. You made more money than you did with CafePress - and best of all! They didn't charge you $60 a year to put up multiple designs. Awesomeness.

Now, GoodStorm has been bought out by Zazzle. *sigh* It's not that I don't like Zazzle. I do. They offer more products than GoodStorm did. But, now I'm back to the same damn restrictions I had with CafePress. At GoodStorm, I could utilized the entire t-shirt for a design. If I wanted it placed in a particular area, I could contact the good folks at GoodStorm and know they'd place it where I wanted and it would be COOL. Now I'm back to a smallish area placed way up high on the shirt. No wrap-around designing available, either.

I have updated one of my favourite designs for now and have it available at Zazzle. I'm not positive that I'm staying there, however. Zazzle doesn't do white ink on their "light coloured" products which puts a big damper in some of my designs and would mean that I could only offer those designs on white shirts or dark coloured shirts. And since I would have to offer the white shirt and the dark coloured shirts as separate products (in other words, I can't create one product and then pick and choose what colours I want available. I can choose all dark, all light, all, or one of a few subcategories like organic).

I do know that Zazzle has done shops for places like The Disney Store, Build-A-Bear Workshop and others ... they're a good company. I'm just not sure they're right for me yet. Just not enough control over my designs. But, I've played with the site for only a day. Maybe I'll find more details as I get used to their interface and explore some more. Or maybe I want to leave t-shirts behind and move on to posters and cards. I'm not sure. Mostly I'm just sad about the change.

Meanwhile, does anyone know of any other product shops which might offer more control to the designer?

UPDATE: On recommendation from a few people, I've also started a store at RedBubble. I have a little more control over placement and a LOT of control over the shirt colours. Plus, Zazzle does not print white and RedBubble does!

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:42 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | Sketches | Stumble

January 25, 2008

Dog Lovers

Oh my oh my.

It's too late for New York City now ... they have fallen into the abyss. All that rampant homosexuality, has indeed, led to bestiality as all the nutbags suggested. Here, in stunning video coverage, is Mo Rocca's in-depth expose showing just how far the queers are dragging us down and destroying good, old-fashioned American family values:

(Yeah and in case you didn't notice, that was sarcasm above. Homosexuality does NOT freaking lead to bestiality. Sheesh, Huckabee, get your head outa your ass so you can SEE, okay?)

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:54 PM | Comments (4) | Blog | Stumble

January 22, 2008

Speechless

Bleeding HELL. First Brad Renfro and now Heath Ledger. I'm not a huge follower of celebrities ... I like to think that they deserve their own private lives and I don't want to encourage the slime who follow celebs or the spin agents who make up their lives for them (sometimes).

Particularly after just talking about Stephen King's "The Body" ... which was also the film Stand By Me, and having my inevitable twinges over River Phoenix, the deaths of Brad Renfro and Heath Ledger hit me hard this month. In fact, I was watching an episode of Dirty Jobs, a show I hate cuz I can NOT stand the lead guy, I was watching solely because he was showing how to shape a surfboard. I've found this interesting since the first time I saw Lords of Dogtown ... this was something Heath did during the course of the film.

Regardless of whatever happened to both of them in their last days ... regardless of what was going through their minds, the troubles and joys they had ...

I'm going to miss seeing both of them. I enjoyed their work a great deal and I enjoyed watching them perform and the world is that much poorer for the loss of it.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:21 PM | Comments (4) | Blog | Stumble

January 21, 2008

Tag, She's It

I was tagged by Mark Stoneman to name 8 random things about myself. Like Mark, I often ignore tags. But when reading his 8 things aloud to my partner and coming across his gem about the chickens. I decided, as usual, to twist the meme and change it up.

Here are 8 random things about my partner. (Done with her approval cuz even though with as much as she's tossing and turning and flopping around at night with her surgery sliced hand, I don't really wanna sleep out here on the futon.)

1) In homage to Mark's chickens: My other half was raised in farm country and the entire family was very into 4H ... her younger brother LOVED fowl. At one point they had, and I quote: a bunch of "cross beaked little inbred freaks which did not help the hillbilly impression since they were loose all over the yard, the FRONT yard." Apparently their beaks did not line up. The top beak was not in the same line as the bottom beak which did make the entire family wonder how the durn things even managed to eat.

2) She cooks wonderful things. Delicious, wonderful things. This is both because of 4H and the fact that her mother was a Home Sciences teacher (involved far more than your typical Home Ec stereotypical stuff).

3) She is the messiest cook I have EVER met.

4) She forces ME to do the dishes. (Okay, okay. To be fair, she does all the laundry and I do all the dishes.)

5) She is clutterblind. I have watched her as she stacks papers and books and objects on her little table until it's literally a foot high. And then attempt to place something else on top. And then get mad when half of this slides inevitably to the floor.

6) She reads fem slash fan fiction based on Law & Order SVU and also of the Birds of Prey (DC comics, Batman universe). (And I bet she makes me delete this one.)
(Her first response was to say, Hell yes, you have to delete that. Her second, grudging response, was Okay, you can leave it. But you have to correct it to say fem slash fan fiction ... because if you have to out me about this, at least you can let people know I'm not reading that horrid straight shit.)

7) I introduced her to comic books and now when she recognizes something and makes a comment like, "That's not really a part of the Batman canon, is it?" ... she then whips her head to me and says, "You see? You SEE what you have done to me? I should NOT know these things!"
(hehehehehehe)

8) She FORCED me into getting a dog. Now we have two and I want a third.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:51 AM | Comments (4) | Blog | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

December 9, 2007

Coding Help

So here's the deal. I'm working on the design of another website, a pro bono deal for a church. And I had this nifty idea. They have an Events page. The page has a "headline" which gives the event name, the day, date and time. Then there's a description of the event. It's a straight-HTML and CSS page. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a little nugget of code in the background that could rip that "headline" to an XML file every time they update that page? And then that XML file would display in a little box on the home page? That way the current events (sans the longer description on the Events page itself) would appear in a little box on the homepage and on the events page and they'd only have to update it once instead of on each page.

I know this can be done. But I don't know Javascript or a whole lot about XML (hey, MT and Feedburner generate my XML for me). I'm a graphic designer who knows some code, not a full-blown web developer. Anyone wanna walk me through developing this?

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:33 PM | Comments (2) | Blog | Stumble

November 20, 2007

Holiday Happiness

Just some silly fun. First person to leave a comment correctly identifying ALL of the quotes (movie and the character speaking) will get a sketch from me. Remember you have to identify all 15 (and there are not 15 different movies here). Quotes which are divided on two lines are spoken by two people (that's number 2, 10, 13 and 14).

EDIT: IMPORTANT
It just occurred to me that the Captcha is going to be annoying for this. Dammit.
Here's how to beat the Captcha's timer (which, apparently I can't set to a different time).
Write your answers in a simple Text Edit program or Notepad. When you are completely done and ready to post ... then hit the comments link ... copy and paste your answers ... fill out the Captcha. Just don't hit the comments link earlier or the captcha image will "time out" without telling you.
If you did hit the link too early, just hit reload and it should give you a fresh captcha.
If it whines that the captcha is wrong, and you've done the answers in a text editor, it's no biggee to recopy.
Sorry ... but it's worth me not having to delete 300+ spamments a day :(

Name the movie and the person/people speaking ...

1) Is my shirt too big, or is that my flesh crawling?

2) How'd you like Grants Tomb?
It's lovely. I'm having a copy made for you.

3) You're just a bee-charmer, Idgie Threadgood, that's what you are. A bee-charmer.

4) Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now a Manhattan you shake to fox-trot time, a Bronx to two-step time, a dry martini you always shake to waltz time.

5) When I was your age, television was called books.

6) Look, I can see you getting all bunged up for them making you wear these kind of clothes. But face it, you're a neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie.

7) We are men of action, lies do not become us.

8) So, what's an old-timer like you want with a two-timer like me?

9) This is your badness level. It's unusually high for someone your size. We have to fix that.

10) Oh, it's all right, Joe. It's all right. It's my dog. And, uh, my wife.
Well you might have mentioned me first on the billing.

11) I'm not even supposed to be here today!

12) I don't have it. Screws fall out all the time, the world's an imperfect place.

13) Say listen, is he working on a case?
Yes, he is.
What case?
A case of scotch. Pitch in and help him.

14) What's the idea of the kid?
Well, we have a dog, and he was lonesome. That was the idea, wasn't it, Mummy?

15) For once, I'm stuck without a punchline.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:18 AM | Comments (4) | Blog | hobbies | Stumble

November 19, 2007

Reflections

It's a big week this week for a lot of reasons. Thanksgiving will always be an odd time of year for me. I dreaded the coming of November as a child ... it meant the holidays were approaching and I preferred school to the winter holidays. Not so much because I was an academic geek, but because it gave me something constructive and often at least semi-fun to do. It meant I socialized with other kids.

Being home for the holidays, on the other hand, was stress. We were either preparing to go to Grandma's for Thanksgiving or we were preparing the meal at the house. And while Mom didn't do any spectacular meals at any time, she stressed out about them all the same.

But like so many things at our house, it was all stress and the appearance of tradition rather than reflection and tradition. We didn't really reflect on what we were thankful for as a family. Sometimes, because I was an odd child who genuinely enjoyed quiet contemplation (almost as much as I enjoyed babbling with friends at school) ... sometimes I would try to engage in that thankful reflection by myself. It generally turned into a plaintive wish for different parents, however, and since that simply wasn't what Thanksgiving was about, I eventually abandoned the attempts. And about the time I abandoned them, my mother would begin bringing it up at the dinner table, trying to force us to say every little thing we were grateful for: the house, our family, the house, our stuff, a father who was a good provider, our stuff, oh yeah our health ....

But it was rote answers. What we were supposed to say. Mom had already decided what we should be thankful for and we were supposed to rattle off the correct answers with the proper respect and "thought" in our voices. However, by that time I was a teenager, full of the teenager's contempt for fakery. I like to think that it would have been one thing if we'd been seriously contemplative rather than regurgitating Mom's answers ....

After I moved out of the house, Thanksgiving was simply a day that I neither went to work nor school. It was a day to make Koogali (an old family recipe which I intend to make, take pictures of and share with you one of these days). It was a day to relax and a day to work on the inevitable mess in the house. It was a day to get caught up before a long weekend of frenetic work. On rare occasions in those early years, it was a time for a family visit and dinner.

When I moved to Indiana for graduate school, Thanksgiving remained simply a day off work and school and nothing more. We didn't have the money to go back to Texas to visit. We didn't really cook unless I made Koogali ... perhaps we warmed up some store-cooked turkey ... maybe we made chicken breasts. My ex and I were not big on cooking.

At that time Thanksgiving, like all the holidays, were simply bittersweet to me. It was nice to have a day off. But it was also a reminder that I simply didn't have the kind of close-knit Leave It To Beaver kind of family that I longed for.

And then 1999 rolled around. I'd been sickly, off and on, for about 2 years. I kept going to the doctor and getting fed antibiotics. He wouldn't run even a simple blood test. I'm not a particularly sickly person and I was finally getting irritated and nervous by 1999. By the beginning of '99, I was now getting sick just about every other month. I knew something was not right, but my doctor was not doing anything except phoning in another round of antibiotics.

Monday, the week of Thanksgiving, I finally dragged myself down to a doc-in-the-box that afternoon. The older doctor there, semi-retired but still practicing for the love of his profession, instantly takes a blood test. I listen at the door as he calls my doctor and yells at him. This is not good.

Tuesday, I see my doctor again. He's going to send me to a specialist and he's ticked because I can't get in that same day. This doesn't sound good to me. All I know is my hemoglobin is a 5.8 and apparently that's not good.

Wednesday, I see the specialist. I'm given a bone marrow test (this doesn't sound good) and then asked which hospital did I prefer, St. Joe or Memorial? Umm, neither? This was not an option.

So, Thanksgiving of 1999 I spent in the hospital, no diagnosis ... the specialist turned out to be a hematology/ oncology specialist. I had no idea if I should be thankful to be alive ... or preparing for a painful death. It was Saturday before I found out that I had Hodgkin's, aka Cancer Lite.

In the past eight years, I've gone from an adjunct professor of first year writing (with no health bennies ... yes, cancer, chemo and no health insurance ... it was fun) ... to a full-time instructor with health bennies at that same school. In February of 2004 I was told that my services were no longer needed there, but that I was to finish out the school year. It was a very painful semester of teaching. I still miss teaching. Every day. But, full-time teaching gigs at the college level are not easy to come by. So, I looked elsewhere.

Thanksgiving of 2004, I had interviewed for a job as a copy writer at a dot com based locally. It was one of perhaps two interviews I'd had since I started really looking for a new position in April. I got that job and was to start the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving of 2007 now ... and I was laid off in July. I'm thankful for the severance package I've got. But today I looked at our old website ... and I see that the new owners have finally taken it over. There's so little left of what we had done. The logo that Alan designed is still intact. The nifty triangles that I think Rob adapted from Alan are there. And that's about it. The first project I worked on there, a huge educational piece ... that's gone. All of the work that Warren, Cory, Alan, Rob, Bob and I did on the site design ... it's gone.

I've had just one good interview since July. And that was about 3 or 4 weeks ago, so I guess it's too much to hope that I managed to land that job. The interviewer did tell me that they had over 60 applicants for the one position. They interviewed 8 of us. I'm thankful to have been one of the 8. My ego needed that little warm fuzzy even if I didn't get the job.

So even while I'm thankful this year that I have a steady paycheck even if I don't have a job, that I'm not in the hospital facing a cancer diagnosis, that I have a partner who loves me, that my little sister is expecting her first baby in just 3 months, that I celebrated my 20 year high school reunion by re-connecting with several beloved friends, that some old relationships seem to be getting more healthy ...

... a part of reflection for me will always hold a certain wistfulness as well. I am thankful for those things and more. And yet, I regret that I haven't secured a new job yet, that I haven't used this time off to completely whip the house into shape, that I am still in Indiana and not Texas, that I still haven't gotten my life to the point where I can begin the rigmarole required for adopting a child, that I still have not managed to single-handedly bring about world peace and ended poverty, that I am unable to help a friend whom the system has neglected from the day she was born and who is now in a wheelchair and a nursing home because no one in the system will listen to her, that ....

The list always goes on and on until I do nothing but dwell on the fact that I am not a perfect super-being; I am merely a fallible human.

I am thankful. But rather than simply being thankful for what I have, I choose to focus on what I can accomplish still.

That one day I may learn to walk in balance, to walk in beauty, to walk in harmony.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:20 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | Struggles | Stumble

November 5, 2007

Four Things

That lousy Jod{i} over at Looking Beyond the Cracked Window tagged me. I hate memes. I hate being tagged. She knows this. She owes me interview questions, and yet, she decides to go the easy route and "distract" me with a meme first. Hmph. Only because it's mildly interesting and I'm tired of moving crap around the living room to make room for my beautiful new drawing table ... I will answer. But don't think just anyone can tag me. I ignore most of them. Have even ignored some from the illustrious and lousy Jod{i}.

Four Jobs I've had:

• Assistant Professional Specialist (fancy way of saying not a professor, but a teacher of college students)


• Graphic Designer


• Copy Writer


• Cashier, Customer Service, Sales Rep, Cash Office, Inventory Specialist ... at Bizmart (which was bought out by the evil OfficeMax)

Four Movies I can Watch over and over and over (ad nauseum):
only four?????

• Incredibles


• Stand By Me


• Radio Flyer


• Dead Poet's Society


• Breakfast Club


• The Matrix


• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm


• Lilo and Stitch

Crap, I'm over four, aren't I? Tough.

Four Place I have Lived:

• Amarillo, Texas


• Houston, Texas


• Albuquerque, New Mexico


• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma


• Carmel, Indiana


• Austin, Texas (then I started kindergarten)


• Arlington, Texas


• South Bend, Indiana

Name the two places listed above where I would be ecstatic to live again.

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:

• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends


• Dog Whisperer


• Life


• Law & Order: SVU


• MythBusters


• Bones


• House

Four TV Shows I'm Still Bitter Were Canceled:

• Joan of Arcadia ... so many curse words come to mind when I think of this show being canceled. It was one of the most intelligent shows on television. Which, of course, is why it was canceled.


• The Black Donnelleys


• Firefly


• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (actually, I'm not bitter over this one ... but I do miss it a lot ... I give Joss major kudos for knowing when to bow out, when the storyline was over ... I'm just ready for a new storyline in that 'verse!)

Four Places I have Been on Vacation:

• Talequah, Oklahoma


• Anadarko, Oklahoma


• San Antonio, Texas


• San Francisco, California


• Omaha, Nebraska

Four Websites I Visit Daily:

• BBC News


• ComicSpace.com


• Gaiaonline.com


• BlogCatalog.com

Four of My Favourite Dishes:

• Flautas con pollo from Fiesta Tapatia in Mishawaka


• Chicken Fajitas


• Lime Chicken (very spicy)


• Omelet with jalepenos, cheese and chorizo

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:

• In a bigger house which was completely paid off in my name


• Texas


• At a job I loved


• Somewhere warm

Now, I'm supposed to tag four more people. I hate tagging as much as being tagged. So, I'll tag you, you ... ummm, you and naturally YOU.

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:59 PM | Comments (2) | Blog | Stumble

October 29, 2007

Mozilla and Leopard

I love computers. We had a Commodore-64 back in the day and I've been utterly fascinated ever since. We also legally owned about two pieces of software and everything else was pirated ... so I learned very quickly to explore the program, explore menus and to experiment.

Today I'm one of "those" people. You know, A Mac Person. I've got a happy Intel MacBook Pro that I love. I installed APE and shapeshifter a while back so I could mess with the look of my GUI. Sorry, I've lost the non-computer people, haven't I? My bad. Suffice it to say that APE and shapeshifter let me change the appearance of windows and such, much like a theme for FireFox or Windoze XP.

Out of the kindness of my heart, I did NOT upgrade my computer Friday upon arrival of the new Mac operating system. I was good. I was going to wait until after my other half's birthday was over so that I was not totally distracted by the thousand and one small details that come up after an upgrade. Instead, I posted to the 9rules Notes asking if anyone had discovered any issues whilst upgrading. At first, I was lambasted for a fool and a not-true-Mac-Person for not instantly ripping open the box and running the update. I tried to explain that I was a softie who was trying not to be Teh Computer Geek for the other half's birthday.

After reading about no problems, Saturday I ran the update. I backed up a few things, but not everything. (Oh yes, I was really THAT stupid!) Thunderbird, my email client, had begun crashing inexplicably and I was hoping that the upgrade would stabilize that. Apple had sent through a firmware update and since then, Thunderbird has been freaking out over anything with an attachment. It was driving me mad.

I got the Blue Screen of Death upon the finish of Leopard's installation.

The Blue Screen of Death? But that's a Windoze thing!!! How can this be?

I searched the house for a boot disc so I could finish the backups that I should have already done. Couldn't find one. And, oddly enough, my restore discs that came with the laptop were NOT in the software archive in my home office with all the other software. Grrrrrr. I finally found them, hoped to boot for them, found myself having to use Restore instead. Fine.

Restart.

Oh. My. God.

Wiped. Everything gone!!!?! Noooooooooooooo!

And then I looked more carefully. Instead of approximately 110 gigs of free space on the hard drive, I had about 40. Hmmm. I found a folder called Previous Systems and luckily all my files and preferences were there and, apparently intact. It took me the better part of Saturday and Sunday to get everything working again, but I'm hopeful at this point that I didn't screw up too badly. Turns out that Application Enhancer (APE) blows up the Leopard install. That didn't hit the 'nets until after I'd discovered the issue myself. D'oh!

But the thing that has me frustrated beyond belief at the moment is this:

Thunderbird will NOT have ANYTHING to do with attachments at all now.

I've reinstalled it. I saved my mail and my addressbook, but otherwise deleted everything in the profile and re-created the profile. Nope. I couldn't reply to any email because Thunderbird didn't want to use the signature file. I couldn't even open the Attachments portion of the preferences.

I'm now to the point where I've deleted my signature file ... I can get to everything in the preferences again ... I can now reply to emails. But if there's an attachment, I can't open it or reply or the damn program crashes.

I'm at a loss. On top of that AIM has stopped opening and FireFox was being awfully screwy yesterday as well.

I'm beginning to think that Teh InterWebs hate me.

Anyone else having Mozilla issues????

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:06 AM | Comments (5) | Blog | Stumble

October 22, 2007

home

So much to write about ... and I'm just too tired.

List of things to discuss this week:

1. Rowling and Dumbledore


2. Travel and Airplanes


3. The Reunion


4. More stuff that I can't quite remember at this moment due to exhaustion (see #2)

Hopefully I'll start the discussions tomorrow ... oh, and of course, there's the Thinking Blogger tag from LibDrone as well. :)

It's going to be a busy week, methinks.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:15 PM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

October 3, 2007

Lamar High School ... 1987 Reunion

Lamar High School ... 20 Year Reunion ... Arlington, Texas

Okay, here's some updating on this. The price if you pay before 10/9 is $67 or $134 for a couple. This is good for both events (and, naturally, you can't pay for just one event).

Reunions by the Party People
Friday, October 19th, 2007 ... Ice Breaker Party ... J. Gilligan’s ... 8:00p.m. - Midnight
J Gilligans 400 East Abrams St. ... Arlington ... 817.274.8561
(Private party cash bar event)

Saturday, October 20th, 2007 ... Reunion Celebration ... (Casual Attire) ... Rangers Ballpark in Arlington ... 7:30p.m. - Midnight ... tex-mex buffet ... DJ ... dancing ... cash bar ... awards program (awards for freaking WHAT???)

More info? Check out http://www.alumniclass.com/lamarhstx/

There's a slew of people I have not been able to find that I would love to meet up with there. I've gotten in touch with Lori Goe and Annette Simonini ... but I'm still looking for:
Janet Kim (Kyungah) ... on the lost list ... no invites have reached her :(
Brenda Heath
Kate McDonald
Shannon Heizer
Suzanne Gruchow (even tho you moved before going to Lamar!)
Veronica Cano
Susan Stetson
Anna Tan
Cindy Ritner ... on the lost list ... no invites have reached her :(
Amy Alexander
Ashley Aguilar
Kristi Grimm
Alison Campbell
Paula Gill
Lisa Pawloski
Suzanne Scott
Jill Stewart
Jenny Britton
Tracy McGuire ... on the lost list ... no invites have reached her :(
Lynn Adzigian ... on the lost list ... no invites have reached her :(
Natalie Parrish ... on the lost list ... no invites have reached her :(
Russ Johnson ... on the lost list ... no invites have reached him ...I have heard briefly from him and hope he will be attending

And, of course, there are a slew of other folks that I'd like to catch up with again as well.

Really, I just posted this in the hopes that those people who haven't found out about the reunion can perhaps hit this info thru Google since the info's not all that easy to find.

And there are those of you who have contacted me, wanting to know who the heck Red Monkey is. If you followed through to my About Me page and through the rest of my site, you're still confused as you don't know who Robin MacRorie is. That wasn't the name I had back then.

Well, maybe you can ask around at the reunion and figure it out. :) A little mystery never hurt anyone.

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:08 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

October 1, 2007

MT 4

If you're a MT kind of person ... don't upgrade yet!

Seems the good folks at SixApart do not have the bugs worked out of the new system yet. Not even close. I was happy enough with 3.2 with the exception of not being able to find a Captcha program to help rid me of my plague of spamments. I saw MT4 go beta and then, I swear I saw it go production. And it included a Captcha!

I upgraded. There was a day of screaming and fussing as I tried to get everything straightened out -- the bulk of the issues coming around the new ways to implement commenting. Apparently I copied/pasted something badly and it took another 24 hours for me to work through my screw-up. Typical.

Then I installed the captcha. For the life of me, I cannot find where the directions for this "plug-in" which comes with MT 4.x are. I know I had it working for a while.

Fast forward to Saturday, the day of the Purdue/Notre Damn game. I was ready to upload a new graphic and post. "Session Over, please log in again"

Okay. I surf with FireFox and it had probably been a day or two since I had actually done anything in MT. I sign in.

Welcome. We are ready to upgrade your database.

WTF? I did that weeks ago. This isn't like some automated upgrading to the next version of MT, is it? I look. Nope. Apparently, it just randomly decides that it needs to "upgrade" an already upgraded database from time to time. Some people have it happen really frequently. Okay, fine. I let it upgrade.

That evening a friend IMs me. Hey, I can't comment on your blog. The Captcha isn't there any more, but the blog wants the Captcha verification.

Shit.

I still haven't figured out what went wrong where. I've spent the last couple of days haunting the MT forums. Nothing. I've sent a bug report to MT. I've been searching thru Google. Nothing.

I STILL can't figure out WTF is wrong or how just "upgrading" the database could have broken this. Dammit. So, no comments AGAIN until I can figure out what the hell went wrong this time. And I'll be publishing a full report of the issue here ... just in case it happens again ... or to someone else.

If you are from MT or SixApart or have simply got some ideas on what the issue could be, please, please, please email me at en der (no space) AT that thundering coyote domain name that you see above (yeah, way up there in the address bar of your browser. yeah, that's it ... no "ing" and the coyote comes before the other word.) DOT com.

At this point I'm so ticked off I'm beginning to think I should swap over to WordPress ...
I love MT ... but this is seriously pissing me off. :(

UPDATE:
As I went to freaking hit publish ... the damn database says it wants upgrading again.

I may have to kill something soon.

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:49 PM | Comments (2) | Blog | Stumble

September 2, 2007

All Nighters

And I thought I was done with the all-nighters. Silly, silly mortal.

Comments should be working. The Captcha images are hard to read and REALLY ugly, I know. I'm going to make some new images as soon as I get a really good look at how the Captcha is set up and make sure that my tinkering isn't going to break things again.

I'm leaving my spam rules alone for the moment, so if you post an URL (other than the one in the URL field ... so if you post a "second" one in the comments field itself), then the comment will get sent to spam. I'm really really really hoping that this cuts down on the spam. After I got the freaking comments fixed ... within five minutes I had 6 more spamments. Unbelievable.

Well, I ought to get up for church in 4 hours ... dunno if i'll make it or not, but I'm finally signing off for now. (Oh, and I dunno if the little smiley icons will be back or not ... I'm tired of dinking around the templates for now.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:23 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | Stumble

September 1, 2007

HELP HELP HELP

ANYONE who knows anything about version 4 of Movable Type, particularly about comments ...

Here's the deal ... all the old posts have the comments section on them still. The form is still there, but if someone tries to leave a comment they get:
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

I haven't clue one where to start with that.

Two:
The newest entries don't even have the freaking comments form ON them, much less the comments count at the bottom of the post here on the main page.

Please, please, please, email at e n d e r AT this domain. (Yes, the word with thunder and coyote in it ... not anything with Red Monkey in it.)

I think if I ever get this to work, it's an awesome looking upgrade so far. But good lord, SixApart needs real tech writers to go thru and do the step by step instructions for upgrades, for upgrades with custom templates, for new installations. Cuz you've got like 900 documents which is great, but it's freaking impossible to find what we need.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:58 PM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble

ARGH

Okay, comments still broken. I have NO idea what's going on with the template anymore.

Tomorrow (err, later today) I will probably go through and copy each old template, save it to the hard drive ... delete all templates and CSS ... and then attempt to use one of the MT styles just to see if that fixes the comments issue. If it does, then I know that it's not a permissions issue and it is a template issue. Hopefully that will help me track down the problem.

*sigh*

Seriously, I would rather wait an extra 6 months to a year for them to build an updater tool instead of having to do shit by hand like this. Dammit.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:14 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

August 31, 2007

Help, SixApart

Okay, so I got the fresh installation done. I'm trying to figure out the template tweaks that need to happen. And now the comments are bleeding BROKEN. I'm actually getting an Internal Server Error now when a comment attempt is made. Grrrrrr. I've done some checking on the Movable Type site, and can't find the issue.

1) I am sure there is a permission mis-set somewhere. I need a list of what all the .cgi file permissions are supposed to be.
2) I need a good look at what my freaking comments template is supposed to look like. I've followed this and thought that would fix the issue. Bah.
3) I did have it semi-functional for a while last night, but it was telling me that there was an error due to a cached page. I deleted cache. I did a force-reload. Same error, no more detail. I disabled the happy NoHarvester plugin, thinking I had done something wrong with that.
No joy.

ARGH!

Movable Type, I think you should hire me to do your manual writing. Seriously.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:28 PM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble

August 30, 2007

Spamments

Comments temporarily closed again.

I had 1700 spamments in 24 hours. There was one real comment that got trapped in the spam filters and particularly since it was from a new commenter, I'm glad I took the time to wade through all 1700 spamments to find the gem. (Thanks Nim!)

I'm going to attempt to upgrade to MT4 today and tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have better luck getting the spammers filtered out, although I would LOVE it if someone who knew htaccess could help me figure out how to shut out these bots. I'm not sure how to figure out which ones I'm being hit by. I took the main list that's been floating around the internet for a couple of years, but I doubt that list was up to date.

*sigh*

I'll bring the comments back as soon as possible, folks.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:11 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

August 10, 2007

Comments Broken?

I reset comments back to the original settings after that last post. The spam box is still filling up ... but I can't seem to post a test comment. Can someone else post a comment?

UPDATE:
Okay, so apparently only I can't post comments to my own blog. LOL Thanks to those who tested the comments for me.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:14 PM | Comments (2) | Blog | Stumble

Freaking Spam

200 spamments in 3 hours.

I spent 2 hours listing known bad bots in htaccess today. I'm still getting 200 spamments in 3 hours time.

I'm at a loss. I've switched preferences on the blog to continue to accept comments, but to send everything to moderation. (And I think the moderation template is screwed up ... so if you get there and it looks funky, I should care and want to fix it ... but I'm really tired of dealing with this crap at the moment, so I don't care.)

I don't have the time to be checking the spam filter constantly and deleting all these spamments. I'm begging anyone who's had any luck with blocking thru htaccess to email me and offer to help me out. If I can't resolve this soon, I dunno ... I might close the blog completely. MT 4 is due out soon-ish ... and they'll have member registration enabled ... I may upgrade to that and require registration to be able to comment. That might help, too.

Meanwhile ... this is the excitement of my day: COBRA still not activating my health insurance, so I still don't have the medicine that helps me breathe so instead of going outside, I'm staying in the house. I can't reach the site that delivers my paychecks because their site is effed up. (Attempting to hit the log in button which brings up the login screen leads you to a "We can't find that page" error ... otherwise I'd worry that my login information was bad - but I don't even get a chance to log in!) There is still no news on the job front.

Bah.

UPDATE:
Okay, so I set the blog to not immediately publish any comments. And that sounded good. Except that when I went to test it to make sure it was working right ... it wouldn't accept any comments.

EXCEPT THAT THERE ARE STILL SPAMMENTS HITTING THE SPAM FOLDER!!!!!!

WTF?

I have decided that today is not a good day and I hate everything and just thought I would share that with you. That is all.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:43 PM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

August 6, 2007

Temporarily Closing Comments

I'm going to close the comments down for the next five days or so. Sorry folks.

I am getting nearly 2000 spamments in about 36 hours time. And while very very very few of them actually hit the site, I do feel the need to go through the spam folder and make sure there are no legitimate comments which got accidentally stuck in there. After the Ghost entry for the Artsy Contest, for example, I had several comments wind up in the spam folder because the commenters left a link to their blog in their comments. Nothing wrong with doing that! But I get so much spam that my filters automatically send any comment with an URL attached to it into spam.

I'm hoping after 5 days of lock-down, maybe some of the bots will go away ... at least for a while.

Meanwhile, you wanna comment on something anyway ... use the contact button at the top of the page and I'll get it worked in as a comment. Sorry ... comments WILL come back, though.

(Stupid freaking r e d ... m o n k e y ... j e a n s ... i know this spam is because of them.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:21 PM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

July 16, 2007

Stupidity Incarnate

First, I've said before that our local news sucks ... here's new evidence that the newspaper is just about as bad:

Receptionist needed for busy small animal

That must be one damn busy small animal. Good lord. First of all, it has employees. Second of all, it's busy enough to need a receptionist ... who is contacting this small animal so much that it needs a receptionist?

Next up ... my beloved spammers who simply refuse to leave me alone. They are the reason that posting a comment with even a single URL in it will get the comment sent to the spam filter. I get a minimum of 400 spam comments a day. I closed down trackbacks because of spammers.

Here are some typical spamments, playing on the vanity of the blogger:

This site is very nise and helpfull! Would you please also visit my homepage?

Nice site. Thank you:-)

Your site is very convenient in navigation and has good design. Thanks!

Great looking site so far!! I'm just starting to look around it but I love the title page...

Hi there! Just couldn't resist your guestbook! Would you please also visit my homepage?

Cool design, great info! Would you please also visit my site?

Hi! Very Good Site! Keep Doing That! Please visit my homepage too: LINK DELETED

Good site! Good resources here, I will bookmark!

This site is really superb!!! Thank you for you work!

Wonderful and informative web site. I used information from that site it's great.

I like it a lot! It very impressive. Good work. Thanks! LINK DELETED

I just want to say thank you for taking the time & effort for put this web page together!

And then ... then there are the truly special ones. New ones that now attempt, I think, to help me with my spam issues:

Hay!!! best link for you a long ago for you was not prompt who for you was engaged in a design ? I got to you from a search engine through a site spam polazil for you on the site of www.coyotethunder.com all klastno but it is necessary to go ... LINKS DELETED ... senks!!!

whether all for you well a design is just in a theme so all is good but as I looked for you problem with the spam of type of it spam polazil for you on the site of www.coyotethunder.com all klastno but it is necessary to go

I've no idea what this person's native language is ... but it sure ain't English.

*sigh* Were I a brilliant programmer, I would soooo be on this like a fly on ... ummm, yeah. Anyhow.

Damn spammers, anyway.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:37 PM | Comments (0) | Blog | Stumble

June 2, 2007

Ranger Tuff

So, the other half is home and doing well. So well, in fact, that she decided to go to the Toyota dealership yesterday because they had a used Tacoma come on the lot and she wanted to go look at it. Seeing as how her lease is up on the piece of junk Ranger that she has now, she wanted to go ahead and look at trucks despite the fact that she was released from the hospital THURSDAY afternoon. Yeah, major surgery on Tuesday, released Thursday ... and Friday she makes me drive her out to the dealership to look at trucks that she cannot test drive.

The Tacoma turned out to be a very unimpressive 1998 model. Not a bad truck, but we wanted to do better than that.

It was parked next to an '02 Ranger. A year newer than the beloved blue Ranger she'd had before this previous one ... and more importantly, before they made all the changes to the Ranger model that we hated.

So, we test drove that one. Loved it.

Yeah ... 3 hours later, I'm driving her home in my Civic ... and the salesman is following us home in her "new" Ranger. Now we gotta go clean out that other Ranger and take it back to the leasing/dealership Monday or Tuesday. And get the insurance temp card picked up ... and and and.

I can't believe she did this the day after being released from the hospital.

Of course, I drove home from Indy (about 3+ hours) after being released from the hospital after a bone marrow transplant. Apparently, we're a LOT alike!

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:45 PM | Comments (2) | Blog | Stumble

May 24, 2007

Introducing ....

... the debut of http://www.mud-walker.com/

Followers of the Wooden Iguana have noticed (all three of you) that ComicSpace has been down for the last week. Not knowing exactly when they'd be back, and after some thinking about where I want the comic book to go (especially after chatting with Augie, I decided that in addition to publishing at ComicSpace, I really wanted my own site for the comic as well.

So ... there's no new page up today. I spent too much time dinking around with getting the site set up. It's still not exactly as I would like it, but those folks who wanted to leave comments over at ComicSpace but who weren't registered users over there, now have their chance to comment.

The Tuesday/Thursday publication schedule should resume next week ... however, my other half is going in Tuesday for surgery, so I don't guarantee that I'll stick tightly to that schedule just yet.

Oh, and ComicSpace? They should be back up in another day or so. Happily, they chose to use the host I use, Dreamhost. As Josh says about the delay ... hey, you try moving some "17,000 user folders and 90,000 comic pages"!!!

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:59 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | Sketches | Stumble

May 21, 2007

Damn Meme

Damn Meme comes from Jodi, from Beyond the Cracked Window:

The Rules:

1. I will write 10 interesting things about myself.
2. Then tag 10 people.
3. If you’ve been tagged, you do your own list and tag 10 more people. (”No tag backs.”)

1. I hate memes. I think they are the hideousness that is the chain letter from back in the day. Nevertheless, some of them can be interesting. If I think it'll be interesting, sometimes I'll do them. But I'll bitch about it. Cuz I hate them.

2. I own 2 electric guitars, an acoustic and a banjo.

3. I owned about 5 harmonicas until the upstairs toliet incident. I will NEVER put any of those harmonicas in my mouth again. And I damn near cried as I threw them away.

4. I haven't cried since I was about 11.

5. I have nearly every single Fisher Price Little People toy made between about 1950something and 1980 when the line turned into the big fat things.

6. The FBI has my fingerprints.

7. I have never been arrested or gotten a ticket (not even a parking ticket ... and oh good lord, is writing this down asking for trouble!)

8. I do not work in the field in which I got my degrees ... and I'm loving it!

9. We have four cats and two cat-sized dogs.

10. I have written two novels ... and then never bothered to send them to agents or publishers.

The ten people I tag? Ummm, let's be different. I tag Bob, Sarah, Amber, Martha, Sherry, Zach, Rae, Vicki, Annette S. and Jennifer.
Ooops. None of those people have blogs (that I know of, anyway). Darn. I guess this chain letter, I mean meme, ends with them. Oops.

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:39 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble

April 27, 2007

Say What?

So ... my dah-link buddy Jodi allowed herself to be "interviewed" by another blogger ... and then asked anyone who also wanted to be interviewed by her to leave her a comment. The questions Jodi chose to ask me are:

1. If you were to run for President: Who would you want as your VP? And what would your platform be?
2. One place you want to be right now!
3. Why a monkey?
4. Tell me the most important change in your life, that still holds truth for you...and you believe always will.
5. You have an wonderful personality(all good)...What is it about your philosophies that, YOU think, would make a difference if more people would adopt?

So ... let the answering being:

1) If you were to run for President: Who would you want as your VP? And what would your platform be?
You're so kidding me, right? When would the U.S. ever let some poor schmuck like me run? I mean, female and gay? But okay, let's play pretend. And since we're playing pretend, why stop at president? I mean, I wanna rule the world!
So ... my platform for being leader of the U.S. (screw a running mate, I'm just taking everything over myself ... I'm a freaking dictator):
First thing I will do ... tax the crap out of the CEOs whose "take home pay" (in all its various forms) are more than 100K per annum. Teachers, cops, fire fighters will no longer have an income tax on their income from those jobs (up to 100k per annum ... which will leave out those few high-paid so-called "star" professors and possibly a few folk here and there).
Next thing ... anyone who makes $70k or over is required to spend one month living with a family who lives below the poverty line ... and I'll be redefining poverty line as well.
Additionally, everyone will be required to work six months in retail and six months in food service. If you so choose, this may be an evening or weekend job whilst you work your "real" job ... but you must work 24 hours a week during this time. This should be accomplished by the time each person is 20 ... obviously in the beginning of the program, those under twenty will comply ... those over twenty have one year to make arrangements to comply with this compulsory program and either submit proof that they have already met both requirements or that they are in the process of arranging their lives in order to attain this necessary experience.
Most importantly, I'll be completely scrapping the current education system and completely re-building it. Gone will be the coddling. Yes, we should be cognizant of our students and our children's self-esteem ... however, they should know that they can and will fail. But we also need to teach them that failure is okay. It means they didn't get it *yet*. It doesn't mean they are stupid or bad ... or even necessarily mean that they're not trying. This, of course, will be a tremendous undertaking. One in which I will have to re-educate not only all of the teachers ... but parents as well. School needs to be less boring, more challenging. Schools MUST be smaller so that students don't feel lost. Students must be made to feel less like they have no control over their lives.
And, lastly ... I'm gonna sterilize the whole freaking population and build a set of exams that anyone MUST pass in order to have kids. If you're too busy to deal with your kids, you shouldn't have them. Gay adoption? fine. Pagans who have kids? fine. Assholes who don't have the time to spend with their kids to find out how angry and helpless they feel? No kids for you.

Okay ... enough of that question.

2) One place you want to be right now!
Austin, Texas.
Or Sante Fe, New Mexico ... or the Farmington area.

The green and rocky hills of Austin. I can't even begin to describe the feeling I get when I think of the Austin hill country. Austin will always and forever be home to me.

3) Why a monkey?
Main reason ... will be posted on the blogaversary ... May 14. Stay tuned.
Secondary reason: I love monkeys. I am something of a monkey. I climbed EVERYTHING as a child ... something my poor mother did not understand (or get over) at all. Part of the climbing was simple independence ... everything is more or less out of reach to someone a kid's height. And I wanted to do things myself. Partly to prove I could. Partly so I felt like I had some control over my life.
Besides ... monkeys are kewl.

4) Tell me the most important change in your life, that still holds truth for you...and you believe always will.
Hmmmm. This is tough. I never think I've changed ... or that some external change has been important in my life. I always see me as me-now ... and me-past, well, I can always see enough elements of me-now in me-past, that I don't spot change. If that makes any sense.
I may have to come back to this question another day as I think it's an excellent one, but despite a couple of days of pondering it, I still have no real answer for it. Just a sense that I need to ponder it further.

5) You have a wonderful personality (all good)...What is it about your philosophies that, YOU think, would make a difference if more people would adopt?
More people should be able to step back and view The Big Picture.
More people should be truly intellectually curious ... not to the point of rudeness, but wanting to know how the world (mechanical, psychological, et cetera) works.
More people should be cognizant of others' feelings. Again, that doesn't mean you don't tell someone, yes, your ass looks HUGE in those pants ... but that we more carefully weigh our words and actions against the damage it might do to those around us. In other words, the golden rule, or the wiccan "do as ye will, as long as it harms none."

All right ... that's all five.

Work is insanely busy right now ... and I'm afraid I'll be quietish for a while as I work on several huge projects with short deadlines. Probably the only posts will be sketches and previews for The Wooden Iguana.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:51 PM | Comments (4) | Blog | Stumble

April 7, 2007

SBC DSL

I hate them.

No, really, I do.

I got it over two years ago, maybe three. I got it hooked up without too much grief on the first machine. Then, we added a second laptop. Again, not too much grief getting that one hooked up using the same installation disk.

September 2005 ... we added an iBook, moved the ancient and decrepit G3 Lombard over to become the "server" and hook it up to the printer. It took me a couple of days to get it off the ethernet cord and onto the wireless, but I did eventually get it.

Yesterday I got a brand spanking new 17" MacBook Pro ... I'm still somewhat shocked that I got it ... but I'm also ecstatically happy about it too. Except ... trying to get it hooked up to SBC/Yahoo/AT&T has been the biggest freaking pain in the ass I have ever undergone.

Look, I get computers. I'm something of a computer geek. A Mac power-user. Probably just short of a tech. I've run plenty of help sessions. I can do some good work on the Mac.

I can NOT seem to get the damn wireless set up on this machine. I keep comparing the settings on this one to the settings on the old one ... i don't see anything any different. I look around for other settings ... can't find anything.

So for now, I'm back to wired. Ugh.

Any Mac users who've gotten the wireless set up with SBC, leave me a comment, eh? Before I have to resort to calling their help desk and listening to them bitch that if I had a peeeeeeeeeeeeeceeeeeeeeee, it would work just fine. (Trust me, after several Google searches, I know this isn't the case, either. Apparently regardless of the machine you have, SBC's installation disk is a piece of utter freaking crap which actually screws up the settings on Windoze machines even worse than on the Mac.)

I hate SBC. Always have. Idiots.

Technorati tags:
SBC+Yahoo+ATT
SBC
Yahoo
ATT
DSL
wireless
Mac
Macintosh
OS+X
Apple
damn+SBC

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:13 PM | Comments (4) | Blog | Stumble

April 1, 2007

NEWSFLASH

WARNING
Hackers have infiltrated every major server and pipeline on the internet. The 'net is coming DOWN. The sky is FALLING, people. You have just minutes left to backup every internet file you have or risk losing it all. Most financial institutions in utter panic as they frantically attempt to re-learn the use of the abacus to prepare for the loss of the internet.

This is not a drill ... burn all data to CD or DVD and they might just survive this internet outage. Flash drives/Jump drives will be vulnerable to invasion by remote virus at this desperate time. Hard drives will be deleted. This is the worst internet disaster since Galileo claimed the Earth moved around the Sun.

Keep in mind that all satellite TV will go down, most traffic lights (unless you live in a small city) ... and most of all ... you're going to lose your blog.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled surfing. Enjoy your last few moments of free surf, tomorrow you'll have to go outside and surf waves instead.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:09 AM | Comments (4) | Blog | Stumble

March 16, 2007

?-vert

When I take the Meyers-Briggs test, if I remember correctly, I usually score INFJ, as do many many teachers and professors.

People who know me are sure that's wrong.

Why? Because to people who know me, they think of me as an extrovert. They know I clown around, I'm silly, I'm me ... and I don't care who knows it.

But the fact of the matter is ... if you get me in a situation where I don't know anyone at all ... I'll become the standard wallflower. I'll find a nice darkish corner ... the back of the room ... and just stand there, silent. Watching and observing like a good li'l writer-person.

I've been thinking about that a lot this week where I've been mostly silent online. I've been working on a few projects, not the least of which was a book cover for a friend's poetry collection on lulu.com. (When it's up on Lulu, I'll publish the cover and the link to buy here ) But I've also been thinking about what it is to put yourself "out there" for others. And the answer is that I suck at it.

I'm willing to risk improvement, but it's a really hard process for me. Talking to people whom I don't know is a very draining thing. The deal is ... an extrovert will get an energy charge out of talking to others. An introvert will get an energy drain out of it.

When I taught ... and my goodness, how I absolutely adored teaching ... I had to gear myself up for it and I had to wind down from it afterwards. There was a tremendous energy drain involved in preparing for class ... but it was well worth it to me.

But online? Online I can be a bit of the extrovert that I can't quite be in real life. And that's not completely uncommon, either. One of the main reasons that many teachers are using some form of MOO or online chat with students is because some students will "shine" online ... whilst others will shine during a face to face classtime discussion but despise the use of the online "discussion."

But what I wonder ... as we venture further into the age of computers and virtual connections ... is how do we define introvert and extrovert now? We have this tendency, myself included, to talk about the "real world" and the virtual world ... but I wonder if Gibson didn't have it right all along. Is a friendship conceived and carried out over the internet any less of a friendship than that of one face to face? I think about the people whom I have only known online ... some of them for 11-13 years now ... and we still "talk" regularly via the internet. I think of those folks whom I've loved and still consider friends ... even though one or both of us have moved away and we only talk once every great once in a while. I'm not talking about people that I've chatted with for a few months and dropped away. I'm talking about friendships over the internet ... and face to face ... which have spanned a year or more ... and several "deep" discussions. The kinds of discussions which involve a serious give-and-take and can't really be faked by actor in real life or online.

Are my friends in the "Banshees" any less friends than those I made in N.E.R.O.? Sure the Banshees only talked through emails and IM conversations. But the N.E.R.O. folks generally only talked in relation to the shared hobby we had first ... and secondly our personal lives.

What makes being social being social?

I'm not, by any means, advocating that all online relationships are the same as ... or even as "good" as "real life" relationships. But I am wondering if Gibson's description of what we would call real life isn't better described as the "meat" relationship.

Because I think I have several friendships online which are just as "real" as some of those I have in the physical world.

Then again ... maybe I'm simply a computer geek who doesn't know any better.

But I think of the people I've met from Wales ... from Australia ... from Israel ... from China ... from England ... from Belgium.

And I'm so incredibly grateful for the perspectives from other cultures ... for the reminder that "people like me" are not the only ones on the planet ... and for the reminder that other cultures are really not so very different ... that I think ... these online relationships are every bit as real as that of those who live in the same town as myself.

And I also have to wonder why a physical encounter with people I don't know leaves me so incredibly drained ....

.... whilst a virtual encounter with people I don't know leaves me charged and excited.

Is it the collision of new ideas? The fact that I am on the border of introvert and extrovert? (on the border, but still solidly on the introvert side). Or is it something else.

Dunno. But I'm grateful for the relationships face to face and through the ether, both.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:43 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | Why Johnny Won't Learn and Mrs. Curnutt Is Tired of the System | Stumble

March 11, 2007

Get Personal

Finally, CafePress is no longer the only game in town. Seems like every time I turn around, there's another company who will let you upload your own graphics onto their products ... some so that you can buy the stuff you want ... like MyTego.com, for example, where you can upload your own graphic and make a skin for your iPod, laptop, game station or even cell phone. There's WineSource.com where you can make your own wine label ... BoardPusher.com where you can make your own skateboard deck ... or you can buy the one that I designed:

(If that link doesn't work ... click the Shop button on the BoardPusher site, then CoyoteThunder ... you'll see it there.)

But probably the best of all of these companies is GoodStorm.com.

From their website:

Founded by serial entrepreneur Yobie Benjamin and venture capitalist and philanthropist Andy Rappaport, GoodStorm empowers organizations and individuals to generate higher income from e-commerce sales. The company develops and provides free ecommerce tools and technologies, including their new T-shirt Wizard ( http://tshirts.goodstorm.com/ ), for sellers to create online stores to market print-on-demand apparel and co-branded merchandise through GoodStorm.com.

In other words, you open a store, you get more of the profits. The better news is this: the quality of their products is EXCELLENT. The printing is well-done, it adheres to the t-shirts well. I wish they had more products available than just t-shirts, but I will say that I've been highly impressed with the quality of their shirts. I've ordered several shirts from them ... of my own design, cuz I'm just that much of a geek, and I gotta say, I love them.

And now they've added something new. A T-shirt wizard that will let you offer a t-shirt with your logo or design ... AND let your customer add their own text or design to it as well. Check this out at Craigslist. And, that's not all (wait, that sounds like a Romco commercial or whatever, doesn't it? Oops. But seriously ... this gets even cooler). If you set up a store with their t-shirt wizard, you can enable a community opt-in feature. This will allow people who order your stuff ... which they've then personalized with their phrase or image (or both) ... and now that design is ALSO available on your site.

And, of course, I encourage everyone to buy a nice Red Monkey shirt. The Red Monkey is even wearing jeans! (Cuz we don't want any nekkid monkeys ... oh lord, what have I done? The weird search engine hits I'm gonna get for that phrase now ... sheesh.)

If you're not inclined toward making graphics, I encourage you to look through the GoodStorm.com site because they have managed to capture a LOT of talented people there. The Daily Kos, WordPress, Craig's List and others do their shirts through GoodStorm.com and I've found a TON of designs that I adore every time I peruse the site.

And ... if you are graphically inclined ... it costs nothing to set up your own store. Quite an improvement over CafePress' $60 a year for a "professional" shop (which allows you to use more than one design on a product). Which also means that unlike CafePress, GoodStorm doesn't stick you for a year's fee and then refuse to refund it when you close the store down. (Which is what happened to me. They charged me for a second year ... I didn't remember it was coming up that fast ... I closed the store as soon as I got the "receipt" that I'd been charged another $60 and quickly informed CafePress ... their response: "We don't give refunds for that." Nice ... real nice. There's $60 completely wasted.)

Now, go buy my skateboard deck and some t-shirts. Please?

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:02 PM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble

March 8, 2007

Think

Normally I avoid memes like the plague. Cuz really, yanno, they are like the plague. You're supposed to infect another three or five or ten blogs with the same little meme-virus that you just caught from some well meaning person or vague acquaintance.

But this one makes sense. The Thinking Blogger Award to me is less about a meme and much more about discovering good, new reads than being a silly meme. So ... I'm proud to accept this Thinking Blogger award from Life at the Edge (and the absolutely faaaaabulous MsDemmie) ... and I'd like to beat her for naming two of the people I would have awarded this to, except, of course, she'd like that too much.
(Of course, she felt that way when Matt and Sue tagged her ... so I think it's just a part of the way this works!)

First here are the rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote. Here is a silver version and a gold version.

All right ... five blogs which make me think ... not five blogs which I simply like ... cuz there are plenty of those out there that I enjoy. For instance, I love the heck out of Nonsense Served Almost Daily ... but because it makes me laugh. It does make me think ... and Mikster asks me to think when we chat ... not that I do because, well, that's work and stuff, but he asks anyway. But the blog is a much needed way to relax and remember to laugh instead of (imagine big booming voice here) Making Me THINK. (Okay, you can stop with that voice now. Geez, did you hafta make it so loud? Booming isn't always LOUD, yanno.) Anyhow ... blogs which make me think ... in no particular order:

RohDesign ... Something over a year ago, decided that I needed to go back to drawing again. Like a lot of kids I did it for a long time and thought about pursuing drafting or technical drawing ... or cartooning. At any rate, when I decided to go back to my early love of drawing, I did a few google searches to look at others' sketches with the intention to practice off of others' stuff at first so I could begin to learn how they saw the lines ... and how I did. Mike's SketchToons were exactly what I was looking for ... and then his kind, kind comments when I posted my attempt at mimicry was very much appreciated. His posts about design and being a working artist/graphic designer/ad-marketing guy always make me think. Particularly when he talks about the right tools for the right job and audience, something I've always believed in as well. (Sometimes digital, sometimes analog.)

Damn, I'm long-winded. My English teachers throughout my schooling would be shocked.

Photoshop X ... despite the fact that it hasn't been updated in AGES. There are some great tutorials here ... and those always make me think ... and get the creative juices flowing.

Identity Crisis ... Life the universe and everything in this blog. I admire Suzy tremendously for her bravery and her stubborn tenacity ... and especially her storytelling voice. Amazing blog.

Martian Anthropologist ... who better to make you think than a Valentine Michael Smith analog?

Living with Multiple Personalities ... whether Cat is talking about current events in her life or re-telling the story of her therapy process and learning to live with not just past events ... but the effect that those events had on her developing personality (and leading to the development of multiple personalities) ... Cat always makes me think. I'm fascinated by the ways in which children cope with events that simply go far beyond the pale and into the realm of what most of us would find unbelievable. Having been through bits of similar experiences myself ... I find the coping mechanisms fascinating ... and Cat's honesty endearing.

All right ... there's my five. Hopefully you'll click and enjoy a few of them.

Tomorrow or over the weekend, I hope to have a review of a new feature from the great folks at GoodStorm ... yanno, the place where I have my t-shirts set up. Like the one with this design on it (click to hit the store):

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:45 PM | Comments (4) | Blog | Stumble

March 1, 2007

Check One

A little over a year ago I joined a community of bloggers and quite enjoyed chatting away in a shoutbox. I have a tendency to not fill out profiles on various sites because I'd rather just be me instead of trying to figure out how to describe me (which is nearly a lost cause anyhow ... I don't fit well into boxes).

Inevitably the question came up. I was talking to some people and one person said "he said" in relation to something I'd mentioned ... and someone else said, "he? don't you mean she?"

And the debate began.

My online screen name of "Ender" is actually a character from the wonderful Sci-Fi book, Ender's Game. The character in the beginning of the book is a 6 year-old boy. Now, I pick that screen name (or EnderFP ... FP for Fisher Price) because I really identified with the character of Ender in that and the subsequent books. It didn't matter if Ender was male or female to me ... we were a lot alike in a lot of ways.

Naturally as the people in the shoutbox began this debate, they "turned" to me and said, "Hey, tell so-and-so that you're a man/woman."

I steadfastly refused.

They went to read my profile ... on which I'd left M/F blank.

The debate raged even further on.

Now, mind you, if you go to my larger site (delete /RedMonkey/ in the address bar) ... you can quickly find a segment of my site which will definitely answer the question, but people don't necessarily think that I own the domain CoyoteThunder, so they didn't think to check that.

For about 3 months, I would simply chortle to myself as the fact that I wrote about my first car meant that I was a man. Or that I wrote about some book meant that I was a woman. Everything I said in my blog and in that community's shoutbox was scrutinized for a while as people tried to make up their minds if I was male or female ... everyone had a theory.

And, there were a few people who got upset ... as if I were purposefully deceiving them, tricking them for some ulterior motive.

My point was simple and remains the same:
In the online world, what difference does it really make? I'm not dating you ... I have no intention of dating you ... I'm happy as I can be with my partner. I'm not interested in anything extracurricular.

And every person to whom I pointed that out, kind of metaphorically stepped back and said, "Oh ... yeah, I guess it doesn't matter."

I'm interested in some things that are considered masculine in some cultures. I'm interested in some things that are considered feminine in some cultures.

It wasn't until two mothers were talking about ADHD in their children ... one the mom of an ADHD son ... the other the mom of an ADHD daughter ... that I realized there are other times when admitting to your biological sex can be important. I spoke of how my ADHD meds affected me ... and the mother of the daughter said, "Yes, but that's the typical reaction of a male on this medication ... it affects females completely differently."

Oh.

She thought I was male and having the typical male reaction. In order to not "blow my cover" of being the perpetual "Pat" on that site, I didn't say anything to her. I should have.

Because while I am biologically female, I don't really fit well into that category. And my "typical male reaction" to that ADHD drug? Does it possibly mean that there really is a biological component to homosexuality? I am a gay female ... and I have noticed more and more frequently over the past few years that medications which are prescribed to women but not men ... don't work as well for me. In fact, a friend of mine, also a gay female, was prescribed Welbutrin ... which according to her doctor, they don't prescribe to men for depression as it tends to do very wonky things to their behaviour. Relieved that she was able to take this medicine, my friend had high hopes for using it as a kind of mitigator during the switch from one anti-depressant to another.

She reacted to the medication like a man.

The doctor said she'd never had a woman have that adverse reaction before.

I'd love to see some studies done on M/F reactions to meds ... and then compare that to the reactions of M/F gay persons as well.

But that's kind of a side issue. Why is it that when we're online, it's soooooo vitally important to find out ASL? (I had to ask what that was ... to me it means American Sign Language ... apparently in the online world, it's come to mean Age, Sex, Location.)

I'll admit I do want to know if I'm talking to a 13 year old instead of a 25 year old ... but only because I want to couch what I say a little more ... no ... not more of anything ... a little less bluntly. I won't lie to kids, so it's not that I will not talk about something that I would tell an adult. But I might change the way I say it a bit. Other than to make sure the person is "legal" so to speak, I don't care how old they are. Location? well, sometimes it's interesting to learn about a new country ... or even the differences of one area to another in the same country. Sometimes I like to know that the people I know in England are safe when I hear about a car accident in Leeds.

But why would I care if someone was male or female? What difference would that make in our online friendship/acquaintanceship? As I said earlier ... I'm not going to date that person. I don't make passes at other people. What other good does it do to know if they're male or female?

To discover if we have similar interests? Pffffffft. That doesn't work at all.

To me, who we are online is simply revealed by the words we type. Sex, for me, doesn't enter into it at all. An "adult" chatroom where the point is virtual groping, sure, you need to know. But for most day-to-day 'net transactions ... it just doesn't matter.

Do I take offense when some folks refer to me as "he"? Not at all. I find it interesting to see who makes what assumptions ... I'd rather not say at all, but invariably someone corrects the person calling me "he" and the jig is up. But I do find it fascinating to watch the conversation and watch someone try to fumble through the unconscious assumptions they made based on my online behaviour and pinpoint why they thought I was male (or female, for that matter).

The problem for me is simple ... when I get to a website that asks Gender: Male Female ... I don't know what to check. I go to a site that asks for Sex: Male Female, I know I'm biologically female and that's an easy answer.

But gender is more of a social construct ... a set of expectations that men act one way, like certain things ... and that women act another way, like other things.

But we all know this isn't really true. We're human and we're too complex for such a simple distinction. I'm not even naive enough to suggest that homosexuality enters into this ... I think that's an easy way for a lot of people to roll their eyes and avoid the topic completely.

I know a woman who adores horses. She changed the dress code at the company she works at to allow jeans and t-shirts. Her hair is shortish. She speaks plainly. She gets the job done. So far as I know, she's not gay. But she's not that stereotype of a "female" either. And there's nothing wrong with that.

This marketing trend of trying to squish people into Male and Female just burns me. I HATE getting marketing crap for perfume or flowery junk ... just because I checked Female on their damn form.

It's time to grow up and realize that we're more complex than that. Ain't one box gonna cover it.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:41 AM | Comments (6) | Blog | Stumble

February 6, 2007

Ewww

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:06 AM | Comments (4) | Blog | Stumble

January 20, 2007

Motivations

In elementary school, mail was one of the best things in the world. My sister and I would delight in opening mail addressed to Occupant (providing we got to it before Mom tossed it on the nearest landfill). But my sister and I rarely got mail actually addressed to us except for birthday cards. When we moved away from Austin, my friend Nancy moved to Longmont, Colorado ... and we did exchange letters periodically. Eventually, one or the other of us would forget to respond, and there would be a long drought between letters. Then, one of us would remember, write and the exchange would begin again.

So I was startled one day in the fourth grade to receive a letter which was NOT postmarked Colorado. Who in the world would be writing to ME?

It was a chain letter - that scourge of the post office in Ye Olde Days ... which given their current desire for people to write to each other, I think they're trying to give the chain letter a comeback to help ensure their jobs.

Today, of course, the chain letter has moved online, like nearly everything else. Today it's the cutesy pictures, the PPT slides telling you that the computer software can take a picture of you (even tho your machine does NOT have the hardware installed), the "touched by an angel" letters ... ad nauseum.

And, as annoying as they are, you can generally recognize them from the subject line and delete them without any bother. Yes, they use up bandwidth, but at least they're no longer asking you to sacrifice 20 trees and your first-born child to the silly cause.

What I do NOT get is the "chain letters" of the blogging world. There seem to be two "chain letter" variations in blogging.

First are the memes ... although, I have seen some which are useful introductions to a person and interesting to read. However, most memes are silly, pointless, too long, and, frankly, boring as hell. Ones like looking up your birthdate on Wikipedia and recording the historical events that took place on your day of birth ... interesting and that can be a thoughtful post.

But most of these are long, rambling, hideously vapid entries.

Next are themed days ... again, some of these are actually very nicely done. Many people participating in Wordless Wednesday have something very interesting going on and it's a nice touch. FOAD (fook off and die ... and I forget if this is a Thursday or Friday thing) is interesting sometimes. But sometimes I've seen posts where the person is simply repeating the same post they'd made the week before. Doesn't it make more sense to just gather some stories together and have a FOAD post whenever you feel the need? Do you really want people to FOAD every single week? And if so, have you considered anger management classes? A low dose of an anti-depressant, perhaps?

Still, like Wordless Wednesday and some memes, some of the FOAD posts are also quite interesting ... and generally humourous.

What I really don't get ... what really strikes me as the "chain letter" of the blogging world ... is HNT. Half Naked Thursday.

WHY?

Are there that many people on the internet who are exhibitionists? Wait, don't answer that. A quick Google search would probably confirm that question. Still ... what's the point with show a bare portion of your body on the internet for all to see?

And please ... I'm asking a serious set of questions here ... I was being a little silly earlier ... but I honestly don't get HNT at all and I really do want to know - what's in it for you and for your blog?

Is it because people need the attention? The reassurance that they are "okay"? Is it simply a kind of forbidden thrill? Is it, perhaps, a self-esteem building thing where the person is trying to honestly look at themselves objectively or in a new way?

And, if your blog is about political commentary ... or philosophy ... or your favourite hobby ... or just reminiscing and commenting on life in general ... how do you "justify" including HNT posts in amongst the other posts?

Despite any conversation this post generates, you won't be seeing HNT pictures here. I'm simply too camera-phobic to ever do that ... but I am interested in what you have to say.

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:30 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | Stumble

January 7, 2007

Damn Spam

NOTE:
Umm, apparently some folks got worried after this posted. This really is truly spam that I am getting on a regular basis right now -- and it's the only spam that's "clean" enough that I can post it here in order to whine piteously about the amount of spam I get a day.

I would guess I'm getting about 300 spam comments a day now. At least 90-95% of it never hits the blog as my spam filters are catching it ... but I also do a quick review of spam comments a couple of times a day in order to make sure that legitimate comments are not accidentally deleted. Basically, I'm sick of the spam ... and I do find these recent spam comments particularly disturbing and heinous.

I suppose I posted them so that other people can populate their spam filters with key phrases and maybe this dude will have to switch to some other spam tactic. Then again, maybe I'm just egging the guy on, I dunno.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

First came the commenter called Tramadol. Then it was Sten. Now it's Twistys and ... more honestly, I feel sure, Hot Girls.

My mind is like a complete blank, but so it goes. Basically nothing seems important, but I guess it doesn't bother me. I've just been letting everything wash over me , but pfft. I haven't been up to anything. Such is life. I can't be bothered with anything.

I've just been staying at home waiting for something to happen, but I don't care. Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I can't be bothered with anything recently.

I feel like an empty room, but eh. Nothing seems worth doing. I haven't gotten much done today.

I've just been letting everything happen without me these days. I've pretty much been doing nothing , but oh well. More or less nothing notable going on to speak of. I just don't have anything to say these days, but maybe tomorrow.

I've just been staying at home waiting for something to happen, but I don't care. Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I can't be bothered with anything recently.

I haven't been up to much today. I've just been letting everything happen without me. Basically nothing seems worth bothering with. I've just been hanging out doing nothing. I just don't have anything to say right now. More or less nothing happening.

I can't be bothered with anything these days, but such is life. I don't care. So it goes. More or less nothing seems worth thinking about. I've just been hanging out waiting for something to happen, but that's how it is.

PLEASE, I BEG of you. Leave me alone. I have key phrases in my spam filters. You're not really getting your links to hit my site. Please, leave me alone. I can't stand your sorrowful existence anymore.

Movable Type, Six Apart, I BEG of you, please, help with some spam plugins. The nospam ones for 3.2 aren't enough. We need a true accessible captcha plugin. (Yes, I just took the plugins survey and said the same thing there.)

And yes, I know I need to upgrade to 3.3x ... I've downloaded it ... I'm working up the nerve to do it. Of course, your upgrade instructions SUCK, so thank goodness for Learning Movable Type!!!

Meanwhile, Mr. Tramadol, sir?
SHUT THE FOOK UP!

Thank you, that is all.

UPDATE:
More of these damn things since I posted this even.

I just don't have anything to say. Not that it matters. Eh. I've just been staying at home doing nothing, but I don't care. That's how it is.

Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I haven't been up to much these days. I just don't have much to say right now. I can't be bothered with anything , but whatever.

ARGH!!!!

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:56 PM | Comments (10) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

November 20, 2006

ARGH

In the name of all that is holy and good in this world, WHY did Mozilla sell FireFox to Microsoft?

No more ... it's now some weird melding of which makes me want to

Here ... *sigh* ... go check out the selling out of Open Source.

I've never been so sad in my life. Seriously, check out this site which explains the whole thing.

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:49 AM | Comments (14) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

November 7, 2006

Just Do It

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:23 AM | Comments (8) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

October 15, 2006

Blog-high-school-o-sphere

When you start a company that offers a service for others, it's a hard, hard task. You've got a "baby" that you're releasing to other people for them to use, sometimes abuse and misuse as well. It's hard to set a website design or a blog design out there and let others critique it and complain that it's difficult to navigate and use. Add in that you've put tons and tons of hours and thought and work into it and ever little criticism is at best a frustration and at worst a little stab.

But that's okay. Those of us who do this for a living have to discover a way to develop both a thick skin and a good customer service attitude ... to accept gracefully all the things the various users or customers say and find a way to integrate all that into the beautiful design you thought was perfect or the excellent code you thought was self-explanatory and easy to use. Oh sure, we may rant for a while after receiving the comment - I know it can be dangerous to tender ears to be around me immediately after I get a design criticism I disagree with. But that's just the initial reaction and venting process.

However, particularly when you're working with a bunch of writers with at least some audience ... perhaps an audience of those very people who'll be using your service ... it's imperative to know that sometimes you'll get someone who's simply going to write a review or a post of what they see to be the truth. And how you deal with that eventuality says far more about you and your service than all of the code and design that you've put together.

What draws us to one program or site or blog more than another?

Well, it's subjective. Everyone's brains work differently ... so while I have a traffic exchange that I enjoy ... it might not be the best system for someone else. And I have a great online friend who is quite active in an exchange that I just can't stand anymore. That's okay. That doesn't mean that either exchange is actually "better" than the other one. They each draw different kinds of people to them.

For me, however, one of the things that will turn me off to a particular service - any kind of service - is their "bedside manner," so to speak. Below is an email I recently received from one blog service ... I've deleted the name of the service, because who it is doesn't matter ... I'm discussing customer service attitudes, not the merits of one service over another.

---------------------------------------------
Message from "BLOGAPALOOZA" Blog Service
---------------------------------------------
 
A recent blog entry by one of our members has started an issue about our service.
 
One in particular about automated response emails, we would like to clarify that we have no automated response service set up and each email that we receive is replied by ourselves. As for his site not being seen, perhaps he should check his counter properly as we have visual evidence that his site has been seen quite a few times.
 
While we only assumed that people would use common sense, it seems that for some members this proves difficult, so we would like to inform all our members that if they have any problems with the service provided by "BLOGAPALOOZA" Blog Service, that they would be better off actually emailing us for real, rather than imagining it and then complaining about it on their blog.
 
Thank you to all the members who contacted us and let us know about this blog entry.
 

First, a good number of basic bloggers are gonna whine. Look at the titles of so many blogs. Ramblings, Rants, Venting, Angry ... all common words for the title of a blog. And if you're in the business of offering a blog service you should know and understand this or get out of the business (because you have to understand your customer or you're going to fail to some competitor who does understand your customer).

Second, bloggers are going to post about your service on their blog. This is part of why they got a blog to begin with - to write about whatever is on their minds. And, while it's frustrating and potentially quite damaging, it's simply going to happen.

The best advertisement of your service, in my opinion, is your response when this happens. A calm and diplomatic tone tells your users - and potential users - that you take all of this seriously and professionally.

The example above, instead, clearly marks the Blog-High-School-O-Sphere.

You remember? All the in-fighting and crap that you put up with from about 13 or 14 until you left school for the real world or college or trade school?

Does Adobe leave a comment on a blog entry criticizing the latest release of Photoshop and whine that they expected their users to have common sense in using their product? No. You can bet that they've got people who comb the blogs and teh interwebs in general to look for complaints about their product as well as look at other comments and tutorials that their users have published somewhere in this vast landscape of words and images we keep continually expanding upon. I'm sure they comment on many of the things they find ... sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially.

But here's the deal. Companies who do the snarky response better be like T-Shirt Hell ... a service which is already, by definition, snarky. Their products are snarky, their web schtick is snarky. And it works for them. If I write to them and complain about a shirt that fell apart (and this is completely fictional ... I haven't had any such thing happen with their products!!!), I expect a mostly serious response from them. I would also expect to see some of the same writing style in their email as I do on their site. So, I'd expect some snarkiness, but I'd mostly expect a resolution to the issue. Maybe something like:

We're sorry the left sleeve fell off your shirt. You can rest assured that we've beaten Dobbly the t-shirt elf within an inch of his life and increased his days off by one. He cried about it a little, all right, he bawled like the baby that he is, but hey, we're running a business here. His sister-in-law Dumbly-Dora is sending you a new shirt today and making sure that all sleeves will stay attached.

Now, I don't actually expect T-Shirt Hell to make goofy Harry Potter references, but this is one way for them to maintain the attitude they have on the site and still maintain good customer service. This fictional example doesn't blame the t-shirt owner for over-reacting and it should make them happy - both for staying "in-character" of the site itself and for getting a situation resolved.

But this particular email is disturbing for the way that it denigrates one of their customers.

It might be that this particular person is a total thorn in the side for this company. Maybe this is the 978th time the guy has posted bad things about this company and they are sick of him and want him gone.

However, most of the users/customers probably don't know any of this back story. Most users simply see: customer complained; service got very publicly snarky about it.

This is not customer service. This is customer warning to the members that this service may not brook any public complaints at all.

For me, any company (blog site or not) which responds to problems with defensiveness has either some serious insecurities or has something to hide.

This isn't the first time this particular blog service ... this "Blogapalooza" ... has responded to complaints or even simple reviews with a snide response. And at least for me, it gives me no reason for confidence or trust in that service if the first response that goes out publicly to everyone is rude and denigrating.

On the other hand, if the author had taken a little time to craft the email to all users just a bit more, this could have been spun to their advantage. Imagine this instead:

We've seen some blog posts recently suggesting several issues with our site. We'd like to take a moment to assure everyone that we do not, in fact, have an automated emailing system in place. Instead, we prefer to answer each email we receive individually to ensure that each customer issue is personally dealt with. This sometimes takes longer than an automated system, but we feel it's actually more efficient in handling your needs. Please, if you do notice a problem or have an issue with some aspect of our system, please email us to let us know. It might take us a day to get back to you, but we do answer each email personally.
 
In addition, we understand that it can sometimes be difficult to understand why there is sometimes a difference between how your statistics counter counts visits and how we count page views. (explantion here)

This type of response explains the issues, and doesn't bring in the petty fight started by the customer. This type of response builds confidence in users and customers and assures them that they're in the hands of professionals who care about what they do. And, while "speaking plainly" may seem the fastest and most honest route to go, taking an extra couple of minutes to cool off and phrase things neutrally earns far more trust in your service and is not in any way dishonest or less "real" somehow.

Professionalism ... it's not just for breakfast anymore.

Oh, and another blog talks about a customer service issue which the company attempted to handle well ... and then human error kicked in. Check it out (it's a great laugh): Rain on my Tirade.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:59 PM | Comments (4) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

September 27, 2006

eXplode, eXpand, eXlinks

You want readers? You want actual readers who stick around and comment? (Why does nearly every person with a website talk about this at some point????)

One of the best ways to get more traffic without paying tons of money for advertising (which generally doesn't work for many non-e-commerce sites anyway), is to work on your Google PageRank (PR) and your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Enter the new social linking community known as exLinks.net

It's a top secret project at the moment. In fact, Paul from the kinetiq team filled me in on a few of the details but I've been sworn to secrecy (actually, the dude threatened me with bodily harm and threatened to send a stampeding herd of zebras through my home if I slipped any details). Here's what I can say:
you sign up now ... you get only a bare few friends to sign up ... your PR is gonna go through the roof when exLinks launches. It's going to be a minimal amount of effort on your part ... you sign up, you install some small piece of code on your site, you con, I mean invite, a couple of friends into joining. That's it. It'll be minimal real estate on your site ... and very easy to incorporate into your design. (Really. Trust me on this. I'm picky about what i'll put on my site ... this should work out nicely.)

This is all in development right now ... they guys will be ready to launch when they get a certain number of members (they're getting there even faster than they expected!) ... and if you jump into this now rather than later on ... you're going to see a HUGE upswing in your PR and SEO which will translate into more readers hitting your website or blog (this is NOT restricted to blogs ... any website works) because they're looking for something you have ... which should translate into more regular readers. All I can say is this is NOT a traffic exchange at all.

Sign up! You're gonna be eXcited about how your readership eXpands!

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:34 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

September 25, 2006

Blogmad Credits 101

Blogmad credits explained for newbies (and those of us who have been around for a while, too!)

We have 4 mechanisms at work here

1. The surf bar (earns you credits as well as costs your credits - you earn a credit per blog browsed, lose a credit every time your blog is shown while someone else is surfing)
2. The varb browsing system ( costs you credits at a cost of 1/4 of a credit per view)
3. Games (may cost you or may earn you credits depending on your luck and or skills)
4. Text links and banners ( can also earn you and cost you credits)

The surf bar uses 1 credit for every visit we send you. The credits that you surf are then turned into visitors. Your blogs browsed is the total number of credits earned with the exception of winnings from games.

Although the varb hits were not being counted towards your total number of views received which is displayed on your blog's information page.

We assume that nearly 25% of traffic that you will receive will be via the varb browsing.

Because the varb browser attracts all manner of visitors from other sites that do not have to log into the site, and we are still displacing those credits but not paying anyone to browse the site using the varb browser, we are managing to increase the ratio that a person's blog is entitled to. More often than not its greater than 1:1.

Because of the fact that we are not paying out any credits for people using the varb browser, we have managed to "save" into the system a number of credits.

Together with the initial 10% fee for playing certain games, it allows us to sell credits which are not being used and are over and above the amount that the system can fairly generate while still providing a ratio of 1:1 or greater.

We also do not currently monitor the cost of banner credits that are being used up as well as credits that are being used to display the text links that you set up to be displayed on other peoples blogs. We estimate this to be almost 12% we are aiming to make this information 100% accurate in the next release.

We managed to save up 50,000 credits which are now on sale, once those get sold we will only sell what we can save rather than overuse or double charge people for views.

If at any time you are curious as to where your Blogmad credits went, try and work out your ratio by viewing your blogs information page on blogmad. Go the directory and search for your blog, you will see an information page. Divide the number of visits you received added together with any credits you may have given away by the number of blogs you browsed added with the total number of unused credits you have available, you should be a little less than 1 ... probably around .85 , that's the ratio without factoring in Varb or Text links or game losses, add a conservative 30% and you have a greater than 1 ratio.

These numbers are being read straight out of the database and cannot be skewed. Although the percentages aren't an exact science, its a pretty close equation.

Also to allow people to better manage their credits, in our next release within the next 4 - 6 weeks we are totally redeveloping the way that people can manage their credits. You will be able to allocate X amount of credits to certain functions and will be in total control of how your credits get allocated.

Now, I've also heard some concerns about not using PayPal for the purchase of credits and while I know that I do not want to sign up with another payment company, the problem here is that the guys are in South Africa and hence, are constricted by South African law. Apparently, the financial rules are quite tight and PayPal is simply not an option. Of course, that's gonna leave out a lot of people from easily buying credits ... but there's just only so much the guys can do now. They are looking at what they can do to bring PayPal online as fast as possible since we all know that PayPal has such a huge reputation and so many people already signed up with it.

There ya go ... Blogmad credits explained.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:27 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

September 15, 2006

Coming Soon

Coming soon to the comments section ...

Working on adapting a few more of the Blacys (which are copyright by NetEase.com). The originals are just huge, so I'm trying to adapt some of my favourites down to 16px high. This is not particularly easy as these are large icons and just beautiful as they are, so I hate the fact that I have to lose some of the detail to get them down so small.

Meanwhile, I'm sick and staying home from work today. Ugh. (I'll get sick of using them in posts soon and go back to content instead of playing around, I promise.)

(Hey, I said soon, not instantaneously.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:53 AM | Comments (5) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

September 14, 2006

Battle Lost

I hardly know what to say. I adored Ann Richards when she was governor of Texas. I was crushed after moving away from Texas for graduate school to learn that some political "newcomer" named Shrub had gotten elected after her term.

I heard today that she passed away after battling cancer of the esophagus. That diagnosis was given just this past March. She's much missed already. She was an incredible, incredible woman.

Some favourite quotes:
"Poor George [George H. W. Bush], he can't help it...He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
"Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels."

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:27 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

September 12, 2006

Bob RAWKS

Bob officially RAWKS my world. He fixed my CSS for me and discovered in all my dinking around with the templates that I had deleted one too many div closings. He got rid of the ugly negative margins AND ...

The 3 column template now works in Safari, IE 6, Firefox (of course) and Opera.

WOOHOO!!!

All hail Bob, who is now king of my CSS world.

BOB RAWKS.

That is all.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:39 AM | Comments (7) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

September 8, 2006

Opera, Safari, IE

Still working on the templates.

Safari and Opera users: the right sidebar should be at the frigging bottom of the page if you're on the main page. If you're on an individual article page, it should be in the correct spot.

IE users ... the right sidebar should be in the correct spot on the homepage, but all messed up on the individual pages.

Apparently, I can get the 3 columns to work in either IE or in Opera /Safari ... Firefox appears to love it all.

Bear with me ... I'll get this bloody thing straightened out eventually.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:24 PM | Comments (11) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

August 17, 2006

Domain Issues

Yesterday's issues with the blog all have to do with domain switching ... so if you posted a comment yesterday and your DNS happened to serve to to my old host ... your comment is gone if you're now being served by the new host.

I believe, however, that the new host has everything up and running now and I think I've switched all DNS service over to Dreamhost ... so hopefully everyone will be getting the new server.

If you emailed me yesterday or the day before and got a bounce message, likely you got caught in a DNS issue of some sort or another.

Interesting content coming soon ... blabbing about host stuff over soon (unless there's a major issue).

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:59 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

August 16, 2006

Hosts Changed

I believe I've finally switched everything from my old host, Infinology, to Dreamhost. I gave up on Infinology because the servers just seemed to be going down at random and I never got responses to my support tickets anymore. Too bad as they were a wonderful company when I first signed on with them.

So, between switching around my CSS and switching hosts, let me know if you see anything totally messed up. (Except of course, if you're using Safari or Opera and don't see the right sidebar ... I know that's still screwed up.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:16 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

August 15, 2006

Safari & Opera

Still tinkering with the template. The right sidebar is rendering in a slightly different position for every single browser at the moment which is seriously ticking me off. However, it's close enough for government work, as my ninth grade science teacher used to tell us on a regular basis.

Except for Safari and Opera, where the right sidebar is down at the bottom of the bloody frigging page.

I don't suppose I have any readers who might be willing to look at the ruddy stylesheet and help me figure out what the bloody hell I'm doing wrong? I know it can be done, I've studied the stylesheets of folks who do get it to work but can't quite puzzle out what I'm doing wrong. Of course, I've not looked at any of those sites in Safari or Opera, so perhaps I'm chasing a mythical stylesheet.

At any rate, some bits will be moving up and down and from sidebar to side bar as I try to get things how I like it.

And then, of course, there'll be the inevitable skins added in later on. Like I can stop fiddling with anything.

Meanwhile, lest you forget:

Well, I'm rumblin' in this JCB.
I'm five years old and my dad's a giant sitting beside me.
And the engine rattles my bum like beserk
While we're singin, "Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work"
.
My dad's probably had a bloody hard day
But he's been good fun and bubblin' and jokin' away
And the procession of cars stuck behind
Are gettin' all impatient and angry, but we don't mind.
.
An' we're holding up the by pass ... oh
Me and my dad havin' a top laugh ... oh woah
I'm sittin' on the toolbox ... oh
And I'm so glad I'm not in school, boss
So glad I'm not in school ... oh no ...

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:06 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

July 6, 2006

Buy the Red Monkey

Woo-hoo! Now available here on my blog (rather than taking off to another website) is both my iconic Red Monkey on a great t-shirt, and also li'l ole Xander Bear.

Now ... allow me to plug GoodStorm for a minute. Nope, they're not paying me for this plug, not giving me a discount, they don't even know I'm doing this.

I love GoodStorm . While their slogan "Capitalism Done Right," did give me a bit of pause (any time i see capitalism and right in the same phrase, I get nervous), these guys are totally awesome. The site caters to many social justice organizations ... and if you tend to some liberal thoughts, you'll find plenty of great stuff (Daily Kos has a shop). If you don't lean to the left, there's STILL plenty of goodies here. GoodStorm has sites which focus merely on awesome design as well as sites like WordPress.com.

The other half just ordered a few shirts from there, so I'll be able to comment on the quality soon, but I'm telling you ... I've not worked with an online organization so helpful and dedicated in quite some time. These guys rawk. So, check out my GoodStorm store here ... or just go to the GoodStorm website and play around a while. You'll be glad you did!

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:31 PM | Comments (2) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

July 5, 2006

Virus? We Don't Got No Stinkin' Virus!

from the BBC:

Security threats to PCs with Microsoft Windows have increased so much that computer users should consider using a Mac, says a leading security firm.

Even as a devout Mac user, I know this is a slippery slope. Most virii are written for WinDoze for two reasons: 1) it's got the biggest market share 2) Bill Gates is eVILE. If more and more of the market share does happen to go to Mac, well, the bored and/or determined virus writers, will simply learn a new OS (provided they don't already know UNIX and/or LINUX). However, it is likely to be several years before the dangerous proliferation of Mac virii are set loose ... there may yet be a nice window of time where Mac users can continue to grow in population and not have to fret quite so much about virii, trojans, worms and spyware.

But I also think with glee of that weasel-y young Bill Gates who disrupted the "software world" when he insisted on getting paid for every copy of BASIC available on the Altair 8800, one of the first "home" computers. (It was the size of a washer and dryer sitting side by side. You don't want to know how it was programmed ... trust me.) You see, at that time, the world of computers was mostly a world of sharing what you did to show off your prowess. "Hey, I can write this cool program in 273 lines." Then the next dude studies the code and the program ... and he gets it down to 240. The next guy hacks the code down to 196. And on it goes, everyone looking to add features and elegance of code to the project. It's not necessarily just about what they can make the computer do ... it's a puzzle, a complicated logic puzzle. "How can I do this?"

Then, the Altair 8800 comes out, Gates, Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff figure out a programming language to make easier sense of machine language ... and instead of sharing it, they want to get paid. Now, look ... there's nothing wrong with getting paid for your time. I'm not saying that. I'm just pointing out that this was something really new to the culture of computing -- most of the guys shared what they knew so that others could better it.

BASIC was leaked ... it was shared ... it was pirated.

And we all know how darling Mr. Gates feels about pirated software. He so reminds me of L. Bob Rife at times.

At any rate ... tired of virii? Want a machine for internet and word processing and maybe a little spreadsheet? Go Mac and don't worry. Desperately need your online gaming? Go Mac and dual boot the little bugger with BootCamp and Mac OS X. Into home movies? Go Mac already!

Right now, after at least three days of fireworks past midnight, I'm just plain tired. ... laterz ... mmm ... ZZZZZzzzzz ... oh ... sleep ... that's nice.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:35 PM | Comments (4) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

June 26, 2006

New Shop

While I've had a CafePress store for a while now (see the Shop link above), I've been hunting for a new source for t-shirts for a variety of reasons. I found GoodStorm. Seems like a better deal in many ways, but they only sell t-shirts. So ... now I have two shops. And, the premier shirt for the GoodStorm shop is:

I also have a new Red Monkey - in Jeans shirt over there as well. GoodStorm is apparently a new-ish company and still working out their offerings, but I like the fact that I can choose the quality of shirt (I picked heavy-weight for everything it was available for). Also, they have some better colour shirts than just the plain white at CafePress. I do wish there there some baseball Ts (those raglan sleeve things) and some other products, but this is a nice start. I especially like the pebble colour shirts.

I've got several more designs in mind and I'm sure I'll be putting up more there over the next several weeks.

Let me know if you order something from there and how the quality of the print is. I know I'll be ordering some of my own stuff (cuz I'm a geek that way) and testing out the quality of the products.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:00 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

June 25, 2006

Vampire Bear Redux

So, I attempted to put my Xander bear up on CafePress, but the design was promptly pulled down as copyright infringement on Care Bears. I heartily disagree, but CafePress can pull any design for any reason at any time. Fine.

So ... here's Angel bear ... not as cutsie, but a cool shirt anyway. :)

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:23 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

June 3, 2006

9rules

Holy cow, Maynard.

The 9rules Network, according to their website, highlights "the very best web content in the world, and package it in a nice bow for you to unwrap. Our members discuss a wide range of topics from interface design and technology, to business, humor, and many others."

What I've always liked about this site is that they're not a traffic exchange where you surf for credits. Instead, they bring a bunch of independent blogs together, build a community and also feature bits about the blogs on their front page or their Communities and Featured sections.

But to be perfectly honest, what completely sold me on the site was their original 9 rules for living:

1. Love what you do.
2. Never stop learning.
3. Form works with function.
4. Simple is beautiful.
5. Work hard, play hard.
6. You get what you pay for.
7. When you talk, we listen.
8. Must constantly improve.
9. Respect your inspiration.

So, now I await the Member Agreement so that I can officially become a member of an outstanding network of blogs.

To Greenr, Joe and all the others from BlogMad who made it (I haven't gotten through the whole list of nominees yet), a very heartfelt: CONGRATULATIONS.
Also, a special congratulations to Mike Rohde of rohdesign ... I discovered Mike's blog while searching for some reference material to practice my own sketching techniques and fell in love with Mike's SketchToons. So I'm doubly excited to see that he has also made the preliminary 9rules list.

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:58 AM | Comments (5) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

June 2, 2006

Terror and the Bagthorpes

So, I have this great love of a young adult series called the Bagthorpes. I mean, these are some of the best kids' books I've ever read. Hysterically funny. Back in October, I posted about them, listing the one that I thought I was missing (only to discover I'm missing Bagthorpes Battered as well as the Bagthorpe Triangle). I thought I'd run a fast eBay check for them, and had to look up the names of the ones I was missing. What I see on my blog is this (click through for the larger picture):

This does just boggle the imagination, doesn't it? I don't think the word terrorist appears in that post at all. Nor Iraq, nor weapons of mass destruction, nor anything else that might lead to Adsense thinking terrorism ads might be a valuable link here.

As near as I can figure out ... the main kid in these stories is Jack. Everyone in the U.S., it seems, is obsessed with Jack Bauer. Jack Bauer fights terrorism. Hence, anti-terrorism ads on my blog.

Jack Bagthorpe is NOTHING like Jack Bauer. For one thing, Young Master Bagthorpe is from the U.K. Another, he's 11. Another, he's ordinary. That's why the first book is called Ordinary Jack. He can't get around the house in 10 minutes, let alone get around LA in ten minutes.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:05 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

May 18, 2006

Contest Winners

It's time to reveal the answers to the 10 Questions and the winners of the contest.

Without further adieu, Beth answered all of the questions first and correctly. In fact, she answered them so fast, that I decided to give away an additional 300 BlogMad credits to a random entrant because I knew from about two hours after the contest had opened, someone had already won the 500! The answers will follow below the announcement of the other winners.

I went to Random.org to get the random numbers when choosing the random second place winner for the 10 Questions contest and the winner of the Red Monkey pictures contest. Here's a screenshot of the spreadsheet and the results. The first column of names on the left are for the random 10 Questions drawing ... and the number generator picked: 2 and the second name on the list is Lucy, who gets 300 BlogMad credits. (Click the picture for a larger version - which includes the full link to the random generator.)

The second drawing was for 250 BlogMad credits for sending in a link or picture of the Red Monkey. The number generated was 3 ... and the third name on the list is Seawave. (Click the picture for a larger version - which includes the full link to the random generator.)

Beth's answers:

1) Where are the Caelum Moor stones now? water treatment facility /archives/2005/11/more_caelum_moo.html

2) My first skateboard had what kind of wheels?metal /archives/2005/07/you_cant_be_car.html

3) I went to high school with someone in my list of sidebar links. Who and what's the URL to that blog? Andy http://www.kiltedliberal.com

4) How did I change the script of Star Wars (when I was in third grade)? Princess Leia gets Darth Vader Drunk
/archives/2006/02/how_dry_i_am.html

5) Who offers Amanda Hades DVDs and what is Amanda Hades? 3rd Floor Productions web show about how news doesn't reach the people because of mainstream media being so corporate
/archives/2005/06/communities.html

6) One of my third grade teachers made a tactical error. What was the error and what subject did she teach?math She announced one day that anyone belonging in the high math class should come over to a certain area /archives/2005/06/the_us_educatio.html

7) Who was my illustrious locker partner? Kyungah Kim (Janet Kim) /archives/2005/05/make_new_friend.html

8) Send me a screenshot/JPG/GIF/image of your favourite design from my CafePress site.
http://www.cafepress.com/coyotethunder.38749956

9) What Fisher Price toy did I haunt eBay for and finally find? Sky Surfer /archives/2005/12/the_sky_surfer.html

10) I turned the Little People Village into what? pueblo village
/archives/2006/01/adobe_pueblo.html

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:25 PM | Comments (4) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

May 16, 2006

Blog Celebration

Wanna win 500 BlogMad credits?

Here's the deal ... in honour of Red Monkey's one year celebration, I'm gonna give away 500 BlogMad credits to the person who answers at least 4 of the following questions correctly. That means you only have to answer 4!! The contest closes at noon (Eastern time), May 18, 2006. The winner will be the person who answers the most questions correctly. If there are multiple people who have answered the same number of questions correctly, the person with the earliest entry will win. All answers can either be found in Red Monkey blog within a single post, or by deduction from reading several posts. Comments are also fair game for inclusion.
You must EMAIL your answers to me at: red-monkey AT coyotethunder DOT com.

Need something easier??? Look at the bottom of the post for a faster chance to win.

Answer at least four. EMAIL me your answers. LIST THE DATE OF THE POST where you found the answer (except for numbers 3 and 8).
1) Where are the Caelum Moor stones now?
2) My first skateboard had what kind of wheels?
3) I went to high school with someone in my list of sidebar links. Who and what's the URL to that blog?
4) How did I change the script of Star Wars (when I was in third grade)?
5) Who offers Amanda Hades DVDs and what is Amanda Hades?
6) One of my third grade teachers made a tactical error. What was the error and what subject did she teach?
7) Who was my illustrious locker partner?
8) Send me a screenshot/JPG/GIF/image of your favourite design from my CafePress site.
9) What Fisher Price toy did I haunt eBay for and finally find?
10) I turned the Little People Village into what?

Luckily, you should be able to use search to find most of these quickly and easily. Maybe I should disable search during this contest? hehehehehe
Naw, I'll play nice. Enjoy the hunt and I hope you'll stick around and read some of these old posts as well as hunt for answers.

Meanwhile, scroll below and read the story of The Red Monkey. :)

UPDATE: In addition to the grand prize of 500 BlogMad credits, I will also give away two additional prizes, both randomly drawn. The first random winner will be picked from those entering the 10 question contest and will win 300 BlogMad credits.
The second random winner will go to someone who emails me with a picture (or the URL of a picture) of THE red monkey ... but it cannot be a picture that is hosted on coyotethunder.com. This winner will get 250 BlogMad credits.
Both of these random winners will be announced May 18th, along with the grand prize winner of the 500 BlogMad credits ... you can only win one of the three contests, but you're welcome to enter all 3! (Well, if you enter the 10 questions, you're entered for the random drawing on the 10 questions, so I suppose you're welcome enter both contests.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:33 AM | Comments (0) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

May 4, 2006

Dark Side Experiment

There's another new addition to the right sidebar ... I am running a two-week test with Google Adsense. I know, I know, stop screaming. It's an experiment. I kinda figured that I get this INSANE number of hits for those stupid Red Monkey Jeans that I never even knew existed before I started my blog. Nearly 45% of my total website hits (if you hit the home button up top, you go to my main homepage for CoyoteThunder.com) are for those jeans. It suddenly occurred to me the other day ... I'm always going to get those hits. The way the search engines work, I'm always going to get hits for those jeans ... so why not kill two birds with one stone? If Google will put some Red Monkey Jeans ads in that sidebar, then the folks looking for Red Monkey Jeans will get what they came here looking for ... and maybe I'll make some cash and quit whining about all the people who land here looking for those stinking jeans.

We'll see. If this doesn't really generate anything worth speaking about in two weeks, I'll resign from the Adsense program and remove the ads. If it does work, then I will seriously look at re-designing the template and moving to a real 3 column design to better leverage space.

Meanwhile, sound off about the migration to the dark side in the comments.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:30 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

April 27, 2006

25 Blogmad Credits

Okay ... a lawyer in Austin, Texas, started a group of heterosexual folks who are supportive of GLBT folks. In fact, the purpose of the group is outreach and education of the hetero community about the gay community. She calls this organization the Atticus Circle.

Why Atticus?

Leave a comment with your guess ... get it right, get 25 BlogMad credits ... first person with the complete answer successfully left in the comments gets the credits.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:32 PM | Comments (5) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

April 23, 2006

Moveable Type error

Interesting error ... you cannot use the word t a r in a post ... you'll get an internal server error. Took me thirty minutes to figure out that I couldn't use the phrase "beat the t a r out of me" in the last post. Sheesh!

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:56 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

April 9, 2006

Search

So, when I started this thing I didn't think I would need a search feature. Silly, silly monkey.

I added that in this morning, so, you can now search for my ghost stories or for the stupid red monkey jeans that I'm SO tired of seeing in my statistics (but even if I never mention it again, they'll still be there since "red monkey" appears on every page ... and the word jeans appears from time to time as well).

Let me know if you run into anything strange with the search ... I'm not a programmer, so I don't know a lot about how MT has this script set up, but I can do some fooling around if I need to.

The colors ... well, it looks good in FireFox ... hopefully it looks all right in IE ... Safari, I know the text is very light in the white box. I'll try to fiddle with some settings on that later on.

So, spam is driving me crazy, so I've got to close the comments on this entry ... please hit me up via email if you need to say hey.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:42 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | Stumble