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