So I’ve taken to writing lately, specifically short paragraphs declaring my great undying love for Kathrine Wells. It’s a little cheesy, but it makes her smile, and that’s all I need.

She wants tattoos, she wants money, she wants fame, she wants pleasure. She wants the world, handed to her in a goblet built of fortune. She wants perfection, sealed in an envelope of knowledge. But more than anything, she wants me, just as I am, and that’s all I need to hear. Money, fame, and power hold not even a candle to her, and she’s all I need.

She is my light, she is my dark. She is my right hand, she is my left. She is my Koi, she is my Dragon. She is my breath and she is my pulse. She’s my earth, my wind, my water, my fire. She is the tide to my moon, the cloud to my rain, the wind to my weather. She is everything I’ve ever wanted, and she is the love of my life. She is absolutely perfect, and you’d be a fool not to be in love with this girl.

They always say there are plenty of other fish in the sea. There’s fish that predict the weather, fish that change with the seasons, fish that follow the leader, and fish that are the leader. There’s an entire ocean of fish, but I’ve found the one I’m happy with; she predicts love, and that’s all I could ever want. If it’s true that there are plenty of other fish in the see, I’d gladly go blind. She’s the only fish I need to complete my aquarium.

For the record, during the composition of this post, Katie’s been sitting next to me, distracting me from my work, inevitably causing me to forgot what the paragraphs I wrote said. I suppose it’s a good thing I save everything.

My stepfather currently drives a heavily modified 1998 Toyota Corolla. It’s not the best vehicle out there, but the stock safety features combined with the numerous upgrades makes it a real monster. Unfortunately, my stepfather’s love of Corollas has sort of dragged me into the Toyota market. While they’re nice vehicles, I’m looking for something a little more tuner friendly. If you have any suggestions please fire away an email or leave a comment, your opinion is greatly appreciated. As everything stands, I have about $3000 to drop on a vehicle, so I want something that will last at least two years.

I’ve been sitting here, thinking. Not about anything in particular, but rather everything as a whole. Relationships, design, work, life, the whole shebang. It’s really not all worth the bother. I try to keep things alive, but in one way or another everything fizzles out. My plans fall through, my relationships crumble, and I’ve reduced myself to a sort of socially inept fool. Don’t take this as a plea for help, some type of open suicide letter to the world. Because if there’s one thing on my mind, it’s definitely life, not death.

It’s time for a fresh start. Again. The friends bring problems, and problems bring drama. Drama I don’t need at this point in my life. I’m holding down a steady job, working steady hours, with a steady paycheck. The people come and go, and they all seem to be stuck in the same pattern. The pattern of redundancy that has attracted so many in the past. The same jobs, the same people, the same life. Over and over again. As for everything else, it all seems like a big laugh at this point. I push myself to work harder as a designer, but to no winning effort. Laziness takes over and I end up lounging around for hours on end, when I could be using my time to create something. Something that the whole world can see. What kind of idiot wastes such a beautiful canvas?

Dating is another problem. It’s always the same girl. They tease you, test you, and then treat you like another snack. I’d honestly love to have some sort of lasting relationship, the kind that can make me completely happy, inside and out. The kind that brings people together.

I suppose these are just the thoughts of some insomniac crying to an open audience for attention, but these are my thoughts, and I’ll stand by them, no matter how ridiculous they sound at 2:00 in the morning. According to my computer, it’s January 23rd, 2002, which translates into a nice long nap. Why oh why couldn’t I have been born Rip Van Winkle? Life would be so much easier if the years could pass like minutes.

I sat down with my guidance counselor this past week, and found out even though I’m failing half my classes, I only need six more credits to graduate. So assuming I can pass my classes this year, I’l only have two full classes my senior year, leaving me with a lot more time to dedicate to my true passion, design.

I’ve been shopping around different colleges, trying to find one with an art program I can fall in love with. While I’ve stuck strictly to digital work in the past I now want to broaden my horizons, and so In the near future I’ll be diving deeper and deeper into other forms of media, especially illustrated art and photography. As for my regular work, I’ll still be continuing designing, and I still hope to get a new design pushed out sometime soon, but like pregnancy it’s a long process. And don’t worry, nobody in my immediate connection is pregnant, so no need to sound any alarms.

But it’s about that time I turn off my screen, strip to my nighties, and fall asleep to a good movie, so I bid adieu to you wonderful world, and hope to see you again sometime soon.

• Longer Post Intervals = Less Readers?
• Product Placement And The Big, Yellow Banana
• The Freelance Life Part 1
• The Freelance Life Part 2
• The Freelance Life Part 3
• The Freelance Life Part 4

And that’s it, enjoy! I’m sure I’m missing a lot more, but since my old Textpattern blog crashed everything else is long lost.

While I don’t live or swear by it, I think many do. As a guide the term Web 2.0 gives us a vision of something more intricate, more advanced, yet easier to understand. It produces thoughts of products like Flickr or YouTube. With all of their features and technical intricacies they still remain two of the simplest tools on the web. Web 2.0 is the thought that design and the tools we use to communicate can be advanced and visually pleasing, yet simple at the same time.

This, to me, is the true meaning of the term Web 2.0. I realize I’ve just blabbered on about the most over talked about subject of the year, but with so many different definitions around I just had to throw my own opinion in.

I’m not completely happy with my schedule, but it’s better than not being back in school at all. For the most part my day is boring. I complete four tiny warmup exercises, one for each of my classes, and the entire other portion of time i’m stuck in my desk chatting with friends, drawing, or playing drums with my pencils. It’s really rather uneventful.

Many times when coding a page using CSS you’ll find that even though you’ve specified certain padding and margin values they may be off by a few pixels, mainly because each browser has it’s own default value, which it will add to the element. The UZR resets these values to zero so that you can define your own measurements without having to worry about browser interference.

Simply add it to the beginning of your CSS document and it should fix most of the problems you’ll come across without the need for hacks or other workarounds. Copy and paste and you’ll be all set. If you want you can even define and overwrite default browser colors, backgrounds, etc by adding other properties to the selector.

*{
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;}

It seems like every time I get on a good roll I lose access to a solid internet connection, or I get grounded, or I lose inspiration. Some massive event prevents me from doing what I like to do. In essence, being available. I love being able to talk to who I want, when I want. I love being able to make contacts all over the world and actually not be limited by the boundaries of the city I live in.

It’s been a while, but I think I’m definitely ready to get back into the game. I’m reorganizing my life, making more contacts then ever, and I’m actually getting some serious blogging done. I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s this has ever gone through this, so for all of you having the same troubles there’s a few things you can do to get back to where you were months online when you left.

You can start by reading all of your RSS Items and unread emails. After that visit all of the sites you hold a membership with and read all of your messages, comments, etc. After that’s taken care of let everyone know you’re okay. Write a nice blog post, or send out an email to all of your friends. Now that personal matters are taken care of start tackling your business functions. Check your online banking, look into old job offers and just reacquaint yourself with the business world.

That tiny plan seems to work for me every single time I go into meltdown mode, and if you stick to the same basic guidelines it’ll work for you too. I have no idea why I wrote this post, or even how I ended up thinking about this subject, but hey, it is a post and I am here to blog, so there you go.

Over the past few weeks I’ve made a serious effort to cut down on the number of resources I rely on. I’ve uninstalled Thunderbird, Firefox, Trillian, and a massive load of other programs that add to the frustration of online activity. I’ve imported all of my bookmarks and compatible plugins from Firefox to Flock, which now manages my bookmarks and my feeds, which I have reduced from about two hundred to maybe twenty essentials.

Thanks to the invention of multiple homepages I can now check my email via my Google Customized Homepage, sign into MySpace for communicating with my friends who are too ignorant to use email, take a quick glance at all my feeds, check up on Random Shapes, AND log in to my Meebo account, which allows all of you wonderful readers to talk to me at any time.

Anyway, the main reason I wanted to write this post is to let you all know that I’ve added the nifty MeeboMe widget to the sidebar of my blog so you can check my online status and get in contact with me whenever you want. Now to issue a challenge. I challenge each and every one of you reading this to cut down on the number of programs you use. Use plugins to combine apps, delete unnecessary files and programs, see exactly what you need and what you don’t.

To be honest the only programs I really use now are Flock (for email, RSS, IM, and general web browsing), iTunes (for musical pleasure), Photoshop (for designing cool shit), and my anti-virus and anti-spyware programs which do a great job and run virtually invisible. Like I said, cut back and see just what you need. Leave me a comment letting me know how it goes and what you now use.

I think my shoes and hat made it farther down the hill than my body did. The wind was gone from my body and I had blood running like a faucet from my knees, elbows, and hands. And the 30 minute walk back to the skateshop in the blazing heat didn’t make things any better. At least I got a ride home from there. A word of advice, when your board starts to wobble from all of the speed you’re gaining, it’s time to bail.

One Lipton tea bag, two spoonfuls of sugar, boiling hot water and some 2% fat milk to top it off. A cup of tea and incenses burning and I’m as close to bliss as you’ll ever see me. The tea provides me with a great tasting and relaxing drink while the fumes from the incense put me at ease, put the two together and you can focus on anything you set your mind to.

Thank God for the British and all that tea they brought with them. I guess it helps that I was born in the Boston area. And no, the water in the harbor doesn’t taste at all like tea, so don’t bother asking.