Bang and Whimper

I’m back from Seattle, still alive. What a great town. At least, the small part of it that I saw in my drunken stupor was great…

I sat across from John Astin (Gomez Addams from TV’s The Addams Family) on the flight from Baltimore to Chicago. Everyone left him alone—except for the flight crew, who took every opportunity to sit next to him and chat him to death and show him pictures of their kids and generally just be star-frigging idiots. It was embarrassing to watch.

NP: The Anniversary, All Things Ordinary

WELCOME AGAIN TO JoAT v2.1!!!

Today is Q & A day at JoAT

Why, you might ask, a Q & A day? Well, that’s an excellent first entry:

Q. Why a Q & A day at JoAT?
A. Why not? Besides, I’ve a ton of time on my hands, and I need to remind myself to fix a few things. Additionally, it gives the (albeit, incredulous) illusion that I actually get visitors to the site, who then ask questions about it. It’s a big lie, I know (and you do, too), but it somehow feels more respectable to me to have these conversations with myself on a webpage rather than, say, aloud in the coffee shop with a really cute girl sitting at the next computer over.

Q. Your site sucks. Big time.
A. That’s not a question. NEXT.

Q. Your site sucks. Big time. Did you know that?
A. You clever boy. Yes, I did know that. But I’m working on it. Give me some time. And some charity. I’m an economist, not a graphic artist or programming guru.

Q. No really—it sucks. I appreciate the effort, but you totally half-assed the redesign. I mean, most of the pages still have that crappy old design, so even though the main page looks marginally better, in addition to still having sucky pages you now lack internal consistency of design.
A. Again, NOT A QUESTION. NEXT.

Q. Right. Re: that stuff above: Why is that?
A. All I can say is: I’m working on it. Actually converting display formats shouldn’t take too long (I’m doing everything with templates, surprise!) but at the same time I’m trying to arrange the content in a meaningful fashion. I’m quickly realizing that I don’t have enough to say to justify one page, much less all the crap I put up last year, so the overall organization is causing me a bit of mental anguish. But I’m working on it.

Q. You know your new page looks horrible in [browser version x.y], right?
A. Sort of. It looks okay in MSIE 5.5+ and Netscape 6.x, which are the only browsers I have at home to check my designs. Even these new browsers fall far short of supporting HTML/CSS standards, but the old browsers were/are absolutely dismal. This means that (1) their display behavior is unpredictable without a lot of research into their specific display bugs, (2) to make things look pretty in old browsers, I would have to use a lot of bad HTML/CSS workarounds the prevalence of which inhibit growth and development of good code and practices among other designers and browser developers, and (3) would suck up a lot more of my resources than I am presently prepared to devote to this project. Netscape 4.x sux. MSIE 4.x sux. They don’t support standards that any self-respecting browser should. I’m working on designing different layouts for different browsers, but in the meantime: put your old browsers out of their misery. If you have any choice in which browser you use, upgrade to something with better standards support.

Q. Whatever. You know, you could make yourself useful and upload some .mp3s or Blümchen videos or something. Oh, this needs to be a question—please?
A. No. I’m an up-right, law abiding citizen, and that would be Wrong. Besides, I’m on a dial-up connection and I don’t have any spare webspace. Feel free to send donations to rectify either of those problems…

WELCOME TO JOKEOFALLTRADES (JoAT) v2.1!!

I’ve finally done it. I’ve gotten rid of that horrid page I designed a year ago and have replaced it with something slightly less horrid. I hope you like it. At least, I hope you dislike it less than the last version. Over the next few days, I’ll convert the rest of the site to conform to the new format, with a few additional changes in places to keep things lively. Oh, I do hope you like it!

JoAT v2.1 offers the following advantages over its predecessor:

• It looks prettier
• It’s more customizable
• It’s easier to maintain
• It makes me happier

I don’t know if you care about any of that, but I certainly do. And since I’m probably the only person who reads this page, I’m the one I care about.

If you absolutely must use the old page, I offer you a last look here. However, JoAT v1.0 is no longer supported, so use at your own risk. Caveat Emptor.

Sneakery.com—I’m not quite sure what to make of this, but it’s such an incredibly well designed page that I have turned quite verdant with envy. Maybe I’ll apply to be Verdant Spy.

On a separate note, the page design is coming along nicely. Check it out at my test site. Yes, I know the links don’t work. They’re there so I can see what the page will look like. Enjoy!

I AM INVINCIBLE!!!

Well, maybe not quite, but the website redesign is coming along nicely. Nicely, that is, except for all the bugs in NetScrap and M$ Internet Exploiter. Why can’t they just implement CSS standards? It can’t be that difficult to do…

</rant>

New website coming soon. I know none of you yahoos care, but I’m going for a more “refined” and “professional” look. Which means I’ll still look like a tosser, but I’ll look like a much older and more boring tosser than before. Gotta love life…

When I got on the train today, I rushed to take the free seat closest to the door. As I took off my jacket and rifled through my bag to find my book, my earphones and my ticket, I noticed that I had selected a seat next to a rather beautiful young woman. She was quite striking, really. I was therefore consumed, for the remainder of the trip (about an hour commute), with a horrible guilt; had I chosen the seat because of her? Did everyone else suspect that I had? Did she suspect that I had? Wasn’t simply my sitting down a sexual overture, a desperate plea for the favor of her favors? Naturally, I needed to dispel any suspicion; I determined not to make eye-contact, not to speak, not to notice that OMG the book she’s reading is called Good In Bed (kill me now), not so much as to glance at her with anything but a lazy indifference. And practiced as I am, I carried out my plan with the precision and temerity—I mean tenacity—of a weathered veteran. Yes, she tempted my attention by sitting sideways in her seat, facing me the entire ride, but I held strong, resolved to ignore her presence. After all, any attempt at small-talk, the mere vibration of my vocal cords in her direction, would be construed as a come-on, a brutish, transparent attempt to charm her off her feet and into bed.

It’s obvious that striking up a conversation with a beautiful stranger would simply be a confession of my attraction and desire. The converse is not the case. She could talk to me with impunity, without indicting her character or motives as base or criminal. She could see rather easily that I was reading Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary, a conversation all its own, she witnessed the play—the circus—of the loud family of tourists across the aisle, she saw me laugh in good spirits at the children’s antics. Why couldn’t she have made a joke, asked about the book, said “hi,” said something, anything to me? Am I really just invisible?