As you are probably aware from my ceaseless whining, I live a busy and complex life.
This would explain my obsession when it comes to finding ways of making common tasks easier and more efficient. Because the more time I'm able to save throughout the day, the more time I'm able to set aside for luxury activities like sleeping and going to the bathroom.
A couple weeks ago, I happened upon something new to me in the freezer case at my local grocery store: UNCRUSTABLES!!
These are tiny frozen sandwiches from Smuckers that you thaw out and eat without all that mucking about with a loaf of bread and making a mess. I tried the peanut butter and jellies first... both strawberry and grape were yummy. I then found grilled cheese... totally delicious. Sure they are horrible for your health, but they are just so darn convenient that I can't get enough of them...
Then the other day I ran across a NEW Uncrustables variety... peanut butter and honey. I like honey, so I bought a box to try.
Holy crap! I believe that this is what "suck" would taste like if you could distill the essence of suckage to a food product. On top of tasting horrible, I was shocked to discover that the "honey spread" contained any honey, because it tasted more like toxic waste. Sandwich FAIL!
Oh well. I guess you can't win them all... but did anybody at Smuckers bother to TASTE these things before selling them? When your motto is "With a name like Smuckers, it's got to be good," you'd think that they'd have to be a little more careful with the crap they actually put their name on.
And in other, more expected news...
I keep hoping my pet Webkinz monkey will calm down after having been ripped off by the Webkinz eStore, but it just hasn't happened. If anything, the little psychopath has escalated his game... getting more creative with his senseless killings. I think he's always resented the cat who works at the employment office, and saw him heading that way...
The remainder of this entry NOT appropriate for children or those who are traumatized by cartoon violence!
→ Click here to continue reading "Convenience"...
Wow. The reaction to my April Fool's condom ad was so favorable that I almost wish I was able to manufacture them! I should start experimenting with latex, chocolate pudding, and banana molds... how difficult can it be to make a condom?
And speaking of experimentation...
Ever since I found out that I'm 20% gay, I've been trying to find a way to put it to good use. I was going to find a pride parade to march in so that I could show support for my 100% gay brothers and sisters, but I just can't pull off the dress code...
Fortunately, Jestertunes has come to the rescue and is having me on as Very Special guest-host for a Very Special episode of The Jester Show tonight (Wednesday) at 7:00 Pacific (10:00 Eastern)...
The topic for the last half of the show is going to be "Your Favorite Television Shows of The 80's" so it ought to be big fun!
As for the first half of the program, heaven only knows what trouble we'll get into. Since his show description says that we'll be "waxing hysterical on gay sex," perhaps I'll have a chance to ask him about those burning gay questions that have come up over the years...
So tune into The Jester Show tonight for "Long time friends and blog acquaintances waxing hysterical on gay sex, politics, tv, movies, music, and generally trashing people we come into contact with on a regular basis." I'm sure it will be fierce and fabulous!*
* Well, I'm sure Jester will be fierce and fabulous... I'm just going to embarrass myself as usual.
Can I just say that Criss Angel kicked total ass in his guest spot on the episode CSI New York from last night? The guy is an incredible magician to begin with, but who knew he could act as well? His emotionally disturbed character of Luke Blade was no easy role to play, and he managed it beautifully. Good episode. Perfect casting.
As more and more of our lives ends up on the internet, there's more and more ways to put yourself there. I've always thought that a daily update on my blog is enough, but then a service called "Twitter" comes along that allows you to put continuous updates about your life on the internet all day long. Despite an occasional trip somewhere, most of my life is pretty boring, and would end up looking something like this...
I don't know why anybody would want to read something like that, so my Twitter account goes unused. Since you can update from your mobile phone, I keep thinking that maybe I'll Twitter one of my trips or something. Travel is mostly mundane torture for me, but maybe somebody would find it interesting?
Another internet invention is a service called "Facebook" which is a kind of social-networking site. It started out for college students to maintain contacts and stuff, but eventually opened up to everybody. Once you join up, you can invite others to join and be on your friends list. Karl from Secondhand Tryptophan invited me to be his friend, and now he appears when I login...
Today I logged into Facebook for some reason, and noticed that I'm being asked how I know Karl. I click on him to answer, and a box comes up with a list of options. When I read through the list, I don't see an option for "Blogging Buddies" so I thought I'd select "Through Facebook" instead. After I checked the box, a little menu popped up asking me what kind of Facebook friend Karl was to me...
POKE BUDDIES?!? What the hell kind of stuff is going on at FaceBook? I mean, I like Karl and all... and look forward to meeting him in person and stuff... but this is a bit more intimate of a relationship than I'm ready for. I decided to go for something less dramatic and select "We hooked up" instead, but figured Karl would probably delete me for something like that. Ultimately, I just selected "Met randomly" and was able to hand-type "Blogging Buddies" which is what I was looking for all along...
Interestingly enough, Facebook won't take my word for it that Karl and I are Blogging Buddies. Instead, they are going to ask Karl for confirmation. Am I really so untrusting?
Even more interesting... I now have an option to "Poke Karl!" (with exclamation point!). WTF? I must be missing something here, so I go to the Help Center to try and figure out what all this poking is about. Here is what I found out...
What is a poke?
We have about as much of an idea as you do. We thought it would be fun to make a feature that had no real purpose and to see what happens from there. So mess around with it, because you're not getting an explanation from us.
Holy crap! If the people who created the poking don't know and won't tell... what the heck are Facebook users supposed to think? "Mess around with it?" What if I poke Karl and he explodes? And what the heck is going to happen when somebody pokes ME?!?
If you don't hear anything from me tomorrow, it's probably because Karl poked me and I exploded.
Stop it.
Would Microsoft Windows sufferers who are still using Internet Explorer please just stop it? Go download Firefox or Opera or whatever, and start using a real web browser instead. I am tired of spending hours and hours tracking down the crap-load of bugs and quirks unique to Internet Explorer so that web pages display properly. It seems that every time I get to the end of a project, I find stuff that renders beautifully in regular browsers, but end up looking like crap in IE...
It's a real pain in the ass, so if everybody on the internets could just stop using it, that would be great.
Oh, and since the new Windows Vista version of Outlook f#@%s up HTML emails, if you would switch to Thunderbird or some other email client while you're at it, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks!
Your friend,
Dave2
This sucks ass. Blogography has been fragged with a scrolling bug in IE for ages, and I've got no time to fix it because I'm too busy fixing everything else.
Why does Microsoft hate us so much?
I have a bit of a confession.
While I was working these past weeks, I had a friend approving my comments. Oh sure, I took time out of my busy schedule to read each and every one (because I love me the comments that much), but I just didn't have time to weed through the spam and haters every time a comment needed to be approved. Rather than let them stack up for a month, I had somebody lend a hand. It was as close to my dream "COMMENT-A-TRON 3000" as I'm likely to ever get.
Well, now that I'm back, I'm looking through the comments that were held for some reason or another. Surprisingly, only two were outright nasty (deleted it!). The remaining three were positively reprehensible...
Somebody with a vendetta against Elizabeth Hurley decided to inform me of their insanity on three separate entries.
It's not the first time, and I just don't get it. Do these people honestly feel that I give a crap about trolls who have to say inflammatory trash to get attention? Do they believe in any possible way that I'm going to approve comments with such vile, hateful, filth even if it weren't about the utter perfection that is Elizabeth Hurley? Let's review REALITY here...
For the benefit of the learning impaired, I've constructed the above chart to illustrate How Things Are... with the sublime hotness of Elizabeth Hurley at the top, and decreasing levels of hotness following below.
Now, given my understanding of REALITY, the level of stupidity it would take for somebody to think that any ludicrous comment could possibly change my mind about Liz is truly distrubing.
And kind of sad.
These people have nothing better to do with their life?
And speaking of "disturbing hotness" I ran across this image while doing a Google search for something I now forget...
It's a latex nun. With a cat-o-nine-tails. When I look at it I don't know whether to become aroused, hide under my bed, or start crying. All I do know is that latex is some freaky-cool stuff. For some big fun, you can see other wacky creations at The Latex Lounge. I had thought of ordering me some latex biker shorts to wear while running errands around town, but $130 is a bit steep for a half-pair of pants. A thong is only $37.50, but I would probably get arrested for wearing that in the conservative wilds of Central Washington.
But the minute I have $485 burning a hole in my pocket... that Captain's Jacket is smokin'!
Of course, then I'd have to get the $450 pants to go with it.
And a sash. It's just not complete without a sash.
Most everything I buy now-a-days is purchased online. And one of my most favorite places to shop is Buy.com.
They're a solid, reliable company with a huge selection at very good prices. I like that they make it easy to manage my orders. Their shopping cart is great. They accept PayPal for payment. They ship quickly. Their policies are fair, and most of the time I can count on everything going smoothly when I place an order.
All-in-all, Buy.com is a great place to buy stuff.
Unless something goes wrong.
Because if something goes wrong, you will inevitably have to contact Customer Service. And Buy.com Customer Service sucks ass. Every single time I have had to deal with them, I end up so enraged that I want to kill somebody. If you ever hear in the news that I've gone on a murderous rampage and then locked myself in a donut shop somewhere, it's Buy.com Customer Service that's probably the cause of it.
And the reason for this is because the only thing they ever seem to do to service their customers is to send out piece-of-shit generic responses that usually have nothing to do with the question you asked. I've come to the conclusion that there can be two reasons for this...
A) They don't have actual people in their Customer Service Department, but instead have a big machine that automatically generates these stupid generic responses to your emails...
B) Their entire Customer Service Department is staffed by monkeys with PCs...
Because, seriously, there is no way that real-live people could be responsible for the shitty service you get. Real-dead people maybe, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal to employ the deceased.
Take for example my efforts to pre-order a copy of Pauly's new book: The Lost Blogs.
The book is offered for pre-order at Buy.com for the bargain-basement price of $10.04. They tell you to "place your order today and be one of the first to receive this product when it arrives!" I just love being first, and so I did. I placed my pre-order, then marked May 1st on my calendar with a happy face, because that's the day my book would ship.
Except Buy.com cancels my order after a week with some generic email telling me that they can't get the item from the publisher in a timely manner. Well no shit! It says right on the site that it's not available for three months! I knew this when I placed the order!
I send an email asking why they would ask me to place a pre-order, then cancel because the item isn't available.
They write back with another dumbass generic response that just tells me the exact same thing they told me in the cancellation notice email. I respond with my question re-phrased to make it clear what I am asking, but never get a response.
Thinking perhaps there was a release date change and it's some kind of error, I place ANOTHER ORDER.
Only to have it cancelled AGAIN.
And so AGAIN I write to Buy.com Customer Service asking why the f#@% they even bother to accept pre-orders if they are going to f#@%ing cancel them before the release date even arrives.
Another retarded generic response about the item not being available. WELL NO SHIT YOU MORON!! THAT'S WHAT A PRE-ORDER IS FOR!!
So I finally take a difference approach and fire off a fresh email asking if the reason my order keeps getting cancelled is because I am paying with PayPal. I theorize that there is probably a time-frame that companies are obligated to ship the product when they take your money, and perhaps this is the reason? Is that why? Can they just delay processing the payment until the item is available... just like they don't charge your credit card until something ships?
Same f#@%ing generic response that in NO WAY even comes CLOSE to answering my question.
Ergo, nobody reads any emails that you send to Buy.com Customer Service. It's either a machine or monkeys. And it's not that I have a problem with companies using generic responses... IF THEY ANSWER THE F#@%ING QUESTION, but how the f#@% can you possible call this kind of treatment "Customer Service?" It's more like "Customer Torture".
And so now every time I need to buy something, I have to ask myself if Buy.com is someplace I really want to shop. Sure it's great when everything works out, but heaven-help you if it doesn't. If this is the price of saving money on things I want, I'd rather pay the extra and know that I'll be taken care of when things go wrong.
Greatest Fark headline ever: "Secrets of Delphi found in ancient text. Science no closer to discovering terrible secret of Turbo Pascal." (of course, not very many people will "get" that, but for those of us who were computer programers in the 80's, it's pretty darn funny).
Usually, it takes liters of alcohol and a really good party for me to strip down and do the funky chicken.
Well, either that or Wang Chung is playing on the radio.
But now, thanks to The Gap, you can watch me "gettin' jiggy with it" whilst fully sober...
Kind of freaky how it actually kind of looks like me, albeit with better hair. If you want to see the whole sordid display, just click here.
Not two minutes after I've sat down at my desk, I am told I have a phone call from "Rosetta." I don't know anyone named Rosetta, but heaven only knows that's something that's been missing in my life, so I accept the call. It went something like this...
Rosetta: I am calling because I visited your web site and really enjoyed it, but I am seeing that you don't have very good placement on search engines like AOL, MSN, and Google... am I right about that?
Me: WHAT?!? What are you talking about? What web site?
Rosetta: Oh let me see here... I've got the name right here...
Me: So you like my web site but you don't know the name of it?!?
Rosetta: It's DaveWeb.com... yes, DaveWeb.com!
Me: Well, there's nothing going on at DaveWeb.com... I'm not putting anything there right now. What did you like so much about a site that has nothing on it?
Rosetta: Oh, if there's nothing there, then that's probably why it's not showing up on search engines then.
Me: Tell me, don't you find it embarrassing that you've told me you like my site when you've never even seen it? Don't you feel incredibly stupid about being such a bad liar?
Rosetta: You have a nice day. =click=
When it comes to telemarketing calls, this is about as moronic as it gets. First of all, even though DaveWeb is not being updated right now, it's the #1 hit on Google, MSN and AOL when you actually type in "DaveWeb" so I can only guess that in addition to not bothering to even look at my site, they didn't bother to see how it's actually ranked in search engines either. Does this type of scam ever work for anybody?
Oh, and this just in... VERIZON DSL SUCKS ASS!!
After Verizon canceled and then reinstating my DSL order twice, I finally got everything straightened out after having spent nearly two hours on the phone. Third time's a charm, right? Uhhh... no. I am now getting emails telling my that my DSL install is scheduled for March 8th... but the name, address, and phone number referenced in the email are not mine.
So, if your name is "Angela" and you live in "Stafford, Virginia" - then, congratulations, your DSL installation is underway!
Naturally, the email says that it "was sent from a notification-only e-mail address that cannot accept incoming e-mail messages" so my only choice is to call the idiots.
After yet another hour on the phone this morning trying to get everything straightened out AGAIN, I am still not sure if or when I am ever going to get a DSL line installed. Which begs the question: does Verizon ever use their own customer service line to see how absurd it is? Nobody has the capability to do anything. All they do is take your name, then pass you on to another department. This morning I've been through Tech Support, Billing, Sales, Equipment, and was then transferred back to Tech Support where I started in the first place. Nobody knows anything.
How does Verizon make any money when they keep their departments tied up on the phones all day not doing anything but passing people around? Why don't they have a SINGLE department you can call with people there who can actually DO SOMETHING when there is a problem? The ridiculous system they have now does nothing but waste everybody's time and money. If I were a Verizon stockholder, I'd be absolutely furious to know that my investment was being pissed away on paying employees for stupid shit like this.
Verizon's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer is Ivan G. Seidenberg. And Ivan, may I call you Ivan? You desperately need to reorganize your support system for DSL customers. You might want to start out by FIRING the INCOMPETENT DUMBASSES of everybody responsible for the "pass-the-buck" policy that's currently in place. Then tell whoever you hire to replace them that the very meaning of "Customer Service" is to SERVE THE CUSTOMER!! You are not SERVING THE CUSTOMER when you waste hours of their time and provide them no answers and no way to solve their problems. The only thing I was served today was my own ass.
I'm beginning to wonder if saving $20 a month was worth my time in Verizon purgatory?
And here we've come to the final episode of Forgotten Domains Week, where I review domains I own but have forgotten over the years. Last up? A domain that may actually get used one day...
DAY SEVEN: HARDROCKRUN.COM
I've long had a site devoted to my obsession with the Hard Rock Cafe called DaveCafe. But that site is pretty much just another blog, and I've always wanted to do something more interactive with my fellow Hard Rock fanatics. One thing we all have in common is our desire to maximize the number of properties we visit in a given trip. But it's a bit trickier than you might think to calculate driving times, hotels, and what-not... and it would be nice if there was a resource to assist with such planning.
At least that's what fellow Hard Rocker Perry and I thought as we were planning a run through England, Wales, Germany, and The Netherlands...
So we set to work creating such a site. A place where people could plan Hard Rock visits and share their experiences, with the hope of having it ready before the Europe trip took place.
Unfortunately, in order to take two weeks away from work for the run, I pretty much had to work non-stop for two months in order to get caught up enough to leave. There just wasn't time to put the required hours in to get the graphics completed, and Hard Rock Run never quite came together.
Still, of all the forgotten domains I've blathered on about this week, this is the one that I would most like to have happen one day. If only I could find the time to work on it.
We've just arrived at the penultimate episode of Forgotten Domains Week, where I review domains I own but have forgotten over the years. This time we're going to work...
DAY SIX: ARTIFICIALDUCK.COM
Yesterday I told the riveting tale of my venture into the digital video business but, before there was Critical Duck Films, there was Artificial Duck Company. And before there was Artificial Duck, there was Wind-Up Duck Screen Printing. And before there was Wind-Up Duck, there was Big Duck Studio... as you might have guessed, I've got kind of a "duck" thing going on here. I honestly don't know why, but it probably has to do with the fact that I find ducks to be funny. Make of it what you will.
Anyway, if you've read my FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) you might know that I am a graphic designer by trade. But my career path to becoming a graphic designer was not without complexity. So here, for your reading pleasure, are the duck-related bits from my wild work history.
THE EARLY YEARS: I've always loved to draw and paint, but I never thought it could be an actual job. So when "Personal Computers" were introduced to my school, I knew where my future lay. By the time I was a high-school senior I had already started accepting programming work for local businesses, orchardists, farmers, and even computerized the attendance records for my own high school. Programming a computer was something I was good at, seemed to pay okay, and was in demand, so I naturally thought I had found my vocation. Big Duck Studio was born...
For better part of my senior year I was a student by day and Big Duck programmer-for-hire at night (though most of my friends called it "Big Dick Studio" - ha ha). I was learning a lot, having fun, and making a little spending money. It was all good. At least it was good until one Saturday night I suddenly realized that I was hunched over a computer debugging code while all my friends were out partying. At that moment I decided I did not want to spend the rest of my life glued to a computer monitor, and Big Duck was dead.
GETTING ARTISTIC: After graduation I had no idea what I wanted to do (though getting work so I could afford to go to college the next year was a high priority). I found a part-time job as a janitor but always in the back of my head was the desire to have my own business again (though something not involving computers). Then one day a friend asked me to design a T-Shirt for his family reunion, and everything just clicked. I would partner with a screen printer and do T-Shirt designs in my spare time! For reasons I can't recall, the name I chose for my new endeavor was Wind-Up Duck Screen Printing...
I think the name came from an old toy frog I found that would hop around if you wind him up (by turning a key that stuck out his butt). Since I found ducks to be hysterical, the wind-up frog became a wind-up duck. It was a good idea, but the guy I was working with kept raising his prices until pretty soon I couldn't make any money at it. I had thought about shopping around for another printer, but I was getting ready for college and decided I'd just quit the business altogether.
SEMI-RECENT HISTORY: After wasting a few years of my life in a drunken stupor while attending college, I still had no idea what I wanted to do for a career. Eventually I accidentally stumbled into graphic design work (which neatly combined my love of computers and art), but it was still part-time and I needed a way to make some extra money. Screen printing, which used to involve spending hours hand-cutting stencils, had become high-tech and much faster, so I thought perhaps I'd resurrect "Wind-Up Duck" and get into the biz again. Only problem was that the name sometimes confused people (they thought "wind" was like "gusting wind"), so it was time for an entirely new duck. Artificial Duck Company had a nice ring to it...
But eventually my job went from part-time to full-time, and there was never any space in my schedule to do any work for Artificial Duck. I bought the domain name with the intention of hiring partners and putting up a web site to get business, but it never happened. So, while I do some work under the "Artificial Duck" banner from time to time, the domain itself has been all but forgotten (why advertise something you never have time to do?).
Even so, I love my "Artificial Duck" logo, and it makes for a popular T-Shirt design that I can hand out to people.
We're sliding toward home on Forgotten Domains Week, where I review domains I own but have forgotten over the years. This time we're going to work...
DAY FIVE: CRITICALDUCK.COM
I was an early fan of digital video back in the days when "digital video" meant you needed a $3000 digitizing card, a high-end Mac, and a "massive" hard disk array with a pricey high-speed SCSI interface. Even then, the results were unpredictable and problematic. Skipped video frames and audio-sync issues were the norm, not the exception. Of course, now even a $500 Mac Mini can easily edit video with no additional hardware, and then burn a DVD of the project once you're done (assuming you have a SuperDrive).
Anyway, sometime between then and now, when the DV format was just starting to make things half-way affordable, a friend and I decided to invest in an expensive DV camera and start a video production company. He would shoot the footage, and I would edit it and design the visuals. In order to get some practice, I shot some tape of a rubber duck to edit with. That footage set the tone for the company, and gave us a name...
Off-and-on for two years, we made instructional videos, promotional videos, educational videos, and even a music video! But it never ended up being enough income to quit our day-jobs, and eventually we wanted out. So we sold the camera, he took the software, I took the name, and it was over.
I still love digital video, and every once in a while I find myself wanting to get back into the game. Maybe one day Critical Duck will ride again?
We're cresting over the half-way point of Forgotten Domains Week, where I review domains I own but have forgotten over the years. Today? Before Blogography, there was Dave Spot...
DAY FOUR: DAVESPOT.COM
Back in the day (that would be the mid 90's), having a web site was expensive. Having your own domain name was expensive. Bandwidth was expensive. Server space was really expensive. Of course, everybody was using really slow modems, so it wasn't like you could have a lot of stuff on your site anyway. But eventually, as prices fell and bandwidth increased, I began putting a lot of stuff online. Personal stuff. Work stuff. Nonsense stuff I collected. Just about anything really. After a while "Dave's World" was a mishmash of junk, and I decided that I really should have separate sites for my work and personal stuff.
Problem was, "dave.com" was taken and I couldn't think of another domain name for my personal spot on the web. Wait a second... "personal spot?" There we go, DaveSpot.com!!
It started out as you see above... just a simple FAQ, a set of my favorite links, some photos, and a list of sites I maintained. Eventually, a fifth button was added. A magical fifth button titled "journal" where I wrote about the stuff that was going on in my life. Yep, it was a blog before there were blogs! Of course, back then, any "blog" you had was hand-coded, so it didn't get updated very often.
Then Movable Type happened and DaveSpot was radically changed into an actual blog. Problem was, I didn't have the discipline to keep it going, and I killed it off after just three months (and reinstated the old site in its place, sans journal).
Come April 2003, I decided to try blogging again, but the "curse" of two failed blogs at DaveSpot made me want to start fresh (besides, "DaveSpot" can easily be translated as "Dave's Pot" which isn't exactly what I had in mind). Thus Blogography was born and DaveSpot was no more. Of all my "forgotten domains" this is one that I probably won't renew. Surely somebody else out there can put it to better use.
Onward to Day 3 of Forgotten Domains Week, where I review domains I own but have forgotten over the years. For today, shall we play a game?...
DAY THREE: SIMDAVE.COM/DAVESIM.COM
One of the things I loved about the early days of the internet was the challenge in doing something new, different, and cool. There was no CSS, no Flash, not a lot of anything really. About the only funky tool that designers had was animated GIF graphics (my how things have changed). And, since I loved being on the cutting edge of technology, I wanted to exploit animated GIFs in a way that I hadn't seen before. But what would that be?
Turns out is was a mini-game based on the "Sim" series of simulation games (SimCity, SimEarth, SimFarm, SimIsle, etc.). Only this time I decided to simulate myself!
"SimDave" (as I called it) was a very crude "game" that allowed you to change the environment around a simulated "me" to see how I would react. For instance... you could choose to turn on the radio and watch me dance. You could change the channel on the radio to a country-western station and watch attempt to hang myself. You could make me change clothes or run around naked. You could feed me pizza, ice cream, or give me a present. You could put me to bed or have me exercise by doing jumping-jacks. All in all, there were about 40 separate things you could do to poor little SimDave, including electrocuting me with the toaster, flushing me down the toilet, or having me mauled by a bear. It was a tough life (albeit simulated) for me.
Anyway, for a while SimDave was a big draw for "Dave's Web" and I got a lot of nice compliments on it, which encouraged me to keep improving the graphics and giving people more things to do with me. The biggest compliments I got was when people would send me new scenarios for SimDave (including one pornographic simulation which involved whip cream and a hooker). But, alas, it was not to last. When I redesigned my site in 1997, I renamed it "DaveWeb" and purchased a domain and hosting package to go with it. Tragedy struck when I lost the entirety of SimDave... all 80-or-so animated GIFs and hundreds upon hundreds of hours work was gone. I am not a very emotional person, but I was pretty choked up about it. I dare say that, retro as it would be, it would still be a cool thing that people would like.
Zip forward to the year 2000 when Flash animations started really taking over the web. Suddenly the possibilities for user-interaction were greatly expanded. One day while working on an animation project for a client, it suddenly occurred to me that I could resurrect SimDave, this time as a cool Flash-based game! With the intention of doing exactly that, I immediately went out and registered SimDave.com and DaveSim.com (just in case Maxis, makers of SimCity and The Sims, would sue). Unfortunately, all I managed to complete was the "Sim Dave" animation sprites (which are the basis for all the DaveToons I draw for Blogography). Just as with dozens of other ambitious projects I've started over the years, I never had the time to finish it.
This is one of those times that I really, really wish I had more free time. The nostalgia involved in getting a new SimDave game on the internet is something I dream about often.
And here we are at Day 2 of Forgotten Domains Week, where I review domains I own but have forgotten over the years. Today we're going to get a bit philosophical...
DAY TWO: DAVEISM.ORG
Once upon a time, there was a remarkable forum where people could go to discuss philosophy and religion in a safe and sane environment that was free from prosecution and hatred. The name of this magical place was "Infinity Dialoguers" and it was good. I had many an enlightening conversation debating the nature of the universe with some amazing people, and such dialogue helped to form the principles on which I live my life even today. But all good things come to an end, and the forum was shut down in May of 2004.
After a few months, I decided that I wanted to collect all the writings and philosophizing I had put up over at Infinity, and form a cult around a new religion which I dubbed "Daveism" (just joking, there was no plans for a cult, but I'm sure that's how some people would have looked at it). One weekend I put the site together and began to post my writings...
Unfortuantely, while Infinity had folded, the founder had not. I eventually received a notice telling me that all materials uploaded to the Infinity Dialoguers forum became property of the collective, and I was forbidden to re-publish my writings without permission (though, fortunately, it works both ways). I guess we should have read the fine print on that membership agreement. Anyway, I could no longer post my previous stuff verbatim, and would have to rewrite everything. Naturally, I didn't have that kind of time, and the domain was taken down.
For the curious among you, Daveism is a simple philosophy for living that was based on the fallacy of fear, hate, and worry. I strongly believe all problems boil down to those three things, and finding a way to minimize them leads to happiness. One day, I really do hope to work on the site again, because I honestly think that I've got something to say there.
Hello and welcome to Blogography's Forgotten Domains Week!! Each day I plan on picking one of the dozens of domain names I own and explaining why I bought it, what I had planned for it, and what eventually happened to cause it being forgotten. So I'm sorry if you find this kind of self-indulgence boring but, what can I say, with the exception of MacWorld (which I am unable to attend) this is a pretty slow week for activities.
DAY ONE: DAVETOPIA.COM
Ah yes, to understand the story behind Davetopia, we must travel back in time to 1984... the year I graduated, and the year a film titled The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension was released. The film itself has many impressionable moments (including my favorite quote line from a movie ever: "No matter where you go, there you are"), but one thing about this bizarre alien invasion flick really stuck with me...
All of the aliens were named John.
John Little John, John Bigboote, John Parker, John Whorfin, John Ya Ya, etc. For some reason I just found it hysterically funny. So much so that I decided to name everybody, everything, and every place "Dave." Eventually I got over it, but I annoyed all my friends, co-workers, and family for weeks. I was so obsessed that I wrote a computer program called "DaveWorld" on my Atari 800 computer. This "killer app" was a random fake news generator for an imaginary place I called "DaveWorld."
The DaveWorld Times would generate stories like this: 15 Davember, 1984. Today in Daveburg, Dave Davidson won the Davenia Cup as his prized Daverian Husky took top honors in all categories. "I'm thrilled!" said Davidson as he headed off to spend his winnings on a vacation in Davapulco." or some such nonsense like that. Then, for no good reason at all, when the internet started exploding ten years later, I was bored and moved DaveWorld to the web.
The web-based "DaveWorld" was constantly evolving, and dozens of people ended up working on improving it at one time or another. Eventually, it was a fairly complex "living world" that had everything from weather patterns and politics to geographical data and road maps...
At one point, DaveWorld was a popular geeky place to hang out... but it ended up eating up so much of my free time that I eventually decided to close it down. But, over the years, I'd occasionally get an email from somebody asking me "whatever happened to DaveWorld" and "are you that DaveWorld guy?" Fast forward to the year 2000, and I had the idea to resurrect DaveWorld again with the latest web technologies and have some fun with it. Problem was, "DaveWorld.com" had already been taken. So I decided to use "Davetopia.com" instead.
Problem was, I never had time to work on Davetopia, so the idea kind of died off. I still keep paying on the domain in case I change my mind or have some extra time on my hands, but it's been pretty much forgotten for a few years now. That's more than a little bit sad to me, because back when the internet was young, it sure was a lot of fun.
For the past year, I've kind of made a ritual of visiting Exploding Dog a couple of times a month to catch up on what Sam has been drawing lately. If you have never been there, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Every week or so, this guy draws a fews pictures using titles and concepts that people e-mail to him. The amazing thing about his work is that, despite the fact they are all illustrated with stick figures, Sam manages to capture some pretty powerful emotions.
The above piece is titled "i'm listening to sad songs," and is about as touching a work as I've ever seen in any museum.
One of the more interesting ideas to come down the internet pipeline is that of micropayments, whereas you can easily make very small payments (down to a penny!) for goods or (more likely) services that are very low-ticket. My first micropayment was made to view Scott McCloud's new web comic "The Right Number" for just a quarter. Was it worth the money? Well, how much entertainment can you realistically expect to get out of a quarter now-a-days? The subject wasn't really my cup of tea, but the idea of it has me very entertained. Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend that can save the ever-declining market for comic book artists. To start making micropayments of your own, head over to BitPass and buy a pre-paid card. There's not much on the menu to buy now, but it's an idea too good to stay small for very long.
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