Outage and Funny

Posted on by

First: sorry I didn’t post the past few days. We had a connection outage for the past day and a half because of the wind and rain that’s currently hitting Seattle. Back up now, though (obviously).

Next: So true.

Last: I got a haircut yesterday, finally. I am now slightly less shaggy. Mickey and I are both pleased with the result. I’d post a picture, but, well, I’m lazy. Toodles!

A Dream I Had

Posted on by

I was telling Mickey about this dream I had last night, and she thought it might be worth writing down. Not that it’s fleshed out or anything, but it was still an interesting dream.

It started out being back at my parents’ house, with it being late October/early November out (most of the leaves are off, sky is kind of gray, and it’s “brisk”). I was showing someone (I don’t recall exactly who, might have just been a duendic conglomeration of various Bond girls or something. I’m really not sure, just sure that I don’t recognize them now that I’m awake) the backyard, pointing out the space where Mom used to garden (she still does but not as much). In fact, there are still three broken and dead corn stalks on the outermost row.
Continue reading →

Child’s Play

Posted on by

Just a quick post. Penny Arcade is currently partnering with Amazon and the Seattle Children’s Hospital to do a toy drive for the kids. It’s called Child’s Play, and really is a pretty awesome thing. It’s also impressive just how much support they’ve received, and how quickly.

In other toyish news, my friend Gareth is a finalist in the Lego Master Builder competitions. (Gareth, not Garrett. Scroll down.) Good luck in the finals, man!

UberCon is coming along. We’ve set up some Forums, which you should check out if you’re a foruming type of person.

See? Quick post. Later. :)

Online Community… Buh?

Posted on by

I participate in a lot of different online communities, believe it or not (I mean, it’s not like I wrote a 50 page treatise on the subject or anything).

I’m a general participant on IRC over on the Aniverse servers (#applegeeks, #machall, #megatokyo, #utopianpigs, and #inquisition), but I don’t “connect” with the users all that much (for reasons I’ve gone into before, mostly a matter of a large percentage being teenybopper idiots who haven’t a brain in their head, and EVERYONE looking for a fight).

I’m a sporadic regular on the Penny Arcade Artist’s Corner (PAAC), posting regularly for a few weeks, then disappearing for a month or two. It’s not that I get bored or fed up or anything… I just get distracted and forget to log on for a while.

I’m an aging veteran on Avatar, having logged in literally thousands of hours there, both to play, to chat, and to administrate. I don’t log on as much as I probably should anymore, because the thought of logging on just makes me feel tired. Not sleepy tired, either. The weary aching feeling in your bones tired. I have a niggling feeling that I should retire, which is hard, since “Nadreck” has been a part of my life for going on 7 years now. One of my justifications in not retiring is the feeling that I should go out with a bang, write the very best area I feel I can, and retire as it is put in. It is an area that I have not yet felt capable of or ready to write.

I have Final Fantasy XI which, while I thoroughly enjoy, has not yet given me the feeling of cohesive community yet. Only time will tell on that on.
Continue reading →

“Like Gutting a Fish”

Posted on by

As some of you are aware, I am not overwhelmingly happy with my website right now. My website is, in a lot of ways, a reflection of who or what I am. It is a metaphor for my life. If I am unhappy with the content and presentation of my site, it is highly likely (and certainly has been in this case) that it is indicative of my self-image and self-worth.

This is not a complaint, however. This is, after all, a two way street: by cleaning and improving my site, I improve my personal self-worth. My previous design honestly could have lasted quite a while longer: it was not a bad design, not in the least. It felt stagnant to me, though.

I apparently gave the impression that I took the feedback on the redesign pretty hard, for which I apologize. While I was slightly frustrated that some of the feedback had not come sooner in development, I was glad to have the feedback at all. The relatively poor response I received about the new design was not devastating, merely a bit of a bummer that happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. I guess that’ll teach me to make major changes and call for feedback when I’m feeling fragile emotionally. ;)
Continue reading →

Nadreck v4

Posted on by

The site redesign is in.

I decided to buckle down and finish the site redesign tonight. As you can see, it’s about 90% functional (and if you can’t, clear your cache and reload, you’re probably using a cached stylesheet).

– Navigation is functioning.
– Layout is mostly functioning (in the gallery, I’m happy with the index page, less happy with the per-entry layout).
– I still need to make the links page (shouldn’t be hard, just haven’t done it yet).
– The search page still needs the new layout applied to it.. The comment section, too.

I’d appreciate feedback on the design, even if it’s just a “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” I’m going to try and finish up the last few things tomorrow sometime, so in theory the few things I’ve broken will be working again by the beginning of next week.

Hope you enjoy the redesign!

Ebb and Flow

Posted on by

Forgive me if this post is a bit sporadic.

Barring the necessities of breathing, eating, drinking, et cetera, I have done five things in the past two days. I went to my chiropractor appointment this morning, which is one of those five things, and is the one I don’t plan to talk about further (not that it was bad, so much as that it was a non-event).

I have, in fact, been working on my schoolwork, at least a little bit each day. I’ve been reading through the Kitab-i-Aqdas, and feeling very sluggardly about my progress. We’ll see if I kick up the pace some more in the next few days. Something that is interesting about the Aqdas is that (after the introductory remarks), a great deal of the first part of the book is updates to the Laws of God declared by previous dispensations. I don’t know why, but I do find this somewhat humorous, looking back at some of the things that had been forbidden previously. Less humorous but interesting is the part where he addresses the leaders of various countries, and pretty much foretells World War I.

I’ve also been working on getting the site redesign ready for a smooth transition. If I stay on task, it should be ready by the end of the week, like I said before. Basically, what’s been keeping me is the minor variations that I have between the different sections. For instance, the visual gallery is currently set up to show 2, sometimes even 3 images across, assuming they were all posted on the same day. Also, the layout of the archives is slightly different, so I need to make sure I don’t break anything when I implement things there.
Continue reading →