Some see this as a victory for Microsoft, that Internet Explorer has finally killed off it’s long-time nemesis.  However, I do not believe it was Microsoft that killed Netscape.  Really, with both Netscape and Firefox sharing the same guts, it was Firefox that ultimately killed Netscape.  And let’s face it, Netscape was essentially a skinned version of Firefox anyway:

Recently, support for the Netscape browser has been limited to a handful of engineers tasked with creating a skinned version of Firefox with a few extensions.

Oh well, for now I am quite happy to use Firefox. With Netscape’s demise, I will potentially have one less browser to test against in the near future and the world wide web has a more consolidated alternative to Internet Explorer. Fare thee well, dear Netscape. Go get Firefox today.

I had much lower expectations for this touch keypad especially given the sausage-like nature of my fingers but the accuracy is incredible. When my meaty digits do find their way to the wrong place, the auto correct is reliable almost to the point of being scary. One could even develop an unhealthy reliance on this feature. I am fighting the urge toward that bad habit.

Okay, so the experience is not ideal for long-winded posts but it is still pretty hot. My shoulders are feeling a little sore as I wrap this post up but that could be less from the awkward thumb typing position and more from the fact that there is also a new Wii in the house. I have such high hopes for the future of technology in this very moment…

I have been reading.

• The Inmates Are Running The Asylum by Alan Cooper
• Don’t Make Me Think! by Steve Krug (a re-read)
• Making and Breaking the Grid by Timothy Samara
• The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
• Thinking With Type by Ellen Lupton
• My RSS Feeds (Yanko Design, Gadget Lab, SimpleBits, Zeldman, & A Brief Message)
• Also, HOW Magazine finally pulled its head out and started sending my magazine subscription

I have been working.

• I performed all manner of CSS trickery for Pearson’s second version of Course Compass
• I am now focusing on some UX/ID (finally) for Course Compass
• I have been conferencing
• I have been documenting my conferencing
  
• I did some design for UGA’s Sakai pilot
• I helped troubleshoot some of Georgia Tech’s Sakai enhancements
• I did some quick designs for my pal WebChuck
• I am in the process of ripping ESG Utah up by the roots and completely overhauling everything there
• I have blogged elsewhere
  

I have been fathering.

• I have been yelling at cheering for the twin’s at their soccer games
• I have been wondering if wife’s French-Canadian roots have completely diluted any aggressive German football (read soccer) genes in the twins
• I want to know when Kindergarten started assigning homework
• I want to know what’s with the policy to put twins in separate classes (Two different teachers, two completely different homework assignments)
• I have been supporting the Dysart Unified School District by buying snow cones every Friday afternoon when I pick the boys up from school
• I think I will continue to purchase said snow cones through January if AZ weather trends continue
• I have been giving the Princess (daughter) anything she wants (just ask Daddy, sweetheart)

I have been procreating.

• I have been told the baby is due on January 3, 2008
• I hope they stick to the scheduled c-section date of December 27, 2007 so I get the tax break
• I am scheduling my frontal lobotomy soon

One day I hear about this blog called Daddy Types which is sort of daddy/designer oriented blog filled with content that I find interesting. That is almost worth my own blog post but let’s get to the issue. So Daddy Types mentions this contest over at Kid Robot (a site that I already knew about) involving the customization of the Mini Munny Mobile. So I headed over to Kid Robot to check out the contest details, became smitten with the idea of entering, and did something I rarely do with situations like these. I whipped out my credit card, made a personal vow that I would enter this contest and then made my very first purchase from Kid Robot; the blank, white Mini Munny Mobile which would be my foundation for my contest entry in the Mini Munny Mobile Custom Car Show.

Several idead popped into my head about what my customized Munny would look like including turning him into a sweet version of “Ocho”, a.k.a. Herbie the Love Bug. Good thing I didn’t go that route because someone entered a Herbie-inspired entry ahead of me. Then I thought what would be the first thing I customize on my own car? Duh, the wheels! I thought 22″ spinners might do the trick, but then thought probably lots of others would share this idea. Then I thought, instead of going lower, why not higher? Yes, I knew I had found my idea.

So as I got to the task of cannibalizing a toddler’s Tonka toy for a chassis and wheels for my Munny Mobile, I started to think of colors. That is when it occurred to me that I had been seeing a lot of black-on-black trucks lately and they always manage to turn my head and put envy into my heart. I figured it would be a gamble to have everything on the truck painted solid black, but I figured if any of the contest judges caught my vision, it would be well worth it. I added contrast by using both flat and gloss black appropriately (flat on the tires and chassis, gloss for the body, etc.).

Next I had to think about my Munny character. My first idea was mullet, cowboy hat and a Def Leppard t-shirt. I almost went that route until I envisioned hand painting Old English text across his back in the form of a tattoo. I ditched the mullet and cowboy hat idea but not before purchasing fake hair and a miniature black cowboy hat from the local crafts store. While painting the eyes, I decided that pupils are totally overrated. It’s all about the whites of the eyes, and I do mean ALL.

One interesting situation came up with one of my sons when he saw that I had painted the previously stark white Munny with a coat of glossy beige. “Dad, why did you paint Munny brown?” he asked. I told him that some people have brown skin. His reply was “Oh, we have brown skin dad!” We are as caucasian as caucasians can be, but we have been swimming quite a bit this summer and the Arizona sun has baked us to a golden tan. Looking at mine and my son’s arm, I said, “why yes, yes indeed.” I decided to skip the lesson on society’s labels, political correctness and diversity. To my kids, skin color is like hair or eye color. Some people just look different, end of story.

Back to Munny, check out the pictures and leave a comment or two. Win or lose, it was still such a nice change to work on something tangible and totally non-digital for once. I will admit that I wished for an ‘undo’ button on more that occasion while I was doing all of the hand-painting. Licking your finger and trying to rub out your mistake is much less effective.

I am re-thinking the flow and content of this site, not that it will matter because it seems like the only regulars around here are the spammers offering me “roleX repl1cas” and “member enlargement” but I thought they might like to know.  Maybe once they figure out this is the most boring blog site ever they will quit showing up.

My head still hurts from getting kicked by my own foot.  I tried getting some sort of recovery application to get the stuff back but they all wanted money!  After realizing I had about 85-90% of my stuff “backed up” (sitting on one of my external HDs from which I was too lazy to delete them) I said forget it. I was bored of the stuff anyway and I can get back most of the stuff I already had.  This might give me incentive to broaden my horizons a bit and branch out.  I had, afterall, just downloaded “Time To Say Good Bye” from Andrea Bocelli.  I remembered I had heard that song while watching the fountain in front of Bellagio in Vegas a while back and watching Ocean’s Eleven one evening reminded me of how awesome I thought that song was, so I grabbed it.

Anyway, stupid iTunes, cannot even protect itself from me.  Lame.

How It’s Made is, in my humble opinion, one of the most fascinating shows on TV.  It is put out by those wiley Canadians and I think it is kind of old because it has the most awful graphics within the program and during the credits (with the exception of the cool line drawings that they use to illustrate certain concepts when introducing a new segment).  To sum it up, manufacturing machines are insanely cool and I am always asking myself what kind of machine built that machine that is building those things.  It is simple enough to remain entertaining to my two boys.  Keep in mind, they are five years old.  Having had these kids in basketball and T-ball has revealed that while they are both tall and have an athletic build for their age, perhaps they are more apt to become intellectuals than athletes.  Of course if I ever get around to creating my Sig Hansen fan website and that catches their attention, they will just grow up to be a dork like their father.

I sold my beloved Monev the Gale figure on ebay recently. I bought this figure on a whim for $35 at a comic store way back when I first visited Phoenix (before I lived here) for a job interview. I had never even seen an episode of the Trigun Anime that the figure came from but the details on it were so insane that I have to pick it up.

Monev graced my desk for a few years until finally I decided I was too old and just not hip enough to get away with displaying action figures in my workspace. Voltron was relegated to the toybox at home where, thanks to my sons, it will never be quite the same, much like the two “DUB City” Scion xB models that ended up in said location two years ago. Kids have a way of destroying intricate pieces, destroying the amazing details and dulling the glossy sheens on my toys with a quickness. For example, the rear window of one of the afore-mentioned xB models was popped out of place after being dropped by one of the kids no more than three minutes after I have removed it from its packaging. I kid (no pun intended) you not, three (3) minutes. I yelled, kid cried, xB ended up being just another kid toy in the box of thousands.

Okay, so I get a little sentimental about seemingly trivial things. Perhaps I am just living out the things I could not do when I was a kid, buying the toys I could never afford, clinging to my youth, whatever. I would ask my therapist but I have not seen him in like six or seven years Photography was good therapy though. I took out my dSLR and popped a few hundred frames with my telephoto lens. Most were unusable because I was experimenting and the depth of field ended up being way too shallow. Still kind of cool and definitely satisfying.

Conditions this weekend were perfect for flying kites and taking pictures. It has been all too rare that I get to go out and just take pictures for fun so for me, this was a good weekend. For my kids, I am sure they would hav much rather just been out flying the kite without me laying in the grass behind them barking orders like “move to the right, put your hands up a bit and stop fidgeting!” Someday they might appreciate the results enough to humor me.

As for post production, you might notice some color variances. Some images have a little more red to then, others more blue. I was torn between the two looks. The ones with more red give a little more of a warm appearance which goes good with the whimsical summer-like nature of the photos, but living in Arizona, I get sick of seeing redness in the sky. The dust in Phoenix is red and so while you can get some amazing colors in the sunset, red-tinted skies usually mean pollution. Blue skies like the ones on this day are rare so while the more blue-tinted images make me happy, they do appear a little cooler than the red-tinted images. That’s probably why I like them more. Blue skies and cool air are about to get pretty rare over the next six months here, and my triple-digit-heat-induced-grumpiness is about to flow in abundance.