Zack de la Rocha
A current collaborating member, Zack de la Rocha, of One Day as a Lion. Zack has a well-known history of anger-infused music enraged by kick-your-pathetic-ass rock. Zack can excite things while still maintaining the credibility of legitimate hatred.

Justin Timberlake
To balance out the party, Justin Timberlake can hang with us. This dude lives a life of fame and doesn’t take himself too seriously. Timberlake is good for comix relief while still cranking out albums that, while not necessarily my demographic, continue to amass the fans.

Related posts:

1. Top 5: Things You Wanted to Know About Me
2. Dan Zanes
3. Afghanistan Remembers Music

Anyway, I finished another Threadless submission – this one entitled “Seaside.” It went through several critiques and evolved to what you see here now. The original was classy. The finished version is less anatomical design, and more “killer t-shirt design.” The idea I’m conveying here is that pirates were the original gangsta’s. Bling, booty, and thugs; the seafaring cast had it all. If you want the oppressive land crab to hearken your love for the uneasy sea life, buck up and wear this old flag proud. Seaside forever!

Oh yeah, and you’re going to have to vote high to make this shirt a winner over at Threadless.com. There will probably be 1200 votes when the week’s over, so make sure you and your friends make up a big part of those in $5!

Vote on the Seaside Submission

Related posts:

1. Threadless (Critique): Pirates Were the First Gangstas
2. Threadless Submission (Critique)
3. “Seaside” On Sale Now

I retitled it for Zazzle (Tribal to the Core), so go take a look (click the image to be taken to my zazzle.com store):

Tribal to the Core (Long Sleeve)
by

gradinDotCom

Create Custom T-Shirts On Zazzle
Browse Graphic Design T-Shirts

Related posts:

1. “Seaside” On Sale Now
2. No Bones About It
3. No Bones About It is For Real

Threadless Critique: Pirates Were the First Gangstas

Related posts:

1. Threadless (Critique): Everybody Loves Eye Scream
2. Threadless Submission (Critique)
3. Threadless: “Seaside”

I don’t really know what Esquire is all about, but I’ll buying a copy of this one off the stands when it comes out.  It’s a historic moment.

Link: BoingBoing

Related posts:

1. How I Work
2. Innovating the Search Engine
3. Emily Yoffe Learns ‘The Secret’

For lack of better alternatives, I bring to you the current meme on my plate.  Young whipper-snappers may be unfamiliar with this word, but it is essentially an Internet chain-letter.  Spazzmanda passed this on to me from her blog, where she refers to such activities as “tagging.”  I always thought that was a cultural art of defacement by way of graffiti, but what does an old fart like me know.

The Rules: Rules are posted at the beginning. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people and posts their names. Then the player goes to each of the “named” people’s blogs and leaves a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. If you’ve been tagged, you do the same, letting the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer. Your answer, of course, is the answer to the following questions. Here we go!

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? One decade ago I was two months from my 2nd wedding anniversary with my lovely wife, Amy.  We had no children, though we had pets.  We were in our first year at our first house together (and current house).  Amy was still in school at North Georgia College and State University (though it may not have been a State University at the time), and I was working for…Whittman-Hart, perhaps.  I was a consultant beginning to cut my teeth on information systems security.  It would be my primary job and objective for the next several years.  I registered gradin.com for the first time – it was a standard 2-year registration and cost me $70.00 (I think my last registration was $8.95 for a year).  I was finally able to access my awesome Mindspring account web space using my rocking X2 US Robotics Sportster (externel) modem via www.gradin.com.  I was working in Allaire’s Cold Fusion, though I couldn’t afford a license for the server to host my own site using their technology.  I used Allaire’s Homesite as my primary editor with Photoshop and Fractal Painter as my graphics packages.  I think I was trying to get onto Bellsouth’s xDSL beta program, but with no luck due to my distance from the carrier.  I was, however, involved with Wachovia’s beta online account access.  It was a glorified BBS – awesome!

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today? I’ve got ESX hosts to convert to 3.5i, installable.  SAN storage to attach, and VMs to migrate both through traditional migrations, as well as the new and improved Storage VMotion.  I also have some process proposal documentation to get done for the collected efforts of the Norcross lab engineering team, as well as that of our Hillsboro office.  I hope to get some ping-pong in at lunch, ride my bike 10 miles back to my car, and then facilitate a drum circle for 100 people in northeast Georgia with some friends.

3. Snacks I enjoy: Have you tried my nuts?  They’re salty and dimensionally variant.  I enjoy the texture especially, though others are just happy I am able to share – there’s more than enough for everyone to enjoy!  I also like beef jerky and granola bars.

4. Places I’ve lived: I’ve had a good spread in my life, though as of late my homestead has been very static.  I began in Ocean Springs, MI; moved to Plano, TX, and then jumped to San Diego, CA shortly thereafter.  We moved a couple of times there, but finally moved out the state to Tuscon, AZ.  From there, we departed for Waycross, GA, and then onto Gainesville, GA where I live now.  I’ve moved several times throughout both of these places in Georgia, and I’ve been here the longest amount of time so far.

5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: This is actually the title of a post I’ve been working on for a while now.  It’s a recurring theme throughout our decade+ of marriage, and one that will most likely continue to develop and mature in time.  The most boring thing I think of from our list is to pay-off debt and acquire some commercial real estate to lease.  There’s money accumulation prospects in that, so we would do well to set ourselves for the inevitable loss of said billions through the frivolous purchases from our list.  There are two more intriguing opportunities: 1) Develop a waterfront district on Lake Lanier – a boardwalk with shops and dining – that aids in the lake’s restoration efforts, as well as providing some awareness about the lake’s ecosystem.  2) Convert an old mill on the outskirts of town into a turn-of-the-century arts and crafts guild.  History tells us that these guilds are mere congregations of passionate people in the arts and crafts and generally have no ability to sustain themselves financially.

5 “Tagged”

1. Sean Williams
2. Jason Darling (Bleh.  MySpace)
3. James Palmer
4. Israel Lawson
   
5. Steve Tucker

Related posts:

1. The Disney World Report
2. As a Multi-Millionaire…
3. Ring in the Fall Season

Silver Stars is described as a classier place, targeting primarily women and couples:

Forget venturing into the sleazy adult video store in the seedy part of town. We strive to provide women and couples with a safe, clean, upscale and positive environment that presents all of our products in a fun and intuitive way.

Not for nothing, the store is located just over the city line to avoid some harsher political scrutiny, as well as maintaining a minimum amount of pornographic material. I believe it’s the magazines that can get you shut down in Gainesville, but their videos are described as “educational” just in case. However, if I read quickly through the list of items bulleted on their site, I get the false impression that I might be able to do a lot of my Christmas shopping there too:

• Bath Products
• Handmade Soaps and Lotions
• Educational Books & DVD’s
• Party Supplies
• T-Shirts
• And Lots More…

*There’s a lot to be said for “and lots more…”

Related posts:

1. Gainesville Revokes Local Business License
2. DiY PC: Antec Truepower Trio 650W (PSU)
3. Gainesville Closes Door to the Occult

I maintained a “Help” page on my personal blog for a long while. It was a practice in earnest to fight the good fight. I tested browser compatibility and noted errors with specific browsers. It helped me…never my audience. I think I gave up after reading “Don’t Make Me Think.” Ultimately, that is really the mindset and the answer. If I have to provide a help page, perhaps I’m doing something wrong. Perhaps I’m not making that personal connection with people because I’m ostracizing them through some personal elitism. I remember when DHTML was really cool and working with the DOM in unique, arcane methods was more a resemblance to the occult than anything Web 2.0 represents today. We’ve all grown up on this stuff. Internet adolescence is over and it’s time to get a real job; move out of your parent’s basement (no offense to you 30-somethings living in your parent’s basement). So I don’t have a “Help” page anymore. I try to offer help in more constructive ways – ways that a “Help” page can only make excuses for. Besides – who actually takes the time to read a manual, let alone my blog manual?

In many ways, the Internet is like a beloved child which the world is rearing. Sometimes carefully, sometimes irresponsibly. This child of ours is also, at times, a bit unruly. I could dig that further into boredom, but I think you can continue the similes on your own. At any rate, it’s an apt comparison when speaking of the web development practices used on the Internet over time. I used to be one of those elitist programmers that sought out the most obscure uses of the DOM or unknown HTML tags. Hell, I used to only use VBScript, and throw out angry comparisons of my pure VBScript solution to a JavaScript one. I’ve also visited sites where you are completely stumped as to how to use it. You have to mouse over a bunch of slick graphics in order to find out where they go. So you can understand my conclusion that the Internet’s adolescence has come and gone. We all had fun, now it’s time to get serious about [Internet] life and create things that matter. Things that provide value. Things that don’t make other people feel stupid.

Related posts:

1. Top 5: Things You Wanted to Know About Me
2. What are your Convictions?
3. How I Work

As my previous experiences taught me, I don’t skimp on power supplies either. I was interested in a rock-solid performer with as high an efficiency (power supplied versus power converted to heat) as I could afford. I was surprised by what I found. While there are some exceptions, the more efficient PSU’s available today are running at < =85% efficiency. Of course, there can be dramatic differences from the max load efficiency rating (usually the highest number) to a 50% load average. Regardless, I won't really know what I have until it’s under load and the Kill A Watt is monitoring it.