Archive for June, 2006.
Jun 27 | Posted by Dave Fletcher | 2 comments
DecadesRockLive.com has been nominated for site of the year in the Entertainment category on cssmania.com, which recognizes the work done by developers that build websites using CSS. This site has been chosen from thousands of entries on the site by several luminaries in the Standards Advocacy world.
It was the first build done for theMechanism by our Standards Advocate, Bill C. English and we couldn’t be prouder of the fella.
You can check out several of the entries (including Decades Rock Live) here.
Jun 23 | Posted by Joshua Ingber | 1 Comment
Since June 1st I have been taking cold showers. That is not a philosophical or sexual metaphor: I have been literally taking ice cold showers. Here’s the thing about them that is worth writing about: Cold showers are really cold, and there is no denying it.
Some people say they are refreshing! Those people have only taken mildly-cold showers, which I also agree, on a hot day, are refreshing. Outside of that minor semantic argument, there is no denying that simple truth.
I guess what I am saying is this: The “shivering”, the “convulsing”, the “physical pain”, the “soap that is inevitably left on my body”, the “shower dance”, and the “post-traumatic stress” all suck, and I have yet to find someone who could argue otherwise.
In a way, it is almost nice to have something that everybody can relate to.
Jun 21 | Posted by Dave Fletcher | Add a Comment
Dearly beloved. It’s time for the design community to cease and desist using the Jolly Roger: the beloved symbol originally intended to strike mortal terror in the hearts of pirates’ unfortunate victims. 
This icon of evil, meant to instill fear by guys with long, filthy beards and hooks for hands, has sadly been embraced by our fine industry as a tool of creative expression: used for everything from designer logos to skulls stenciled on the sidewalk.
These things are popping up everywhere – on t-shirts, as symbols of movements against bad design and as visual representations of everything but plunder and high-seas mischief. Leave those dirty pirates to their pillaging and get back to using your noggins to generate original thoughts.
Aarrgh, Matey. Aarrgh indeed…
Jun 16 | Posted by Dave Fletcher | 1 Comment
Our travel accommodations to the 2006 HOW Design Conference should have been a sign to me of things to come. The fact that I dragged my lead designer to the airport with ticketing information that was 5 hours ahead of our actual flight and was flying out LaGuardia, the foulest hobgoblin of all New York airports should have delicately iced the proverbial cake of doom I was about to taste for 4 days in a little town called Las Vegas.
The one thing I realized after several hours of what could be deemed as the “6 o’clock happy hour” in Vegas is that it would abruptly be followed with what shall forever be etched in my mind as “hooker hour” - The hour of 3am, when all of the most fiendish Las Vegas call girls descend on the bars like slime on a Jersey Pond with one thing on their minds – Cash.
It was during one of these moments of booze fueled bliss, that three designers: myself, Bill English of theMechanism and Carl Smith, of nGen fame, found ourselves surrounded by a party of one with trouble etched directly on her delicate, yet acned forehead.
First of all, we thought for sure that she would take the hint…all the yapping about fonts, business strategy and process would scare away even the most persistent of Vegas’ “Ladies of the Evening,” correct? How wrong we could have been. It was time to change strategy. With a simple point of my finger (at Carl) and a miraculous lie (Carl was the owner of eBay), Bill and I managed to curtail the desparate situation and run to the tram that connected the Excalabur to Mandalay Bay with a bevy of hookers in hot pursuit like 1960’s teenagers chasing the Beatles.
Now before you begin to worry about Carl, I must remind you that the guy is quicker in situations of dire stress than Mama Cass on a Ham Sandwich. After speaking with the fella the next day, it turns out that he spun a tale on that poor girl that would have scared a junkyard dog from a free steak with meat gravy, served on a plate made of…meat.
So all’s well that ends well, right? Well there’s more to this tale my eager readers. But that will have to wait until tomorrow…
