RETIRED BULLETIN ENTRIES

January 06, 2008

13.35: I'm Stealing WiFi to Upload this Entry Because Some Goons Pwned Us Last Year and Now My Home IP Address is Blocked.

The Nids: I have been prodded by my loyal readers (read: my dad - Hi Dad!) to resume my regular blogging schedule. So this one is for my dad and any GO fanatics out there (or, heeheehee, the Go-nads, for short - hey, give me a break, I'm sweating over SEO on a Sunday afternoon. I need a good chortle.).

We've been doing a lot of websites recently. We probably have as many web projects as print jobs underway at the moment, if not more. I suppose that's the way the world is turning...Jeronimo and Nick prefer to maintain everything digitally and keep clutter to a minimum. I like things I can touch. And use to build teetering piles on my desk. I'm the kind of person who would rather drop some li'ls on a newspaper and create an untold and unfathomable amount of waste (energy, pulped trees, polluted water) than read it on a monitor. You can add a part of yourself to whatever book or paper you're holding in your hand and go on to (re)discover that part of yourself (or someone else, if you're a used book fiend like me) however many hours days months years later. Besides, books and print materials are also much less of a headache to write. I feel like scouring my eye sockets with sandpaper right now, trying to wrassle the vicissitudes of search engine algorithms.

Frankly my dear, there's no poetry in SEO. There's no poetry in a lot of things, I know. I can probably think of five of them right now - taxes, toenails, flossing, Microsoft Excel, and....There is a surprising amount of poetry in the world if you've got a decent sense of humor and a vague definition of poetry. There's also a surprising amount of poetry in spam. Bad poetry, but poetry....One last poetry-less thing...ummm...Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It was a tough call between Gonzales and saggy earlobes, but the former AG AG won it by a hair. A lying sad sack of shameful hair.

But there is a particular lack of poetry in writing for search engine optimization. O Google, that which has brought me the untold joys of cyberstalking and introduced me to fathomless depths of procrastination, how could you turn on me like this? Why Google, why?

January 09, 2008

17.36: It Turns Out I'm Not Completely Crazy

NIDA: Someone feels my pain! This article articulates so much better what I was trying to explain the other day.

Writing for the web was only one source of frustration for me over the weekend. The other can be perfectly summed up by this writer (warning! a Greg Paulus-induced Tourettes tirade of f-bombs follows the link!). I've tried not to bash Paulus much beyond the confines of my couch and the office watercooler. I'm sure it's tough being a point guard for a perennial national contender. Running the offense for a storied program can be daunting, particularly with rabid fans and rabid haters and anonymous bloggers questioning your every move and mocking everything about you, not least of which is your inexplicable need to wear two muscle shirts under your jersey, along with the occasional calf sleeve, occasional arm sleeve, wristband, and whatever silly crap that seems to be WEIGHING YOUR ASS DOWN SO YOU CAN'T RUN UP THE COURT AT FULL SPEED LIKE THE REST OF YOUR TEAMMATES.

January 11, 2008

10.54: Wow.

NIDA: Wow. Just really wow. Well, this has moved up to # 1 on my list of "It Could Be Worse...."

January 15, 2008

15.30: Nerds.

NIDA: The problem, sometimes, with having a good idea, an idea so simple and pure and obvious, is that it's simple and pure and obvious. And someone else somewhere else will also have that good idea. And will not be so lazy about putting it into action. Anyways, check out the link.

January 22, 2008

20.53: Hallllllloooooooooo, Interwebs!

NIDA: O Interwebs, how I have missed you and your sweet sweet procastinator-loving breath. Unfortunately Interwebs, we only have a small window of time together. Soon I must rush back to my cold dark corner and renew my fist-shaking, cursing, and teeth-gnashing at the beast that is Microsoft Word. Why, Bill Gates, why have you forsaken me? I bite my thumb at thee, thy bespectacled megalobillionaire! Forsooth and whatnot.

Seriously, do you know what is most definitely NOT good design? The Microsoft Office Suite. Any version - I don't care, they've had a good 15 or 20 years to wrangle that monster under control and if they haven't done it by down, it ain't gonna happen. I cannot emphasize enough how very very frustrating it is to try to use any of the jimmyjams in either Word or Excel. (I try to leave the Powerpoint to Nick, other than to occasionally shout out, "20 slides, 6 seconds, beeyotch!") Good design is not just a "pretty" picture (and I swear, one of these days when we're not battling the MS Office beast we'll get around to sending out our manifesto, "Pretty Needs Revolution"). It's that moment when the world makes sense, when everything is so crystal clear obvious because someone has put a lot of time, thought, and elbow grease into making something work properly, intuitively, and beautifully. I cannot emphasize enough how much Microsoft Word, and by extension Bill Gates, is not good design. Word, and by extension Bill Gates, sucks a big robotic fat one. The only thing more confusing than Word is the Word Help. Grrrrrrrr.

Do you know what is good design? Omni Group's OmniOutliner. It's remarkably intuitive and the user manual is a straightforward PDF you can read in half an hour. Microsoft Word, of course, has that bewildering Help thing and an entire bookshelf of help guides and user manuals devoted to it at Barnes and Noble. Good design does not require a user manual. Unfortunately, good design is also at the mercy of monopolies, so we are stuck with Word and Excel. Save us, Steve Jobs!

On a lighter note, at least mutant worms aren't growing out of my skin.

January 30, 2008

17.52: Be All You Can Be

NIDA: The Unit is currently seeking students and recent graduates to fill the ranks. If you are interested in applying for an internship (NON-PAYING) here at the GO, LLC, please visit our recruitment page to find out more.

Here are a few tips and things to keep in mind when applying:

• We are not your normal branding/advertising/graphic design firm. We are adamantly anti-cookiecutter, not only in our work but in ALL that we do. Please keep this in mind if we are not the only firm you are contacting for employment.
• It's a fine line between quirky and creepy. Tread carefully.
• Follow directions. If you can't do this from the get-go, how are you going to convince us that you'll do it if we hire you?
• Seriously, I can smell a cookiecutter a mile away. I am not joking. I am a strong opponent of mail fraud and will not read anything addressed to Towhomitmayconcern or Dearsirormadam.
• Proofread, proofread, proofread. One of us is gung-ho on grammar. The ability to spell properly or having Strunk and White memorized doesn't seem to bear a direct correlation to design talent and skills, but it does bear a direct correlation on how quickly your resume/portfolio sample get tossed into my wastebasket.