oh what a lovely morning

You know those days when you really want to sleep in, but it's impossible, and everything in the universe is conspiring against you?

So it's 5am, Saturday morning. We are awoken by a large bang, scuffling and serious growling above our heads in the ceiling. We knew there were squirrels in the roof, and had called the ll to deal with it, but I have never heard a squirrel make a noise like that! It was racoons!

They continued to scuffle from time to time, and a huge murder of crows had gathered on neighbouring roofs and were cawing up a ruckus. We couldn't figure out how the crows could know what was going on, it was inside the roof, right? After about 10 minutes, John decides to bang on the roof with his golf club to get the racoons to stop. In the bathroom, his club went right through the ceiling! We both gasped and then 2 seconds later the ceiling crashed open with a giant racoon's hind quarters hanging out! Much swearing and running about ensued. We had a look and there was a big hole in the roof, with the sky shining down. Fudge!

I'm running about, trying to find the ll's phone number, and John is trying to find something to block up the hole. Meanwhile, our masked avenger is peaking through the hole from time to time, wanting to get back in. Crows still cawing, waiting for a death fall into the laneway and a tasty breakfast. John did a great job:



And promptly went back to bed. I, of course, can't go back to sleep now, and have heroic aspirations of doing my yoga set at this point. I managed to sit for a while, and then came into my office, to find our furry friend hanging out by the skylight.



Almost human-like, this little paw.



Cute AND destructive.



And s/he's back up the roof to get back in the hole. I hope the handy man comes over soon!

So there's nothing left to do but blog about it. One last, slightly strange anecdote: I rented Animals Behaving Badly last night, a dvd about animals invading human spaces! Can you believe it!?!

meaty post, meatier comments

The web continues to be a challenging space - constantly growing and evolving. I find myself, at times, a bit overwhelmed by it all. I can't learn fast enough. I'm not learning the "right" things. Three sites over, their design is that much better than mine. All judgements, it's true. And then I read an article like this, and it all falls together, and I start feeling better about what I'm doing.

State-of-the-art interactivity?

I was recently asked to join a panel that would be judging interactive design created over the last year. The entries had been submitted by agencies and their clients, and represented some of the largest firms and brands in the world.

The judging was hard for me. As I clicked through the hundreds of submissions, I started to get an uneasy feeling. Why was all of this so bad? I mean, it was really bad. Could it be that what I have always believed to be good interaction differs dramatically from what "professionals" believe?

Jeffery continues on to list and describe the trends he finds difficult, which are relieving, to say the least. I have focused my time in the last year on building sites that are standards-compliant and media-flexible, that can be viewed not only on different browsers, but different devices as well. Building on these skills is clearly the path to take.

The comments in this article are also fat with insight.

I think where these reputable firms will fail is in the degradability of their product. As cell phone adoption is nearing an almost worldly saturation point, and other handheld media are gaining critical mass, these candy-coated sites that are designed much like the pre-standards (table markup and proprietary code) days will show for what they truly are: one-dimensional. Clients and DM's will soon begin noticing that their site content, though perfectly rendered in IE and Firefox, can't even be dialed in from a basic cell phone browsing service. When they see that a competitor site can be, many of these firms that produced these hollow designs will be SOL. ... I think that the days of a 'designing merely for the Web' mentality are fast coming to an end. In other words, you shouldn't have to find yourself sifting through so much crap in an 'interactive' Web design contest in the near future (*hopefully*).

But I will admit I have been guilty of the same, and could possibly commit similar crimes in the future ...

Jon Bibire

Indifference Sensor

Sometimes you are on the web and then you get these nice surprises ...

Jon Bibire

representing deutschland

via swissmiss

i am a sockapaloozer (emphasis loozer)

I will confess, I haven't finished my socks yet. There are no excuses. I just haven't finished yet! The guilt is terrible, especially since I received my socks over two weeks ago! Check them out!



The colours were quite a surprise, and I love them! I usually shy away from variagated wool, but now I see how cool it can be!





These are my magic studio socks, and they kick butt over any pair of slippers I have ever had. The wool is super soft (Artyarns's Ultramerino 4) and the pattern (MagKnit's Jaywalkers) is simple but elegant in it's details. Definitely a pattern and will I will be trying myself. Biggest thanks to my sock pal, these are very special socks, all the way from Boston! Check out her blog, you can see the socks in progress, and any other projects too!