Our household now has a sponge designated exclusively as the fake-tattoo-applying sponge. Marjorie went to work this morning with a lightning bolt behind her right ear. I think we're going to have a lot of fun blowing through these things.

Tags: tattoos

Watch Kenneth Clark's "Civilization." Know that Civilization is something that can be lost.

( Read more... )

Tags: civilizational-decline
Current Music: Gods of Thunder of Wind and of Rain - Bathory

I ordered Marjorie some fancy-schmancy shoes from England a few weeks ago, and they're a bit late getting here, so when we received a note in our mailbox telling us we had a package to pick up at La Poste, she was delighted!

Man is she ever going to be a lot less delighted when she gets home from work and finds out it's just a bunch of Halloween stuff from Calamity Jon (calamityjon) and Kate (superdaintykate)! Haha! No, hey, she's going to flip over this stuff too.


Since I was expecting to receive the shoes, imagine my confusion at the post office when the guy handed me a box adorned with Calamity Jon artwork! Those footnotes read "Belated" and "Sucker." The nerve of those shoe people!

( What's in the baaaahx... )

Tags: calamity jon, halloween, jon and kate, monsters, treats

http://www.japanesebugfights.com

Man, majorly victorious find at Half-Price Books. Everyone wants to find an insanely trashy pulp novel with a sexy, violent cover in the clearance bin for twenty five cents. Bonus!

Hey gang, I wanted to announce that I'm now offering custom websites made in Wordpress.

A little background: I've traditionally made websites for my clients by myself, by hand, from start to finish: I did the graphic design in Photoshop and then built the sites by hand with html, css, asp, php, etc. This process allowed for maximum control over the design but offered less control to the client in terms of making edits to the site's content, adding pages, etc.

I've recently had tons of new clients ask me about using Wordpress to make their sites, so I've taken some time to become proficient with it. Wordpress is a website management system where you, the owner of the site, have full control over the content of your site; you can make updates, add pages, post to a built-in blog, etc. If you think about it like your LiveJournal, imagine the process you use to add a new entry, or edit an old entry, and then imagine that same kind of process applied to an entire website; you can view any page of your site and click an "edit" link to go in and make changes. So, I'm now offering a service where I design and build a custom template for you and then build you a Wordpress site using that design, so you'll have a website with a cool original look in which you can display and control all of your content.

Here's what I offer in my Wordpress website design package:

1. A custom design for your website — My price includes three rounds of design with revisions based on your comments, so we can arrive at a design that you love. I work in Photoshop mockups before touching any code. One of my main goals in designing for the web is to break up the natural boxiness of the web format and create designs that are fresh and fun and have some real warmth and humanity to them. I could go on and on for hours about my web design philosophy (believe me) but I'll keep it brief here. Take a look at my web design gallery (http://www.manningkrull.com/web_design) for lots of examples of my work. I particularly enjoy creating website designs that combine graphic design with other areas of my expertise, like illustration, pixel art, photography, etc.
2. Building the custom theme — When your new design is done, I'll convert it into a custom template for your site (Wordpress calls these "themes") by editing the php and css files that make up the interface of your Wordpress site. The php and css code of the site live in a totally separate place from your content, so you'll never have to worry about or even see the layout code while you're adding and managing your content.
3. Wordpress site set up — I'll help you set up your domain name and web hosting space and get Wordpress installed on your site. I can walk you through these steps or do any of them for you if you wish.
4. My Wordpress tutorial — I'll provide a brief document written by me explaining in super simple terms the process of using your Wordpress site. This is mostly useful for clients with little or no experience in web content management, so if you've already done some blog or website management, you can probably skip the basic instructions and start using your site right away, and maybe consult my documentation later for some tips and tricks.

Here's some of what you'll be able to do with your Wordpress account and custom theme:

• Add new pages to your site. These will also appear as links in the navigation section.
• Post to your blog, which can live either on the homepage of your site or on an interior page.
• Create links, post images, and add video in your pages and blog posts, all without touching a single line of code.
• Edit or delete your pages or blog entries at any time.
• Control the order of pages in the navigation column; add pages, move pages, remove pages, file pages into sections and sub-sections, etc.
• Choose to allow or disable reader comments on all pages and blog posts.
• Take advantage of Wordpress plug-ins to add features such as image galleries, podcast players, etc. I can set these up for you based on your needs.

There are lots of web designer and developers out there with varying degrees of experience, and I've found when it comes to choosing one, you really get what you pay for in terms of quality, attention to detail, and professionalism. Here's some info about what I offer in terms of my own personal process and philosophy, as well as my ten-plus years' experience making websites.

• Your site will be 100% bug-free and will display perfectly across all platforms and browsers (Mac/PC, Firefox/IE/Safari, etc).
• Your site will download quickly and render neatly, without any "jumping" as the individual pieces load.
• Your site will be easy for you — and even more importantly, for your readers — to use.
• Your site's interface design will be infinitely scalable, so that you can add any quantity of content without fear of "breaking" the site. The site will adapt to your content, not the other way around.
• Your site will be SEO (search engine optimization) -friendly to allow for the best possible ranking in Google search results, short of paying for Google sponsorship.
• I'll always be available to answer any questions you have and help you with any problems. If somehow you should ever "break" the site (which is almost impossible) I'll help you restore it to its former state.

Rates: Please contact me for my rates for all of the above. manning@manningkrull.com

Beyond Wordpress: Of course, I'm still available for all the other types of website projects I've always done, including traditional self-contained websites, Flash-based websites, custom Blogger templates, etc. Please contact me for further information! manning@manningkrull.com

Thanks!

- Manning

Tags: freelance, web design, wordpress, work

I love Jamie Lewis' Chaos and Pain blog. Probably my favorite Gym blog ever.

( Read more... )

Tags: gym
Current Music: Gods of Thunder of Wind and of Rain - Bathory

Found this at the Value Village about a year ago, but just got around to scanning it. Classic pre-BusyTown artwork from the inimitable Richard Scarry, in a book of obnoxiously anal retentive etiquette reminders evidently regurgitated from rote memory by put-upon grade schoolers. Poor kids, the rule about when to remove your hat was probably sufficient to spark nervous breakdowns in half a generation.

The set, containing the whole book, is here.

I received something amazing in the mail a couple days ago!

You may remember that when Marjorie and I visited La Réunion back in March, my friend Adam (thespus) in Seattle asked me if I might collect a few exotic tropical insects and mail them to him for his collection. I ended up getting him about half a dozen, which you can see in Adam's entry about them, which also includes some fascinating information on his process for reassembling broken bugs.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Adam asking me for my mailing address in Paris and telling me he had a belated birthday present for me. I wrote him with my address and told him, "It better not be bugs!"

It turns out it was bugs.


( Lots more pictures! )

Tags: awesomeness, bugs, design

Thanks for all this colorful diversity that makes it possible for me to watch a bunch of orcs beat up a defenseless woman in Paris in broad daylight.