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Category : Around West Hartford, Night Life, Politics, Social
I got to guest host on Dawn of Chaos, a weekly radio show on 91.3 WWUH. We had a great time talking about politics (Piracy & the British TV tax). I shit you not; its illegal to watch TV it Briton without a license – how sick is that? I have to pay someone for the privilege to watch ads? The real winner this week though was a story about how the French are kidnapping their bosses if they threaten to ship jobs over seas. THATS A UNION IN ACTION!
From there the conversation digressed into Ultimate Warrior – a show I’ve never seen from beginning to end. It pits fighters from all around the world against each other in mock battles that would never happen (Pirate vs French Knight). I’ve seen clips from it – but I never get through the whole thing. The scripting seems lame and the match ups moronic. (Ninja vs Spartan? Ninja would never fight a spartan head on… kill him in his sleep. Done.)
Anyway, I was happy to get some good ol punk into the mix. Most of the time the show plays metal but I brought in some T.S.O.L. Decedents, Exploited, and the Necromantics and we had a ball…
Ill be back next week Tuesday 12-3am on 91.3 WWUH with more political discourse, ramblings and rants.
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Category : Around West Hartford, Social, Teaching
To all my students: Thank you for all your hard work this semester. I hope you got as much out of the classes as you could. If you have any questions in the future – please dont hesitate to ask me. Just because you’re no longer in my class does not mean my door is closed.
Reflections:
Im only going to teach one class a semester from now on. I wanted to able to go in deeper with both classes and I think I could have if I was clearer about the class objectives and what I was expecting. This was my mistake. A demo reel of examples I had found to go with each assignment would have been instrumental in achieving this.
I’m glad I did it though, I learned Flash CS 4 in 5 days and met some new people who I hope to be working with int he future. Actionscript 3 is still greek, but I’ll have to learn it evenutally to begin working with
AIR.
The easy road isn’t rewarding… It’s easy.
This is a neat concept. You enter a location and it displays a list of blogs that are published in that area. You can also cue the blogs into a single feed and get all the selected posts from a given area.
I can see this as having a professional use for journalists, politically minded people, law enforcement, marketing/PR peopl, and anyone who wants to keep tabs on the pulse of a geographic community. The main drawback being that some people simply wont post their blog because they enjoy the curtain of privacy the internet provides.
On the otherhand, if I was going on vacation in Tokyo and wanted to find some really cool clubs, I could do a survey of blogs in Tokyo and see what the people are saying without ever going there. As an added plus, Id avoid the “top 10″ clubs in the city and hopefully find a comfy dive within walking distance of my hotel.
http://www.placeblogger.com/
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Category : Around West Hartford, Social
I just got back from a paper breakfast with the ICC (Independent Creative Club) and Lee Moody of Mohawk Paper. As a web guy I don’t typically get a lot of requests for print work – but I still like knowing what’s going on in related fields. There is some cool stuff going on with paper these days and it’s all about sustainability.
As a society we’re progressed from styrofoam boxes, to cardboard boxes and “green” packaging, but now print advertising going even further. Companies in the past used to call themselves green because they added “to help reduce office waste please do not print this page” to the bottom of their email. A modern day green company looks like this: Maintain and care for your own forest and natural resources, produce everything with wind energy, minimize waste, and inform your consumers about making impactful choices. That’s pretty green.
The Mohawk reps talked about different papers on different digital printers. I guess it’s a new thing for paper companies to offer digital papers, but with the cost of digital coming down more and more, the window for cost effective printing is getting larger so more people are taking advantage of it.
And the breakfast was great too. Thanks Lee!
For more information on local CT design events, check out the ICC on Meetup.com
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Category : Around The Office, Around West Hartford, Social
Classes begin this week. Im teaching a flash class at Tunxis and a Photoshop/design class at University of Hartford. Im looking forward to both of em.
Wish me luck. This is going to be a hell of a lot of work to keep on top of what I already have. If I know you in real life, Im sorry ahead of time. You might not see me until May.
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Category : Around West Hartford, Politics
I’m sure I’m not the only one in this town who is noticed new construction at several intersections in West Hartford. They all feature brand-new metal poles adorned with brand new traffic lights and expensive looking cameras. No doubt the hope is that these cameras will increase revenue for the town while decreasing “lawlessness”.
As reported by the Sentinel these cameras may do just the opposite. It seems the newest high school prank in towns with similar cameras is to print the valid license plate of someone who has recently offended you (like a teacher) and speed through the intersection to earn them your ticket. The owner of said license plate is then automatically mailed the ticket the following day. Contunue Reading
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Category : Around The Office, Around West Hartford
Yup! I got a job as Apprentice at Visual Expressions in East Hartford on Silver Lane.
I got the job from cold calling based on info from a 2 day old Craig’s list add. The add said they were looking for experienced tattoo artists – I’ve done about 10 in my life. So it was a long shot, but if they said no I was no worse off, so what did I have to lose? I’ve wanted to learn to tattoo and blow glass since about the first time I saw it done and the way people react to them as objects of art and beauty.
I asked to come to the shop and show them my work, if they were interested in me maybe I could be an apprentice, if it wasn’t something they were interested I didn’t want to waste their time. I came in and brought a few of my charcoal pieces and my early tattoo work. I talked with Steve, the owner, and we figured that I could maybe handle it. There hasn’t been a thing yet that I havn’t been able to do so Im pretty confident that this will work out. The only thing that would hold me back is that it is an apprencticeship and therefore unpaid. I’ve got a few plans so far on ways I can boost income. The best one I’ve come up with so far are layaway tattoos in the form of tattoo bonds. Details to come.
Of course, I’ll still be working with my retainers during this time. They are still #1 and the only thing bringing in money right now so I can’t lose them. This is just going to be a less intensive full time than I was doing, and its non-paid. Ouch.
But I get to tattoo… rock on!
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Category : Around The Office, Around West Hartford
Sweet!
I’ve taken a job at Fathom in Hartford doing mostly web development and cross browser css work on some of their bigger projects. I’m excited to be pushed in this direction and glad to bring my experience with SEO and graphic culture to their mix.
I started last Monday and I love it! The people are creative and friendly and the office is decked out with enmities (and a Guinness tap), but its the little things —like free parking downtown— that make me really happy to be working for a company that actually cares about the wellbeing of their employees as well their bottom line.
Certinly what goes around comes around and I work late; Im debating going in on Monday anyway even though its a holiday. I havn’t quite set it up so that I can work from home and I have to get some work done for their client.
I’m still working with all my existing clients by doing work on Monday afternoon, evening and weekends, but I’m not taking on any more clients — which is a great feeling. I’ll still be on the blog, probably more frequently as I’ll be constantly looking for new solutions and work around to the web’s many mysteries.
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Category : Around The Office, Around West Hartford, Social
Hatters Workshop is moving into Hartford. We’re growing up and moving out of the house we started in. This is a big step, which hopefully won’t end in financial ruin (kidding!). I’m excited to have my own space that I can really do anything with. I still have to arrange the furniture, put on some closet doors, and change the lights from being all fluorescent lights.
I might have the only PC only design lab in Connecticut, which might put some people off, but I still say that it saves me a conversion step with almost all my clients. They don’t use mac, the world doesn’t use mac (in general) so why should all the design work be done on a platform that is unused by the rest of the world?
I should have an Amazing intern starting once the move is complete, and the work is still rolling in. I’ve got to write two proposals by the end of the day and the phone never stops ringing. Thank goodness I don’t advertise or I’d never see light.
Thank you all for reading this, and being a witness to history.
