I shot this photo for Divinity Designs. I'd make a bigger deal, except this is the only photo I did. But really, this place has some really nice gothy stuff and is modeled by Summer Bowman of the Machine in the Garden. How much more gothy can it be? Still not sold? It comes in a wide variety of sizes for a resonable price. Go! Buy it! You know you want it!Panne Velvet and Vinyl Bodice

banner blues

this was a decision that i wrestled with for... sheesh, i dunno how long. being laid off 20 days ago seemed to sort of answer it for me. to banner or not to banner? well, obviously i've made that decision and now i have to sit in my nest of pop-up banner hell for the next year.

my husband told me today that he read an article about the state of advertising on the web today and that the new york times was interested in making their banners larger. that seems like the answer of an ignorant and not very creative mind.

i've been in the marketing game over 10 years now. more importantly, though, since the internet was becoming more commonplace during that time i think i have a pretty good feel for what goes down on the web.

i have to tell you, i actually hit the monkey... i know they refreshed their campaign to electrocute the monkey now, but at one point i actually said "oh fuck it... let's see what the deal is with the monkey." theoretically, the ad worked. i clicked to check it out. a year or so ago. i still see that same dumb monkey on every other site i go to. will i click on it again? of course not. so why are they still paying money to keep showing me the same ad that i won't respond to?

because it's cheaper for them to do so... and with the abysmal click-thru rates on banner ads these days, no one really seems to know what to do to get the word out about their products and services.

i find it interesting that the new york times would spout such a dumb idea for getting people to click through. i suppose that being a print-based medium at it's root, it still doesn't understand what the average web user is looking for. in my own humble opinion the web user is looking for 1. information and 2. to be entertained.

sure, there's people who shop and bank, etc. but by and large people are still wary of this new technology. so how do you reach them? seems obvious... turn your ad content into articles and place them on news sites as an ad, like magazines do with advertisement-marked articles.

the monkey people are close with their banner-game, but for the love of god, please refresh your creative more than once a year. three months is a good rule of thumb for a web year. if you have the exact same creative running for over three months on that high of an exposure rate, you're just wasting your money. make a monkey puzzle. make a tetris monkey. please, just do something else!

The scar on the back of his neck is the most glorious thing I've ever seen. I see him at work, sitting application server room, separated from the rest of us by a pane of glass. With his back to me, I always get a perfect view of his scar, but never get the guts to speak to him.

The scar is straight, slightly raised, and very smooth. It must be surgical. It reaches from the top of his shoulders up several inches into his hairline. No hair grows on it. I'm entranced by it. I can't help but think about touching it, but I can't imagine a more awkward thing to say to a total stranger..."Hi...can I touch your scar?"

take action and fax your senators and representative! ACLU Action Alert: Protect Your Vote!

blah: (2:18 AM) you wanna meet girls?
wAyNeR: (2:19 AM) I don't think I should have said anything to you....you only know freaky people. Plus, it's a big effort......bleah...I'm too lazy....
blah: (2:20 AM) you wouldn't do well with a normal person anyway
blah: (2:20 AM) she's be all clingy and begging you to buy her expensive gifts
blah: (2:20 AM) you never know what's going to happen with a freak. do they love you? are they on their meds? is that an axe?
wAyNeR: (2:21 AM) uhhmmmm....great
blah: (2:21 AM) i'm going to put that on my rants page
wAyNeR: (2:22 AM) I'm glad I could inspire you....although it was probably just the druggs
blah: (2:23 AM) probably, but these are the last days of the drugs. i'm going off the paxil AND the ambien.
wAyNeR: (2:23 AM) do they have a paxil patch???
blah: (2:24 AM) no i'm going to have to cut the pill up with a big sharp knife
wAyNeR: (2:25 AM) put it on a plate with ketchup and mac and cheeze and it's a special meal.
blah: (2:25 AM) posty posty posty
blah: (2:25 AM) no matter what it's just a seriously dangerous psychotropic drug
blah: (2:25 AM) no condiment that god or man puts on it will change that.