Someone Shot My Screen

This aired a few weeks ago, but I thought I'd post this image now that I have a semi-decent screen shot of it. If you didn't notice right away, this shot from the ABC show Cavemen features one of the characters wearing a shirt that I designed. Kinda cool.

It's On

Welcome to day number 13 of life in California. We've had a pretty easy couple weeks so far that we've gladly used to get situated and familiarized with our surroundings. I think we're liking it, and for that I'm truly grateful. The new job is cool, and I like the people I work with.

I should have some new stuff to put up on here and on the site soon. All work had to get put on the back burner while I was moving, but I'm here now. I will have internet in the home soon, and then it's back to work for me.

Have I No Shame?

I spent a little while showing a friend of mine some designs over the old iChat tonight. I showed him one in particular that I re-designed from a previous mockup that another client of mine had turned down. I thought he'd find it interesting, so I showed him the previous mockup and then for good measure I showed him the mockup previous to that one. This was the 3rd version of a design that I loved, but that my clients didn't.

I started looking through my client folder and started singling out the designs that I've done up for more than one client. In particular, there's 3 designs out for approval right now that I previously mocked up for at least 2 clients each. I love these designs, dang it all. They're my babies. My clients just don't see their beauty. I'm so lucky as a designer to work in a field that allows me to whore out my creations like this.

You'd think that I'd get the message that maybe these designs just aren't good. Nope. That's incorrect thinking. I'll thank you to get away from me with that negativity.

Somebody's going to like my shirt design that has a plate of bacon and eggs and a glass of orange juice with a smile on its face. You'll see.

Ultimate Gadget Fix

So I just got done utilizing the greatest gadget fix of all time. Herein I shall chronicle the story of a miraculous recovery. You shall be amazed.

My 40 gig 3rd gen iPod has been officially dead for 6 months. About one month prior to the death, there was a terrible period of agony and pain. My iPod began to get the always terrifying support images, and would be completely unresponsive for days at a time. After about 4 weeks, the player was useless. When I would try to turn the device on, I could feel the drive inside trying to start up, and awkwardly sputtering back to sleep. I took it to an Apple store to have the Geniuses tell me that they were sorry, but my iPod was dead. I was outside of warranty, so there was nothing that I could do. I took it back home and tried to trick it back into life through a series of plugging it in and unplugging it from my computer without mounting or unmounting it, but nothing worked. I threw it in the closet and decided to move on with my now completely depressing and iPod-less life.



Then today, while looking for some batteries, I found my old dead iPod in the bottom of a basket. For giggles, I decided to hook it up to the power adapter to see what happened. Not surprisingly, it sputtered a little bit, and then the support image came up again. I reset it, and it ran through a cycle of "Off, Apple Logo, Support Logo, Off, Apple Logo, Support Logo, etc." Every time it tried to start up, I could hear and feel it trying extremely hard to start the disk, and then failing.

I remembered an article I read on Digg a few months ago that mentioned a fix for dead iPods that involved inserting a folded piece of paper near the battery on the inside of a broken unit. I don't have the tools to open an iPod, so I got a little caveman on it... I squeezed my iPod. Not very hard, mind you. I'm a civilized person who loves gadgets. I would never intentionally cause a piece of electronics physical harm. Nothing really happened when I squeezed the unit, so I got a little out of hand. I squeezed it harder. A lot harder. I used both hands and forced both thumbs into the middle of the back with quite a lot of force. I had my ear to the other side of the drive while attempting to squeeze my iPod back into life so that I could listen to the drive try to start up. Finally, one of my really hard moments of pressure seemed to make the drive spin slightly longer.

This is where I got stupid. I figured, "Well, this iPod is currently dead. If I damage it more, it will only still be dead." I took the iPod, laid it face-down on the floor, and I placed my right heel on the back of the unit. Then I lifted my left foot off the ground, and I actually stood on my iPod.

Now this shouldn't have had any effect other than the destruction of my beloved piece of gadgetry. Somehow, though, my iPod did not react the way I expected it to. I plugged it into the wall, got an Apple logo, and then got a completely black screen. Wondering what that meant, I plugged it into my computer where it SUCCESSFULLY MOUNTED!!! Something had happened to my settings to make the contrast all the way black, so a simple restore of the iPod returned it to completely functional bliss. I had revived my iPod by using the full of my body weight to STAND on it.

Now I obviously don't recommend that anyone else attempt this tomfoolery. I do, however, invite you to marvel at the genius of my brute tactics. They were amazing today. And tonight I sleep well, knowing that life is better.

Blogs

I read a post on a freelance website (Freelance Switch) about the possible importance of a blog to a freelance artist / designer. So here's mine. My blog. I'll be posting about projects I'm working on and their progress, as well as some random bits about other parts of my life. Every blog or journal needs an intro post, so here's mine.