January 31, 2004

This is getting to be a bad habit

The Dallas Stars beat the San Jose Sharks last night 3-1, which is something like their twelfth win in the last 15 games between the two teams.

So in keeping with the rules of our Inter-Munuviana Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, the Dallas Stars logo will be displayed up top in my banner for a day or so.

Congrats Helen.

Posted by: Ted at 12:16 PM | category: Munuvian Daily Tattler
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January 24, 2004

Blog Meet

I got the chance to meet SilverBlue, PoloRandy, Tink and Roxette Bunny this afternoon when they wandered northwards into my neck of the woods. I felt like I was getting back together with old friends, and we spent an hour talking about anything and everything. What was especially fun was to watch these four interact like the family unit they are.

Roxette Bunny was not as tall as I had imagined. And if I may be non-politically correct ungentlemanly for a moment, Tink is a real cutie! *wolf whistle*

PoloRandy and Tink had tickets to a basketball game and had to leave, but John and I walked and talked our way through Potomac Mills mall for awhile longer before I had to say adios.

A lot of bloggers do their thing because they have opinions to share, or they want to improve their writing. For me, today was what it's all about, it's the people I meet online and the friendships that grow there. For me, blogging is all about you. Thanks for stopping by my friends, and I hope you come back again soon.

Posted by: Ted at 06:04 PM | category: Munuvian Daily Tattler
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January 14, 2004

Inter-Munuvian Hockey Whoopass Jamboree

Congrats to Helen and her Dallas Stars, who defeated my beloved San Jose Sharks last night 3-zip. In accordance with our informal bet for the season, the Stars logo will be displayed up top for a day or so.

Posted by: Ted at 04:53 AM | category: Munuvian Daily Tattler
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January 05, 2004

The pissing contest ends here

I was wondering whether or not to respond here to The Bartender or not, and had basically decided to leave it alone. IÂ’ve got no problem with someone vehemently disagreeing with my opinion, but heÂ’s made it personal on his blog.

As he mentioned in the comments here, we had a private email exchange where we were talking about various points in my first post. It was friendly enough, although when someone warns me up front that they’re going to be sarcastic and then closes by telling me they’d better end it before they get really ‘shitty’ about it, well, that fits my definition of ‘incensed’.

I thought that bit about Tijuana was funny. After seeing it labeled ‘that little punch’ by Madfish, I carefully reread it. Sorry guy, I still think it’s funny, and I think you need to take the chip off your shoulder and work on your sense of humor.

Apparently I also didn’t include enough disclaimers about “this is my opinion”, or “to my eye”, or “this means nothing more than what you want it to”, because The Bartender took every bit of it personally.

I visit all the Mu.Nu blogs at least once a day. I consider that the least I can do as part of the Munuvian family. All families have occasional strife, and sometimes the best thing to do is walk away.

ItÂ’s a big internet Bartender, enjoy it. I am. 'nuff said.

Update: my original post is here, and the followup is here.

Posted by: Ted at 01:39 PM | category: Munuvian Daily Tattler
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January 03, 2004

Style vs Substance revisited

There were some interesting comments left over my previous post about blog designs, and some excellent debate via email*.

Madfish Willie and others asked about my thoughts on color in blog design. Without going into a lot of theory about color and how to use it, I'll just mention a few personal opinions and invite your views.

Exceptions can always be found. If I said that blue should never be used in a blog, someone would point out that blue looks quite nice here.

White is cold and sterile, which is good for serious blogs or professional business sites. It makes for a crisp look, and is easily dressed up with a few small graphics and goes with any contrasting color.

Black is the other extreme, and like white any color can be used for contrast. A little more care should be taken here though because using too many bright colors turns the look into something resembling a Lite Bright, which is hard on the eyes.

In both of the above cases, I feel that using an off-color of white or black is often more effective. An extrememly light dove grey or deep charcoal is more interesting, even if it's not instantly obvious to the eye. As an example, when we painted the master bedroom in our home, I used the palest grey I could find on the walls. You couldn't even tell it wasn't white until I painted the window trim and closet doors pure white. The contrast was remarkable.

And that pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject. Less is more and subtle is better.

That said, it is possible to go too soft on the colors. I'll use our home again as an example, this time the kitchen. My wife picked out a very nice wallpaper full of grey-blue and grey-green. Plenty of color without being too dark or gloomy. There were also small bits of pink in the wallpaper, which I decided to use as the highlight color. My wife freaked out when she saw the paint I brought home for the trim in the kitchen, because it was bright bubblegum pink. It was just enough to jump out and catch the eye as a highlight color. Too much of it would make the room look like an explosion in a pepto-bismol factory.

My blog is another example of how I do this. Mostly soft grey and green, but the blues used for the date line and the banner up top are both pretty bright for contrast. Imagine those same blues (and the reds I use for links) on a straight white background. The page would look entirely different.

To my eye, pastels are easier to look at. Even bright colors like yellow and orange should be softened, especially if they're the primary color. Mookie did that on her blog, imagine the difference if she would have used a bright yellow or purple in her color scheme.

Contrast is important, and there are two ways to get it. First is by light on dark - black on white is the most obvious example, but white on dark grey, or dark blue on light blue work well. The second way is by colors - yellow on blue or brown on light grey - the idea in all cases is to make it easy for the eye to distinguish between design elements.

I've always heard that dark green is the most restful color for human eyes, but I've never been able to make it work as an effective background color. And just because this is Rocket Jones, I'll mention that according to government studies, the best visibility is obtained for rockets when painted black, white and red in large areas.

So there it is. I'm pulling on my flame-proof overalls, so feel free to let me have it in the comments.

* Madfish Willie was rather incensed by my opinions, but being men of the world we agreed to settle our differences the next time we're both in Tijuanna. We're going to meet at Rosarita's Cantina for lunch and the pony floorshow, followed by a switchblade duel to first blood. I expect we'll have enough tequila in our systems that the duel ends up in a draw, both of us managing to cut ourselves with our own knifes while trying to impress the working girls.

Posted by: Ted at 12:30 PM | category: Munuvian Daily Tattler
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