FourBux

Photographic memory - or not

Today on the way to the office, the DJ on the morning radio show I listen to was talking about how he has very few pictures of his life and wondered if he would regret it later. I felt like he was taking a page from my book. You know, if I had one. Yes, I realize that everyone identifies with radio DJs - that’s a big part of how they keep their jobs. But Chuck (that’s his name, Chuck) and I really are similar. Although all our conversations are one-sided, I can tell that we’d get along in real life. And before this gets any more creepy, I think I’ll get to the point.

He mentioned that while he’s the type of guy who doesn’t mind having his photo taken, he’s not the one to stop the party and try to capture every moment for posterity. I’m the same way. Although I have no problem with being in the group picture, or even taking pictures that I’m not in for other people, I rarely feel the need to document my life through pictures. That’s not to say that I don’t wish I had photos of some of my life’s events, but at the time I didn’t feel the need to bring a camera along, so the decision is moot.
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Creative Suite Three

I recently purchased and installed the new Adobe Creative Suite, CS3. First off, I have to say, that this new collection is amazing. It seems like Adobe finally hit the nail on the head when it comes to the interaction between the applications. Being able to to do a real drag-and-drop from Illustrator to Photoshop to InDesign, etc, has made my work life at least seem faster. The fact that the suite is built for the Intel based Macs alone speeds everything up, but I’ve also begun to really appreciate the design of the applications themselves. It always struck me that for a set of applications used primarily by designers, the GUIs themselves were a bit kludgy. The new interface in each application is clean, crisp, and, dare I say, pleasant to look at.

Although I’m not a huge fan of the new tool panels in the suite, I think I could eventually get to the point where I will like them. They replace the palettes from the previous versions, which of course, have been around since the beginning, and are easier to see and use. For some reason, Photoshop still calls them palettes, I can’t decide if that’s a throwback to the previous versions, or if it was just overlooked during the recoding of the CS3 version.

Even Flash seems like it’s easier to use, although I’m not sure if thats because my attention span is greater now than when I last tried to learn it, or if they have made some advances in the way it works. For one thing, art dropped in from Illustrator actually looks like the art I created, not some watered-down impression of the illustration as it did before. That was always a major frustration in the earlier versions, and alone could change my perception of the functionality.

At any rate, aside from the fact that many of my print vendors are still back at the CS1 versions (due to some issues at the RIP stage – in CS2, which I heard have been fixed in CS3), I am whole-heartedly on board with the new applications. With new software, I always say that I can’t imagine how they could make these apps better, or do more things, or streamline the processes even more, and I’m saying it again.

At least, until CS4 comes out with a whole new set of bells and whistles I didn’t know I needed, and then I’ll start all over again.

Who and why?

I see these all over the web, usually on message boards and forums, and although they usually get a laugh out of me, I still have to confess - I don’t get it.

Who is making these and what is the point? Am I just getting old?

Example photo source: i can has cheesburger dot com

Edit: Clicking on the above link will immediately erase several hours from your day. It will be dark once you close that window, and you won’t remember how you got there. Consider this your only warning.

Home is where the hot is

As much as I loved Chicago, and Boston even more, my heart is in Phoenix, or more accurately, Arizona. Yeah, it’s hot, and no, Phoenix doesn’t really seem to have a “culture” per se, but the more time I spend here, the more I love it.
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Chaos theory in real life. Mine.

Since this turned out to be a long post, here’s the Cliff notes: bought a watch while traveling, overly helpful sales person sets it to my home city time, screws up my day and I miss my plane. Really is worth a read:

So while I was in Chicago on business, on the day before my return flight, I was taking spending my free time along the Magnificent Mile - Michigan Avenue. Which, may be magnificent to a lot of people, but when one lives in close proximity to Scottsdale, AZ, which is really one big expensive shopping mall, there was nothing really worth seeing. I ducked into the Northridge Mall to get out of the wind, and just wandered until I came across a Swatch store. I didn’t even know they were still making these things - I hadn’t seen them since the 80’s. Even the ones I’d seen people wearing recently I thought they were vintage. Not so!
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Business in Chicago

I took a few days of vacation before I had a week-long training seminar here in Chicago. This must be the best week of the year to do this. With the great weather, we visited the Hancock Tower, the Navy Pier, Adler Planetarium, the Aquarium, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Art Institute of Chicago, etc, etc. With the exception of the Sears Tower, we hit all the touristy places.

On Friday night, after the last session, I was fried. Been on the road 8 days, ready to go home, and my last night in town was Friday. I wandered downtown for some terrific Thai food, and found this little place called Andys, which was supposed to have great blues and jazz nightly.

I spent a few hours there and heard this great band called BMR-4, a local (to Chicago) group that just had the place packed. Good times. I almost bought a CD, but then he said the magic phrase: “You can get this CD on iTunes.”

Definitely check them out.