Also, it should be noted that this page is rated PG. Some language may not be suitable for younger audiences.

It appears I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.

This is probably one of the first chances I've had to update this page since starting the school year in September. I have been so incredibly busy that I haven't had time to make any updates to this page.

So, how's the school year going so far? Frustrating. I have so much on my plate right now, it isn't funny. I'm working as an art director with the student-run ad agency at Mohawk, and, well... it's certainly different than I thought it would be. So far, I've learned that I have to develop thicker skin, and that, while I might think something looks good, if it's not what the client wants, it's no good. I've also learned it's impossible to please everyone. Guess it's better to learn this now rather than when I'm working in the field.

Updates to the page's content are coming... whenever I get the chance to do them. I've got a few pieces I'd like to add to my portfolio, should I ever have the time to put them up. In addition, there may, in the near future, be a redesign of the page too. If my web design class is anything like last year's, the final project will be a personal web page/portfolio/résumé. Looks like I'm already covered, right? Well, problem is, my profs have already seen this page, so it's not exactly new work, even if I did do it using concepts I learned by sitting in on the web class last year. What'll the redesign look like? Haven't decided yet, but look for a decidedly brighter page, something that's quite a departure from the yellow-on-black scheme I currently use. Will the new design take the place of this page? Once again, only time will tell; I really like this page as it is right now, but if I can design something better, I'll go with that. At the very least, one thing will change on this page, and that's the opening graphic of me. It's not the most flattering photo in the world, to say the least. My roommate's got a background in photography, and she's agreed to help me work some magic with a new photo.

Bug fixes are also on the way. I saw how my page looked in Windows (ewww) over the summer, and I wasn't totally impressed with how my portfolio page came out. What was supposed to be black... wasn't. Things didn't match up exactly the way I wanted them to, so I'll fix up those pics when I have a chance.

Guess that's all I have time for now... still have a lot of work to do before the night is through.

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Once again, a long time between updates. What can I say? My life's been pretty uneventful in the past few months.

I finally got a chance to see The Matrix: Reloaded around the end of May, and I must admit it's been getting a lot of criticism from Matrix fans who were disappointed with the film. What's my take? I liked it a lot. I missed a bit of it due to idiots in the theatre who couldn't shut up if their lives depended on it, so I would like to see it again when it comes out on DVD.

I've also made a few updates to my résumé. On the advice of one of my coworkers, I've removed and rearranged some of the content, most of which was either outdated, superfluous, or otherwise unneeded.

Guess that's all that's new for now...

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Long time, no update. I knew I'd never be able to live up to that weekly update thing. Oh well.

A little news here. Since November of 2001, there has been something I've desired. Something I wished I could have, if only I could justify the high cost. Well, I was finally able to justify it, and plunked down the cash (okay, I put it on my debit card, but that's beside the point).

Next year, our college's Mac lab is getting a thorough upgrading, moving up to some brand new hardware in place of the seven year-old Macs currently in the lab. In the process, we'll be ditching old Zip drives and replacing them with CD-RW drives. Problem is, CD-RW drives aren't the most practical when you need to add just a few new or modified files to a disc. The ideal thing to have would be a portable hard disk...

That's how I was able to rationalize my new toy: a 10 GB iPod from Apple.

Y'see, the iPod has a handy-dandy feature that allows it to be used as a portable hard disk, in addition to a portable music player. So, for just a bit more than I would have paid for a portable hard disk, I got an MP3 player.

First impressions? Nothing but gushing praise. For one thing, it's tiny. If you've never seen one, just think of a standard deck of cards, only thinner. It's light, too... about the same weight as my Motorola cell phone (which will soon be junked in favour of an LG flip phone). With this new model, the only moving part on the outside of the case is the Hold switch (which prevents the user from accidentally activating the buttons on the front of the case). Every other control is solid state (i.e. touch-sensitive)... very cool. The UI is amazingly easy to navigate as well, even with my small hands. With just one hand, I can activate all the controls on the front of the iPod with my thumb. The headphones are good, too... I don't think I've heard better in such a small form factor (though I'm sure people would debate that there are much better headphones the size of Apple's, but those are probably hella expensive).

One of the things that contributes to the 'wow'-factor of the iPod is its backlight. Hold down the Menu button for a second or two, and the screen glows bright white (though some people have said their 'Pods have a bluish tint to their backlights), while the buttons' functions (rewind, menu, play/pause, and fast forward) glow orange. Incredibly classy looking.

I strongly suggest that you go down to your local Apple retailer and play with an iPod in person, even if you're not in the market for an MP3 player. I guarantee you'll want to run home and rummage through the couch cushions looking for spare change to get your own. Please don't think I'm just an Apple fanboy who worships all that comes from Cupertino; sure, I own a lot of their products, but I'm an incredibly picky guy. I want the best. If I read about or personally any kind of flaw with a product, I hate it. Witness my aforementioned Motorola cell phone: I loved it when I first got it, but once things started breaking down on it, I felt the only way I'd ever get satisfaction from it would be to throw it against a brick wall. That said, the iPod is undoubtedly the best MP3 player on the market today.

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Web page is still up... so far, so good.

When checking my e-mail this past Friday, I was surprised to find that several people had signed my guestbook. Well, that surprise turned to anger as I saw that the guests were nothing more than spammers selling books for Christian authors and attempting to pass off commercial sites as personal sites. This pisses me off to no end, so I decided to put a measure in to try and stop spammers. If you roll your mouse over the upper left-hand corner of my index page, you'll find a link to http://www.hostedscripts.com/scripts/antispam.html. This site generates fake e-mail addresses and causes spambots to enter an infinite loop, creating a huge list of fake e-mail addresses. Later, when the spammers (henceforth referred to as the scum of the earth) attempt to send junk to these addresses, they get error messages, saying the address doesn't exist. This clogs their mailboxes and forces them to clear their mailing lists. Nothing like a bit of poetic justice, eh?

Also, if you check out the source code of my page, you'll notice that my e-mail address doesn't appear once (those savvy with HTML will know that a link tag that has the protocol mailto: opens the user's e-mail app). That's because spambots can even browse source code, looking for text before and after an @, and adding said text to their lists. I've used an app called SpamStopper from RAILhead Design (on the software page) that converts e-mail addresses to text that spambots can't decipher, and, therefore, can't add to their lists. Ingenious! Highly recommended for anyone who maintains their own web page. Thanks Maury!

Sorry for this little tirade, but I hate spam (even as someone pursuing a career in advertising). It wastes my time and, since I pay for my internet access, my money.

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From everything I've seen so far, my page will live on through the summer. Unless, of course, my ISP (also my cable company) screwed up and didn't disconnect my service over the summer as I had instructed. Either way, it's still up for now. Joy.

Back in Guelph over the summer. Finally got hooked up with high-speed internet access again. My sympathies to everyone out there still browsing on dialup. (You're going to have a helluva time looking at my portfolio. Don't say I didn't warn you.)

Fixed up the line breaks between entries on this page. Not a big deal... probably not even worth noting... but it's something, at least.

Well, I finally did something people have been nagging me to do for about five years now: I got my driver's licence. Don't know why I waited so long, but I did. Oh well... I've finally got it. So if you see me driving down the road, best stay off the sidewalk.

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Urgh... typos. All fixed now.

On another note, Safari Public Beta 2 (v73) is now out! Go grab it! (Sorry Windows users... no turbo web browser for you).

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I was able to take some of my work from a recent project and put it up in my Portfolio. For the past couple of months, my class has been working on a huge project for the Brick Brewing Company of Kitchener, Ontario. We were supposed to present everything on April 4th, but the little ice storm we had put the kibosh on that. We did, however, present this past Wednesday, and, well... I thought my performance was less than stellar. Imagine my surprise when we were one of two groups (of the six groups in the program) chosen to present to the actual client! Well, we presented this past Friday, but, unfortunately, the client seemed less than enthused with our creative work. Oh well... we're still one of the best in the class.

I also managed to squish some bugs that were giving Safari and Camino headaches. Turns out I goofed up in the code for the rollover images at the top of my portfolio pages. Without being too technical, the pages were looking for files that didn't exist, or rather that didn't exist where they were looking. So, just told them where to look and BOOM! Fixed!

Mohawk's annual Mediafest was also held that Friday. This is an annual celebration which honours students in Mohawk's media studies programmes -- Advertising, Broadcast Journalism, Radio Production, and Television Production. I was quite surprised when I saw my name up on the screen when I won the award for the highest overall achievement in our class! Whoo hoo!

This is my last week living in Hamilton until September. I'll be moving back to Guelph, probably this Friday, to work there over the summer. I'll try to find a place for this site over the summer months, in case Cogeco decides to shut it down while my cable is disconnected, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. But if this site goes away, rest assured that it'll be back in September.

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Heh... so much for that "update on a weekly basis" thing.

School has been incredibly busy the last couple of weeks. This past week was the last week we had to work on our major project, so it's been hell trying to get everything cranked out for my group's deadlines. This isn't a small project, either; at last count, I've got about twenty pieces for it (and that's just the stuff for one part of it!). We missed a few deadlines to be honest (they were personal ones that we set for ourselves), but, thankfully, the worst is behind me now. All of our printed work is done, and it's now just a matter of creating a PowerPoint show for our presentation, editing the television commercial we shot Thursday, and coming up with a way to display everything.

This past week has been very stressful for me. I've blown up at a couple of people this week (you know who you are), and for that, I apologize. But as I said, the worst is behind us now, so I'm feeling a lot more calm now.

On the plus side, though, I've also received a couple of pieces of good news in the past little while. I have a job for summer now, though it's back in Guelph, so I have to move back for the summer. And next school year, I'll be working for the student-run advertising agency! Sweet!

Radio commercials are coming soon to my portfolio. I've decided that I'm just going to put the scripts up here, since I'm rather disappointed by the final produced quality of these spots. So, it's just a matter of time before I get the scripts up... probably next week sometime.

I'm not sure about the future of this website. Over the summer, I'm moving back to my hometown (and I don't think my roommate is going to stay down here, either), so we may be putting our cable and internet access on hold for four months. I don't know what my provider plans to do with my webspace while we're gone. If it stays up, great... if it doesn't, well, it will be back up in September.

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Okay, so it's not the weekend, but it's still pretty close... my résumé is finally available online, so check it out if you're so inclined.

I've also decided to scavenge a web page I designed many moons ago for some search engine code. I've added the code to the main page, so, with any luck, more people will be stopping by my little place on the 'net.

Okay, now I'm getting hungry again... I'm trying to write a radio ad about hot dogs, but it's not going too well right now. Maybe it's because I haven't eaten since breakfast... maybe it's because I don't like the restrictions on it... either way, I'm simply staring at a blank page right now, and it's frustrating as hell. Oh, yeah... and I'm craving hot dogs...

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Not much new today... sorry it's been a while since I've updated (not that I've had a lot going on or anything... just didn't have any relevant news to post). The only thing that's new is that I've changed the Chimera link on the index page to reflect the app's recent name change. That said, you can pick up Camino here.

Résumé is coming soon... I promise. I'm revamping it this weekend between school projects.

That's all I have to say... gotta get some sleep now. Stoopid 8 am classes...

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Okay, two new things on the main page, both of which are mostly for ego building (hey, it's my page). First, leave your mark on the Guestbook [editor's note: the guestbook has since been removed], and see how many times the page has been viewed with the Counter.

That's all for now. Time to get something to eat.

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I know... that's more than a week... it's not like anyone is actively following this page yet, though.

I still have to find time to rewrite my résumé, both for this page and for the impending spring break. That'll probably be done next week, since I'm going to have a lot of free time (it's my reading week).

There hasn't really been much happening here. Just updating here and there. I got two of my desktop pictures up on ResExcellence, which I thought was pretty cool. Other than that, I'm mostly working on school projects... I've got a couple of big ones coming up for March, and, since these past two weeks have been the last of the half-semester (some of my classes run on an odd seven-week rotation), I've had a lot of projects for classes that are ending this week. Very exciting.

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Yeah, that time is correct. What can I say? I'm a nighthawk. That said, this post is brought to you by Vanilla Coke.

Worked on getting some more content here. Finally decided on which pieces I wanted to put on the Portfolio page, which ended up being most of my work from this year. I wish I could have put up some of my radio ads from last year, but, unfortunately, I lost all the document files last November when I suffered a hard disk meltdown of the worst kind (damn you Western Digital!). So, until I rummage through my closet in Guelph for the hard copies (if they still exist... which they had better... otherwise, there'll be hell to pay), there won't be any radio work on my page. (I do have an MP3 recording of one of my radio ads, except, um... it's rather embarrassing. Y'see, I'm one of the voice 'talents' in the ad, and I sound downright goofy at the best of times... I'm putting on a southern drawl in the ad, which makes me sound like even more of a goon than I typically do.)

As for personal stuff, I still haven't gotten around to choosing photos to post on the page. I wanted to make sure all of the important stuff was up first, like my résumé and portfolio pieces, before adding less important stuff. I've only got ten megs to work with, so I have to prioritize.

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Decided to work on the Personal section of the page for a while today. It's not quite done yet... I'd still like to get some photos and downloads up, but I still have to organize my photos, and the files I wanted to post are too big right now (I'm looking into hosting them elsewhere). I've also changed the font of all of the pages, because Times sucks (yellow-on-black Times is quite hard to read when anti-aliased).

I decided to take a break from all the events on TV, and I figured this was the most productive use of my time. For those of you who haven't been watching, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas this morning while preparing to land at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. All seven astronauts – six Americans and one Israeli, the first Israeli in space – are presumed lost. I don't have all the details, so please visit CNN for more information on this tragic disaster.

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Just putting the final touches on the basics of the page... just making sure everything runs somewhat smoothly, and that all the pages look and behave the way they should. Honestly, I don't feel like doing too much more on this tonight... besides, Air Farce is on in about eight minutes...

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