People used to fight over salt.

I'm glad the "opposition" in congress have finally got the guts (more likely followed the wind of public opinion, a smelly, foul wind) to stop pretending it's unpatriotic to want our friends to come home from that desert hell and never go back.

We didn't go over there ot free anybody, we went because of a kind of war hysteria that swept over our country. We went because somehow, we were convinced Iraq was going to attack us.

That was so stupid, in hindsight I think more people see it now, but at the time, if you said so, you were called un-american, pro-terrorist, you name it. It was ugly. It's happened to us before.

It'll probably happen again.

I know we want meaning for our friends and family who died for Iraq, but let's face it. They ought to be alive, and Iraq is no better off and neither are we. And the whole reason we got talked into invading that country was so some people could make money. This was an imperial adventure, not taken in the long term interest of the United States, it was plain robbery. We sent our defence force (that's really what they're supposed to be right?) to another country to steal their stuff. And it's not like you and me even get a cut, we just get to sacrifice.

Yesterday more marines died out there in the desert, and more silver was paid to mercenaries and war profiteers.

If those marines were your sons, wouldn't you rather have just one of them come home alive than all the oil in all the deserts of the world?

Aiming for less than greatness

I figured it out.

The only thing worse than not knowing your if work sucks is knowing that it does.
Worse than that, however, is having your work kick ass, but the client sees it on some ancient computer that's running IE 3.o, and asking you why it looks funny.

I look at the stuff out there on the web,
Sites that looks great, the programming never fucks up, and I want to scream, or at least borrow the skills of the people who made them.

I want to be that good. I want to be able to look at my work on a 15 year old mac and have it still look right.

I really do try to learn, try to improve, but I'm just too damn busy being mediocre and making money at it.

The less there is, the more they bitch

I've discovered an important principle of human nature that I'd like to share with all (both) of you.

One of my jobs involves the design of advertising. Sometimes I design very elaborate ad campaigns with internet and print components, using all the tricks the propaganda biz has come up with since 1930.

Sometimes I make a little newspaper ad for some small shop, and they want it a very specific way, so I do it just the way they want it.

What I've found, and I think this applies to all aspects of human endevor, is this:

The less there is, the harder they fight over it. If you've contracted me to do your ad design and you're spending say 100 dollars, you are going to call me ten times more often, bitch about the final result ten times more, and force me to waste ten times more time on your piddly little account than someone with a $10,000 account.

Why?

Which approach is ultimately more successful?

I'll bet you can guess which one I think works better.

It's like getting a haircut. You can come in and tell me exactly the way you want your hair cut and I'll do it that way, but don't come complaining to me that you don't like it that way.

Hours in the day

When I was a kid, I passed time watching 30 minute sit-coms on television. I spent thousands of hours doing this. I've seen every Leave it to Beaver, Gilligan's Island, Mr. Ed, Munsters, Addams Family, Brady Bunch, you name it, if it was syndicated in the 70's I saw it.

Now it's a little different. I don't have enough time to do all the things I want to do. Right now, I'm trying to learn some new things with Flash, but I don't have the time. Most of the time I am playing catch-up, learning how to do something I said "Yeah, I can do that" about when I was making the pitch.

Did I waste all that time as a kid? Maybe, I don't regret it though, I lived in Phoenix and it wasn't like I was going to go outside and play. And I suppose I learned something from all those old shows, or maybe not.

But even if I could go back and change history, the stuff I need time for now just wasn't there in 1979.

Now that I have a son of my own, would I want him to sit around and watch sit-coms all day?

No, if he were older I'd make him learn flash and come to work.

Putting down the brush

This happens to me all the time, I'll do some sort of work, build a website, design an advertisement, write a column, whatever, and everybody who sees it says "Hey that's great, I loved it." There are precious few people who can look you in the eye and say, "No, I think this sucks," or better yet, offer criticisim "The menu is confusing, what if you do it this way"

So I get to thinking, does everybody live in a world like this? How often do we hear that our work isn't great? Even when you work in an artistic or creative field, most of the time you get zero negative feedback. I guess it's because it hurts your feelings when someone tells you the thing you worked for hours on doesnt cut the mustard. (what the hell does that even mean?)

But that's part of being an adult right? Being able to take it when somebody points out the flaws in your masterpiece. I can take it, I know I can, because I'm lucky enough to know one or two people who are willing to hurt my feelings to make my work better.

It still sucks, though, don't get me wrong, and I certainly don't need any new volunteers telling me why I suck.

Do we all live in this fantasy world where we are all very competent? Are we all naked emperors complimenting each other's clothing?

Tonight for instance, I built a website for this place, they're most likely going to say "oooh its wonderful," pay me and move on.

But I see the design and think how awful it is and how people are insane to pay me to do it.

Yet they do.

So it must be ok.

I guess.