- Plays Well With Others - http://www.playswellwithothers.net -

Commixion LIVE!

This is the first journal I’m doing via email … basically.. I’m keeping my email window open all day and adding to it as things pop into my head … .. so some of the thoughts in this entry are a bit random. Think of it as my LIVE COMMIXION journal entry … as it happens …

So I just found this journal by this guy that is 40 years old … and the reason that’s important is because I never think of my readers (not that he’s one of them) as being 40 years old … not that there is anything wrong with that.. just I have this idea that most of my readers are either high school age, or college or twenties or early thirties max … . . but seeing a journal from a 40 year old, just threw me off a bit.. most of these journals are done by older people.. it amazes me. I hope when I’m 40 that I’m not still doing this journal.

Today I’m working on … a diary program for one of our networks … can you believe it? I thought, hmm, does someone know I keep a journal online, and they are giving me this because they think I’d understand it …

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence … they’ve actually been working on this for some time.. and finally passed it off to me. So besides trying to get the user interface to have the same look and feel, I’m also spending my day reading people journals/diaries … … of course it’s all for the sake of work..

So, besides Krysten I’ll also be sending a card to Zed and to Tim … three online people to send cards to brings me up to over twenty christmas cards this season..woohoo.

Speaking of Tim … one of my readers, Lauren submitted her drawing of Tim to me (Tim1 and Tim2) … is this how you imagined him to look … I’d like to see more submissions.. you can even do it in a drawing pad editor thing …

Krysten is in love with Tim because of his messy hair … “it makes the girls swoon”. I guess that’s my problem … I can’t have messy hair, because I have to look semi-professional …

Doesnt it seem a little invasive at times using this ICQ thing … I mean you can butt into people’s lives anytime you want … you can always see when people are online … not that I mind. But I was just thinking about it because lately whenever I go online and keep the ICQ thing up … I see this girl I went to high school with. We are both on so much, that she finally ICQ’d me and told me to go to bed and that I was online too much. The problem is that I’m usually actually doing work when I’m online, and just leave that on in case someone wants to talk to me for a bit … it might look like I’m just sitting there chatting all the time. I just thought it was kind of funny … because although she is usually on when I’m on, we dont really chat all that much … which is also strange, being on that thing, and knowing there is someone you know online, and not saying “hi” or something. Just little strange things I think about the ICQ system …

Okay.. so as I said before … I’m testing and looking through journals today … and I’m getting a little bugged by a few things. As I told a reader, Mia, today … so many of my readers have such nicely designed journals and for some reason it surprises me at how much people put into the look of their sites as well as the content … so far the majority of the journal sites I’ve seen are really enjoyable to look at, along with reading them. I’m a web designer, so it would be expected that my site would be designed a certain way, but I’m finding that alot of you who are either non-design people, or are students are also very good at making a clean design that is easy to read and follow … it’s amazing.

Okay, with that said … I’m getting frustrated because I’m sitting here reading these journals from some other source and these people have no idea of what readable design is. I mean, I’m not a design snob, as long as the thing is easily readable … it can be all text as long as I can actually see the fonts on the page..

Seems this journal system allows user to sign in and customize their journals using a tempate type of system.. it allows you to use a choice of two of about fifty colors, and you can put a background of starry night, clouds, waves, etc. on your page, as well as, a few dozen types of fonts.

First pet peave, dont use some ugly background on your page … it’s so hard to read when there are clouds all over the background, or rainbow colored waves …

Second pet peave, use a readable font … something that works on both Macs and Windows machines … sure that cursive fonts looks just wonderful on your computer, but no one can read it … also, fonts size should be considered. See what is small on a Mac, is huge on a Windows machine … it just works that way. I use 2 points on my page, and just have to deal with the fact, that its about 4 points on Windows machines. The problem is that if you do a really small font on Windows, then when I open the page on my Mac the font is teeny tiny … I know I can go through and manually bump up the point size, but it’s too much work everytime I open your journal to be doing that.

Third pet peave, colors … if you set the background to yellow, please dont set the font to dark yellow or white … it’s going to look blank to me … The idea is to make the experience easy for your readers … so a yellow background and dark type would be perfect … light background, dark font, or dark background light font … not light background light font.. I’ll burn my retina’s out.

On the subject of fonts again … if you dont use a font that is universal to both Macs and Windows the font could end up broken up looking … which means to read it, I have to try to highlight the text and read through it.. somehow. Also, less is more … meaning dont use every font in your computer … Two at the most … but this is the web, and usually one will do just fine.. Times, Helvetica, Arial, or Verdana seem to work the best.

Okay, enough of my bitch-fest on web pages … like I said as long as it’s readable and doesnt give me vertigo when I’m trying to read it I’m fine … I think it’s a bad idea for me to be going through these journals … I’ve already written down a note to tell them to disable to personalize feature on this diary thing … I think if people misuse it and create ugly journals then they shouldnt be allowed to use the feature … maybe I’ll create some templates and allow the users to choose from our preset color schemes.

Here is an example of what lead me to this discussion. Click here. Am I over-reacting? Can you read anything on this page? Does it not give you a headache? Dont people LOOK at the pages they create …

Okay, so I know that we try to reveal little personal details about our lives in these journals … but I do think there are certain things that don’t need to be jotted down for the whole world to see … why am I bringing this up? Well, here is an example of a journal I just randomly popped into that, in my opinion, goes a little too far in her description of things … no to mention it makes her sound like a damn hooker or something.

[begin quote of hooker girl] Ok, It was like this. I met this guy, Joel online.. I put up an ad on Yahoo personals and he responded to my ad. he gave me his pic and I gave him my pic.. and last Friday, We went out to a dinner. It was nice. After the dinner, we went over to his apartment to see a movie, but the VCR wasn’t working, so we just sat there and talked. His roommate came home and we all smoked weed. The joint was banging. I was all dizzy and stuff. I got sleepy, so he offered me a ride home, so He dropped me off at my place. Yesterday, I called him to see what’s up. He wasn’t doing anything, and I wasn’t doing anything, so we decided to go out together. He drove around and went up to this place where we could see the city lights and stuff. We just sat in a car for a while and listen to David Matthew’s CD. He was like, ” let’s play truth or dare.” I was like, ” ok” I knew this game would go nasty and erotic towards the end, but I was like fuck it. He kissed on my lips, nipples, stomach and my place. I dared him to let me see his thing and he showed it to me. It was hard and kind of big.. well not really, it was ok size. Anway, the kiss was great. He sucked my lips and his tongue was soo soft. He touched my place with his fingers and all.

I am sure this is not going to be a serious relationship. I was horny and he was horny. I don’t get to remember his face yet. I just want to have sex with him. The thing is that I only met him twice and let him perform oral sex on me in a car! What’s wrong with me!! He is probably thinking that I do that all the time, but I don’t do that kind of shit at all! [/end quote from hooker girl]

Why do girls always call it “his thing”? Arent we all grown ups here … there are terms for it … it’s called a pee-pee. Duh! j/k

So, here is what’s wrong with this picture … first, you met the guy on Yahoo! Personals; second you only knew him for two days; third, are you really surprised his VCR didnt work … “hmm, thats funny the VCR isn’t working, well I guess we’ll need to find something else to do [wink, wink]; fourth, she says “in the car” like it would have been okay somewhere else … if you dont remember his face, that should tell you something you horny slut.

For quite a few years, I used to make my own christmas cards … I’d design them and have them printed at a printer … everything was homemade … and then I started to get busy. Every year, I think … this year, Im going to make my christmas cards again … then I look at the calendar and it December 10th, and I’m thinking it’s too late … maybe next year.

That happened this year again … so I bought some cards. I think they are very designy looking … but I wouldve liked to have made them … I always look for cards that have a design or photographic edge to them … something not too many other people would choose … so to those of you getting one, I hope you enjoy it …

Since I can’t send one to everyone, I’ll probably post a card in my journal, made out to all of you. There are just certain people who I really think should get an actual card … Tim for sure, since I’ve been harrassing him so much in this journal …

Note to self: Do not shake the yogurt container before opening. It will squirt out and end up on your shirt … and arm … and hand … and desk.

Ouch … any of you out there that have a Guestworld guestbook have quite the problem.. seems their server crashed and lost all of your guestbook entries, forever. I used to use them … and then switched to a different one that could stay on my server … glad I did that … I’m trying to hold onto my ten entries as it is … if I lost them I’d just die [add angsty and melodramatic music here]

On a totally serious note … I have to tell Krysten how sorry I am about her grandfather … nothing I can say can possibly help her, even though I went through this last year. It’s hard to lose anyone you love, but if they are suffering you have to know it’s for the best. Keeping your memories close to your heart will keep that person alive in your mind …

The only thing I could think of was to tell you all about my grandpa, it was very hard to go over this story again but it’s the only way I can think of to show I understand.

Again Krysten … I’m very sorry.

To those of you reading, cigarette smoking only leads to problems later on. Both Krysten and I have seen the results and it isn’t worth it. Cancer kills … and in a painful way. Even morphine couldnt control the pain my grandpa was in during his last moments … we all just prayed for it to be over, for his sake. He was a strong man and suffered quite a bit … I dont want to go that way. Here’s the story of my grandpa. (also found in my random thoughts section)