My version of a relaxing Sunday: Instead of working at my desk, I’m working from my bed.
Recent Posts
Annivorcery
or: Is Chris Rhee broke, yet?
On this day last year, I quit my job. I am not dead, nor am I broke. Yet.
I’ll write a recap of the past year as soon as I finish up something new for QN5 Music. So basically, I can’t write about what it’s like not having a job because I’m too busy working. Ain’t that a bitch?
Before they sold a billion records…
[Paul McCartney] said he hated music at school. He went through the whole of his education and nobody thought he had any musical talent whatsoever [...]
One of the students in the same class was George Harrison [...] And nobody thought he had any talent, either.
So this one teacher in Liverpool in the 1950s had half The Beatles in his class.
And he missed it.
— Sir Ken Robinson
If you’re a fan of Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk, “Do schools kill creativity?“ you may be interested in another talk he gave at UCLA to discuss his new book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything.
Channeling simplicity
Photo by Nicolas Zurcher
The dumbest way to do transparent PNGs in Internet Explorer 6
- chris: I was wondering why this alpha-PNG was working in IE6 even though I didn’t apply any fix to it
- chris: turns out the background it’s on against is exactly the same shade of blue that it turns when the PNG doesn’t work
- william: thats happened to me before
- william: its just like. aight coo
- chris: so designers just need to use this shade of blue
- william: exactly
Spread the word, CSS lackeys.
Hard at work…
“And though the shade of revolution is red, We take it a step newer, instead, the freshest blood’s baby blue till it’s bled.”
Based on a true story
- chris: what’s the deal with your website hosting? who are you with right now?
- doug: some piece of shit place
- doug: I don’t even know
- chris: LOL
- doug: I think it’s called host for 2 bucks
- chris: haha
- doug: http://www.hostfor2bucks.com/
- chris: holy shit
Previously on Blood
Another conversation with Doug: Two thumbs up
Two thumbs up
My friend, Doug Hughmanick, is in the process of re-working his portfolio. I’m helping him with the development side of things, so he showed me a few of his design ideas.
- chris: that front page with the grid is sick
- doug: I wanted the light beams to animate and shine through
- chris: oh, fuck off then
- doug: LOL
- chris: you don’t need Chris Rhee
- chris: you need Steven Spielberg
Stay tuned for the launch of his new portfolio. The guy is a beast with Adobe software.
Late to the party (or: Why I don’t care about Super Bowl commercials)
Companies are too afraid to drop 3 million dollars on an opinionated ad campaign. Who can blame them? Why spend that much money to have people hate you? Because: people hating you is the price you pay to have others love you. Everything in between is unmemorable.
The best Super Bowl marketing was done years ago. Someone created this fantasy that advertisements shown on a particular day are more important than advertisements shown the other 364 days of the year. And everyone bought into it — literally. The house always wins. And you ain’t it.
The ironing is delicious
My buddy recently showed me his website, which sported those neat W3C validation badges. I don’t know what possessed me to click them, but I discovered that his XHTML was invalid. There was only one error in the code: the other badge from W3C, which was being used to prove that his CSS was valid… Instant Rimshot.
Dress code
Currently wearing my Website Stats & Metrics hat. But it doesn’t match the rest of my outfit.
Can you feel it breathing now?
I guess it was inevitable. Every few months, I create a new blog. And I’ve been doing “website stuff” (web design & development) for almost a decade. But I’ve resisted creating a blog about web design & development until now.
My biggest reason for not writing about the very craft that has consumed nearly half my life: talking about this stuff bores me.
The conflict
I love doing stuff. Making things better. But having lengthy discussions about what web standards “means” and debating HTML5 tags is not how I dream of spending my free time. These discussions should take place (and I observe them every now and then), but for me, writing about other subjects is much more satisfying.
Most of my friends don’t work in the web industry. They don’t write CSS, debug javascript or set up servers. Some don’t even use email. And when uttered in their presence, a phrase like, “unit test” quickly reveals itself as a dirty, double entendre. So instead, we talk about food, commercialism, education, 3rd world countries, the hierarchy of Disneyland characters, religion, music & nearly everything except the inner workings of websites.
And talking about those other subjects is much more satisfying.
The catalyst
At age 17, I risked everything (what little I had) on a passion, when I decided to skip college and freelance. Since then,
- I’ve helped build great sites for an amazing range of clients.
- I’ve worked with some very talented people.
- I’ve witnessed the inner workings of small businesses & Fortune 500 companies.
- I’ve completed projects for brands that I would’ve happily worked with for free, when I was first starting out in this industry.
Well, it’s time to risk it all again. Soon, I’ll be starting several new projects that will consume all my waking moments.
The resolution
I’ve decided to take a break from a design agency that has given me some fantastic opportunities. I’m laying everything on the line for my addiction to create new things and execute ideas of mine that have been sitting around, gathering dust. I’m rolling the dice on my career, yet again, prepared to go down as a small success story or a huge tragic tale.
With this mindset, I’m creating this website. It’s all about doing stuff and making things happen. I’ll keep you updated with what I’m currently working on and give an inside look at design, development & business decisions. It’ll also showcase other people who are putting their blood, sweat & tears into projects they feel passionately about.
And now… writing about this subject is much more satisfying.
