Although it makes my own facial hair look pretty weak by comparison, it was my great honor to have my picture taken next to one of the finest beards I’ve ever had the pleasure of having known:
(photo by Seth Bindernagel, beard by Asa Dotzler)
I realized the other night that I recently passed an interesting (note: interesting to me only) personal milestone: the two-year anniversary of my Delicious account.
From my initial tagging of an Arkansas Razorbacks news site to my most recent tagging of a book about vintage WPA-era posters, Delicious has been an amazing repository of every little twist and turn of my web surfing. At 1,269 links (and counting) I haven’t yet become a true Delicious jedi (see: pkim), but I’ve saved enough stuff that at this point my account functions as a backup brain of sorts. That comes in very handy.
Anyway, it’s made me a more effective web surfer and is truly one of my favorite things about the Internet. Thanks Delicious!
One thing I know is that when Patrick Finch asks you to do something, you’d better do it. So, in compliance with this ’seven things’ meme that’s been spreading around furiously over the last week, here I go:
The rules:
1. Link to your original tagger and list these rules in your post.
2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.
About me:
1. I’m a total trivia nerd (specializing in music trivia), and in 2001 I appeared on (and won) the game show Rock & Roll Jeopardy.
2. I’m originally from Arkansas, which is kind of an uncommon place to be from in the internet industry and/or Mozilla community. Go Hogs!
3. Bad border crossing #1: during a post-high school road trip, I was turned away at the Canadian border. My friends and I were pulled off the road, interrogated and eventually denied access to the country…the official reason being that we didn’t have enough money, but I’m pretty sure they thought we were drug smugglers (we weren’t). The good news is that they let me in for the Summit last summer.
4. Worst bad job: working at the FAO Schwarz in downtown San Francisco for three months in 1996. Best bad job: dressing up in period garb to work as a docent at a historic antebellum mansion in Memphis.
5. This isn’t directly about me, but my wife sings with the San Francisco Opera, which I think is pretty cool. We’re coming up on our 15th anniversary as a couple (dating back to this era)…a fact that kind of blows my mind.
6. Bad border crossing #2: my (future) wife and I were pulled off a train at the Italian/Swiss border by guards wielding guns and German Shepherds. We were detained in a small room at the border station for more than an hour while they completely took apart our bags and yelled at us in Italian. Once again they thought we were drug smugglers (and once again, we weren’t).
7. I (sporadically) play bass in a rock band. We’re all old guys with lots of other things going on so we don’t do it as often as we’d like, but we’ve had our moments. (This post has a couple of MP3s up if you’re curious.)
Your turn:
1. Alex Faaborg, because reading his blog posts is like taking a really good college class in UE design.
2. Jane Finette, because she can effortlessly drop words like “cheeky” and “chuffed” into the flow of conversation.
3. Steven Garrity, because he makes my job easier almost every day (and does cool podcasts).
4. Mike Morgan, because he’s a hell of a ping pong player.
5. Johnathan Nightingale, because he’s such a passionate supporter of the rights of the bearded.
6. David Rolnitzky, because he’s trying to increase his search engine rank.
7. Justin Scott, because he needs a boost after watching LSU lose to Arkansas two years in a row.
Dealing with phone companies, insurance companies, banks, etc has caused most of us to become so accustomed to terrible customer service that when someone actually does it well it feels like a tremendous breath of fresh air…something worth shouting about, even. So, that’s exactly what I’m doing.
I just had one of the best customer service experiences of my life with Dreamhost, the service that hosts this very blog. I’d been having some weird technical issues, and not only were they friendly, human and fast in their responses, they went way above and beyond the call of duty to get everything straightened out for me. So, if you’re ever in need of a hosting service for your site, definitely check these guys out. They’re great.
Like they say, customer service is the new marketing. I don’t think that’s necessarily a ‘new’ development, but otherwise this blog post is definitely proving that point.
Anyone who spends more than about 10 minutes around me these days knows that I’m totally obsessed with the Wire. If it’s not the greatest TV show ever, it’s certainly on a very short list. So, pardon the diversion from Mozilla-related topics for a minute…
My wife and I recently finished watching the Wire’s final season, and during the letdown period that inevitably follows the end of anything really good, it struck me that what the world really needs is a way of determining who is the toughest and most bad-ass of all the characters on that show. After all, there was a lot of ‘muscle’ on the Wire, but if they battled it out, who would win?
Purely for my own amusement, I’ve concocted a March Madness-style bracket of the Elite Eight of the Wire’s tough guys. After a highly unscientific seeding process, here’s how the first round matchups break down:
1. Omar Little
8. Michael Lee
2. Chris Partlow
7. Snoop Pearson
3. Wee-Bey Brice
6. Slim Charles
4. Brother Mouzone
5. Sergei Malatov
Any thoughts on how things play out from here? Let me know in the comments section…
I was Googling around yesterday in search of inspiration for an upcoming project and discovered this amazing site: Dark Roasted Blend.
Believe it or not, the awesome image below isn’t even in the top 10 coolest things featured there. Highly recommended!
A few totally random links from around the Web (having nothing to do with Mozilla, btw):
* If you assumed that 1,500 Filipino prison inmates do not perform perfectly synchronized mass dance re-enactments of the “Thriller” video, you assumed wrong.
* Dude, this article will totally blow your mind.
* Shining the spotlight on corporate wikipedia tomfoolery.
* Shining the spotlight on corporate donations to U.S. politicians.
* And on a much lighter note, I present to you Miss Teen USA South Carolina speaking extemporaneously.
This is totally unrelated to Mozilla, but I wanted to spread the word that I’ve started another blog (because apparently I don’t have enough to do already). My friend Stephen Ursery and I are both longtime Arkansas Razorbacks fans, so we decided to channel our fan/nerd energies in a new direction. Since we’ve both lived out of the state for many years now, we’re using the expatriate thing as our angle.
I’m not expecting a huge overlap in interest between Mozilla and the Razorbacks, but if you’re a fan of college sports, check it out:
Ok, I promised myself I would put up a few more Mozilla posts before I started sidetracking, but I need to give a quick shout-out to how insanely good Arcade Fire is. I was fortunate enough to see them last Saturday at the Greek Theater in Berkeley and it was pretty sensational. If these guys roll through your town, definitely don’t miss ‘em.
Here’s a sample clip (not from my show) to whet your appetite:
Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies)
More Mozilla stuff coming soon…
Greetings, and welcome to Into the Fuzz!
First, a bit about myself. I’m the Creative Director at Mozilla, which basically means that I’m the least technically skilled person in the entire company. I joined Mozilla in March to help guide the evolution of the brand and work on a wide variety of design-type projects. Stay tuned for plenty of details on those…
Among other things, I’d like this blog to be an ongoing dialogue with you guys out in the community about what Mozilla is (in an abstract sense). I’ll also be posting a lot of examples of creative works-in-progress and inviting your comments. My goal is to make this blog a fun & easy read with lots of interesting stuff to look at.
On a personal note, I live in Oakland with my wife, two-year old son and two cats. Prior to Mozilla, I worked for many years at Ofoto, starting as the copywriter and then managing the creative department there. I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas but have lived in the Bay Area since 1996. When not doing Mozilla stuff, I mainly like to hang out with my family, but also find time to play bass guitar and work on my ping pong game.
So, that’s it for now…stay tuned for lots more, and thanks for reading!
