SXSW Interactive: 2009

For the past 4-5 years I've been wanting to go to SXSW Interactive (music and film as well...) but have never been able to afford the $495 to pay for the "badge." Lucky for me this year my wonderful boss Brian Liddiard was nice enough to pay my way as an opportunity for some continuing education to help improve my own person skill set as well as the companies reputua.

I am pretty excited to say the least. I'm really hoping to be able to run into a few people I've been following for the last 4-5 years (eh humm).

So for the past two days I've been spending some time going through the schedule and trying to figure out which aspects of the conference I want to make sure I don't miss. So if there is any chance that anyone else out there reading this is going let me know which things you are excited about seeing.

Giraffe Shirt Update

Well I think I gave everyone a fair amount of time to respond. So by my calculations I only got 7 people (counting Me, Heather, & Hannah) who said they would buy a shirt. Which puts me pretty far away from the 25 people I needed. So it looks like my dreams of making shirts will have to go back onto the shelf for now.

Thanks for everyone who got back in touch with me.

Giraffe Shirt

I'm really interested in getting a shirt that I designed a couple years ago produced. A couple years ago I tried submitting it to threadless, but it didn't survive the voting round. That was my most economical route to go, and a couple years ago I went through this period where I was dead set on getting a shirt onto threadless, because then it doesn't cost me anything, and I have a chance to have a ton of people also wearing my shirt. After a few rounds of getting denied over and over again I finally through in the towel.

Now I am trying to revive my love for designing my own shirts, but I need your help. So I am wondering how many people out there want a super dope "Giraffe Shirt." The minimum I have to have produced is 25 before I can have the shirts produced. I don't have enough money to front to have the 25 shirts produced with just the hope of selling them off and making my money back.

So here we are, can I find 25 people that would love to wear a giraffe shirt as much as I would? If a giraffe isn't good enough take a looksie at what other graphic t-shirts I have cooked up.

COST: $8.00 or $10.00 (plus shipping)

Harvey Danger: Little By Little

Psych had a special Friday the 13th episode on Friday the 13th. Where they played off of the old Friday the 13th movies, which was GREAT. During the episode they played a song that was familiar to me, but I couldn't recall who sang it or what the song was called. So I asked my friend Amanda (who works with me) if she knew who sang the song that went like this, “Paranoia, Paranoia they’re coming to get me...” So she said it was a Harvey Danger song called Flagpole Sitta. So I did a quick Google search and come to find out they have a relatively new album, and this what their website is saying:

"We are offering the entirety of our third album, Little by Little..., as a free download** (if you're curious why we're doing this, you can read our reasons here)."

(**Click on the title to head on over to their website for the FREE download).

Bloc Party

Bloc Party, 'This Modern Love' - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I first heard about Bloc Party while perusing VIRB's music section one day. I have one of their CD's, and REALLY like it. I thought this video was pretty cool, how they just sing one of their songs right outside of a bar on the spur of the moment in the street.

Enjoy™

Yet Another Reason to Hate Internet Explorer

Just when you thought Internet Explorer was going to finally do something right, they go and do THIS, and totally redeem themselves...

A year ago Microsoft announced (through A List Apart) that standards compliant websites would be forced to opt into a standards rendering mode in IE8. The uproar from the web standards community was loud and clear: the default should always be render in standards compliancy mode. Microsoft backed down.

So it is with considerable surprise and anger to read that Microsoft has quietly gone back to their original position. The gist of it is if you want to be sure your site renders in standards compliant mode in IE, you have to explicitly opt into it. Otherwise you risk being blacklisted and thrown into IE7 Compatibility mode.

The danger here is that Microsoft don't seem to be collecting the reason behind why a visitor clicked on Compatibility View. So a couple of hundred curious people seeing if the Web Standards Project website works in IE7 Compatibility mode might be enough to stop the Web Standards Project's website from rendering perfectly in IE8. And the only way they can prevent that is to opt-in to the standards rendering mode. What message does that send to the web standards community when WaSP requires an explict opt-in to IE8 rendering?

*Full article "IE8 Blacklist: forcing standards rendering opt-in."

Don't Miss Tonight...

25 Random Things About Me!

I've been tagged multiple times and kept putting it off but I'm finally falling victom of peer preasure...

1.) I prefer drinking flat sodas, & when I go to a restaurant I order my drinks without ice, & I LOVE Fountain drinks (without ice).

2.) I LOVE my job and NEVER dread going to work. (and I'm proud to say I designed the website for the company I work for).

3.) I HATE Internet Explorer (especially IE6) & hope that everyone reading this using internet explorer will download Firefox today!

4.) I love Pizza but take all the toppings (sometimes I eat them separate) and eat just the bread and sauce.

5.) I HATE mayo and am not a huge fan of ketchup, mustard, or any special sauces. I order all of my burgers DRY. It was always funny in high school when we would have far away games and the basketball team would go get food, they would always have to make one special order for me, and I was always made fun of for it, but my burger seemed to always be hot while everyone else's was cold...

6.) Growing up all I cared about was succeeding in basketball and I sat the bench my entire senior year and only played garbage minutes on varsity.

7.) I was awarded a letterman jacket but I have NEVER worn it, not once. (They didn't give it to me until the summer after I had already graduated. It's still hanging up in my closet).

8.) I can't eat food without lights being on.

9.) I love to watch basketball and rarely miss any televised game (college, high school, or NBA), and thankfully my wonderful wife puts up with it all, and has our entire marriage.

10.) I met my wife in a chatroom. (Yes it's because I'm a shy little nerd who is too scared to talk to girls).

11.) For the past two years I have worn a pair of red socks EVERY Friday and have officially renamed "Friday" to "FUN-day" at work.

12.) I am a self proclaimed "Amateur Musicologist"

13.) I wear a pair of basketball shorts under ALL of my clothes at ALL times (because you never know when there will be an opportunity to play).

14.) I LOVE FONTS & Typography in general!

15.) A majority of my emails end with "Enjoy™" (which I un-officially trademarked).

16.) My favorite food is Potatoe (I love it, fried, baked, scalloped, boiled, mashed, diced, sliced, in a soup, salad, and pretty much anyway and any how).

17.) My name is Shane Michael Guymon at least thats what it says on my birth certificate, and Drivers License. My mom has been heard calling me Shaney. When I was younger I used to ask her to call me her little Darling. My sister refered to me as "It" and "squeeky bones." My brother Mark called me splean, until the next time I saw him and everyone he knew including himself were calling me Skillz (I couldn't help but suppose there was some sort of "sarcasm" behind it all)! Next thing I knew my brother Matt flipped that into Spillz, which caught on well enough that this kid named Chris Capps called me that on the way home from Basketball practice, but he wasn't to happy when I called him "Pissin Craps" after that. In Brazil I became a "Greengo" either that or some other mis-pronunciation of my last name. I grew up a loser striving to become a winner. In Jr. High BJ Pratt called me the "White Somalian." In High School he started sayin Shane "The Main Man" Guymon. Mexicans (hispanics) call me Chain. Then that reminds me of all the times Matt called me Stain. A few people through my life have called me a Nerd. A few other people have refered to me as a Friend. Through my life I have grown accustomed to responding to the name Shawn. I even turn my head when people call out the name Matt (since all my life people have thought we were twins). So I guess if I was to introduce myself I would say you can go ahead and start off by calling me Shane, then you can move on from there...

18.) My life has become a constant battle of trying to gain full control over myself, appetites, passions, and emotions. To which I have started referring to life as "The Beautiful Struggle."

19.) I NEVER cuss not even when I'm angry. The worst words I say are "hell" and "damn" and those are very few and far in between.

20.) Movies are my biggest weakness. I LOVE them all!

21.) The two things that have impacted my life the most are, my dad's death when I was 17 (my senior year) and the birth of my daughter Hannah.

22.) I still sit in my moms lap when i go home to see her.

23.) I've always wanted to write a book, direct a movie, and be a photographer.

24.) My dad wanted all of his kids to have dark hair and brown eyes, and I am the only one who listened.

25.) I'm afraid of heights, roaches (and many other bugs), spiders, snakes, rats, & swimming in any body of water that isn't filled with chlorine and other chemicals (rivers, lakes, ponds, or the ocean).


**BONUS**
26.) I drove around for a week with a dead rat in my car and didn't figure it out until I finally took it into the shop thinking there was something wrong with my air conditioner (the only time I could smell it was when the air conditioner was turned on). I picked the rat up visiting my wife in Buna before we got married. Meaning I drove 5 hours home with it up in my car. On the way home was when I first started smelling it.

27.) My dad used to pay me 2 cents an hour to tickle his head.

28.) Almost every night my mom would be tickling my dad's back, arm or head. When I would try to come lay-down and get in on the back tickling action, my dad would tell me to go find my own girl to tickle my back and then marry here. So I spent the rest of my life looking for that girl, and Heather tricked me into believing it was her, but as soon as we got married all the tickling has ceased. Now my only hope is to con my daughter Hannah into tickling my back for 2 cents a minute.

Smile!

While I was gone in Dallas to play basketball with my brothers (which I played terrible, but had a good time) Heather & Hannah were invited to a birthday party for one of Hannah's friends (Thanks Lucy Monson for inviting Hannah!). At the party their was a small petting zoo with a pony for all the kids to ride. When I imagined Hannah riding the pony, this is the exact expression I envisioned her having. Which also happens to be my favorite Hannah smile!*

*I think it's better to see it in person, the camera has never seemed to capture it quite so well.