Category: whine
06/19/08 04:03 - 62ºF - ID#44721
The Comic Sans Font.
I don't find any logic in several of their arguments:
1. It is ugly: How can such a legible font be "ugly". The word "ugly" implies loathsomeness and annoyance - both of which, are far away from your mind when you read text typed in comic sans. It's so darn easy to read it. No effort is required to make out what the alphabets are. It's so eye-friendly.
2. It's inappropriately used in varied contexts: How do you define inappropriate? Who defined what is formal and what is informal? Fonts are not equivalent to clothes, that analogy never works. Is eye-friendliness and ease of reading only meant for kids? What happens to us as adults? Do we intentionally want to ruin our moods and eyesights by being forced to read fonts that don't even have breathing whitespace?
3. It's ill-designed: Again, which font is the "best-designed" according to you? Why is it that only the designers complain ad-nauseum about this beautiful down-to-earth font and the general "lay-public" uniformly love it? Why can't typography be user-friendly instead of being snob-friendly?
I ask you, all you people heading to the Typography convention next month, here in Buffalo. Give me some logical arguments and not snob statements as to why I should not use this font. I sent out two international reports to the scientific community using this font and none of them had any problems with it. I even found a LaTeX version of the comic sans font! Why do you view it as a fly in the typographic ointment? I swear I shall be sneering at you if you say its a "kid font" because being an adult does not mean you punish your eyes!
Permalink: The_Comic_Sans_Font_.html
Words: 356
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: goals
06/17/08 10:57 - 54ºF - ID#44686
A year in retrospect
1. Unwarranted Snobbery.
2. Occasional rude behaviour.
3. Cutting into people's speech
4. Crazy Multitasking
5. Poor time management and not finishing tasks on time.
6. Confused explanations.
7. Saying the first thing that comes to my mind.
8. Sticking with damaging influences
9. Identifying priorities and then not taking action.
10. Eating out too much
Permalink: A_year_in_retrospect.html
Words: 81
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: goals
06/15/08 01:13 - 72ºF - ID#44655
Low Wall Vaulting
It took me a while to get addicted. I used to be the civilized around-the-low-wall-walker last July. By August, it dawned on me that I was being wimpy. More importantly, the extra minute of sleep I might earn from this simple gravity-friendly maneuver became very attractive. I took the plunge in early August and haven't stopped since then. I leapt in the sunlight, in the rain, in the snow and also on the ice (and nearly broke my knee when I slipped and skidded over the ice on my knees, propelled by the force of my leap, but that's beside the point now that its summer!)
In my 9 minute walk to my department, this is the high point I look forward to. It's almost like a drug. The wall beckons me to free-fall once more. Those 2 seconds are awesome. I transform into an astronaut repairing a space toilet on Mondays, a soldier jumping into the enemy trenches for a hostile ambush on Tuesdays, a long-distance marathon runner from Nigeria jumping into a final ditch before the victorious lap on Wednesdays, a showgirl on the set of a musical in a dramatic heart-wrenching moment on Thursdays and an adventurer jumping into treacherous quicksands in the amazon forests on Fridays. I can be whoever I want to be those couple seconds. There are no limits. Time stretches into the infinity of chaotic possibility.
But coming back home, it's a different story. I cannot vault the low wall. I just don't have the grace or the skill. It has tormented me for so many months now. I want to be able to vault over the thing with a one-armed maneuver like they do in the movies. For the thirty seconds that I walk around the wall, I gaze at it longingly and wish that I were able to vault it... every single day. This might seem like a tad bit unhinged of a life-goal but I checked and found that souls all over the interweb seem to have similar lofty goals.
There's even a DIY about it!!!
It's a nifty little move. First you put your hand over the fence/wall and hoist yourself up over it using your arm to balance your weight, swinging both your legs to the other side. Incredibly sexy. And I am nowhere close to being able to do it. Not for the lack of wishing, because I do *that* everyday. I think I need to start trying at least. The skinned wrists and palms will be worth every minute of the glory of being able vault the wall some day! Got any tips for me?? :)
Permalink: Low_Wall_Vaulting.html
Words: 525
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: cycling
06/10/08 09:42 - 65ºF - ID#44608
Bike sans Brakes
ALAS, appearances can be deceptive. The deception, in this case, is that I (the most non-mechanically oriented freak there ever was and will be on the planet) put it together! That means that the brake pads are not evenly spaced from the wheel. They rub and grate on the wheel every time I try to cycle. The sound that emanates resembles a sickening friction rub of... well, a warped brake assembly. I have tried many many tricks and tactics to make them not behave in this bizarre manner but as can be expected, I am having no luck fixing them.
Does any (e:strip)per have a fair idea about how to rectify this brackish situation? Do they know of any person or establishment within walking distance of downtown (~2-3 miles) who can take a look at my bike and tell me what I need to do, without charging $45... oh, and is likely to be available on a Saturday or a Sunday??!!
My ghost-of-the-biking-future shall be eternally grateful for any ideas, hints, directions, general advice etc..
-TP
(**this is where you think of someone and enthusiastically type away comments to this post. NUDGE NUDGE. Ahem.**)
Permalink: Bike_sans_Brakes.html
Words: 281
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: office
06/09/08 11:52 - 79ºF - ID#44603
The Crazy Dragonfly Office Freakout
It looked somewhat like this:
My department administrator was in the corridor for some reason and I dragged her into my office. I think I might have coerced her into climbing the table and chasing the dragonfly out the window using a yoghurt box (that smelled like some very good coffee from Guercio's, in case you were interested.)
After it left, I googled it and initially thought that it might have been the Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea), but a friend who saw it up close didn't notice any blue on its body or colourful markings.
OR it could be the Giant Dragonfly - Petalura gigantea. The article says that two species exist in North America. The picture above is from this page:
Or it could be this species from Malaysia - Tetragynacantha plagiata. Do you think someone brought it in their suitcase from somewhere??
It blows my mind on many levels.
a) That could have been an ENDANGERED species we chased out!!
b) It could have been a bonafide Malaysian or Australian insect!!
c) We could have caught it and donated it to the zoo/or the local insect greenhouse!!
d) Damn, that was ONE TOTALLY ridiculous officemate alienating freakout.
e) Yep. I still hate metallic buzzing flying HUGE insects. They can ONLY be one of these adjectives... NOT ALL!! That is just unfair! Arrgh.
Permalink: The_Crazy_Dragonfly_Office_Freakout.html
Words: 365
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: whine
06/08/08 12:42 - 75ºF - ID#44586
Dropping Sizes or Getting Vain?
It's a sort of fluid adaptable dress that comes to your rescue if you want to be ultra formal or ultra casual. But then I became a grad student here in the US. The cultural change has been massive. I not only went the unkempt daily-jeans route, but also turned completely monocolour. I have no idea how this happened. I look at my wardrobe and all I can see is miles and miles of:
WHAT THE HELL?? I had all the colours in the rainbow and additionally, several other vivid and wild shades in my wardrobe. I seem to be trapped in blue-scale now, too fashion-unconscious to get out.
Anyway, that is only a tangential point of the story. (Yeah, leave it to me to start at a tangent!) With the change in attire, new hair-splitting avenues have popped up. I never had to deal with the alien concept of SIZES before.
Three years back, my idea of trousers was a multi-pleated billowing cotton/satin/silk salwar worn under a long kameez (hindi/urdu for shirt). I guess that explained why I ended up picking size 12 jeans and ended up looking like the next-door rap star/pimp in my first year here. I had enough of the whole hanging-by-mere-faith-and-nothing-else-on-your-booty style the next year and went for a comfortable size 10. Last christmas, I was still comfortable at 8. Yesterday, I found out that for a pair of shorts to fit well and not look like a tent and yet be comfortable, they need to be size 6.
Did I just drop SIX sizes over the past two years?????? Considering, my weight has been constantly hovering at same figure over these said two years, the size drop is highly suspect. Apart from my perception of what a trouser should be, nothing else has changed. I think it would be safe to say that I have been tricked by vanity sizing. After my initial fascination with the in-da-hood baggy style, I have been the same size. It is just called "10" at walmart, "8" at old navy and "6" at Dots. Does it then mean that the more "upscale" a shop gets the more abridged their size-chart? Are these stores pandering to the egos of their respective clienteles?
The sizing mystery doesn't end at clothes. It extends to shoes. I am 7.0 in timberland, 5.0 in Hush-Puppies, 5.5 in adidas and 6.0 in reebok. Does this in some way reflect the average shoe size of the customers of these shoe-brands? Are marketing ploys employed to carefully profile the average customer and make them feel better.. for eg. if you are a die-hard hiker, you probably don't want to be told that you have feet sized similar to a dainty Japanese lady across the planet.
Well, in all their planning, they obviously left me out. This crazy sizing is driving me nuts and I am confused like hell. I am like an electron at many different places - stretched out from sizes 6 to 10 and my feet are nebulous clouds of feet-matter from 5.5 to 7.0. I am not vain. I am a size-monster.
Hahahaa... if you thought I looked like the girl in the salwar kameez, the vain joke is on you, sucker!
Permalink: Dropping_Sizes_or_Getting_Vain_.html
Words: 562
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: dance
06/06/08 01:39 - 75ºF - ID#44560
Holy Poppin
Is this what you do Wednesday evenings on the floor above the art shop on Main Street?!!!???
Consider me bowled over! :)
Permalink: Holy_Poppin.html
Words: 74
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: eating in
06/02/08 11:47 - 62ºF - ID#44528
Heavy Metal Cous Cous
~--Prologue: Witchery->> Fast as a Shark (Accept Cover)--~
Chop/Prep Veggies
Boil water, Turn off, Add cous cous. Set aside.
~--Body: Barilari->> Amo de la Oscuridad--~
To 1 tablespoon of peanut oil
Add a pinch of cumin
Add 4-5 small thai red chillies (chopped), saute for 10 seconds
Add julienned onions, saute for a minute
Add salt, pinch of turmeric powder, a pinch of black pepper powder
and a pinch of coriander powder
Add chopped Zucchini and saute for a minute
Add chopped carrot and sweet peas, saute for a minute
~--Epilogue: Grave Digger->> King Pest--~
Add cous cous and salt to taste
Stir Stir Stir
~--Conclusion: Deep Purple->> Rat Bat Blue--~
Dinner is Served!
;) ~--Postscript: Motorhead->> Smiling like a killer--~ ;)
Permalink: Heavy_Metal_Cous_Cous.html
Words: 156
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: e:strip
05/30/08 05:46 - 72ºF - ID#44491
Hellllooo, E:Roswell-Ripper!
I was lounging in his cool office-space the other day and I noticed this very familiar picture on the desk. I thought it was (e:jim). When I looked closely, it wasn't (e:jim) but I was convinced it was his brother or some cousin. So I bust into the same office today and point to the picture and ask, is the last name of that bloke in the picture, Lindley? He goes, "No, why?" I blabber on and on about how I know this Jim who is totally like that person in the picture. He exclaims, "That Jim who does all the cool photos etc.". I nod and then he says, " Hey! Do you know Paul Visco, who works in the Washington Building". I then take over and rattle off a string of (e:Roswell)-Rippers, and he says, "Yeah, I know most of them". And then it dawns on me and I ask, "WHO ARE YOU??" Turns out its none other than (e:boxerboi), that avatar with the hot red Tee, the sun-shades and the uber cool back pack!
So I guess Buffalo is a tiny world and all cool (e:strip)pers do work at Roswell*. Haha. :)
PS: *Yeah, (e:imk2), you don't get mentioned. I don't care if you wear the most amazing clothes and see niche movies. You absolutely withheld important information. So, we are officially at war. ;)
Permalink: Hellllooo_E_Roswell_Ripper_.html
Words: 268
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: flat hunt
05/22/08 09:01 - 45ºF - ID#44418
No such thing as a perfect flat
Here's why. Living in and around Linwood has suddenly become very fashionable. Rumours abound that it is going to become the next gated community north of California. The direct effect of such hearsay and feigned snobbishness of the neighbourhood are crazy rents.
I spent four days hunting for livable and affordable flats around the place and frankly, I am so overwhelmed that I have reached a state of compromise where I think that $600/month may not be too unreasonable a price to pay for a simple studio! Though I have signed on the dotted line for yet another 365 and 1/4th of a day of lukewarm shower-serfdom at the Mayflower, it still seems quite outrageous to me that I managed to find no other place half as reasonable as my building!
The rundown of the hunt (and these were perhaps the only flats available within my budget range):
1. Target at Summer and Linwood (Not my building): Horrible smelly carpet with stains. Yuck. No more carpet tyranny in my life. Ever. Wouldn't live on a carpet even for free. I am done with carpets for life.
2. Target further down Allen: $400 without utilities. $300/month for utilities for the whole of the winter. So essentially $750/month including internet and everything. For a grad student, this is financial suicide. Unless I want to live on Ramen Noodles and spend my time coupon clipping. Which, by the way, I don't because it also happens to be the perfect recipe for depression.
3. Target on Franklin: AWESOME one-bedroom flat. Maintained like a dream. Even smelled nice! Landlord: a gem of a person. $440 a month. The catch, you ask? 9Ft ceilings and thus, $300/month utilities. Same Ramen Noodle issue as above. I pass. (If anyone is interested, and can afford this, I can give you the landlord's contact.)
4. Multiple targets in Hotel Lenox: The one bedroom flat had a bleak and lifeless view from its windows with a kitchen thrown in as an afterthought into a dark corridor of the flat. Another studio had a kitchen with no windows. Call me conceited and spoiled, but to me, the kitchen is the most important room in a house. It's a room where love is grown, happiness is concocted, nostalgia is stirred, music is dreamed up, dances are brewed, ideas are born and orgasms are perfected. The lack of windows and natural light in a kitchen is more abominable than anything else. I retract my earlier statement about the carpet. A kitchen without windows is the living hell I don't want to venture into. Ever.
5. Target on Irving: Nice flat with the blinds drawn. If you are okay with staring at a collection of assorted trashcans from around the neighbourhood and the wall of your neighbour's house 3 feet away, this flat may be perfect for you. It certainly would make me hasten to the first airplane headed back home.
6. The best arrangement of 'em all: Living with (e:Drew) and (e:Janelle). Awesome house, pets I never owned (and probably never will) but have always wanted, ONE-HELL-OF-AN-AMAZING cook (yeah, I mean (e:janelle). Sorry, (e:drew). I have no proof of your culinary skills. ;)) to cook with, lower than crazy rent (in fact, unreasonably so), and best of all, living with one of the coolest (e:strip)pers around!!! But (and isn't there always one? :( ) they live on Lexington. For my lazy and erratic grad student ways, the dream ends there.
I get up barely 1/2 hour before I have to make it to work, walk/run like crazy down the streets and reach at the nick of time. Sometimes, I don't come back till 3:00 AM. No matter how hard I try, I keep slipping into these irregular hours and last minute marathon spells. I delude myself that all this counts towards my exercise regimen (that is non-existent, BTW) Living in a flat very near work acts as a buffer to all these random acts of craziness. I can afford to not be dependent on any transport but my own and also afford to not own a car. So, even though I am TRULY tempted by their offer, I can't take them up on it. I know that the solution is more discipline. But currenly this is in severe short-supply. :/
So yes, there is indeed, no such thing as a perfect flat. There are always kinks and cracks, virtual or otherwise. The tact is to whine and blog about them till they sort of go away from your consciousness.
Permalink: No_such_thing_as_a_perfect_flat.html
Words: 770
Location: Buffalo, NY
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Nice points, (e:Jim). (or snobbery, well done?!! ;-))I don't think I knew all of that. I just came upon the whole "put the sans back in comic sans" campaign and was pretty needled, considering it does happen to be my favourite font. It doesn't have specific italics and bold versions? That is interesting... So the output pretty much depends on what the recipient's comp can or cannot do. Does it mean that the font has the capacity to look disfigured in some older computers? What font do you usually use for your regular reports etc.? My audience is uniformly above 50 years so all of them are hypermetropic (+3.0D or more) and easily irritable. What would you recommend for such a scenario?
@(e:metalpeter): I love making out what fonts have been used, in random documents. (Even though I am not professional/amateur anything related to web-design or typography). It's just a lot of geeky fun. I also read design blogs, A List Apart and browse the CSS Zen Garden just for the sheer fun of it. (Especially, when I am running short of time on a deadline and feel the massive need to be distracted anyway.)
@(e:Drew): I LIKE the Papyrus font AS WELL!! Talk about being the most average person from the middle of the bell curve. Hehehee.
@(e:Zobar): I think there are some classy and tastefully done websites out there with the Comic Sans Font. (Eg. my own google group. HEHEHE, what did you expect?! And also this site here: :::link::: ) And holy molly! My next favourite might well be the HIGHWAY FONT!!! It is interesting that you bring up the point about dyslexia and easy readability. If you read through these guidelines here: :::link::: you realize that writing and composing documents that are dyslexia-friendly is not really a whole lot different from the guidelines for writing well! And LaTeX rocks. \m/ I think people who don't get this and stick to microshit word are just in a huge state of denial - especially when they are composing their 300 page dissertation in word and swearing every couple seconds about some messed-up format.
@(e:Jason): Who knows... Maybe that is why Marvel Comics is as successful as it is. Hehehe...
I agree that I probably should be worrying about my content, but sometimes, it is fun to project your worries to other aspects of your writing so that you can willfully ignore the sheer mediocrity of what you have just composed! What are your favourite fonts?
@(e:felly): Wow. I think that's why I like it. It's not all uniform and looks somewhat imperfect and full of flaws... more human, perhaps.
It's as if you are reading through the text in Comic Sans and almost expect the writer to have crossed out some words at some point, thought through the composition and handed you the finished product, in triumph. Very non-sterile and colourful! It's like falling in love with a scar on your lover's arm/leg and associating happiness and familiarity with it.
@(e:joshua): I need to check this font out. Is it because all the urgent faxes in your office addressed to you are in this font? :)
@(e:jenks): Very subtle indeed. (e:jim)'s made quite a few points that I never even thought about. Maybe we should have our very own Typography Thursdays and also our own Typography convention. Let's pip those suckers at the Hyatt!
But jim is right. it's very subtle art. Way more goes into it than most people would ever realize. It's pretty cool, actually.
When I look at a piece of type that is put together well, my eyes flow through it evenly. Its neat and well organized and there are no odd spaces or gaps or odd curves of a random u sticking out in the middle. Words written in comic sans just stick out wherever it wants. Leaves holes in the middle of words. It just is not a visually appealing text.
I don't think it should be banned, because it does provide a sense of happiness to those who think the world of it. I think anyone who is serious about the visual appearance of their type can see that it just doesn't work well. That is their choice to make though.
What you're stuck on are the practical elements, which are important to you, and ignoring the contextual and aesthetic elements which are important to other people. You have to consider your audience. There are good alternatives.
Tiny, it's just a font, and in the big picture it is about the 12387163128th thing you should care about unless you are a graphic designer, professional or amateur, or simply a fan of typography.
I wouldn't ban it either, and I know some people have their butt cheeks clenched so tight over it they could crush a walnut. I'm not one of those people. As a web developer it is just one of those things you have to be practical about.
Think about Highway Gothic :::link::: - it's easy to read, bold, professional, and even kind of interesting. But nobody's going to use it in a corporate newsletter, because of where else it gets used. People will look at your newsletter and go, 'is this the highway font?'
Comic Sans is very easy for dyslexics to read, either on-screen or in print, due to its asymmetry. On-screen, even more legible fonts are widely available [the Lucida series in particular :::link:::].
:::link:::
:::link:::
On another note: LaTeX?? Dang man, I used LaTeX in college which was not that long ago, and nobody even knows what that is anymore! I'm all: LaTeX? and they're all condescending like: um no we just type it into Word. Fucking whippersnappers don't know what's good for them.
- Z
Jim, that was an impassioned and educated response. I never realized a lot of what you pointed out, but sure enough, it's there.
I would like it if there were more readable fonts that were also casual. My current favorite is Trebuchet.
I used to really like Papyrus, but it is WAY overused now.
Typography is design, it is a subtle art that aims to be an invisible container for the words which it carries. Design is not 'making things pretty', it's making things work. The best design goes unnoticed. A door handle which you don't have to even think about how to grab onto to open. A website with an easy checkout process. A font which is compact and efficient for reading tiny details on a map, or another that's clear and loud from across a train station.
Comic Sans does not stay out of the way, it intrudes and obscures. And this is why: it is a bad typeface, it is not actually readable compared to other possible font choices due to bad kerning and equally sized downstrokes and horizontals. Every ounce of research into readability speaks to this fact and the need for those distinguishing features.
More reasons: it was not designed as a book face, it's a one-off suitable for only one purpose. The designer of comic sans has said that he did not design it for such a purpose. It has no italic face, no bold face, and no weighting at different point sizes. The computer fakes the italic and bold variants by just slanting or thickening the characters willy-nilly.
There was no thought put into its creation, in terms of use as a text font.
I am biting my tongue here at your accusations of snobbery, but let me just add, to snob it up even some more, that typography is one of the oldest technical skills in the world, dating back to the printing presses of ancient China and middle-ages Europe. It matters. What makes good typography is buried in the tiniest details, but it is those small things that the foundation of the most mighty power of human kind is laid down: the written word.