Online I’ve been creating a heap of websites for friends and/or for special interests of mine. I had planned to do “100 websites in 100 days” to (a) See if I could do it and (b) Get a lot of sites up very quickly. This didn’t go to plan however — mainly because it’s difficult (well for me anyway) to think of 100 different websites and construct them in such a short time….and the fact that the websites themselves would not exactly be what you would consider as “quality affairs” by any stretch of the imagination. Nonetheless, part way into the exercise I decided to change tack and spend more time on building up the quality of the sites that I was working on rather than increase the quantity. To this end I feel that I’ve been somewhat successful but there’s always room for improvement.

Obviously coding, setting up and writing content takes quite a bit of time and I’d have to say that I’ve found myself being a little “burnt out” at times and having to pull back a bit. In this regard I’ve tended to do a lot more offline activities as well as just chilling out in front of the idiot box. There’s a lot to be said for just sitting back and doing nothing at times like these.

Earlier this year Amy and I caught up with Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer again and we were able to see, first hand, the guitar that we’d made being used on stage during a Posies gig. We’d made the guitar so freaking fast that it wasn’t quite finished when I presented it to Ken way back in December 2000. It was almost done but the top nut needed to be filed and the guitar strung up and tuned etc. (Ken got all of this stuff done in Seattle as far as I know). I’ve talked about the making of the guitar on here before so, if anyone is interested, you can do a search for it in the archives.

Anyhow, the verdict: I simply could not see how all of the sounds that Ken squeezed from that guitar actually came to be — I was simply blown away by the stuff he was doing and I was hugely impressed — and relieved — that the instrument sounded so good, as I really had no idea beforehand what it would sound like. I had employed a few methods and ideas that I hadn’t done before in making an instrument so it was good to know that it all went together well. Ken had told me, via email, that the guitar was his single-most treasured worldly possession — which was great for that ego of mine I must add — but I just had no idea of how it sounded in real life. I also couldn’t believe the energy I saw on the stage that night. It was just fantastic though, at one stage, I thought to myself “how the hell is that guitar staying together?” before realizing that if it did begin to spectacularly unravel on stage and spontaneously combust then we could just assemble a new “team” and make a brand new guitar, no probs….

…Speaking of which we still need to do just that for Jon some time.

After the show we partied with the guys for a while afterwards at a club run by Wally Meanie, which was pretty cool. Late into the night — actually it was the morning really — we said goodnight and went on our way.

It’s probably not the best time to call it quits for this post as there’s a heck of a lot of stuff I haven’t mentioned, however I’ll do so now so as I’ll have something to talk about for the next post (hopefully tomorrow).

Until then….

Man, what a year it’s been….and oh so busy to boot! I don’t think I’ve ever worked as hard or had as many ups and downs as I’ve had this year. Even when writing or illustrating books I don’t think I’ve worked as hard? Then again you kinda forget a lot of the details as you get older……Well I have anyhow.

2005 FINALLY saw me finish The REG Temple redesign…….almost! The bulk of it has been done anyway and there’s really only a bit of “plugging up” to be done here or there. I’ve had a couple of false starts on this site already in the past two years, so I’m finally glad that I’ve been able to break the back of it – as well as clear out much of the the backlogged stuff I’ve accumulated over the years.

When Amy got sick and went back to the States to recover I was able to knuckle down and get the work done on The Temple, but now that she’s back I haven’t really slowed down from the pace I set and I’m still doing a ton of website stuff – a few mini-sites here and there but two very work intensive sites that I envision will be – with any luck – quite large affairs. One is nowhere near being launched yet and the other has had a low-key “launch” but needs to build up an extensive backlog of articles quickly. In the meantime I’ve been getting Amy to help me with scanning and typing which has been a great help.

While I’ll be continuing on my website work well into the new year, the summer will also be a time to clean out much of the excess junk we have around the house. We’ve already cleaned up quite a bit but I still have a ton of stuff that needs to go. Amy is overwhelmed by it all but I keep assuring her that it’s very possible with “small steps” – a bit here, a bit there. Every so often we can have a cleanup lasting several hours so that also helps to keep things in check. While I’ve spent many years taking stuff UPSTAIRS to the attic, the past few months have been spent taking the occasional thing down and using it or throwing it away in the trash. It’s working and, so far, it’s not too tiresome to do.

As far as New Years resolutions are concerned…..well…..At the moment I don’t really have any – but then I don’t usually have them anyhow. I think I planned a few things last year and look where that got me! If it happens, it happens. I’ve learnt to be as flexible as possible when it comes to that. 2005 will definitely go down in my life as a very unusual year though. A year tinged with sadness, but also hope…..and a very productive year to boot!

Who knows what 2006 will bring…

I found these today on the Junk Feud blog as I was doing my rounds. They reminded me of something I once said many years ago – that celebrities should start fighting back using the same weapons as the paparazzi do. Cameras! I remember thinking that if I was ever in the situation of being a celebrity and I was pissed off with the paparazzi then that’s what I would do. I mean why not?

Obviously Drew Barrymore and Reese Witherspoon have had the same idea, going by these pictures.

It also reminded me of a couple of other things. One of my wonderful network of people who help me out at The REG Temple sent me a link to a video of Richard E. Grant a number of years back. I checked it out (in my capacity as Richard’s official webmeister) and it was pretty darn cool. No sound at all and filmed in a jerky scratchy type way – a little like that famous suspect sighting of Bigfoot from the 70′s (or whenever it was) except REG was in a dinner suit and a lot better looking. The intriguing thing though is that part way through the filming Richard takes out a camera of his own and takes a picture, before disappearing through a doorway.

Now the web page that the video was on didn’t really contain any info at all as to how or why this little piece of film came about? I decided to email the webmaster of the site for permission to use the video on The Temple and to maybe find out a bit about the background of it. Apparently the people who shot the film were making their own documentary about the making of a major motion picture, The Age Of Innocence, when they just happened to see Richard walking down the street on his way to the next scene. For some reason he just happened to have his own camera and decided to use it – probably thinking that the documentary makers were paparazzi? The film was originally shot on Super8 and then transferred to video, before being made into a Quicktime movie for the web. I can’t remember whether or not I’ve asked REG about it but he might not remember the incident anyway? Actually I should email him and let him know it’s up on the site because he might get a laugh from it? If anyone else wants to see it you can do so here. Keep in mind that the quality isn’t great though after being through so many transitions.

Another thing I was reminded of also involved Richard and was also a number of years ago. I awoke one morning to receive a whole lot of emails from different people around the world wanting confirmation on Richard’s “impending retirement”. Some sent me links and scanned newspaper articles which clearly stated that Richard was retiring and was never going to work on another movie ever again. It all seemed a little odd as REG had not mentioned it at all to me. I immediately sent an email off to him to ask him if it was true and what it was all about? He emailed me back the next day basically stating that it was all crap, but that he had actually started it the night before.

Richard had been a special guest at an awards presentation where the paparazzi were out in force. One particular newspaper reporter apparently harassed Richard so much that, in his annoyance, he’d turned around and stated to them that he was retiring and that they should basically piss off and leave him alone. The next thing he knows is that it’s in all the newspapers the next morning and the phone is ringing off the hook. An unfortunate example of having it all backfire on you.

I’ve also noticed that quite a few celebrities out there are logging on to the net and starting up their own blogs. I’ve not been to any of them though but I’ll check them out sometime soonish. I think it’s cool actually, as it gives them the opportunity to tell their fans their own version of events rather than have a whole lot of crap being told about them in the newspapers and glossy magazines! Of course all of that stuff will still happen but at least the “power” of blogging means that people can get a different perspective on things rather than just automatically swallowing the media’s bullshit. In fact you can’t trust any major media outlet nowadays. You REALLY have to get your information from a whole lot of different sources before you can make a truly considered opinion!

As a nice little finish to this post I saw this example at The Mad Pigeon blog. I thought it was apt and quite funny.

The REG Temple (the official website of actor Richard E Grant) has had the same look now for almost 7 years – a millennium as far as web sites go! Still, for the most part it works really well – even if there are a couple of “cross browser” issues to address. The backbone of the new look Temple is quite complicated, with many “parts” added together to create the one page, php parsing everywhere, new graphics and features and separate cascading style sheets for virtually each section of the site. In the end though it will make it much easier to change the look again further on down the track – with only about 50 pages to change rather than over a thousand.

That’s the idea anyhow! The reality may be very different. I might be opening up a whole can of worms!

Although the “look” of each of the versions is basically the same I am toying around with the design and the function of the navigation buttons. I felt that in the first design (the one up at the top of the post) there was too much wasted space where the top banner is. I don’t mind it personally, but some people have smaller screens than I do and would probably want to get to the “real content” sooner rather than later. The “basic black” of the original site is still there, although I did toy with the idea of changing it completely to a very pale gray/green at one stage. In the end though the original path I went down way back in April 2004 ended up not being what I wanted after all. It was only when I threw myself back into the designing of the new site just after Christmas that I’d finally worked out what I did and didn’t like. I wanted to have a kind of “retro” look that was also quite modern. I’m not sure if I achieved that exactly but I still liked where it was going.

Along with the use of the black background I “paid homage” to the original REG Temple site in other ways as well – retaining all the bright colors for each section of the site and the (almost secret) navigation at the bottom of each side bar. In the top design I’ve kept the idea of the “mystery meat” navigation boxes – by that I mean that you don’t know what the boxes are until you mouse over them and reveal the sections. “Mystery meat” navigation is not my terminology by the way and it would be almost damaging to have that style of navigation in, say, a business site or a site like Google or Yahoo. For an actor’s or a musician’s site though I think it’s perfectly fine. Still, having said that, you can see that I’ve put the name of each section on the buttons for the other three examples. It’s easy enough to do if you have the space to do it. Plus it makes it easier to see at a glance where each button will lead you, rather than have to guess or mouseover.

The third and fourth versions of the new site have top banners that aren’t quite as deep as the other two which, of course, brings the content further up to the top of the page. Of all of the designs though I still like the first one and probably the third one (to the side) the best? I particularly like where the positioning of the search box is at the very top right hand side of the page on the third design. The only problem with it though is that you lose the “ticker” just under the eyes where the latest news is scrolled. No biggie for some, but I kinda liked it. In the second and fourth designs I find the navigation layout a little too “blocky” – especially with the fourth design.

I’m also thinking that I might run some Google advertising on the site because there’s a LOT of traffic that goes through it over the course of a year. It just might be worthwhile in the end and I usually find those Google ads unobtrusive enough anyway. Someone (you know who you are) suggested to me years ago that I do something like that but, back then anyhow, I wanted to keep The Temple ad-free for the most part. Nowadays though I’m thinking a little differently?

Now I’m not sure exactly just when I’ll be able to get around to working on the new site again? I figure I can do a bit here and there, section by section until it’s all finished. Things like the cgi-based sections (the gallery, news and search sections for instance) will have to be done last and will be quite a headache? It might pay for me to set up “test sections” alongside the real ones and develop the templates from there? It’s doable though….and if I have to muck about with them “live” then that’s just how it’s going to be. As long as I remember to keep backups of the original layouts then I should be OK. In the end though I’d have to say that I’m fairly happy with either of the four design layouts – though I still might put it past a “panel” of my learned friends in this field (although I now have a slight problem with one of them now that I think about it?) Anyhow, if anyone out there has an opinion on any of the layouts then let me know through a comment or something? Thanks.