Twenty-eight new adult-swim-style slide sets are ready to be animated. I thought I'd get them laid out as .png files tonight and animated, but I'm still sitting here typing and it's well past one in the morning. I'm thinking it's time to give up for the night. They'll get animated tomorrow.Winamp is going to cry if I play those songs again. I'm not sure how software plans to cry, but I think it will find a way.

I can finally give you the answer to the question which I'm sure was bothering none of you: "What was Amy's super-secret dragon*con graphic design project that she worked on for all of August?" I held off making these photos available until after dragon*con was in full swing, hoping that no one who was meant to be surprised would be unduly surprised by visiting cat.net.

The past two days have been an interesting experience for me. Normally, I am very much a loner when it comes to the creation of websites; my modus operandi is to hole up in on overly-warm computer room with part of a bottle of wine, some music to yowl with, photoshop, and a text editor. Many hours later, either plunging blood sugar or an overwhelming need for sleep will drive me from my computer chair for sleep or sustenance.Once succor is obtained, I take a short brain break, then return for more.

It's axiomatic: no decent auto repair shops are open on Saturdays.

I sent Jeff off to Tuscaloosa early this morning in my car. I got an extra hour or two of sleep, got up, tended to a few things, and talked with Geof. The end result was that he offered to drive out to "the sticks" to bring me takeout Chinese.

Jeff and I have a great amount of fun carping at stupid commercials. One of our favorites to harangue is a Rogaine commercial that says, "Does she want you to use Rogaine? Better ask!"

I sometimes wonder if we were dumb consumers to begin with, or if years and years of idiotic commercials like this have—well—brainwashed us into believing that this kind of thinking is all that we're capable of as adults. My year of doing marketing and PR work led me to believe the latter.

Design ads so that the company's message is conveyed even if the reader only sees it for a second or two. What a self-referential surprise that is! The MTV generation has been inundated with ads practically since birth (after all, no name-brand product was ever too good for baby!), and any advertising that is going to catch their collectively jaded eyes has to be subtly different. Most companies choose to go for flashier—faster, louder, harder, more colorful.

After working outside, the dragons of web design have reared their head again. The dilemma: what to do about standards?

I've gone back and forth about the dichotomy between web standards and aesthetic design so many times that I'm loath to write of it all again. Yet I find myself coming back to it, because there are some aesthetic problems with this site due to my determination to stay standards-compliant.