Anyways, here’s the results. Still rough, and I’m certainly no professional. But it’s fun and that’s really what it’s about in the end.

I’m not particularly enamored by Eliza Dushku, and my fear going into the series was that Dollhouse would be an eye-candy fest with no real substance. In fact, I thought this might be another Charmed in the making. Not my style.

However, Joss Whedon does wonders for his female leads, and Echo is no different. For all the memory and personalty wiping that Echo (Dushku’s character) goes through, she has this suppressed heroine quality that very slowly rises to the surface with each new conflict she faces. She strikes me as a cross between Buffy (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and River (of Firefly) – unaware of her own strength while being the super hero. Dushku does a good job pulling the character off; she’s believable in the different personalities her character has to take on, and although I do get a little of the “bratty bitch” syndrome from her it’s not nearly as bad as Jessica Alba (from Dark Angel). In fact I can see this brattiness transforming into one of her character’s strengths if it doesn’t overshadow her interactions with other characters.

Three episodes in to the series and we’ve already seen a rebirth in Echo who seems to be starting to realize that there is more to her employers, and to herself. The FBI agent Paul Ballard (played by Tahmoh Penikett of Battlestar Galactica fame) hides his own dark history, albeit seemingly cliche at this point of the series, while striving to uncover the secrets of the Dollhouse. And with the mystery Alpha running around as both hunter and hunted there’s a lot of plot to be uncovered.

Although I started as a skeptic, I am now intrigued by the show and am willing to call myself a supporter. I can see that as the show evolves the characters will become deeper and the plot will remain entertaining as Joss Whedon has a knack of doing.

I heard people talk of this grand social tool so unlike the others yet at the same time so much like them that looked at it. And stared. Tried a few words for a moment, ultimately rejecting them as incomplete, and never able to understand.

“So, it’s kinda like a discussion, but one way? And all my grand thoughts have got to fit into those tiny 140 characters? But, but…how’s this a discussion?”

And so for months I was Twitterless; I was one of the unTweeted; destined to remain deTwitterfied. Eventually I learned to be happy; I had a place, and that place just did not Tweet.

But like any card-carrying member of the iFuture I read blogs and eNotes on that iNet thinger. One day I read a blog about a company. And that company was able to connect with it’s customers with Twitter. Intrigued, I read past the first few nanobytes fo the blog entry. As I read, the gamma on my screen became brighter and brighter until I Knew. I Understood. I Saw The Meaning.

Twitter allows you — well rather me since I really was never that concerned with whether or not you were on Twitter — to participate in just those bits of the conversation…sorry, the Conversation (captial “C”)…that I choose to be of a part. I like computery things, so I follow Dell and from time to time Dell will tell me of a deal they have with a link to discover more. Cool. I also can have Barack Obama tell me just what he’s doing, and I can follow his links. I can wait patiently for Joss Whedon to place some nugget of Jossness into the timeline. There’s this whole Conversation going on around me, and I get to choose what bit of it I’m in. And sometimes I can add to it…but only for those who wish to hear it.

So I guess now I am a Twitterzen. In fact, I think I’ll Tweet about this.

“Wolf.”

“This,” she says again, pointing at the page.

“Wolf,” I sigh.

“This!”

“Wolf!”

“This?”

“Belle. She’s being attacked by those three wolves. She’s also the little trollop scamming on the Beast.”

“Un-huh.”

Beth chortles, verbally exhibiting her unacceptance of my artistic license.

“Well, that’s what you get for telling her I have boobies,” I retort.

“No honey, squid. Do you want to watch the squid with Daddy?”

“Un-huh.”

A squid squishes by the television, a long arrow of sea blue flesh.

“Dolphin!”

“Squid, honey. That’s called a squid. Can you say squid?”

“Un-huh.”

More squid slosh by again, frenzy for food. Suddenly tentacles with spikes slam into the camera, suckers seemingly plastered onto the TV.

“Octopus!”

Sigh. “Yes honey, octopus.”

They form a line before my father,
these same people in bright clothes last
October lined up after my sister’s wedding, and ask
my father how he feels, like family media moguls.
Some cry and I wonder if they cry
for Grandpa or my Dad or themselves.

I hear muttered sniffles around me as they take
their seats in the middle of the cold room,
cold best for preserving the dead
flowers arranged above my grandfather.
These people then relax, like last Christmas Eve
at Grandpa’s house in Malden where martini
smiles spread on everyone’s face while voices buzz
with the latest news of Betty and John’s new house.
Laughs ring out, to me nails on a blackboard
and horribly misplaced in this dim lit room,
as someone relates a story about how old
Mike stowed away to America with toy snakes
to scare the immigration officers.
“Poor Mike, he’s with Francis now” they say
to ease their own souls.
I do not understand these people
how they mix death and life
like gin and vermouth; to laugh
in someone’s death is a sin
in my atheist mind,

so I stay staunch. I will not give up my vigil
for my grandfather, I will not smile
nor talk nor cry. I will respect that man who gave
my father life, who voicelessly caressed the old
tired skin of a wife who could no longer recognize
him. I will not forget him like all these
people around me must have, talking about
dinner tomorrow and next summer’s vacation.
I will stand here and give respect for them, even
though they laugh when they should
cry.

I walk to my father and see the redness grow
around his eyes, his swollen damp nose.
“I miss him Dad.”
He takes my hand and looks
into me. Two days ago I saw him
cry for the first time in my life.

In memory Michael Pifalo, 1901-1993

Alex Trabeck is introducing the contestants. Before Alex it was the news about a murder and an accident on the interstate and a battle somewhere over there where apparently a lot of people died. The newswoman, the one who wears too much make-up, said the fighting was the worst since it all started. I guess that makes sense. The only good news was that the rain was going to end tonight.

Every once in a while the man at the bar would look up, but mostly he would stare into his glass, which I just now replaced with another whiskey and water, and mumble. I think he was talking to himself but to me it sounded like mumbling.

I try to talk to all of my customers ever since John told me that he never saw any people walk into a bar, just problems. He said that he likes to talk about his problems, and so don’t people in bars, at least always after they have drunk a little. John told me that problems walk in, but people walk out. John minored in philosophy so he gets like that sometimes.

I asked the man at the bar where he was from and he said “away.” Just like that too. He didn’t look up when he answered, so I guess he was expecting me to ask him. I didn’t say anything else immediately, and soon he raised his head to stare at me. He had a far away look in his eyes, as if he was already a long distance away from the bar.

“Thanks.”

“Uh, sure.” I started to wipe down the dry counter. “So, you need anything else?”

“Time.”

I gave a little laugh, trying to be non-committal without the rudeness. “Yeah, don’t we all, huh?” The man sighed. Slowly he stood, wobbled a bit and steadied himself by grabbing the seat of the bar stool.

“You don’t get it.” He then walked, three steps-pause, three steps-pause, and left the bar.

“Who was that?” John asked coming behind the counter carrying a rack of mostly clean glasses.

“Just some man who left with a problem.”

Finally, he flicked his half-spent cigarette onto the sidewalk and faced the doors. A woman exited the bank and joined him. Comfortable at last, I began to read my newspaper in earnest.

Rules and Regs

First, some ground rules. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I’m not even trying to convince you of anything. I am, though, attempting to breach some sort of understanding between when and why creativity is sehr important, and when accessibility (useability, standardability, whatever) rises supreme. I suspect at this point in my thinking that both needs (the needs of aw pretty and the needs of yup, that’s what I want to click on) can be satisfied simply through understanding.

The Skeleton in the Closet

Disclaimer: I love standards. I love predicable rules with predictable results. I come from a background of development, not design. My experience with Photoshop and the Gimp is taking the designer comp and rendering out the best approximation of html and css code. I’m much more comfortable using Textpad than Dreamweaver. I’m trying to use more standards; take a look at my front page and you can see that I’m following standards as best as I can.

I create web pages for a software/hardware manufacturer who sells to businesses and consumers. But these customers tend to be pretty cool folks; after all they work anywhere from Hollywood to WCVB and all the nooks in between. They tend to gather at our community, in case you’re interested.

Why Design?

I think it’s important to understand why we use design. Sure, this seems common sense, but I suspect many of us lose sight as to why we’re trying to leverage design as a tool to reach an end.

• Entice – we want to interest and entice the visitors to follow some course of action (watch to learn from a video or flash piece, read to make a decision of an action – clicking a link most likely)
• Focus – we want to somehow control where the visitors will focus, or at least the order in which they will focus. Some folk look fast and then either do an action or leave, some other folk will take a few more seconds to look for a bit and then follow a course
• Comfort – we want to immediately let the visitors feel comfortable with the web page, through consistent brand elements, recognizable design features, etc.

I’m sure there is more to the basis of design than what I’m mentioning, but as I stated earlier this is a start. I expect to evolve my own thinking as I articulate.

Why Standards?

Allowing as many visitors as possible in your intended audience to hear your message allows for more people to take the desired course of action. For some pages this could directly relate to revenue. After all, if only 80% of the people going to a page and intending to give you money for a product can actually complete the online order, then technically you’re losing 20% revenue! An extreme example, of course, but ask any sales guy what percentage of sales they would be comfortable with throwing into the trash.

• Access – It’s math. The more people who can hear your message increases the amount of people who take the action you desire.
• Browser support – I can’t think of any browser that isn’t trying to follow standards. Sure, not all browsers have the same degree of standards compliance, but they attempt to follow as best as they can. Simple reason is that people want to be able to go to any site of their choosing with the browser of their choice and do whatever it is they do on those sites. If their browser doesn’t work on 25% of the sites (random number) then they very well might start using a different browser.
• SEO – ah, the old search engine optimization excuse. It’s probably the one element in designing for accessibility that most people don’t understand – myself included. Sure, it makes sense that if you put all the important bits of the web page as high up into the file as possible, and you keep repeating the same keywords in the text then search engines will rank your page higher than if you didn’t. But no one has yet been able to clearly state to what degree of importance each seo tactic is for the rankings, since no search engine will give out it’s formula. The best method I have found to leverage decent seo is to presume that your web page is being read text-only. Strip out as much code as possible and make it so that the visitor can read the text uninterrupted from html bits and chances are not only are you close to Section 508 compliance (government standards) but you are also at the very least not hurting your search rankings.

So now what?

Well, now I’m going to stop here and let this sink in for a bit. The next step would be to start applying some real virtual world examples and to look for commonalities. Trends. I should probably define more the elements of each contender (what makes up design and the appearance of creativity, and what makes up slick, easy to use and read code). I’m purposely going to avoid javascript from this discussion, as javascript has evolved into more than just a developers tool; AJAX and js libraries are being used more and more to solve, or even extend, design complexities. But that’s another blog post of it’s own.

As always, thanks for your time. Remember, never code alone.