Things we’re saying and we’ve said.

After a few years away, the call of skating has been heard and obeyed.

I think it was seeing the John Cardiel mini documentary over at VBS that fired up that neural net again. Since then it’s constantly on my mind; videos, ramp plans, even thoughts of building a little concrete park on my property.

All my skate stuff got left behind when we moved up to Washington though so I’ve had to start fresh on things. Well today, a semi-key component arrived… the board! The anticipation and unpacking of the box felt like christmas back in the day. And much like christmas in Utah, where you have to wait out the weather to actually go outside and skate, I now have to wait for all this rain to clear. Once it does though, a trip to the skatepark with my friends pain, fatigue and embarrassment, is definitely on.

UPDATE

Well, that didn’t take long.

Our good buddies Mark and Tieg recently launched a project to showcase the various places people work, called Where We Do What We Do. You can catch a glimpse at where Eric and I both work, and add photos of your own workspace.

Phew! Last weekend we unleashed a new version of Big Cartel. I say “new version” because there were so many additions and refinements, both seen and behind-the-scenes, that it really does feel completely new.

I say “unleashed” because this release was a beast! We’ve severely reprimanded ourselves for straying from our small release philosophy and letting too much time go by and too many things creep in. We think the attention really paid off though and we’re happy with how it turned out. And based on responses so far, the stores are too.

We posted the basic run-down of what was included in the release over at the Big Cartel blog, but If you haven’t seen it yet, sign up or sign in and check it out.

For too long Eric and I have hogged all the fun of working on our little projects. We're spoiled like that, and we love it. But the time has come where we need help. Your help!

Have you ever been filling out a form in one of those fancy-pants "Web 2.0" apps, when you stumble upon a link to something else, perhaps a help article, and when you click it you lose all the info you just filled out? The Informant has, and frankly he's got no stomach for it.

The Informant now lives to prevent others from a similar fate. He watches your forms carefully, and if someone tries to leave the page with unsaved changes… well… let's just say they'll hear about it.

How can I get The Informant on my side?

Download The Informant. Also, he gets most of his strength from Arby Melts and Prototype 1.6+, so be sure to grab those too. After that, just include these JavaScript vigilantes and let them handle the rest:

<script src="prototype.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="informant.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

That's it. The streets of your app are now a little safer.

This day I’d like to reflect and give thanks to Internet Explorer for:

• Reinforcing that patience is a virtue and forgiveness is divine.


• Showing me that the 3rd try is, indeed, not a charm. If you really want something you have to try at least 500 times. Then maybe.


• Encouraging creative thinking. As web designers and developers, we should be forced to discover new solutions. I’m sure that’s what you were thinking.


• Being unique. We need more role models that refuse to conform to silly standards.


• Making each day special. You’ve always got a new surprise up your sleeve to make every moment memorable.

I wish I could express all my feelings for you IE, but I’ll just leave that for our private time together: just you and me IE.

We’re completely excited to announce that Emptees is a SXSW web award finalist in the Community category! We think the people that make up our little community there are indeed award-worthy so we’re honored to be chosen.

Big Cartel was a finalist in the Music category two years ago, but alas, we were beaten out by an Eminem site. We’ll see if we can do a little better this time around.

UPDATE: The People’s Choice Award voting has started, so go vote!

For horror fans, especially us zombiests, it doesn't get much better than a new "Something of the Dead" movie from George A. Romero. Lucky for me, that's exactly what I get at this year's Sundance Film Festival*.

This marks Georgie's fifth zombie flick, and it appears there's already a sequel in the works! I'm getting ahead of myself. Head over to the Diary of the Dead MySpace page and watch the trailer and some behind the scenes video.

*Note: the new Sundance site is a beauty from Airbag and our pal Ryan Sims.

Jason Schwartzman has been one of my favorite actors for years, but only recently did I discover that he’s also in a band, or rather is a band, Coconut Records.

Watch Jason talk about his debut album “Nighttiming”, or better yet buy it in his Big Cartel store! (How cool is that?)

The nice folks at e-commerceguide.com recently interviewed me about Big Cartel. I’m not awesome at interviews, but check it out if you’ve got nothing else going on.