I’ve mentioned Joe’s girlfriend, Sammy, before. She belongs to Leigh, and every now and then we get the two doggies together for a date. Well last week a day after one of these dates, Steve noticed that if he said “girlfriend” Joe tilted his head and perked up his ears. You can say “girl” or you can say “friend” and he doesn’t do it, nor does he do it for “Sammy”. But apparently we’ve said the word “girlfriend” enough that he picked up on it and associates it with happiness – way too cute!

On my old site I had this poll about Elvis and the Beatles. Basically, who would you chose? I got a lot of feedback on it and if I recall correctly, the Beatles were winning by a land slide. I raise this question based on Mia Wallace’s comments in Pulp Fiction. She said something to the effect that you are a fan of one or the other and it says a lot about who you are. I tend to agree

So let’s have at it, what type of person are you?

I went to the Future of Web Apps conference last week at the Palace of Fine Arts. I would say that maybe half of the speakers talked about the future of web apps. The other half talked about their companies and how you too can be a successful web 2.0 company that eventually gets bought by some larger company. I wasn’t really interested in the entrepreneurial aspect of it all.

I gathered that the future of the web will focus on identity, having one ID to log in all over the web; moving back towards desktop applications, while incorporating the online versions; and more/less community (there were split feelings on this one). I personally think that community-based sites are not going away, they’re just going to keep developing and evolving into new things.

Some of the presenters would push their own sites, but some of them would also list other web 2.0 sites as examples to illustrate a point. Here are sites that I found to be pretty cool, some of them are definitely worth checking out.

Techy Stuff:

• Digg Labs – great experiments for showing data
• Sxore – identity and reputation in blogging
• Microformats – if you haven’t heard about this yet, check it out
• MyBlogLog – blog stats, I’m signed up here, and addicted
• Measure Map – stats for your blog
• Visual Complexity – different and creative ways of showing data

Communities and Fluff:

• Last.fm – music community (I’m on here too)
• Popsugar – celebrity community site
• Amateur Illustrator – illustration community site
• Cute Overload – oh, I am so addicted to this one
• Hype Machine – discover new music
• Teachade – teacher community
• FeelingBullish.com – building reputations for investors

Useful:

• Kayak – trip planning
• Fly Spy – has some limitations at the moment, but has potential
• Fare Cast – EXCELLENT site, tells you when to buy your plane tickets
• Trip Hub – trip planning

Overall the conference was definitely worth the cheap admission price.

I just added three more spot illustrations to my portfolio, all in watercolors. Two of them are intended for music articles: Arrow and Monitor. The third spot is for a computer related subject, like computer addiction or stress from looking at the monitor way too long – Computer Head.

Just added a portrait of Steve to my portfolio. I painted it for his dad’s 60th birthday. I don’t think he liked it because I couldn’t really read his reaction, which leads me to believe that it was a negative response. I think it’s because of my odd color choices.

I should also mention that this is number 6 out of 6 paintings. What I discovered is that the more I painted him, the better they got. And I really started to get a handle on the technique – making the water and color go where I wanted them too. In the end I learned that doing a watercolor painting several times may be the way to go every time. That way I become more familiar with the subject, I figure out where I want the paint to go, and overall I get a much more developed and “finished” piece.

Congratulations to Charles Henry for correctly guessing last months tough logo, Citibank! Make sure you give the September logo a try