Another year without a nomination for a Webby Award. I’ll try to live with my disappointment. At least I’ve been interviewed by the same website as one of the nominees. And he doesn’t even have pictures of cool old supermarkets on his site…

All the same, it’s time for my occasional rant about web design developments I hate. This is mainly because, once again, I don’t really have anything much to say tonight…

Guaranteed to make me run away from your site in a hurry:

• Any sound file which doesn’t give me the option of whether or not to hear it, especially stupid MIDI files which sound like a little old lady sitting at the organ store in some 1975 shopping mall.
• Numerous multiple Javascript windows which launch all over the place for no other apparent reason than to prove “it’s possible”. There are good reasons for multiple windows only about 15% of the time they’re used, I’ll estimate.
• Use of full-size graphics, re-sized in HTML as “click here” thumbnails. What is the point of thumbnails if you have to download the full-size image anyway? You might as well just skip the thumbnail page and o for a slide show instead.
• Sites designed on Winblows machines using microscopic text which is only legible on other Winblows machines with their big, clunky screen fonts. Particular annoyance: badly-written stylesheets which don’t respond when you try to make the type bigger.
• Sites which tell me which screen resolution (browser, etc.) to use.
• Specific frame or ASP sites which make it all but impossible to bookmark any individual page or piece of information.
• Sites which you can’t navigate without the use of marginally-functional plug-ins, Javascript, or Java applets. Flash too. These technologies are great, but anyone who would make a site totally dependent upon them is way too willing to write off a lot of potential visitors.

Maybe in the next day or two, I’ll do my own awards for good design. And maybe a few for bad design as well. It won’t happen tomorrow, though, because I’ll be earning the rent doing some good design of my own…

Like sheep. The wise people of California have determined that jails are a more effective means of dealing with youth than schools. I expected Prop 22 to pass, but I thought my fellow Californians might have the intelligence to defeat Prop 21. But once again, like sheep, they fell hook, line, and sinker for the ludicrous “anti-crime” idea.

Call something “anti-crime” and I guess it doesn’t matter how misguided it my be, nor whose rights it violates. It doesn’t even matter that the “anti-crime” measure will almost certainly result in the production of MORE hardened criminals. Sending 14-year-olds to jail with murderers generally has that effect.

All in all, it’s got me thinking about getting on the road again. Of course, my new road atlas probably had more to do with it than the election.

I didn’t get to do my annual road trip last year for a number of reasons (money being the biggest of these). I really need to make up for lost time, and I’m already pondering this year’s route, even though I have no idea when Ill be leaving. I’m also pondering how to pay for it, but that’s a whole different story.

So far I’m thinking of crossing Canada in one direction, heading south into Detroit for the return trip, which might include the original route of an old US highway. The following examples come to mind:

• US 40, from San Francisco to Salt Lake City, Denver, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Baltimore, and Atlantic City.
• US 6 Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, Denver, Omaha, Chicago, Cleveland and Providence.
• US 80 from San Diego to Phoenix, and El Paso, and then US 90 to San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, and Jacksonville.

Of course, everything’s subject to change. But now’s the chance to say that your hometown (or heck, even your living room couch) should be part of Planet SOMA US Tour 2000. Find out more: read about 1997 and 1998.

Only 16 days until Krispy Kreme arrives in the Bay Area. I went by the new store in Union City yeaterday and supervised the construction for a few minutes. The “hot doughnuts now” sign is expected to be lit on 21 March, signalling a new world of North Carolina sanity only 30 miles or so from San Francisco. Let’s hope this grand innovatrion eventully makes its way into the city as well.

If we could just come up ith a couple of K&W Cafeterias now, I think California might be infinitely more bearable.

Random thoughts:

• One more “William Shattner Sings the Classic Rock Hits Badly” commercial for Priceline.com might drive me over the edge and cause me to throw my TV through the window of the yuppie slum across the street. There’s “camp” and there’s “just plain stupid”. These spots are dangerously close to the latter.
• I’m actually voluntarily going to the Castro this afternoon. Seems there’s a bit of a demonstration against Prop 22, featuring actual bands and everything. Aside from supporting the cause, it should be fun to see how the fluffy Castro boys react to actual electric guitars in their rainbow-encrusted midst. It should also be nice to think back about a time when the Castro was a social and political center rather than just a shopping center.
• I’m excited that I’ve finally eaten at the Granada Cafe on Mission , satisfying a five-year craving. Dan, Jamie, and I ventured in Friday night. Odd little place: the food was passble, the salad dressing was frightening, and the bar was inspiring. It helped, of course, that there was also a banquet for a large amply-proportioned family in varying degrees of booze-induced disarray. They were definitely a colorful bunch, noisy, but generally good-natured. My only complaint would be that, from the aroma in the bathroom, they had a little problem with aim.
• Happy news of the weekend: I think jeans which actually FIT may be slowly coming back into style, at least among those of legal age. This is quite refreshing after a decade of wondering if guys had suddenly started being born without asses.