J.BradfordDillon

So the web is a very opinionated place. Lots of people out there debating and arguing things from the mundane to the highly important. Mostly people like to talk about how much they hate things. Protests, petitions, polls, and pretension.

I’m generally not one to follow the herd. I like a lot of things that others feel very passionately against. Here are a few examples, in no particular order.

Adobe’s CS3 Icons

Not a widely argued topic, but one that people feel strongly about, nonetheless. I love the new icons. The play on the elemental table, the association of an application with a specific color in the mind’s eye, the rainbow of apps in the dock, it all comes together to make my desktop just a little more beautiful, and a little more sophisticated looking. I dig.

Comic Sans

Ok, stop yelling. This one’s a little complicated. I hate this typeface for all the same reasons you do, but I love it for one very special and personal reason. Every single time I see that amateurish, childish, and almost unintelligent looking font, my mind floods with warm fuzzies about Sunday mornings, running down the driveway to pick up the paper, and hunting through the Macy’s and Wal Mart ads to find the funnies. “But Brad, Comic Sans doesn’t ACTUALLY look like anyone’s handwriting in the comics!” Not true my friend. Go take another look at Foxtrot and Garfield. Very similar, if you ask me.

Video on Flickr

By now we’ve all heard about Flickr’s new video features. And by now we’ve all seen the crappy protest pictures (and the few more creative ones) crying out for a stop to the madness. Well, I think the protesters are just a little short-sighted. Their complaints are that Flickr will become YouTube, and be flooded with useless videos of lonely suicidal girls, children playing Through the Fire and the Flames on expert, and (gasp) dramatic prairie dogs. Well, the thing these people need to remember is that 90 seconds isn’t enough time to be lonely, and Dragonforce songs are like 7-8 minutes apiece, and ok you MIGHT get some prairie dogs, but who would REALLY complain about that?

But wait, it gets better, the Flickr video feature is only open to Pro account holders. Not many people are going to pay $25 to post 90 seconds of their crappy band’s first gig on Flickr when YouTube is already firmly positioned for that kind of thing.

Heavy Music

This is more of a personal matter than a real online debate. I’ve noticed over the last couple of years that my colleagues in the web development and design communities all enjoy predominantly soft, suppressed music, usually of a techno or trance variety. Some subscribe to the 80’s, and some partake of the more drum ‘n’ bass subgenre, but most of the music I hear here in the studio and on various Muxtapes consists of very quiet and soft music, at the very least when compared to my own tastes.

I came into my own during the height of a relatively short-lived underground wave of what came to be known as ‘hardcore’ music. Spanning dozens of subgenres from rapcore all the way to post-hardcore, the dominant ingredient in the music I listen to is passion. There are other things involved, like screaming and loud guitars and pounding rhythms, but the passion is what gets me. Don’t get the wrong idea, though. I listen to a lot of stuff you probably like as well.

Adobe Dreamweaver

Always used it, always will. When I started on it (7 years ago?), like many others, I used the hated WYSIWYG editing mode, and made a lot of mistakes. It’s ok though, the websites I was making back then were really crappy, so it evens out.

Today I still use it every single day. I use it smarter, faster, and more efficiently. Code view all the way. I’ve tried your BBEdit, your CSSEdit, your TextPad, what have you. Don’t need ‘em. You can have ‘em. I’ve got my trusty little green buddy by my side, and I don’t expect to ditch him any time soon.

That’s it for now. If I think of any others I’ll add them. Also, keep your eyes peeled for “Things I Don’t Like (That Others Do)”. That one should be interesting.