Odd. Very odd. Lemme explain. I got bored one day and started following links off of links and basically was doing some old-school web browsing. I was doing just that, browsing from one site to the next, not looking at content, just “walking by the window”. Then I started getting into blogs and journals, most of which were written by people under the age of 17. I started to worry. Then I started to get jealous. You see, they all had better site layouts than me, better graphics, better java-scripts, better everything. Every single one I can across had a better design. I couldn’t figure it out. Was the next generation born with awesome graphic design skills? I was becoming worried. Then, I started to notice a pattern. All these sites had links to “Cliques” or WebRings like us normal people call them and all of these led back to two or three web design services. Now things were becoming clearer. I was wondering why all of the sites had “celebrity versions” of their layouts. Get this: kids these days, in order to stay with the “trends” in cyberspace, have designed their sites using pictures of celebrities. Web designers caught on, scooped up every celebrity picture they could find and started offering templates for web pages. Lemme give you a few examples. Take a look at these:

SilverSix, Nine to Zero, Queen Clara and Ghost Roads.

I found templates, minus the content for those, scattered across design sites. Now I can rest slightly easier. Sorry to be paranoid, for a split second it looked like I had been outdone by an army of 15 year olds and thats more than enough to send shivers down my spine.

Ok, speaking of design. I’ve been working up idea for my new layout. Look for that coming soon. Some of you will probably get previews so I can get some creative input. I’ll let you know.

Also, my roommate just got back from BestBuy with the new Garbage album. And, well, all I have to say is that they picked a great name for the band. From what I can hear in the other room. That CD blows. Not just a little, but a lot. They were offering Garbage “loop packs” for people to remix, off of the AcidMax site, and I had downloaded a few. It took me all of 2 minutes to realize that there wasn’t a single usable (or good sounding) sample in the whole pack. And from the sounds of it, the CD makes good use of the same crap. My apologies to all those Garbage fans who are “faithful” to the band, but this one sucks. It sucks almost as much as Bad Religion, and that’s a lot. I liked (and own) the first two albums, but I’ll be staying far away from this one.

Alright, I think we’re going to order a pizza tonight… cause I’m starving. Later.