Mark McClellan

At the time of this post, my website looks really odd, plain, even broken. For reasons I do not care to discuss, my blog has lost its look and styling. It is entirely my own fault for running the automatic update provided by my host without backing up my files first. I was doing things a little unorthodox, sharing theme styles and images between Wordpress and PixelPost and well, pretty much everything other than Wordpress got blown away. My theme is still there but because I had moved the CSS and images outside of it, they have up and disappeared like a fart in the wind.

Given the amount of time it took me to get this stupid thing up and looking like I wanted it, I probably should be a lot more upset with myself. However, I was watching Schindler’s List at the time of this little mishap and seeing what the Jews were going through at the hands of the Nazis pretty much put my problems into perspective. I am actually dealing with this loss quite well. I am seeing it as an opportunity to fix shortcuts, clean things up, perhaps even try out a new design. I am also giving up on the Pic Of The Day and ditching PixelPost. I think I’m going to start using my Flickr account more.

I have to quit talking about it now because I fear I may lose my cool if I dwell on it anymore.

This is something I have been meaning to post for a while now but have been reluctant to do so given the ugliness that Election 2008 has brought out of the American people. At this point, I am sure that come November 4th, Senator Barack Obama will become President-elect Obama and while I am not really happy about this, I can honestly say that I hope his presidency does not live up to the pessimistic predictions I have for it in my head.

That said, I wanted to put up some side-by-side comparisons of Obama’s campaign artwork and some classic communist propaganda posters. Obama can laugh off the notion that his policies amount to socialism and I do not care to argue that here. I am posting this to critique something that I do know a little about which is art, style, and particularly design. In my mind, there is no question that Obama is using a style similar to the communists of yesteryear, a style I have dubbed “Obamaganda.” The real question that absolutely fascinates me is why Obama, being a left-of-center politician running for the highest political position in a nation that has had such a major anti-socialist/communist past would be comfortable using this Obamaganda style.

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I am back in the office now awaiting the time when I am asked to recap my experience at UX Week.  Now I am gathering my thoughts and so far, they go something like this:

Mark’s Boss: So, did you see anything interesting at UX Week?
I saw Jury Hahn Dan Albritton from Megaphone do a sweet presentation.

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I am sitting at SFO waiting to catch my plane back home after having spent the week out here in San Francisco attending UX Week.  Attending this conference has actually proven to be the perfect catalyst to jump start my blogging efforts after having laid dormant for so long.  Hopefully once the UX week material dries up I can keep the momentum going to post stuff.

Plane’s here. Time to make like a cow and get in line.