Around a year ago, I was supposed to go with my family to Prague. At the last minute my grandmother got very sick, however, and we had to stay at home because we weren’t sure if she would make it.

However, my dear Janne just got back from the very same place. And lookit! She brought a present!

Web design really sucks sometimes. Sometimes I miss the good old days of font tags and rainbow colours and…you know, the oldschool stuff. The stuff that looked hideous and took less effort. Ah, good times!

I don’t get the whole coding thing. I can do simple things with little effort, but the moment it gets much more complicated than a couple br tags and maybe finding a background colour or two, perhaps adding a line or two of css if I am really in the mood…I no speak this language. Most of the time my Japanese is better than my HTML. (Honto! Shinjite! Baka janai!) But in this modern age, what can one do but try, with always a how-to-site or two up in the tabs?

Sometimes I wonder if I should educate myself in some computer thing just for the heck of it, so I would feel I truly understood something I am currently rubbish at.

It is a testament to my frustration that I frequently find myself wanting to just do everything on the webpage in Photoshop. And I don’t just mean buttons and backgrounds. I mean making entire pages. It is actually easier for me to write up all the text in Photoshop and do an image map than to actually code anything. And I really would do it that way, if not for the fact that Lightbox is too shiny to pass by out of laziness. Actually, Lightbox is too shiny to pass by for any reason.

Quick summary of the day’s events: First we redesigned the main site. Then we redesigned it again. Then we dropped the logo. Then we brought it back. Then we argued about the background. Then we made profile boxes, and then there was frustration. Then there was some more frustration and a couple drop-down menus (who, surprisingly enough, cannot drop up) and then I had my third cup of hot chocolate today.

I’m telling you, what I want for Christmas is a book about HTML, CSS, a slave, whatever. Just something that works.

I ended up calling in the big guns - the local all-powerful master of html. So if you read this, Arne Martin, you are awesome and you may demand whatever bribe you like. (As long as it’s not money.) And I swear you weren’t the one I meant in that slave part…*shifty eyes*

On the plus side, I discovered iTunes has a radio thing with classic piano music. Therapeutical stuff. Just the thing I’m going to need for the next couple months.

I just feel the need to complain about art stuff a bit. I don’t really mind this school assignment, but I am a bit stuck. Where the heck can you find letters like R in..stuff? Stuff isn’t shaped like the letter R, because it is not MEANT to be an R. We have the alphabet for that!

Okay, so that’s running around in circles. But still.

This is what I’ve got so far:

And I’m almost there! I just want to have at least these two assignments completed (this and the portfolio site). My site is ready to go. I just really, really want to have this too. So I won’t feel like a complete loser, or something. Sigh.

Well, the title of this first entry seems rather fitting, so we’ll leave it there.

Ahem. This, then, is officially the first post of the Shinyverse.net blog! That’s right, the Blog with da Bling! Now you mention it: not much bling around for now, only this lovely template of an old forest pretty butterflies. Sidsel and I loffed it and we decided that this would be the Shiny Forest resident butterflies.

Now, what can be expected? Several updates of course. Mostly regarding art, art school, thoughts on the creative progress and so on. Sidsel and I hope to build a community for Shinyverse.net, a community for storytellers (visual and literary). I suppose, seeing as we can add users to post here, we can make this a shared blog for everyone.

For now, however, we’re just thinking, dreaming and plotting about this. So, in the meanwhile, Letters from Shinyverse is just for the two of us.