Alright, let's get this blog abloggin':

Google is now hosting Men's Health magazine from 2006-2008.



New to Men's Health? Here's a summary of every issue in the last 40 years:

1. Cover: Black and white photo of an in-shape guy wearing a clingy black shirt set over read Grotesque logo. Single splash of yellow used to draw attention to baited headline.
2. Eat healthy: Almons, beans, spinach, dairy (but not too much), instant oatmeal, eggs (mostly whites), turkey, peanut butter, olive oil (in everything you eat), whole grains (in every other thing you eat), whey protein powder (soy is bad for men) and raspberries.
3. Workout: Progressive overload (incrementally increased weight for 5 sets of decreasing reps), German Volume Training (10 sets of 10 reps to failure) or circuit training.
4. Something: causes cancer
5. Women: like mature guys that aren't married to their jobs, are spontaneous, healthy and wear the same deodorant as their dad (Old Spice).
6. Toys: you should buy them. Typically fancy cars, new running shoes and whatever Apple puts out.

Men's Health is a very comforting read—it's filled with random, highlighted facts and overflowing with health tips—it reminds me of home in over-zealously-healthy Santa Cruz.

Next best thing?

The Sky planter. I swear I had this idea last year, and here it is! Now I want an herb garden suspended from my ceiling.

Here's all the stuff I was working on before I hacked into my Palm Pre:

• RequestWeek.com
• The requests on California Cow
• ArtPiles branding
• A Twitter APP done in AJAX (posting, not reading...seems like nobody has done it yet?)
• Supreme Somalie Fighters Seven: a fighting game about wine folk
• My retrovirus that selectively kills cancer cells

But all of that is on hold now that I've hacked my Palm Pre. Everything on the device is done in HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. Even the camera, mp3 player and the phone dialer. I'm hours away from re-skinning my phone in leather and chrome.

Sorry for the weeeird photo, but it seems to be the only one of me at the same angle as my large-nosed twin.

Looks like I need to grow out my hair!

BiggerCity has one of the worst interfaces for messaging. Here's my typical inbox routine:

1. Load up my inbox
2. Click to open a message
3. Okay. I've read the message. Time to respond. Click to open the response page.
4. Wait. I want to see what this guy looks like...click to open their profile
5. Okay. Only one pic on this page. Click to their gallery.
6. In the gallery. Click to see a thumbnail.
7. Lame photo. Let's look at another thumbnail.
8. Okay. Time to reply.
9. Message sent.

Such a pain. So I whipped up this little bookmarklet to streamline the message process. Just drag the one labeled "BiggerCity Messages" to your toolbar and click it when you're browsing BiggerCity.com. New messages are displayed in the reply box while the users' photos are cleanly displayed at the right of the page. Clicking an image loads the bigger size inline. No fuss.

Click here for my bookmarklets, and enjoy!

Just finished re-reading Cat's Cradle for, like, the millionth time. Really need something new for my kindle...

I take this pile of stuff twice a day—actual size.

If you follow my twitter, you might have read that I have high cholesterol. The "healthy" range is 0-200 (anything over 180 is "high") and I'm 230 (putting me "at risk"). Totally took me by surprises since I'm (1) obsessively healthy, (2) compulsively active and (3) make twinks jealous with my lithe figure. Turns out it runs in my family. On both sides.

My doctor is giving me 3 months to lower it before he starts me on a barrage of medications to control it. Which means I've become a vegetarian. This is conveniently timed during my cutting phase, otherwise I'd throw a fit because it's impossible to gain weight as a vegetarian.

I thought going vegi would be tough, but it's pretty much eating the food I was raised on: beans, lentils, brown rice, swiss-chard, bok choy, green things, salmon (I'm allowing myself fish because it's an anti-cholesterol food)...it's what my mom cooks all the time. The nostalgia of this diet is comforting and keeps me from missing beef...and lamb...and cheese.


On a lighter note: I went to Flash Dance with my friend Bill tonight. It's an 80's themed dance, so I broke out the short-shorts and the tight neon-metallic shirt and the sweat bands:

Probably my favourite photo of myself ever.

My Request Week is coming along quite nicely...four fun doodles, ten to go. I'm a little rusty at drawing, so I'm more relaxed and taking the time to experiment. The trick is to not spend a lot of time on them, but to be as creative with it as I can...

Update: someone used a link in their request, so I had to delete it. That means there is a lot open. Someone, quick, make something fun and lengthy to draw :D

My monthly request week is making a return—tell everyone!

To help me get inspired and start drawing again, I'll be offering 14 free requests that I'll attempt to sketch out. Hopefully I'll stick to it this time!

Yesterday I asked Twitter to help me get a picture of God sitting behind a desk with the title "Creative Director", and Jupi won.

I thought it was funny because Creationists believe God created everything, so I think his real title is Creative Director. Anyway. I thought it was funny. You aren't laughing...

Everyone: Go check out Jupi's art because she is so talented and I wake up every morning seething with jealousy over how good she is at art.

Anyway, you would want to use HTML5's SQLite when targeting browsers that support it (eg, iPhone web applications like Gmail) and the Flash/JS for everyone else.

For $573.75 (+utilities) a month you get:

• A striking view of Daly City from your 12' x 12' room.
• Spacious sliding closet for all your clothes, mini refrigerators and wine.
• A parking spot!!!
• THREE awesome roommates:
  
  • Dylan (me): a Creative Director in San Francisco.  Dylan has a thriving window-sill herb garden and all 150 Pokemon.
  • Phil: Totally awesome art student studying at the <i>Art Institute of San Francisco</i> majoring in game art design.  Phil enjoys a plethora of video games and has a well stocked Wii, Xbox360 and DS.
  • Brian: An Art Institute alumni, Brian just finished an internship with some big name game studio.  He plays a lot of games too.
• A gas-range stove!
• A Backyard with citrus plant!
• We're conveniently located near the Colma Bart station.

Call Dylan (me) if you're interested:
831.295.3824

Twitter has trimmed my blogging style into 140-character snippets.

Blogging now feels gluttonous.


Anyway...it's almost summer. That means Pride, Hairrison, Dore Alley, Folsom Street Fair, Lazy Bear weekend; wonderful gay events that make me hyper body conscious. Either I'm too small (bear events) or I don't have abs (everything else).

This year, I want abs. I've already lost 10lbs just thinking about being skinny (no, really) and am down to 200lbs. 10lbs more and I'll be in ab-territory.


As soon as all this Summer-ab-swimsuit nonsense is over, I'm doubling my bulking efforts. I just discovered that my diet for the last two years was missing carbohydrates, and as soon as I increase my carb intake I gained 10lbs in a week.

Carbs! Who knew?!

I really need to start blogging about personal stuff again. Otherwise, none of you would know that I was in Vegas this past weekend, and how I got to eat at Tom Collicio's Craft Steakhouse (he uses SWITCH BLADES for steak knives! AMAZING!) and how drunk I was after a yard of margarita.

But, that's all pretty boring. The highlight of my Vegas trip was this Missed Connections ad that one of my friends found. It's totally me: I have a buzzed hair cut, I was flying first class (drinking a mojito with my pinky out, legs crossed as the entire plane boarded) and my eyebrows were hella fierce.

The only suspicious thing about this is how he thinks I'm Asian, when I'm clearly Filipino/Dutch because everyone thinks I'm some kind of Mexican.

Also, I don't think I should respond because I don't remember the guy...I was so drunk off of free First-Class-Mojitos trying to forget all the money I lost in Vegas.

But I can’t… (quiet sobbing)… I can’t. (whispered) And I never will.

-From Best Week Ever

Oh god. It's got a little screen for customizing your shortcuts...and it's so pretty.

It's kind of difficult to express the importance of usability because things that are seamlessly usable are transparent in their ease of use. Like, the light switch; it only takes a second to reach success, and the simplicity makes it pretty satisfying:

U = Su*(Sa/T)
U = 1*(1/1)
U = 1

We can increase the usability of the light switch by (1) decreasing the time it takes to use it, and (2) increasing the satisfaction achieved by using it. So, like, the perfect light switch could anticipate our need for light, and give me a loving boyfriend with blond eyelashes. I would give that light switch a usability of 100.