zblog
05.10.02
so where the hell have i been for the last 2 & 1/2 weeks you may be wondering? i do apologize; i hate leaving this site sitting with no updates for that long but my life sort of became consumed by 2 other web sites: steven c. schmidt's new site and thosetothese.com, which is my sister's business. but i'm back now and it's all zero, all the time from here on in (at least until someone else waves money in my face to design their web site). i'm digging right in with the next update, which in a way is going to be like going down memory lane for any longtime fans of our gear: i've decided to bring back a bunch of older, discontinued designs along with a handful of new ones. i've also decided that from now on i'm not going to be as ruthless in cutting pieces out with every update: i'm going to allow the collection to start growing instead of trying to keep it at 90 pieces. there's just too much good art out there, and my hard drive is full of it....since retiring the end of the world journal, i've made a conscious effort to keep my political views out of this site's content. but i really feel that i must comment on the current situation with iraq and the dangerous lunatic and his band of cronies currently hijacking the white house. just what the hell is going on here? a plan to "invade" a country that has no chance of defending itself and that has already seen millions of its citizens (mostly children) killed by over a decade of bombing and butal trade sanctions? a unilateral delaration of war with any country that doesn't toe the u.s. line, world opinion be damned? this has to be some kind of alternate reality gone very, very wrong. i mean if this was a movie i would be laughing my ass off, but it's not & i'm not. we are truly living in the age of hypocrisy folks. please, please do something to get that man and his EVIL henchmen out of office in 2004. otherwise this whole thing is gong to end in a very ugly fashion- i guarantee it. ok, i'll cut myself off now- no more politics. see you soon.
17.09.02
i'd like to apologize to marla suicide for taking so long to get her pictures up. they really are the coolest photos by far we have received yet. also posted a page i've been wanting to put up since the untimely demise of zero's end of the world journal, a music review page i've oh-so-cleverly entitled in review. i thought i'd get something new up for you guys to look at before i started the next art update, which keeps getting pushed back as more artwork trickles in and i struggle to finish steven schmidt's spankin' new website and another site for my sister's business. as well as adding new art i think i may bring back the tank tops and add some new colors of t-shirts, including, possibly, (hold your hats) camoflage shirts in 3 different color combos!! hey, i'm no war-monger, but camo just looks cool. should also have the zero panties up within a month or so....so i've been thinking about officially changing the name of the company from zero to zeroboutique, with our snazzy new "zbq" logo as the new official corporate icon of worship. most people know us as zeroboutique anyway, and i'm tired of telling people that those zero skateboards skull shirts & hats aren't made by us. anyway, it's just a thought, but one i've been pondering more & more recently. let me know what you think about that or anything else. keep it real.......
09.09.02
so besides adding the new banners and uberlinks pages to the site i've also been playing with the navigation in the last little while as you may have noticed. all of the extra pages can now be accessed using the pull-down menu at the top left, and you can now contact us using the cute little envelope button at top right. i also put a bunch of cool "zbq" logos on all of the thumbnail pages as those shirt icons just weren't working. hope you like it. now i will be setting to the task of doing the next art update, which i'm pretty excited about- there are a number of really cool designs and some new artists that will be joining our family. didn't i just do an update, you may be asking? well, yes i did, but since losing my job in july i have had a lot more time on my hands and you are the lucky beneficiary of my newfound abundant slack. still waiting for my unemployment insurance benefits to kick in, but in the meantime i've been getting by ok, and life has never been better! i actually get up earlier than i used to when i was working and get twice as much done in the course of a day as i ever did when i was "gainfully" employed. what's more, quitting pot has been a great relief to my overtaxed nervous system and i haven't felt this serene in years. of course, it's all well and good to be so self-righteous right now, when 6 months ago i was drowning in debt, this company was on the verge of bankruptcy and i had no choice but to work 45 hours a week. so i best shut my big fat lip now before i jinx it.

02.09.02
sorry it's been so long since the last update, it took me a while to get all those new zerokidz pictures ready, then i thought i would do up the hats page. plus i took a 3 day vacation to go up to my mom's house & get the rest of my stuff out of her basement from the old days. been sifting through it, and besides the fact that i'm amazed at the amount of utter junk i saved through the years (like ticket stubs from concerts i barely remember and receipts for things that have long-since been broken or lost), i also find that most of it is just downright embarrassing. to read some of my self-important journal entries from the age of 16 is pretty painful, but also makes me so grateful that i'm not a teenager anymore. kids, it does get better, believe me...another bonus of this trip was that mom (bless her heart) gave me all of her records, most of which had belonged to an old boyfriend, and her record player. so i suddenly found myself with some 4 or 500-odd records from the 60's and 70's, and i've been enjoying them thoroughly ever since. wilson pickett! harry chapin! merle haggard! the beach boys! of course, as part of the deal i had to accept her barry manilow and barbara streisand records as well. if anyone wants them they can have 'em...
18.08.02
it's day 10 of sobriety and i'm feeling pretty good. pot has been a big part of my life for well over 15 years so quitting wasn't the easiest thing to do. but i've quit before and i know it's not impossible. i guess the hardest part is getting over the nicotine withdrawl, since i was big on adding tobacco to my joints, but there's no question that pot is psychologically addictive as well. when you get used to doing certain things while under the influence, it takes a while to reacquaint your brain with doing them straight. anyway, i'm definitely sleeping more soundly and finding that i'm much more productive. i want to stay off of it for a good long stretch, if not permanently. too much of anything is a bad thing (only thing is, now i'm addicted to chocolate ice cream)...anyone ever heard of robert monroe? he wrote some truly fascinating books on the subject of astral travelling, or out-of-body experiences, and i just re-read 2 of them. i've long been interested in the subject but can honestly say that i've only had the experience myself a handful of times. check out the monroe institute web site to read about the ongoing research being conducted on the subject...
07.08.02
so 10 days after losing my job i've finally finished the new visualiser. as usual, it took much longer than expected, but for once i wasn't rushing and i took the time to check everything over as much as possible and make everything look as purty as can be. i'm now about 96-97% happy with this website, which is by far the happiest i've been with anything i've ever created. i hope you like it. anyway, once this is posted it's back to the job hunt, which i have been sorely neglecting, and a noble attempt to quit smoking pot. i'm getting a computer set up at home so i hope to do much more frequent updates. for starters, i've got well over 50 new pictures to put in zerokidz. once i get going on steven schmidt's new site (sorry for the wait steve!!) i will be starting a separate gallery for prints only. this will be much more extensive than the visualiser collection. oh, just you wait...
27.07.02
so i got canned today from my wonderful job. first time i've actually been "let go" from a position in over 12 years. feelings are a mixture of relief, panic, elation, stress and disbelief. i had told my boss, who is this sort of closeted david hasselhoff overgrown rich kid, that i was thinking of leaving after only 2 months spent slaving my ass off helping him make more money while barely supporting my own existence. his reply was that i "better not be giving 2 weeks' notice in the middle of the summer- that just won't do", to which i responded that 2 weeks was pretty standard- i mean how could i find a new job if i can't start for 3 weeks? noone would hire me. anyway, squinty (so named for his constant serious squinting expression of concern) kind of bristled at this, and i think he was genuinely offended that i'd stood up for my rights. this from a guy who considered an unpaid parking ticket a "serious breach of trust" and a "fireable offense". anyway, i felt bad and called him an hour later to say that i'd stay 'til the end of august & not even look for another job, but he seemed hedgy about it all (nervous guy, that squinty). anyway i was surfing on the job bank about 3 days later and saw that squinty mchasselhoff had gone and posted an ad for my job. well, that didn't really surprise me. i figured he'd find someone and give me a week or two's notice to get my act together and really look for something else. no big deal, right? imagine my surprise when i was called into s.m.'s office today at about 3:30 to be informed that it was time we "parted ways". as in, get your stuff and get out. now. so i was supposed to give him 3 weeks' notice, but once he decided it was time for me to leave i was given exactly 10 seconds...unfortunately i wasn't that surprised. squinty and i had really been at odds since the first day i started there. no matter how hard i tried to like the guy, i just couldn't do it. i respected him, felt sorry for his utter lack of people skills, but like him? no way. and after having worked for over 40 different employers in my day, i can honestly say that this is the first time i've had a boss who i genuinely disliked. and the thing is, i gave him every reaon to dislike me as well: it seemed that every time i turned around, i was being reprimanded for doing one thing wrong or another. some of it was justified, some of it not, but suffice to say that it felt like one of those days when everything goes wrong, except that it lasted for over 2 months...even after 15 or so years in the work force, i find it hard to work for other people, especially on a full-time basis. i think it goes against human nature to arise from a peaceful sleep long before the proper amount of rest has been attained day after day into infinity simply, for the most part, to sustain your very existence. i have a strong work ethic when it comes to doing work that i feel has some sort of value to myself or to humanity as a whole, but when i'm essentially producing more garbage and pollution for the sole purpose of making a bunch of shareholders richer, i don't just have a hard time going to work, i have a hard time finding a good reason to live. life is not about slavery! someday we'll be free. that being said, it's almost time to start looking for another job....hey just for fun i've decided to post my blogdex for the first time, since it's now been almost a year since i first started posting these...
10.07.02
got off my sorry ass (or, to be precise, on my sorry ass) to bring you a new contest, art news and of course your beloved zblog tonight, even though all i really want to do is sleep. i was rudely awakened from the nicest dream this morning by the reality of a 9 hour shift staring me in the face. i finally had mary suicide in the bed with the mango and the band-aids and reality had to come along...i love dreaming so much. even though i rarely remember my dreams lately (being as i am a working-class stiff these days), i look so forward to sleep because i know that when it arrives i am free again. it's important to try to go to bed with a good mental attitude because then you'll dream about positive things. don't watch the news or read anything too traumatic right before bed unless you want to feel stressed out in the morning, and try to get those negative thoughts down to a minimum. i think i finally had a truly lucid dream a couple of months ago. i mean i've had these "experiences" before where i felt fully awake and functional (if a little heavy and anxious) in what appeared to be another reality, but this time was different- i felt fully in control and i used that control to do what just about everyone wants to do in their dreams- i flew!! it actually kind of started out as a series of bounces that got bigger and bigger until i was actually flying above the trees on a beautiful summer's day. man what an amazing feeling! i would love to get it back. but trying to have any kind of dream life when you're working 45 hours a week is next to impossible. the alarm clock is the great bane of the dream world...i just found out that someone i know, a man i always looked up to, is more or less a xenophobic racist. it's sad when you get older and most or all of your little illusions about life seem to kind of crumble. to think that i grew up believing we lived in "peaceful times". but that naivite is so important. without illusions, we would never believe that reality could get any better...
02.07.02
another canada day has come and gone and again i wonder what it really means to be canadian. for me, the real canada is still the wide open untamed areas of the country where mankind has yet to leave a permanent mark. there is a great freedom there, a freedom i often worry that we are all too eager to see reined in in exchange for a few dollars. if it only weren't so damn cold here. i'm serious- despite the fact that i grew up in this climate i am SICK OF IT. guess i'm just a little grumpy because we seem to keep getting shortchanged on summers around here in nova scotia. and i'm a summer kind of guy- i like swimming and biking, not hockey and winter carnivals...cd of the week would have to be skratch bastid's first full-length offering. this kid is like 12 or something and he's already joined the 1200 hobos, was politely asked to leave the dj olympics (because he kept winning) and has an incredible knowledge of hip hop's history for a welpling his age. this disc features some bouncin' remixes of tracks by giants like biz markie, krs, dilated peoples and de la soul plus an amazing collaboration with kaleb simmonds, halifax's own junior beatbox maestro. the bastid's skills on the decks are already legendary, and this is the proof in the pudding. check no records for more...i changed the vis this weekend- there are now 3 thumbnail galleries instead of 1. just found that load time was really slow before. i will be tweaking the graphics and a few other things in the weeks to come to make everything as smooth and pleasant as possible. looking at early august for the next update- more beautiful works from peter lewis and curt eichelberger, amongst many others...peace in the valley, kids.........
25.06.02
oh whither june? oh wither, june. i'm not too sure about this whole global warming thing, but i do know that global cooling is in full effect here in nova scotia. while we have had a few nice days lately, up until very recently it was still too cold to wear shorts or leave your window open at night. what gives?!?...a late "thank you" is overdue to my man dol-b for coming up with the sweetass "visualiser" logo i'm now making liberal use of. dol-b is a dj, graf artist, photographer and breakdancer right here in haltown and makes a killer double americano at second cup to boot...i'd like to personally thank mc adeem and dj mf shalem for rocking my face off at the marquee last week...hope you like the new vis, it only took me 2 days to switch everything around. which is a marked improvement- this website has kept me up so much over the last 6 months that my sleep deficit is being refinanced. if you have any problems with vis2.1 please be sure to tell me...oh one more thing before signing off: anyone out there who hasn't caught richard linklater's film waking life is missing not only an incredible motion picture but a potentially life-changing experience. i watched it 2 nights in a row just to try and absorb everything- the first time i've ever done that. if you have any interest whatsoever in anything, please watch it soon......
zblog 12.06.02
wanted to add a whole bunch more stuff to this page tonight but got bogged down in other stuff..so you'll have to chew on a nice new background & splash img and the reassurance that there is more to come in this space. it's all about time, which seems to be shrinking at an exponential rate. if anyone has some cool ideas for the 'ome page lemmie, know, motorhead. ps the contest is being hidden right now cos i haven't had the time to update it. it will (should? might?) be back within a matter of days....
04.06.02
hope you like the new feature on this page "in stock this week." it's something we'd like to see grow and expand depending on the level of interest. the idea is to get rid of shirts we have lying around our shop at a discount and get them to people as fast as possible without costing a fortune. so all "in stock" shirts are shipped out within 24 hours via airmail, meaning that you should get them in 2-3 weeks maximum if you live in north america. does that work for you? meanwhile, you can still custom design your own fabuloso zero shirt in our handy-dandy visualiser. watch for more...people may have gotten the wrong impression from my last posting several days ago. we're not going under or anything, although back in march we came damn close thanks to ccnow. we have bounced back and are in full recovery mode now. i just wanted our many patient customers to know why so many orders were either late arriving or cancelled. we're working towards having all shirts ordered leave our shop within 5 days of order placement..watch for an expanded selection of prints on this site within a month or two. lots of stuff from zero artists and others that you may not have seen. radio free zero and the shirtshop cam are still in the works but temporarily on the back burner. all in due time, my son...
28.05.02
just say no to ccnow...back in early march i eagerly awaited my biweekly payment from ccnow. it's bad enough that ccnow makes their clients wait up to 5 weeks to get paid for some orders, but the folks at good ol' ccnow were about to make that look like a picnic lunch. nearly 5 extra weeks passed before i finally received that payment, along with the march 16th payment which was also quite late. but by that point much of the damage had already been done. pissed-off customers, many many refunds and cancelled orders, suppliers that wanted to kill me when huge shipments had to be turned back. not to mention the fact that i largely rely on income from this operation to help feed myself and my family, and when that is taken away for 5 long weeks, personal belongings start to get sold and a can of beans starts to look like a gourment meal. even though ccnow finally paid me (after insisting the whole time that the check had "just been sent"), it was a drop in the bucket against the mountain of orders that had to be filled by that time. and it might have even been OK if ccnow had just gone back to paying me every 2 weeks like before, but at this point they chose to cut me off entirely and have not sent a payment since. the results of this, as you can imagine, have been devastating to this business. we have had to cancel hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of orders, simply because we don't have the money needed to fill and ship them...luckily for us, we discovered how flexible and accessible the paypal shopping cart system is, and that's helped to buffer the brunt of the blow (billy bob). but this ordeal has helped to underline that we need to change the way we do things here. nuff said for now, but watch for some very significant changes at zeroboutique.com before year's end. piece.
14.05.02
how very microsoft of me to post the all-new fancy-pants visualiser 2.0 before making sure the back end was completely uploaded first. sorry for anyone who may have gone in to the vis & tried to order something but found the cute little shopping cart window had gone blank. woops. everything's all there now, or should be, so you are encouraged to report any suspicious activity at once...there are some really cool new things in the works for this site over the next few weeks and months, including but not limited to: way more pictures of cool cats struttin' our stuff, a weekly zeroboutique shoutcast featuring whatever i've been listening to lately, a "shirtshop cam" so you can watch us hard at work deep in the bowels of the shirt factory, a very likely japanese translation and of course more designs. always with the more designs, this one. i'll also be adding music reviews to this page & other fun stuff to try & keep your interest. i guess to sort of help replace the end of the world journal, which seemed to have lost a lot of interest over the last few issues...well i've got 6 screens to clean & set up & 140 shirts to print, so i guess i'd better do some real work for a change.
12.05.02
back from the dead?! that's what some of you are probably thinking after an unprecedented hiatus from updating this site or even this blog. it's actually been over 5 weeks since this site was updated. a pathetic and inexcusable wait to be sure, but i'm hoping that seeing the all-new visualiser will help make up for the delay. basically, my life has been so consumed by trying to get this thing finished and online over the last several weeks that i haven't had time to even think about taking 5 minutes to update my blog, let alone getting around to such luxuries as sleeping or eating. well, now it's up, and i hope you like it. and i, my friends, must be going to bed. more to follow.....
31.03.02
hey folks, what's happening out there? not a lot to report on this end short of stormy weather and stormier people...due to new "anti-terrorist" legislation in the states, any kind of cross-border cash transfer is now subject to greater scrutiny and delay. as a result, we have had to wait for payments from our credit card processing company, ccnow.com, anywhere from a week to a month later than usual. we are currently awaiting a large payment from ccnow that is almost a month overdue. the net effect of this, aside from bounced checks and angry suppliers, is that it has made getting shirts out of our shop very difficult during the last month, and consequently there are more than a few late orders. i am truly sorry for this and if anyone wants a refund for an order that hasn't been sent yet, just send me your order number and i will at least be able to tell you whether or not it's been sent. but as soon as we get paid from ccnow, all of the orders received will be on their way within 7 to 10 days. in the meantime, we are really trying to encourage people to give paypal a chance. since paypal is also set up in canada (where we are) there are no worries about waiting insane amounts of time for payment, and the result is that we can get orders out much, much quicker. if i haven't repeated myself quite enough already, paypal is only available through the visualiser right now, but i'm going to set to the task of integrating it within the slideshow as well...damn terrists.........
31.03.02
hey folks, what's happening out there? not a lot to report on this end short of stormy weather and stormier people...due to new "anti-terrorist" legislation in the states, any kind of cross-border cash transfer is now subject to greater scrutiny and delay. as a result, we have had to wait for payments from our credit card processing company, ccnow.com, anywhere from a week to a month later than usual. we are currently awaiting a large payment from ccnow that is almost a month overdue. the net effect of this, aside from bounced checks and angry suppliers, is that it has made getting shirts out of our shop very difficult during the last month, and consequently there are more than a few late orders. i am truly sorry for this and if anyone wants a refund for an order that hasn't been sent yet, just send me your order number and i will at least be able to tell you whether or not it's been sent. but as soon as we get paid from ccnow, all of the orders received will be on their way within 7 to 10 days. in the meantime, we are really trying to encourage people to give paypal a chance. since paypal is also set up in canada (where we are) there are no worries about waiting insane amounts of time for payment, and the result is that we can get orders out much, much quicker. if i haven't repeated myself quite enough already, paypal is only available through the visualiser right now, but i'm going to set to the task of integrating it within the slideshow as well...damn terrists.........
march 20th-2002- so lots of cool changes to the site this week. thanks to the way i have the boutique set up, it's much easier to add & remove art on a whim, whereas in the old zero gallery it was a major headache. speaking of which, i will probably be retiring the zero23.com domain name within a few months. as anyone who has been there within the last 6 weeks or so can testify, i haven't even bothered to update the page in forever and most people have finally clued in to the fact that zeroboutique.com is where the action is now. a surprising number of people seem to think we've gone out of business though! no, we just retired an awkward and hard-to-remember domain name for a much catchier one and moved a few things around....what do you think of the slideshow? it's kind of a pity to get rid of the rooms but i just found that everything was far too spread out and hard to figure out set up that way. and with the advent of the new visualiser, it just didn't make sense to have that, 10 different rooms and "that other page" which i never really named. just too confusing...in other medical news, it looks as if zero's end of the world journal is headed for the morgue. dusty mcwebster has informed us that he just doesn't have the time or energy to continue producing a webzine of such high calibre on a semi-continuous basis anymore. so he's gong to cough up one more gem, including the eagerly-anticipated(?) conclusion to his epic thriller test tube messiah and some other goodies. hopefully be seeing that sometime in april, but if you know dusty like i do...ok so now that that is out of the way i'm going to be a busy little canadian beaver and set to the task of getting the mind-numbingly awe-inspiring zero visualiser finished. the next version i post, which i'm guesstimating should be around april 10th or earlier, will contain all of the designs for colored t-shirts. after that it should be a breeze to get it set up with the other shirts and pretty soon this thing will be a monster...
march 13 2002- so, only 6 weeks after i started it, i have a working version of the zero visualiser online. this is something i've been wanting to do for a very long time, so it's a great feeling to finally see it up & ready for prime time. however, this is only the beginning- the version which is online right now is only a "teaser page" containing the first 15 images in the collection, and is for colored t-shirts only. in the spirit of linux and other "open-source" systems, i decided to release evolving versions of the visualiser as it progresses, so you are encouraged to contact me with your constructive words of encouragement, criticism, praise or suggestion. unfortunately vis 1.2 is explorer-compatible only, so all you netscape devotees will either have to bite the bullet and download the latest explorer or wait for the netscape and/or flash version, which could take several months. the teaser page is likely to remain up and unchanged until we do the next art update, which i am starting immediately and should be complete by early april. lots of mind-blowing new stuff waiting in the wings. stay tuned, kidz!!!!
march 3 2002- wow, how time gets away from you. this year is 1/6th over. one sixth!! 16.666%!!!!! i've been keeping very busy, setting up the new zero visualiser. the good news is that it works. the less-than-perfect news is that it's a mountain of work, so although the map is drawn, it's gonna take a while to climb that mountain. i've decided to release the visualiser in a fairly early stage by mid-march, kind of as a "work-in-progress", with only t-shirts for starters. i'll then post more as i work on it so you can watch as it takes form. feedback/praise/criticism will be welcomed and encouraged, as i'm sure the vis will go through many stages of evolution before arriving at the penultimate goal- a shirt printing machine that reads your mind and emotions to automatically produce the t-shirt of your dreams. actually, that's kind of scary...ok the hats, stickers and such are being put off just a little bit longer while we get stock levels up. should be by end of march if'n i c'n get offa my butt. which is mighty sore after sitting here updating this page for the last 4 hours. peace in the valley, chillen.....
feb 13(?) 2002 hope you like the new homepage, i decided to integrate the first 2 pages into one so as to minimize clickage. splash pages are getting a bit tired anyway. i've started working on the new zero visualiser and things are going swimmingly. the only downside is that the first version of the vis will be internet explorer only. blame this on petty squabbling between the nerds who run microsoft and the geeks who run netscape. so i may do a netscape version after the beta visuaiser is up or i may just skip that and do an all-new one in flash. call me old-fashioned, but i find a lot of flash sites just a little bit too slick. don't get me wrong, there are some mind-blowing flash sites out there (praystation comes to mind), but there's something i like about working within the limitations of html...expecting/hoping/dreaming(?) to launch visualiser release 1.0 by mid march or so... zeroblog 06.02.02
well, it's really gone- the zero gallery is no more (except for the one that remains on my hard drive of course). it's kind of sad, but even if i had the time to maintain the gallery and the boutique, i think it's just a little too confusing to have 2 sites with the same designs. besides, i've got bigger fish to fry. i'm taking a little break but my next project, the zero visualiser, should be started within 2 weeks or so. basically, it will make it easy to view any design on any style or color of shirt. this is something that people have been asking for for a long time, and i'm pretty excited about it. still not sure if it's going to be a separate entity from the boutique itself or sort of assimilated within it...a few more exciting things happening in the near future: i just got set up with paypal and so there will be an option to buy shirts using your paypal account in the boutique hopefully within 2 weeks. i am hoping to add a lot more variety of styles and colors in the coming months as well, as i have access to tons of cool stuff now...updated our uberlinks page with a whole slew of cool new links, check it out when you get a chance...the top 5 is, alas, no more as well, as noone was really voting very much and i wanted to keep things streamlined as much as possible in the new boutique. i may bring it back at some point in the future...this blog is now viewable on the boutique, so you don't really need to go to zero23 anymore if you don't want to, except for old-times' sake. bookmark zeroboutique.com when you get a chance. talk to ya soon....
february 1st, 2002-
...i will be adding some new products over the weeks to come and there should be at least 15 or 20 new designs coming down the pipe as well. many of the older designs will be axed by the end of 2002, so the beta boutique is in a way a last hurrah before they're shown the door....zero23 uberlinks, back issues of the end of the world and the custom & wholesale page will remain under zero23.com...
-J
the zero blog
zeroblog 01.02.02
so after nearly a year of shooting my mouth off about this great new idea for a website that i was going to unleash upon the world any day now, it's become a reality at last. the all-new zeroboutique is a living, breathing and (hopefully) functioning entity now, and after nearly 3 months spent slaving away on this thing, it's a little hard to let it go. but of course, i can never let anything go. i will be adding some new products over the weeks to come and there should be at least 15 or 20 new designs coming down the pipe as well. many of the older designs will be axed by the end of 2002, so the beta boutique is in a way a last hurrah before they're shown the door. and whither goest the zero gallery? well, it is true that the gallery's lights are dimming and the doors will be shut soon, but you still have a few days to take one last longing glance by clicking right about here. many of the designs currently featured in the gallery were also sacrificed to make way for new pieces in the boutique, so this is also your last chance to order pstar, duets, scenic new zealand, beware of dog, zoomzoomzoom, burroughs, bahamian, artist and tattooangel, to name a few. this page, uberlinks, back issues of the end of the world and the custom & wholesale page will remain under this domain. the way it's looking now, the gallery itself will be gone by the 5th or 6th of february. so pay your respects while you can.....
zeroblog 02.01.02
welcome to 2002, folks! and ain't it grand. i felt this sense of elation & relief seeing the sun go down for the last time in 2001. i had made it alive through the worst year of my life, and a pretty rotten year for a lot of other people for a lot of reasons. but even looking back now, for every crap thing that happened there were at least 2 great things, so it was far from all bad. and a lot of people say they feel really positive about '02, and i'd have to say i'm one of them. hey, we made it through 2001, we can take anything......a friend of mine in australia had an interesting factoid for me the other day- the editorial for the current issue of the end of the world journal is completely blacked out except for the 2 george bush (jr. & sr.) quotes. this was in a youth hostel, so maybe it was running with an ISP that deletes "sensitive subject matter". or maybe australians aren't getting the whole story from the internet. if anyone else finds that the war on dissent has been blacked out or removed, please let me know.
20.12.01
top 5 updated. ok let me just say that i think i might hate christmas. it's nice to see your family, but all this nonsense about gifts has got to go. there's already way too much stuff in the world (except for cool t-shirts)......webmastering is bad for your health. that's the shocking finding from my own personal research. when i am working on a new site or doing a big update, i become completely obsessed and the rest of my life suffers for it. the main thing is lack of sleep, but i also find myself going days without washing, living on cinnamon rolls and coffee and dreaming about javascript functions . i have been feverishly preparing the all-new zeroboutique and the end is finally within my sight. i'm hoping it will have something for everyone. the main "rooms" contain thumbnails but you can order shirts directly from them. these pages are all non-frames and very light on the javascript for people who don't have compatible browsers or who just don't like frames. but when you click on a thumbnail, you're taken to a new page from which you can access every shirt design, view every thumbnail and shirt picture and access tons of other information, all without leaving the page. this is rather frames-heavy and works best with 800X600 resolution or higher, so it may not be for everyone. but i hope you like it. hoping for a new year's day launch, but if not then shortly after. the zero gallery will continue to exist for a little while longer & may eventually mutate into something else entirely. as you can see, i'm still obsessed.........
december 12th, 2001 haven't written in a while- 'vbeen completely obsessed with this whole zeroboutique project. as usual, it's getting more complex than i could have imagined, but i think the end result is going to be a much more fluid experience than the gallery. and so i guess this is a good time to make the tentative announcement that the zero gallery is headed for the landfill. not to panic- the new boutique will still have all of your favorite designs & artists, but the format is so completely different from the gallery that i felt it best to start fresh with a new name and concept. the gallery will stay online for a few weeks after the boutique is up and running but i harldy have the resources to keep one site updated, let alone 2. zero23.com, however, will live on, in what form i'm not sure. maybe as a place to post art & stuff for free, who knows.....i just saw snow for the first time this winter yesterday. it's december 12th in canada. scary.....christmas deadline is over, folks. we did manage to process most orders received up until a few days ago, but if you want something from this site by christmas , you're out of luck. already taking orders for easter gifts though.....new top 5 sees heartbr8ker thrash her opponents for the top spot, while ralphy boy holds his own at #2 and our man monk shows up out of nowhere just to say hi. hi. bye.
november 25th, 2001- new top 5 pushes undergirl to #2 while giant astronaut invasion takes over this week's top spot. zeroboutique v.1.0 is coming along much faster than anticipated and could be up by mid-december or sooner. watch for the zero visualiser to follow shortly after...... much like the company that created it, the new microsoft explorer 6.0 is large, resource-hungry and bloated. while it does have some neat tricks and is the most universally compatible browser i've seen, it's really only good if you have a fairly recent system (i would reccomend at least 64 MB of RAM). i decided to try the opera browser and was pleasantly surprised by its speed and verstility. not as impressed by the permanent ad which hovers in the toolbar (you need to buy the registered version to get rid of the ad). however, an excellent browser for anyone who edits in straight HTML because of its speediness and ability to open unlimited windows inside the browser itself (as opposed to popping up a whole new window every time like explorer does). hate to admit it, but explorer is still my favorite for surfing and this site is definitely best viewed in at least IE 4 or higher.......only 6 shopping days on this site to order an shirt and be guaranteed it reaches its destination in time for xmas!!
november 21st, 2001- the new end of the world journal has been online for a few days now. all your favorites plus some more holiday goodies from dusty mcwebster & co........getting some really cool responses to this month's contest question (below). keep 'em coming.
december 4, 2001 just spent an hour dumping all of those contest answers onto this page. wow, i might have to start giving away a few shirts a month if this volume can keep up. i saw harry potter last night- if you haven't seen it (and you probably have), i wouldn't waste my hard-earned money on it. not amazing, not horrible, just somewhat forgettable.....oh man my computer broke down last week for 3 whole days and i was on edge. i didn't even own one of these demon boxes 4 years ago and now i can't possibly picture my life without it.....favorite magazine of 2001 & beyond is definitely shift. its premise is "digital culture" but it is a very human, funny and inspiring read. and the web site rocks bum....christmas deadline for shirt orders has passed, sorry. if we have it in stock, maybe, but it doesn't look too good. working feverishly to get a ton of shirts ordered up to december 1st out the door. laterness.
november 25th, 2001- zeroboutique v.1.0 is coming along much faster than anticipated and could be up by mid-december or sooner. watch for the zero visualiser to follow shortly after......
-J