Thank you Pac Man for countless hours of wasted time.

Today if you head over to Google you can check out the Google logo done up in honor of Pac Man's 30th Birthday. But then the classic music starts playing, and that's not all...

YES! It is a working version of Pac Man you can play. Thanks Gooogle!

This isn't a game that I play all the time, but if you really need to find a way to blow an afternoon, and you are all bejewled out, this will help. The Eyeballing Game. Test your skill at a variety of tests to see if you can really see where the exact middle of a line segment is, of finish the other 2 sides of the parallelogram. You play through 3 times and it takes an average.

The next on my list of "time sucks" is the always amazing Bejewled on Facebook. I got my wife hooked on it as well and it is beyond addicting. You can play on your iPod Touch and your iPhone as well. It has your friends listed on the side so you can compete which them as well.

One of the best (or worst) parts is it records all of your scores over 25k points. So you can see how many games you have one over 25k (well over 500 now), 50k, 75k, etc. The bad part abut this, is you can add them all up, and if each game is a minute long, you can figure out how long you have wasted your life on this. I do wish it recorded every game played, since I know I have a lot under 25k, but the last time I checked i had clocked in around 20 solid hours of game time.

This week I kind of thought about posting a bit what I do online when I am not reading design blog, working on projects (both design and art) etc. Kind of a look into my life. Usually if I am slow on posting, it is because these other sites have sort of taken my mind over for a bit.

First up is Slick Deals. If you know me, you know I love good deals and great deals. SD is a forum where everyone goes and post about great deals they have found so others can partake in them. This may seem crazy but I save $1000's a year shopping for good deals online. The only problem with SD is you get hooked and end up spending money you don't need to.

However, in the normal realm of things, and things tht may help you in your professional life, I picked up 3 more years of Popular Photography this weekend for $12 (normal one year price is $14) and I also was able to save $1440 off my Sprint bill (over the next 2 years of my contract), and was also able to do the same Sprint deal for my parents, inlaws, and sister. Not too many design related items come up, but when they do I am on them. This goes along with searching for coupon codes online, I have saved almost everywhere I shop, including MoMA.

Just be careful, you can get hooked easy.

As an update to the incredible Neutraface Video. You can head over to their blog Jark and Mason and download the mp3. Yes, I have downloaded it. Yes, I am listening to it right now.

Do you ever have an experience with a client that just leaves you without words. Something they did or said is just beyond comprehension? Something that leaves you thinking "Holy Sh*t I can't believe they just said/did that!"

That is where Clients from Hell comes in. They describe themselves as A collection of anonymously contributed client horror stories from designers." However, I think that translates if you have anything to do with the design world, your schedule just got booked for the afternoon.

I've included a few of my favorites just from the first page, go check it out and read to your heart's content.

Can you move that logo up 1/63 of an inch?

-------------------------------------------

The art director had flown from the UK to Florida to take a shot of a beautiful old Ford Mustang. Back in the UK, the account manager says the client is unhappy with all the palm tree fronds.

Account Manager: “Couldn’t we just photoshop some of them out?”

Art Director: “Well, it’s not quite as easy as that, because if you look at the shot, there are reflections of the palm fronds in the car’s glistening bodywork. They’ll be harder to remove.”

Account Manager: [Slightly bewildered] ”Yes, but if you remove the actual palm fronds, then the reflection of them will disappear too.”

-------------------------------------------

I received a call from a prospective client yesterday. I knew it was going to be a long conversation when the first word out of her mouth were, “I’m not going to lie, I’m bipolar, but I’m taking medication so I should be able to get through this phone call.”

So after reading all of these. the real question is... Do you ever have the opposite experience? That something so incredibly good happens you can't believe it. Sadly, I think it is weighted Pretty heavily in the opposite direction.

AMAZON

Sorry for the Non-Post here. I got a bit angry at the computer tonight and needed to take a break.

Well not really mad at THE computer, but more mad at Amazon. I am getting tired of them moving their prices up and down. Yes. Sometimes I have benefited for this, but most of the time I do not.

Todays example. I have been watching a present for someone on there. Price is $X usually. So during lunch I took a look at it and it was 1/3 lower. WOO HOO. I shall order tonight I tell myself (because I don't like to order stuff at work). When I get home I go to order it. The price is back to $X. Seriously? What changed? 3 hours. I just feel cheated by this business practice. So I went looking at found it at a different location and shall order it.

I know I will probably shop there in the future, but I am just getting tired of it. I can live with a day to day switch (still though...) but a couple hours is ridiculous.

When you are working on a project are you constantly looking for a few things to make your life easier and your designing faster? It could be anything from web safe areas in cross platform browsers in a PSD file, the actual elements to create different web mockups (all in PSD if you would like), document templates, or information on binding styles. If you are, and I am one of them, Designers Toolbox is for you.

I have known about this site for awhile and finally decided to let you in on my little secret. As I was browsing their site, looking for a few things to show as images, I got extremely mad at myself. A little while ago I was designing a CD cover for a friend. They are one of those things, that if I measure an actual one, somehow, the size still is not right. So I wanted a template. I looked ALL over, finally found one, had to change a bunch of crap, etc. I should have just went to my trusty Designers Toolbox. Because they have one, along with other common DVD booklet styles etc. So mad.

So the lesson learned here, is if you have a great resource, like this one, go to it first and use it. It'll save you a lot of time, effort, and frustration.

This has been around the block a few times, but I recently pulled up the link for a friend of mine.

What would you say to Adobe if you could tell them what you didn't like about their software?

Well you can, you can go to Dear Adobe and type in your gripe. As people view random ones, they can give agree and disagree with the problems you have. The best part is Adobe does actually look at this, and sometimes fixes the problems.

I know I have entered a few, and could probably spend all day putting new ones in.

The new Frostic School of Art website from Western Michigan University (my alma mater) is being featured on NotCot right now. Congratulations to Chris Jones and Max Millermaier on the site and being featured on NotCot. I know both of these guys and it is great to see their work out in the real world and getting noticed on a popular design blog.

Go and check out the site, it is going with the current trend of websites using large scalable video playing behind the menus and information of the site. I have seen a few others out there right now working with this same idea, and I'd say we are guilty too since we just launched a site for a client with the same technology.

Good job guys!