quái đản / qd

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June 4, 2026 / All Work // No Play

This is the first time I've come up for air in about two weeks. This big contract has been a lot of work and my regular job has gotten awful ambitious with my time. I'm pretty exhausted, ngl. I have a grad party and a lecture already booked this weekend. I miss having fun and I hope I have some soon.

Been getting a lot done around the house. Pulled up all the flowerbeds, took down a dead tree, and had a dumpster here to clean out the basement. It doesn't feel like I put much of a dent in the basement but I promise I did.

The car had some work done-- a faulty sensor has been fixed so the car doesn't accidentally go into hill climb mode for no reason now. Jesus. Hoping to install the ladder onto it this weekend. And no idea when this AC is going in but we ball.

Again. Hope to have some fun soon.

Site Updates

Little frills were added to all my major headings and i love them
Little buttons were added to sidebar headings
Added a calendar to the sidebar with callouts to events. Unbelievably helpful somehow.
On pages like my shirt collection, title tags are converted to stylized hover states (which I've never done before. cool)
A CRT filter was added overall to soften every edge on the site
Made a dump of miscellaneous web trinkets
Started my Webamp, got a long way to go

May 27, 2026 / Leaning on a wheel

New layout, again. It's shit like this that got me into playing on the internet in the first place. It's such a forgiving medium. I don't make a mess, I don't spend any money.

I went back to the doubled up sidebar look, there's something very me about it. I also don't see a lot of people do it, which is always an appeal. It's purposely cramped and I like that.

If I learned anything from Neocities, it's that there's nothing wrong with cramped, busy, and boxy. I'm stepping out of my comfort zone with this and it feels good.

I'm using a column-count: 2 property on the main content div that splits up content sort of unpredictably into a masonry layout. It's the unpredictability of the div splitting that gives the site a weird jankiness that I really enjoy.

It's most apparent on pages like Site and actually looks really really cool on single posts.

This design also allows me to have really big, sprawling galleries and a more shelled out about me page that resembles the sort of haphazard sections for these pages I see all over Neocities. I love that.

I'm able to achieve this by making my profile page a tag and nesting posts under that tag. The notes page also looks awesome in this design. Full size image feeds like my Walkblog look like film strips. Also in love with that. Hope this one is a keeper.

Feeling anxious about the big contract. They haven't looked at my estimate/pricing and that's annoying. They also shortened the timeline. Gross. I just want them to sign off on the number, it's all I ask. We'll see.

May 24, 2026 / rained away

TO-DONE:

Added a calendar to the sidebar, there's something about coding a calendar that actually helps me remember things better
Added a Winamp and Windows Media sticker to my pickups page
Added a tshirt collection page
Testing Webamp
Picked up more plants for my front yard but need to find some good weather to plant them in
Turned in the Ford concepts but haven't heard back and won't for a while ;___;
Bought a set of dream folding chairs for my office, pics to come

TO-DO:

~~Start Ford concepts~~
Finalize marketing outline @ work
Beg someone to approve the new research page @ work
Finish the zine + lecture outline
Find all the missing parts of my cyberdeck lol
Substack: How AI sucked at the knowledgebase CMS
Substack: How AI sucked at writing this blog
Introduce my copywriter to my fundraising coordinator
Start grant writing lmaoooo

May 22, 2026 / tell chicago i said hi

FOMO all around for me. Even this new layout was born from missing some of the stupider stuff I did as a kid, like hover effects that fundamentally messed up the design, using extra characters for decoration, and bordering absolutely everything. There's something about borders that really does scream Y2K layout even though I didn't do that often myself. I vaguely remember using bordered tables INSIDE divs and it's crazy how I couldn't do that now if I tried. I barely remember how I made it look right as a kid. Experiment for another day.

This layout is way more nostalgia-based. Low contrast, tiny divs, overly bordered, overly boxed. Header and footer on each post. I actually didn't make things like this often way back when but the whole messy emo collage thing is the last thing I want to see in 2026. The image is a collage of Odd Man Out photos taken by SLC homie Austin.

Also FOMO-ing Chicago rn. Combo Breaker is live and I can't help but think about how happy I was my second year meeting all my friends:

Miss all of you. None of us made it to actual CB this year but maybe we'll love the game again real soon.

<3

May 21, 2026 / real fgc hours

Brother I could not be happier with the progress I've made on my newest contract. I've been working on this thing nonstop so maybe tonight I can finally.... put my laundry away. Really looking forward to this weekend. Worried I may have bitten off more than I could chew with all the activities I have planned for myself. Not a real problem to have. It involves Mac n Cheese and like 12 hours of Street Fighter. Not a real problem to have.

The weather is supposed to be wonderful the entire time. Can't wait.

May 19, 2026 / beep beep

A lot of traffic at my desk today. The 9-5 is motivated and has tons of new projects coming my way. Cool. Phone was also ringing off the hook. Ended up launching an entire site today out of nowhere. So this guy is officially finished:

They already have more coming my way. I'm pretty stoked to be filling out this invoice right now. But that has the wheels turning. I should build something really quickly to update and track my invoices. I know that's probably low-hanging-fruit software but everyone makes you pay for shit like this. I'd love to make it myself instead. I didn't think at any point I'd be juggling this many contract gigs and maybe this is just a weird time. A full-blown app may be jumping the gun a little and the last thing I need is more things to do.

Find myself having to quiet down some mean thoughts today. But it's easier to get through them because I'm busy and having fun with the to-do list these days. Still. At least I'm safe now.

Updates:

I boxed this entire layout in. It's nicer somehow. Can't describe it really.
Boxing the layout in makes the gallery images look a lot better.
Had to shuffle the sidebars around a bit to look nicer with this design
I like that scrollbar off to the side a lot

/ webrings

SEPTEMBER 2026
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