I didn't think so. Well, in case anyone does show up I just wanted to let you you all know that I've released an early version of what I'm calling "The Wishlist". The elevator pitch is this... basically it's a simple group site where you can create a wishlist for yourself, and/or more importantly create a wishlist group of friends or family who can all see one another's wishlists. I built it to fill a resounding need felt in my own family to have a way to all share gift ideas. I'd love to get your feedback.

So, if you get a chance, check it out.

• The Wishlist

• So, have you seen the price of healthcare lately? Ouch. So what's up with that? Do you have an actual plan or are we pretty much in for 8 to 10 more years of jabbering on about it with no real progress. Just throwin' that out there.

• Speaking of money... what are the odds I could interest you all in say a year or two of living without a consistent income, just barely getting by, and now and then having to choose between buying food for your kids and buying gas for your car. Seriously. I highly recommend it especially since you claim to be a public servant and all. Might as well understand the public you server.

• Speaking of the public -- and elections. Does it ever bother you how much money goes into funding a campaign. Now, I come from a marketing background so I understand why this happens. Have you considered maybe a cap of say... $5000, that each candidate. That way you'd actually have to use that money wisely. Ok, so maybe 5K is a little extreme but my point is there are people in this world who don't get to eat. And you're running through money like it grows in the bushes around your house or something.

• Do I have anything positive to say, you ask? Not really. Not today.

That's it for now.

Wait. Don't leave.

Ok, I know there are few things more dull and uninviting than a good discussion of constitutional and social law, but seriously the holding without charge of those who we claim are terrorists is a serious issue. For a good overview of the history of Habious corpus I'm sure there are many great resources online.

A short introduction to it's history goes like this:

• As far back as the mid 1200's King Henry II decides he doesn't like somebody, or a group of somebodies and locks them up for no appearant reason. He can do that cause he's the king, right? Wrong.
• Enter the writ of Habeas Corpus, or loosely translated: "Present the body of the prisoner". Basically, bring us the folks you just locked up and tell us why you're locking them up and the justice system will make a judgment as to whether or not you indeed can hold these people in custody. No evidence, no custody.

So, this rule has stuck around since then in many forms, and of course throughout history those in power have tried to weasel their way around it. I mean it could be quite an inconvenience to actually have to show some proof when you want to lock up say a political dissident, or someone you just don't care to look at. However, every time the ruling elite attempted to displace this simple writ the common people would rise up and command that this elemental right be upheld.

Ok, so maybe that's a little overblown. And maybe the common people didn't always care unless it was one of their common people under detainment, but the fact is this right has been held up as a basic human judicial right for nearly a thousand years.

On the one hand this right presents a few problems, for example let's say an entire large group of people claim they plan to commit a terrible crime, yet you can't determine which in the group are really claiming this and which just happen to be born into this group and really have no interest in taking part in such unlawful acts. When governments get paranoid about such things they decide their best move is to just lock em all up (see: Japanese internment camps during World War II for example). No evidence really, but you'd sure hate to be the one in power when members of this group strike and all you can say for yourself is "well, we weren't really sure if they meant it".

On the other hand, denial of this basic right opens a Pandora's box of social and ethical problems. Holding a person without charge indefinitely is wrong and feels wrong at the very core of our freedom-loving-American mentality. And you don't even have to be American to understand this. We stole the idea from Britain, who I'm sure stole the idea from the French or the Romans or somebody. In other words, this right to freedom unless some evidence against you is presented stands as a pretty basic human right.

So, first I'd recommend you give a listen to this recent episode of This American Life and ask yourself what's really going on here. Are we standing once again at the door of a major ethical and judicial misstep? Or more likely, has our government already made that misstep and now even an attempt to backtrack will leave us with serious mud on our face?

It's a serious issue we don't consider in our daily lives that much, but I promise you that if you're walking down the street one day and a police car pulls up and they toss you in the back for no reason, and you wake up hot and sweating on the floor of a dark jail cell in God knows where, you my friend will become a serious advocate for this ancient British writ known as Habeas Corpus... so show us the body of evidence against these so-called terrorists being held without cause and I'll shut up.

I think what you'll hear in the radio episode will both startle and frustrate you. It did me, and I'm not easily frustrated.

That's it for now.

So, just so you know and maybe to give you some sort of satisfaction I've compiled a complete list of all the people who may have seen your butchery of my site in the past few months:

• My mom. Yeah, she occasionally visits the site so she probably stumbled upon your work at some point. I'm sure upon seeing the site she thought to herself "next time I need a site hacked I'm definately turning to these guys." That was sarcasm. Honestly, my mom probably thought I was just trying out a new design. In Italian.

• Some old friends from high school. Actually... probably not. I don't think any of my old high school friends visit this site anymore.

• An occasional google searcher badly misdirected to my site when searching for something like "the current pinto bean crop and its effect on 3rd world soccer goalies" or something. On a side note I find it slightly gratifying that after many years a google search for the term "file me away" lands my site ABOVE any reference to the song, by Badly Drawn Boy, which inspired the naming of my domain.

And that's about it. Honestly... sure seems like you put alot of effort into something which had very little effect. I'd recommend moving on to greener pastures. Maybe attempt to hack the site of someone a little more famous, or at least someone who would get really angry and write you nasty letters, and get all flustered and maybe just give up on the whole blogging thing completely. Yeah. Now there's a good target. As for me... I just rebuild the site. Takes me 10 minutes. No big loss.

I take it from reading the messages you left on my site you're located in Italy (or you at least pretend to be). If that's the case I recommend getting out a little more. See the sites. Visit the Vatican. Hunt down the lost city of Atlantis. You need some sun.

That is all.

So, we're finally done with this whole election thing and many candidates are spouting off phrases like "it's time to get down to business", or "the campaigning is over, it's time to go to work in Washington". Great. This will last for a few months, right until about February of next year when a whole new set of individuals will start gearing up for their re-election in the years to come. It's never too early to start your re-election campaign right?

So, what's my point in drawing these two separate conclusions?
It seems to me political life would be quite a bit more productive if every office was limited to one term. You get one shot to make a difference and represent your fellow Americans and that's it. Naturally, when offered the option of "campaign to keep your job", or "get something worthwhile done for the country" nine times out of ten an individual in congress will cover their own future first, and represent their fellow Americans second. Not to mention the sheer amount of money spent on re-election campaigns is staggering. Do we really need to spend millions of dollars on what amounts to a national popularity contest? Aren't there better ways to use that cash?

On top of that, whatever a senator, representative or president chooses to do while in office often times is based largely on how well it will play into their personal political career. When did representing your fellow Americans become less a service to one's country and more a lucrative career path? Can we say "conflict of interest"?

Maybe I'm missing something here (most likely) but if we take away the whole "fighting to keep your job" scenario wouldn't that allow for more time spent on the actual work of creating good legislation.

You only get one shot, better make it good.

So, every few weeks I'll be sure to dust off the corners of File Me Away and I promise there will be a day in the not-so-distant future when I will have more to say.

Oh, and you can also blame the lack of recent updates on Erica and I's discovery of the show LOST. It's consumed most of our entertainment time as we catch up on the first two seasons.

Then, on the flip side a large portion of our culture kinda hates the stuff. Diets are seen as the best route to slimming down. We try to avoid carbs (or, uh pretty much everything tasty) and are obessessed with fat and sugar substitutes. We love it, but we hate it. Or rather, as Michael Pollan points out in The Omnivores Dilemna, we simply don't understand it.

Let's backtrack for a second...
We're a young country with very little of our own culture of food. We spend most of our time dining on slight variations of european, latin american, or asian foods. Where older cultures have a deep seeded history of family and friends coming together around the meal, our cultural contribution in this area is, umm... the fast food restaurant. Likewise as Michael Pollan points out, we have very little real understanding about where our food comes from.

Read the label on a bottle of ketchup and try to picture in your mind each of the ingrediants. My brain hurts just trying to pronounce some of those synthetic ingrediants. In The Omnivore's Dilemna Pollan investigates the elements and ingrediants that go into four different meals; the fast food meal, the organic meal, the local "beyond organic" meal, and finally a meal that is completely hunted or gathered by the author himself. What he discovers along the way is at times shocking and disgusting, but definately worth the read/listen.

Just to spark your interest, here are a few of the most interesting observations I took from The Omnivores Dilemna

• Corn plays an overwhelming part in our national food supply, finding it's way into almost every processed food product. Why is this...

• The government subsidizing of corn allows it to stay so cheap that it's one of the cheapest commodities available on the market. As a result it's one of the cheapest (financially) sources of caloric energy.

• Because of its cheap market cost corn gets converted into a vast array of additives, fillers, sugar substitutes, etc. It's cheaper to sweeten a food item with high fructose corn syrup than it would be to sweeten with sugar.

• Corn syrup tricks the body into never realizing it's had enough to eat. A potential major cause of American's struggle with obesity.

• A chicken nugget at McDonalds is made up of over 50% corn products. And you thought you were eating chicken.

• Corn may be financially cheap, but we pay a huge environmental price for it. The processing of corn requires a great deal of fossil fuel. Likewise, the nitrogen overused in producing corn runs off into the Mississippi River and from there into the Gulf of Mexico creating one of the world's largest dead zones where marine wildlife can't survive the toxic nitrogen levels.

• Next time you're enjoying a fast food meal, picture this: to create your cheap little meal it took the processing of enough low-grade corn to fill the entire trunk of your car.

• Grass-fed, free-range livestock and chicken supposedly tastes alot better, and is more nutricious than the processed stuff you get at your chain grocery though I have yet to experiment for myself. In Dallas the only place I know of to get locally raised grass-fed meat is Texas Supernatural Meats at the Dallas Farmer's Market.

These are just a few of the observations made in the first part of the book and in my opinion it was well worth the read, unless of course you like to keep a safe distance between yourself and the facts behind the food you eat every day.

Oh, and for additional reading I recommend checking out You Are What Your Animals Eat, but I don't recommend reading it before lunch or dinner.

New Urbanism promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities composed of the same components as conventional development, but assembled in a more integrated fashion, in the form of complete communities. These contain housing, work places, shops, entertainment, schools, parks, and civic facilities essential to the daily lives of the residents, all within easy walking distance of each other. New Urbanism promotes the increased use of trains and light rail, instead of more highways and roads.

I really love this idea.

I recall during the summer of my senior year in high school I took a month long missions trip to France. While there I was very impressed by the way in which the cities tied together so nicely. Mass transit took you everywhere you wanted to go. Likewise, many needed amenities where within easy walking distance of your home or apartment.

Then I came back home to America.

Ever since that trip almost ten years ago I've wanted to live within a more European urban environment like the ones I experienced in France. In America they are rare and reserved only for those who can afford a penthouse loft or don't mind really cramped apartment living.

Enter "New Urbanism"... an up and coming revival in America attempting to bring this community centered mindset to our own new developements. A few hallmarks of the New Urbanism style include:

• Mixed-use areas (mixing up residential with commercial retail). Reserving large open spaces as parks, or gathering areas.
• Most necessary things are kept within a 10 to 15 minute walk from home
• Pedestrian streets free of cars
• Elimination (or at least hiding away) of large parking lots. If you live in a mixed use space with good mass transit there is no need for 2 or 3 cars per family.
• A main focus on bringing communities back together. Rubbing shoulders with your neighbors. Getting integrated as a community again.
• And, a design style that at times harkens back to the 19th century

It's this last point that has many architectural critics up in arms over the new popularity of New Urbanism. Those who follow the modern school of architecture in the US claim this is a step back in time and simply an attempt to bring back "the good ol' days" of 19th century european design.

As for me, a simple homeowner living far north of Dallas and commuting 50 minutes each way to work every day... I love the idea. I would love to be able to afford living within a more community centered environment, to walk to and from local retailers, and to take mass transit to and from work everyday. I guess we could move to the east coast but who's to say it can't happen here in Dallas. Personally, I'm hoping this movement really takes off.

For some additional reading on this topic check out:

• Studio 360 reports on the battle over New Urbanism in New Orleans

So, let me present a few compelling (or not) reasons to spend a little of your television time this month watching the Coupe du Monde...

• It takes an entire country to host the World Cup. Teams play in major cities throughout the country. Nationalism abounds. Meanwhile, us ingrown Americans get to learn a little about the rest of the world. This year, it's hosted in Germany.

• Speaking of nationalism, the World Cup brings together a multitude of nations, and we're not just talking about the Great 8... even tiny countries like Trinidad & Tobago are in the set this year. Again, great opportunity to get your head out of the Americentric sand.

• Football (or soccer) is a low scoring game, yet still maintains a very fast pace. When games are decided by one or two points the odds of an upset are made greater... I'm pulling for Tunisia.

• The soccer ball is easier to see on screen than your average hockey puck (in case you're debating World Cup vs. Stanley Cup).

• What other sporting event would you be watching, anyways... oh wait, did someone say the Mavericks made the finals? Can you say, Picture In Picture?

If you are a designer like myself greeking is a part of your typical design concepting process. You put together a nice design, drop in the typical latin text that starts with "Lorum ipsum..." and you've got a nice example of how the work in progress will look once the final copy is in place.

There's only one problem.

The typical Latin body of text does not truly represent typical English word length. On average the words in the oft used "Lorum ipsum" paragraph are 7 to 10 characters long, and there are very few short connecting words used. Now, maybe it matches up nicely with some other languages but since I work mainly in English I'm faced with a dilemna, especially if the copy area I'm trying to set has a thin column width. I end up with a sample that looks awkward; word breaks that leave nearly half the line empty; distracting long words that draw attention to something that should otherwise simply be a "placeholder" element.

So, today I stumbled upon perhaps a better idea while visiting Coudal.com. It's not rocket science, but why not use actual English literature text instead of greek?

I can see only one possible downside: part of the reasoning behind using latin text is that it keeps the client from getting hung up on wording, when the design is all that's being discussed. If it's greek, nobody reads it... if it's English the temptation to read it and remark on it's content is greater. Thoughts?

They say you never stop learning. This past week I went up to New York for a design seminar and here are a few things I learned along the way...

• Bryant Park in New York City (near the library) has free wireless internet. Maybe this is a common thing, but I was impressed.

• Unfortunately the free wireless is very slow when you're sharing it with tons of New Yorkers on lunch.

• If you tell a New York cab driver where you're going before you get into the cab they can turn you down, BUT if you jump in the cab first, then inform the driver of your final destination they are required to take you there. A friendly cab driver informed me of this after two previous cabs refused to transport me to JFK from downtown.

• Arriving at JFK airport only 30 minutes before your flight is not wise. The e-ticket machine will not work, and you'll need to pull some strings in order to get to the front of the line and get your boarding pass in time.

• Speaking of the airport, if you lose your boarding pass while running full speed to your gate they'll kindly print you a new one, as long as you've got your picture ID.

• Oh, and one other thing... when the two previous events occur, your gate will inevitably be the very last one down the long concourse hall of gates.

A few weeks back my wife made a passing comment... the sort of passing comment that could never under any circumstance pass me by unnoticed (sadly, other passing comments like "the yard sure needs to be mowed" seem to glide right on by me). The comment? "Ya know, I think my site needs a new fresh look."

My eyes lit up as my mind began reeling with all new design possibilities for her site. Some of you may find this strange, but you need to understand my wife. She is a great student of design. In her own right she's a fabulous visual thinker, however she lacks the inherant insanity all true designers share. The insanity that will work tirelessly on a site only to completely overhaul the thing a few months later. That makes no sense to her. As a result she's not a fan of redesigns. This fact made her statement all the more poinient.

So, the creative brief from my wife/client?
1. Give it a fresh look
2. Keep a similar user interface (so my mom and mother-in-law don't have to figure out how to navigate a new site)
3. Use mint green (who doesn't love a good fresh mint green)

Simple enough. In fact, just up the alley of what I was thinking myself. A week later the design was done and in place to go live. Here's the new site.

A few new features found here:

• It's actually complete. Everything works. Kind of an important new feature I'd say
• I used a short PHP function to determine whether her thumbnail images where vertical or horizontal in order to provide the correct styling, centering the thumb within it's "slide-esque" background.
• And my favorite little addition... the recipes box. :) My new design interest: building cool little icon-like illustrations. Expect to see more of this in the future...maybe.

In our culture, at least, we are facing a near crisis in regards to the family. This most elemental and neccesary of instituations is crumbling in many ways like the clay soil in my backyard.

The family represents the foundation that so much of a society is built upon. A culture with weak family structure inevitably feels the serious broader social consequences of this. Within the family a developing child is nearly irrevocably formed into what he or she will be for the rest of their life. The influences felt within the family unit have the power to do great good as well as permanent harm. A child will always look first to the parents for understanding regarding life and how it should be lived from its smallest details to its biggest overarching concepts.

Divorce and family disfunction have become commonplace and almost expected as a social norm. The idea of a couple sticking together, working it out, and standing by their marriage vows regardless of how hard it might get is a victorian-era fantasy to many. I don't honestly know why the line "till death do us part" or "for better or for worse" are even in most people's vows these days. Instead the attitude is "If I'm not happy, I'm out" or "If I don't feel like being with my spouse, I married the wrong person and I need to get a new one". Sure, divorce can hurt the two individuals involved. It can be painful especially when one party wants to keep it together, but let's be honest: We're adults. We can eventually deal with it.

The consequences of our societies new passionate pursuit of divorce and remarriage are felt much more deeply by the children forced to come to grips with something so extraordinarily hard for them to fathom. A child can't ever understand adult concepts like "marital compatability". In a child's eyes the family is either a loving positive environment with two loving parents as it's centerpiece, or it's not and something feels very wrong.

This generation of which I'm a part is marked by one sad trait... we're very short-term minded. We live for the moment, and in the case of marriage if the moment isn't working for us we quickly go off in search of a better "moment" to enjoy. There's no "staying" power. There's no committment to something beyond ourselves. We make the rules and thus we can change the rules if they're not making us happy (and of course on a side note this happiness we're supposedly seeking is a grand illusion).

So here's the thing. You wanna get married? You've got dreams of a nice wedding and a great honeymoon? Fantastic. But let me give you this advice. Before you say "I do" be sure you mean "I will, in spite of how I may feel".

A good marriage will tear the self-centeredness out of you inch by inch and replace it with an intensly joyful committment to one another that stands above any personal, selfish, individual goals you may have for your own life. Most importantly, if you have children... a good marriage will provide for the next generation a safe environment with solid role models who may not be perfect but will at least model a committment to something higher than their own personal wants and deeper than a simple feeling of happiness and that's something I'd say our society could really use.

Not to mention, your kids will thank you someday.

I understand how it is, but honestly can't I at least get a little of your time? Is it too much to ask for just one night every few weeks. It's been over a month since we last talked, man!

Sure, you update my Fresh Sides now and then but there's no real effort there. No initiative. If it's over between us I wish you'd just let me know. Send me up a sign. Post a "I'm done posting" post of some sort. Geez.

I'll await your response, Mr. Lehman.

Update: Bump!

For those of you who haven't stumbled upon these articles, here's a quick summary:

• The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites
  It started (at least for me) with this article from Mark Daoust. His main point: It seems alot of popular websites thrive in spite of the fact that they look pretty awful. The reason? They provide features the user wants. They function properly and make their usefulness a priority over their design. Good points all around.

• The Role of Anti-Marketing Design
  Then Robert Scoble threw in his two cents on the topic. Hmm... a non-designer singing the praises of non-design. Nothing original here. His point: I guess people trust your site more if it looks like you spent less time designing it. He also assumes your site will load faster if you spend less time coding for "appearance".

• Design Is A Good Idea
  Ah, a voice from the well-designed side of the aisle. Disambiguity argues for the existance of two types of "design" that is present in all sites. There's information architecture design (the way the site functions and presents it's information) and visual design (just the overall "look" the site is going for). Her main point: Some sites are going for the "under-designed" look and perhaps that suites their brand... but bad information design is bad across the board and people using badly designed sites are doing so because they happen to offer a service they really want to use in spite of the awful interface. Improve the interface design and you improve the users experience.

• Ugly Design Getting Too Much Credit
  Finally, Whitespace presents the possibility that so far nobody is comparing apples to apples, and ugly sites work because they provide features the user wants, in spite of their ugliness. (Are we beginning to see a point of agreement here?)

Okay so I'm a designer and I'm sorta relying on a consistant market need for design work in order to feed my family and pay the bills. I admit this need compromises my ability to think completely objectively on this topic. But all that aside... I agree with the overall point that a site's function should always trump it's visual design. You can slap beautiful design around a worthless site and you may land on all the cool new CSS gallery sites and enjoy traffic spikes for a few days... but when it comes to building a successful online business or community, form follows function (just like it has for as long as I can remember).

Update: Greg Storey puts a comical closing tag on this debate. Hilarious.