I've been meaning to make some alterations to Zinknation's layout and I've finally gotten around to it.

The change list:

• New logo (I hacked it together myself!)
• Fancy Zigzag background
• Center/fixed-width layout

Liquid layouts + blogs = boo!

The biggest change was moving the site from a liquid/elastic width layout to a more simplified fixed-width site that is centered on the page. Deep down inside, I like to use liquid layouts because they're a bit more difficult to create and, generally, much cooler. However, I've come to the conclusion that liquid layouts are pretty lame for article-based sites, like blogs. If you have a really big monitor and you maximize the browser, you can end up having an entire paragraph spanned across one really long line. To me, it's just hard to read and looks bad.

Of course, the debate between fixed/liquid layouts has raged on amongst the web design community for a number of years.

In the business world, my experience has taught me that clients generally do not care that a web site has a liquid layout, they just care that it looks good and doesn't take forever to design. So, for general purpose web sites, I recommend a simple fixed-width layout. However...

When liquid layouts rock...

For the most part, any sort of web-based application will probably look and function better with a liquid layout. Google maps, Google Docs,  and Campfire are all prime examples. They actually increase the amount of content that can be display in the browser--they don't just make the existing content s-t-r-e-t-c-h across the screen.

            
Google Maps: 1024 x 768 versus 1650 x 1050

 

But, I digress, let me know what you think about the new layout!

I just finished up reading The Psychology of Influence. I found it to be a pretty interesting read. The author lists out the biggest influential acts that he (and other researchers) have found. Here's the cliff's notes version of the identified influential behaviors and an example of each.

Reciprocation

Give a little something, and we will be inclined to give back. Simple enough, no? Our BrightMix accountant gave a perfect example of this the other day. He said he gets his best clients from going to social events and giving out free accounting advice. When his audience realizes he knows his proverbial shiznit, they end up hiring him to do their finance work. On the other hand, what if he refused to give out any advise without charging money? I bet he wouldn't be doing so well.

Commitment and Consistency

This idea plays on the fact that once we people set ours minds on something, we tend to stick to it.

Example: researchers went door-to-door in residential California and asks homeowners to display a small "Drive Safely" in a window on their house. Weeks later, another group of researchers went to the same houses and asked the homeowners to display a large, poorly designed billboard in their front lawn. A shocking 83% agreed to the installation of the sign.

Why? These homeowners had complied with the commitment of displaying the small sign, and, in doing so, had altered their own self-images, becoming public servants who promoted safe driving. Thus, it became natural for them to comply with the subsequent installation of the large billboard.

Try this out: write down a goal that you want to accomplish and post it publicly and/or show it to your closest friends, such as "I will become a non-smoker." You will more naturally become consistent with your newly stated self-image. If you smoke again, you're being inconsistent and risk being a big time loser.

Social Proofing

This is a big one. Social proofing relies on the concept that we humans tend to do what other humans are already doing. We perceive what everyone else is doing to be the norm.

The big example cited: the case of a murder in New York's Bronx wherein a young lady was brutally assaulted on three separate occasions over the course of an hour in the middle of a residential area. The assaults were highly audible and numerous residence actually witnessed the attacks as they occurred, but no one attempted to intervene or call for help. Eerie, indeed.

The reasoning is that the witnesses took cues from other witnesses who were watching idly. The effect was contagious, and it appeared as though inaction was "the thing to do" amongst spectators. In the end, the young lady ended up dying.

We definitely take behavior cues from those around us; it's a huge influence.

Likeability and Similarity

We tend to be influenced more easily by people we like and/or with whom we can identify. Example: a number of previously elected presidents were elected because of their charm and good looks--not on their political standpoints. If you've ever dealt with anyone who is good in business, you'll undoubtedly find that you probably perceive them to be similar to you in some or many ways.

Even more so, look at your closest friends and try to determine which have the most influence on you. You'll probably find that your most influential friends also happen to be the most similar to you in their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. My like-minded business partner Dusty has influenced me quite a bit (and I suspect the reverse is true)--we managed to convince each other to quit our high-paying jobs and form a company! Hah!

Authority

Nothing too notable here. Someone who is in charge (or at least appears to be in charge) will have a great deal of intrinsic authority. Your boss at work no doubt influences you. The police man waiting to catch you in a speed trap influences you. When "the experts" say you shouldn't eat red meat, and then you don't eat read meat, you just got influenced.

Scarcity

I thought this point was pretty cool. The whole supply/demand of economics proves this behavior quite readily. People want what is rare.

Remember this deal regarding a grilled cheese? 'Nuff said.

Dude, but it's so obvious!

We become extremely blind to acts of persuasion/influence because it's so embedded in our culture and day-to-day life.

Still, I can't help but think that there isn't a lot of profound knowledge coming out of this book. I mean, I could probably come up with a lot of examples persuasion,  but I surely wouldn't be able to categorize with this much granularity. If you hadn't read this article(or book) and were asked to list out all of the things that you felt influenced and/or persuaded people, what do you think you'd come up with?

Friday my friends and I all gathered at my parents' house outside of Lincoln for some good ol' fireworks-related fun. As they say, there's no better way to celebrate your country's independence than by blowing up a piece of it. I had drove to Missouri a few weeks prior and picked up a healthy amount of high quality, illegal (at least in Nebraska) fireworks to affirm that the show would be as spectacular as ever.

Among the arsenal: roughly 125 Artillery Shells, a roll of 16,000 firecrackers, a bunch of rockets, some other miscellaneous items, and a couple of these bad boys:

After hours and hours of play, my Guitar Hero controller crapped out. The internal components of the flipper switch broke and it was stuck in the "down" position. So much for durability...

What Did I Do?

I shed a few tears, said good bye to the ol' girl, packaged her back up, and headed off to Wal-Mart for an exchange. I love Wal-Mart.

At Wal-Mart...

I'm waiting in the check-out line, watching the clerk ring up the people in front of me. From a distance, she seemed a little odd. The usual cashier-to-patron interaction was not occurring.

Oh My God!

Sure enough, I was right--she was odd. This lovely cashier would be best compared to the crazy cat lady from the Simpsons.

I walk up to the designated checking-out area and was not greeted with the usual "Hello, did you find everything you need?" Instead it was more like, "Bwaaahahhaha how did they know??? BWahaa!"

I was scared and I was frightened. But I stayed the course; I needed a replacement guitar.

The gibberish continued throughout the whole transaction. I wasn't told how much my purchase was, but I was told "BWHWhah! Man o' man maybe they'll GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME."

Touché, crazy cat lady.

I paid my unspoken total ($103.31 - Guitar + 2 boxes of candy). She held out the receipt and I took it hesitantly, expecting to get a cat thrown in my face. Whew, no cat--just some more gibberish followed by a redneck cackle. How damn bizarre.

Back in the Real World.

I tried out my newly exchanged guitar and it works like a champ! I was able to bump myself into the top #1000 Guitar Hero 2 players! Lifelong goal achieved! High-five!

Today, I went to the Menards most local to me to return a heavy-ass mahogany door and a piece of weather stripping that I didn't need. I get up to the return desk and this old grandma scans in the door and checks the recipe - No problem.

Then the trouble starts...

She looks at this piece of weather stripping, sees that it has drill holes in it, and she's all, "we can't accept this because it has drill holes." Then, I'm like, "it comes with holes pre-drilled into it." She turns around and starts muttering to this fatbodied cashier. Then she proceeds to get on her headset and ask someone (assuming some random stockboy) if it this item comes pre-drilled.

I'm getting irritated...

A few more hushed words with the fatbodied clerk and she turns back to me, "sorry we can't accept this - it has drill holes in it and it doesn't have a UPC label." She was right about the label: when I purchased the weather stripping, one of the other pieces had a UPC label so they had just use that to ring up the price. Well, it just so happens this piece didn't have a UPC (way to go incompetent Menards stock boys).

Then She Really Pissed Me Off...

"Did you buy this from another store?" the geriatric asks. She had the audacity to accuse me of bringing this in from another store and attempting to return it. Yes, you stupid old hag, I legitimately returned this huge fucking, expensive mahogany door, but I devilishly wanted to slight you on a piece of weather stripping. I got really angry really fast. I'm like, "you guys have these in the back of the store, AND they come pre-drilled." Then her quivering-chin coworker chimes in and repeats word-for-word what the geriatric said.

Then I punched them both in the face!

Alright, not really, but that would have been so fulfilling! Instead, I gave them a mean-assed look, picked up my pre-drilled, illegitimate piece of weather stripping, and walked away without saying any words. I could have been a huge ass and continued to pursue this, but it wasn't worth going to jail over.

The Real Kicker about this Ordeal:

The piece of weather stripping cost exactly six god-damn dollars. They were willing to haggle me over the return of an item... that cost... $6.

WTF people - seriously.

I remember back in the day when Arby's would have their 5 for $4.95 deal. You get 5 delicious Roast Beef Sandwiches for a reasonably low price.

All Was Good... 

Then, a few years back, they changed the rate from $4.95 to to $5.95 in most locations. Probably on account of "inflation" or some other such BS. It was only one more dollar; I could still hack it.

Enter "Pick 5 For $5.95"

Their latest marketing plow has been to enhance the 5 for $5.95 deal so that now you can actually pick 5 items from a list of foodstuffs. On the list of items to pick from: Arby's Melt, fries, drink, bottled water, and a few other items. The important thing to note here is what's not on the list: Roast Beef Sandwich.

So What's Wrong?

So I go there and ask them if I can just get 5 Roast Beef Sandwiches with the deal. No dice. The closest thing you can get is 5 Arby's Melt's without the cheese. You'd think this would be equivalent to a Roast Beef sandwich.

Well, it's not. They have about one third of the deliciously processed roast beef of a normal Arby's Roast Beef Sandwich. So, here I sit, eating 5 immature Roast Beef sandwiches. They're not quite an Arby's Melt and they fall far short of being a Roast Beef Sandwich, but they are disappointing - that's for sure. 

My hunger for massive quantities of deliciously processed Arby's Roast Beef will go unfulfilled this day.

Thanks a lot Arby's, you asshats.

The term "blarg" is thrown around a lot these days, but what does it really mean? I utter the word quite a bit and even I wasn't really sure. So, I decided to hit up the urbandictionary to figure this tricky devil of word out.

My favored definition:

"Blarg is an expression that can be traced to its root words, blah and argh. Blah may be a shortened form of the word blasé meaning uninterested, or unconcerned. It is often used to express boredom. Argh is an expression commonly used in online chat and video games to express frustration.

The meaning of the expression blarg combines the defintions of the root words; frustrated boredom or disinterest."

Pretty apt. Anyway, so as I was reading this, I realized that I totally fall into a state of uninterested, unconcerned boredom which is sometimes even coupled with frustratration.  When this happens, I usually want to go bitch about my situation via a blog post. But, at that point, I'm not blogging - I'm blarging.

I did a google image search on blarging and this little guy came up. I think some dude drew him or something. Does he not scream blarg?

 
Blargnor the Blargmonster!

My Archnemesis Juanler seems to have taken a liking to me as of late. He recently posted a very truthful and honest poem on my MySpace page. I don't want to lose this precious gem, so I'm going to post it here, too:

Juan posted on Nov 12 12:01 PM:

A poem for you.

He has toothpick legs forged of mighty steel.
Enjoys a good cold beer at every meal.
He has graceful dance moves that will make you blink.
For this is the man known as Kevin Zink.

He has pube like hair on top of his head.
And many a fine lady can be found in his bed.
He exudes a most powerful manly stink.
For this is the man known as Kevin Zink.

His home is full of style and class.
Say otherwise and he'll kick your ass.
From his mouth comes philosophy that will make you think.
For this is the man known as Kevin Zink.

Future scholars will study his many feats.
Marching bands will play for him down our city streets.
Great stories will be written of him in pen and ink.
For this is the man known as Kevin Zink.

For this is the man known as Kevin Zink.

Thanks, Juan; it means a lot to me.

I was out and about a few weeks ago the Saturday before Halloween with my Sister, Sarah, her fiancee, Omar, and some other associated friends. It was a fun-filled night of chat-chitting, random conversation, and some stunning happenings and realizations.

We were suppose to all meet up at this bar in downtown Omaha called "The Rose & Crown Pub," but we mistakingly ended up going to an abhorent dive bar called "Pierce Street Pub." We walk into this bar and immediately I know we were up shiz creek. The walls had 1970's wood paneling, the mannish bartendress was wearing a trucker hat, the obligatory grizzled old man was creepily eyeing us from the corner, and, to boot, our friends weren't there.

Drat!

So, we hightailed it out of there with a furious passion.

Shortly after that, we find "The Rose & Crown Pub." I walk in this joint, and the gigantor bartender yells at me for bringing in a Wendy's drink cup. I'm all, "What the hell, Bro? It's just a cup." He wasn't having any of my jive-talkin' lip, insisting that I go outside. So, Omar, my sister, and myself all go outside.

Being of the vindictive type, we quickly hatched a scheme to get back at the pushy bartender. On the outside wall are these big iron rings. I think they're probably used to tie up horses or something. That makes sense since most Nebraskans still traverse the lands via horseback. We concluded that we could pull down the brick wall by tugging mightily on the metalic rings.

Unfortunately... The wall remains.

Our efforts were all for Naught. If you happen to cross by "The Rose & Crown Pub," feel free to pull with all of your might on the metalic rings on the wall. Maybe you can pull the wall down and avenge me.

Tonight I threw together a trite "About Me" page. I hooked it into my MySpace.com profile, so hopefully it'll suck some of my MySpace audience into this crazy Blogosphere.

Check it out!

Also, I altered my site's layout a bit. Nothing major.

 

There's really no other way to say it: Dane Cook is a hilarious man. I just saw his latest routine is on HBO - a special called "Vicious Circle," and it's damned funny. I highly recommend you attain it - either by legal or illegal means. Another one of his albums that came out last year that's really good is "Retaliation."

One of my favorite little rifts Dane has that comes to mind is about when people pull into your driveway just to turn around.  I can really relate to this occurrence because it happens to me every other day. Some random stranger pulls into my driveway, beams their blinding headlights into my windows, and then promptly backs out and drives off.

The interaction totally sucks because there is no closure. I just end up feeling entirely used.

I had an angry, mean 60-year-old neighbor back when I was young who would stand by his front window all day. When someone pulled into his driveway to do a turnaround, he'd write their license plate number down and call the police. You have to respect that amount of dedication. I'm not quite to that point.... not yet anyway.

My roommate, Tdogg, decided to make my sister and myself a delicious taco dinner, tonight. He's a pretty standup guy. He even went and bought the supplies to make everything. The evening was shaping up to be quite the gala event.

Unfortunately...

Our ceremony of taco-eating merriment turned sour when we discovered that Tdogg had bought a head of fucking cabbage instead of lettuce. He was like, "yea you can probably use that instead of lettuce." No way - no god damn way - you cannot use cabbage in lettuce's stead. To do so would practically be a crime against humanity... and all other things sacred.

Not a substitute for lettuce.

Anyway, needless to say, things were looking grim for taco dinner night. So, my brave sister set out for the Hyvee most local to us to retrieve a head of lettuce. Upon arrival, she was forced to battle an onslaught of incompetent Hyvee staff members. Travis and I waited... 5 minutes go by... 7 minutes... at 10 minutes, I gave up hope and went to play Guitar Hero; as far as I was concerned, darkness had encompassed taco dinner night. Then, suddenly, my sister returned. She was physically battered and mentally strained, but she had in tow a beautiful, glimmering head of lettuce. Her courageous act averted the great taco crises that evening!

We went on to have one of the best taco dinners... of all time.

The End

I've been debating whether I should let loose the wrath of my cursing vocabulary on this blog. Thus far, I've been really good - too good for my own good I would say.

The problem is cursing is an integral part of my day-to-day speech. I mean, I don't curse all the time, but if I'm speaking openly, it's just a matter of time before I drop an f'bomb. Honestly, I just don't feel human unless I spew out a few invectives here and there.

I read a lot of blogs - across a multitude of subject matter - and even some of the most respectable bloggers tend to use at least some bad language^[1]. Perhaps more importantly, some of the funniest writers, to me, swear without hesitation^[2].

"Cursing adds Humor, Meaning, Emotion, Boldness, Depth, Feeling, Etc. to dialogue..." -Me

Personally, I like cursing because it makes me sound like a fucking bad ass. Ah yeah, I'm feeling more bad ass already. Also, it makes whatever you're saying sound 10x more important since cursing is involved. It's god damn science, people.

This article is pretty awesome - top ten reasons why I swear. It works, even though the article is actually against cursing... whatever.

The downside to having an expletive-riddled blog is that it could make me look less credible if I were to, say, reference this blog on my Resume or something. I can just see some high-faluting HR staff member at mega corporation xyz loading up my blog (assuming the company firewall lets them access Zinknation.net, which is doubtful). Two minutes later, they tear up my Resume, with a face full of scorn, and write me off as an unsavvory, racist, child-molesting rapist who steals from the blind and punches babies - all because I had a few curse words on my blog.

Ah... I don't know. That's pretty unlikely. I don't think I want to work for mega corporation xyz, anyway.

[1]

• Joel on Software
• Coding Horror
• Creating Passionate Users

[2]

• Rory Blyth
• The Show with Zefrank
• Outlaw Heart

I went up to Minnesota/Wisconsin over Labor Day weekend to spend some quality time with my cult of closest friends. We all stayed in my friend Andrew's parent's luxurious lakeside cabin.

The digs were swanky, the food was tasty, but the showering accomodations... weren't so great; us guys were forced to bathe ourselves in the friggin' lake like cavemen, or something, from the days of old. It was really dehumanizing.



All in all, good times were had by all, as indicated by the happiness of this picture.



In other news, while I was up there, I picked up a Motorcycle I got for cheap on Ebay. It's a 1993 Suzuki Katana, so it's pretty old and it needs some work done on it--not too much hopefully.  The young chap I bought it from had painted it, himself, with spray paint from Wal-Mart. His color choice... wasn't so great. I'll post some pictures of it after I get it fancied up.



You can check out the whole photo album of the Wisconsin trip on my sweet picasa account:

I just watched a trailer for the new movie that's out: Crank, staring Jason Statham. I'll be honest--I'm pretty amped seeing this. The premise of it seems to be the main character has been poisened with some sort of drug which cuts off his adrenaline production, so if he "stops" (and by stops I mean he's not kicking some dudes ass and stealing his woman), then he'll die; what a profound premise for a movie.

Watching that trailer has made me want to go watch Snatch again. I friggin' love that movie, and I f**kin' hate pikies!

But, on the downside, what is up with movies now having their own MySpace.com pages? It just isn't right. Admittingly, though, I could probably waste a few hours on Crank's MySpace page; it's pretty impressive. Whoever thought of the idea of making MySpace movie pages was a genius. You can link it to millions of people and post trailers, soundtrack tracks, images, etc. for the movie. I should have thought of this. It's funny to read through the comments, though; like, one out of every 10 comments is posted by some fanatical fan who seems to believe Jason Statham, himself, is reading Crank's MySpace page. Yea, right...

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to make a comment post real quick...

Zink: "OMGGG I love yer movie JASON!! YOU RULE AND ARE HOT!!! OMG!!!!"

It seems as though I have an arch-nemesis or player hater of sorts...

Juanler has luanched the KevinStink's blog.

What a bastard... you launch a blog whose specific intent is to bash me?

Rest assured, dude, you'll be getting a piece of my mind and probably a piece of my overpowering fists.

For all you spectaters, keep an eye out for further proof that I own Juanler in all aspects of life... Except at being gay - he's totally the master of being gay.

From the latest in modern eyewear technologies, I present to you a prototype of the modern office worker's glasses.