Although the title may be misleading, the post itself is not. (Ok... That made absolutely no sense.) To get used to the new Forge editing system in Halo 3, I decided to make some changes to one of my favorite maps, Guardian. Unlike those poorly made maps that some of my friends do; where half the map is blocked off or vehicles and weapons are placed at random places. Small Town is a much more thought-out map, with a balanced layout that puts emphasis on a rapid play-style. Giving you a few seconds at the respawn to stock up on weapons before you're forced to get into battle. I focused on a "rotationary" design, placing a bunch of grenades and "power-weapons" in a pattern that emphasised movement around the map. By the time you have to reload or restock on nades; there's either going to be another weapon or pile of grenades in front of you. Overall there's probably at least one hundred grenades spaced throughout the map. I also added as many firebombs as possible, along with a couple brute shots and a flamethrower, around the map. This, couple with a copious quantity of grenades, makes for a map where a pair of people working together with grenades and weapons can take out a group twice their size. Although the exact opposite of that can also happen; 2 lonely guys getting completely devastated by four guys on the other team. If you're really that interested, download it here. (Or at least set it to download.)

With the house empty and a empty DSL line I sat down tonight to get to work on the design for Revision Magazine. Although Brian Gardner's theme is nice and WordPress is powerful; to really get this going Stuart and I decided that we'd need a custom Zine Management System. While he dove into the intricacies of the CodeIgniter framework I decided to tackle the design; aiming for a highly usable design that would put a ton of content right at the reader's fingertips. With this goal in the spot light I'm aiming for a gridded design with the most important items focusing in the top left with everything else spreading away from it in circular patterns. For those of you anxious to see some stuff, screenshots will hopefully come soon.

Have you ever actually looked at the overall design of the modern glass? There's actually a lot of complex design evolution behind it. It's specifically engineered to give the correct usage model in our heads. It's tall and long, perfect for being easily used by a single hand. It widens at the top for easy pouring, either into or out of the glass. Glasses have also evolved into many different forms, including multi-layer ones for insulation, wine glasses (Almost a world of their own.), plastic cups, beer mugs, and thousands of others. Each is specially designed for a specific purpose; we can instantly recognize many different types of glasses and know exactly what goes into each. It is also interesting how glasses evolved into the tall and narrow shape they are today instead of flat and wide, like a bowl. Hundreds or thousands of years of revisions and improvements led to the complex design of the simple glass. The history of the simple object, such as a glass, is often more rich and vibrant than we imagine.

This has been the case with Esurance, who's ads appear to be every. From print to online radio to the TV I am barraged with at least 25 advertisements per day. This has led to me having one of the most severe afflictions that can happen to a person, over-advertised. I have seen and been annoyed by so many ads from Esurance that I have come to hate them with an extreme passion. If they went into bankruptcy I would probably start jumping in the air and clicking my heels. What makes it worse is the lack of quality in the their ads and their overuse of a horrible slogan. "Quote, buy, print"? There's absolutely not verbal flow between the words, they crash up against each and start an advertising fusion reaction that utterly destroys any chance of my actually buying a policy what-so-ever. Coupled with their failed attempts at striking my "save the dang planet" key, Esurance has risen to the ranks of the top 5 things that I wish never existed. (They're below George Bush but above logging companies.)

After enjoying doing a site for my first client so much, and since I absolutely love making WordPress themes (Although there are only two that I actually released, the one for my site and a friend's site's theme.) I'm debating where to start doing professional WordPress theme design like Brian Gardner and other theme celebrities do. Right now I'm still in the thinking phase, deciding whether or not I want start doing it. Also, don't expect any offers for theme design until I'm finished with 5 by 5 on the 5.