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Creative avatar challenge
Okay Genghis, Ben, Cricket, one eyed folks, here it is the one and only creative avatar challenge!
Enough of this politix!
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Comments (72)
Unfortunately, only one of our avatars will ever be visible at once. I think the real gauntlet needs to be thrown down at those who are still using static avatars, or worse—those who are still avatarless.
July 18, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You really want this thing to go beyond static?
Get a bucket, Ben.
July 18, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hereby grant quinn an indulgence. He is exempt from the requirement for animated gifs as avatars.
July 18, 2008 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
As are you, Ben, as in animation, the next move for your handsome cat is an undignified hairball.
July 18, 2008 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been trying to upload a $%#^@%#%@# %!@#^!#&^@#&@ !#!!$% avatar for months now. The system won't let me.
July 18, 2008 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you getting a MovableType error?
What browser are you using? If Firefox, what version?
What OS are you using?
July 18, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
What color shirt you got on? You left-handed or multi-dextrous? Like soup? Batman? Damn I wanna see that new Batman. Ok, last one and yer vetted. Ever try cocaine? Works good on blisters.
No need to thank me, Ben. Just thought I'd squeeze a bit more info out of 'im for ya.
July 18, 2008 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Honestly, you do make me laugh.
July 18, 2008 11:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I maintain that a static Ric Flair still has more motion than, well... anything!
To be the avatar, you have to beat the avatar!
WHOOOOOO!
July 18, 2008 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh c'mon, I just don't care...
July 18, 2008 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
*cough*
July 18, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good, Diego! But we have to get to the top.. plz recommend!
July 18, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
No sorry. I support you, but this doesn't need to take the place of actual news and reports.
July 18, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lil dude needs to get out more. Hey Des! Got one for ya! This dude needs confusing BAD.
July 18, 2008 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Buzz off cootie man
July 18, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
bump ur nose?
July 18, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm getting a headache, and I'm kinda thirsy
July 18, 2008 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
now no avatar @ all?
July 18, 2008 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, yeah I just ran out to get some beer
July 18, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bah, my favorite creative avatar is Which LInden, whose avatar is an animated clump of bamboo, and whose office chair is a flower pot. His office is a grove of bamboo in a field.
Oh, wait, you're talking about TPM avatars, nm.
July 18, 2008 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
redacted
July 18, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
zumone else with no avatar at all? itz a conspiracy!
July 18, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ever changing, no true person remains the same....
July 19, 2008 12:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Marquis Mark and Bee, I love your new moving/zooming avatars. I asked DF for help with my shirt collar months ago, to no avail. Anyone know how to make my hair flash from blond to red to brown??
As far as recommending, I am afraid I can't do that. I save my rec's for raider SCAAMD group's posts now. Otherwise, they are never seen.
July 18, 2008 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/6167/lisb2ai8.gif
July 18, 2008 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Workerbee: love your avatar in any form, but have mercy, getting vertigo, worried about you wearing yourself out.
July 18, 2008 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sort of a Myth of Sisyphus anxiety.
July 18, 2008 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Myth of Schlitz-yphus.
July 18, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, you work fast, Bee!
However. The blond looks far too close to white, to me, and it's freaking me out muchly.
How about a darker, HONEY, blond, and then I will accept it. Muchas gracias, mi amiga, as always,
LisB
July 18, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Bee, for my new flashy hair. I do it in real life, why not here???
Heh.
Lighten up, folks. I mean, really.
July 18, 2008 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK
July 18, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I'm having a seizure-
July 18, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you have epilepsy?
Not something to joke about. OK?
July 18, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not the type of seizure I meant, but I apologize for any offense.
July 18, 2008 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's OK
You have more than two seizures, you got epilepsy, and there's nothing wrong with the million and a half folks in this country that do. They deal with it.
The ignorance surrounding their reality bugs me. I don't appreciate anyone that makes light of it.
I'm curious. What type of "seizure" were you referring to?
A "pretend" one?
July 18, 2008 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
You made me think, I thank you for that. I don't, in retrospect, know to what type of seizure I referred. Obviously I was being flippant and off-the-cuff, without taking into consideration the feelings of others. Finally, I apologize again for any and all offense.
July 18, 2008 11:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you
You are a good person
July 19, 2008 1:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think static avatars are a silly waste of time, but I have no objection to them. Some month if I have time I might get one. When in Rome, you know. But I find the animated avatars to be distracting. It gets in the way of focusing on what was posted. Just as I find the flashing or animated ads distracting. Are we here to make pretty pictures for each other or to communicate our thoughts? Animated avatars impede communication.
July 18, 2008 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. Although static avatars can be helpful for instant recognition. Animated ones, like the ads you mention, tend to get in the way.
July 18, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
To each, his or her own.
barefooted, I could see you adding a touch of animation and making that lonely soul actually walk down that long and winding road it's on.
oceankat, just think of the possibilities with your username! A beautiful cat swimming with the dolphins underwater in a clear turquoise sea...a kool kat on a surfboard, complete with white sunscreen on its nose and one of its front paws making the hang 10 sign...the silhouette of a lone cat sitting upon the rocks of a jetty while the sun sets...
Just some food for thought.
July 18, 2008 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
What great ideas for oceankat! I'm sure any one would be fabulous.
For me? No animation. The lonely soul walks in infinity. Watching it "refresh" and start from the beginning strikes me as unreal, and even lonelier.
July 18, 2008 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
July 18, 2008 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
[[[[[raspberry]]]]]]
July 18, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
;)
July 18, 2008 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
My mother used to make the most delicious raspberry custard pies. She would send us kids out into the woods with coffee cans to gather wild berries. I have to confess my coffee can was usually nearly empty, but my internal container was as full as I could get it. Luckily my sisters were more diligent in paying attention to filling up the coffee can than I. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
July 18, 2008 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
No raspberries in Florida?
Bummer.
July 18, 2008 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
No mother in florida.
July 19, 2008 2:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that animated walking would be lonelier. Of course, on a good day, Barefooted, your eye could wink. On a bad day, it might shed a tear. But way too much work. And the motion is disturbing. All those moving banners on MSNBC and CNN were not only distracting but also seasick making. Stopped watching as content sick-making enough.
July 18, 2008 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the thought, but no animation for me. It is what it is.
July 18, 2008 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good decision. Look at poor Workerbee now.
July 18, 2008 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Boo Hiss to the animated avatars. It's no big deal with one or two in a thread, but a thread of animated avatars is puke-ariffic
July 18, 2008 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Red avatars give me a headache.
Just thought you'd like to know.
July 18, 2008 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would like to restate my request for you to not use animated images, in particular anything with rapidly shifting colours or levels of brightness. In addition to triggering epileptic seizures and migraines in a smaller number of people, they cause eye-strain and concentration issues in the larger population.
It is certainly possible to turn off the feature but then you might not be able to present an image to that browser at all. Plus I would consider it courteous.
Thanks!
July 18, 2008 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look, people in dangerof having migrains and epileptic fits, (like my daughter) know enough to disable them.
Now sxtop being such a stick-in-the-mud, poopy pants.
July 18, 2008 7:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would like to request that snotty people stay away from pompous, over-reaching avatars, especially of 20th century icons they neither emulate, nor are close to aspire to.
I'd consider it polite, as it triggers the gag reflex in a large segment of the population.
July 18, 2008 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I asked nicely. You want to be an asshole about it, go right ahead.
As I pointed out, if you have an animated GIF, the least consequence is that a segment of the viewers will not see an image for you at all (or the first frame, last frame or all melted together, depending on the software.) Whether you prefer that or everyone seeing a boring static image is up to you.
On the other hand, maybe it is a public service, letting people discover they are susceptible to visually triggered maladies?
July 20, 2008 4:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Um, the asshole here is you. One: because you falsely charge that animated avatars can cause an epileptic fit. That's total BS. And Two: because you're a pompous killjoy, as well as an addle-pated lout for trying to spoil a thread by bringing up and exploiting an illness you have no experience of.
Go stuff your beard up your butt.
and
Have a nice day
July 21, 2008 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
With all due respect to the gray generic avatars, and the beautiful paintings of people avatars, but I still say "to each his or her own".
What is wrong with creative expression and a sense of humor?
If an epileptic is going to read through the comments here, it's my hope they will scroll past whatever comment I have to say or cover my flashing avatar (once I have one) with their free hand and read what I have to say.
July 18, 2008 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's nonsense. They can and should disable animated gif
Google is your friend people, and blinking avatars aren't associated with anything.
Codswallop and party poopers.
July 18, 2008 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unless you take over an hour to read a 3 line comment
Maybe
July 18, 2008 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes, Movable Type error; sometimes, that "Error: limited to 256 characters" message (paraphrasing).
IE 7 on WinXP.
July 18, 2008 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
*sigh*
This was a reply to Ben....WAAAAAAAY up thread.
July 18, 2008 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its not a bug, its a feature... keep trying... for my last updte of avatar... umm 6 tries.
July 19, 2008 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Usually it takes me several attempts to upload an avatar.
Seriously.
You don't do anything different, you just keep hitting save
July 18, 2008 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Marquis is da bomb!
July 19, 2008 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okay... so no one will go blind, I slowed the bug down.
July 19, 2008 2:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Marquis, puhleez get ben-bob-Cat to provide directions on how to gif.
July 19, 2008 2:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
duh'h, how to animate gif. ;-)
July 19, 2008 2:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't know so I just searched around and found one that suited me. I have no artistic skills.
July 19, 2008 3:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cricket,
uh.. if u have the multiple frames.. u open in something that will animate it (I have GIMP, which is free open source and, as with so much open source, hard to use).
Apparently I did it different that Ben, who also used GIMP.
I opened all frames as layers in the order I wanted to display.
Save as gif. In the dialog box say animate. Select as the delay at least um 500, to double the delay for some layers, have two identical layers.
July 19, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've changed clans, as you see. I'm not of the One Eyed any more. It will return again. ;)
I've joined the clan of the 18th century people. In this time, too much animation for women is considered a bad thing. Many a governess' is hired for the sole purpose of tamping down unwonted female exuberance and teach us the basics of delicate manners and sit on our exuberance.
Hence, cannot animate. I'll just stand here and look quiet, cool and powdery. You appear to need my quiet, cool and powdery comfort on this thread.
July 19, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whether an avatar is animated or not, or highly creative or basic, it should reflect some aspect of the poster's personality.
This post made me google for my appropriate animated GIF. I hope searching the web also counts as creativity (at least a little)...
July 19, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
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