Brian Artka

I watched the last episode EVER of The Sopranos last night, and all I have to say is brilliant. Instead of feeding us with something everyone will complain about, the viewer is left to ponder on what happens to the family in the last scene. Brilliant! Why do I think so? In a world that is force fed television and all the anticipation of waiting to see what happens next, David Chase says, “you decide.” Artsy? maybe. Original? yes. Brilliant? Absolutely.
We the people aren’t stupid. We can think for ourselves and we don’t need someone to tell us how to do or “imagine” everything. It is refreshing to see that one of the best series in television history ends on such an original note and not like every other television show that has ended before it.

“Information architecture. Usability. Accessibility. Web standards. If you don’t know about these things, stop designing websites until you have learned. Competence in graphic design is merely a baseline; it does not qualify you to create user experiences for the web.”

Jeffrey Zeldman

Priceless.

I have always been a fan of video games, in fact I grew up on them. In the past few years, I would sporadically play some games on my computer, but that was about it. I read about the Nintendo Wii and how it actually involves a heck of alot of physical interaction to play the games. I was interested in this, since I am fairly out of shape at the moment and keep pushing off going to the gym. Anyway, I got a Wii for my birthday from my wife and parents. Let me say… this thing is a revolution. I had my 80 year old grandmother play one of the games (briefly, but she did play it!) and my parents were really into it as well!

Four of us played ten frames of bowling and the way this system picks up on your movements is amazing. I have never had so much fun playing a video game with others. Sure, the shoot em up games are fun when you are playing a real person on the other end of the internet, but the fact that I got my parents, my brother, and my GRANDMOTHER to have fun playin the Wii is revolutionary. My wife and I had a few games of tennis last night and let me tell you, I had one heck of a work out. I actually sustained our first Wii injury as my wife swung the remote (in a tennis racket motion) and jabbed me in the elbow! I am still feeling it right now. LOL. In any event, I just wanted to log the fact that this system, when more physical interaction games come out for it, will be the best console video game system ever developed.

Today I am 28 years old. I have been thinking about “blogging” myself for awhile now and thought how nice it would be to start it on my birthday. So, today, February 9th, 2007, BrianArtka.com is born. I plan to use this site to talk about my life and my passions. Maybe someone will learn something from it, maybe not. In any event, it will be a good log of my life at 28 and beyond. Things I plan to discuss and show here are as follows:

• Web Development and Design
• Web Standards
• My Photography
• What I am currently reading
• What I currently watched
• What I am currently listening too
• my rants (hopefully not many)
• what I am currently working on

I guess this will be a pretty diverse log of Brian’s activities. I’m going to start this blog off with my current “construction” project. My family and I started remodeling our basement into my wife’s office a few weeks ago. It has been an interesting project so far.
So, thats it for now. Hopefully someone will read this, comment, and it will turn into a fine form of discussion and learning. Oh, by the way, PLEASE excuse the current layout. Its the classic “Kubrick” design that Wordpress installs. I am working on my own design and it will be in place soon. Adios.