Distancing Myself

Queer stuff, Toronto

Oh lord. My old Black Eagle website is long gone (somewhat unsafe for work… guys in jocks, leather imagery, no nudity), replaced by a site I am sure was made in Frontpage. No, a pirated copy of Frontpage and MS Paint.

I don’t even know where to begin to be cynical. The riot of colour? The beveled or incredibly pixelated fonts? The broken image on the staff page? The horrid resizing of web images to hundreds of times their original size without apology? Or resizing by HTML? My original artwork heavy handedly ripped apart and overdrawn to shit? Typos galore?

Wood grain?

Did the designer make the site with boxing gloves on?

Sigh. I knew this day would come. If the site were better than my original design (since it was 3 years old, that would not have been hard to do), I would honestly be congratulatory.

I know I sound bitter.

But it’s like seeing a boyfriend who you liked a lot, who dumped you, and is now hanging around crack heads and accountants.

Before you comment, go look at NYC Eagle and compare it to BET. Arresting opening page. Tight layout and easy navigation. One style throughout. My only complaint is that it’s Flash.

23 thoughts on “Distancing Myself

  1. Dead Robot

    Actually yes, it was valid, Joe. For a brief period of time I had redesigned the site to a WC3 compliant layout (I had used this layout with proper encoding).

    Soon after, to save money, they got someone to go in and do event updates instead of me, wrecking the code.

  2. andrew

    ok…. just for anti-stalking screening purposes, who are you and what do you want? i will email you, but from a disposable gmail account just in case you’re one of the freaks.

    what am i saying? only the freaks were in any way interesting or made work there other than relentless drudgery.

  3. snotty

    And the link to your blog doesn’t work. When did you work there, I’m trying to picture you.

  4. andrew

    he’s a longterm substance abuser (remember when they were known as drug addicts?) who became clean – a few times. he’s also a gin-soaked martinet with the business acumen of a manitoba maple bug and no honour whatsoever. i could detail for pages about the hell of working for him without a decent buffer (a good general manager), but it’s DR’s blog, not mine.

  5. snotty

    Stevie Wonder could pick up on the vanity from the space station, but coke? I thought he was a carrot-juice drinking gym bunny. I’ve heard people run him down and others say he’s a great guy.

  6. andrew

    sorry to disappoint you, DR. i could have typed more, but there’d be no point. it’s a crappy bar run by miserable idiots.

    snotty: the owner is empty on the inside other than vanity and coke dust. and the outside: not my type at all, but if he is your type, you should know he’s had a great deal of work done. if plastic surgery is your fetish, have at it.

  7. snotty

    That home page is a little garish, especially for a leather bar.And they removed your link. Is andrew saying the owner-he who is never mentioned by name on this site-is ugly on the inside? He sure isn’t on the outside, but I’ve never met him.

  8. Normlr

    It’s amazing how they “can’t afford” a web designer considering how busy it can get in there at times.

    I don’t think they know what WC3 means.

  9. Dead Robot

    (runs from the web crying)

    Okay my version of the site wasn’t bleeding edge design either, but it held up *some* standards, namely WC3 ones. I offered a really cheap redesign last spring and was politely turned down.

  10. Dead Robot

    I caught that too. And the street map with the exploding view to… nothing?

    To be fair, the guy doing the site and posters is the promotions and events manager. Web/Graphic design is not their first profession and they’re saving a ton of cash by not outsourcing their marketing. Fresh porn for the bar!

  11. Ann Acquaintance

    Not to pile on too much, but the weirdest thing for me is the TTC subway map on (I think) the Visitor Info page.. from what seems to be 1966!

  12. Gabriel...

    …it looks like something I did on Geocities about eight years ago. It must be just a placemark until they can finish the real site.

    “…and is now hanging around crack heads and accountants.”

    Maybe it’s time for an intervention…

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