daidala adds third column
MINNEAPOLIS: AUGUST 3, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE WORLDWIDE RELEASE
A redesign of the seventh most popular “blog” on typography has the font world abuzz this morning, but reaction to the addition of a third text column is mixed.
Fans of Jon Coltz’s daidala site such as Paula Nordquist of Missoula, MT hailed the change. “That third column makes my life soooo much easier. Jon is a visionary. He’s like what could happen if like, Fred Durst and Nicole Richie did it and made a baby.” And Ben Smith of Columbus, OH added: “Fuckin’ A, I logged on and just about dumped a load in my Carhartts.”
But critics – among them, computer usability expert Julie Emmett of Vancouver – urged caution in navigating the updated daidala: “[It’s] an important achievement, but now I have to go to the other side of the page just to read his copyright statement. It was negligent of him not to study the potential effects of this change on users before doing something so extreme.”
Others are shifting attention away from the redesign and are focusing instead on the recent addition of a PayPal link to Coltz’s site, where readers are now invited to make donations via a credit card transaction. Danny McCoy of Far Rockaway, NY lambasted Coltz: “I hope you’re reading this, you little prick. You string us along for two whole years, bullshitting us into thinking you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart, and then out of the blue you start begging for money. Well waaah-waaah. My violin’s about this fuckin’ big [makes gesture approximating thumb to index finger], and it’s playing all for you, you asshole.”
We caught up with Coltz earlier today, and he had this to say about the recent redesign as well as readers’ reactions to it.
“That third column’s been vexin’ me for darn near a year – I’d just been pissin’ in the wind tryin’ to figure it out. Shit, I had columns movin’ all over the fuckin’ place, and they was everywhere ‘cept where I wanted ‘em. And then it dawned on me – I swear to the Lord Jesus Christ it was a bona fide fuckin’ miracle – I says to myself, ‘Don’t be tryin’ to write your own goddamn CSS file, ya stupid git – just copy someone else’s.’ But how do you do that, y’know? I mean, how the hell d’you actually find one and once y’do, how d’you make any sense of it? Jesus, that’s like crackin’ the fuckin’ Mohenjodaro seals!”
To complete the work, Coltz retreated to the woods of Northern Minnesota, isolating himself from family and friends for a lengthy code-copying session.
“Next thing I thought was, ‘Well shoot, just whose CSS do I copy, anyhow?’ Cogitatin’ on that alone took most of a week. And then it just hits me. I says to myself, ‘That Dean Allen’s got three columns on his Frenchy-Canuck blog – an’ he’s one smart fella, too. Y’know he moves over there to France and gets himself a pretty, booklearnin’ ladyfriend and some hounds – set up right nice he is. Anyways, I copy his whole deal, lock, stock, and barrel – float left to left, right to right, and smack most of that sonofabitch right there in the middle. Changed ‘round a few things an’ put all kinds o’ neat shit in that new third column, too – links an’ shit. Looks real nice now, it does. I’m fixin’ to move up to fifth or sixth place in them type blog rankings next year. An’ maybe now that uppity crybaby Heller’ll open up his peepers an’ take notice o’ my blog.”
Responding to the criticism that he is now implicitly “charging” users to read daidala, Coltz said, “Hey, that’s the American way, you know, fightin’ communism and promotin’ capitalism. Ben Franklin wasn’t out flyin’ kites in thunderstorms for shits and giggles. ‘Sides, I made 25 bucks so far – that’s enough for two deep dish Meat Lover’s – uh, I mean, that’ll really help out with them server space issues I been havin.”
Coltz says he actually plans to give the $25 to Mr Allen.