“Picture that. In your dreams.” – House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski
There is very little to be said about where you are. In fact, you probably found this place by accident, unsure about what you’re doing, with your mindless fingers roaming in what is an infinite realm of rotting cerebrum and feces. You and I know it as the internet.
Aquanica.NET is simply a home. A settlement. A quiet, virtual home sitting inside a rain-catcher – you can’t see in it, and the details drown when water falls. But let it not bother you.
This is my home. There’s nothing much to see, but it’s a little piece of my own minute, minuscule pride to prove where I’ve wasted away majority of my childhood. It’s a fragment of nostalgia that does not sit restfully. It’s home.
It is simply a proverbial house with mirrors as its walls – scratched, worn and cracked. Aquanica.NET is merely a part of me that I’ve had lying around for many years but have never quite perfected. It’s my sad excuse of being a web-designer, but this is where I show myself to everyone else. I don’t expect “everyone” to exceed 2 people per day, if it’s even that.
Taste it all. Taste the sky. This will be the place that flies away from your conscience.
It’s likely you already know who’s webspace you’re on – and if you don’t, that’s possible too. Let’s just settle with “Franky”. Aquanica.NET was actually mine when it was about 2003, but it only lasted a year since I wasn’t the one paying for it – it was originally a gift by three individuals (whom I haven’t spoken to for about 7 years): they were Megan, Cassidy and Thuy. All of us were within a network of young web-designers, but many, including them, have given up the art. As well, being a 14 year old, I wasn’t legally allowed to purchase a domain myself, and my parents never knew I did anything over the internet.
Being a very secretive person, I had no intention of letting them know anything. Even to this day they don’t even know I have an online blog.
There’s a reason why I’m hidden in the catacombs – I don’t like the attention, I don’t web-design for business, and I don’t have any friends in the web-designing world (in fact, I have very few friends. I feel no envy towards social butterflies).
With that being said, I’ve been studying and, dare I say, “practicing” HTML coding, and fiddling around with Photoshop-esq programs, since I was about 14 years old. I haven’t taken any courses or attended any seminars – I am not a web-designer by career. This is just a passion I have as an aside. Although I have intentions of expanding my somewhat limited expertise, this is not something I am making a living with.
So who am I, really?
I’m a simple science student, if you put it that way. A pharmacy student, if you want to get more specific. (Not pharmaceutical. Pharmacy.) I’m a small-town boy with nothing to gloat about except for “skewed versatility”. Am I cold? Yes. Am I aloof? Yes. Do I care about you? Probably not.
I’m writing too much about myself. How narcissistic.
I’m a big supporter for open source. But don’t you dare think I’m a code tester or a programmer – I support it because it’s free. I’m broke most of the time, and I don’t want to find myself in any debt. It’s a blessing to have something created in the hands of the public, sans-moi. I just use it and complain when it doesn’t work. But I can work with many types of tools, even if they’re lopsided or rusty.
But even through that, I still use an overpriced Apple (opposed to what. Life brand?) Macbook (the cookie-cutter white ones). You then begin to wonder why I’m broke. I’m not a PC hater because I’m fully capable of using Windoze and anything from Microsop. (Did I ever mention I have a habit of fixing PCs?) Kekekeke. Dashboard.
I use GIMP for graphic designs. I think that suits my “graphics” abilities (being gimpy and all). Photoshop is nice, but I don’t think I can afford to fork over 700 bucks for a fucking DVD-R. I don’t pirate anything except indie music (and 80% of the time it’s free anyways. Thanks Invisible Cities!) so I’m really left with only one option. Besides, I’ve been using GIMP for years, so it’d be rather strange to switch to something that’s a quarter of my tuition.
And since Mac OS X doesn’t have Notepad (and Textedit is so old school), I used Smultron for coding. Gotta love tabbed text files!
Um. And I also use a keyboard. And a mouse. And a bottle for my water. And I use Old Spice deodorant?
Oh yes. And I use WordPress with a bunch of plugins and various hacks. How predictable.
Please note I am not responsible for any lost articles, goods, or body parts while you visit this website. As well, for all I know, these pages are not infused with any ads or spyware (it really isn’t that expensive to pay for this junk). Do not pin me for any spyware that ends up on your shitty computer, because I don’t have the authorisation to do that and neither does my host. Either way, half of the time I am the one that has to take spyware and shit off people’s computers.
As for my work, I really don’t care if you take it or not. The only thing I ask is you very noticeably credit me somewhere on your page. This doesn’t mean stick it in a disclaimer section, or putting it in a credit page and think all is well. It has to be pretty much everywhere. It isn’t yours, so don’t take credit for it. If you got an idea from here, it’d be nice that you mention me, but I don’t care – I didn’t think of it first. It’s just when you plagerise.
I don’t even know why I bothered to write that. As if anyone would want to take something I made with a bunch of free programs.
And as the moogles would say, “Get out! Kupo!”