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Many of you may be aware of a blog called Hunk du Jour (French translation: Hunk of the Day). It features daily photos, profiles, and interviews with sexy men. Some are celebrities, some are just average guys found online. It’s a great variety with something for every hunk lover. It’s also very interactive, as readers get to vote for tomorrow’s featured man. Today they launched a new website design, and guess who designed it? Me. I’ve been working closely with Chris, the site’s owner, to create a whole new look. I had such a great time working on this site! (Who wouldn’t?) But working with Chris is what really made the difference. He’s been a great client and I hope his readers enjoy the new layout. Have a looksie:
The tattoo is a cartoon of a Japanese scorpion, named Sasori. Sounds fancy, but it’s really just the translation of “scorpion” in Japanese. (Cue the gasps.) When I was 17, an artist friend of mine used to draw characters on me with henna. I liked the scorpion so much (it’s my astrological sign) and I decided I’d enjoy being branded with it for the rest of my life. (This turned out to be false.) My parents took me to the tattoo parlor and paid for the tattoo. It was a gift. My other 2 brothers have tattoos also. I guess you could say we’re ink brothers. When I first got Sasori, I thought I was so cool. None of the other kids in school had one and I was just so bad-ass. But then the questions started… “Why isn’t it colored in?” I heard that dozens of times, day after day. The tattoo was never meant to be in color. I was so bothered by that constant question that I’ve pretty much worn long pants the rest of my adult life. Sad, isn’t it? Now the obvious question is “If it bothers you so much, why don’t you just have it modified?” While that would make sense, I don’t want another tattoo. And I don’t want this one to be more prominent. In fact, someday, I plan to have it removed. But as far as tattoos in general, I’m all for them. I just don’t want any on me.
My friend Rey sent this via e-mail last night, and I decided to turn it into a blog post. I’m just a rebel like that… 1. What time did you get up this morning? 2. Diamonds or pearls? 3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? 4. What are your favorite TV shows?
5. What do you usually have for breakfast? 6. What is your middle name? 7. What food do you dislike? 8. What is your favorite CD at the moment? 9. What time is it right now? 10. Favorite Sandwich? 11. What characteristic do you despise? 12. Favorite item of clothing? 13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? 14. Where would you retire to? 15. What was your most memorable birthday? 16. Furthest place you are sending this? 17. Person you expect to send it back? 18. Morning person or a night person? 19. What is your shoe size? 20. Pets? 21. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with us? 22. What did you want to be when you were little? 23. How are you today? 24. What is your favorite flower? 25. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? 26. What are you listening to right now? 27. What was the last thing that you ate? 28. Do you wish on stars? 29. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? 30. How is the weather right now? 31. Last person you spoke to on the phone? 32. Favorite soft drink? 33. Favorite restaurant? 34. What was your favorite toy as a child? 35. Summer or Winter? 36. Chocolate or vanilla? 37. Coffee or Tea? 38. Do you want your friends to email you back? 39. When was the last time you cried? 40. What is under your bed? 41. What did you do last night? 42. What are you afraid of? 43. Salty or Sweet? 44. How many keys on your key ring? 45. How many years at your current job? 46. Favorite day of the Week? 47. Do you make friends easily? 48. How many people will you send this to? 49. How many will respond? 50. Do you like finding out all this stuff about your friends?
I’ve updated my blog design for 2008. I try to change it once per year. As usual, it was a bit of a challenge. I would get everything nice and neat for Firefox and Safari, then I’d check it in Internet Explorer and it looked like a broken mess. This is the first edition that has been completely designed using CSS DIV’s, which Internet Explorer does not play nice with. I’m awful with programming, but as far as I know, I pulled it off with this one. I finally changed the logo I’ve been using for 3 years. I always liked that cracked font, it was the same font used for the “Psycho” movie posters. But it was time for something new. Please let me know if you have problems viewing the site because I want to know. This is how it should look:
And here’s the old design:
Last December, I announced on my blog that I was going to have a column in the online edition of Out & About, Nashville’s GLBT newspaper. Since I wrote that post, a lot of friends that I talk to outside of my blog have asked what became of that. I haven’t posted a follow-up because quite honestly, I don’t know what to say. Here’s what happened— I’m friends with the publisher of Out & About, and he really liked my blog. He wanted to know if I’d write articles for the online edition of the newspaper. I was excited and jumped the gun, blabbering about it on my blog and announcing it to all you readers. That was a mistake. I usually don’t announce anything prematurely. But that was a little flub. Since the publisher initiated this, I jumped to the conclusion that it was a done deal. It turned out the decision would need to go through the editor first. That’s where things got stuck, and have been ever since. I sent the editor some samples of posts I’ve written, and he said he’d review them. I tried to follow-up several times after that and never got a response. I really don’t know what happened. That’s the story, and I thought I should fill you in since people have been asking. But I want to emphasize that I never heard anything positive or negative. It would be bad journalism for me to insinuate the outcome, so I just want to remain neutral and say nothing came of it. Nothing good, nothing bad. But thanks for all the kind words of support and excitement. It really meant a lot to have people cheering for me. Valentine’s Day is next week, and I realized that I never really do anything cool on my blog to celebrate it. So I had an idea… A lot of my readers are couples, so I wondered if you’d like to share your love story? Tell readers about how you met, and all that good stuff. If you’re interested, send it my way and I can publish it. I don’t know how much response I’ll get, but I thought I’d put it out on the table. Any takers? E-mail secrets [at] nathanexposed [dot] com
All it takes is a few busy days, and then you realize you haven’t written a thing on your blog. Even worse, I left things in such a sad place. Well thanks for all the words of support and agreement. People don’t always agree, but it is nice when they do. Well it was a good week, though it flew by. Yesterday and today, I spent on-site with clients. I usually don’t do that, because most of the website work I do can all be handled via phone or e-mail. But I did get free lunch two days in a row, so maybe I should meet with people more often. (Yes, I’m aware I should be the one paying… believe me, I offered.) Tonight, we watched A Clockwork Orange. It wasn’t as good or as shocking as I remembered, but Rodney had never seen it. I think I was about 10 years old when I first saw it. Oh, the things you see when you have older brothers. In other news, Rodney has announced to me that he plans on writing on my blog. This is interesting news, coming from the guy who used to say he “has no interest in blogs.” But he’s been reading mine lately, and one day he just walked in the room and said “You know, Nathan, you’re a really good writer.” Thanks, Rodney. It only took you 7 years to say that. I guess that’s it in my neck of the woods. I hope everyone is doing well.
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