It Truly Is A Work Of Art
I began this trek about 3 months ago after accidently stumbling on to Link while surfing the net for a way to color my title bars...JUST COLOR!!! I had worn out the silver and green, and that blue had to go. The best I could accomplish myself was to tweak my monitor settings enough to change the color just enough to satisfy my longings for a few brief moments...but as we all know...it doesn't stop there.
I downloaded a few things on XPTHEMES before unexpectedly getting redirected to Link...and WOW...was that an eye opener. I remember it well.... the first skin I saw was a Suite from the infamous Apocalypse series.or work...Link. That was really incredible. I had NO IDEA you could do that. I downloaded it as fast as I could...acting like I was stealing some government secret...when it was complete...I felt like I had just gotten away with something BIG...LIKE IRAN/CONTRA ALL OVER AGAIN!!!
I quickly moved on...applied my "GHOST SURFER" and went for more secrets. My next victim was the amazing BoXXi...
Link. I couldn't believe the cache I'd found here...a WB and a MATCHING Wallpaper. OMG!!!! I had just found the GOLDEN GATES....it was HEAVEN for sure. This was just way to good to be true.
I went back a couple of clicks and ended up in what I now know to be the best skinning site on the net Link...and there was a list on the left of the page with the most amazing stuff ever imaginable....Object Docks??? and CursorXP???...
IconPackager???? What was this? I've been making B.S. Icons in for years, but NEVER EVER Packaged them. I had to check this out. ...and the instant I got to the IconPackager home page..it was all over. I'd found everything I'd been looking for all these years. Not only was it readily available..I was downloading the most incredible looking pieces of art I'd ever seen. Icons that looked real..as in just like the $20,000.00++ logo's these big corporations pay for. Now I knew there was NO WAY someone had made these....these were obviously great photocopies or someone had 6,000,000 bit scanner somewhere and was reproducing them. This way crazy... I stumbled onto works from hippy Link and treedog Link...and well...you know the rest.
I had to install this stuff right now...and really check it out. Suddenly I found out that I needed some software in order to utilize my new treasures....IconPackager...which led to IconDeveloper...which led to WindowBlinds...which made me get ObjectDesktop...then onto ObjectDock Plus....damn...I had all this and still couldn't animate a cursor...HELLO CursorXP Plus....and oh...let's not forget the best of all...a 2 year stint @ Link.
Geeze...there just wasn't enough time in the day to play with all of this....and I was getting frustrated quickly. I had just found "THE MISSING LINK"...."THE EIGHT WONDER OF THE WORLD"....and I didn't have time to play with it. So....HELLO EMERGENCY VACATION REQUEST!!!! 2 weeks of pure heaven was on the way...actually 17 straight days to further my passion for Desktop Mod...and not just any Mod....this was IT...the BEST OF THE BEST!!!!! All of this and I hadn't spent $100.00 yet. ((((NOTE TO SELF: YET IS A BIG WORD))))
The vacation started off great...reading, reading and more reading. The more reading I did...the worse it got. I didn't have Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D this and ColorPad that. But that wasn't gonna stop me from being the next Skinartistry Link of the skinning world....I mean...all I needed was $300.00 or $400.00 worth of software and I'd be feature-of-the-week. As far as that was...it was only November 11th or 12th when I joined...I could probably win the GUI Olympics 2004 contest with all the software I was gonna get.
Off to Fry's (GIANT electronics stores in Los Angeles area) with a spanking brand new VISA (acc # 48873&*&&*&&@_+#@*#@_) in case you feel sorry for me later in the article and want to donate a payment or 4). Fry's turned out to be relatively easy....they had everything on my list (don't forget the $$$$ mentioned above) and the clerk was even nice enough to offer his suggestions on some additional software I would need if I was gonna win this olympics thing within a couple of weeks. I had to have Macromedia FlashMX and Dreamweaver....not to mention I should pickup Xara3D EVERYTHING PACK and I'd probably need some addition HD space for all these new toys, RIGHT???? Off to the WesternDigital section for 80GB more and "while you're here...this is gonna really load up your memory....add 256MB there....and, well....you can figure out the rest of my Fry's visit......just don't mention that name around the wife....at least until next Christmas!!!!
Just under $1400.00 later I was ready to produce the Picasso of the modern era...HELL, I thought BIll Gates himself might even call and ask me to join the team to develop the next Windows GUI. I might even get a nice piece of Longhorn....who knew where it would all end????? (I know most of you are on the floor with a stomach ache from laughing by now...unless you've been there.)
As the vacation days flew by....here I was on day 8 or 9.....NO SUITE...NO ICONS (except for a beautiful rendering of my initials on a two-toned 32x32 256 I made a year or so ago)....NO TITLE BARS.....HELL, Photoshop and Illustrator together couldn't produce a useable button for me to save my life. I was getting soooooo frustrated (the wife seeing the Fry's receipt didn't help....not to mention the new laptop I added so I could "develop-on-the-fly." I had to hide the wireless kit and the other 3 or 4 programs I bought to help Photoshop and Illustrator finish the job. I even left all the CAT5 cables around so there wouldn't be any snooping around.
Well, I had 1 day of vacation left...we had company and family over for Sunday brunch and the wife proudly announces to the whole crowd that I'm now a Microsoft Programmer and in the Olympics competing for ?????? She was soooo proud she wanted everyone to see the work I'd been doing the last 17 days...almost morning to nite....the reason I got waivers for the chores and "honeydo's"....my excuse to get out of just about everything imaginable...including this brunch.
So over to the "New Development Center" everyone went....begging me all the way to show them some goodies. Two co-workers were even present and were very interested to see what I had taken the sudden vacation for. I tried and tried to crash that damn thing....tried to slip into BIOS ("yeah, you have to change some settings here to get it to work...and sometimes...this stuff is soooo precise that it doesn't work.") Tried to erase the new 80GB HD and have it not show on boot....then I'd have an excuse not to show them my VAST COLLECTION!!!!
1. 2 title bars that a 2 year old could have made
2. About 10 buttons I had right clicked on and saved for templates of some kind.
3. A SkinStudio Pro application with at least 3 pages of red errors in verification.
4. And finally...my pride and joy....a transparent family picture in Object Edit. (all for under $4000.00) ****the wife thinks it's $1800.00***
That night, my last vacation day, with my tail between my legs...a stack of every book on Photoshop, Illustrator and skinning I could muster (without spending anymore of the wife's $$$$$) an 800MB My Documents folder full of online tutorials and tips for everything imaginable, except how to hide the bills from the wife (I NEED A COPY OF THAT 1 IF ANYONE HAS AN EXTRA) and I went on WinCustomize Link for 1 last encounter...to see if I had missed anything...any of the basics that would open HEAVEN'S GATES for me.
Suddenly...it was there....it was all right there in front of me......there wasn't anything I'd missed....or didn't have access to.....I had more than all the tools necessary.....WAY MORE.
I finally saw the light.........it wasn't me at all........it was them......those skinners......those guys right there on my screen......I had the answer right in front of me the whole time.....it's not the software or hardware......there was only 1 answer.............................................
DAMN.....THESE GUYS ARE GOOD!!!!!