LYD Classic. Original publish date: April 30, 2004 (Age: 28).
Editor’s Note 2026: Oh man, who here remembers Yahoo! Avatars, which sadly shut down in 2013? (I’m actually surprised it lasted nine years!) This project is where I got my first tech-related crunch time.
Seriously, there is still no furniture in my house.
So where was I? Oh yeah. My formerly “secret” project. But first, a disclaimer: If this were a tech blog, I would be writing about JavaScript-to-Flash methods, discussing reasons why cross-browser functionality became such an issue throughout the process, and the challenges of editing code originally written overseas in a language I don’t understand.
But this isn’t a tech blog, and you don’t expect this to be a tech blog. You expect once-a-month wacky posts about how I fall off a flight of stairs, or wacky anecdotes from my mother, with Mandarin in italics. I’m just a monkey that dances for you while you take your coffee breaks. So no technical questions in the comments, please. Besides, it’s a beta product and, officially, I am not the web developer on this project anymore.
That being said... Yahoo! Avatars. Yeah, that was a crazy project, and I wouldn’t mind if I never had to look at a picture of a Jennifer Aniston haircut ever again. But I had just come off of another project redesign, so hey, why not? Avatars aren’t something that MSN Messenger or AOL IM has, so working on something original and cool would be fun. Also, I imagined filing the coolest bugs ever. Bug #139008: Peasant shirt totally doesn’t go with capri pants.
Engineering lead: We don’t have a lot of time to finish this project. It’s a good thing another country has implement an avatar system already.
Ernie: (looks through code) Uhm, this is a lot of code. And these javascript comments are in Korean.
Engineer: But aren’t -
Ernie: ...I’m Chinese.
Engineer: Oh. This project is still due next Tuesday.
Ernie’s natural sleeping rhythms: I quit.
Ernie’s sanity: Me too. Fuck this.
Eventually, I completed a rough prototype and gave a presentation to some other web developers. They took the presentation well, I think.
(The scene: A bunch of web developers in a conference room. I have my laptop with the Avatars website connected to a giant projection screen, except with more third-party conceptual avatar assets. In other words, we used a test avatar.)
Ernie: ...so remote scripting was used, as well as some Javascript to Flash methods. This was an attempt to emulate the...
Web Developer #7: Uhm.
Ernie: Huh? What’s wrong?
WebDev #7: That chick you’re putting clothes on has cameltoe.
Ernie: What? What are you talking about? No she doesn’t.
WebDev #8: No, I think she’s right. [turns on laser pointing device, points it to the crotch area]
Everyone in room: EEEEEEEEEW!!
WebDev #9: By the way, you know this won’t work in Safari, right?
So the graphics were changed. From yesterday's post, I noticed some comments that the male avatars looked a little too much like 12-year-old boys. You should have seen the first batch.
(The scene: Back in my cubicle. 7 guys are crowded around my computer, eagerly awaiting what the initial avatar drawings would look like.)
Ernie: So, I choose “male” for my avatar gender, press the “Create my Avatar” button, and...
All: ...
Guy #1: Oh my god, is he wearing daisy dukes?
Guy #2: ...and a wifebeater. The caesar haircut and the pouting aren’t helping, either.
Guy #3: Uhm... these avatars look pretty...
Ernie: Homosexual?
All: Yep.
Guy #1: Ohmygod, is he pouting? What, did he not get asked to the gay prom?
Graphic designer sitting across from me: All he needs is a handlebar mustache and a motorcycle and he’s ready to go to the Eagle!
So the graphics were changed again, and the site you see is more or less the product of my labor. And there are definitely some issues with the website, but, hell, that’s why it’s called a beta. As to what I’m doing now, I’ve been put on yet another top-secret project - just as interesting, but more difficult to make Capri pants references to. I’ll work on it.
What I took from that post is the thought, "Ernie could have looked hot in Daisy Dukes." :-)