While at work, I was testing a MacBook that took a liquid spill. As part of testing we sometimes warm up the machine by running the iTunes visualizer. These images are screen captures of what the visualizer looked like with some light distortion as a result of the failing logic board. Who knew? Computer + water = art.

Reddit is a social news website which allows users to post links that other users can vote up or down to make the link appear higher on the site.  I posted The Subway Art Blog on the “Pics” section of the site.  It received several up votes and over the span of about 12 hours, the attention of 800+ people.

I can’t describe the excitement I felt after I looked at the statistics last night.  I got the idea for the site about six months ago while snapping some random funny photos on the subway and I created the design shortly after.  It was just recently though, that I started posting content consistently.  I’ve put a lot of time into it and have been patiently waiting for my chance to gain a readership.  The bump in traffic has reassured my belief that the site has enormous potential.  Seeing my idea come to fruition has been amazing.  I can’t wait to see the next step in my plan materialize.

About a week has passed and I’ve been shocked by the number of responses to the ad.  I was surprised to discover that I did not receive a single response from Craigslist.  On the other hand, the one response I did get was off of Facebook.  The results have left me weighing the usefulness of the two sites.

If you asked me a week ago, I would have said Craigslist would be considerably more useful for filling my vacant room.  Now, though, I realize the beauty of Facebook for the same task.  Not only can I post a public classified ad, I can also post status updates and links to the 900+ family members, friends, acquaintances and colleagues on my friend list.  So not only do I have a great number of people to read my ad, they are all people I know!  By the way, the person who responded and who is now officially taking the room is a friend from college, George Agathos.

Some people have poo-pooed me in the past for having so many people on my Facebook friends list.  What’s the point if I don’t keep in touch with all of them?  I had a tough time responding to that question until now.  This is exactly the reason.  It’s not that every single person on my list is a close friend.  I am essentially building a directory of hundreds of old friends and all the people I’ve met since I joined the site in 2003.  With the ever-expanding boundaries of Facebook there will be more and more applications for my directory in the future.

[Check out some of George's Projects at GRG Ventures]

Equally as astounding is the diverse mass of talent we have in our group of about 500 people who are active on the site and regularly listen to the podcast.  We have programmers, musicians, videographers and even professional graphic artists who continuously lend their talents to make the site and its community greater.

This time around, though, I will discuss one such talented individual: animator Kyle Carrozza or “TVsKyle” on the Pallet Tribune forums.  Kyle lives in Los Angeles, where he has created an animated short for Nickelodeon called MooBeard the Cowpirate and works as a story board artist for Danger Rangers.  At the forums, Kyle posts Pokémon fan art and other fun stuff, such as this illustration of yours truly.

As long as someone appreciates what we are doing with this fan site, I will do my best to keep it alive.  The internet—and, more importantly, the people on it—never cease to amaze me.

[Kyle's Porfolio] [Kyle on Youtube]

The scary part is, I ordered nan for lunch today from the Indian restaurant.  EERIE.