Blog Blender

Just start

Jason Z. of the 37 Signals crew writes when web developing, the first step is to start.

While it would be easy to recommend stacks of books, and dozens of articles with 55 tips for being 115% better than the next guy, the truth is that you don’t need learn anything new in order to begin. The most important thing is simply to start.

I’d go one step further and say this is true for any creative project.  Just start.  Don’t worry about what you don’t know and focus on what you do know and build from there.  There will be moments when you’ll need to learn something, but to think you need to know everything up front will only fuel the analysis paralysis, or bluntly, instigate the fear of failure.

PJH Studios artwork, Portrait of a sun

PJH Studios

Movies, music, books, whiskey, and culture in a blog blender

  • Just start

    Jason Z. of the 37 Signals crew writes when web developing, the first step is to start. While it would be easy to recommend stacks of books, and dozens of articles with 55 tips for being 115% better than the next guy, the truth is that you don’t need learn anything new in order to…

  • Scott Pilgrim – The Movie

    Scott Pilgrim – The Movie is a fun, hilarious adventure, action, nerd fest. Colorful visuals and engaging action sequences support a well directed cast as Scott Pilgrim must defeat seven evil exes. Indeed, Michael Cera plays the same character he always plays, but Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona steals the movie with a great performance.…

  • Batwoman – Elegy

    Batwoman: Elegy tells two stories. The first is of Batwoman taking on a villainess named Alice who has plans to gas Gotham City with chemical weapons. The second story tells of how Kate Kane took up the mantle of Batwoman. In the first, the action occurs quickly and ends half way through the book after…

  • Paper Arts, Dallas, TX

    Tucked away in a small strip center South of downtown Dallas (Peak and Elm), Paper Arts offers a mind boggling selection of papers from all over the world. One of a kind, hand crafted, exotic, off beat, special purpose–they have it or can get it. In my own impromptu tour, I was told that “we…

  • The Head and the Heart

    A debut album from a Seattle sextet is perfect for those late summer drives at dusk.  The sun fades into the horizon while warm shades of yellow, orange and red light up the sky.  The Head and the Heart’s self titled clocks in at 9 tracks, spanning 35 minutes.  In that time, the harmonies come…

  • Jakob Dylan – Women and Country

    Jakob Dylan’s Women and Country album feels good on the first listen.  There’s no trying too hard, no songs with the familiar country, singer songwriter tropes.  It’s paced well, with diverse arrangements.  Nothing But the Whole Wide World and Holy Rollers for Love stand out.

  • Five for Fighting – Slice

    Five for Fighting’s Slice is more of the same piano pop balladry but with different lyrics. Safe, digestible and unoffensive.

  • Brett Favre is like the Internet

    In a great example of divergent thinking, Kottke collects a series of tweets by Tim Carmody comparing Brett Favre’s career to that of the Internet. In 1995, Favre wins the MVP, the Packers get to the NFC Championships, and Windows 95 brings the internet & graphic interface to the masses.

  • Of terminology and semantics

    Debates over terminology and semantics are for archivists and academics. If you’re interested in the living heart of what you do, focus on building things rather than talking about them. –Ryan Freitas

  • Extreme Photography

    Extreme Photography: The Hottest, Coldest, Fastest, Slowest, Nearest, Farthest, Brightest, Darkest, Largest, Smallest, Weirdest Images in the Universe… shows the physical and technological limits of photography. From volcanoes, Antarctic exhibitions, outer space, thermal, infrared, x-ray, MRI, examples are given as to the potential of the application, its practicality and a little bit of how-to thrown…