Summer in the City, Summer in South Jersey

I just wanted to drop some credits for the new site background and video.

I was looking for a background photo with a “Summer in the City” theme and this picture by Thomas Hawk of a security guard trying to cool off with a bottle of water appealed to me. I’ve been meaning to try an image that didn’t need to tile so the way this faded to white on two edges was perfect, allowing me to position it in the corner and have it look seamless on the page. Then I filled the white edges of the photo with an off-white and set the page to match that color so that the rectangular page content would still pop. Otherwise, there was too much white and the whole thing looked unfinished.

The video over to the right includes highlights from an obscure but awesome looking 1994 documentary called Wildwood NJ about the South Jersey vacation spot. I’d already heard plenty of horror stories about Wildwood from my wife who was forced to visit a family-owned resort there once when she was a kid. If Jersey girls discussing hookups and beatdowns doesn’t appeal to you then we can’t be friends. This video was brought to my attention by one of my favorite YouTube creatives, Rich from the blog fourfour. More from him on the documentary here.

You may also know Rich from his cat videos, or his diva obsessions which have led him to chronicle the insanity of Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Beyonce. Or perhaps you saw his video of his cat interviewing one of the America’s Next Top Model girls. Check out his YouTube channel here.

But my favorite video he’s made is also his biggest hit “I’m not here to Make Friends!” a stunning display on the commonality of (pick one) people, reality shows, people on reality shows. And I see he’s just posted the sequel! “I’m not here to Make Friends ‘09″