Die, smiley!
God, I hate graphical smileys. Not ASCII emoticons; those are cool. In fact, that’s partly why I hate graphical smileys: they took a rich and interesting form of post-modern folk art and crassified it.
Mostly, though, I hate them because they’re so fucking ugly and stupid. This little bastard has got to be my #1 graphical smiley hate object: 
The BBCode LOL smiley. Look at the way its upper lip is nickering up and down. Who does that with their front lip when they laugh? Horses! Who else? Giraffes. Who else? NOBODY! Jesus, where did this person go do art school, a dude ranch? You can’t even do that with your upper lip if you try. Go on. Try. Seriously. I’m not writing another word until you do.
Here’s a good one: 
. It means “I woke up this morning Chinese. And grumpy.” Well, at least that one may come in handy some day.
Then there’s: 
I am so constipated. And: 
Look! My mouth is like a red, red rose. And: 
I’m wearing a tiny bra on my face, and that makes me strangely happy.
I was horrified when I realized I had graphical smilies. Yes. Right here at S. Weasel. I made a happy little winky-smiley in my own comment section, and up popped a horrible squinty moonfaced yellow hobgoblin. Huh. They came in a little folder with the rest of the WordPress software. I did not know.
My first thought was to biff the whole directory and go back to clean, pure ASCII emoticons. And then I had a second, more weasely, thought. In short, weasels. I would replace the lot with spritely, handsome weasels. Smiling weasels. Frowning weasels. Jaunty weasels thrusting their pink tongues in good natured ribaldry.
I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I had to design the occasional icon back in the days when you got 16 colors and 16 pixels square. It was an asshole of a job. I am not a minimalist. But I figured I’d start with the basics — frowny, smiley, winky and the tongue (sounds like a Hannah Barbera cartoon starring three crime fighting teenage pop musicians and a rogue body part). It went something like…this:
Only frowny really looks like a weasel, because frowny is the only face weasels got. The others look like animatronic gophers or something. No matter. By the time it was squoze down to the standard 15×15 smiley size, I knew they wouldn’t look like anything at all. And they didn’t. At that size, I couldn’t tell one from another.
For a moment, this pleased me. I imagined replacing all the icons with Frowny Weasel, so no matter what you tried to emote, out popped that cranky little puss. But then I realized I would never know what you, my minions, were trying to tell me. Are you happy? Are you sad? Do you have a rogue body part you would like me to examine? I must know these things.
So I gave myself another ten pixels. A 25 pixel smiley is going to blow out the line spacing (I almost said “the leading”; god I’m old). But, hey, it’s not like I’m in some kind of design contest or anything, is it?
So here they are: π π π π π I added a LOL, so that peals of merry laughter can ring throughout Castle Mustelid. You still can’t really tell what’s what, but I drawed them and I can. Invoke them with 
. Any other emoticon will get you a busted graphic icon BECAUSE I KILLED THEM.
Have fun and drive safely.
Posted: April 19th, 2007 under animals, art, artwork, blogging, personal.
Comments: 35
Comments
Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: April 19, 2007, 5:00 pm
Hmm, something amiss here. Let’s try winky and frowny: π π
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 19, 2007, 5:00 pm
Do you know, WordPress is so anal about smilies, you can’t even type a colon-rightparen using <code> or <pre> tags? It still turned them into graphics. Hence the bitmap of the emoticons.
π
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 19, 2007, 5:00 pm
Huh. π
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 19, 2007, 5:01 pm
Ah. You know what it is? It doesn’t do an emoticon as the first or only character. Isn’t that weird? It was happening when I was writing the post, but I thought I had a space or something. π
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 19, 2007, 5:02 pm
Maybe if you put a space first?
π π
Comment from SteamBoat McGoo
Time: April 19, 2007, 5:25 pm
It’s all getting to damned technical for me. It’s against the natural order… π
Comment from SteamBoat McGoo
Time: April 19, 2007, 5:31 pm
…but since you hacked the software (!!!) to remove the cooties and customized it to your liking, I may continue to bless you with my presence.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 19, 2007, 5:35 pm
McGoo, you are the wind beneath my wings. Which is pretty unfortunate, as I haven’t any. π
Comment from Uncle Bager
Time: April 19, 2007, 6:02 pm
Damn!
Saw all those weasels in a row and thought it was target practice!
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 19, 2007, 6:03 pm
Yeah, like you’re armed.
Comment from SteamBoat McGoo
Time: April 19, 2007, 8:18 pm
Those Weasels are for teasing, Uncle B, not for shooting.
Whenever I look at the horoscope weasel, I think “Lawrence Weasel of Arabia” or “Weasel Gordon of Khartoum”, and start spouting lines like “it is written” and “The Nefud cannot be crossed” to myself.
Comment from SteamBoat McGoo
Time: April 19, 2007, 9:55 pm
He did well, doncha think, Wabbit?
I thought about you earlier. I wondered what the graphic for squee would be. And – no – I am not thinking vulgar.
Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: April 19, 2007, 11:26 pm
That’s awesome! I hate graphical smilies too. I disabled those bastards on AIM LONG ago. π
Comment from blanco lagomorph
Time: April 19, 2007, 11:42 pm
McGoo-
He did good.
Squee..? I hope that’s a gleeful sound. Don’t make me wiki.
Too late.
Squee is a small child who lives next door to Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, as well as the Antichrist, and is one of the few recurring characters in the Johnny the Homicidal Maniac series to have met Johnny and survived thanks to Squee’s overabundant cuteness and rapidly-deteriorating innocence. His real name is Todd Casilβthe nickname “Squee” comes from the sound he makes when he is frightened, which is quite often within his world.
Squee suffers horrible neglect from his parents. His mother is constantly self-medicated. As a result, sheβs never quite aware of Squee’s existence, nor does she wish to be. His father loathes Squee with every fiber of his being and has no qualms about telling Squee this, and often does so.
………
um, thank you.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 20, 2007, 4:47 am
Well! That put me some knowledge! π
Comment from Pupster
Time: April 20, 2007, 8:36 am
*drops weasel snack*
That’ll do, Weasel.
That’ll do.
Comment from OmbudsBen
Time: April 20, 2007, 11:46 am
It reminds me of a taxidermist’s shop. π π π :p
Comment from SteamBoat McGoo
Time: April 20, 2007, 12:26 pm
Wabbit – I got you mixed up with Mrs. P. (I think). Sorry.
But my boo-boo added significantly to my insignificant and dwindling knowledge of things “Squee”-ish.
Late news: Weasel is up to 13 votes and page 5! Mesablue has crossed into page 2 or 3 with 12 votes. Or vice-versa, or something like that, since my short-term memory is a sieve and (ahem) “I just glanced at the standings for a second”.
Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: April 20, 2007, 1:38 pm
Personalized smileys, you gotta love it! Terrific idea, and yet more evidence you should win best blog design. π
You know what that award site should do? Allow you to log in with any blog carrier so you automatically are signed up if you are a blogger already. Then it would be easy to hook up and make sense.
Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: April 20, 2007, 2:52 pm
You should go over there and suggest that Mr. Taylor. Right after you register and vote.
I’m trying out a new campaign slogan for you Mr. Weasel, how do you like it?
Don’t be a goat, Vote for the Stoat! π
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 20, 2007, 3:03 pm
I pressed the little “claim this blog” button and asked if I could submit a description. I got a letter back from the guy who runs the show. Heh. I suspect it’s fair to say this is a small, startup operation π
Anyhoo, I told him that many people complained about the pain-in-the-assity of signing up, and he said they have to do that to prevent bots and mass sock-puppetry. Well. Maybe. They don’t have to collect quite so much info, though. I suspect there’s a marketing angle there.
On the other hand, I’m a cynical weasel.
Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: April 20, 2007, 5:50 pm
I suspect the same thing you do: this is much less about blog awards and much more about some other project. It might be a university study or paper, it might be some startup business or demographics gathering effort. But it also could end up being something that builds momentum over the years.
Comment from SteamBoat McGoo
Time: April 20, 2007, 7:28 pm
Yeah, I was a bit miffed at the amount of info they wanted in order to get on. So – being the sneaky and subtle person I am – I faked the middle initial of my real name! This should cause them seconds of confusion. Take that! Have at you!
I noticed that you added a description of this site to the blog award stuff. Good deal. It should attract several new visitors, counting the ones that click here by mistake. π
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 21, 2007, 5:34 am
You’d think so, McGoo. How anyone can resist the promise of disemboweling or the threat of kittens and sparkly unicorns, I do not know. But, so far, my usage logs show exactly zero people clicked through from there. I think it’s more of a “how many friends do you have?” award.
But, hey, who knew I had 13 friends staunch enough to fill out the registration form? Okay, okay…11. Two of the voters are me. π
Comment from SteamBoat McGoo
Time: April 21, 2007, 8:58 am
As usual, I was wrong.
But – dammit – this blog should get more visits. I tend to snoop around little-known blog places just for fun and have noted oceans of POS blogs out there. This is not one of them.
Besides, I’ve seen so many commenters on other blogs that would feel right at home here. What can one do?
Comment from Frit
Time: September 12, 2010, 12:35 am
Ohhh, coolness!
I want to steal them and use them with my e-mail program!
May I? (I’m an honest thief, after all.) π
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