Tag Archives: art

MCICR: The Color Crunching Algorithm Time Forgot

Posted on March 13, 2026 by mariteaux

You know, when I wrote that initial post on PageMill, I wasn’t expecting to find a new rabbit hole to go down every time I explore the CD-ROM. It’s just happened that way! There’s so much included on it, so many weird, forgotten relics of the 90s, software you can’t find elsewhere, graphics from companies long gone, that I keep wanting to write about.

For today’s rabbit hole, I only ask you, my reader: are you a gambling sort? Today’s program involves just that, random chance, high stakes, and lawfare. I’m being more than slightly facetious. Sort of. Monte Carlo algorithms aren’t nearly as fun as Monte Carlo itself, but I do regularly downsample full-color PNGs to 256 colors for GIFs and things, and a program on the PageMill CD-ROM proved to be, if nothing else, an impressive and completely forgotten stab at doing just that. Let’s talk about why and look at some Somnolian art and photos along the way.

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Exploring the Legacy of Image Club Graphics

Posted on February 19, 2026 by mariteaux

Just over a week ago, I wrote a blogpost about Adobe PageMill. The kinda tool that could only ever have existed in the mid-to-late-90s, PageMill was a boxed CD-ROM Web page builder, and I find it neat. Being an Adobe product, you can imagine it came loaded up with some Adobe extras (install Acrobat, dammit!), but some of those extras have sent me down an additional rabbit hole. Specifically, it was a pack of Web-ready bullets, rules, headers, and backgrounds under the banner of Image Club Graphics–all stuff I love and stuff I could use in my various old Web pursuits.

My searches for more turned up precious little–until I knew what I was digging for. In the right spaces, you can still find their wares online, and I have some sampler discs from their lot to show you nonetheless. I hope you enjoy photos of cake, Smarties, businessmen, clocks, widgets for your Geocities site, and some jarringly quirky 90s handwriting and dingbat fonts.

(Fair warning that this is going to be a very image-heavy post and filled with the little-seen-on-Letters gallery block type. I know Letters is generally decently old browser friendly–this page may not be, or it may be slow. I’ve tried to optimize things where I can, but we’re gawking at shit today, so it comes with the territory.)

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One Month Out

Posted on January 27, 2026 by dotcomboom

It’s been a month and a half since I graduated college, and just about a month since I last wrote on the blog. It’s been, well, January. Regardless, I feel it’s worthwhile recapping what I’ve been up to this month. … Continue reading →

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Lucky Sevens: Who Knows Where the Time Goes

Posted on December 31, 2025 by caby

Once again, as quickly as it arrived, another year heads off into the great unknown… 2025 was an interesting one, to say the least. With my birthday on the 29th, I have now passed the halfway point of my 20s, … Continue reading →

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Lucky Sevens: Closing Out 1998+7

Posted on December 29, 2025 by dotcomboom

If there’s anything 2025 has made clear for me, it’s how extremely fortunate I am to have the friends that I do. And seven years running! Do you know how insane that is? Doom (2016) was two years old in … Continue reading →

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The Number of the Bulb: Cammy’s Greatest Hits

Posted on November 28, 2024 by mariteaux

It’s almost midnight here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still say it: happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers. I had a quick check of what I’d posted on my cammy.somnol journal this time last year, and evidently, I wasn’t a happy camper, but this year, I’m feeling significantly more content. Actually, this might be the most comfortable and pleased I’ve ever been during the holiday season. 2018 and 2022 were ruined by, ahem, suboptimal family situations, 2019, I was in Ohio getting shoved into closet doors, and 2020 and 2021 were stressful for the reasons it was stressful for everyone, but 2024? This year is ending quite nicely.

As I get older, I realize that I’ve largely left behind a pretty angsty, negative legacy as mariteaux, full of “people aren’t doing [x] correctly” and “[x] sucks” and “I’m working on this deficit in my personality”—at some point, a boy’s gotta be a little happier, and I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. I’m gonna ramble about all the things that have gone well for me and all I accomplished this year and am proud of, while it’s late and I’m feeling good and full of alcohol.

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Happy Five Years: For Auuuuld Lang Syyyyne

Posted on December 31, 2023 by caby

Hey there! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, celebrated or not, and that folks are looking forward to the new year,, I feel a little overconfident in saying it, but I think I am,, Continue reading →

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Happy Five Years: Further Down the Artsy Rabbit Hole

Posted on December 29, 2023 by mariteaux

January 2024 marks two whole years of me taking art seriously. I read back through last year’s art retrospective, and I’m guessing it was partly that one year of progress isn’t a lot in all reality and partly that what progress I did make in 2022 was bumpy (as tends to happen when you start learning a new skill), but I was surprised at how tentative I sounded. I ended off that post with a big fat “pretty good for a first attempt ^^”, if you catch my drift:

It’s good to appreciate how far you’ve come though. In one year, from practically nothing, I’ve made some pretty damn good progress. I think by next year, I’ll have something really special.

Thankfully, if 2022 was the year of trying to draw anything at all, 2023 has been the year of learning to draw confidently. I used to get plagued by a feeling of every drawing being a fluke, that it was just because I had someone’s actual art off to the side while I drew that I made it look anything like what it was supposed to, but I don’t get that anymore. I actually really like what I draw now! It still looks amateurish in spots, but that’s starting to taper off, I think.

Not to say I don’t still have a long way to go, but for actually properly enjoying what I do and feeling confident in it, this year has been very good to me. I understand eyes and snoots now, for one thing… Let’s go back through some highlights of this year, like we did last year, and have a bit more positive to say this time around, shall we?

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Happy Five Years: AutoSite Legacy returns! And dcb’s 2024 goals..

Posted on December 25, 2023 by dotcomboom

Merry Christmas! Happy holidays! Warm wishes however you might be celebrating. I bring good tidings for any of you who use AutoSite and find yourself jumping across Windows or Mac or Linux often. If you stick around to the end, I have some thoughts on the year and my current plans as well. Continue reading →

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Itty Bitty Trip Doodles

Posted on October 18, 2023 by caby

A little while back, I told Cammy about a couple doodles I’d done in my sketchbook on my coach trip home from London after we said our goodbyes and he headed on a plane back home, just trying to cram some little memories onto paper before they disappeared from my head, and he suggested that I should put them on the blog when he finished the trip journal. Thought that was a super cute idea! I had intended on working on it before he finished but time got the better of me, so it is a little late,,, Sorry, Cammy! Continue reading →

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