Michaelbox

Yeah, you’ll learn a bit about Amy below. What started out as a free­lance job ended up being a new friend­ship for Amy and I. I feel lucky to know her and sadly can’t get you to know her as well as I do. Nonethe­less, lets get this going!

Could you please list your name and occu­pa­tion for those who do not know you?

Amy Crook: I’m Amy Crook, an artist, illus­tra­tor, and graphic designer.

What would some songs be on a sound­track to you tak­ing over the world?

Amy:

• “Brand New Day” from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
• “The Inter­net is for Porn” from Avenue Q
• “Dressed in Black” by Depeche Mode
• “Hys­te­ria” by Def Lep­pard. Or, really, any­thing they play dur­ing an episode of Supernatural.
• “She Blinded Me With Sci­ence” by Thomas Dolby

Pre­ferred medium to work with in tra­di­tional arts?

Amy: I like oil paints a lot, but I’m also a big fan of pen­cil, pen & ink, and Copic mark­ers. I’m learn­ing to use gouche and water­col­ors to good effect, too, but there’s just some­thing I really love about oils, they’re so but­tery and substantial.

I know first hand that you are form­ing your­self a gath­er­ing of min­ions to do all of your biddings…I hap­pen to be one of them. The guys/gals asked me to ask you what color our uni­forms are going to be and when they’re sup­posed to show up. Any info? We hate work­ing naked right now.

Amy: I for­get that the new min­ions aren’t get­ting ori­en­ta­tion any­more, since we were los­ing so many to demon­stra­tion of the evil lair traps. You can wear these: Mon­key Min­ion Cafe­press Teeshirt

Do you ever get the urge to go crazy with fin­ger paint?

Amy: Naah, fin­ger paints are too low qual­ity. But I have been known to smear oils around with my fin­gers (it’s a bitch to get them out from under my fin­ger­nails after­ward, though).

There are rumors float­ing around the inter­tubes that you’re in cahoots to over­throw the twit­ter­holic meet­ing leader. If this is true, who are some of the peo­ple from twit­ter you’d con­sider to appoint as assistants?

Amy: I think caf­feinat­edelf (Twit­ter) would rise up and over­throw me imme­di­ately just on the basis of unwor­thi­ness, not to men­tion ether­jam­mer (Twit­ter) & copy­ge­nius­girl (Twit­ter).

If you could end any inter­net meme right now, which would it be and why?

Amy: If there’s one thing I’ve learned about inter­net memes, it’s that they’re fleet­ing and will die out on their own with­out me hav­ing to lift a finger.

Any wise words from wise peo­ple you know?

Amy: I dunno, just go read havi (Twit­ter)‘s entire blog, and every­thing from Itty­Biz (Twit­ter).

Blue­beard the Pirate and Unknown Ninja are both run­ning for the same polit­i­cal chair in Wash­ing­ton DC. Which can­di­date would you vote for?

Amy: Well, since I don’t live in DC, I’m spared this dif­fi­cult deci­sion. Now, if it was Cap­tain Jack Spar­row the Pirate, I might move just to vote for him…

What font really curls your nails and dri­ves you batty every time you see it?

Amy: It’s not a spe­cific font that both­ers me, but see­ing fonts used in weird and inap­pro­pri­ate places. That’s why every­one hates Comic Sans so much, it’s just been crazy overused in every pos­si­ble way. Busi­ness cor­re­spon­dence should never, ever use Curlz, just step away from the Fonts menu.

When birds stand on power lines and don’t get hurt, it’s most likely because of:

• good tim­ing, they only land between calls
• body mate­ri­als that are insu­lated from current
• not touch­ing any­thing else at the same time
• they do get hurt, they just express it poorly

Amy: It’s because they’re not touch­ing any­thing else at the same time, and their bod­ies are less con­duc­tive than the wire. Path of least resis­tance and all that, kind of like me agree­ing to do the inter­view right away rather than lis­ten­ing to you whee­dle about it for weeks first.

Have you noticed any stereo­types about peo­ple in your field that just make you giggle?

Amy: I think the “any kid in his base­ment could do it” one is the one that’s the sil­li­est. I mean, have you seen MySpace? That’s what kids in their base­ment do to the web, and nobody wants more of that.

I know you have your gripes with CSS and how it han­dles things at times. Does any­thing in CSS3 sound like it’s going to make you hap­pier or do you think it’s going to cause even more hair pulling?

Amy: Both, I’m sure. But I don’t pull my hair, I just take it out on my minions!

Pre­tend for a moment that you’re an iphone. What sort of self improve­ments would you want to make to your­self to make you a bet­ter device?

Amy: I’d like an option to use a sty­lus of some kind for more pre­cise func­tion­al­ity, some­times it’s hard to hit that exact right spot with a bit fat fin­ger­tip. And I’d love a Scrivener App, though as much for iPad as iPhone there. A lot of the other improve­ments I’d want are com­ing in OS4, though I’d love a Y!M app that didn’t blow goats. Sadly, all Y!M apps for all Apple prod­ucts through­out his­tory have blown goats, so I think I’m doomed there.

Any last remarks?

Amy: You really need to get out more.