| |
Happy Birthday to Us:
Our one year anniversary extravaganza...
Oh my lucky stars...has it been one year already? Time flies when you're having fun, and all that good stuff. What did we think of the year? Well, read on to find out.
Michelle
THE NUMBERS GAME
When Christine posed the question: "Do you want to start a website?" one whole year ago, I immediately said, "Okay..."True, Christine and I were not exactly friends (psst - we never said two words to each other even though we worked in the same place for a year and a half), but I am always down for anything creative.
The appeal of doing Happygrrls was that it was fun, light and somewhat a play on words. Christine and I are the angriest and most bitter girls I know (Phan is the true Happygrrl), so calling ourselves the Happygrrls was sort of tongue in cheek.
I've been involved with countless publications, but our e-zine allows us to be as expressive and opinionated as we wanna be.
I am glad that Christine, Phan and I came together and created the website, especially since it has made us better friends. Y'all know I love you!!!
My favourite article: Since it's all about us, I would say Christine's article, How the Happygrrls Met, is definitely the funniest thing that was ever posted on the site. Christine is the funniest/craziest person that I know, and she was able to write about how she felt about Phan and I before we became friends. Let's just say that she didn't like me too much. Check it out for yourself!
Phan
When I first heard about creating a website, I imagined a magazine layout and I was psyched to see that Christine had the same vision. From Christine's penciled layout [actually, it was more like a crayon collage, but thanks! - Chris] to the actual creation, each issue illustrates the growing stages of our site. Check out The Vault to see how we have matured to our young women status.I'm not as passionate about writing as Christine and Michelle, but I do enjoy fashion and I thought it would be fun to include it in the site. Call me a typical girl, but shopping is my hobby. I don't know if I can choose a particular favourite article. Christine cracks me up (when I have time to read the entire article) and Michelle always shares some her soul through her writing.
The best part about Happygrrls is our meetings. Sometimes we get little accomplished at the meetings but we have a ton of fun talking, if Michelle will spare you some air time (just joking!). It's been fun hanging out with two very different people who respect you all the same.
The most memorable moment will have to be the interviews with Kid Carson and George Stroumboulopoulos. I'm so glad I came along with Christine for the interviews, because Kid Carson is so down to earth, not to mention very cute in person. George was a bit of close talker [hee - Chris] but I guess I can see why girls might find this "rebel" interesting. They (well, mainly Kid Carson) had me giggling like a teenage groupie.
It's been a fun year and I hope there will be more meetings, laughs, food, drinks, and better issues as a result.
Christine
That old cliché about time flying never seemed more appropriate than it does this month, as Happygrrls turns one year old. Like a newborn baby, we fed it love and watched it grow. It was just like Three Men and a Baby, if the movie had been called Three Women and a Website.When I initially approached Michelle and Phan with the idea, I really didn't know what I was doing. But I lied and said that I could put up a website if they were game, and got totally screwed when they agreed. Since I didn't have the money to take a web design course or hire a doppelganger or stage my own fake death, I did the next best thing and tried to learn how to put a website together. Through trial and error, it slowly morphed into what it is today, and it only took me fifty hours of staring at the wall and cursing at my computer to do it.
I also had little experience with writing for web publications. Okay, I had very little experience writing for any sort of publication, unless my hate mail to Ja Rule counts. I've always preferred writing fiction, but I didn't think it would translate well in an e-zine. It's fun to peruse my old articles because my writing style has changed in the past year; I wouldn't say it was bad because that might suggest that it now rocks, but it wasn't my best stuff by far. The first Dating Diary entry that I ever wrote was scrapped one day later due to its sheer suckiness. But eventually, I found Happygrrls to be a very therapeutic and worthwhile experience, and it clearly shows by the volumes of articles I send Michelle and Phan for each issue.
The best part of Happygrrls is, of course, working with Michelle and Phan. We do drive each other crazy once in a while (usually during the two weeks before an issue goes live) but I can't imagine having done this with anyone else. We all have our quirks, and those quirks work well with each other. Eventually, these quirks might lead to a freak accident involving a pen in someone's eye - but for now, no one is wearing an eye patch.
My favourite article of the year is the Happygrrls' Prep Time. The article had no significance, no point, and certainly no life lesson to be learned, but I thought it was hilarious in its playfulness and irrelevance. And really, I just wanted to know how long it took Phan and Michelle to get ready. It was also a blast interviewing George S. from Much Music and Kid Carson from Kiss 92.5. What wasn't a blast was dealing with our old server (our new one definitely rocks), which had a nasty habit of locking me out of the site, especially three days before the new issue was set to go live.
If this year has taught me anything, it's that with a little imagination, determination, and good friends (plus cool readers like you!), anything is possible.
More Changes Than A Madonna Concert
Christine looks on fondly at the numerous layouts. Well, more like bitches about the numerous layouts.
The very first issue. Mother of pearl, what was I thinking? The page looked kinda cool, but the white font on black background just hurt my eyes. Hey, where's the site's name?
The second issue. The background was pretty, but the site was still difficult to navigate. Blah...
The fourth issue. Things got a little better, but I just substituted a set of links for another. Still hard to navigate. And the boxes on the sides looked pretty on my screen, but they were a bitch to do...
The sixth issue. Things got a whole lot cleaner and what do I see on the page? Could those be navigational links to all things Happygrrls? Hey, is that our name in a non-descript yet eye-grabbing logo? Is this the end of our evolution? Stay tuned to find out.