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Fan Interview: Bryan Ludvigsen
Copyright © The Simpsons Folder
This document is done
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Could you tell us something about yourself, where you live, how old are you?
Bryan Ludvigsen
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
21 years of age.
College Student (studying Computer Information Systems)
Hobbies?
I'm a pretty huge hockey fan and I get incredibly agitated when i miss a Vancouver Canucks game. My siblings say i'm obsessed with hockey, and they are probably correct. I can watch hours upon hours of it and enjoy discussing it with friends, etc. Also enjoy playing hockey, although i haven't played too much lately on account of my semi-busy schedule.
Any disgusting personal habits?
I'm not sure if it's considered a disgusting personal habit as it's something i don't do often, but rather something i kind of have to do when the problem occurs... Lately i've been getting ingrown toe nails on both my big toes. Have had this problem constantly for at least a year now. Basically i have pretty large feet and i think this is what causes it. The shoes i use for work have to be steel toe shoes cause i move around heavy boxes and such as i stock shelves for a local supermarket. But the problem is finding steel toe shoes that are big enough for me. I have size 15 feet, and it's hard enough finding running shoes, let alone dress shoes that are steel toed. So basically, i ended up with shoes a little too small for work. It probably doesn't help that I rollerblade fairly often, and the pressure on the toes while skating surely isn't good. I've already had to go into the doctor once to have a portion of my toe nails on both feet removed. Quite painful. Anyway, to the disgusting part. Everyday when i get back from school, or work, or wherever i am, i take off my shoes and blood has soaked through my sock and dried. So i basically have to peel the sock off my foot from the dried blood. After i do this, i obviously need to clean it out cause i don't want to get an infection and make it worse. So i take toe nail clippers and dig out all the blood and puss so it doesn't look so bad. Needless to say, this isn't the most attractive thing in the world. The doctor said the next time i had this problem, they would probably have to just remove both nails. So basically i'm just holding off and just hoping somehow my feet will get better. So far, nothing. The worst part is when i stub my toe on anything, it feels like i've been shot in the face. My cat stepped on my toe once, and i basically screamed in agony. It's pretty bad.
You have a website the Simpsons Top 100. When did you open it first time?
I opened it back on October 21st 1998. Hard to believe it's been nearly 5 years since i opened it.
Who/what inspired you to create it?
Well, at the time Alun Morgan's Top 50 was king in the community. But in general, i wasn't very impressed by the site. It listed 50 sites in alphabetical order and didn't really give too much info on it. Just basically 50 links. I just simply thought i could do a better job, and at the time there wasn't a whole lot of linking sites outside of the top 50, the channel, and the tree. And the channel, and tree, had a totally different system.
Is it hard to try to put hundred simpsons sites in order?
Very hard. List updates take a ridiculous amount of my time to do, and i take as much time as i can trying to figure out the best ordering for the sites. I found it quite discouraging after all the work i put into it and having people complain so often about it. I think it was about a year ago where i really got fed up with it and made some strong comments about it at The Springfield Message Board and it slowly tapered off. Despite the fact of less complaints, i still found that the way sites were ranked were pretty much impossible to get right simply based on the different type of sites in the list. It was like trying to compare apples and oranges. So i recently decided to divide them up into different sections. I took a look at all the sites and decided to divide them into 4 different categories. General, Character, Foreign, and Specialty. For each category, i have a different number of sites listed based on the number that was currently in the list. However, in the 4 categories they all add up to 100 sites. So the name "The Simpsons Top 100" still applies. With this method it's so much easier to rank the sites now with the exception of the foreign sites. Makes it much easier on me, and takes less time.
Is ranking your view or do you listen other people for ranking the sites?
Well, it's still one guy's opinion, people have to remember that...
but i certainly take into consideration other people's opinion. For example,
if I notice that the public reviews of one site are incredibly high, and notice
another site that i previously had ranked higher which has a much lower public
review rating, i'll obviously see what people think and make the move accordingly.
I've been accused of giving preference to some people
just because I happen to talk to someone online more or something like that.
Well, i'm human, and there will always be a bias no matter what. But if I talk
to a person and see they are working real hard on their site and putting in
a lot of effort, i would certainly be inclined to bump that person up a bit.
I want to see the most accurate listing possible, so i'm not going to put someone
ridiculously high because i like that person. I
try to be as fair as possible when it comes to the rankings.
Any memorable moments with your site?
Lots. It's pretty memorable whenever there was a new design. Like anyone i enjoy feedback of what people think of my site, and i do my best to improve it from there. A memorable time was in the summer of 2000 when Justin Polokoff (former helper monkey) and myself were updating at a ridiculous pace. Most of the time we were updating about twice a day, and we were even joking with each other on who could update more. At that time there was a lot of Simpsons sites around and always plenty to update about. Both of us were really into getting the news first.
Another memorable time was the BIG re-construction for 01/01/01. That was when the top 100 became an interactive site with user logins, reviews, want ads, basically a lot of the interactive stuff you see on the site today. It was in October of 2000 that i really started getting into Perl/CGI programming and really wanted to make something original in The Simpsons Community that people could really enjoy. I worked countless hours all the way from October to Jan 1 on all the programming on that site and just barely made it. On new years eve i worked all day on it, only to take a break for my new years eve party that year, and afterwards i went straight through until about 3pm Jan 1st when i launched it. Basically i went to bed dead tired after being up for over 30 hours and smelling of alcohol. When i woke up, i had been informed that the site had a few bugs with the want ads which caused a few screwy problems in the design in which there was this huge error message that screwed up all the tables. The problem was quickly fixed, but made for a handful of design jokes from a couple people.
The most recent memory which i found quite fun was my fake closure for April Fools Day last year. A week before April Fools I gave a long explanation as to why i was shutting down the site and gave reasons to it and the future of the domain, etc. The whole week people sent e-mails saying how much they enjoyed the site and how much it would be missed as well as the countless messages on The Springfield Message Board. I got a pretty big kick out of it. Then when i launched the new design on April Fools Day, it was just as fun watching people reacting to it and giving me feedback.
What do you think about today's Simpsons sites on the net?
For the last year or so people seem to comment a lot on the decline of The Simpsons community and how people seem to be leaving at a large pace. I certainly wouldn't argue with that, but a lot of people that were around back 5 years ago have grown up and a good portion have left simply because they have more important things to do. I mean, running a fan site can be a focal point of your life at age 15 or 16. But when you get into your 20's you obviously have responsibilities, etc. Your main focus isn't on some fan site, but rather school, or beginning a career. But with that said, i've noticed recently that there have been a lot of really good sites coming up from young webmasters. I was looking at the Judging Booth the other day, and i'm used to looking at a lot of crappy sites, but there is many really good ones. Not to mention some already in the list. I just think because they haven't been around long, people haven't given them much of a chance. Seems like you gotta be around for a couple years before you get some respect. With The Simpsons just recently being picked up for 2 more seasons there will certainly be more sites to come.
Are there any Simpsons websites with an attractive design and layout in your opinion?
Plenty. It doesn't take too much to impress me, as i don't really consider myself that great of a designer. Sites that generally catch my eye are ones that do something different. Something that isn't the usual square box with links on the side. If you go to the top 100 and look at my top 10 designs list you'll see some of them. One site i absolutely love is Serious Burns. If you look at it, it's simple as hell, and Jon basically just rearranged the columns of a standard navigation scheme and slapped a header on it. But the way it's arranged is perfect. Simplicity will win every time, but the key is not to be bland. Not a site specifically, but Matty Jorrison constantly pumps out original looking designs. Take a look at his Halloween Flash site, Duff 'n' Pretzels, or Springfield Paradise. In his case the layouts are pretty basic, but he spends a lot of time on the illustrations within the design that make it great. Another site design I would probably consider classic now is The Definitive Frink. This design was put together by Aaron back in '99, but it's still fantastic. So professional looking, but not too much for a Simpsons site.
What is the worst Simpsons site you have visited?
The hundreds of sites in the Judging Booth over the years that
have either a) crashed my browser or b) crashed my computer. Although, if I
have to choose one site, it would have to be the one I was linked to that had
fan art of The Simpsons having sex with each other. I mean, really, how fucked
up do you have to be?
What are design styles you love and hate?
I don't think there is a specific style i like or dislike. It
really depends on the overall look. There can be two sites with the exact same
style, but one looks great and one looks like ass. Really depends how they have
everything is positioned. In general, i like a colour scheme that's easy on
the eye's. I enjoy curvy designs, that's probably why you see it on the top
100. And I like blue's and grey's, also why you see it on the top 100.
What kind of computer system do you use?
Pentium 4 1.3 Ghz
Asus P4T Motherboard
128 MB RAM (although i've been meaning to upgrade pretty much since i bought
my system)
60 GB HD
32MB ATI All-In-Wonder Pro Video Card (I bought this for video editing... and
i have never really got a chance to do it since i bought my system)
When i first started The Simpsons Top 100, i was still using my old Winpro 486, 16MB RAM, 120MB HD. Shortly after upgraded to P1 233.
Do you have favorite episode on The Simpsons and why?
I don't have any one favourite episode. A few that come to mind at the moment is King Sized Homer, Homer vs. NY, The Frank Grimes episode (name escapes me at the moment), and most of the old halloween episodes (i dislike how the new ones are no longer about Halloween). As for reasoning, i don't think i have any specific reason for one. I think it's based on how much i laughed when i first saw the show air. I remember for both King Sized Homer and Homer vs. NY i was pretty much laughing my ass off through the entire thing. And there are plenty of episodes like that. I probably could name about 100 episodes i would rate a 10 and would have a hard time ranking one above the other.
You are administrator of Springfield Message Board. Is it filled with goofballs eating gum or what kind of board is it?
Heh heh. Yes, gum chewing is a constant concern.
Generally the board is fabulous, couldn't be much better. As far as actually administering the board, it's next to nothing. The Springfield Message Board has a pretty solid core of regular users that have been around a long time. Ever since it's guestbook script days of '99. People generally don't get out of line simply because they know if they say something stupid other members will jump on them for acting like an idiot. Considering the popularity of the board, and the amount of exposure it gets, we rarely have to boot someone off. The traffic of the board isn't as heavy as it used to be back in 2000-2001, but the core users are still there. I think since Eric opened up The No Homers Club, he has funneled off most of the casual users onto his board.
Do you think it's the place to find the Simpsons community?
I think it is. It's been around the longest time and has had the most history in the community. I don't think many would argue that the vast majority of the webmaster go there to talk about sites in the community and about other stuff. No question that No Homers Club has since surpassed The Springfield Message board in traffic. But if you go over there the vast majority of the users are just casual fans of the show wanting to talk about The Simpsons. The Springfield Message Board still has a lot of that, but i think it's still mainly Simpsons webmasters. That suits me fine. I'm not interested in dealing with a ridiculous amount of traffic. Not to mention the amount of problems with spammers and people just being a general pain. The Springfield Message Board has a nice mix.
You have Homer from the Deep Space Homer episode on your website. Is Homer Simpson your favorte character on the show?
Well, it's hard to say that Homer isn't your favourite character, as he's now the main character of the show. But I still remember watching the show back when it first aired Christmas of '89 and watching Bart as the main character. So i'm still a fan of Bart throughout the years. As for non-simpsons characters, i gotta go with The Comic Book Guy. I still enjoy the sarcastic humour.
In reference to the Deep Space Homer picture, that was a picture
i put on the third design for The Simpsons Top 100, and it just kinda stuck.
I decided to put it on the fourth design, and from then on it just kind of became
a trademark of The Simpsons Top 100. If you're looking at the Deep
Space Homer pic, you must be looking at the top 100. I don't think i'll ever
get rid of it.
How do you see future of The Simpsons?
Well, just recently FOX confirmed that The Simpsons were picked up for another 2 seasons pushing the show into season 16. I had made comments before about how i would like it to end at season 15 or it would just kill the show, but living almost my entire life with The Simpsons, it would be odd not to be getting new episodes, so i guess i'm happy. As for future, season 11 and 12 were a bit of a drag. 13 was a good improvement. And of the few episodes i've had the time to see in season 14, i think things are looking up. There has been a slow improvement in the shows lately. So I'm optimistic that the show can recover and still pump out great episodes after 16 long years. Who knows, they may try and top Gun Smoke's 20 years on the air. Somehow i wouldn't be surprised.
Describe your desktop. What do you see around your computer?
Well, I used to have Theme XP on my computer so it would ditch my default XP theme for much sexier customized ones, but the copy expired, and i haven't taken the time to fix it. So basically my theme looks like every other XP machine right now. As for the desktop itself, i currently have a wallpaper that has the Vancouver Canucks schedule on it. I usually like to keep my desktop clean, and only have 1 row of icons. Most are the usual icons like My Computer, Documents, etc. Have a couple other icons of programs i use semi-regularly and basically a temp directory where i chuck any crap i download from the internet.
Any final comments?
This interview took me forever. Why must I always be so detailed in my answers.
Quote of the moment: "You tried hard, but you failed miserably. Lesson here is, never try.
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