I used to put all kinds of stuff on the internet.
This page is a summary of the stuff that is still semi-worth looking at.
Pixelism.org: I am obsessed with physical pixel art. I don’t know why, I just am. So: here’s a tumblr where I post physical pixel art irregularly. Have at it.
Guituner: back in the days before “apps,” I got annoyed that there wasn’t an easy to remember, simple website for tuning your guitar. So: I pretended I knew Flash and threw one together. Later, I rewrote it all in javascript. For a minute I thought I might even be able to make a few cents from ads, but Google rejected my applications to their Ads program three times, which is kind of amazing considering the sites they approve. (Hey Matt Cutts! Do you monitor your vanity Google alerts? Let’s find out!)
WhatWasThere: I was part of a small team who concepted, designed and built this website in 2010. The gist of it is: take historical photographs and put them in the context of modern Google Streetview. There’s also an iOS app.
Tactile Comics: I’m super into comics that do interesting things with physical presentation. So much so that I gave a “talk” about this in my free time, because that is totally a thing normal people do, right?
Blokjs: Back when javascript was re-emerging as a not-horrible web language, I decided to play around with using it to build a clone of the boardgame “Blokus.” This would have been sometime around 2008, I think? Then: I never looked at the code, ever again, and am afraid to now, as it is likely terrifying. But: it works!
Acme Novelty Archive: in the early 2000s I started attempting to catalogue the works of Chris Ware, both retroactively, and as they were published. I have a backlog of approximately one billion items to add, because there is not a more prolific person. Why couldn’t I decide to catalogue the works of Donna Tartt or something?
Wurlitzer Guitars: In 2001, I came to own a Wurlitzer stereo guitar. At the time, there was literally NO information on the brand available on the internet, so I spent much of 2003 (very) passively researching Wurlitzer Guitars. I assembled this skeletal site to share the resources that others shared with me – original catalogs, company histories, schematics, etc.
Zumpano: Carl Newman, currently the leader of indie darlings the New Pornographers, cut his teeth in a band called Zumpano. They released two albums on Sub Pop before breaking up. This is a site I put together collecting MP3s of B-sides, a poorly-taped live show from 1997, some photos and an article or two in .pdf format. Calling all nerds.
Mosaics.kempa.com: As noted above, I have an unhealthy obsession with pixel art-style mosaics. I’ve created three fairly large-scale mosaics so far: out of legos, bottle caps, and pushpins. I set this site up in order to experiment with the then-cutting-edge ‘lightbox’ image display technology.
The Barnes and Noble Experience: I worked at Barnes & Noble as a bookseller for four years. During that time I encountered the absolute worst of humanity, and I wrote about it. These are stories about funny experiences. There are several stories in there where I firmly assert what I now know to be a completely incorrect thesis, so that makes me cringe, but, you know. YOUTH.
Chris Kempa: In November 2000, my younger brother Chris was killed in a traffic accident. This website was put up in early 2001 as a memorial of sorts. 6/10/84 – 11/20/00.
Adam Plus Sarah: I got married to Sarah Fabian on May 12th, 2007; and we put up this minimal site. As with most of these sites, I originally intended to have more stuff put up here, but you know how it is.
The Pop Project: I’ve played the drums in the Pop Project since 2001. In that time, I’ve slowly evolved from being a completely ‘fake’ drummer, to being someone who can fake being a ‘real’ drummer. We spent five years recording and mixing our last record – so it’s crystal clear why I’m in this band.
The Instant Album Party: This is best explained by lifting copy directly from the site: Sometime in mid-2004 I had an idea for a party. The premise was this: Invite a bunch of ‘music people’ and write the names of all participants on slips of paper, which are then folded and placed in a bowl. Draw ‘Bands’ of a predetermined number from the bowl, at which point the newly-minted ‘band’ is to descend into the basement, where they will have exactly one hour to write and record a song. This website contains the results of four such parties, and in addition to being very embarrassing for all those involved, the intent is to encourage people in other locales to host similar parties and submit the results. That would be spectacular.
The Paincakes: Remember back when there weren’t a million bands based on the humorous properties of Hardcore music? Me too, that was awesome. At this point, Paincakes is a just a good excuse to get together with a bunch of highschool friends once a year and laugh hysterically whilst recording Christmas music. Recently, we received a nice email from the father of a young boy with cancer, explaining that his son happened to love our version of ‘I Want a Hippopotamous for Christmas,’ and that he listened to it before important medical procedures. So: it can never be said that the Paincakes didn’t make the world a better place.
Suburban Sprawl Music This is a record label that some friends and I have been “sort of” running since 2000. In 2004 or so, I picked up most of the administrative duties and put a lot of effort into it. Since then, Zach Curd has stepped in and taken on most of my duties, so while I’m pretty hands-off at this point, I’m also pretty proud of what we accomplished with it.
The SSM Holiday Compilation: Every December since 2002, some friends and I have coordinated a collection of home-recorded holiday music, shared freely on the internet. It’s all still there, so visit the link above to listen to more than 400 holiday songs of wildly varying quality.
The Recital: I played bass in this band for ten years (1999-2009). On December 4th 2009, we released our final EP and played our last show, exactly ten years from the date of our first show. The final EP is still available for free on the site. Good times.
OS X Applications: In the mid-2000s I wrote two OSX applications, but they don’t run on the current versions of OSX and I have resigned myself to the fact that I will never update them. However, since I hate it when programs I am looking for completely disappear from the internet, I am leaving the sites up for posterity. If you are the one dude still running pre-intel versions of OSX: it’s your lucky day.
iCommentary: I am clearly obsessed with behind-the-scenes anything, so it should not be surprising that the advent of DVDs and the resultant abundance of director’s commentary tracks made me intensely happy. In late 2005, I decided I would build a program to rip these commentaries to MP3 files for more portable listening. Fun fact: a grand total of one person made the $5 suggested donation.
I Suck MP3 Blogs: I wrote this tiny app to pull down any MP3s linked by a user-defined set of blogs. Almost immediately after finishing it, I dropped my powerbook, killing the drive which held the only copy of the source code.