Also known as the 411, ins-and-outs, etc etc. Call it what you will.

I guess the best way to describe Surrealle would be such: a very informal portfolio of my doodles/artwork-and-writing-on-the-side. Or in simple terms, a personal homepage that’s a combination of a [digital] art portfolio and a weblog. Now even I don’t like how formal the word “portfolio” sounds, so sometimes I lovingly refer to this place as an “expressite” – said word being a portmanteau (“expression” + “site”), though you *could* pronounce it the same way you would “expressive”, albeit without a t. So sue me for not using standard words like “showcase” or portfolio.

Anyhow, the name surrealle (pronounced “suh – ree – elle”) is a portmanteau (oh lawdy, another one?!) of the words” surreal” and “elle”. The former pays “tribute” to my time as a wannabe webdesigner: I’ve taken away a bunch of varying experiences when I was actually immersed in it. Now that I’m no longer one, I look back at it all: some of it was good, some bad – but collectively, the experience was rather, er, surreal. As for “elle”…well, no prizes as to who’s running the site.

Surrealle used to be a small-ish collection of web graphics – mostly avatars with some web layouts – which I could no longer feasibly maintain after moving to England for school. Designing new graphics every day/week wasn’t my strongest suit, so the domain went into a bit of a limbo-like state for a few years. Well, until New Year’s Day 2012 – when I finally decided to GOMA (Get Off My A*se) and utilize the space. During those few years I actually ended up doing some digital art for random purposes (shirts, books etc) – which I still do on occasion. And I’m a bit of a rusty blogger, despite having done so (on and off) for 7-ish years now…so I decided to combine the two and revive the site with this new purpose. Et voila, Caz says.

so why do you call it “design for a lost cause”?

It’s a homage to my first few years in the UK – I was frequently referred to as a “lost cause” by my high school drama teacher then, who didn’t mean it in the typical “oh heavens you’re so stubborn/unsaveable” way. Rather, he used it to refer to the fact that I always “have a screw loose. Or maybe more than one. And no one can change that. ”

Yes, my teachers do have funny ways of expressing endearment. :p  I do miss Mr E…

The “design” bit doesn’t necessarily imply that I webdesign full-on like I used to (or rather, attempted to.) Rather, I’ve now moved on to sketches and doodly artworks, either digitally or otherwise. That’s still a form of “design” in itself, coupled with the fact that I’m now an engineer in the making – so I’ll be doing “proper designing” anyway, just not in that sense. (Hooray for mild double entendres!)

Besides, the tagline as it is has a much nicer ring than “art for a lost cause”, non?

spec-related malarkey

Surrealle is currently hosted on a legacy OC5 shared hosting plan with 50GB of space and 2000GB data transfer, purchased via Surpasshosting and shared out with the other domains/websites owned by my family (I host my brother Jerry’s blog on there too.) Domain was bagged from Dynadot. I wholeheartedly recommend these two companies, I’ve used them for at least 6-7 years out of the 8-ish I’ve been maintaining (ha!) websites – and service has been *very* much hassle-free, consumer friendly, and of very good value for money.

Now that it’s a legacy/discontinued plan, you can’t get the OC5 deal anymore; but SH’s normal shared/reseller hosting deals are just as stellar – if not more. As for Dynadot, their rates have been consistently low and I’ve never had any trouble with my domains – any price hike/inflation that occurs is usually due to the central registry’s price increase, but they’ve still managed to remain the cheapest out of all the other registrars I keep tabs on.