“Fantastic mediocrity, artful crapulence, irrelevent self prostletizing, all can be found within the electronic confines of my webite. This represents my digital ideaspace, both a studio for developing ideas as well as a chronicle for all my past projects, including all of the scraps of meaningless trivia I could find for them.”

This site has been, and always will be a significant work in progress. The first iteration of this website, Celestrian Creations version 1, was built back in 1998 when I first opened my own web design and development business catering to small to mid-sized comapnies in the San Diego area. The purpose and function of this website has evolved and changed as the scope of my creative work changed.

Between designs, redesigns, re-redesigns and all of the interim events, this site's existence is designed to serve the following functions:

1. Serve as a digital hub for all my past, present and future projects.
2. Provide quick and easy access to those projects for visitors, prospective clients and employers.
3. Serve as a living example of my coding and design skills.
4. Keep the aforementioned skills sharp.

100% original Code:

One of the things that may leap to your mind when looking at this site is, "why bother coding all of these things on your own when there are plenty of Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress that can do all of this for absolutely free?" It's a valid question, but it goes back to goals #3 and #4; serve as a living example of my coding and design skills as well as keeping those skills sharp.

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theCelestrian, often going under the alias of one Branden Thompson, is a digital artist, propogandist, culture and identity jammer and the self proclaimed t-shirt ninja of Crapulence. Primarily focusing in digital video, theCelestrian has a BA in Visual and Performing Arts from California State University San Marcos with an emphasis in Arts & Technology. theCelestrian was also a former computer science major, and puts that strong background to use in his work.

Beyond working primarily as a digital artist, theCelestrian still continues to do web design and development, but on a very infrequent basis. He has also worked for Apple Computers, coached middle school wrestling for 5 years and also currently works as an Information Technology Consultant for California State University San Marcos, as well a professional consultant for a variety of small companies. theCelestrian also has a talent for writing about himself in the third person.

theCelestrian as performer, professional Nerdologist

As a digital video Artist, theCelestrian has assumed a variety of roles in his own work, ranging from the Secretary of the US Department of Crapulence to an aspiring but untalented filmaker convinced of his own superiority. Recently, because of his interest in Nerd and Geek subcultures, his studies lead him to become an expert in the field of Nerdology, the Study of the Nerd and Geek subcultural genus'. Along with a few of his colleagues, theCelestrian still gives public seminars on his studies, giving comprehensive presentations that cover this subcultural genus from discovery to its present evolutions and impact on the mainstream socio-cultural context.

As part of his research, theCelestrian will often times go on safari tracking, tagging and documenting various different species of the Nerdopithicus subcultural genus, and much of his research and documentation is available for viewing and download here.

Among his other recent performances, theCelestrian also founded The Church of Crapulence, a faux online digitial religion. This was created as a result of public intervention within the performance as well as to settle a bet whether or not it would be possible to form a religion online.

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As part of the aim for this site to be a living example of my coding an design skills, this section will make details about the technical aspects of the site available.

Below is a very basic UML flow chart to give visitors/clients/prospective employers a preliminary idea of the logical structure of how this site works:

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As a result of the many, many re-designs I have attempted and impletemted over the years, this current iteration of my site is designed for complete modularity. Meaning that the design, content, engine and presentation are completely separate.

Below is one of the many sub functions coded in goal of modularity. This functions main purpose is to create the form for the user to add a comment/reply to a project featured on this site. This function in essence pulls the appropriate template, fills in the relevent dynamic information, then outputs the form for the user:

example function: add_a_comment($parentID, $reply)
function add_a_comment($parentID, $reply)
{
    $ccdb=mysql_connect("[SERVER NAME]", "[DATABASE NAME]", "[PASSWORD]") 
    or die("Unable to connect.");

    mysql_select_db("[DATABASE NAME]");
		
    # Check to makesure $parentID is valid
    if((!($parentID)) || ($parentID == ""))
    {
        echo "Parent ID is not specified and/or valid.";
    }
    else   # $parentID is non-blank and specified:
    {
			
    # Declare the variables:
    $addCommentTemplateFile = "[TEMPLATE PATH]/add_comment.php";
    $addCommentTemplateHandle = fopen($addCommentTemplateFile , "r");
    $addCommentTemplate = fread($addCommentTemplateHandle, 
    filesize($addCommentTemplateFile));
			
    # Holder Array:
    $holder[1] = "[REPLY CONDITION]";
    $holder[2] = "[PROJECT ID]";
    
    # Make a copy of our template for the comment:
    $ourTemplate = $addCommentTemplate;
			
    if($reply == true)
    {
        # This is a reply, so we want to add the URL query and specify the ID:
        $replace[1] = "?reply=true";
        $replace[2] = $parentID;
    }
    else
    {		
        # This is not a reply, so no URL query is necessary:
        $replace[1] = "";
        $replace[2] = $parentID;
    }
			
    # Swap out placeholders with Data:
    $addCommentForm = str_replace($holder, $replace, $ourTemplate);

    # Print out the Form:
    echo $addCommentForm;
    }
}

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