A Niche Cereal

It was 1996 when I signed up with an ISP and began using the Web on a regular basis rather than just using it when I visited my friend Joel.
At that time, I remember going to Yahoo! and seeing how no matter what the category you were looking in there was always a section for “Gay and Lesbian.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I just thought it was kind of strange and I didn’t see that it always served any real purpose. I mean, if you’re looking to find, say, public libraries, do you really need to set aside a special listing of libraries for gays and lesbians? Are there such things as libraries that cater specifically to gays and lesbians? If so, why? If not, why have a separate category?
Anyway, when I went grocery shopping today I saw this cereal that was just so odd and which made me immediately think that the makers are trying to appeal to a specialized group:



I mean, what are they getting at with a name like “Good Friends” and featuring a picture of two women on the box?
What immediately sprang to my mind was two women about whom rumors have been circulating and who demur by saying, “What? No, we’re not together. We’re just good friends.”
So it struck me as specializing even further than the Yahoo! thing and targeting closeted lesbians who happen to be interested in adding more fiber to their diets.
I know, I’m weird, but so is that cereal, no matter how you look at it.
On a totally unrelated note, I did a little bit of work on heroicportraits.com today.
I wrote up the bulk of the copy for it and posted a “Coming Soon” page that features the logo over at the site.
I still have to come up with a design for the actual site.
The layout is going to be pretty straightforward: a main page introducing the site, an FAQ page, a gallery, a price list, and an order form.
I figure I’ll set up a form that lets people choose what kind of portrait they want (just a low-res digital only image or a poster print) and some fields with basic information about what they’re looking for. I figure most of the requested portraits are likely to fall into some standard categories (though there will be an “other” option), and it will help them (and me) to be able to have some of what they want spelled out for them, allowing them to just add whatever other information they need.
Beyond all that, though, I need to figure out how I want it to look and what the navigation will be like.
In the meantime, though, I suppose I could just put up a basic site with a few sample pictures, a list of prices, and my heroicportraits.com e-mail address.
We’ll see, I guess.