Shoggot is an enigma, wrapped in a paradox, surrounded by a riddle.
He is also an admin and moderator at the furiously popular website www.skinz.org.
We asked our subscribers if they had any questions for this creature.
(If you don't get the "hexi-limbed" reference, view Shoggot's photo
on display at Pictureland.)

And so, in stream-of-conscious style, here is what you came up with....

~~~~~~~Regarding the Skinz.org site:

Why is the following message still on the front page at skinz.org?

"Contest! Prizes! Free!Starting in January we are going to be having some
exciting giveaways here at skinz.org. In order to be eligible, all you have to do
is register here. Some of the prizes include a Wacom drawing tablet and the
new model Diamond Rio 500."

It has been there since before January and we saw one list of winners
back in like February but nothing since? most all members that have
their own sites have affiliate links back to skinz.org, why no winners?

It's gone now =) My apologies for it being there for so long. The contest
may restart at some future point (hopefully w/ better prizes than a Rio).

how about skinz.org give up a lil space on the empty side bar of this
table for skinners 88x31 link buttons? :) You don't have to actually have the
button image on the skinz.org server just the button properties pointing to
our servers. :)

Empty? You're looking at the wrong site, I think =) Usually, the sidebar
is longer than the news... only time there's empty space is when viewing
skins 20 at a time, or viewing a long messageboard thread...
Another problem is the "who do we give the coverage to" matter - i.e., you
ask for a button, ok, person x asks for a button, OK, where does it
stop? I don't want to insult anyone by saying "no"... which basically
means I can't say "yes", as well.
We do have the pixelcore webring link at the bottom, it leads to many
wonderful skinner's sites =)

~~~~~~~On the more personal side:

1. Who are you?

On the net I'm shoggot. In the real world (which I visit rarely), I'm Dan
Schutzner. My nominal profession is system operator; I work at a bank and
admin a few IBM RS6000's. My more public profession is admin at skinz.org,
a skin resource website.

2. What's your background?

A 30% gray cloth-faced cubicle wall w/ some flowcharts pinned to it.
Seriously: I've been involved w/ computer graphics since 1983 (on an old
Kaypro II), and have moved up through the hardware as time passed; I
attended Minneapolis College of Art & Design as a fine arts major for
three years (didn't graduate, beer was cheap, & I'm an alcoholic (no
longer practicing)). I've done freelance design work for several years,
was an apprentice cabinetmaker for seven years, have done general repair,
glazing, etc. - name a power tool, I own it =). I've heaved beef corpses
off of hooks in a reefer truck into airline shipping crates for
4.25$/hour... I've done a bit of everything.

3. How did you get involved in skinning?

Saw 3 Winamp skins on some site, did a search for Winamp skins, found
custo, noticed efx, didn't like available designs, tried my hand at it.

4. How do you skin (as in: what's your design process)?

My first goal in a skin is to do something no one else has ever done
before. I try to come up w/ tricky animations / special effects / etc., or
oddball looks... Then I try to figure out how to make it into something
useful / useable.
Quite often, I think ahead of my means, and start projects which I just
don't have time to finish *sigh*.

5. Why did the chicken cross the road?

Sex, food, or safety, one of the three. Not knowing the specifics of the
road crossing situation or the chicken in question, I can't be more
precise.

6. Of all the skins/wallpapers you made, what's your favourite?

ExoBus, a Reveal design. I had to eventually abandon it when too many apps
were conflicting with reveal. I'm thinking of restarting the project using
a combo of DesktopX and Litestep...
Out of released skins / wp's, I'd say "Adventure In Futurity", the second
variation... although I seem to be alone in this preference. (That's a
wallpaper, btw).

7. What's your vision on skinning?

It's a driving force; software companies don't seem to get it quite yet,
although obviously we're starting to influence 'em (i.e., you see more and
more products which are either shipped as skinnable or with custom
GUI's). To me, it should be seen as a cry for a better interface, and that
what constitutes a better interface for one person may not be better for
another.
The conflict is that, by providing GUI choices, a new user has a steeper
curve to become comfortable with an interface.

8. How do you see the future of skinning?

Eventually, someone will develop an overlay tool, a skinning system which
allows -anything- to be skinned, whether it was designed for it or not. A
layer between the current display system and the user, perhaps. It would
certainly be a resource sucker, but as cpu's get faster & mem gets cheaper
at a faster rate than the software can catch up to, that'll become less
and less of a concern...

9. What do you think of ICQ skins? (sorry, had to include that)

It's a very difficult application to skin well, and a very easy
application to skin badly. It can be skinned well; that's been proven time
and time again. Now, if I could only deliver a small electric shock to
everyone who skins it badly

10. What does the ultimate skin look like?

I have a screenshot of it, but I'd have to kill you if I let you see
it. On a serious note, I don't think there's the possibility of an
"ultimate skin"; an ultimate skin suite? well, that would depend on
tastes. I'm very curious to see what Russ & co come up with as a follow-up
to Thredz, f'r'instance.

11. What are your inspirations?

Music, Literature, family, dogs, anime. Getting a little more
specific: j-pop genre music, gibson & lovecraft.

12. What do you regret having done (skin-wise speaking)?

My first two efx skins (utility 1 & 2), and my first icq+ skin (scathe).

13. Any favourite skinners?

Too many to count, & I'm sure I'll unintentionally insult someone via
their (unintended) exclusion, but here goes nothin':
Dangeruss, Xcaponius, $teven, Bronze, Frogboy, DAK, Goran, Prodey, Misery,
Fli7e, Mercury, tierne, darknegative, cough, pixelphreak, iST, precurser,
doodle, firefly6, weezerfreak, webba, B0XXi, etype, lorenela, nug, kig,
fathom, aznromeo, morph, nu||, praxxis, kali, grymmjack, matrix, dmer, tin
omen, funk311, vindicator, bakerstreet, tananda, the list goes on... I
know I missed a ton of folks.

14. What's your view on life? (human interest question, woohoo!!)

Enjoy it, spend money when you have it, do what makes you feel happy as
long as it doesn't impinge on the happiness of others...

15. What's wrong with the name "Teknidermy"?

All of the syllables seem to be in the upper registers... makes it a kinda
tinny sounding word...

16. What tools do you use?

Artistically? The GIMP & PoVRAY/Moray.

17. Do you actually use skins yourself?

Until two weeks ago, the only skinnable app I used on a regular basis was
Litestep; I've been using WindowBlinds 2.0 since that point.

18. How would you like to be remembered?

In shuddering fear. Kind of like Lenin.

19. What's your current project?

(Assuming skinning based) Possible ExoBus 2.0, as a joint
litestep/DesktopX theme... we'll see, time is tight. More immediately,
making skinz.org as good a site as it can be - plenty of improvements to
be made =)

20. Do you still make skins?

When time allows & inspiration hits, yes. I.E., rarely.

8. married/single/monk?

Single by avocation, monk by circumstance. I work nights & viciously long
hours, makes having a social life quite difficult.

9. first love

Jennifer. She's married now.... *sigh*

10. car/bike/blades/hang glider

I drive a 92 Ford Taurus sedan, dark blue; I'm in love w/ 1970 boats
though. Gimme a 455/4 =)
I'd love to try Rogalo wing flying at some point.

11. Place you most want to visit?

If I don't know the local lingo, Istanbul. If I can learn the local lingo, Tokyo.

12. Best holiday?

ShogZillaFest. It's not widely recognized, but is generally celebrated via
marathon anime watching sessions. It occurs whenever an anime convention
happens within 300 miles.

13. Pets?

13 pets is a bit many.... 2 dogs, Gozer & Zool, male half-rottweiler
quarter black german shepherd quarter black lab & female half rottweiler
half doberman respectively, 1 cat, Natasia, female feline mutt.

14. Manicure tips for any other hexlimbed creatures out there

Clip primary and secondary limbset's nails using the tertiary hands, cut
tertiary w/ primaries. Simple, really.
If they're female, they may want to buy nail chemicals in bulk.

1. What brand of beer does he drink?

Clausthaler; haven't touched the real stuff in ~9 years now.

2. Where's he get his smoke?

Corner store stocks Chesterfield Kings just for me =)

3. Who are the two guys behind him in his pic.

There aren't any guys behind me in the pic....

4. Where can I get me some red sunglasses likes he gots?

Those are Radiatorz by Gatorz, polished/chrome version. The lenses are actually mirrored.

- what does he think of cloned os skins (aqua, obviously, and other mac
skins, as well as beos, etc.), especially the fact that they are violating
copyright?

It's only violating copyright when the original GUI is copyrighted
=) There's also the subject of allowed use. Apple protects its copyright
(trademark, actually) of Aqua quite rigorously; beOS, OTOH, has publicly
stated that they don't mind other OS's mimicking their look.
Also, it seems many people end up trying an OS after enjoying mimicking the
look for some time; look at all the people who install linux to run gnome,
enlightenment, etc. They don't need to use linux; in fact, they'll have a
harder time w/ it; but they liked the look enough that they want to try
the real thing.

- best new progs he's seen in the past yr or so.

DesktopX, Scanner (a hard drive space usage tool), VirtualDub, the Box
series of apps.

- where does he want to go with all this computer crap, and doesn't he
realize that if there's a nuclear war and he survives his system admin
skills will be useless?

If there's a nuclear war, I'll be fine (aside from being vaporized as a
side effect of living in Washington DC); I have fairly extensive
engineering skills, and plenty of real-world experience in building.
I also have a shotgun & ammo =)

#15. Do you go by the name "Shoggot" or Dan when on the streets

To those who know me via skinz, it's more commonly "shog"; mostly it's
Dan.

#16. How many pair of gloves do you own?

None. Well, one pair of welding gloves.

#17. What are your goals and ambitions and has skinz.org helped you with
obtaining them?

My goals are simple. Long, happy life. I enjoy working on skinz.org, so yes, it's helping =)

Parting Shots:
I'd feel remiss if I didn't manage to work this quote by twoflower in
here. I've recently (well, last year or so) become addicted to anime
(Japanese animation), and this sums up the spirit of it quite nicely:
I believe in the power of anime.
I believe in sweatdrops. I believe in triple takes, where the motion goes
by once really fast, once more slower, and one last time even slower. I
believe in superdeformation and the joys it may bring. I believe in
lolicon schoolgirls with magical transformation pens. I believe in armor that has
breasts. I believe in psychics with the power to level a city block with
a blast of glowing light in a primary color. I believe in aliens with
tentacles and aliens with glowing yellow hair that can destroy planets. I
believe in drama, slapstick, comedy, romance, and Tokyo Tower. I believe
in anime. And I believe it has the power to save this world from itself.
- Anonymous Author
Found written on the side of the Chrysler Building, 2135

FnaDs Five:

1. what skin do you wish you'd written

Level 8 Isola by $teven. I keep Winamp minimized all the time, currently I
doubt if it's even skinned, but that's the epitome of skinning IMHO. It's
beautiful, it's clean, it's useable.

2. what would you like to have on your laptop if you were stranded
on a deserted island, e.g.: skins, music, proggies, peripherals, games, etc.

Heh, I -am- stranded on my laptop for 12 hours a day =) Things I currently
lack: enough HD space (currently 12GB, eyeing 20GB's), a dvd drive &
external cdr, a more powerful cpu (currently a c333). Music, I keep well
equipped w/ ~640MB of Hayashibara Megumi (Japanese j-pop artist), apps I'm
well stocked on, skins - I use a blackbox clone WB skin named blackhole
sun, and a LS theme of my own making.
I briefly had Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri on here, got bored w/ it, haven't
had the urge to play a game since.
It goes w/o saying (& yet I'm saying it) that it must be well stocked w/
anime =)

3. have there been any skins that have made you laugh? cry? orgasm?

Laugh? Yes, one, and I made it =) It was an efx skin called "error", if
anyone has it, please upload it to skinz for me.. I miss it =) It
simulated a GPF on any open window...
Cry? No, but a few wallpapers have come close. Darknegative & cough
(artists) spring to mind there...
Orgasm... are you referring to the many porn skins people submit? They're
almost always low quality...

4. boxers or briefs?

Boxers. Do they still sell briefs? If so, why?

5. list some sites you visit daily, weekly, hourly.

Every 15 minutes: slashdot.org, skinz.org
Every hour: animehelp's forum, the register, kuro5hin, deskmod, deviantart
Every 2 hours: desktopian, floach, anime news service
Every day: Sluggy freelance, red meat, user friendly, the parking lot is
full, penny arcade, propaganda, themes.org, stileproject, tokiko.net,
hlj.com
Every week: The Onion (on Tuesdays), customize.org

on a side note, what, no questions about moderation? I'm hurt! Heh, g'night.
shoggot

Questions to Shoggot - by Jumbles, compiled from suggestions at Skinz.org
message board/Teknidermy staff.

We thank Dan very much for taking time to answer all these questions,
for letting us inside his world, and for helping teknidermy.org...