That's the most viscerally disturbing thing I've ever read on HN. For as popular as HN has gotten, it's still one of the more civil discussion forums on the internet. I'm not a priss, but how about a bit of decorum, please?
My apologies folks.
As someone who was a designer, has engaged hundreds of designers in the past, and works closely with designers every day, I say well done. I would definitely ask this designer to pitch if he wasn't full time at another agency. I don't think a designer could ask for much more from a portfolio website.
In conclusion: I don't think you know what you're talking about.
It was a 'concept' site largely for my own amusement (and to teach myself a little bit of js). I do have a private portfolio site that shows more of my work and has no javascript in it at all.
I know you just said it doesn't really matter, but I thought I'd offer something a little more constructive than "it's too flashy".
-seeing the whole picture - how many items do you have in your portfolio, how can I just find one that looks cool -nagivating quickly - i want to go to the bottom of the site but there is 5 seconds of just waiting for the thing to load correctly -understanding usage - i go right 3 times then go down, i didn't realize that when i went down it automatically sent me to the left
I am all for cool design styles (nullrecursion.com), but standard conventions are standard because they are good. Get a solid understanding of why they are used before trying to reinvent the wheel
If you are seeking to demonstrate your jQuery/HTML5/CSS3 skillz then do it in a way that has some applicable context. Don't break so far from established usage conventions that users have to invest their the majority of their focus figuring out the site at the expense of examining the content.
After looking at several panels my understanding of what you do is still a guess. But I think you're a designer of some kind. If you are, the problem is that your site told me you care more about cool/flashy/pretty more than ease-of-use/user experience. As someone who engages designers on a weekly basis, that is not a positive differentiator.