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august 2002
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Saturday 31
unwired life
I really should have a month in which I don’t do much computer stuff more regularly. It has done wonders for my psychic health, given me a bit of perspective on the ambivalent nature of this whole electronic communication sphere thang, and even allowed a resurgence in my bookwormish nature. Not only am I reading several books at once, I am in danger of actually finishing them. I can actually fell my brain waking up again aftter what seems like a long period of dormancy
Wednesday 28
paradigm shift
I have had something of a major upheaval in my world-view in the last few weeks, in which the quiet but persistent voices of my inner eco-hippy/culture jammer/memetic engineer/neopagan/trickster subpersonalities, which have been straining to be heard for a long time, have finally come to the fore.
As of September 1st, the content of meme machine will hopefully start to reflect this epochal and seismic cognitive shift. You betcha!
Wednesday 21
king bong
You literally would not believe the trouble I am having drawing a stoned gorilla. This is the best I have managed thus far:
Oh but it’ll be worth it when I crack it, believe you me. You see, in my spare time, in order to relax after a hard days job hunting, I have been trying to design some t-shirt graphics so that I can maybe sell them. After a research trip around Cult Clothing Company, what passes for trendy in Cambridge, I realised that people will buy any old crap, particularly if it makes reference to smoking the reefer. So I am doing King Bong, which is King Kong climbing up a giant bong. I know, it is stupid, but I the ‘kids’ will lap it up. And if they don’t, I’ve got another four thousand ideas where that came from. I’ve got this book, you see…
designing tshirts is fun!
You see, I was thinking about how much I enjoying doing the Obey Jakob t-shirt, and couldn’t really work out why I hadn’t gotten around to doing more designs. It was such a laugh, and I get a lovely fuzzy warm feeling inside knowing that folks are walking around wearing something I made (or keeping it in a cupboard, using it as a polishing rag, whatever…).
And so but I’m going to make some more. Yep. I’ve always wanted a ‘Bhutanese Marmalade’ t-shirt, and it ain’t going to happen until I do it myself, is it now?
meanwhile…
In lieu of more compelling blogular content, I bring you a new blogskin [this is called ‘varnishing a turd’ in the trade], which I have imaginatively called ‘c’. It is mostly grey with yellow accents, and the navigation links are quite cool. I hope you like it. Over there at the top of the left hand column, the styleswitcheroo, yep, there you go! Click it, go on! It is almost like magic, no?
Monday 19
tempus fugit
Man, how time flies when one is job-hunting! Already the 19th, how did that happen? Individual days whizz by alarmingly quickly, filled as they are with CV wrangling (eeuch), library-going, panic-attacking, life-assessing, and all the other activities indulged in by a modern gentleman of leisure.
Wednesday 14
multitasking
I bet you want to know what I have been up to, don’t you? And so but, I have spent the last week and a half: scanning the job ads, thinking about what I want to do (answer: be involved in the creation of lovely, useful, educational websites and ‘multimedia’); writing multiple versions of my CV, running, thinking, holding my head in my hands, rocking back and forth emitting a low moaning noise, feeling hugely excited about the possibilities offered by the move to London, working on a freelance projects, trying to learn Flash properly, doing push-ups, reading lots of sci-fi/emergence theory/future of web type stuff, bitching about the rain, assessing my life thus far and what I want to achieve from now on, bemoaning the lack of broadband in my life, making all sorts of fairly radical lifestyle decisions, having really bizarre dreams – even by my standards, neglecting the weblog, and bitching about the rain, again.
Tuesday 06
the amazing properties of donuts
I have to drive up to Peterborough tomorrow to renew my passport, which inconveniently expires just two days before we go to Brussels for the weekend. I could probably get through with some ID, but best not to risk it, eh? And who would pass up an opportunity to visit historic Peterborough? Ahem.
Anyway, this reminded me, through a random synaptic association, of the time Pier and I travelled to Eire to attend our friend Tim’s wedding. As we were going through the X-Ray machine (the one shaped like a door frame), Pier asked if he needed to put his donut through. He was told that wouldn’t be necessary. But the guy at the next checkpoint, where you put your bags through, was much more insistent/anal/rigorous, and demanded that the donut be X-rayed, presumably to check it was indeed a jam donut, and not, say, a Bomb Donut, or SubmachineGun Donut. Pier asked incredulously – “what could I hide in a donut?”, to which our man replied, all serious like…
“You could hide anything in donut, Sir”.
It was funny at the time, believe you me.
Anyway, we had a great time in Ireland, got drunk, stole a horse, joyrode it around a field until it crashed and exploded in a fireball. Which was surprising.
Back Again
Sorry about that short uploadal-lackage hiatus, caused by my not being able to FTP from home, due to my BT connection being almost unbelievably crappy. I am currently enjoying the many and diverse delights of hunting for a job in London, when I am not taking time out to bask in the glorious August rain.
Emergence
I am enjoying Stephen [feedmag] Johnson’s new book, Emergence. I am a sucker for complexity theory and bottom-up thinking in any guise, Johnson has fairly convincingly put a social theory spin on matters, blah blah blah.
Thursday 01
On Puffins
Puffins, they have gaily coloured beaks, but look miserable. And who can blame them? They are dreadfully serious, dour creatures, fans of Bergman’s monochromatic Scandinavian angst, forced to live their lives looking like ridiculous clowns, through some freakish twist of natural selection. And they live in burrows.