Sascha's

Yes! I made it! It's still today, three minutes to twelve (at least out-of-the-continent). Happy Birthday, Sascha... I won't write right now bout my journey up Kingsland Road, trying to find you a Birthday Picture. That being said, I want you to know that it ended up with me having a raw egg smashed over my head (ah yes it's Halloween over here, and the English try to celebrate this. Which makes this day in London feel like living in America (or rather in an American Movie - the auto-bleeding 'Scream' mask at the petrol station really freaked me out). Homegrown pictures then: as you can see, yours grow on my walls, and I will try to not let the hallucinogenic wallpaper get to them. Speak soon, workshop soon. x.

New Books

I was petrified by the prospect of having to go to Micro Anvika and claim a guarantee case. I had to build up through book shopping first. (Book shopping is about the nicest thing you can do if you absolutely HAVE to go anywhere near central...) It occurred to me that half of the books on display, pushed, are very blog. "Is it just me or is everything shit". "Talk to the hand". "Timewaster Letters". Putting that aside as boring I returned home with some more Geoff Dyer, Jon Ronson, Mihangel Morgan.

Customer Services wasn't improved through my buys, though.

Talking to Customers

From blogspeak to corporate speak: "No-No-No-I-won't-say-'tall'!" That's me in a Starbucks, ordering small coffee. Quite pathetic. I've become obsessed with them - I am trying to find at least ONE employee who won't correct my verbal mis-order. I already feel like I was employed with Starbucks as well - like an internal quality revisor, I am placing my order, waiting: will he/she perform, or not?

Maybe this guy has found me the one: "Starbucking is a documentary film now in production. Follow the bizarre story of Winter, a man who has dedicated his life to visiting every Starbucks in the world."

Bus-Snatchers

Oh no! My sweet old 38 has been snatched and replaced by a scary stinky 18 meter long caterpillar.

Talking to 18 year olds

- revise that: Talking to people who've been alive ten years less. Nothing's worse than being talked to as if one was, say, 12, when in fact one is grown up with maybe 18, maybe 28 years down the line.

Note to self (Blogpolizei)

-> would it work without this [[repulsive]] sense of mission? --- " 't was written because... 't is for [[ ]] and for everybody else interested..." --- OF COURSE it is, this is the world wide web!!! -> would blogging work without the rants, then?

Blogspeak is boring but fascinating.

People are mesmerized by their tech. They feel that by simply typing away on their keyboards and storing the results in public, their whole being would change. ups, I've become an online publisher over night! Projection Space. That's lovely. But: stop justifying (that's wasting time), stop 'publishing', sense of mission doesn't work (and isn't fun). It's the www! Scrap. Trash. Work. Not built to last. Built to change.

Or, maybe:

Do project! But a little bit further. 50 years ahead. Still a www, still blogs around. Probably it will be against social etiquette to look at other people's private blogs. Like you don't look at bank statements, like you don't leave the bathroom door open. or or or... Some tech else will have run off with your public privacy by then, like the TESCO clubcard. Or the Migros Cumulus Karte.

(ps the images: Neat! Little Tesco stars on the new Hamburg Police Uniform.)

Screen machine

More amazing things: I should get more work in public services!

This machine provides physical discomfort should you try to spend money. In order to put credit into your print account, you have to enter your username via the steep keyboard first.

Looks like the keyboard was gaffer taped to the machine, but it was built that way...

England

That's Jesus, Food, Sex, Entertainment, Gordon Ramsay, J Lo, Channel 4, Christmas in one billboard! Only thing missing here is the sparkling pre-christmas decoration doubledecker bus rushing by.

(Jamie lives on another C4 billboard but isn't allowed to strip. Yet.)

Games Tape 4

I'm simply too young. I never knew there was a time that you would game, having your games on a cassette tape.

Illegal image

Nice: my camera didn't like the bottom line (line - dot - space - dot were a screened 'Thank you'...)

Photoshop how's and wow's

How did this happen? Photoshop got rid of its eye icon about two years ago, and I still have trouble navigating the cs suite via tab or dock. Feathers? Flowers? Butterflies? hmmm. Led a design software brainstorming the other day; when trying to describe photoshop as a person, we ended up with the illustration of a mid-30s quite quiet man with a preference to wear suits. Despite being quiet, he wouldn't be shy, rather arrogant, constantly staring at you. I doubt the feather look will make this feel any lighter?

The mad dog, that's not Gromit but the Gimp (a not-too-easy-to-use GNU image manipulation program. But the dog makes up for it).

(through this very nice site I was able to find the photoshop 1.0 icon. thank you)

Working on the wow...

Ultimate Privacy with Dackelblut

Finally I've managed to listen to legendary German band DACKELBLUT, and I didn't even notice... (sausage dog, sausage dog, sausage dog...)

When you listen to music on last.fm, your listening will make public history by default. Who cares? Set aside what the machines do - from a human point of view, you've got ultimate privacy. None of the people important to you will ID your bad taste. In fact, they really DON'T want to know what's going on in your ears, it's all been too much: Music/Audioscrobbler, Pictures/Flickr, Words/Blogger... (hi Flickr - some hassling advice over there?)

How about you? Are your ears growing bigger? Do you find new and exciting ways to navigate your tastes? Will you give in to taste information overload in the end, just liking it all?

German Film Festival in London...

... and there's really only 1 nazi film! 25th Nov to 1st Dec 2005. Here's the program

Stop talking you designies!

think - do - think - do. First together, then alone. Fine design process. Sometimes design becomes this endless string of talk - talk - talk - talk - talk instead. Why?
1) Cause you've got the wrong fucking person for step no1. Oh my god, I'm experienced in that. Being so frustrated that the collaborative first 'think' didn't happen, I took my time to jump to some 'do', on my own. Learnings: don't be nice, don't be reluctant to accept that there really isn't a match. Expect nothing, go on on your own.
2) Cause you're addicted to step no1. In that case: Shut UP! I am BORED!

oooh, is it that easy...

Sozialstress macht Muskeln

Ausstehen

Getting in the Mood for Toilet Graffiti

We were paid to sit in on a lecture. In under an hour, we'd lost all forms of self-respect. Wriggling, winding ourselves, we were worse off than the students around us.

Caro's

Mach-o-theque

The Macho takes it all, 'The Winner takes it all', what do you do if your boyfriend likes ABBA? (this is p-u-r-e-l-y hypothetical writing, so don't laugh, but:) Why do couples do this shit? The media shit. I'm fed up with it. When I visit a befriended couple, in 3 out of 4 cases I visit a scene of media terror. Media as in: digitally stored Music and Movies.

It's his stereo, so she has to hold back with choosing the music. It's a shared flat. It's 'more important to him' (aaaaah) than to her which movie to watch, so he'd better choose ('this is a CLASSIC you'll HAVE to like it baby!'). How can so many women just STAND to co-consume their guy's bad taste? Please stop it! Save Music and Movies! Control technology that's in your living room! (Which might as well mean shutting it down every once in a while.)

This blog's Home(r)!

This is a fine little street in Upper Clapton, Hackney. However, it's not longer safe up there - Springfield in a parallel World has attacked an is determined to take over. Oh, these kids I'm workshopping with at Metropolitan: Give them whatever design task to solve, give them the freedom to choose their media, and they choose the Bart! Slightly reminiscent of RCA, that is...

ps home: bethnal green bloggers clapton bloggers stoke newington bloggers

Mugged cars

We woke up from a loud bang one cold winter night: the windows of this burning car had burst. Occasionally, cars are being mugged this way in Bethnal Green. Steal the radio, set aflame.

my Frieze

Frieze Art Fair 2005 ... and I haven't put down the names of the artists. But I remember the title of the painting in the middle: "Angstling". Which I like. Otherwise, I was more busy scanning the ladies' shoes than the artwork on the opening night. The ladies were running very fast, the artwork fell behind, then vanished completely from my field of view. Highlights included the barefoot beauty and the furfootboot chick.

In or Out? Kings Cross McDonald's

Cola or Beer? King's Cross McDonald's.

The smell of this scene is killing me: pass the elderly drunkard couple on the left, smell beer, think: beer I will be drinking later! Pass the McDonald's entrance, smell burgers fries and coke, feel sick.

aka London Weather and other Stress

Yes we were trashed. Binned. Say "buckets of water are falling from the sky very fast" 20 times to get the feel for this look. I don't know why we're laughing here (I guess that's because the charming cook from the Globe was so taking the piss watching us from inside) AND I don't know how Kate managed to not get herself photographed dressed up in black plastic.

iChat Accident

A car I passed on the street was opening/closing its doors; it sounded exactly like the little sound iChat makes when some buddy logs on/off. Fell almost off my bike, so spooked was I by my instinctive reaction to try and find my buddy list in the sky.

Fair choice?

One of my flatmates is in fairtrade. He finds it hard to accept that fairtrade products are expected to taste better? Rush of surprise, but his irritation makes sense, the longer you think about it.

Please choose one life & style only: the culture of (smug and overpriced hence utterly boycottable) health food stores / the politics of fairtrade / the pleasures of good food...

Tesco Readings

left: Milk contains Milk! (oh yeah that's because it's organic, hmmm) right: Oh my god it looks like Tampax! Women's sweets, these must be. Tempting Raspberry Yoghurt Swirls...

Magic Numbers

01010101    It's over with the 0's and 1's. I'd suggest 0's and 5's as the new magic numbers in technology. "None of your contacts have uploaded any photos that you can see. Perhaps you need to hassle them to get to it!" cries my Flickr contact page. Here's the 0-users.

Please, Flickr, be honest! The need to hassle won't stop once somebody has switched their state to being a 1 (exemplary excitement - hey, I've started blogging! This day must be very special indeed...). So - is the hassling part of the 'social' or part of the 'software' component of (potentially) social software tools like Flickr, Blogger, Delicious? Do I have to bully all of my friends?

It's such a huge number of people that doesn't make it over the first three thresholds of 1. generating an account (works! enthusiasm...), 2. testing how to contribute (wow! that was work for me! and it worked! more enthusiasm...) and 3. contributing (what? now I have to work? enthusiasm buggers off to more fun spaces). They end up not using these tools for more than magical 5 times (ok, that might be 3 or 7, but that would be all too old school magic, so let's average).

Going to the Movies to watch TV

I really believe TV can be a social experience. Really, really, really. It's just that I can't take it. You've got these nice minutes with your flatmates, have a laugh, share some food. Then the conversation gets gaps, comes to a halt. Something on screen is drawing everybody's eyes, shutting everybody's mouths, and usually that's a commercial. I'm running out to get some bad entertainment.

I really like bad entertainment. Bad, as in: bad mainstream movies. Diesel, Schwarzenegger, Mortensen, no problem. I will pay for them, at the Blockbuster, at the Cinema. The last Cronenberg, "A History of Violence", was the most perfect TV-at-the-Movies experience ever.

Designer Kino

My first Designer Kino happened in Zürich. One of the Tomatoes gave a talk, hadn't prepared, had to reboot the system. Ping. Pong? (sorry, cheap bootleg, startup sound, then Mac Os9). An auditorium full of students sat mesmerized, watching smiley boy coming up. We watched John mousing til he got the right content off the right ZIP disk. Nobody chattet. Nobody laughed. But it was absurd!

Last week, a student was playing GTA to entertain us while waiting for the latecomers to arrive (London Metropolitan). Designer Kino had changed it's focus from staring to discussing 'what's the PC version for shoot him'? At least, people were chatting and laughing!

It's done it again...

Flickr's become a scary tool to visit all alone on a Saturday night: was browsing randomly along my interest tags, and what did I find? Picture of someone I used to fancy (and YES, of course I'm not cured yet at all), together with partner whom I hadn't seen the face of before. It took me the longest time to find out who actually posted that image. What a fortuneteller.

The Amazing Papercutter

Somewhere in the dark hallways of Metropolitan University stands this amazing papercutter, waiting for you to shake hands... This is the most tolerant safety catch I've ever seen.

Living in London is a F*Up, sometimes

I've gone back to camping. After a heroic month of sleeping on springs where there should have been a mattress, I gave in. I set up bed on my well-tried, self-inflating camping mattress. It's the 3rd of October, and maybe Nationalism is kicking in (ha), but: Germans beware, life in England is different, it's all about survival within your own home. Should you wish to add some baked beans delight to this scenario, be prepared and B.Y.O. Swiss Army Knife: opening tins in England is - different - as well.

Do it.

Here's an asian teenage beauty lighting a cigarette on a public bus. So what? If I was a ten year old girl: I'd find her way cool. If I was a thirteen year old girl: I'd start to smoke cause she's so way cool. If I was an ugly thirteen year old girl: I'd start to smoke. And cry. Cause she's so way cool. And beautiful.