I should be honest with myself here. I don’t really care much anymore about this site. It’s too bad. I have some funny stories on here, and people still visit it, according to statistics I don’t even want to know how they are gathered. I don’t really feel like ranting about web standards or design anymore. Sure, this thing is still a soapbox. Still my pedestal. I got it years ago, and it’s still clearly recognisable as a pedestal, but I don’t feel any performance urge anymore.

Not that the artist has died, or that the audience left. Just that the podium doesn’t feel right for me anymore. I started this blog exactly to rant about things, mainly design and standards, and, well, it did get me places. And thanks to all of you who made that possible. I did get places, absolutely. How much use is a soapbox labelled “ranting” worth, however, when you don’t rant anymore? When all you do is tell people long-winded short stories? I guess that doesn’t matter. I feel less at home here than I used to.

For the sake of clause completeness, I will not say I’m killing this site or leaving it behind forever. I might return, but I shall not bear the green robe that has graced this web presence for so long now, or the orange and the grunge before it. When I return, I will return with different intentions and a different face. For further reading, I refer you to my other faces: my twice-a-week photoblog, my short-form blog and my Flickr photo stream.

Thank you. It has been a good reign, but it has to end sometime. For now, stay strong, grow stronger, remain excited, do your things and do them well.

He had called and messaged her only twice (each) in two days. Reasoning that once would imply a lack of interest, but thrice would be pushy, he settled for two messages and two phone calls. She did not answer and did not reply. A day later, she called from the beach, a head full of seaweed. She never mentioned the calls or the messages, she just asked him out for a film.

The film lasted ninety-three minutes and was interesting material. The cold beer afterwards had a bigger impact on both of them than they had expected. On the concrete street, she stumbled. “Hold me”, she said. He did not hold her.

First of all, I am now web designer at a lovely company called Floorplanner, the perfect online combination of AutoCAD and The Sims. Together with el Capitan I give a sensible shape to things current and upcoming. It’s a pretty smashing job, I’d say, and I am lucky enough to get the chance to do it next to my education at the Royal Academy of Art. So, good news for me there!

Good news for you is the second feature of this fabulous post. I hereby officially declare rbmntjs open for business. “Business” here means “photoblog”. Photos! Really big photos! Updated more often than this here blog. I hope you’ll all take a peek and maybe check it out every now and then. I’m really happy with it.

• I have far too much shampoo for the next few months at least;
• My head gets cold or warm easily, also, I feel my pillow;
• My shadow has significantly less volume;
• I like how my skull looks;
• Seriously, all this shampoo? No use for it.

I walked into the Chinese barber shop late Thursday night and told the interpreter to take it down to one centimetre. After a centimetre or three, he asked me if I really meant down to one centimetre, not down with. Yeah, I said, I want to get rid of it all. He laughed nervously and fifteen minutes later I left the store with a very nifty #4 buzz cut.

1. The most common response is to look first, turn away in doubt, then turn back and shout something insightful like “hey, you cut your hair!” ←

He smelt a great deal, and had clearly not taken a proper bath in weeks. There was something, can I say it, derelict about him. In all senses. He did not seem to be very enthusiastic of life and the greater purpose of it all. “Being the lord of the underworld is something you can do for many years, it’s true, but I feel like I’m missing something significant in my life”, he said, crying. Bitter, red tears dripped over the nape of my neck, Lucifer stood against me, shuddering.

Here I was, I thought, hoping to get a good deal for my soul, consoling Satan.

It is nothing to be proud of, I know, but once realised, there is no simple way around it. Yesterday, at a concert, I misclapped twice. What that means is that I tried to applaud, but failed. The moment where my hands are supposed to collide and produce a noise, that moment, I messed it up. I failed at applause.

A week ago, I was drinking warm chocolate milk, which I had prepared myself successfully. Laid back in my chair, however, proved to be a tremendously stupid position to drink this. I nearly choked on my chocolate milk. I failed to drink chocolate milk successfully, another stunning failure.

Summing up failure can be a confronting activity. I am rather certain that this is, however, an activity you can fail at quite well. This is no complete list.

Sometimes, I also fail at speaking the truth. Some people call this lying. I call it storytelling. Welcome, dear reader. What is your favourite failure, and why?

In the small garden around one of the churches normally sits a fascinating homeless man. I think he meant to become a singer but lost his groove, or his drive, or maybe his beloved ones, and now he just sits on a bench in front of a massive church, humming and singing. When we passed the big gates, he was nowhere to be found. I missed him. I hope he found a warmer place to sing.

The next step was to cross two roads and two tram tracks. Thankfully, weekday traffic at midnight is calm there, so there was no danger at all. For some odd reason, I did hear myself saying, “It’s funny. In America, for example, jaywalking is like this really big deal, but here it’s normal; it’s not even a way of life. We just cross the road. People have to stop. We pedestrians are really important. It’s crazy. What does that say? I can think about this for hours.” I thought it was a good string of thought. She told me I already told her this. My memory knows how to embarrass me.

She missed a train home by five minutes, and it was my fault at that. We said good-bye at the third bench on platform eight.

So how was 2007 for your author? Quite dandy, thanks. I would much rather point you to ongoing things instead of talking about what has ended. For example, a maecenate-ish photography project, my frequently-updated photo stream on Flickr or perhaps this thing I’m attending.

YMMV. Happy New Year and good luck doing stuff or something.

Intangible yet “true”?

What is it with the sub- or unconscious that makes people so divided? Not that Freud and Jung were trying to polarise with their publications, but it’s a pretty basic premise: either it is of importance, or it isn’t. A halfway solution is unknown to me, not because I am dense but because it is a fundament for those who say it is. I am sure there has to be some way to put things to words in a way that is relatively neutral, implied or not.

On Tolerance

Just say no.

The trained mind

When I was walking through the rain a few weeks ago, I spotted an amazing sight. When I turned my path into the setting sun, the streets reflected the sky so brightly. The tragedy in this was, as I was walking there, I couldn’t help but shake off the ideas I had to “use” it: to make it a video, photograph it, draw it, think up a soundtrack for it.

Adjust, always. Then, relax

I have a typewriter. It makes you deal differently with language. I am considering writing poetry and a short story with it, for that very reason. I recommend that you try out stuff in a slightly different way to see how it can change stuff. Even writing with a thicker or thinner pen will do that.

I tend to answer, if you haven’t done it before, why would that matter? You will learn from everything you do. Keep trying. Keep doing.