Nevolution

Keeping Busy

I've been keeping myself busy with a few little projects lately - having enjoyed the more tactile experience of using my hands on something other than a keyboard. I've been working on this kitchen bench for 18 months or so, finding scraps of wood within walking distance of mum's place. Waiting for serendipity to work it's magic can take a significant amount of time, but it gives me the warm and fuzzy feeling that all of this wood has been saved from the scrap heap. It also means that Ikea doesn't get 79 of my dollars, even if I did rip off their Bekvam trolley design almost wholesale (there should be an umlaut on the 'a', but I'm not going to spend ten minutes figuring that out). 

It felt nice to be working with solid pieces of wood, as opposed to previous attempts at crafting something out of cheap mdf. I only used a power tool twice to cut the wood used for the tabletop. Sometimes my stubbornness can get in the way of getting the job done, but I'll be damned if I wasn't going to spend a year screaming and swearing at wood that refused to be sanded with ease, and by screws who refused to turn. What makes me most proud about this bench is tat it's sturdy. Solid as rock. And castor wheels for when I decided to roll it around (which I never will). It's been finished for a few months, but showing it off now is fairly timely: it was constructed mostly in anticipation of the iPad. As soon as that bad boy is in my hands I'll be enjoying my cup of java with the interwebs and the breakfast island.

Meanwhile a stack of timber flooring samples that was gaining dust was turned into this rather nifty table that I made at a music festival. I'd forgotten how enjoyable the odd spot of carpentry can be, even if it involved large amounts of wood glue. Fairly early on I made the decision to use the modular aspects of the timber to create something a tad different. After spending a few hours mocking it up in photoshop I realised that there was an opportunity to make the table a little bit more social than usual. The irregular shape provided for novel uses and social interactions by nudging people to allow the table to create semi-random social interactions. I'm quite fond of this aesthetic, and I'm planning to take it further somehow incorporating the modular properties of timber flooring.

I'm not going to into too much detail into this work in progress, other than to say that it's final use will be typeface related and there are dinosaurs involved. Yes, dinosaurs. 

Hug?

Having decided to pick up a copy of leopard in the name of operating system vanity, I then proceeded to spend the rest of last the weekend staring frustratingly at my useless computer as it coughed and wheezed at what should have been a fairly routine procedure. After slowly backing up everything that I had amassed over a lifetime I was then ready for a clean install. I then had to brace myself for the the obsessive routine of putting everything back into place and tweaking things here and there to my liking. Then comes the slow dawning realisation that a few programs don't work, and that I'd lost all the documentation needed to fix things up. To put a positive spin on this, it means I have no choice but to use all of my rainy day images and post ideas that have been floating around waiting to be used. And here is where I admit that the main reason I upgraded my system was to play Spore, of which we'll be discussing in greater length after I've given it the time it deserved. That's not to say that I haven't given it plenty of after hours attention, just not enough to discuss it's conceptual brilliance (and it's ludological  shortcomings). Meanwhile, a crippling headache and the weirdest stomach bug I've ever experienced have kept me from functioning the rest of the time. All I wanted to do was give my beloved an upgrade and I just wasn't given the love I deserved.

Some housekeeping

 

Just a small bit of housekeeping here. I figured this blog wasn't allowing me the full spectrum of self importance so I signed up for twitter the other day. I've recently found myself thinking about something that wouldn't really be worthy for a post, or needing more time to be fleshed out. I'm hoping that twitter gives me the opportunity to get them out of my brain; let them do something useful at least. I'm hoping to not descend from order into chaos; nothing worse than entropic flightiness. So far it's been once a day, but I think that's just fascination with my new toy.

Meanwhile, if you look underneath the twitter panel you'll notice another side panel - Elsewhere. While I'm not too crash hot on the name - I got sick of delaying it for the sake of semantics - I am very excited about this. Another case of micro-blogging able to clear some more stuff of my mental chest and onto here. Quite simple really, anything that perks my interest on my intertubes travels but I can't really put it into a full post, or it isn't able to visually stimulate this place I'll chuck it in there. It also allows people who can say things better than me to say it better. I'm trying to find the sweet spot of quoting size, but I expect it to vary. Oh, I've started reading the NYTimes lately, so some of those might need you to sign in. As soon as I think of a cooler name for it I'll change it, same as twitter I guess.

Meanwhile, I added some more books into the Library too. The bloody things took me four hours just to write three lines for each. I find condensing a painful process, especially for books that I read a long time ago. The plan is to eventually catch up with what I'm (pretending) to read right now, and put each one up as soon as there done, but my procrastination levels would have to go way down for that one.

Meanwhile, if you're having problems with the layout of this thing, blame typepad. What was once an elegant format for soapboxing has descended into this slow painful process - images jumping around, coming up at different sizes, text formatting going to shit; you get my drift.

Anyhoo, I'm off for some late night WiiFit.

Happy Anniversary to Me

As I looked at my bank balance this morning, a small amount of confusion in missing funds lead me to deduce that this blog is now one year old. Allow me to wallow in the sweet embrace of reflection for a few moments before we set out to look in the other direction into the months and years ahead. 

What began as an excuse to distract myself from the ills of society has continued up until this day as my private soap box to the world. It's funny, when this started I had a clear direction of where I wanted to take this and what to post. But the further it has come along the less clear that direction has become. I've noticed that there is less and less typography, faded signage and ephemeral packaging being put up here, and when I do put it up it's discussed in levels that had never occurred to me before. The allure of the aesthetic has ebbed from my vision and I've become more interested in the reasons behind something and why it deserves to be up here. I have a huge backlog of found type just itching to grace this space, but I can't justify putting them up here without relating it to something else. 

In regard to this, I'm realising (or remembering) how much I enjoy the act of writing, and that I'm getting better at it, and writing longer pieces. The blog format seems to suit the way I structure my thoughts; being able to jot down a few key ideas regarding a subject and have the choice to flesh them out if I want and then move onto the next idea. This may have something to do with the nature of the evolving attention span and mental framework, but let's not go there. While this can be fairly shallow sometimes compared to much longer pieces, or even the essay format, it does enable me to cover more ground, and return to subjects when something related comes up, or when a new perspective is presented to me. I'm also shocked at how easily something like this gives me permission to be in a constant state of distraction, always on the lookout for new things. This suits me perfectly, and has given legitimacy to both my purchasing and wandering habits. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who thinks they have something to say, but isn't sure what. 

While this may sound like a call to arms for the cult of the amateur, it is far from it. I've definitely grown as a person as a response to this side project, and have no qualms in adding to the sum total of human knowledge. To those who argue that it is all just noise, I point them in the direction of either their ivory tower or their television; their time has come and this thinking merely illustrates the changing nature of human socialisation, personal liberty, creativity and media. The list of people that I've met because of this keeps on growing, and gives me great pride in the calibre of these people. Personal heroes, both of the blogging world and the general design world have come into my sphere of contact due to this thing, ad I am far more enriched (and smug) because of it. Noticing my social capital rise has given me a sense of fulfillment that I have never experienced before. Meanwhile, my visual and tangible social graph in the form of visitor stats is just as enriching, if not exciting to say the least. The knowledge that people read what I write, and come back to read more, is highly amusing. Yes, I'm talking about you, you know who you are. Thank you. 

Please forgive me for that emotional and soppy outburst, but I felt after one year I deserved some me time. Now onward my good steed. Expect more of the same, except better, and some (hopefully) more in-depth analysis of the usual stuff I put up here. Following on from the Monthly Memeplex, I'm planning another regular section, I just need to figure out a catchy name for it. I'll be getting around to putting up more of the junk that I have lying around at home, I just need to wait for the sun to come back so I can get shots of it in good light. I'm going through a serious reading phase at the moment, so expect more additions to the Gentleman's Library, as well as a bit more evolution and complexity theory stuff to pop up now and again. I'm thinking of interviewing some people as well, but don't quote me on that. Meanwhile, my backlog of stuff should tide me over on those lazy days. It's also my birthday in a week, so I should (hint hint) get a few things worthy of a post. 

To the next year!

The Gentleman's Library

A bit of self indulgent housekeeping here. You may have noticed the Gentleman's Library category to the left. Despite having paid very little attention to it in recent months, yet having a backlog of design related books that I've bought with lovely pictures to put up I thought I'd skip all that for now and add another category with the same name (inventive aren't I). All worthy books that I'm in the process of reading (or have recently finished) will have a short review of the book, as well as any links that I find suitable. It's just a test in its current format, I can't seem to squeeze the right amount of text into it at the moment, but expect it to stay within the same basic guidelines as I've got now.