Journal

Friday August 29

What do you know, three entries in a month. That must make this in the top 5% of the most regularly updated sites on the net.

I've been on holiday in France, and I have been working on an online zine for the swanky site called copy. It is nearly finished now, I have to correct a couple of spelling mistakes and update some links etc. I am quite pleased with it but determined to move on. Do check it out if you want to read some of my poetry about tokyo, or a longwinded rant about pretty in pink.

This being unemployed, erm freelance thing is really cool. Actually I have been pretty productive and it looks as though some working is this way coming, more on that when it happens.

For now though, have you ever thought about PI? I have been and it was doing my head in for a few days. How do you work it out without resorting to a bit of string or the pi button on a calculator. I thought I had a way sussed by starting with a square, moving up to a pentagon and through the proceeding agons until you got to circle and seeing if the ratio between the length of a side and a the distance from the centre of a side to the centre of the polygon started converging on PI... I didn't even bother trying this out, cos it looked like a big effort, and besides Pythagoras discovered it a couple of thousand years ago so the glory would be limited. But I did check out altavista's pi pages and was shocked to discover how many pi nerds there are out there. Sad really. It turns out that there are several ways of working out pi, none of which looked particularly approachable, though one did mention the word convergence, so there is hope...

I tried a pi quiz and was told at the end that I wasn't a particularly dedicated fan of pi. Kind of accurate really, although, it has gripped my attention for a while now. So just how did Pythagoras work it out? Any links would be appreciated.

I guess I should sort out the fact that this is becoming quite large now, hmmm. maybe next time.

Josh

Thursday, August 7, 1997

The beauty of working in the video games industry is RandD. Unless you hate video games. I’ve never considered myself a gamer, although every now and then a game comes along and claims my life. This week one came by our office via the playstation which has been attempting to destroy all productivity. Super Puzzle Fighter Two is the kinda game that needs a sticker on the packaging saying WARNING, this game approaches the addictiveness of Tetris. Beyond bright colours and falling blocks there is the added bonus of playing against another player and having your blows graphically represented by cutsie child versions of the street fighter crew, who beat on each other with a violence that thankfully could only be possible in the land of cartoons. Oh and I would just like to say that tonight I bet Mark (winner of the British Carmageddon playoffs, and self proclaimed games expert from Computer Artworks) many times. And no Mark this doesn’t give you permission to hack into my site and put up nasty pictures of naked rugby players or something, cos in your words, hacking is passé!

Oh no now I feel bad cos mark doesn’t have a website, ‘cept the artworks one. And he is quite a nice guy.

When I mentioned that I work in the games industry, don’t think that you can’t offer me work. Cos tomorrow is my last day at artworks and my first day as an aspiring web celeb, which according to suck (and mark) would probably translate to unemployed in real world terms. Which would be pretty accurate, cos I have left my safe, entertaining, guaranteed to lead to loads of money job in order to go freelance. Some would call it stupid I call it brave. The thing is what I really want to do is loads of cool shit like the flash cartoons on my website, only cooler, and fonts, and writing stuff, and loads of design work, and web pages, and some video games work, and some skateboarding, and videoing, performance art and start a revolution. I didn’t really have time for all that and a nine to five. So now all I have to do is find loads of cool projects to work on that will pay me enough money to pay my rent and taxes and computer oh and food. Which may well involve YOU. You might want to check out my CV which I haven’t finished yet cos writing CVs isn’t as fun as working on a flash zine, which is what I am doing at the moment.

In case you don’t have a job for me maybe you know someone who would want to buy this tee shirt for £25 000.

When I went searching for links for this entry I discovered to my dismay that you can actually play Super Puzzle Fighter II online at Capcom my career is doomed.

Friday August the 1^st.

I turned 25 a few days ago. It quite sucked in all the ways that you would expect it to. I have a theory about why years fly by so much faster as you get older. It is because a year is constantly becoming a smaller percentage of your lived life. There was a point when I was just a percentage of it. The challenge has become to fit in the thousands and zillions of things that I really want to do into the ever speedier days.

I am so damn impatient, I want to be finished ideas before I start them. I guess that other people must get the same way. I guess that it is quite immature and selfish in a way. For example the worst manifestation of my creative impatience is when I get really inspired by seeing someone else’s art. Often at galleries or in a film, or looking at another web page I just want to run home and work on my own stuff. It is a serious problem and not one I am proud of. Though by writing about it I feel that there is some catharsis.

I have just been reading Bonnie’s GRRL pages which are sumblime. They have been really inspiring. My god that woman is prolific. Go and check them out if you haven’t already, but wait here a sec longer cos I doubt that you’ll be coming back for a while… oh , shit, bye… I’ll be back soon, cos I am amped up.

Oh yeah and I quit my job in July and finish up on August 7, which means I'll be freelance. So give me some work, I'm really good at [insert required skills], check out my CV, which I still haven't finished and should, but doing CVs is boring.

And thanks to Macromedia (especially Jorge) for the site of the day link, and to everyone who has written such rad letters, I love it. And now I really feel cheesy and like I had better get on and actually do some more shit.

19 June 1997

I have just made imperatives and am about to put it up. I haven't seen it yet, perhaps it is a little weak... I have just found out how to do form mail, which means I can put lots of silly forms on my site, yeah.

17 June 1997

Tonight went a little adventure movie for a while. It started off at slow pace with a touch of culture. Tini and I headed down to the tactical bar in soho where some people were doing some poetry. The highlight was a woman called Francessca Beard whose poems were like what brit pop should be. IE non off that silly music and witty lyrics which rang true. So arty I felt as I left, it sparked me off on a creative hunt through all the trash piles all the way home. When I feel creative I get strangely attracted to piles of rubbish. At the moment it is polystyrene that really turns me on. I use discarded technology packaging to frame photos in my room. The inverse shapes of today’s printers and blenders do wonders for my friends, who peer through the gaps in their gelatin incarnations.

Tonight I found some pieces which still have me reeling, one has a selection of well placed holes, some rounded rectangles and some tiny circles, it is going to be so beautiful. I think that I might try and do some installation with them, any offers?

Tini also started getting into this polystyrene thing, only her creative vision involved tearing one of my prized possessions to pieces and filming the result. This suggestion resulted in a short lived and rather ridiculous fight over a piece of white trash and led to us going to search for some less splendid polystyrene for her to rip up.

I took her to my most lucrative trash pile to date, only to be welcomed by an object rarely found in the refuse. (This is where the adventure movie bit begins). A new looking black briefcase sat upright beside boxes of old photocopies and toner cases. I picked it up, thought briefly about bombs and london, got overwhelmed by some instinctual curiosity and opened it. It wasn’t a bomb, and it wasn’t trash, it was someone’s briefcase which had been stolen and dumped. (This is probably where the adventure movie anologies end, though I kept them going for much longer). I argued ethics with myself for a while, rang on some local doorbells, no one answered. I went to the local police station, it was closed. Took it home and did some detective work (went briefly through the bag). I had a secret desire for it to belong to some mafia boss, or dead person, or at least find evidence that this person was cheating on their spouse or something. Finding a suitcase is the beginning of many a great movie. We just happened to watch dumb and dumber last night, (I have the same haircut as err, is it Jim Carrey? Though I swear the similarities with that character end somewhere near there), it has a suitcase driven plot.

I didn’t read shit, I found a business card and a bankbook and got hold of the guy and he is going to get t picked up tomorrow. Turns out he had his laptop stolen too, I didn’t see that in the trash though, for that sort of thing you have to go to tokyo.

Which reminds me of the time when a friend and I went searching for electronic goods in tokes. It was big gomi night, which is the rare night on which all the big trash is collected. We walked about and found countless tv’s and stereo, but it was also big torrential downpour night, and everything looked to be pretty fucked as a result&ldots

I have been working on a new flash animation called asshole, it should go up in the next week or so, maybe sooner, depends on how long I can avoid sleep for&ldots

Macromedia haven’t sponsered me with a free copy of flash or freehand yet, which is fair enough, but still sucks. Maybe I should swear less and put some of their little graphics up.

9 June 1997

Today kicked my ass. At work I just redid my first full page ad. It is going in Edge magazine next month. The first version of it I fucked up because all the images I put in the CMYK file were all RGB and so all the colours were muted. Whoops, god damn print media, as it stands there will be little white lines between some of the images, cos trapping is an impossible task.

Anyway the day really started kicking my ass after work. I went skating (that is skateboarding) at Kennington Park Bowl. I met Stuart, and watched as he flew around as only a local can. He cleared one whole slab of concrete (about 6 foot) on a frontside ollie which was pretty impressive. I tried some half cabs and did a few fast frontsides and it was rad. Skating can just be so satisfying. But the whole night got really good when Stuart said, hey d’ya wanna come skate my curb? If you are at Kennington and you meet a guy called Stuart and he says do you want to come and skate my curb, say yes. He took me to his secret spot with a waxed up kerb, some steps, a banked wall, some manual blocks and planters. Never have I seen the likes of this in London.

Still I have vowed to keep it secret, so to add the mystery of this super smooth (did I mention that yet?) I’ll let you track down Stuart and maybe he’ll take you there.

Since I’ve been home, I’ve been trying to muster the creative energy to tidy up some of my animations, but I can feel all my powers of computing fast fading.

I got some feedback about the Click animation today which was cool. It seems that it should be in synch for people who have computers which are faster than about 133mhz. Although other factors can come into play, like your video card, and as far as the streamed side of it goes, the modem speed etc.

Also that was quite a simple animation, a more complex one might be different. Especially if you want to move more than just the lips and jaw. The future looks good though. For now I think I’ll keep trying to make simple animations with some speaking, but not to much extraneous movement. As a rule if it works on this 166 then I think that it goes up&ldots

7 June 1997

I have just completed the squares animation page and I am really pleased with it. Now I think it is some time for some words. I want to keep a bit of a journal on my pages. Partly just to keep in touch with friends about what I am up to, and for my own therapy. Due to some over inflated ego, or maybe just a desire to connect and be understood I have always written my diaries with an audience in mind. Or maybe it all started when I had my first diary read out loud age 12 or so.

For those who don’t know I live in London I am 24 at the time I write this and hope to be for a while yet. I skateboard and would like to do loads of other things that I never quite get around to. Like learning more about psychodrama, permaculture, and hanging out with friendly and inspired people.

One thing that I have kinda begun that I want to do a lot more of is interviewing people who inspire me. I guess the main focus would be on people who are fighting for change, and those doing really creative shit. And the people who most inspire me are people who creatively fight for change. Have you ever read Saul Alinsky? Or Jacob Moreno? Let me recommend them to you, cos their words and actions are a definite source of inspiration for me. While I am in preachy tone, another big part of my identity is my vegetarianism. Eating meat is not where I am at.

Tonight in New York is the Free Tibet concert, and I wish I was there because Sonic Youth and the Beastie Boys are playing which would have really made my day. Though last night I have to say that London was the place to be. In Brixton in a church a kick ass night went down. Hosted by Digital Diaspora (I’ll link to them when I find out their URL) Soundlab and others mixed, jammed and rapped, played and tweaked to create a mad atmosphere of noise and rhythm. But even better was a poetry reading going on in a second room. People got up (I wish I had all their names at hand) and spoke their poems with a zest not often seen in London, it was cool. I was seriously moved cos I have been hanging out to see some really creative performance in London. I mean there are incredible clubs here. But the atmosphere is not often particularly interactive, or friendly. At least in my experience.

The last time I felt the kind of vibe that was going down last night was the Loft bar in Tokyo, where a whole lot of punk bands play. The rad thing about that was that the bands and the crowd (at least up the front really interacted-no attitude) band members would get and down and dance to the next band. It was a good scene. Last night was like that lots of supportive cheering and energy.

That is what is lost large venues, that feeling of participation in the whole affair. I guess that with rave culture it was/is a bit like that at times, especially when the whole dj idolising thing isn’t going down too extreme. It is the energy of the crowd that makes the night. I don’t want to underplay the importance of djing, and sometimes I think that it is cool to go and see a band or dj play and just appreciate it. But the best nights out for me are when I feel like I contributed something, or at least was a part of it.

I am going to split now, I hope you play with the squares animation. Try refreshing the page and clicking the squares in different orders. I tempted to write that on the page although I am reluctant to put more text on it.