My Blog

“If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.”

~Jean Baptiste Molière, Le Misanthrope

It has been a hectic first week of the year, but somehow was able to accumulate a quantity of engaging news items that I think I’ll pass along:

• Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only double atomic bomb survivor, died. Yes, he was at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki when those cities were bombed. Remember him when you complain about a streak of bad luck. link.
• The G-spot may be a myth. And there goes our finest excuse for having sex: scientific exploration. link.
• The list of winners of Fark’s 2009 Headline of the Year contest was published. For those who don’t know, Fark is a community website that allows members to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. Headlines such as “Carpenters face higher-than-average asbestos death rate, higher-than-average resurrection rate” do bring a smile across our faces. link.
• If you fancy classic 8 bit retro gaming, or are simply bored, you can now play hundreds of Nintendo games online. link.

PS: To whom took notice of the webcam shot from my office window, I must explain that it’s just an experiment done for fun. The camera is behind a double glass window, and a bit dirty on the outside to boot. Hence the haze and reflections on the image at times. I may get something better going soon, stay tuned.

The Royal Mail issued, this year, a set of interesting classic LP album cover stamps. They show a vinyl record coming out of its recognizable album cover. Apparently the artwork, and not the music on the album, was the motive for the selection. Read more here.

From left to right, top to bottom:

• Pink Floyd/The Division Bell (1994)
• Coldplay/A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)
• Blur/Parklife (1994)
• New Order/Power, Corruption and Lies (1983)
• Rolling Stones/Let It Bleed (1969)
• The Clash/London Calling (1979
• Mike Oldfield/Tubular Bells (1973)
• Led Zeppelin/’IV’ (1971)
• Primal Scream/Screamadelica (1991)
• David Bowie/The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972)

A little celebration with a favorite Peter Gabriel song, Solsbury Hill. A commemoration of high-spiritedness, in this joyful day of mine where the last remaining shackles of a previous life were broken, and a personal vow honored, all in one. A salute to open fields, multiple paths, and immense possibilities.

To my family and friends, in this special season, I wish prosperity, happiness, and above all, that you have a whole lot of fun. A good Christmas to all, and an excellent year of 2010.

By the way, I leave you some suggestions of last hour presents, at bargain prices:

To the enemy, I suggest forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To friends, our heart.
To a customer, service.
For everything, there’s charity.
Children deserve good role models.
To the rest, plenty of respect.

Pedro (in Gothenburg)

Here is a cartoonish view on what we might expect at the world stage from the second decade of this century, taken from this week’s edition of The Economist. One of the best cartoons by KAL i’ve seen as a subscriber in months, I should add.

Good news. The test sample of my book finally arrived this weekend. I had to delve deep into the industrial area of Gothenburg looking for some well hidden Fedex facility, but one hour later had in my possession a nondescript cardboard package full of air bubble wrapping.  Needless to say I was feeling like a child opening a long awaited present.

My overall impression is that it is solid product with high quality finishing. And all the issues I found except one can be quickly ironed before the final print run. Anyway, that is the purpose of the test copy, to spot and fix those issues before going forward.

And now? A few extra hours of work and I will send for the final print run. The books won’t be available before Christmas as first intended, true, but that is the price to pay for getting things to high standards and feeling good about them.

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Some photos (taken with a mobile phone, sorry) of my home music studio, just for the kick of it. The midi keyboard is the pièce de résistance, and it is this years birthday present  to myself. You can rest assured I deserved it.

In the bottom you can see, to the left, the editing monitor. It is here music is prepared, cut and edited. To the right there is the monitor with the virtual instruments (a midi keyboard is basically “dumb”, as it expects the computer to generate the sound when a key is pressed), as well as the music sheet or any support program.

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Continuing the topic of my previous post (advertising), there is an interesting selection of Absolut Vodka posters at this site, with a little history of the Absolut brand for introduction. It goes to prove that anything can be made to look nice and sold, even if it tastes awful.

So, Absolut had the product, design and were ready to go, but needed to market their vodka. They turned to ad company TBWA and created one of the most successful, and longest running, campaigns. The idea came to South African art director Geoff Hayes while in the tub. It very simply featured the distinct Absolut bottle in the center with the title “ABSOLUT ____”, which could be filled in to meet whatever direction the company was looking for.

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Ever wondered why those hamburgers in the ads always look so fresh and juicy, yet the ones you get in the nearest hamburger place seem to have been through a nuclear war? Hint: thank this beautiful thing they call advertising.