Some of my friends on Twitter prefer to talk only to people they know or who have proved themselves interesting. Me? I don’t give a fuck who you are. And if someone adds me on Twitter I add ‘em right back. They then have maybe a week’s grace to prove themselves not a fuckwit. Far from a perfect system, it hasn’t stopped me being bored to tears, hit on and occasionally disturbed over the last year*, but it works for me.
So today (if you follow me) you would have seen this:
Following only half a conversation can get a tad frustrating, eh? What George and I were talking about was this:
I’m as much of an Aliens fan as the next guy, but seriously… if you need a working LED ammo counter that counts your ammo usage while blasting in the general direction of imaginary monsters then fair play to you.
*much to my surprise I’ve been using Twitter since November 2006 and have around 170 pages of tweets trailing behind me.
This relates to everything:
“We have to change the negative things into positive. In today’s Japanese film industry we always say we don’t have enough budget, that people don’t go to see the films. But we can think of it in a positive way, meaning that if audiences don’t go to the cinema we can make any movie we want. After all, no matter what kind of movie you make it’s never a hit, so we can make a really bold, daring movie. There are many talented actors and crew, but many Japanese movies aren’t interesting. Many films are made with the image of what a Japanese film should be like. Some films venture outside those expectations a little bit, but I feel we should break them.”
– Takashi Miike
I stole it from Ben who grabbed it from Warren. It struck me as a huge idea when I first read it and then prompltly forgot all about it because I’m an idiot. For me and a few others, Ben probably included, it’s a nice manifesto for 2008.
I met Ben this weekend by the way. He crashed here on Saturday and brought a large amount of alcohol and cool books with him. Took far too long for this to happen, especially as if we’ve been in touch now via email for around 2 years.
Meeting people like Ben, Corran and all the other good friends I now have who started off as nothing but screen names is the reason I’ll continue blogging (despite my recent lapse). It’s also why I’ll always fall in love with new apps like Twitter that act as friend generators.
Facebook, on the other hand, can still fuck right off…
I respected the intense, almost passionate, absorption with which he looked at a butterfly, as though on the bronze sheen of these frail wings, in the white tracings, in the gorgeous markings, he could see other things, an image of something as perishable and defying destruction as these delicate and lifeless tissues displaying a splendour unmarred by death.
“‘Marvellous!’ he repeated, looking up at me. ‘Look! The beauty- but that is nothing- look at the accuracy, the harmony. And so fragile! And so strong! And so exact! This is Nature- the balance of colossal forces. Every star is so- and every blade of grass stands so- and the mighty Kosmos in perfect equilibrium produces- this. This wonder; this masterpiece of Nature- the great artist.’
“‘Never heard an entomologist go on like this,’ I observed, cheerfully. ‘Masterpiece! And what of man?’
“‘Man is amazing, but he is not a masterpiece,’ he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the glass case. ‘Perhaps the artist was a little mad. Eh? What do you think? Sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is not wanted, where there is no place for him; for if not, why should he want all the place? Why should he run about here and there making a great noise about himself, talking about the stars, disturbing the blades of grass?…’
from Lord Jim, a tale by Joseph Conrad.
After reading Rob’s latest blog post I’m relieved that all I have to do with him is launch a couple of new websites and write a book. When he fails to come back from carrying his bicycle up a volcano or whatever mad bastard thing he’s doing next I will of course be able to take credit for all his ideas.
Not the one about the sheep dog trials though.
The mere mention of one project over there caused the ninjato held to my own throat right now to twitch a little and the last thing you want is a twitchy ninja.
Kwint we can of course talk about. But we’re going to be annoying and not mention it much until we decide to launch. At that point we will of course be babbling like bastards and telling everyone that the bad grammar and creative spelling is just irony.
What we are quite happy to say is that it’ll keep us smiling and that’s always half the battle. Especially with a moaning cunt like me. Of course you’ll all get a kick out of it too.
Because if you don’t we’ll release the twitchy ninja.
Last week was a lot of face to face malarkey. This week not so much.
Thanks to Corran I now know exactly how rapt I have people when I’m talking utter bollocks:
Check out Neal’s interview with Cecil Castellucci over on the rabbit + crow blog:
I could never understand why someone who didn’t know me, the IRA, would want to harm me. And I couldn’t understand why someone would do something so ugly. And I struggle to find beauty in everyone and everywhere because of it.
Look what my friend Irina has done now:
Dontcha Wish Your Cell Phone Was Hot Like Me?
Now I’m going to be late for my flight 
