[Fallen]

A moment of silence for my Urbanears. You were good looking, uncomfortable, and in no way unique.

Now I'm back from a weekend in Stockholm and Umeå. Met good people in the capital for an after-work. Good times.
Then it was up north to meet everybody else. Night 1 was spent at Rex. Terrible music but Aaro, Tove, Anders, Melker and Olov are the best entourage possible. Good night.

And last night was the Super Bowl. Wings, Rice Krispie treats, finger foods and beer. Pats lost. Oh well. Suspenseful.

That is all.

[Armer Mann]

I want these Converse Undefeated Poorman Weapons. Can I have them? At $138, no. No, I cannot.

But this last weekend I bought some others. Don't remember what the place was called; I'll have to check the receipt or bag. But the guy flies over to the U.S. and brings them back and sells them with bare profit. I liked them. Olive-drabby, zipper down the tongue, black rubber sole and boxing. They're sexy. Pics some other time.

You don't care. I care.

[Peter Gibbons]

(Kind of) unrelated to project, I started sketching today. It started off as practice - getting accustomed to using Sketchbook Pro on a Wacom Cintiq - but became a sketch of visual "notes". Just ideas that may or may not be useful later. I'm not even sure if anything here states an Opel feel.

Slow day.

"Looks like somebody has a case of the..." Shut up.

[Torsbo, Sweden]

This is where Siri and I are living for our 10-week internships. It's about a 35-minute bus ride from downtown Gothenburg. A bit chilly inside, but we survive.

[Deep. It's what I'm in.]

Ok. So. No photos of the house we're living in. There probably won't be any until this weekend when we're actually home when it's light. I will get around to it. Promise.

Internship:
As most of my acquaintances know, I am interning at Cliff Design. They specialize in vehicular design and conceptual work. I'm completely psyched to be here.

What do I get to do? Day 1, they suggested I design the 2020 Opel Ampera concept for the competition found here. The deadline is in 110 days, but I presume most applicants - being that they're all students - don't have the full-hour days for 10 weeks I am fortunate enough have (not to mention the resources and competence around me at Cliff).

I apologize for what I am about to say, but I am in it to win it.
The brief states that applicants are required to design an exterior AND exterior. No problem.
The concept must, like today's Ampera, be a 4-seater based on the current hybrid chassis. Ok. Restrictions are good.
The jury wants to be wowed. They want to be blown away. Everything has been seen before, and (from what other professionals in the business have said) they've seen everything before...

...I have work to do.

Drafting up my timeline and watching house.

More tomorrow. 'Night.

[Gothenburg]

I'm not going to write another long post that takes forever to read (and write). Even though it's been weeks since I last posted, and plenty has happened, I feel like switching up the format of my posts to shorter, more frequent updates.

I came down to Gothenburg Saturday, stayed at a friend's (Bus Chick, aka Cicci) and headed out on Sunday with Siri to our house. It's big and pretty, but more on that tonight or tomorrow when I've photographed the place.

Big news today? These.
Ordered them last night and picked them up 20 minutes ago.
My other pair are Urbanears' mocca-colored Plattan cans. I bought them rather spontaneously (read impulsively) 1½ years ago. They're sexy as fuck, but are uncomfortable when worn more than an hour at a time, and the plastic has been cracking and breaking off.

Hence these bad boys.

More later.

[Anticipation]

Happy New Years!

Done.

Went to Austin to bring in Twenty-twelve with my sister and her friends who coincidentally became mine. Had a great time. We went out, drank sparkling wine, took a rickshaw back to Moseley's and slept.

But being the new year also means that on January 1st I also celebrate my birthday. I turned 24 on Sunday. I don't feel any different. In fact, I feel young - really young. But it's all relative.


In other news, a trailer was released for John Green's new book "A Fault in our Stars" (link here). This excites me for a few reasons. Firstly, I've been a fan of John and his brother Hank's VlogBrothers project since mid 2007; I am not going to explain who they are and why they're awesome since I suspect those who care already know. Secondly, everybody who pre-ordered one of the 10,000 first editions on Amazon gets an autographed copy. Thirdly, though I had not previously read any of John's work at the time of purchase, I bought a Kindle e-book of his novel "Looking for Alaska" and finished it just a few days. Good reading.

Onwards.

In my previous post I was all psyched about bringing my Dell up to spec. Well, everything has now arrived and I'm glad I upped the RAM to 8GB and installed a Bluetooth card. They, however, were not the most important issue: In July my battery just stopped charging. The battery icon would inform me the battery was "plugged in, not charging". I thought it strange that my computer would acknowledge the battery but not charge it. A message like that seemed like it had to be the fault of internal hardware; neither the battery nor the charger. The notion was dismissed, though. I tried other chargers and the same thing message appeared. I deemed it was the battery that required replacing.

Now, I believe it is clear why I ordered a battery. I picked out a 9 cell type for added life (and it wasn't but $6 more). I expected to no longer need worry about knocking the AC adapter out, causing me to lose any unsaved files - to actually have a portable laptop again. So, I plugged in the battery to charge it and...

...THE THING WOULDN'T TAKE A FUCKING CHARGE.

Well, I'll be damned. So I again tried another charger with the same result. This time I called Dell Support in New Delhi. I was greeted by an Indian "Marcus", to whom I explained my problem. "Marcus" confirmed my first diagnosis, that it was indeed a hardware problem common to my model. The computer would have to be sent in for repair, and I don't know how long that could take. If it takes more than two weeks I'll have to have it sent to Gothenburg.

That truly sucked. But luckily my dad bought me an extended warranty for which I am extremely grateful. So, getting the issue resolved won't cost me anything. Now I just have to decide whether or not to keep my new battery. It's larger, so that's a con. Pro: 6 hours of power to my 17-inches* at full brightness. Con: I could use the money for other things. Pro: a second battery is never a terrible to thing have, and it does pitch the rear or my computer allowing it to ventilate better while also setting the keyboard to a more comfortable angle. Oh, well. I have a few days to figure it out.

And now for something completely unrelated and completely fucked up:

This morning I was continuing to watch the marathon of 2 Broke Girls I assigned myself yesterday, when my stomach started to ache a little. At first I thought it was gas so I tried to pass it.(THAT'S RIGHT, PEOPLE! IT'S A STORY ABOUT THE FASCINATING HUMAN BODY. IN PARTICULAR, MY FASCINATING BODY!) When that didn't work and it got worse I grabbed a banana - LET ME FINISH! - to eat. I sort of skipped a proper supper and replaced it with less healthy alternatives. It wouldn't have been the first time that would have lead to an upset stomach.

But then it got worse still and I ran to the toilet. Problem is, the pain wasn't poop Whatever the pain was it was intense enough to fetally curl up and tip off the toilet where I lay in agony.

That's right. It not only hurt physically, but actually hurt me emotionally when I discovered I was almost crying with my pants down on the floor of the bathroom. It did eventually subside and I went about my day.

Yet, again, it struck. This brought about more pain, which naturally caused me to:

1. breathe like a pregnant lady giving birth (or a man coaching his wife at a Lamaze class)
    
2. pace the 2 meters in my bedroom from my door to my desk
    
3. be forced to all fours and tense my body so hard that I actually sweat
   
   which of course lead me to
   
4. frantically strip down to my underwear.

I say "naturally", because I believe this to be the way all humans handle gas. Then again, maybe it wasn't gas. Who knows. It's over now.

ANYWAY. Today I re-did the layout of the blog for the whatevereth time. I like it enough for now. We'll see.

I also went on a walk at a nearby nature reserve with my sister earlier and snapped a pic of the evening sun over Dallas suburbs. A real nice way to round off the day.

Taken with my HTC Incredible S (filter courtesy of FxCamera app). I promise I will stop hipsterizing my photos.

* "6 hours of power to my 17-inches". Lol.

[...And to all a good night]

Well, it's actually morning. At least over here it is.

Christmas was good; gifts were given; people faught; washed it down with mimosas.

Anyway. I'm slowly fixing up my laptop in prep for my internship. It's not costing too much, but I've ordered a new 9-cell battery, maxing out my RAM, and getting a bluetooth card. For being an otherwise kick-ass laptop, I still can't believe it never had bluetooth.

But I'm also considering a tablet. Specifically an Android tablet. I know I would thoroughly enjoy an iPad 2 (or 3, when it finally arrives), but am having a hard time justifying buying any Apple products.

Here's why:

1. I have a good Dell running Windows 7 - an experience I am used to and find pleasant, though it is far from perfect - or, should I feel the need, Ubuntu.
   
2. I "recently" invested in an HTC running Android and I could not be more satisfied. Considering the price, the hardware is great. But, staying relevant to my arguments, the software has me sold. I like the frequency with which Google updates me, fixes bugs, tweaks my phone for me... for free.
   
3. I already have most of my shit on Google in one form or another. I don't need iCloud.
   
4. Bang for my buck. People say Apple is all quality, and I agree. But the price tags on Apple products aren't for the "quality".  It's a statement of style, wealth, ego, etc. That's fine. I do the same thing with my 16 pairs of Converse, but not once have I claimed that Chuck Taylors have "superb quality" or are the "ultimate shoe".
   
5. Fucking iTunes. I cannot get over how much I hate iTunes.

So, in summation, Android products are just better suited for me.

But what is it about Mac-heads that turns them into iTools? Why do they "feel sorry for you" when Windows 7 flashes an hourglass, like a Mac never gets the "beachball"? That, despite being generally reviewed and rated comparable/better, non-Macs are worse "just because"?

And why can't people grasp that Macs are PCs too!

Back to the point (I seem to have ranted a bit there).

The most interesting tablet out there right now is the Asus Transformer Prime, and I REALLY want it. A large reason being that I want a digital sketch pad but can't afford a $1000 Wacom Cintiq. Other reasons include the games and graphics, quadcore processor, free upgrade to ICS (Android v4.0) and I may want to - as unlikely as it seems - buy the optional keyboard at some point in the future. At first it seemed like a novelty deal, but increased battery time and fullsized USB connection kinda make it attractive.

[Long post]

Ok. We have a lot of ground to cover and very little time in which to do it. So, this has happened:

• I am interning in Gothenburg at Cliff Design this winter/spring. This is awesome because
  
  1. I no longer need to apply to other places, nor worry about getting an internship in time.
  2. Gothenburg is fucking awesome.
  3. They normally do not accept interns - especially not non-masters students.
  4. This office is perfect for me. There is no other place in Sweden I'd like to be. I love transportation design and graphic design and want to improve my concept skills
• Hot team ended. I never wrote about it. I might not. In anycase, it should make it to my website before too long.
  
• My flight to Dallas is booked and paid for and I'll be flying out Wednesday to actually make it to Texas before Christmas (for once).
  
• I plan to - should I have the time - fly down to Gothenburg Monday or Tuesday to visit Cliff. And if there's time while I'm down there I really and to meet up with Cicci and Nina and whomever else is down there and has time.

Now, on to other news.

Designboom had a pretty awesome article about HP's new logo & identity, as well as future plans. Granted, HP will never be Apple, but I'm pretty thankful for that.

 

Anyway, I recommend reading the article (hotlinked above). There's no doubt in my mind that HP are ambitious and are having fun along the way. Neat.

Another treat was Arcade Fire's new interactive video. Good music. Expressive photography. Good shit.

 

 That's it for now.

[Where are we?]

Uggh... So much done well. So much gone wrong. We discovered yesterday that we've spent a shitload of time prioritizing the wrong things. Now it's (and I hate this phrase) "back to basic". It's not easy to design a service.

This is hot team.

P.S. I hate how the Blogger app watermarks my photos from my cell phone.