Eh, D, my brilliant designer, could I have a word with you?

When I left the US about 20 years ago, you could get 1% milk in the stores. Normally we drank 2%, except my dad liked this 3.8% milk that my mother said would kill him sooner or later. He said it tasted better. What I’m saying, skim milk was the normal thing for us.

In Austria, it’s hard to find a cow that produces anything under 2%. I mean, low-fat here is 2%. And it’s gone through some process that makes it curdle faster, so if you’re shopping for the weekend, you have to buy normal milk as that stays good longer. And normal milk here has up to 4.5% fat, at least I’ve seen milk with that much; it was actually advertised as a positive selling point, being a richer product.

The fat thing hasn’t come to Austria yet. Mmm, 4.5%.

Two of my cats, when they want me to do something for them at night – feed them or let them out or let them back in – sit and meow until I do it, like good little cats, even if it takes all night. Oliver, the oldest and largest cat, might try a meow, if he’s in the right mood, but if I don’t wake up immediately, he says, “fuck this shit” and proceeds to my night stand. He used to jump up onto it and knock things off until I woke up. Now, he has a broken hip and is lame so he stands on his back legs and rakes stuff off with his front paws – the alarm clock, my reading glasses, books. It’s only a matter of time until he snags the lava lamp.

My wife and I are both light sleepers. I suspect – and I suspect that Oliver also suspects – that we already wake up when he enters the room, at which point we have a pretending-to-sleep contest. When stuff starts flying onto the floor, this gets hard to maintain, and one of us usually gives up and gets up immediately to feed him. Usually me, cause it’s my shit hitting the floor.

One night, I tried locking him in the cellar after he woke me up. I figured it would be negative reinforcement. But he has this special way of scratching the cellar door that makes it sound like a madman is standing on the other side pounding and rattling it that makes it hard to sleep.

Go find the Sunday, December 09, 2001 entry – permalinks weren’t working when I visited. Regarding Darni, she was one of the first blog-writers I started reading and I love her more each time I visit. Happy holidays.

The Internet is a free country. I myself have often taken that freedom to its limits in various projects, such as the Shoe Project or the 100% Miguel Personality Test. I have nothing against making fun of Internet phenomena, and I stand up for what I do, and take responsibility for it. This of course means a willingness to be slagged myself, or to take criticism.

What I cannot accept are anonymous, personal attacks on myself or those who have come to my aid, generously spending time and effort on my redesign here, for example. I realize, of course, that the anonymous nature of the Internet breeds this stuff like mushrooms after a rain, but the fact that (at least) two individuals have been spreading baseless rumors at websites kind enough to link to my new URL irks me; the fact that mail sent to the e-mail addresses they give bounces back or that their URLs don’t work is simply too much.

You know who you are. If you have a problem with me, contact me directly. This spineless, sneaky campaign is ridiculous and childish.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Sorry that a lot of the links only lead back to the main index right now. The finishing touches are currently underway, everything should work soon.

KD at surreally.com has generously provided me with space at a subdomain, so my URL is now http://feralliving.surreally.com. Please update your links, thanks.

I was getting tired of various consequences of using blogger.com and hosting at blogspot.com, including occasional crashes, the lack of reliable comment systems (the recent Snor.com crash was the final straw) and the impossibility of hosting graphics or other pages. I have switched to Moveable Type, and here at surreally I’ll be able to put up various other pages as the urge strikes me. The first thing I’ll do in that direction is put the Feral Living Shoe Project on its own page, hopefully before the end of the year.

You have surely already noticed the new “look”. The move provided a good excuse to redesign everything as well, and this time I had it done by professional designers, D. of bulletproofpunk.com and Ann of www.annelizabeth.co.uk/ (who did the coding).

At the risk of understating his design talents, D. is a design genius. I strongly doubt that any other present I receive this holiday season will provide the same level of joy that his design has. The collaboration with him was simple – I told him I like Longo’s paintings, he rooted around in my archives to get an idea of my writing style and came up with this design, the sheer originality of which totally overwhelms me.

It is a real inspiration. For years I have been designing my own web pages with minimal HTML skills and even less design talent. It was hit-or-miss all the way. But D has shown me just how much you can say in such a simple medium as web design, and it amazes me how much of my personality and writing style he has
captured with his design. Most of you know the feeling of writing stuff, posting it and then wondering whether anyone understood. Well, D. understood, and I
think he’s bringing me up to a new level in the process.

Thanks again D. And thank all of you for visiting. If you already link to Feral Living, please update your links (register with blogdex first, it’s easy); and if you don’t, why not?

P.S.: My list of links didn’t survive the move; I am currently in the process of reconstructing that, but it will take me a while. Thanks for your patience. I’ll be adding several new sites, and although I have no plans to delete any, there’s the chance I’ll miss a few. If you notice my old link to your site is missing and you want it back up, please let me know.