This is a video I made for Jonathan Coulton’s song ‘A Laptop Like You‘. It stars my trusty PowerBook G4, which I bought in early 2005, just before moving from New Zealand to Geneva. I recently replaced it with a MacBook Pro, but my PowerBook wanted to become an internet superstar before retiring, and I just can’t say no to that sweet little thing. I love the song, I love my Mac, and I have all the right props, so I knew I had to make this video. The song in the credit... Read Full Story

Here’s a remix I made of Jonathan Coulton’s song, ‘The Future Soon’. For much of the song, it’s identical to the original, but Jonathan’s singing is replaced by two different Mac voices at appropriate places in the song, so that he sounds more and more robotic. It starts with Alex, the most recent, and presumably most high-quality, voice. Alex sounds a bit silly singing this high; in retrospect, perhaps I should have used ‘The Future Soon in C’ ... Read Full Story

As I mentioned in my last post, Offshoots X will be launched after the workshop of the Geneva Writers’ Conference tomorrow. There will be readings from Offshoots from 17:00, and you’re welcome to come along and listen, or even come earlier for the workshop. There will be two other readings: one at Payot from 18:00 to 20:00 on Thursday October 1, and one at BooksBooksBooks in Lausanne at 18.30 on Tuesday, November 24. I’ll be reading my poem at the Payot event. I would recomm... Read Full Story

I am working on some more writing-related things, and I encourage people who are here for the writing to go to the launch of Offshoots X (which includes my poem, Role Reversal) but since Writing Cards and Letters finished I also have time to play with other things, such as video. For my birthday this year, I made my favourite dessert… a New Zealand invention called a pavlova. It’s like a giant meringue which is soft in the centre. Since my friends often ask how to make one, I film... Read Full Story

I’ve mentioned a few times that ‘Writing Cards and Letters’ is no longer a relevant name for this blog now that the Writing Cards and Letters project is over. Not only am I not writing about cards and letters any more, I’m also publishing other creative things I’ve done which are not necessarily writing. Perhaps the least imaginative name for what this blog will become is ‘Creative Output’, and since I had a nice idea for an image to go with that phra... Read Full Story

A few days ago I got a shiny new MacBook Pro. I’m usually monomacous, so it’s the first time in four years that I’ve had two Macs at the same time. This had me wondering what to do with them, and one of the first ideas was to have them sing a duet. Of course, it’s easy enough to get a single Mac to sing something twice in different voices and then edit them together (as I did with You’ve gotta be happy), but with two Macs I could make a somewhat interesting video... Read Full Story

  Things To Listen To: Not to be taken orally I said a while ago that I’d make a podcast of the various songs and poems I’ve recorded. Well, I finally got around to working around the bugs of the podcast hosting system I planned to use, and I now have a working podcast. It’s called Things To Listen To, with each word beginning with a capital letter, because it  looked funny with one ‘To’ and one ‘to’, and it didn’t seem right to make half a phra... Read Full Story

Yesterday was the annual evening of readings of the Geneva Writers’ Group. I really enjoyed listening to the pieces people read. You can read some of their blogs and other works if you want to know what you missed. I also read a few poems of my own. I had the welcome problem of having written too much, and not knowing which poems to read. In the end I went with Grand Unification and Love Letters. I was a little unsure about the former, since some parts would be enjoyed more by physicist... Read Full Story

A while ago I asked you which Things I should submit to Offshoots, the biennial anthology of the Geneva Writers’ Group. Then, rather than deciding what to submit based on the results, I submitted the two poems which my printer had managed to print before succumbing to persistent paper jams. I guess it’s official enough now that I can announce that ɘloЯ was accepted. However, the editors thought the last line could be more interesting, and wanted a title which was unlikely to cause... Read Full Story

I forgot to add the two jokers to the previous word cloud, so here’s a new one including the entire Thing A Week: Nice to see pants make an appearance. There are many interesting word combinations in this one, but those of you who still have living brains can find them yourself. And for all you zombies out there, remember, never eyes. Posted in Wordle Tagged: Victory! Read Full Story