Dan Germain

thank you turkish airlines

Life is a bit slower these days. Hurt my knee you see. But I made it to Hamburg, to see the advert everyone's talking about. You know, the one for Turkish Airlines featuring Kevin Costner.

time lapse beard growth

Time Lapse: My Hairy Commute from :: Fred Abercrombie on Vimeo.

Much respect and hairy salutations to Fred Abercrombie, who filmed his beard growth in a neat, funny way over a couple of months earlier this year.

sunday, in order of importance

tankard in new york

As Paul reports, the tankard has hit New York, greatest city on Earth, according to those from New York. Faris is in control of the sacred cup and he looks pretty happy about it all (Faris is on the right).

Things you may not know about Faris:

He has some hair

He lives in New York

He likes Stone Junction (one of the best books ever written, for sure)

He knows Geoff Baker

This last part might not mean much to many people, but it sure means something to me, and Geoff.

it was very interesting

I enjoyed interesting. There were a lot of good people there, and I think I understood most of the stuff that people were talking about, although I did struggle with the origami exercise.

photo from gorgeoux's flickr stream

After receiving David's suggestion in the comments under this post, I ended up speaking about those sunsets. You know, the ones you take pictures of. I think it went well - I managed to mention how sunsets are linked to death, but then end on a rather upbeat note, which was a relief, as I spoke at the end of the day and there was no-one to be upbeat after me.

Thank you Russell for organising it. And thank you to Marcus, whose video contribution to my sunsets bit has now turned into an informative series.

creative review - interview

Gordon Comstock recently interviewed me for Creative Review (September 2009 edition). I like Gordon (not his real name, but then you knew that) - his blog is as funny as it gets, and he's a good man to have a cup of tea with.

I swore a little bit in the interview, which I now regret, but it wasn't really bad swearing, so that's OK.

The interview is here - I think you need a login to read it, but if you don't have one, don't worry; you're not missing that much.

being interesting - please help

This Saturday 12th September 2009 I will speak at interesting.

I haven't been able to go in the last couple of years, so it'll be my first time attending as well. I have no idea what to talk about so I thought that if anyone was reading this they could help me decide. This is the shortlist:

• Beards and how they have made me think differently
• My Granddad and why he was a champion
• I hate jugs
• Living under martial law - Indonesia, 1998
• Why I'll never write a proper book

If you have a preference or indeed another suggestion, I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks.

how gerry adams stopped me blogging for most of the summer

I should blog more, and I should have a good excuse for not doing so, and I'd like to say I've been busy, but then everyone's busy. Maybe I just took the summer off, but then I know some people who blogged while they were on holiday, about the quality of the towels in the hotel they stayed in.

Putting my finger on the reason for not blogging more is tough. Maybe I had to take some time out to reconsider my whole situation when an Australian woman said I looked a bit like Gerry Adams.

Or is it just because I am now a proper parent with other responsibilities, such as parenting, tidying, scolding and toilet monitoring. Maybe it's because I have a job and a house that are quite far apart. Maybe it's because I am a lazy good for nothing who was never gonna amount to much.

Or maybe it's because blogging sometimes gets a bit boring, like anything you do a lot (washing up, teaching English as a foreign language, growing tomatoes).

So I had a rest. And now maybe things will get more interesting.

some things I saw that are good

New Getafe kit, sponsored by Burger King. Score a goal, pop the shirt over your head and make like the King himself (he's printed on the inside). More here.

 

Some stuff called Help Remedies. Worth looking at this post for more pictures. (Nice spot by Tom)

And finally, the 5 most badass things ever done by jungle cats, if only for the conversation between the lion and the man at the bottom.

leicester - it's beautiful

It is. I hadn't been back there for years, not since I had a job there. It was my very first proper job, working in a small design/communications agency, making the tea, going to M&S to get the sandwiches for meetings, filing stuff in a big dusty room, and helping out whoever needed helping. (Mildly interesting fact – the agency had three proper designers, who scared me a bit because they had the cool jobs. And one of them was the mighty Acejet.)

Anyway, I was there today, speaking at this, which was very good and interesting, and I arrived quite early and wandered around the town. And it was sunny and it was pretty beautiful. Leicester looks good in the sunshine.