Uh?

I forgot to mention a few things I really wanted, and since they don’t really belong with the rants in the previous post I decided to add them separately.

1. Let me get this out of the way. I know I need to add some pizzazz to this old blog template. I really want to but for now I’m more concerned with content over form. I will, in due time, add some more links, widget and other wachamacall them.

2. I got really excited yesterday because I found out Orli Yakuel exists. While some of you might wonder if I’d been living under a rock, it would only make me even more excited. I never thought it possible to stay in Israel and have such an “internet footprint”. This girl seems amazing. I wonder if she would consider me as an apprentice.

On an almost unrelated note, when trying to convey to my father why I was excited about her, I got stumped when describing what an “internet footprint” really consists of. Did I just coin a term or can I call it that? And by “internet footprint” you must know what I mean, right? You know, the twitter-followers and the high-ranking internet-elite friends spread over various different social websites…

3. I had the weirdest, Web2.0 dream last night. I feel weird just remembering it. It started with me and my dad being invited to a festive dinner (perhaps a thanksgiving dinner? I’m not sure) at Leo Laporte‘s house. During dinner I remember talking not only to Leo but to other members of the TWiT army, and even some additional web-celebrities.

The interesting thing is that after dinner a few of us started talking shop, sorta like a tech-roundtable, and my future in the business came up. I remember going into a rant about how hard I found it to enter the business and make a name for myself, and what followed was an invitation by Steve Gillmor to help in the production of “the Gillmore Gang“. Up until this point we are talking about the best dream I ever had (excluding all dreams of sexual nature, obviously). What follows is not really important, and might be related to the fact I fell asleep watching TV: me and my dad leave the Laporte house, me thinking about how I would need to move to San Francisco and get an iPhone (and I take both as necessary evils). Once we get to the parking lot, my attention somehow shifts to the roof of an adjacent building, where Ross (the character from “Friends”) has just decided to plummet to his death, but instead manages to fall on me and I save his life.

This is where I woke up so I’m not sure whether Mr. Geller was happy about it or not, and whether I did get an iPhone or not.

It’s been a while since I wrote a proper post. To tell you the truth I was really getting tired of just giving out links a-la-blogspam, so I’m happy about getting back on the horse.

What brought this sudden burst of inspiration? Let me see if I can convey the mood: you know how after an action movie you get out of the theater feeling like getting into a fight, fantasizing about getting mugged and opening a can of whupass on the would-be mugger? Well, I finished a book last night, and that gave me the motivation to start writing myself. It’s not the first time this happens to me, I always feel like I can be the next Oscar Wilde when I’m reading a good book. Plus, I actually feel like I have something to communicate (which I learned is something important but not always a necessity), so that helps.

For the past few weeks I’ve been having a “beginning of life crisis” [get it? As in mid-life crisis? Oh, forget it]. It’s really messing me up because I keep losing sight of the goal and just wallowing in its emotional baggage. I’m a very goal-oriented person when it comes to little everyday tasks, but when it comes to these things I’m clueless. Let’s just say that having a “beginning of life crisis” feels like a problem I should have had at least 5 or 6 years ago – it doesn’t sound like it would suit a 27 year old guy with a B.Sc. in chemistry (fingers crossed in a couple of weeks).

Let’s get back on track for a second, let me explain what I’m thinking about: what I’ve studied until now is physical chemistry, but my hobby has always been the internet in its broader sense: technology and business news, social sites and stupid flash games, podcasts and aggregation sites. Now, normal people have hobbies and careers and most of the times they can keep them separated; but I don’t want to do that. I want my career to be the internet, but how do I do that? You can’t really start out by being a panelist on TWiT, right? (Although I’d be f***ing awesome, but that’s beside the point). I’m not much of a code monkey, and I can’t be a web-designer – the way my blog looks right now I guess you can assume that much – but what can I do? I’d love to assist production on Revision3 for example, I mean Patrick Norton or Veronica Belmont don’t seem to have studied much more than me, so why can they do what they do and not me?

I’m not sure I’m suited for an academic career and being mediocre at what I do would kill me. I don’t think I should give up, especially given the fact that if I do continue to grad school I would just postpone this feeling for another two or three years. I’ll be in exactly the same situation I’m in right now, the only difference being that I would have dug myself a bigger hole.

The easy way out would certainly be going to grad school. I’m not sure what to do. I’m afraid, I guess, to peruse anything life-altering although that is exactly what I need. I think I’ll start by sending my CV to Revision3. Oh, and to Leo Laporte too. Just to test the waters. No harm in that, right?

I wanted my next post to be hyper-verbal, like in the good old days, but I just can’t stop myself from sharing:

1. Preview of a possible mobile version of Firefox for a touch-screen smartphone (a.k.a. the iPhone)

Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

2. BMW shape-shifting concept-car made out of cloth

As much as the Internet might be a great place for weird and offbeat news stories, I feel it truly shines when it comes to find really interesting and creative project people have been working on. It might be music, or photography, but most of the times it really isn’t something you can categorize…

1. http://patterngame.com/linesuperfollow.swf – Start moving your mouse and see what happens. Also, click on the small icons at the bottom.

2. http://www.jacksonpollock.org/ – Spacebar will clear the screen, left clicks will change the color you’re painting with.