changelog

i'm in china now, in 上海 (shanghai) currently, i was in 广州 (guangzhou) before, everything is going very fast. in hotel topless right now since i haven't had the time to pull on a shirt yet. ok that's a lie but just trying to squeeze in writing time before checkout in ~35 minutes. this roughly summarises my recent relationship to creative output as a whole (i'm always doing it topless haven't had much time to do it), although i did manage a few sketchbook pages and, in the last couple weeks, to finish war & peace and lolita, which had both been haunting the currently reading section of the site homepage for far too long

slightly struggling to find a start point with which to begin description of the last 6 days in china. across all facets it is a country of scale, as such it is difficult to pin down singular elements to easily summarise. an example - on my first full day, i went to the 广州 fabric market, which is less of a 'market' in the western sense but rather an enormous strip mall made up entirely of fabric/textile merchants, plus the constant stream of customers, salespeople, their children, e-bikes that interact with these vendors. there's probably ~500 different stalls where you could find myriad zip types for all your jacket hoodie bag zipping needs. this was just one 2/3hour segment of a single day, and since then i've encountered a bunch of other pulsing enormities (high speed rail system, a giant spa with 100+ rooms for impersonating the fat guys from UP, endless rows of high rise buildings, wacked out livestreams on 抖音 (dǒuyīn), etc - you get the picture)

in a few days, i'll have some alone time in 上海 to pause a little longer and potentially write something more substantial. for now i'll leave the above (and will place it here just to have something to show) as a shadow of an outline. also will hopefully keep picking up more chinese along the way (separate progress in that regard i'll save for that page)

last few days have seen a more focused attempt to learn chinese; i've made a blog-thing to keep track of my progress because it might be useful for someone hoping to learn the language themselves many years from now, perhaps in the future when i'm fluent and world peace has been achieved and everyone's in the back room freestyling about their experiences in the 4D war or something. like you, i have no idea what the future holds. however, i did remember something from a few years ago earlier and did so in much detail - it was a nice reminder that my neocortex and hippocampus are still working well together despite the four or five serious concussions that make me fearful of some kind of early onset CTE (as a result, a few years ago, i got really into the caretaker's music, especially the album where he sonically recreates the disappearance of memory to alzheimer's disease). unfortunately, what i remembered was of no interest whatsoever, apart from that it was something that i suffered through and mentioned to as few people as possible. but i'm being dramatic. it was one of those very normal things, you know?

learning chinese is a lot of fun when you're landing in the country in less than 100 hours. not sure how well my blog will fare in the aftermath of whatever adventures i'm to encounter while out there, but it's nice to see some initial progress. i'll probably add it to the words section later on. speaking of which, i've been trying to write stories but the results have been mostly terrible, aside from the occasional sentence with a pulse of its own. it's going to take time... i hate time... i love time... time to sleep, time to live, time on the wall and time on the fridge; i think i'm only writing weird like this because it's 6:18am and i haven't slept, and also the stupid time joke from the last entry hovers below me on the screen like an eye floater (se: myodesopsias) - you can't get rid of those things you know, just like how i can't remove the joke because it's there now and i'd be a coward to hide it and it's universally understood that being a coward is bad

also, i made a personal thesaurus, because i like learning new words. people often think you're pretentious for using big words, and that's true, but i'm collecting these words like labubus, or anime figures, or vinyls, you know? in that lighthearted way that kids do it, because that's totally what i'm doing. totally what i'm doing... totally what i'm doing.... totally what i'm doing.....

spent the last week faffing around; finished my final shift at work; Israel and the US decided to blow up Iran's leadership - they had extra leaders to pick up the slack - now there's war outside... Ah. also, my trip to China was postponed, because in my genius i decided to book a connecting flight through Bahrain, where all flights have now been cancelled. Yippee! but life goes on

otherwise have continued reading a bunch of shit and today was productive in that regard and i felt compelled to leave an update in this here changelog despite making no tangible changes elsewhere. the other drawing which i referred to as 'nearly finished' last week is still just 'nearly finished'; instead, i have doodled on a bunch of post-it notes: these are scattered around my desk and refuse to be scanned - they are ashamed of themselves (i wonder why). so, in absence of anything else i trawled through my 'core document' - an unkempt mass of efforts at 'stories' or 'blogs' tallying at just over 90k words, of which practically none are worthwhile - to find something to share. all i can muster up here is this terrible joke that nonetheless made me laugh for its stupidity. remember: writing jokes is always a productive endeavour, even in times of war [i have no idea if i believe this to be true]

Gary: I just can’t believe how quickly she’s become ill...

The alarm clock with legs: Gary, I’m so sorry

Gary: The way she must be suffering right now…

The alarm clock with legs (standing up slowly): I can’t--imagine-

Gary: And it’s like… Time is running out on the both of us…

The alarm clock with legs (sitting down again): Don’t say that…

...sorry

added new drawing to images. it's fine. nearly finished with another, more technical drawing. did a lot of reading today, but it mostly felt pointless. contemporary theology is strange and alienating and feels oppositional to the simple, demotic faith practiced by common peoples across history, which i guess i prefer but mostly for its depiction in novels. anyway. last night, quite inebriated, i wrote a bunch of melodramatic crap, because it feels only natural to do so when i'm 8 beers deep; it never feels so when i'm wide-eyed sober and sat at the keyboard otherwise. i'll share an excerpt to give you a flavour - in retrospect the words are mildly entertaining, given that they emerged from my desire to drink + my desire to write.

The only important thing in life is what Torturing Nurse said of their mindset during their outrageous live noise performances: “I just try not to want anything.” That’s it. In every spectre of perception, in every prismatic, emotion-bending, excruciating moment – even those that fall apart at the seams, that thunder and churn, or fall deftly, like a single pull of the violin’s bow - we are bound by desire, and the restraints it throws on us. But it needn't be so, if we will ourselves into an absence of will, into silence, and the drawing of the simple sword."

this is how you start writing when it's 2:30am and you've been drunk for 3 hours (i'd been with friends beforehand) reading Lacan et al. for the first time. bunch of impenetrable, usually heretical, bullshit. that being said i'll probably keep trying. and one day i will write a sentence worth reading lol

back at home. it's 3:46am and i'm contemplating cranking open my second beer of the night - not exactly reckless except that tomorrow morning i'm to be up sharpish at the library, delivering a spanish class to some 8 year olds. signed up for this gig months ago and i'm glad i didn't forget about it... today i woke up exhausted after 29 hours of work in the two days prior. then i went to the guitar shop with my dad to help him buy a guitar; we were kicked out the store with no guitar on our persons but only because we're both lackeys who happily strummed together in a music room til closing time. i returned home and wrote 1500 words of a short story about trying not to masturbate. it's bad - not because of the prose, which is fine, but because it isn't nearly as funny as i hoped it would be. still might be worthy of completion, if only to complete something. then wandered around the internet on my computer for a few hours, texted some friends (but not all), ate some food after starving myself all day, then updated this site. i added a grand sum of 1 (one) single image. lately i've been drawing angels. the one in images is the only one i liked. going to start using the changelog as a place to blog, similar to the style above - mostly just a register of the bullshit that's kept me occupied/that i've used as an avoidance mechanism to hide from creative work. also, i quit my job (last shift next week) and i'm flying to china in two weeks

writing this changelog from a parisian bunk bed. in a micro-apartment thanks to a friend, moving to another friend's spot today. 'peripatetic' as my dad would say. added some new images for 2026. haven't been drawing as much as last year; this website is partly to blame. though perhaps it's because i'm finding more joy in writing. i'm able to do it on the go, dumping sensory information into the notes app of my phone, etc., and hopefully i'll have something to share in the coming weeks. however it often is the case that every phrase of mine goes stale as soon as i read it back to myself. that's why i've relegated written expression so far to the changelog, to little rants within the projects pages; i can't seem to write anything with the vivacity to exist on its own. only thing is to write more and get there eventually. we'll see

today was not a fantastic day. that is almost entirely irrelevant to the changelog but it's sometimes worthwhile to publicly admit one's failures. anyway, i created some new icons for projects which are actually quite cute and were fun to make (on ms paint #elite #software). also fixed the blogmaxxer so it now works as it should - part of this involved the development of a new script to ensure the site images remain up to date + so i needn't screenshot them manually. there's now 46 sites in the blogmaxxer; a reminder that all selected have been vetted and curated by yours truly, trawling through the internet as part of my procrastinative regime!! [i wonder if that is a word yet. if it isn't, it should be] side note: really need to write more. my 1000 words minimum a day streak has begun to fracture. i don't like it. also on the verge of a major life decision. stressful ti-- wait a second... this is supposed to be the changelog

added another image to the image-explorer. it now sits on the page as image numba 1. image numba 2 is pending (these take longer than expected to finish). image numba 3 is the original from the entry below. not sure why i'm typing numba but anyway, there are 21 different regions in the new image to explore and i wrote quite a few words to accompany them all. one of the entries is actually too long to read in full, which i find funny now but will probably change later because i spent a while writing it all out. i have loads of changes to make to both the blogmaxxer and the collaginator still, especially the blogmaxxer. it turns out i didn't do nearly enough research before building it, because, after going in search of more sites to add to it, i stumbled across a site with the exact same aim. it is definitely superior to the blogmaxxer... so... i guess i'll add something to the description and whatnot... blehhh

i had a premonition recently that in the future no one will spend more than 1.3 seconds observing any static image ever. the future being now, of course, i decided to make this image-explorer [fka art-explainer] to make some artwork of mine interactive wooOoOoO so that everyone spends more time looking at it, thus appeasing my unrelenting vanity. also it might be interesting for the few people who care to know why it is i made the image and used relevant symbols for its creation blah blah blah so it now exists. admittedly, upon finishing the first iteration i'm not sure i made the best choice for the first work of the series because this piece is extremely OBVIOUS in its meaning, and now there is absolutely ZERO possibility of someone doing some 'meaning-making' with it but that's fine. you never get it right on the first try. dunno where to put this or what to do with it but will figure it out later. also made some changes to collaginator and will continue refining it in next few days

built the collaginator [collage-inator] last night but it isn't totally finished. it works, but the algorithm needs to be tweaked substantially before i can present it on the site. i can give you the general gist of the project however. it's this: a user can insert a group of random images, up to 10, and the collaginator will deconstruct them and smash random parts of them together, scuffing the meaning of each image to create, by way of a new composition, new meaning. i want it to mimic the style of my own hand-drawn images / digital collages - the process for these is essentially described in the previous sentence. it has been an interesting exploration to observe whether my individual efforts, or process, can be mechanised. it doesn't seem to be possible - the collaginator is clumsy and falters when dealing with complex inputs, but nonetheless it prompted a worthwhile analysis of my own artistic thinking. will do some final tweaking of its algorithms and then leave it at that

fixed the text on the tip-jar and on the projects pages. i hadn't bothered to remove the ai slop that came with the templates. now i have, and i am very glad about it. huzzah! anyway. for those concerned by my lackadaisical approach / heavyhanded reliance on ai please bear in mind that this site exists, in part, for the following reason: to demonstrate that using ai to create cool things can be done without compromising their personality. all that's required is a little exercising of the imagination. another thing: going back a few years, it used to be that the only artists with a website were those with technical knowhow, financial power, or a team around them that could build it on their behalf. now everyone can do it on their lonely. but, unless you are willing to extract from yourself distinct elements of who you are or how you think (don't ask me for clarification) and imbue your personal site with these things, well. it's probably going to be boring. don't be boring BRO

added new words that i wrote yesterday or the day before. it was really late. i want this website to be good but i drank a lot of alcohol last night and did nothing for the whole day. although i did play the piano for my baby cousin. his gaze was fixed on my hands while i played. he's four months old and has never seen someone play an instrument. it was a great honour to play for him and i hope i will get the chance to teach him his first song - right now his hands are too small to even press a key. baby children are pure and perfect and remind me to make love the centrepiece of life. i often struggle with this

added changelog because this way i can remind myself i'm more than my idle self believes me to be. oh and so people can keep up with the site changes as well i guess. i don't know.

built a shitty tip jar with solana wallet integration because of yeezy pay. yes, yeezy pay. yeezy pay is part of YZY money and '$YZY is the currency that powers all transactions within YZY Money.' this is apparently the doing of Kanye West's team, and it's terrible. in fact, it was such a broken scam that i now have $100 trapped in a crypto wallet i can't control. all because i considered buying some yeezy slides for $20 + shipping. anyway, the payment system irritated me such that I tried to build a better one. so that's the origin story of the tip jar. if you've ever used solana blockchain (it's carbon neutral btw) you can give me $1, if you want. and don't worry, you don't need to transfer any funds into some stupid jooski pay fake wallet system. you just click 'confirm' and the money goes from you to me. thanks!!!!!!!!!

spent one million hours organising all the images for the images page. i hate my scanner but he does a good job. also i excluded lots of my old work because it sucks and is lame. but everything is there now on the images page and you can sort through them as you wish and steal the files maybe. i am a bit of a post-authorship guy i don't mind if you steal my work. you can even train ai on it if you want, though you must know it will never replicate the sauce, nor the swag. trust.

added little kirby angel feature to homepage and if you click him he follows your mouse around the screen. one day i ought to animate little kirby angel. and i should name him. please message me your name suggestions if you care. actually if anyone goes to all that effort i really will name him so and label it and mark it out on the site. UPDATE: NO ONE HAS MESSAGED YET

built blogmaxxer and shoved a load of cool blogs into it and also sites that are not blogs so perhaps the name is a bit redundant but still. it's catchy. also put it into projects to encourage me to make more and not worry about cluttering the site homepage. oh the joy of living! i am listening to alesund by sun kil moon and it's warm. in the winter i start to describe all the things i like as warm and in summer, well. you get the idea.

site launched and basic structure assembled. thanks clod cod-e. so fun building thing. it's christmas soon i hope everyone reading this has a warm christmas and drinks eggnog (i have never drunk eggnog and want to try it).