Puhh… where to start? So much has happened. My basement and room are getting cramped full of old hardware and I will try to present tese treasure to you as soon as I find the time and place to take proper pictures. It seems to be a fact: As sad as it is, I am getting old, somehow. At some part my computers seem to stand the test of time better than I do. Let’s go to the fridge and take a mouthful of retr0bright…probably that helps.

Still some time is spent right on the forthcoming Bended Realities Festival, held in Offenbach. Hessi and me will present our digitalretropark idea in order to find some help considering the still-no-room-problematic. I prepared some nice little game of pong and hope that it will spread some fun among the visitors. The other part is giving an overview of alternative, independent games on modern devices. Take a look at our freshly started tumblr blog (German, off course – sorry).

As the BR festival was primary all about circuit bending and hacking away on synthiehardware it seems logical to set up some old-school hardware and show the history of sound visualistaion. Probably this will be a bit time consuming, in regard of all the other projects that I am involved there and so the good old Aatari Video Music will be on spot, as it seems to be the first – and somehow even the last – of its kind in that lineage. Every year I will try to complete the family tree a bit more and add new hardware. This will save me time and keep the money  side of things down to a bearable level. For next year I am looking for an Atari Jaguar CDRom… if you happen to sell one, please let me know.

Lately I really find myself thinking about scrapping this blog and transfer all the content to tumblr., blogspot and the likes. I always keep crawling back to this blog and the whole template is so outdated, but having not stuck my nose into html for the last 6 years makes it somehow tideous and time consuming to start all over again… designer by heart, that I am, the design plays a major role for me. Let’s see, what this summer brings along… besides our baby Yeah, a little girl is underway and that will most likely eat the major part of time, and is not controlled by a joystick, nor has it a RUN/STOP-Key. That’s real life…

New York was great. I had the oportunity to join satis&fys nike team to help prepare Rucker Park in Harlem for the forthcomming Nike World Basketball Expo. Sure thing I would go. When I arived in Harlem, the cab driver dropped me off at the west side – Rucker Park is on the east. Walking a couple of blocks with all my stuff and asking people revealed that not many peolple know where Rucker Park is and white man with lot of expensive equipment stroling through Harlem was not a good situation. When I finally got there at noon, I was missing my passport. A quick call at the embassy revealed that my normal Personal Ausweis would last to get me back to Germany. The first day ended at two in the morning with some good beer in Old Amsterdam, a nice little beerbar around the corner from the Beacon Hotel where we had our rooms. At this time I had been up for 26 hours flat.

Throughout the week the daily routine was getting up at 6, head ober to Fairway to get some juice, meet my coleagues at 7 in the lobby, take the metro to Rucker Park and get back ain the evening. My role at the production site was more playing the tourist an documenting things by taking pictures. Friday was dealine an the show was about to start with a big bang: Michael Jordan attended the show along with Wade, Melo and CP3. The whole friday and saturday Basketball teams from all over the world the would play against each other on the official NBA parkett, we set up. A big show! I stayed till about four in the afternoon and than me and Björn went off sightseeing.

Our tour started at the south port as we wanted to visit the old lady with the torch. We just caught a ferrie at Battery Park after we almost took the wrong one to Staten Island. The trip lasted for about an hour and the skyline at dusk was just plain beautiful. Back we walked up, Broadway, passed Ground Zero, went into tons of stores in Soho and had a rather dull pizza at Time Square.

The next day I woke up at four in the morning… jetlag was in full swing and I was just awake. Over to Fairway, got some nuts and went to Central Park. Together with the squirrells I had nuts and witnewsed a bombastic sunset. Green, old trees and above the skyscrapers, reaching into a blue sky, sparkling in the first light off the day. I was contend that I got up and didn’t stay in bed.

On my way back to the hotel, I made a little detour and went into the nearby Apple store. I didn’t have high hopes that I would be able to get an Iphone. You need to have an american address. The folks there told me that it would be no problem to buy an iPhone generally, but they jut don’t have them in stock. I should come back on sunday morning….early! So I came back the next day at 7:30 just to find the line of people reaching already around the corner. Well…. now that I was already here I took my place at the end and after two and a half hours of waiting I had my iPhone. No contract, but an AT&T simlock – for what reason ever without a contract… thanks to Dev Team this was no big problem.

But back to saturday. I was thinking of something in New York that I would have some sort of relation to, something that I realy knew although never beeing in this city before. The Ghostbusters HQ from the movies…. yeah that’s cool and somehow far from the typical sights. A little google search reveald that it must be down on lower east. When I got to the coordinates there where was a parade, lots of firemen. “Great, they can tell me for sure where to find it. This building used to be an ancient firedepartment”. But once again it showed that no one seems to know where things are – I guess the city is just too big to know it all. So, after an hour of searching I sadly dumped the idea and walked all the way up to Fifth Ave, walking through Little Italy, China Town, Soho and when I turned around from the Iron building I noticed that the Empire State Building was just one block away. My feet wre killing me and my back was aching, but after a sneak peek through the door where I saw not much people I opted to hurry up, shoot some pictures and than go the hotel to rest. No chance! When i finally got down again three hours had passed. Standing in lines for the eleveators, walking stairs, been pushed through the store on 80s floor, standing in line again just to find out it was the wrong one, when the doors closed and the lift went up again, instead of down. I was really exhausted and more than dead tha alive when I reached the hotel, but it was worth it. You hardly can grasp the vastness of this city… it is mindblowing. Actually I wanted to go back to Rucker Park that day, in order to shoot more pictures of the event but I was totaly drained…no energy left.

As said at the beginning, it was a great trip. The whole city is so full of contrasts, hughe, packed and so was my time there. One might think that one and a half day is way too short for NY – right – but what you feel right away is that this city is a real world city and that you are welcome. A litle bit like Berlin, but bigger, extremer.

Now here are some pictures of the trip – more you will find over at my photoblog.

I felt more and more like showing the world what makes me tick and what I like to do in my sparetime. Don’t know why. Perhaps to find some minds that tick alike. So here is the first post and also the fresh setup cahoonah blog. Honestly? I think I started this, because I like toying around with CSS, styles and the whole webstuff at the moment. Let’s me see how I can pimp this blog and it’s theme.