Some updates to stay updated about stuff and art

For the technical people among you and those interested this site runs now on Wordpress 4.7 - it's an amazing platform and I wish more people would blog. By the way, my friend does blog, in German and it's short stories that make you think and are on point, we also have similar values and ways to look at the world. Like traditionally, like writing words, loads of them preferably. I really, really like to read, especially some long form, articles and books, even though with books, I believe I just read 2 in 2016. Shame!

I am hosting this site on a service called Dreamhost and that costs money, it's money I believe is well spend, it's money and effort from me and it doesn't take a lot of effort to read a couple of hundred words, so I hope I force you to read a bit more just with that. You are welcome!

It saddens me a bit that this art of reading and writing seems to go away, not the books, they are here to stay it seems.  My kindle helps with reading and stores a ton of books when the apartment doesn't have a massive bookshelf. The two books I devoured in 2016 were 'Beautiful You' by my favourite author Chuck Palahniuk (it's mediocre), the previously mentioned 'Presto! ...' by Penn Jillette (it's fantastic) and hopefully some more books that I forgot about (there must have been more). I vow to keep better track, write about it and read more books this year.

YouTube, Snapchat and all that other stuff seems to be louder than people that write something, something more than 100 words. Not a lot of people like to read or write long texts. Twitter has had a 140 characters limit and was super loud too. Speaking of which, I deleted that, I never really used Twitter, I don't really understand it and there is not a lot of words there, maybe I was using it wrong but it added nothing to my life. It's also blocked in China and with Facebook and a lot of other things it is worth to find ways to get that working, I never bothered to check Twitter. Farewell!

I get that attention spans are seemingly getting shorter. Train that - get stronger and better!

Speaking of art, Meryl Streep gave a semi-touching speech at the Golden Globes: 'You and all of us in this room, really, belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now.' - Oh! You poor, underpaid and unappreciated people in Hollywood. And then this: 'Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if you kick ’em all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.' - really? Why single out these examples? I respect this actress and her 'art', but I don't like those jabs at thing other people enjoy as a form of art. What art is, is debatable. Is this art? It made them and me laugh, I find that is an art in and on itself. That being said, the rest of the speech was agreeable and again I still respect this actress and her art. Enough with that word.

Blogs are in decline and a lot of it is odd stuff, here is an interesting article. If someone in PR for something wants to pitch, please do, we can make stuff work if our language matches. Maybe it pays for the hosting or maybe I get cool products and if so, I would genuinely say what I think about it and my superpower is to be happy with a minimum amount of recognisable effort or if something makes my life easier.

Look at Baopals, yes, I work for them, does almost everything in their communication speak to me. Internal and external. There could be more words on the website or stories or people writing something special like the review for this product. I am currently waiting on my Misfit Ray to replace my aging Fitbit Charge HR. I write all this, not because they paid me a cent, but because I want to and for the update. Look, Baopals here makes the shopping life easier in China and mine and I write about it, because I love it!

I remember coming the first time to Shanghai and having quality 'expat magazines' in every other bar, that I was looking forward to read on the throne and collect every month. They are not there anymore or write stuff I am not in the slightest interested in. There is The Shanghai Show for example and Kung Fu Comedy. Here we have, thankfully, some positive people that produce interesting and fresh content from people that are still in touch with the world around them. Art. Here we are again.

There is so much to update you with and this might seem like the ramblings of a mad man, but there is a lot of beauty to be found and things I want to tell, so let me share this fantastic and touching video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71nakCVA7eI

The truth is, that if that much beauty comes out of a tragedy then it's not all fucked up, it's what you make of it, even if it seems like it's all fucked up or is actually all fucked up. Find the positive or transform that situation. It's an update - it's art!