digitaldust

I took the pictures, but Elvis and Tilba did all the photoshopping and graphical doohikery. They have problems with trackpads but are great with mice.

Here I am in an cloth bestrewn, opulent, intensely red lothario lounge. There are lovers wedging themselves into the clubs crannies of this rock walled bar but I’m the only lone drinker in La Piano Rouge. This is far removed from the branded umbrellas and their touristic shade in the Rynek above and another reason to love Krakov. I have finally found it after following Terry’s sometimes contradictory directions.

I could be as cliched to say that it is the Paris of Central Europe, with its medieval beauty, its strking buildings, fairy tale castle and gently wooded park around the old town where the walls once stood. But I think it is more like the Barcelona of the north. It’s laid back, packed full of bars and cafes and interesting looking people. It has a relaxed and vibrant night scene. Not what I thought Poland would be in any way at all.

The last couple of days I’ve kept ending up in Kazimierz, either by myself or when with Jo. The Plac Nowy is the Hoxton of the Eastern Bloc. Jazz bars, dance clubs, trendy pubs line the square while an old school polish market bustles in the middle. Earlier today we sat drinking coffee, vodka and beer, watching hipsters play impromptu badminton in the square. In the evening every club/bar/gig we’ve tried to go to over the last couple of days has been packed out and we cant even wedge ourselves in sideways.
If I moved east of London then Krakov is where I would like to head, and Kazimierz is where I would live. It’s just like Hackney and Hoxton all rolled into one bundle of fun.

Their Sticky Toffee Pudding is better than sex.

Finally I’ve managed to upload all of my Canada photos. I could have done a more full on edit, and I could have reproduced some of the HDR shots to make them a bit less intense. But otherwise they’re a nice set and give an idea of what our trip was like.

Inspired by Ed’s Myers-Briggs ravings, in person and on his blog, I took a test again. I had shifted a little since last time I ever tried these. Now I am an INTP, I used to be an INTJ, but only barely. My desk is too messy to be an INTJ and I dont have a fluffy white cat. I kinda like the description on wikipedia taken from the Kiersey interpretation, it lists me as an Architect type.

Architects are introspective, pragmatic, informative, and attentive. The scientific systemization of all knowledge, or Architectonics, is highly developed in them. Architects are intensely curious and see the world as something to be understood. Their primary interest is to determine how things are structured, built, or configured. They are designers of theoretical systems and new technologies. Rearranging the environment to fit their design is a distant goal of Architects.

I did find some other interesting pseudo-statistcs out on one site I poked at…

http://www.discoveryourpersonality.com/intp.html

* Most important feature of an ideal job: creativity and originality; earning a lot of money.
* Males were highest on “obliviousness index” (relatively unaware of spouse’s dissatisfaction with the relationship).
* Highly represented among college students taking foreign languages.
* In national sample, ranked 3rd highest in saying “No” and 2nd highest in “Not sure” to belief in a higher spiritual power.
* In national sample “Leisure Activities,” overrepresented in “Appreciating art,” “Writing,” “Taking classes, going to school,” and “Playing with computers or video games.”
* Academic subjects preferred: art, science.
* Lowest of all types in liking work environments with “Clear structures & responsibilities,” “Employee loyalty & job security,” and “Working as part of a team”
* 1 of 3 highest types liking work environments with “International opportunities” and “Advancement/pay but not job security”
* include in top 3 desirable work environment characteristics “Variety of tasks,” “Independence & achievement,” and “Clear structures.”
* In national sample, dissatisfied with “Salary,” “Promotions,” and “Job security,” “Predictability,” and “Working conditions” in their jobs.
* With INFPs, most dissatisfied with the work they do, where they work, and future work opportunities, and likely to leave job.
* With ISTPs, had the lowest mean level of coping resources; ranked 16th out of 16 types on total resources.
* Most frequent among college students referred for drug and alcohol violations.

To sum it up I’m an arogant atheist who needs creativity and money, who’s most likely to turn to drugs because I dont have the coping mechanisms to deal with the dissatisfaction I feel about my job.

And I’m not sure where Ed got all his super-negative come-down thinking stuff about himself in all the MB test universe. All the online resources seem to be remarkably positive. Here I was out there looking for some nasty shit about myself and I can’t find it, goddamit. I want to feel serious mind reeming go down, something that will sink my soul and make me feel righteously sorry for myself.

So much for the psycho-astro-deconstructo-personality test. I’m off to eat some of my left over home made lemon/rocket/mushroom risotto. If I can’t find something to make me feel bad then I’ll go and feel good about myself.

And while hanging out on youtube, I bump into more favourite shows from my childhood.

Galaxy Rangers was right up there with Sabre Rider as 80’s post modern scifi cartoons messing around with kids sense of history… yeah, cowboys with bionics and napoleonic cavalry officers with blasters.

Long before B5 had a big fat CG space station these guys had funky buildings on an asteroid. I dimmly remember the TV show from way back in the 70’s. It was bad, but full of cool models and clean cut star trek kids.

I’m not sure if the space station is based on something else, I’ve seen the same thing in lots of scifi art. Jim Burns type stuff. I would be curious to find out which is the chicken and which is the egg.

Well it might be a bit flippant but I can say that I’ve now got the distance to say that. It’s taken me a few weeks before I can say I’ve truly gotten over seeing someone die in front of me, his blood on my hands, after jumping from a building. And I do feel like I have to write something down because the whole experience now has a fairy tale quality about it. Heather and I were part of traumatic experience, someone died, yet we don’t know who he was, why he did it, or what happened afterwards. The event feels strangely, or maybe unstrangely, disconnected from my life.

It’s also funny what you remember in these situations when trying to give a statement. For me all the words were lost. Heather talked to me, I had a brief conversation with a lady on the second floor and also talking to the first police on scene. I cant remember any of what was said, but I remember the sequence of events and had what I thought a remarkably accurate feeling for the time that went by. The police were on the scene within three minutes of me calling them, and later at the station I was spot on with the tim. Funnily enough Heather seems the other way around, she remembers what was said, but thought the two and a half minutes felt like ten.

I was thinking of calling the post Dude, He totally jumped! Which is taking only a slight liberty with what Heather said to me when she saw the falling body. I have to admit I really don’t remember what she said when she saw the guy falling from the one of the Barbican apartment blocks. And if she didn’t see him we wouldn’t have got involved at all. I just heard a loud thump, which didn’t sound too strange being in London, I didn’t see anything. Then Heather said to me “He totally jumped!” She told me later that she felt really silly saying something that sounded so banal, especially when she had to repeat those exact same words to the police when they took our statements later.

I’m curious to find out who he was and why he did it. I think this is to make it feel more real and less like a dream. The whole thing occurred because I wanted to see if there was another way down from the Barbican walkways, and poke around. If we had walked another direction we would have missed this whole episode. But these are the sorts of experiences that one has in a city, chance encounters. Most though are less nasty, but all these other events slip back into anonymity just like this one.

I had my camera with me the whole time but I consciously did not take any pictures. Which is a good thing. If I did I would be compelled to keep them and re-examine them. I don’t know if that is a good or a bad thing. Would that give the event more grounding and reality for me or would it just be tasteless pictures of a dying and dead man?