Category: Fluff

Hi all. It’s been a little while since I’ve added anything to the website. Here’s some jumbled up stuff that will hopefully go some small distance in helping to explain why.

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The last thing I want to do is just write something for the sake of having something new for people to look at. Sometimes, if you consider yourself a writer, you do need to write for writing’s sake. That can come down to something as simple as enforcing self-discipline. I enjoy writing, but I’m not a writer, so I thought it would be OK to excuse myself for a week or so and look at some other things.

One thing that I thought might be worthwhile would be to simply be a consumer of online media for a week. I spent more concentrated time on some of my regular online journals, the purpose being to really take in what they’re writing and look at the structure behind their work, their methods. It didn’t work out well. Here are a couple of examples.

Continue reading Reconstruction

I hope this video amazes you as much as it amazed me. Take note of the final flight shot taken from the ground.

The video was sent to me by PT, my colleague here on the site. It not only confirms the quietness of my existence, but also that there’s so much about China that the average westerner is still to learn.

Absolutely stunning.

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Every January the industry body promoting lamb in Australia produces an ad as part of their “eat lamb on Australia Day” campaign. Our national day is on January 26th.

The ads are fronted by a guy named Sam Kekovich, who started his public life as an Australian footballer and then had a media career as a sports commentator and verbose guest on a number of TV shows. One regular sketch involved Sam sitting at a desk like a politician and making outrageous statements about various areas of social policy, which is the theme that has carried through to these lamb ads.

Here are the ads for 2012 – yes, there are two of them this year. They’re getting just a little tired, but Sam as a rapper is a funny touch.

NOTE: I’ve just been informed these videos may not be visible outside Australia. Well, not in Canada, at least. Hopefully some of you can see them. If not, do a Youtube search on “Australia Day lamb ads” and hopefully they’ll come up somehow.

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Hi, all.

Seeing there’s been a few more visitors in the last few days, and because many of those visitors will have a few preconceived notions as to what to expect from a site that I write, I figured it might be a good idea to talk a little about what’s going on here.

I first started writing online back in late 2004 – a site I called Green Interior. I still love that title, actually. I should have used it for this.

My first focused effort at writing was with a Saab site called Trollhattan Saab. Several CMS changes and a whole bunch of problems later, TS got a bit too difficult to manage. Changes in the wind for Saab Automobile also made it a good time to update, so I started a new site, called Saabs United, which still lives on today in the hands of a new owner.

Based on those efforts over a period of six years, I was hired by Saab Automobile to run their corporate insider website – Inside Saab (link to archive). That exercise only lasted eight months, from April 2011 until Saab’s bankruptcy on December 19, 2011.

And thus, Swadeology was born.

This is now my own personal receptacle for writing, which is the thing I love doing the most. I wrote about Saab initially, because it helps to write about something you know. Saab is a company whose products I adore, a company I knew a fair bit about. It made sense. I also love cars in general, however – the culture, the freedom and the experiences they can bring.

Swadeology will mostly be about cars and the car industry, but I’ll also write about other things from time to time, too. This will be a “slow food” site. Gone is the hectic pace of 4-6 articles per day. The focus is now on quality (he crosses his fingers) rather than quantity.

I won’t just be about Saabs, either. I’ve always had interests in other car companies, Alfa Romeo and Porsche in particular. I’ll write about those a little, and some industry stuff in general.

I’d also like to take more photos and shoot more movies. I’d like as much media content on Swadeology to be original as is possible.

I guess you could say this is my mind on your screen. I hope you find it slightly interesting and come back from time to time. I hope you can participate in the conversation. I made a lot of great friends over my time at Saab and I guess this is one way I can keep in touch with you and let you know what’s going on in my part of the world.

Posting will likely be two to three times a week, so you can either come along as you please, or hook up with the RSS feed or email subscription service.

Thanks for dropping by.

It’s New Year’s Eve here in Australia.

Here are some things that I resolve not to do in 2012.

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I will not buy an iPhone or an iPad.

I love my Apple MacBookPro and I loved the iMac I had before this. I might even replace these with a new iMac to do the heavy lifting and a MacBook Air for portability. But I don’t think I’m going to go down the path of the iPhone or iPad.

The iPad bit will be easy. I borrowed one a few weeks ago in order to look over a Porsche magazine I’ve been editing (for language, not for accuracy of content), a magazine that’s been created specifically for iPad. Indeed, the publication does look beautiful rendered on the iPad’s screen. The problem for me, however, is that I’ve felt absolutely no compulsion or even mild desire to use the iPad except for looking at this magazine. I guess it comes down to the fact that I need content creation tools rather than content consumption tools.

The iPhone might be harder to resist. I’ve never owned a smartphone but the stars are aligning in such a way that I’ll probably take the plunge this year. Part of my resistance is on the usual “everyone’s got one” principle, but I’m also wary of tying my life too much into one electronic ecosystem. I’m already very Google- and Apple-centric. I don’t need/want to go any further down the rabbit hole.

Plus, the new Nokias are looking very attractive.

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I will not compromise on the car I buy this year

For the first time in 24 years, I don’t own a car. My wife and I are currently sharing our Saab 9000, which is working out OK most of the time. Problems will eventually arise when I go back to full time work, however.

I will have access to a racy little Toyota Corolla from next week and will most likely avail myself of that whilst I put some more money together with a view to getting one of the (many) cars I’ve coveted for several decades now.

What will it be? That’ll depend on my ability to save and my appetite for risk, both of which are growing daily 🙂

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I will not submit to the scourge of internet snark

One of the things that has tired me out over the last few years is the number of people willing to spend their spare time logging on to various websites and knocking stuff. I am consistently amazed by the amount of time some people will spend tearing something down inside their own little world.

There are a bunch of things/people I’m angry at as a result of what’s happened with Saab over the last few months/years. It’d be easy to fire up and let the cannons fly at a few prominent identities (and I’ll probably set the record straight with one of them directly, soon), but what does it achieve in the end?

I’ll eventually get those stones out of my shoe, but when I do, I hope that I’ll cover things as constructively as I can. Feel free to pull me up if I don’t.

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I will not neglect my family anymore

To those of you who have chosen to visit here – I thank you. I’m not very good at sharing stuff in small bites, which is why I don’t write as much on Facebook or Twitter as I could. I prefer to write long-form and use those social outlets to spread the word around.

I’m realistic about my prospects of continuing my employment as a writer, especially in terms of working for an OEM automotive company. Whilst I think what I did at Inside Saab has plenty of potential in the right circumstances, the chances of an opportunity like that coming along again are minimal.

My family have given up a lot in the name of Saab. I have too, I guess (even though I got a lot in return). Whilst I really hope to pick up some freelance work as well as writing my own thoughts on cars here, I don’t want to do it at the expense of my family or friends anymore.

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I will not die

This is bordering on a regular New Year’s resolution, one that commits me to do positive things rather than the ‘un-resolution’ I’d intended. But I do want to end 2012 weighing less and being able to do more things than when the year started.

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I hope you had a better 2011 than most.

I hope your 2012 is much better than your 2011.

More than anything, I really hope Saab gets a second chance in 2012. There’s so much potential there in Trollhattan and aside from fulfilling that potential, I really want to see Saab prove those doubting bastards wrong.