nuzzaci - an online journal

After 5 years in London. I’m leaving. I’m leaving POKE. I’m leaving London. I’m leaving England. I’m not leaving Europe, though.

Willow and I have had thoughts for quite some time about “going somewhere else for a while“. I, being half Swedish half Italian; living in England, have had the fortune of working and living in an unfamiliar culture and therefor find a lot of insight and enjoyment in the smaller things. Willow, on the other hand, is half English half American living and working in England.

When we’ve discussed about potential destinations we have loosely talked about New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Oslo, Zürich and Genéve. The tricky bit has been work and languages. I speak three languages (Swedish, Italian and English) and Willow speaks two (English and French). We agreed that for both of us to learn a new language would be too much of an undertaking. I think the strongest contender was Vancouver.

But then I suggested Willow should apply to a masters at Konstfack in Stockholm, Sweden… and she got in!

The program, titled Experience Design, is a interdisciplinary course over two years.
Sounds amazing and i’m jealous.

So, in August, Willow and I are moving to Stockholm.

We still haven’t found a place to stay. So anything is of interest. We are probably looking for something in the outskirts, but that’s cycling distance to Sodermalm. Preferable a part of a villa with a garden for the cat and parking for the car we are planning to buy and drive over.

I am also in need of a job. So again, anything is of interest. I am looking for opportunities to work with creative people on challenging projects. I am open to all possibilities, that require an experienced online / new media person. This includes, digital agencies, freelance, client-side and advertising agencies.

Willow will probably be up for some freelance between all the studies as well, so please have a look at our portfolios, Willows on doublevay.com
and mine on portfolio.nuzzaci.com.

I’m really exited about all this. It definitely spiced up 2008.

Obviously i’m extremely sad about leaving all my friends and POKE behind. 5 years is a long time. You don’t stay in one place for 5 years unless you really like it.

I know from experience that it’s hard (or even impossible) to keep in touch when your living far apart, let alone in another country. It’s true you know — long distance relationships never really work out. My friends in Sweden know that. So does my ex-girlfriend. But with some people there has grown a special bond, and i’m sure that when i’m over in the UK, we will pick up where we left off as if I’d never even left. My friends in Sweden know that. Not sure my ex-girlfriend does, though. ;)

Cranks is a coverband formed by 5 employees at POKE; Igor Clark, Mattias Gunneras, Dom Baker, David Kelly and I. Two weeks ago we had our first official gig.

The name of the band comes from the term used to describe crying and wanking simultaneously - Crank. Someone suggested it as the band name, we accepted it and then Simon Cook, aka made-in-england.org got to work and did us an ingenius logotype and other graphical assets.

I have been in various band formations playing various genres and styles, but this one is my first coverband and the first band where what we have in common is not a similar taste in music, but our professions. So, naturally, we’ve had very heated discussions about what to play and what not to play. What’s good and what’s not good. But after a few weeks we were finding a common ground and we managed to get together a set list of 16 songs we all liked and enjoyed playing.

Our first appearance went down well. We managed to get a slot on the last ever Club Pub that was held at On The Rocks. The theme was, appropriately — ROCK!

Photograph captured by Jaypeg

Many of our co-workers weren’t sure what to expect from Cranks, which I think worked in our favour, since we basically took them by surprise and rocked their socks off. And they liked it (without socks), which was brilliant.

Photograph captured by Greg Reed

I’ve done a fair amount of concerts in my days, most of them I can’t really remember. This one will definitely be one that I do remember. Mainly because of the ROCKING audience!

People who have seen me play live knows that i’m a bit of a different person when i’m on stage… or, it’s more like most people don’t expect me to behave the way I do on stage based on my personality off stage.

Nothing I do on stage is done intentionally. So it’s always fun to see all the photos afterwards. Apparently, judging by the photos, this time around I screamed a lot.

Photograph captured by Marc Davies

Below are some links to blog posts and flickr sets and tags documenting the last ever club pub and the first ever public appearance by Cranks.

• Nicky Gibsons blog, Monter-Munch.com
• POKE blog
• Greg Reed
• Marc Davies
• Jeypeg
• Ian Applegate
• Andrew Zolty
• the ‘clubpub’ tag

The other day I wrote this little javascript that I thought I would share with the rest of the internet. It’s a simple function that replaces submit buttons with a anchor element, which sequently can turned into an image with css.

I haven’t tested the script in all browsers and different environments. So please be cautious and post a comment if you run into any problems.

Get it here: http://dev.nuzzaci.com/javascript/submit/. The downloadable file includes examples and versions to use with jQuery or MooTools.

I’m personally not involved in this one, but many of my friends and co-workers are working their asses off to make this project happen.

The lead flash developer on the project, Derek ‘Dezza’ McKenna, told me at lunch time that this will be the last ever project where he incorporates a countdown on the pre-launch website - a countdown that simultaneously reminds him every time he looks at the site how the deadline is creeping closer and closer and closer….
tick tock tick tock.

playballoonacy.com will be special.