“On the ground” in Austria from battlecat on Vimeo.

In 2007, my friend Jess and I would meet up almost every Tuesday evening to drink wine and eat tapas.

Our favourite venue was the Richmond Hotel on Rundle St. There was a hot bartender with amazing hands, but I think the main reason we kept going back was for The Cheese.

The Cheese is tasty morsels of haloumi, cherry tomatoes and mint, all wrapped up in a filo pastry parcel and then shallow fried.

I was speaking to Jess today on Skype and she somehow dropped the word Cheese into conversation where it normally wouldn’t have been.

And then I realised… I had almost the right ingredients for Cheese Production in my kitchen. I had some cherry tomatoes, just on the edge of being too ripe. No haloumi or mint, but feta and basil would work just as well. I’d been saving some filo pastry for another baking opportunity after a spanakopita (Greek Spinach Pie) became more pie than spinach.

So in honour of Jess (and occasional Tuesday night associates Ellie, Simon and Simon) I made some replica Cheese.

While we may be separated by distance, Skype and Replica Cheese can help bring us together in spirit and stomach at least.

#2 On Friends and Mindapples from battlecat on Vimeo.

My latest vodcast – as recorded on May 29th, 2009.

I only just realised that I could have included links to bands, projects and friends using the amazing power of titles.

Oh well.

My friend Marc, is the writer behind http://www.un-understand.co.uk.
The Australian band I mentioned was Brillig http://www.brillig.com.au.
And my friend Andy Gibson http://sociability.org.uk is the founder of Mindapples http://mindapples.org!

#2 On Friends and Mindapples from battlecat on Vimeo.

My latest vodcast – as recorded on May 29th, 2009.

I only just realised that I could have included links to bands, projects and friends using the amazing power of titles.

Oh well.

My friend Marc, is the writer behind http://www.un-understand.co.uk.
The Australian band I mentioned was Brillig http://www.brillig.com.au.
And my friend Andy Gibson http://sociability.org.uk is the founder of Mindapples http://mindapples.org!

California by FBZ, originally uploaded by Fighting Tiger.

Fabienne (aka FBZ) of fabienne.us and HardHack (May 28, 29, @ C-Base) drew a map of California for the nottoscale project.  The first Berlin Geek Picnic was rained out as you can see by the water stains on the map FBZ drew.

FBZ draws California from battlecat on Vimeo.

As part of my 100 Things I Want To Learn list I’ve made my first video blog post. I learnt how to export from iMovie and how to wait patiently while videos compress, get uploaded and then converted by Vimeo. So I guess I did learn more about 64. Video recording and editing to the level required for good vodcasting

the first battlecat vlog post… from battlecat on Vimeo.

Self-centered personal blogging ahoy!

I’m playing with my gifted video camera and the idea of different levels of honesty, intimacy and immediacy afforded by edited text and unedited video.

Also, I’m in the middle of trying to work out what happens next in my crazy life. Writing hasn’t worked so far. Maybe talking to an inanimate object will help?

So anyway the challenge is to know (with more certainty) by August, what I do next in my life. I’m not sure if I make much sense in the video.

I am having a marvellous time.

This week I’m overwhelmed with visits by half a dozen lovely people primarily from Adelaide band Brillig. It’s an absolute pleasure to be showing the first arrivals, Matt and Elizabeth around my new city.

I’m almost shaking with excitement for Thursday when some of my most absolute favourite people in the entire world come to visit. I think I’ll need to visit some more fotoautomats so that I can record their visits too!

If you subscribe to Fighting Tiger’s RSS feed you may have noticed several hand drawn maps appear in the stream. They’re part of a project I’m calling Not To Scale. I’m currently just collecting and blogging low-quality scans of the maps that friends and strangers draw me, but long-term I’d like to collate them into an electronic map.

I find that it’s far easier moving forward with nottoscale than it is working on the ideas I have for conceptual projects more specifically sited around friendship. Maybe nottoscale is easier because it is an unplanned project that’s worked its way into my headspace, rather than an idea which grows in importance and angst before I’ve even done the first sketch.

It’s also good for me that Not To Scale requires involvement with other people. Even though I can appear to be a very social person once I’m actually out of the apartment, it sometimes takes a lot of effort to venture out into the world. So much thinking I do is about other people, how they interact with each other, what I could do with them and the projects we could collaborate on, but I don’t seem to be very good at putting those ideas into action by sharing them with other people.

With Not To Scale, all I need from a person is a map. At its most basic level, all I need is pen or paper. Simple!

Though, I love the stories that people tell while they’re drawing maps, the added information that is lost in a drawing through limited cartographical skills and the restriction of pen and paper. If I have a camera or video camera to hand then I can pull that out to record the stories that are told during the map creation.

Actually, until recently I didn’t have a video camera of my own, but a good friend Pete Hindle generously gave me an old miniDV cam to record maps with. Thanks Pete!

I’m grateful for all my map creators so far, but I’d like to say special thanks to Juho and Marc who’ve emailed me some maps of Finland, Japan and the UK! Danke! Kiitos, Dom Arigato!