Well, its a new year. Close enough anyway. Five and a half hours by my count, and with this new year I have something to announce.

FINALLY after all the talk and ideas and time I am launching my next step into the web which is in the form of a brand new site called fifty foot shadows.

The new site will be a replacement to twistedsun.net. Thats right, this marks the end of an era. 8+ years of twistedsun will be coming to a close with this new year. I feel as though it has run its course. Time and time again I have wondered what I should do with the site and time and time again I have found myself disappointed in some way with the result. The new site will be very similar in its content in many ways.

There will still be desktops published for everyone, and there will still be music discussed and stories told. The difference is in the name and the approach. Everything will be centralized and brought into one single blog space. Sections will be deviled simply using categories and the design will be fresh, empty, and easy to navigate.

I feel that everything around me is changing in my life and so I found it appropriate to start completely fresh this year. I am really happy with the new name and I hope everyone likes it! It came to me earlier this year while traveling out west and I think it is just what I was looking for. At one point I really wanted to turn it into a community of desktop posters I find that I just can not devote the time into moderating such a site.

My focus this year is in taking big steps forward and changing the way I live it. Also, for those of you wondering, no, twistedsun.net is not going anywhere. It will be staying as it is in its current state for the foreseeable future so everyone can get at all the desktops and posts from the past. All new content, however, will be posted on the thew site.

So with that said, I invite you all to come step into my new home on the web here, at www.fiftyfootshadows.net

enjoy, and please, let me know what you think!

Hello! I am alive and well and have been trying to get a post out forever now it seems. I finished my europe trip and am safe and sound here at home again. The trip shook me up and I have been buried in thought since my return.

The reason for the non posting is because my laptop decided to stop working for me half way through my trip and although I have this computer I am writing on now (mac mini) I am still not all the way settled into this and probably wont be as I see myself getting another laptop early next year after we see what macworld may bring us.

In other quick news, I have decided that twistedsun.net will be going through some changes in the new year. In fact, I have something totally different in store. Ok, not that different but more simplistic for me to use and post to. The goal is to make it as effortless as possible to post new desktops and news and musings on life. It will most likely take the form of a new site all together which I had other plans for but have decided to simplify for the sake of getting something new rolling along.

Don't worry, I have countless images for desktops and when the new site is functional you will hear all about it here and hopefully the transition will go as smoothly as possible and the future is bright.

Thats all I have to mention here in this post, just a quick hello and see you soon. In the mean time you can check out my flickr page, or my photo blog, or my twitter, or my tumblr blog. See you again soon!

Still exploring this never ending city. You can see many other photos on my flickr page which I might update nightly assuming I have internet access in other places I visit. I will expand sometime soon on my thoughts and whatnot for those interested so it tight!

Its been three nights here in London now and waking up today I could be excited. I could be nervous. I could be lonely already. Im not really sure what it is that is stirring in my mind but I am getting ready to head out to central london again to see what I can find today. The last two days have been filled with people, art, and sound as I walked and walked... and walked around the city in various areas. Taking whatever random turns seemed to look interesting. I figure with all the trains around its hard to really get lost because I can always catch one back somewhere familiar. London has been interesting, familiar but distant when I choose to really pay attention to the people around me. Its strange though because I feel at home but also far away. I feel like I have always existed here and I am simply walking though some distant, forgotten memory. Im curious to see what kind of differences I come across as I visit other countries and break away from the comfort of everyone around me speaking english. Im wondering how I will react to everything I encounter.

Anyway, as time goes on and the jetlag finally leaves my blurry mind I will try and write more here in this space as well as get some desktops up perhaps. I just have not had the free time to commit to doing it. I am traveling so all I have is free time but I feel like I should be using that time for exploring and doing what I came to do which is to get lost in the flutter of local life. So thanks for reading and check back sometime soon, plenty more to come...

Well, this month was a crazy one full of work and planing and more work. There has been a serious lack of activity here on the site and Im sorry for that, I have just been that busy this month. It was all for one reason and that is because I am traveling to europe. I mentioned this before on the site a while back and the time has come. I leave for London tomorrow! It's strange, it doesn't feel like I am about to leave on a month long trek through Europe. Im just sitting here surrounded by all of the things I am taking which turned out to be a surprisingly small amount of stuff. Just the basics really. Sorry, my mind is kind of fragmented at the moment after this month. There is so much on my mind!

OK, on to the details. I will be starting in London/England (arriving on the 23rd) and I will be leaving on the 31st for Paris where I will stay for 6 nights. After Paris I will be heading south to Italy to a village called Vernazza which is part of the Cinque Terre and I will stay in that area for 6 nights. After this I will head to Nice/Menton for a couple of days hopefully but this depends on weather or not I can arrange a night train from Nice to my next destination, Barcelona. If all goes according to plan I hope to be able to go directly from barcelona to a city nearby called Girona. At the moment I am booked there for two nights in an amazing little B&B and I may extend my time there depending on how I like it.

From here I will head to Granada or somewhere in that area of Spain and then make my way up to Madrid on the 21st and fly out of Madrid on the 22nd.

Sounds simple enough right? Well, all in all I am fairly calm about it all and I am hoping that it all goes smoothly enough. If you are in any of the areas I will be traveling feel free to send along an email and maybe we can get together.

Stay tuned to this space for updates and desktops along the way. I will post photos on flickr (and here some) the occasional text message to twitter (the hi-fi to the right) and maybe a photo from my phone on my tumblr page when I find hot spots around which I have no idea what to expect really.

So wish me luck and the next time you hear from me I will hopefully be safe and sound in London!

P.S - posted a couple new desktops...

A few days ago I came across a really interesting blog service and jumped right on in. I have been looking for something like it for quite some time. A simple interface to allow me to catch images and links in a really quick and basic way. Images that somehow stop me from scrolling for a minute and get me to imagine, think, or whatever else. The service is called Tumblr. Its a basic blogging service with a slick little javascipt that allows you to catch an image within a page and quickly add it to your tumblr blog along with a link to where it came from. It's great really and will give me a place to come back to look over found images for inspiration and whatnot. I think I will eventually tweak the CSS and get settled in a bit more but for the time being its perfect for my needs. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone. If you do start one up please add the link to the comments here so I can follow it.

My tumblr page is www.tsun.tumblr.com

A handful of new desktops have been added to the desktop page for your desktop needs. I know I have not been posting as much lately and that is mostly because I have been spending so much time getting my head around this trip to Europe I have been planing. I have narrowed it down to a handful of countries and now I just have to pick a few places to travel to along the way. I will most likely post more on that as it develops. THANK YOU to those who have helped out with their suggestions so far, they have helped me get some key ideas in place which has been important. Please, by all means, keep them coming.

At least I hope to be going. In October/November. SOON! Im not sure how it happened but the time of the year that I promised myself I would travel in is quickly approaching and I am starting to get a bit more serious about plans for the trip. I have been trying to get used to the idea that I will be throwing myself in an area I don't know much of anything about. It's both exciting and greatly intimidating. I am working on making it work financially and logistically and so I am writing here for a call on advice/ suggestions.

I know there are plenty of readers around europe or have traveled there in the past and it would be greatly appreciated if you could take a moment and suggest some places to visit, and maybe just some general advice about traveling there.

At the moment I am thinking of starting off in Spain or somewhere in southern France, heading up through France, and ending up over in England. At least thats the vague overall idea. It will be just me and my backpack for the most part and I hope to do a good amount of camping to save on money spent on Inn's. In fact, thats the number one concern is working out what I can expect as far as where to sleep and how much its going to cost to do so. I hope to have the overall layout of places to travel to before I leave so I can work out train tickets and transportation while I am there.

Hopefully I will be able to pull something off and enjoy myself, meet some new people, take a few zillion photos and have a great time exploring the area.

Feel free to mail me at john(at)twistedsun.net or leave a comment here on this post with suggestions, advice, or lend a floor to sleep on or just tell me I am crazy for trying to toss together a trip like this in under a month on a shoestring budget. Thanks!

P.S- new desktops soon!

I have stumbled across a couple of things I thought I would share here just for the sake of sharing great things. Both are software and both are free to you so you have no reason not to check them out.


FIrst up we have my new favorite screen saver. Unbelievably simplistic, helpful, and gorgeous all at once. Its a clock that simply shows the time. I know that sometimes flashy oooooohhhhh and aaaahhhhhh type screen savers can be fun but I find them distracting recently. There will always be a place on my screen for the ever wonderful and unpredictable hotel gadget but for now this handy little saver has taken the top place on my screens downtime. Its called simply A 3M1T and you can find it here. (mac or PC) I just cant resist the font used for the numbers. What can I say, I'm a sucker for simplicity. The site also holds some wonderful fonts that you should check out as well.


And to offset all of that simplistic thinking I present something quite the opposite. A lush colorful and undeniably addictive visualizer for iTunes called Magnetosphere. Its pretty fun to put on during casual music listening or for a break from the usual email and work you usually might see on your screen. There is not much I can say about the visualizer other than that it is amazing and you should head over to the developers site and download it or at least watch the video which you can find here.

Thats all for now. I've go a new lens arriving soon, more on that later. Also, I've heard this new Devendra Banhart album and its amazing... ah music. love. Anyways, enjoy your day!

...to the beach with a couple of new desktops. Find them HERE.