Unfortunately, I can't use a blog for this page so that you could comment every post. The settings of the homepage only allow one blog that can be posted at any place on the homepage - but that means I can't make seperate blogs for the different language versions.

So I'm going to use normal texts here as well, and I'm afraid you'll have to go to the guestbook in order to comment on posts. But I guess the world isn't going to end because of that inconvenience.

I AM CURRENTLY WORKING ON a project I'm quite excited about. I'm not saying more about it yet, but it is sort of an "official" thing. It will hopefully be released early in April.

Other thingss that are under construction / planned for the future:

- My next project will be a series of Builder's Challenges. I'll upload a new BC every third day. They will mostly be new kinds of BC's - so far I have seven ideas. I hope to start uploading the videos still in April.

- My long-term project about "Krabat"

- Lots of vlogs (in German)

- A project plan for CDT

- A "regular" domino video (I didn't have that in quite some time) - a screen link to be exact

- The "Tipps and tricks" rubric

- A Spanish version of the homepage

In Japan, they think it's funny to see me fail... thank you for that :D

May 2nd, 2011

Two months ago, I received a YouTube message titled "TV program in Japan". I get a lot of spam, so a message with that title would usually be an ad for a TV program in Japan. At first, I wanted to delete it without having read it, but luckily I did open it. It was a bit of surprise.

It was in fact about a Japanese TV program, about a little show called Tokudane Toko Doga to be exact. It's a weekly ten-minute-program that shows funny or remarkable, but mostly unknown videos from around the globe. A very polite employee of NHK, the network that broadcasts the show, asked me if it was okay if they presented the video of mine in which I almost finish the world's biggest domino pyramid.

Of course, it was very much "okay" for me, and the great thing about that show is that they not only show the videos, but also give background facts about it, if possible including an interview with the creator. By a lucky coincidence, I didn't have to go to work on the only day it was possible for NHK to do the interview (due to the time difference, the only time both of us would be awake would be the morning in German time), so we could arrange a time when they would call me. So, on March 8th, they interviewed me via telephone and with the help of an excellent interpreteur.

The interview lasted about 20 minutes, they really had a lot of questions, and many of them were even quite original. They even offered me to chose the background music for the video on their show, but I left that to them.

As usual in TV, only a very small part of the long interview were actually edited into the final video - two sentences.

It was actually supposed to be broadcast on March 13th, and I suppose I don't have to explain why it was delayed by seven weeks. It still feels a bit awkward to me that they show such a video that might remain people of similair events that happened a few weeks earlier, but, in contrast to my video, were dead serious. But it was the decision of the people at NHK to broadcast it, and I'm sure they knew what they were doing.

But enough talking, here's the video (fast-forward it to 1:38) like it was broadcast in Japan yesterday:

Unfortunately, my Japanese is a bit rusty ;-) If anyone knows a Japanese-speaking guy who feels like translating this, it would be awesome. The only things I understand is that they seem to present me as "Annodomino-san", which means "Mr. Annodomino" if I'm not mistaken - and the two things I say of course: I say that domino never gets boring because it is so spectacular and there are so many different things you can do; and that I might start a new attempt together with a friend (millionendollarboy, of course) which would be more likely to be successful.

By the way, my original pyramid video recently became my most watched video after a (obviously well-known) Polish website that also presents weird videos embedded it and made it jump from 15,000 to 70,000 views :-)

 

CDT 2011: Comics

January 1st, 2011

When the last domino of CDT 2010 toppled, the planning of CDT 2011 was already going on ;-) And now there's a first trailer with some information, and including a field I built during the last days:

Annodomino meets millionendollarboy... again

December 27th, 2010

Life isn't always unfair... occasionally there are lucky coincidences - for example two of Germany's most freaky domino-toppling freaks both being born in Saarbrücken.

I still live here; my mate and fellow CDT member Tobias Demuth, also known as millionendollarboy, has his home in Stuttgart, about 200 miles from Saarbrücken. But his family still likes to visit their relatives here over over the Christmas holidays, and so we met for a little "domino session" again, just like last year.

This time we built two Builder's Challenges, both of them quite tricky. The result was this:

Thank you for 3x10^3 subscribers!

December 17th, 2010

Considering the ridiculosly high subscriber count that is reached even by some not too talented YouTubers, I sometimes feel as small as a needle in a mow. And I guess I'm right - after all, it's a fact that on a planet of 6 billion people, I've made it just very slightly beyond being a nobody. (Yes, you shouldn't underestimate how philosophical and terribly realisitic I can be from time to time.)

So I don't want to go crazy just because the count on my channel just switched from 2999 to 3001 (I really missed 3000! :D), but I also like this thought: The school I have attended until last summer has about 750 pupils. Imagining hat whole bunch together, and than that bunch multiplied by four, makes me realize how much 3000 people actually are - from that angle, it doesn't look like "slightly beyond being a nobody" at all.

But that's enough for my feuilleton this week, and now I just want to shout out a big "THANK YOU!" to everyone from No. 1 until No. 3000. And 3001 as well, of course. There won't be a domino video about this though. I know that's usually expected, but I just have too many other projects going on.

I have usually turned off YouTube's automatic e-mails because they would flood my inbox otherwise, and I didn't think of switching them in for a few hours in order to see how would be my 3000th sub. So I don't know unless that user tells me.

 

Inofficial world record: 94 dominoes set up in one minute - with one hand

November 29th, 2010

On October 1st, Ralf Laue broke an existing Guinness World Record by setting up 77 dominoes in one minute, using only one hand.

However, the rules that Guinness dictates for that record category are, at best, a bit awkward. So, after proving to myself that I could do better even obeying these rules (I set up 79), I went on ignoring them and trying how many dominoes I could set up in one minute, with one hand, with no other rules except that the dominoes must not be stacked vertically before I line them up.

So here is the result:

Personal record attempt... FAIL

November 7th, 2010

Today, I tried to break my personal domino record. As you can see, I was quite... displeased afterwards.

I had set up 8910 dominoes in a 3D setting that has, as far as I know, never been done before. It took me about 40 hours of work. Today, I added some goofy stuff to make it 11,111 dominoes - the number of the first world record from 1974.

But the 3D setting turned out to stable; there was too much density of dominoes. They stabilized each other, so that only parts of the construction fell down.

The setup was supposed to be a part of the long-term project that I'm currently working on. Maybe the video will still be usable, so I'm not going to upload the main angle yet, just the second angle where you can't see the picture on top.

So my record stays 8551 dominoes, toppled on January 10th, 2009.