31 July 2000
[photo] There are some amazing pictures on photo.net. ‘There’s something ethereal about this delightful picture’ [via random($foo)]
[comics] Alan Moore interview in The Independent. ‘I was glad to have been forewarned as to his appearance. Draped in black, well over six feet tall, with feral eyes, unfashionably and unfeasibly long hair and beard, and fingers aswarm with silver scorpion rings, Moore looks like the kind of man who might have been thrown out of Black Sabbath for being too weird.’ [via C-Log]
30 July 2000
[media nuggets] Media Nugget of the Day looks at Apple’s Airport and The Simpson’s Archive. ‘Does the world really need a complete list of Bart’s chalkboard openings? Maybe not. But it’s a comfort just to know it’s there.’
[tech] Danny O’Brien profiles Google — possibly the best web search engine around at the moment. “Google’s secret is in being a plain, almost arid-looking search engine driven by a set of abstruse mathematical principles. Its extra selling point is that it actually works. Indeed, its many fans insist that a Google search is better targeted than any other, its unique text-matching technologies yielding a more selective and relevant set of results than the overwhelming deluge many rivals dump on you. And all in two seconds maximum.”
[farmers] The Guardian looks at why the British are so hostile towards farmers. ‘In the same Mail On Sunday that sympathised with Martin, Geoffrey Wheatcroft wrote a vigorous attack on all farmers for their “greedy whingeing”. “They are always whining,” he wrote, “and they are always holding their hands out. They expect – and they get – money to grow crops, and money not to grow crops. All in all, the way in which farming is subsidised has become the greatest single affront to British democracy. What makes it worse is the astonishing ingratitude of our farmers”.’
29 July 2000
[ads] Blast from the past — umbongo.com.
[comics] SAVANT Magazine. Warren Ellis recommends it… so it must be good. ‘Never went to San Diego. Have the same feelings about heroin, quite frankly, which I’ve haven’t done either. There’s a little tiny nag to do it once, just once, and never again but deep down inside I’m terrified that one time wouldn’t be enough. Of course, the chances of meeting compulsively masturbating momma’s boys who want to yak my fucking ear off about Aquaman as I try to urinate in peace while in the midst of a grand-mal heroin binge are considerably slimmer.’
28 July 2000
[tech] It’s SysAdmin Appreciation Day! ‘Sysadmins don’t want to be apreciated, we want to be left alone! Now please excuse me while I take these disks to the bulk era….er..bulk virus scanner…’
[men] Blokes, I feel your pain… newsUnlimited covers masculinity in crisis. :) ‘And in the carpark of that pub, alone in a T-registration Ford Capri but for the bitter-sweet, heartrending sound of Phil Collins singing Another Lonely Day in Paradise, I sat down and wept. The song ended and the late news came on. Football supporters run riot in Belgium. Another clash in the House of Commons. Two men arrested on suspicion of multiple murder. Lorry driver causes fatal crash on Ml. Lone man chews gum in high-rise. Men, men, men. Men in trouble. Men at sea. Masculinity in tatters.’
[orgy] Hacker’s orgy — fails because nobody shows up… ‘Only two people showed up, and now the would-be Dionysus is trying to recoup some of his costs by selling the shirts for $15 each. In retrospect, he realizes the orgy was probably a bad idea from its conception. “The idea came out of a conversation on IRC [Internet Relay Chat],” he says. “We were bitching about how hackers never get laid.” Even at an orgy.’ [via Guardian Weblog]
27 July 2000
[bins] Benji The Binman — British newspapers hire an obsessive-compulsive to hunt through the rubbish bins of the rich and powerful. ‘As well as filling the family home with papers, his daily routine involves repeated checks of doors, locks, lights and other possessions. The illness is thought to have started in his early teens after an older brother died in a car crash. Around the age of 14 he became known as the “bag boy”, carrying around half a dozen bags stuffed with papers and books.’
[comics] C-Log — a weblog about comics…
[lists] Five Reasons for LinkMachineGo: 1) Because Sonny Barger is standing next to me. 2) Because little things please me. 3) Because I’m it for the money. 4) Because you can’t envict me from the house. 5) Because I’m a semi-hard cheese with a plastic taste! [thanks to notsosoft]
26 July 2000
[news] BBC News reports that Chinese claim invention of Flush Toilet. ‘The invention of the flush toilet is widely attributed to London plumber Thomas Crapper, who patented a U-bend siphoning system for flushing the pan in the late 19th century, and who also installed toilets for Queen Victoria.’
[comics] Jesus: The Dark Messiah Returns. Fantastic… ‘The water on my head feels like a baptism. Because it is. I’m born again. Again.’
[news of the screws] Metafilter on the Jennicam scandal. ‘Because the World Wide Web is all about two things: horrifyingly stupid psychodrama, and naked chicks.’
25 July 2000
[star wars] Star Dudes: The Bad Dudes Strike Back
[big brother] BBC News Big Brother update… ‘For her part, Sada described Andrew as “the worst type of man”, while softly-spoken Thomas revealed he may have a nine-year-old love child – if two fortune-tellers are to be believed.’
[comics] The New York Times takes a look at Death Row Marv — based on the Sin City comic from Frank Miller. ‘In “Sin City,” before his death sentence is carried out, Marv has the opportunity to kill the cannibalistic sociopath who murdered the woman he loved, a prostitute named Goldie. That gave him a sense of vindication.’ [via Guardian Weblog]
24 July 2000
[more inner turmoil] The alt.angst calendar. Let’s take a look at what the entry for my birthday is: “…most of us have only two or three genuinely interesting moments in our lives, the rest is filler, and at the end of our lives, most of us will be lucky if any of those moments connect together to form a story that anyone would find remotely interesting.” -Douglas Coupland, “Generation X” Hmmm….
[profile] newsUnlimited profiles The Coors. ‘Brother Jim seems more reserved than his sisters. In the words of a recent pop magazine profile, he exudes “the stoical air of a guy used to waiting his turn in the bathroom”.’
[domain-name craziness] How Network Solutions, Inc. made me a child pornographer — everybody with a domain name registered should read this. “Even more disturbing, I have no way of knowing if my name has been attached to other sites featuring objectionable material. Indeed, the only reason I learned of the present situation was because a pervert in Germany was so anxious to obtain kiddie porn that he mailed a letter to a complete stranger 5,000 miles away. That’s scary.” [via Flutterby]
23 July 2000
[profile] The Observer profiles John Peel. “As you might expect, Peel is as laid-back a father as a teenager could wish to not get on with, with mellow views on education (‘I always told them that passing exams and going to university was a good way of getting out of Stowmarket…’)”
[comics] I cannot believe I have not blogged Jack Chick’s website before now. This Was Your Life gives you a taste of Jack’s special magic… “Your life will be played back at the judgment. Will your name be in the Book of Life? This title is a worldwide favorite, with over 60 million sold in 65 languages!” Here’s Jack’s catalog of comics…
[inner turmoil] Loads of depressing reading at the alt.angst archive… “Angst: Discovering that the background music of your life is not sweeping strings & stirring brass; but a roomful of old men, in golf clothes, continuously playing one-note pants tubas.” [Does anybody know what “one-note pants tubas” actually are?]
22 July 2000
[news of the screws] The National Post reports on the scandal at Jennicam. ‘But today, far from being a window into the life of an ordinary young woman, JenniCam (six cameras situated around her home) provides a glimpse into a slacker’s nirvana. With seemingly no means of support besides webcam revenue, Jenni, 24, whiles away her days in her spacious well- appointed surroundings playing computer games and, quite frequently, masturbating. Last Saturday morning, visitors to the site had the treat of watching Jenni and Dex make love. Her very public betrayal of her close friend, however, has prompted many formerly devoted viewers to vow never to give her another penny. Courtney, since discharged, remains in shock. In a recent journal posting, she laments: “How am I supposed to compete with ‘Jennicam?’ She’s funny, she’s gorgeous, she’s got better furniture. This really, really sucks.”‘
[comics] A review of the latest Preacher collection — All Hell’s a-Coming. ‘The characters continue to be chipped away at: Custer lost his eye in the previous volume, having it sucked out of its socket by God. We lose pretty much all the sympathy we had for Cassidy, and Starr, the most powerful man in the world, having lost not only an eye, all his hair and a leg, now loses his genitals to an attack dog. “My cock is in the bitch’s mouth,” he says, “and not in a good way.”‘
[illness] newsUnlimited profiles Malaria. ‘Malaria, or rather P. falciparum , which infects both humans and mosquitoes, is such a fearsome adversary partly because of its protean life-cycle, which makes it seem like some mythical beast. The “thing” in the movie Alien shocked audiences when it burst out of its original pod in one form and then destroyed poor John Hurt’s stomach when incarnated in another. This Plasmodium goes through no fewer than five such transformations in its brief life.’
21 July 2000
[pop] Hours of fun with Perpetual Bubblewrap… [requires Flash]
[film] newsUnlimited reviews High Fidelity. “All the way through the film, from the opening titles to closing credits, there is a passionate, encyclopaedic love of music, combined with a disconcerting sense that this love is a kind of autism or arrested development, a symptom of some poignant deprivation of real love.”
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