First of three things to talk about today is a bit of an announcement. There will be a gathering for anyone who hangs out in The Nexus on February 4th at Popstarz in London. More information as I have it, but it should be a tremendous laugh with much drinking and the like. Drop me a line if you are interested!
Second thing is a little diary entry – and is also about Popstarz. On Friday night I went out for a drink with Nick E. to the Leisure Lounge and Popstarz. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be in the right kind of mood for all night clubbing, but it turned out that Nick was perfect company and we had a great time schmoozing and boozing. The club is about 60-70% gay, and Nick is about 95-100% straight, but he often seems to meet attractive and interesting women there.
Nick had told me earlier in the evening that he used to explain very firmly to any gentleman who flirted with him that he wasn’t interested, thanks very much, but that he had decided in recent months just to play along and flirt back for a while and then wander off with a smug smile on his face. I told him I thought this was reasonably dodgy and could really interfere with the cheeriness and good spirits of anyone foolish enough to find him attractive.
This night however, he found himself very squarely in the sights of a rather aimiable-looking 6’4″ besuited man. But appearances can be deceiving and within about five minutes, said collosal gentleman was exploring Nick’s body with an altogether unexpected enthusiasm. Nick looked very sheepish. Several times he gestured to me to save him from this situation, but I decided that (since all he had to do was say – oops … sorry … straight) he probably deserved it and could save himself. With a great big grin on my face I made a cod impression of someone who didn’t understand his request.
But Nick REFUSED to ‘fess up to the Giant Suit – and as time passed he got simultaneously more perturbed and amused by his situation. For an instant I turned away, and when I glanced back Nick was alone. He grinned a grin, and made a gesture of relief and we danced some more. Suddenly I find Giant Suit leering up behind me. Doubling over to reach my ear he whispers to me “Why did you have to have such a HOT boyfriend?!”.
Nick is in trouble.
Anyway – the rest of the evening was fun – I met a great guy from the LSE with whom I spent an entertaining evening and whom I wish I could see again, but don’t think I will. I could tell you more, but I don’t think I will. All in all a pretty entertaining few hours.
Finally, on a rather more geeky note, I have been looking at iSyndicate Affiliates (which was designed by our esteemed colleague at powazek.com) in preparation for the big redesign challenge I am setting myself. But it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen many of their affiliates out there in the real world, which made me wonder if they would be of any use to me at all.
So I was interested when today I was sent the URL for a site called Fragile Minds which uses similar newsfeeds from places like moreover.com. Fragile Minds is an interesting site which illustrates that one an use these newsfeeds not just to replicate the content of the information provider but to allow you to produce a site in which everything you create is new, while still offering more of a service to the people who read your site.
I’m still not totally convinced by such newsfeeds, but it is cool that there are decent sites out there using them.
So that’s it for today – quite an epic post – much longer than normal. Hope you are all having a good weekend!