Year: 2001

With all due respect, Mr President…

Personal websites are the fanzines of the 21st Century. They’re photocopied flyers and stapled together scraps of rubbish, with stolen images, ill-thought out words, tremendously creative in an idiosyncratic way. Interestingly though the aesthetic of most of these sites is either clean and ordered (post word-processing ideology of order) or futurist / high-tech (computer people have a habit of glorifying their culture). Not a lot of cut up and photocopied aesthetics. Would such an aesthetic be an affectation or a celebration?

1) To Graybo, I answer – I would give my last Rolo to any of the following people, if they were to ask… Peter Harmer, Sigmund Freud, Nick Cornwell, Grant Morrison, David Pannett, Max Thomas, Breckin Meyer, Ivan Massow and a great many others. 2) To Simon I answer: Boxers – since I was fifteen, with a brief dalliance with Calvin Klein Boxer Briefs as a nod to gay fashion – since abandoned. 3) To Darren I answer, if I were ninety years old I would remember nothing about weblogging in 2001 – because I would be too preoccupied with my prostate.

The most wonderful thing in the world? The combination of these keys with a click on a link in IE 5.1 for Macs: Shift & Apple.

1) Bart – if you think of the cat as being at one point in time (a), the transposition of the cat’s mind into the mouses body as being at another (b) and their meeting as happening at point (c) – then it seems clear that the cat could not know for certain at point (c) that the mouse he was in fact confronted with was himself temporally translocated and post-sentience-transferral. It wouldn’t have happened to him yet. So the only thing you’d be left with was in fact the possibility that the cat might intuit this fact or that the mouse would attempt to communicate with his earlier cat-self. For the cat not to eat the mouse he’d have to place credence in the fact that the mouse was himself after travelling in time – which would be a hard enough concept for me to believe – and I can only assume a cat would have no more luck finding it plausible in every-day life. Plus kudos for being the person with the dumbest question so far!

OSX works remarkably more effectively with 440Mb of RAM than it does with 196Mb. Take note children – too little RAM will make your OSX experience a frustrating one.

• 1) JaceLV asked me a very personal question about the size of my undercarriage. The answer is that it wouldn’t fit in a pen cap but it would have no trouble fitting into the cargo compartment of a 747.
• 2) Dan asked me whether or not I was really redesigning my site. The answer is that I have actually already redesigned it (as well he knows) – but that the problem is that I can’t get the energy together to finish building the damn thing.
• 3) Vodkabird was foolish enough to ask me how much wood a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. I think it would have better things to do with its time. Have a look and tell me what you think…
• 4) And finally for today, some chap called Graybo asked me, “Are you bored?” – to which the only honest response is that I wasn’t until I got your e-mail, old chap… Come on kids… You’re not challenging me at all!

It has come to the notice of the autocracy of plasticbag.org that Tom Coates has been remarkably slack in updating and maintaining the site of late. Tempted as we are to fire him and employ someone rather more dedicated to the cause, we have instead decided to force him to undertake a few small projects in the run up to the new year. If you would like to participate in these projects, then you should feel free…

Tom Coates Explains Everything: As someone once said – good content on the cheap… Have you got a question for Tom? Would you like to see your name in sparkly lights? Ask him anything about the world and he will supply you with an answer… Warning: Answer may be incorrect. May cause bleeding. Ask Tom a dumb question

A year in plastic: Are you a long-standing plasticbag.org reader? What do you consider the best bits of crap Tom has written over the last year? If you are incorrect you will experience a small, but noticeable, electric shock. Evaluate Tom’s crap

Is Tom’s life interesting enough to maintain a weblog, or should he just lie? Yes, it’s interesting enough, dammit | Lie to us, you loser | The question is bunk – you leave out all the interesting bits…

Upcoming features: (as soon as I can sort out my scanner and Photoshop…) Pictures of Tom and his brother in the snow! A photo of an amusing funeral home! And a brand new sparkling design for the best Plastic Bag site on the net (apart from plasticbag.com and plasticbag.net)!

I’ve just installed OSX. First impressions are remarkably favourable.

Back in London.