Month: February 2001

So last night, Luke and I went to a press screening of Hannibal at the Empire Cinema in Leicester Square. He had managed to get the tickets through work, and rang me just before six to see if I’d be interested in going along. I, of course, was. I’m not going to write too much about the film itself, because I’ve already written an epinion about it, which – should you wish – you can read at your leisure: Epinions.com – “Pre-dinner conversational gambits: A repository of wit.”, by H. Lecter MD [Read Luke’s epinion]. Instead I want to write a bit about the experience of going, which was quite extraordinary.

Evidently it is to screenings like this one that make all of London’s medialand come together and worship at the big screen. Within moments of us finding our seats in the huge theatre, Luke had spotted Nick Cave looking winsome and worn with a bad dye-job. Then it was my turn to spot Will Self (who incidentally left the film half way through, causing the people on his aisle no end of irritation). And then as we left the cinema, Luke literally fell over Jonathan Ross, who apparently was not looking his best. It was – all in all – a wonderful foray into media-whoredom that I thoroughly enjoyed!

So Matt goes to the British Museum to take lots of photos and make a web-gallery of the visit, and does he e-mail me and ask if I’d like to go? Does he my arse.

Just in case my distaste for the Valentine season wasn’t obvious to everyone, I hereby present timeout.com’s Valentine’s Cards – all now with added bitterness and frustration and designed by yours truly.

I never really believed it until this moment, but it looks like being mercenary really works. After my charming appeal (and the instituting of the wonderful flashing red thing to my right, I am shortly to receive three presents from my wishlist. Looks like I might deserve the accolade of ‘Best Use of a Weblog for Personal Benefit’ after all.

Of course now I feel absurdly guilty about making such a song and dance about the whole thing. So, whoever has bought me these wonderful gifts, thank you very much – I am very much looking forward to receiving them…

I am rather more than 86% sure that I am a man, so I’m not entirely sure what use the test is, but nonetheless it is entertaining.

Amazon have started the Amazon Honor System, which operates in a similar fashion to Paypal, except that it is specifically geared to get donations from people via a button on a web-site. Metafilter are already trying it out: Give Metafilter A Hand.This could come in very handy for The Underground, which has transgressed its disk usage limits for the first time in … oh … months.

The Anti-Bloggies have been announced, and plasticbag.org is a winner again. Only this time, of course, it’s – you know – less flattering. I made quite a push for “Most Banal Content” but in the end that went to SURVIVORblog2, which is really unfair because I’m way more dull than they are.

The award that I won came as quite an eyebrow-lifter to me: “Best Use of a Blog for Personal Benefit”. In fact, while I suppose it would be ungracious of me to deny that that was ever my intention, I can certainly state that I’ve pretty much never received any personal benefit from the site other than a sense of quiet satisfaction. Barbelith regulars have sent me money to help maintain the discussion forum after it caused huge bandwidth problems, but other than a few Amazon links that no one clicked on, and a couple of kind – and spontaneous – presents (particular thanks to Lance Arthur) all plasticbag.org has ever produced is e-mail.

Well all that is about to change – it’s time I got some benefit from my larcenous image. Introducing the largest and most obvious link to an Amazon wishlist ever created (to your right). It’s red and white and it flashes at you. Buy me shit. Now.

Brief apologies to the people who are finding plasticbag.org at the top of Weblogs.com‘s update list all the time at the moment. This is due to the date and time black-strip above, which is fed in through an include. I’m contemplating removing the time, so it would only produce false readings once a day. It’s a pity though. Anyone got any better ideas?