The answer to the question Do you love America? is clear. The answer is that America is a myth that many (but not all) free countries aspire to. The USA itself aspires to be America. But it isn’t there yet. So yes, I think I love America. But the USA has a way to go yet… And questioning the USA and making sure that decisions are made democratically and in a fair and equitable manner is a way of aspiring to “America” not a subversive attempt to undermine it.
Hey look! At work I went and designed a site for this guy who works at Heat magazine. Presenting Morning After TV – built and programmed by my glamourous assistant (I’m going to get a smack) Cal Henderson!
If you get bored of dismal re-run Christmas television and Only Fools And Horses TV Specials, then you should go check out the highlights of iamcal.com – a repository of good weblogging content. [Note for the punter who e-mailed me: “repository” does not mean something you insert anally in order to alleviate disease. That word is suppository.]
I can’t think of a single thing to say.
Well, tomorrow I depart fair London for cold Norfolk, where I plan to spend a week with my family. This will be the longest I have spent with them for about three or four years, so it may end in complete disaster, acrimony and arguments. I have to confess I’m slightly nervous. Still, I’m looking forward to seeing my little brother (now approaching six feet tall aged sixteen) and going to see Lord of the Rings with him. If you wish to buy me a Christmas present, you can – but of course Secret Santa has taken the pressure off you a bit, so don’t feel obliged in the slightest.
On the shock of discovering a work-ethic, and the horror of realising that this is why you’ve never made any money: When payment seems in excess of workload, typically I have increased workload to compensate rather than saying “Thank you very much”. I don’t honestly know what’s wrong with me…
A recurrent theme at EMAP in recent weeks has been the battle between Cal and I about whether or not Mac Internet Explorer 5 is a good or a bad browser. Seriously. This is the kind of thing that keeps us busy all day. Cal maintains that a browser that doesn’t conform to standards is a bad browser. I maintain that IE5 is not substantially worse than IE6 for PCs, and that although it has its problems, it has been lauded as one of the best browsers on the market.
Well now I’m prepared to throw the towel in. Who, in effect, gives a …. when IE 5.1 is out. I’ll let you know what I think of it when I get a moment…
Sigh. Another victim of the dot.com disaster – and one that you’d think would be the last to fail. How is it possible that a site that did nothing but show other people’s TV adverts free could go under? You’d think that multi-national corporations would be delighted by the free publicity, and by people watching and rewatching the promotion of their products. The campaign starts here to encourage Gap and all the other regular TV advertisers to pay to maintain the site – as they should have been doing so all along…
Trabaca is a beautifully designed, touching site by a young, intelligent and in-the-process-of-telling-everyone-he’s-a-poof young man. It’s bloody great, and if you don’t read it I’ll smack you around the face with an articulated truck.
Never before did I fully understand the horrible difficulties of being a great big nasty right-wing facist. And when you get bored of that, there’s a new quiz at TCN.