Category: Random

Gripe of the Day
Today’s gripe comes to you courtesy of i2design.net. My problem with this otherwise beautiful site is in the irritating lack of cross-browser compatible CSS. I’m using Netscape on a PC at the moment and the text is completely unreadable. And I don’t mean “eye-straining”, I mean so small that the pixels can’t even accurately render the individual letters. On a personal site, of course, it is never more than slightly irritating. But I have seen the same problem all over corporate sites (particularly when you are also considering different platforms) and it really isn’t very good.

Gratuitous Self-Referential Weblog Reference of the Day
I found the i2design link through riothero, who every regular visitor to barbelith has heard about more than once. I just wanted to say that I haven’t forgotten about the collaboration I said I’d do with him on hero.nu, and as soon as I am settled I will start work on it in earnest. By the way Mark, don’t you get cold? Put a woolly jumper on old chap!

Most Ridiculously Embarrassing Thing of All Time
So you’re wandering around with a young gentleman you might be relatively keen on, and he decides to duck back to your office with you. And then you decide to show him the view from the 7th floor of a tall building in the centre of London because he’s an architect and he might like to see them finish the roof of the British Museum. And then he wants to see what’s on the other side of the building so you think, maybe I should take him up to the roof so he can see more. And then he decides he fancies a quick kiss, which is nice. And then you go back to work. And then ten minutes later you are informed that an entire department of the company you work for was watching a reflection of everything you did in the mirrored building opposite. And then you collapse in embarrassment. This happened to a friend of mine. It did not happen to me…

Best News in Ages
So I probably have a flat! About bloody time as well. Let’s see – left old flat at the end of February, spent the first two weeks of March wandering around Norfolk and LA, and then all the time since crashing on floors. The new place is in Maida Vale, which is a lovely area, although not perfect for transport links. It’s a three bedroom Mansion flat. Very nice indeed. The only problem – I can’t move in until the 29th. This means just under two weeks of floor left before me. I am not thrilled by this prospect.

The “Look At Me” Award for Total Self Obsession
Two reviews about my sites (do a search for Invisibles): The Bomb and The Nexus.

Does anyone else find this funny? Microsoft gleefully cite Zeldman about IE5 for Macs:

“In this candid review of Internet Explorer 5, Web Standards Project leader Jeffrey Zeldman gives us the low down on why it will help the Web ‘whether you use a Mac or not…'”

And then they link to the Web Standards Project, where Zeldman is earnestly slamming IE5.5 for Windows:

“The Web Standards Project (WaSP) today denounced Internet Explorer 5.5 Windows Edition for abandoning Web standards Microsoft has publicly committed to supporting, and focusing on proprietary technologies which are certain to fragment the already-troubled Web space.”

I got an e-mail from Kerry today. I don’t think he’d mind if I quoted him on this:

“Popped into www.venicebeachcam.com and saw that it had pix of what we SHOULD’VE seen (had it been a better day). It’s gorgeous here now. sigh, if only you’d waited a month.”

I’m going to kill him. I swear to god I am going to kill him. Experience the true awesome difference between living in LA and living in London today, as Barbelith presents – PARALLEL WEBCAMS:

• Los Angeles
• LA Skyline
• Hollywood Sign
• Laguna Beach

• London
• Oxford Circus
• Millennium Dome
• The Thames

Ooooh. More Bubbles.

Ooooh. Bubbles.

Interesting how this might seem to be a confession – I smoke.

Observations on Smoking and Being a Smoker:

• I have smoked on and off for nearly seven years now.
• I smoke the evil Marlboro Lights, because everyone knows that that’s all you are allowed to smoke if you don’t want to look like a bookie, a ponce or a dirty old man.
• I smoke around 10 cigarettes a day, which is remarkably little I think.
• I started smoking during my undergraduate finals at Bristol University. Almost everyone I know smokes or has recently quit, but it wasn’t peer pressure that started me off, it was wanting some excuse to duck away from revision and sit on my roof in the summer.
• Smokers Anonymous is a website. It isn’t what you think it is.
• Lots of other gay people smoke too. I think they think it keeps them slim, but actually I hear that that’s a load of crap. I am gay, I smoke, and I am not fat. But I don’t think the three things are related.
• Smoking makes you smell of smoke apparently. But I have no sense of smell anyway, and everyone I want to sleep with seems to smoke anyway, so it’s not like that really matters to me.
• I decided to stop smoking on my 30th birthday. But now it seems like a awful lot of pressure waiting two and a half years to stop doing something. So I might stop earlier.
• When I was in America I stayed with Kerry and Sean. They are gay too. They are not fat. They smoke as well. I repeat, I don’t think these things are related.
• People in California don’t seem to like smokers very much. They make them smoke outdoors. But then in California it is really nice outside most of the time, so it’s not that big a deal. If they tried to do that in the UK there would be uproar. People would still stand outside in the rain though if it meant they could have a cigarette.

Is it just me, or does Blogger work really strangely on IE5 for Macs?

I’m in a much cheerier mood today, but I still can’t really focus properly – everything I try to write spirals out of control. So (as you can probably see) I am restricting myself to short snippets of interest (ooooh – a traditional weblog) rather than my usual vaguely coherent longer posts.

A few days ago, Zeldman mentioned me in his daily log. At the time this came as a pleasant surprise, but more and more over the last few days it has started to encroach on my mind. I am in a more paranoid space than I have been for months, but I have started wondering why he would want to read my shambling missives. I honestly don’t understand it. And of course it doesn’t help when he goes and declares war on Microsoft. Now I’m actually scared of him. And what kind of person is not only mentioned in important articles, but has those articles screencapped for the product demos of huge companies? I mean – the man’s got to be some kind of superhuman godlike uberman.

I got a charming e-mail today (thank you Txiki). It directed me towards glassdog.com and the Lifechange Cardwrack. Very cool indeed. I’m familiar with glassdog of old, but this new aspect… Very cool indeed.