plasticbag.org

One of the best things abour working with geeks is that they understand the value of the ludicrous metaphor. Think of it this way: You’re building a community site for the BBC, and you have to explain the process of a discussion from germination in someone’s mind, to what’s put on the final page. You can’t do anything intuitive useful like actually discuss real conversations because then you get helpful replies like, “but no one would actually ask a question like that” or “but surely the answer to that one is really obvious?” So instead you have to say things like, “So I’m working at the BBC and I’ve noticed an lamentable absence of badgers in White City – sort it out!” or “I’m a fish – I have no potatoes – what do I have to do to get served around here?” Geeks understand this intuitively and immediately. Real people look at you funny.

So there’s a guy at work who’s twenty-two. He’s really nice, he’s good fun. But for some reason he hasn’t twigged on the whole ‘Tom is a big homo’ thing. In fact I don’t think any of them have. Now in almost every single other job I’ve ever had I’ve made it fairly clear that I’m a great big homo really quickly, but for some reason I quite liked the completely-not-an-issue thing of not having my sexual preference being discussed even a little bit. So I didn’t mention it. And of course now it’s getting harder to say anything. Particularly every time the really nice, well-intentioned 22-year-old makes some dumb joke about how he’s worried I might be gay because I don’t like football much. Very frustrating. I just don’t want to embarrass anyone… Sigh…

It’s a shame when parodies have to be taken down, it really is. I mean, I work for the BBC, so I can completely understand why they felt that the Queen Mother Rises From The Dead parody was inappropriate, but it’s still a shame. You know? I mean, it was kind of funny.

So every so often I check my referrers and I see a great big block of them come from a site I’ve never heard of, so I’ll go and check ’em out. And almost every single time they’re actually links to my google pornfinder mock-up. Now this would be completely cool except for the fact that absolutely none of referrers seem to be English-speaking. It’s become really popular in the Far East and quite popular in (get this) Russia, but the English-speaking world apparently think it’s just a bit tacky (evidenced by it only having been picked up by these sites on blogdex). Which of course it is. Perhaps I’m like one of those bands that becomes inexplicably popular in Japan while the whole world looks on in astonishment. Like Shampoo. That’s me, that is – the weblogging Shampoo.

My gaydar has always been completly useless, so it’s perhaps no surprise that I did remarkably badly at the b3ta gay or straight quiz. It’s extraordinarily good fun – and it may tell you something you never expected about Jeremy Paxman!

“It isn’t right, it isn’t fair,
There were no spaces anywhere….
I think that hydrant wasn’t there…”

Are you desperate to know more more, ever more about your humble narrator? If so, then you could always check out my file at haddock.org…

There’s a few really interesting debates ongoing at Barbelith at the moment… From the working classes involvement in political struggle, the function of the prison system, queer voices etc, etc. And of course there’s always going to be the odd nutty thread. But hey.

It’s not going to be up long, so you should probably go and look at it soon – Queen Mother rises from the dead!

Today I am muchly loving the cheek of the awesome Firda and her highly entertaining and completely head-destroying Blogger-parody. And if that bores you, then there’s always discovering how Google uses pigeons to rate a page’s relevance.