plasticbag.org

Mark at www.riothero.com (notice the absence of link) said:

“I hope you see that this ISN’T like high school. I DON’T go to less popular weblogs and laugh… I DON’T pull Tom’s [Ed: ME!] pants down and whisper ‘Ner Ner Ner’ in his ear…. I DON’T care what the community thinks of me… and to prove this, I’ll quit defending myself.”

Ooooh. I think this little chicken’s getting too big for his boots… But what can YOU do? Mark bases his entire world view upon Beebo.org’s Weblog Ratings – which is a very dangerous thing to do, because…

1. For a period of THREE DAYS (that’s until the weekend) DO NOT LINK TO MARK. At that stage, reinstate your love for him and his alter-ego Candy the Online Stripper. Just for a couple of days: Let Him Know What Side His Bread Is Buttered….
2. In the meantime, help promote Metafilter and any other prominent / interesting weblogs listed.
3. Send Mark an e-mail explaining that we all think he is really nice, but that he has CLEARLY … GONE … INSANE …

To get the ball rolling: I LOVE YOU ZANNAH!

I’ve had loads of people sending me the answer to the riddle I posted a couple of days back. Most of you got it right. For those of you who didn’t and who still want to know the answer, wander over to the Gallery of Visual Journal Entries. Better luck next time!

I have read Bertrand Russell on Christianity. I am familiar with the range of argumentation. I am well read in Gay and Lesbian Studies and Queer Theory. I am more than capable of forming a decent argument. But frankly, I think there has to be room for being frivolous in life, particularly when confronted by something as patently absurd as the Church. Evidently some people disagree…

I got an e-mail. It reads as follows:

“I understand you have to be careful who reads what but the main (though part of a huge) reason I check your site is to see how things are going on the relationship front. Unresloved plot thread left dangling needs a knot tied in it.”

Okay. Time to expose self to the world. My most recent object of intrigue has literally fallen off the planet. Completely. Gone without a trace. After flirting our way through the sale of Land Rover (don’t ask), and going out for a meal, and going up the NatWest tower, and doing any number of dubious things all over the place (behaving very badly), we finally managed to have an evening alone with each other and I haven’t heard from him since! I thought I might be more affected by this turn of events than I actually am. It still seems like a pity to me, but it’s nothing I can’t live with. He knows I write about stuff here, so he’ll probably read this and get really pissed off with me. Still, what can you do, eh?

Anyway, in the two weeks since I last saw him, Sam turned up out of the blue at lunch time and we chatted. The most memorable part of the conversation was that apparently you can’t buy decent stretchy black underpants in Cambridge (which I wasn’t aware of until now). It’s was lovely to see him again. And then a couple of days ago, this guy called Sean re-appeared in the UK. He’s very cool, is doing a Classics doctorate (so we could talk about Froma Zeitlin and Jean-Pierre Vernant which was nice), likes Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is an obsessive foodie. Honestly though, I don’t think I have the energy any more!

Everyone is doing terribly well on the whole riddle thing. Yay Barbelith regulars. You’ve whupped the ass of riothero‘s readers!

So the secret’s out [thanks sja] – I have registered and paid for plasticbag.org (don’t go there yet though because there isn’t anything up). I’m interested in people’s opinions on it. After the other two going in about twenty minutes I got a bit nervous about this one…

Kerry is becoming quite ubiquitous. I quoted him a couple of days ago, and now, Mark at Riothero is quoting him as well. I promised Kerry that I’d set up a weblog for him on my server, and I still haven’t gotten around to it, which just illustrates what a bad person I am. In the meantime, he will have to remain the dark figure behind the scenes – the Charlie behind the Angels.

Anyway, he sent Mark and I the same riddle:

1. In a street there are 5 different houses in five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person with a different nationality.
3. These five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain
brand of cigar and keep a certain pet.
4. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink
the same beverage.
(pretend there is a drawing of five houses here -- identical in shape (but
not colour) in every way.
House 1 House 2 House 3 House 4 House 5
The question is: Who owns the fish?
To prove you are not guessing, specify his nationality, colour house, brand
of smoke and preferred beverage.
Clues:
- The Brit lives in the red house
- The Swede keeps dogs as pets
- The Dane drinks tea
- The green house is on the left of the white house
- The green house's owner drinks coffee
- The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds
- The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
- The man living in the center house drinks milk
- The Norwegian lives in the first house
- The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
- The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill
- The owner who smokes BlueMaster drinks beer
- The German smokes Prince
- The Norwegian lives next to the blue house
- The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water

It took me 25 minutes. Have a go and e-mail me when you think you have the answer, and I’ll tell you if you are right…

This would be a really interesting literate science fiction quiz if it wasn’t for one simple fact. You answer a question, it tells you that you’re wrong, and then when you check the answers, it thinks you have put down a completely different answer to the one that you actually have. What a waste of time.

I’ve bought a new domain name, and the barbelith weblog will shortly be moving over to it. Only it won’t be called barbelith any more (duh!). In the meantime, service may be a little sporadic. Bear with me in this exciting time…

Someone needs to whup the ass of the Daily Doozer. In the meantime, ask the Magic Eight Ball some questions of your own…