So I had lunch yesterday with the guy I met at Popstarz, and it really was quite enjoyable. I don’t want to foul things up, so I won’t go into details – except to say that I’m probably seeing him again this evening. It’s all very exciting.
Admin Notice: Regular Nexus people and the like – Hadalis is holding a post-finalé bash in Winston-Salem, NC on May 26 -29. If you are interested, the e-mail address you need is: Hadalis@gateway.net.
Another month, another issue of *spark. This month, the features include the intoxicating (virtual morality), the revolutionary (hacktivism: the new protest movement?), and the inspirational (surfing towards bethlehem?). I am taking the way *spark operates as a form of model example of what I want the new barbelith to achieve when I finally sort out the architectural parts of it – in some ways it is already a project that should appeal to the subcultural elements of the Nexus…
I am becoming very tired of being homeless. Yes, that’s right – I am STILL homeless. A friend has given me permission to crash at his place for a couple of nights (with a break in the middle so that he can have sex with someone without me knocking on the door and asking if I can pilfer some Orange Juice), but there is still only the vaguest notions of new flatishness in the near future.
I went to see Erin Brokovich last night with Katy (soon to be starting her own weblog), and we got so excited by the classiness of Steven Soderbergh that we are going to go and see The Limey tonight.
For those people disappointed by my recent shortcomings on updating The Bomb, I have finally added most of the annotations for issue 3#2 from the Nexus. Should I have missed anything, let me know immediately. [Let Tom know]
Before I get going, I have a couple of annoucements. Mark has clearly finally lost it – his exposé of the evil Jason Kottke makes that abundantly clear. And while we are at it, is it just me, or are his clothes becoming an increasingly rare sight on the webcam? I give him about four months before he is doing illegal online strip-shows and changing his name to Candy.
I have just downloaded and installed IE5 for Macs, and I am generally quite impressed. The larger default text sizes came as a mild shock to start with, but I seem to be getting used to it quite quickly. The one thing that is clear is that the aids to cross-platform compatibility mean that those sites designed to alter their behaviour for the Mac platform may now have to rethink their style sheets and text sizes once more. Microsoft have a surprisingly good page on sizing text in CSS for standards-compliant browsers called, “Points, Pixels, DPI and You“.
In other news, I finally sorted out the barbelith archives, which are now permanently accessible through the grey strip at the top of the page. I’ve been flicking through old entries, and the one I am proudest off (from last November) reads:
“I went to watch the football. I didn’t understand how anyone could get so excited. Lost on me completely. I tried to explain to the assembled masses that if the players had handlebar moustaches, smoking jackets, armchairs and muskets, the game would be both more civilised and more entertaining. They resolutely refused to see reason.”
In order to maintain the record of the week, I decided that I should go drinking directly after work last night. And (I suppose inevitably) this resulted in a few of us ending up at Popstarz. Which led to:
TWO ANECDOTES ABOUT BUMPING INTO PEOPLE IN CLUBS
Anecdote One:
As I wander through the passages of the Scala, I keep passing this bloke who looks vaguely familar. And he keeps making ‘knowing’ looks in my direction. I will be completely honest and say that as he wasn’t really my type, I decided to have a ponder, but not launch into a conversation that might be misconstrued as flirting.
Anyway, after a couple of hours of this kind of behaviour, we find each other wandering towards each other in a corridor. There’s no real reason to avoid chatting, so I turn and say to him:
“I’m really sorry – but you look really familiar, have we met?”
“Yes”, he replies, “I fell over in front of you twice while clubbing at the old Popstarz about four months ago…”
I look slightly dumbfounded, and don’t really know what to say. He glances down at my favourite t-shirt of the moment, a dark blue A&F thing, and continues:
“At the time I was really embarrassed, but now you are wearing that stupid t-shirt, I feel a lot better. I hope to hell you are being ironic.” And then he walks off.
Anecdote Two:
As I wander through the passages of the Scala, I find myself running into this other guy who looks both familiar and rather devilishly attractive. After my experiences with the nasty t-shirt hater, I am a bit sceptical of wandering up to strangers, and so I leave it – particularly when it becomes clear that he doesn’t have the slightest clue who I am either.
As it approaches 3am, however, it suddenly hits me – this is a guy that I met (once) around a year ago when I visited a friend in Cambridge. I must have spent no more than four hours in his company.
Slightly sceptical of my realisation, I wander up to him, and indeed – it is he. We chat for a while and then wander off back to our respective friends. At which point my friends (Rhonda, Evil Nick et al) decide that it is beyond necessary that I flirt with him. The young gentleman listens manfully to my abortive attempts to demonstrate my interest with a light smile, while I slowly turn an inelegant purple. And then, with a look of mild exasperation, he pounces…