Good god, that hag has gone and done it again! This time she’s mentioned in an article on the Guardian’s website: [“It’s as easy as falling off a weblog”] and in a one-and-a-half page spread in the Online supplement – complete with screenshot. Lots of people are mentioned. I’ll get it scanned in and up on the site as soon as I can.
Lunchtime quiz at work: “Are you a Fab Four fanatic?” produced these results:
Only one result left to come…
The redesign at Netscape.com – designed to make the site look much like the soon-to-be-finally-released new browser – is, I fear, quite bad.
You can see that they sat down initially and thought, “Let’s make this simple, elegant and powerful”, and then somewhere along the way the simplicity was drowned in poorly laid out information, while the elegance started to look less like graphic-design restraint, and more … well, dull. I’ve only heard, so I couldn’t say for certain – but it looks like pretty much the same process has taken place in the development of the browser.
Anagram of Thomas Coates: Tea Hat Cosmos. Thanks to Meg for that one…
An extraordinarily savage and funny article in The Onion reads:
“Thus far, Benson has picked up several new skills outside of the bounds of his job description, teaching himself how to change toner cartridges, un-jam paper trays and replace the jugs on the office water cooler. He has sent out five separate intraoffice memos offering tips on how things could be done more efficiently, and has even brought homemade cookies for “the whole staff.”
“He should get cancer,” said Janice Mulroney, who two years ago, in recognition of her 20th anniversary with Williams & Broderick, received a gift certificate good for dinner for two at a local Red Lobster. “Every day I curse this hellhole.” “
OK: So I’ve bought the new Radiohead album finally, and I will have things to say about it over the next few days. In the meantime, the most interesting thing about it, as far as I’m concerned, is a little piece of text hidden in the credits which reads:
“The font we wrote the world ‘Radiohead’ in is made by Büro Destruct, Berne, Switzerland.”
Intelligent comments from Derek Powazek, that I try to follow, but suffer frequent lapses:
“My advice to anyone running a personal website: Put your head down and don’t listen to anything anyone says about it. Ignore any dire pronouncements that include the words “genre,” “medium,” or “revolution.” Avoid referer logs, popularity rankings, and vanity searches at all costs.”
I take it all back. Someone has indeed given the new Radiohead album a good review. In fact it’s a ridiculously good review. Pointlessly so, perhaps. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be taking its opinion too seriously. [Thanks to Blue Lines]
I’ve just been reading an article on a new fair trade chocolate bar that has been launched in the UK [Time Out : Shopping Guide]. All was well and good until I came up against this line:
“Hundreds of schools across the country have been involved in helping to design, taste test and name the new milk chocolate bar, Dubble, which at 35p is around half the price of other fair trade brands.”
I was suddenly horrified by this, as it reminded me of something I saw in No Logo – my current political bible:
“In the eyes of the brand managers, every lunchroom and classroom is a focus group waiting to be focused. So getting access to schools means more than just hawking product – it’s a bona fide, bargain-basement cool-hunting opportunity …
Perhaps the most infamous of these experiments occurred in 1998, when Coca-Cola ran a competition asking several schools to come up with a strategy for distributing Coke coupons to students. The school that devised the best promotional strategy would win $500. Greenbriar High School in Evans, Georgia, took the contest extremely seriously, calling an official Coke Day in late March during which all students came to school in Coca-Cola T-shirts, posed for a photograph in a formation spelling Coke, attended lectures given by Coca-Cola executives and learning about all things black and bubbly in their classes. It was a little piece of branding heaven until it came to the principal’s attention that in an act of hideous defiance, one Mike Cameron, a nineteen-year-old senior, had come to school wearing a T-shirt with a Pepsi logo. He was promptly suspended for the offense.”
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I honestly belief that marketing and focus-groups should be kept well away from schools – whether or not the product that is sold is environmentally friendly.
Last night, Kate and Mella and I sat up for hours working out the plot for a low-budget horror movie. Kate says if she makes it, we can have credits. Possible credits: Best Boy, Catering…