Year: 2001

Is it normal to have a one hour interview for what might turn out to be at most three or four weeks of part-time freelance HTML work? Maybe I talk too much. Your opinion?

About a week ago, the Barbelith Underground finally gave up the ghost. But now it’s all fresh and new once more – reinstalled and virginal. Reintroduce yourself to the most creative politically futurist subcultural community on the web today.

24 hours too late: Disinfo acquired by AOL Time Warner
“In a surprise move that has already sent shockwaves through the Entertainment Economy, Disinformation Company Ltd publisher Gary Baddeley and creative director Richard Metzger have joined forces with their nemesis, AOL Time Warner, after months of secret negotiations. The media pranksters waited until April Fool’s Day to make their ironic announcement, which confused Disinfonauts, the company’s name for site visitors and their most valued customers.”

I watched American Beauty [] last night for about the tenth time. In its honour, I keep thinking that I should try to write about one thing that I find beautiful every day. Tonight I went to see 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Curzon Mayfair. My mother rang me during the intermission to ask me if I’d found a job yet. She worries. I reassured her that I had some freelance stuff going on. While I was on the phone, I glanced up at the sky. It was pale blue, with whisps of white shot through it. Across it was the jetstream of an aircraft. It picked up the light and shone like a laser.

I spent a good twenty minutes online with Matt Haughey on AIM yesterday, trying to work out what the French for a certain phrase was, and all the time I knew that the French had a particularly idiosyncratic interpretation of it – one that I just couldn’t quite remember. Luckily – he found someone who really did know what they were talking about.

I am at Meg‘s house. I am testing something for her. Read this at your peril. I have encoded it with fnords. If you read it too fast your mind will explode. White Wee Wee.

Is it just me that thinks that Hands Off My .ORG! misses a tremendous opportunity to showcase some of the great creative work that individuals and non-profit organisations have put together across the .org TLD?

The BBC launched a dedicated film news section of their main news site a couple of days ago. It includes stunning articles from around the industry – not just the standard entertainment fluff you get from some other sites. Because of this, I am particularly disappointed that no new content has been added to it for over twenty-four hours.

Stunning lines of our time from Mo Morgan (dot com): “I used to be a drummer. The definition of a drummer is someone who hangs around with musicians.
I am a web developer. The definition of a web developer is someone who hangs around with computer people.”

A few years ago I interviewed Grant Morrison for a magazine in America that I believe has since folded or gone web-only. During the interview (and in several other interviews) he talked a lot about how teen culture was associated with sun-spot activity – and how it came in eleven year cycles. To support his claim he proposed a sequence of dates 1955, 1966, 1977 and 1988. The spirit of each expression of rebellion alternated – so 1955 was aggressive rock ‘n’ roll, 1966 was flower-power and hippy-culture. With 1977 came punk and with 1988, rave. He told me that in 1999 the negative spirit would come in again and a new youth culture would emerge – a paramilitary-styled culture. I didn’t notice it happening at the time, but perhaps he was just off by a couple of years: BBC News: “Giant sunspot erupts”.