Year: 2002

From a typo made in an AIM message with Matt Jones that mispelled ‘quantum’ as ‘quantuum’ we came up with a concept called the ‘quantinuum’ – a contraction of quantum and continuum. I thought up a definition on the spot for a laugh, “a continuum of uncollapsed possibility”. So then I did a search on Google, only to discover that it’s a word mentioned in several places on the web already – particularly in an article called Holic Principle and the relations between Physics data. As a super-intelligent Austin Powers might say, “Quantum topological invariance, baby!”

Is it the end of the line for Black Holes?

• New Theories Dispute the Existence of Black Holes

The last time I wrote something actually amusing was about two years ago – except of course it isn’t funny any more because the world’s changed so dramatically. If written today, the same post would read, “According to Evhead, Jason is wearing a cool t-shirt with a body tag on the front and an end body tag on the back (if this means anything to you it means that you are a victim of the dot-com crash and are currently unemployable).”

A couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail from an old friend at Time Out. She was looking desperately for stories of ‘dirty sex’. Not sexy dirty, you understand, but dirty dirty. I responded rather half-heartedly with a fairly tame story from my past, and chucked her the names of a few people who I thought might be better suited.

Five minutes later and there’s a ping in my inbox – she’s keen on my story, but needs more dirt. So I go into more detail. And then still more detail. Until I finally I’ve described every excruciating facet of the experience – every smear, smudge and slippery sweaty edge has been depicted in full technicolour horror.

Next time you’re meandering through a copy of “London’s Living Guide” and you come across a page full of gross-out sex-horror, pause for a moment. I’ll give a small prize to the first person to guess which one is mine…

More misheard lyrics: Destiny’s Child: Independent Woman, courtesy of that nut at rathergood.com. In person Joel is one of the nicest, most unassuming people you could ever meet. He’s really polite and sweet. He looks like he’s on some kind of hallucinogen though. All the time.

You know what’s a funny URL? Webugger.com, that’s what.

Let the debate continue: Fifty-two things they do better in America vs. Fifty-two things they do better in England.

Asides from the laborious Bloggie first-stage nomination process: There are a hell of a lot more good Australian and Noozlelandish weblogs around than there are European ones – or at least they are better represented. It looks like there’s been a fair amount of self-nomination in the Best Tagline category as most of the first round examples are pretty damn poor. It’s also really obvious where large numbers of people didn’t nominate anyone – certain sections are epic battlefields of great sites while others are minor spats down the Post Office between Aunt Ada and Mrs Miggins from Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.

I’ve never been more jealous of another human being to the extent that I am now jealous of Prol and her new Buffy poster.

Missive to the masses: Suggestions for ways in which you can enhance your chance of getting past the first stage of the Bloggie nomination process (bearing in mind that none of you know you’ve even got to the first stage yet):

• If your site breaks in my browser on my Mac, then I’m not going to vote for you. Do you understand? This is a matter of conscience.
• If you have been nominated for something like merchandising – something that isn’t immediately visible on your site – then you’re not going to get my vote unless I can find it.
• It’s unfair, but it’s the only way I can judge. If I don’t understand the language you write in, then my impressions of your design are probably going to have an inordinate impact.