Year: 2005

• Preshrunk weblog about cool t-shirts
  Neat, niche and dripping in goodness, the Preshrunk weblog reveals the best in T-shirt design. I wonder if Cal’s seen this yet. He has like 500 t-shirts…
  (categories: tshirt tshirts design weblog blog weblogs blogs imagery e-commerce)
• Wikipedia on the Marshall Plan
  ” It is acknowledged that the United States was acting in its own self-interest by aiding western Europe, but most believe the plan had an immensely beneficial effect on both Western Europe and the United States.”
  (categories: marshallplan usa america worldwar worldwar2 ww2 europe reconstruction)
• Halo 2 rankings reset over the New Year
  The rumour was that this was because of people using cheats involving ADSL modems or routers, but it looks like mit was just a bug…
  (categories: halo2 game halo console consoles xbox xboxlive bungie multiplayer)
• There’s a new beta of NetNewsWire 2 out
  Which includes a more polished interface which feels more responsive and support for podcasting and the like
  (categories: netnewswire rss rssenclosures enclosures podcast podcasting ranchero application osx mac)
• Novel calendar system creates regular dates
  “A US physicist is lobbying for people to adopt his novel calendar in which every date falls on the same day of the week each year.”
  (categories: calendar time timekeeping usa year month)
• A previous attempt to rationalise the calendar meant my birthday was on the 1st of Thermidor
  “The French Revolutionary Calendar or French Republican Calendar is a calendar proposed during the French Revolution, and in use by the French government for 13 years from 1793. It was abolished by Napoléon partly to appease the Catholic Church”
  (categories: calendar time timekeeping france frenchrevolution frenchrevolutionarycalendar thermidor year month)
• Playing with iChat Status in more depth, I notice that it can do a whole variety of things other than just display what you’re listening to
  I’m currently playing with it displaying my current application, because I was kind of freaked by it telling everyone that I had 22003 unread e-mails
  (categories: osx application presence ichat ichatstatus preferencepane plugin)

• Gotta Get My Stuff Done
  Awesome animation about procrastination that pretty much sums up what I’ve been doing since Wednesday when I got back from my parent’s place in Norfolk
  (categories: procrastination video quicktime animation fun humour entertaining)
• Mr Biddulph doing his stuff at the latest Radio 1 “Ten Hour Takeover”
  Bow down and worship, World. Mr Biddulph – champion of geekdom – is busy changing broadcast radio forever!
  (categories: bbc mattbiddulph awesome radio1 tenhourtakeover sms textmessages textmessage)
• Another block of separatist right-wing inhuman libertarian bullshit from The Ayn Rand Institute: U.S. Should Not Help Tsunami Victims
  Which – as usual – misses the fact that in the long run, we all benefit from living in a stable and humane world in which people help each other out in times of trouble…
  (categories: assholism arsehole aynrand tsunami bullshit libertarian america usa)

• Halo 2 for the next generation Xbox
  “The Voodoo Extreme site is reporting that the Bungie team may work on a project to port Halo 2 to the next generation Xbox, adding in additional content and improving overall gameplay and picture quality.”

• Expo rumours continue – competition for Office? Garageband 2? Screenless super-cheap iMacs?
  “Apple will launch its new iWork ’05 productivity suite at Macworld Expo, Think Secret has learned. The software, code-named Sugar (as alluded to in our previous Expo report), will include Keynote 2 as well as a new application, Pages.”

Wow. Dude. 2005. That’s fucked up right here. Two thousand and five years into the Common Era. Which is like only a hundred generations or something. One hundred tiny links in the enormous chain that includes my mum, her gran, some weird hairy ape-like ancestors and a few {large numbers} of protozoa. It’s not really any time at all really. And yet in that time so many dumb ideas have been thought up and discarded. Probably more dumb ideas than in any time in human history. I think we should be proud of this achievement. I mean, god knows what amphibious proto-future-humans might have thought about on their slow evolutionary path to hair-growth, but whatever it was, I reckon we’ve probably topped it fairly nicely. I mean some of the stuff that’s come out of my mouth alone – woah, mama!

At the moment of course it’s 2005 in Europe and it’s 2004 in America, which means that for the next few hours we Europeans get to enjoy our flying cars and jetpacks and stuff before the Americans collapse the wave-function and leave us with Desperate Housewives and Pot Noodle. It all brings new meaning to the William Gibson (?) quote (misquote): “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet”. Damn right, mister. There’s another 105 minutes before it even comes close to you people…

So anyway, it’s nearly 3.15am in the morning here. It’s nearly 3.15am and it’s the first day of a brand new year. So I’m thinking about how I’m feeling about it so far. Feels a bit sluttier maybe than last year? In aspect if not in action. Otherwise, what am I feeling / thinking? Well, I’m a bit bored. And kind of hungry. My scalp’s a bit itchy. I’m concerned that my flat isn’t as tidy as I’d hoped it would be. I’m thinking maybe I want to know whether you get loads of parasites from eating take-out and going to restaurants all the time. I bet you get lots. I’m wondering what’s on TV, if that’s any insight. And I’m thinking a bit: Are we there yet?

• Video for Futureheads “Decent Days and Nights” – WARNING! RAM FILE!
  The Futureheads are currently occupying a lot of my attention because they sing good British-sounding smart sharp bouncy guitar songs and the lead singer is hot.
  (categories: audio bouncy british fit futureheads good hot lush men music rock sexy)