Author: Tom Coates

I’m all over the place today – I can’t concentrate on anything for more than about thirty seconds. It’s probably the riothero effect. I’ll tell you this much for nothing, writing for that place is like bathing in Class A drugs. Anyway – I am in the middle of catching up with my correspondence and site maintenance now that I am finally settled properly in my new place, have moved servers and have set up the now fully functional (but completely ugly) Nexus replacement: The Barbelith Underground which is full of bloody lunatics as ever.

I was really touched to see that people at Metafilter were worried about the site during its downtime the other day. Certainly, this was not a good look for the pages. Still, things are gradually getting back to normal. And the site is even slightly slimmer now that I have disposed of some of the surplus content.

Peter, can I ask you a question? You didn’t go out with David Hockney did you? It’s really hard to explain why this is interesting to me…

Sir John Gielgud has died.

I had a lovely evening last night with current squeeze, although his complete inability to arrive anywhere on time might get a little galling over time I fear. I reached that “I run a website and you are on it” point of a burgeoning relationship, which has raised a few eyebrows in the past. When he actually read what I had said, of course, he was relatively comfortable with the whole thing (or so it seemed to me). Oh poor untrusting fool… Of course, now I have to work my way through all that “who rings up the other one first” stuff. Which should be interesting…

Apparently, Mark is really chuffed that Katy and I haven’t thrown riothero down to the pits of beebo.org’s ratings. Anyway – he’s back soon, so no doubt I’ll hear all about it soon enough. I have to say that I love the fact that his mother drops me the odd note and has been checking on his position for him. That’s really sweet. My mother tends to glaze over a bit when I get going…

I was looking around beebo.org’s metalog about half an hour ago, and came across a really cool site (an onfocus component) all about that conversation that you have with friends or significant others about where to go out and eat. I was so taken with it that I blogged it for accidental riothero (which is what I decided to call Mark’s site in his absence). And then I get a phone call from Peter, a “friend or significant other”, who wants to go out for dinner this evening. I almost ran back to onfocus, and when I had finished, I had generated this:

Tom: So, what do you want to eat?
Peter: I don’t know what do you want to eat?
Tom: I guess I’m not really that hungry.
Peter: Yeah, me neither.
Tom: How does Italian sound?
Peter: Hmm, we have that a lot.
Tom: yeah.
Peter: So you’re really not hungry?
Tom: Well, I could probably eat something.
Peter: Like what?
Tom: Just about anything, really.
Peter: How about Curry?
Tom: Yeah, I guess that’s ok.
Peter: I don’t know now.
Tom: You don’t know? Come on.
Peter: We could order Chinese.
Tom: You’re too lazy to go out and get food?
Peter: No, I guess not. Where do you want to go?
Tom: I was thinking that new Italian place.
Peter: That’s all the way downtown!
Tom: It’s supposed to be good.
Peter: I guess I’m just not in the mood.
Tom: Well, what are you in the mood for?
Peter: You said just about anything.
Tom: Anything but Italian.
Peter: You suggested that earlier.
Tom: I did? hmmm.
Peter: I always feel like Curry, but we never go.
Tom: That’s fine..
Peter: I guess I’m just not in the mood.
Tom: Well, I could probably eat something.
Peter: We could order Chinese.
Tom: yeah.
Peter: You said just about anything.
Tom: I was thinking that new Italian place.
Peter: You suggested that earlier.
Tom: We could flip for it.
Peter: What are we arguing over?
Tom: Italian or hamburgers.
Peter: heads.
Tom: I don’t have a quarter.
Peter: Curry.
Tom: Yeah, I guess that’s ok.
Peter: Let’s get a pizza.
Tom: Yeah, ok.
Peter: What’s your favorite number?
Tom: 7.

Now I’m terrified that it might actually happen…

So I have moved over to pair.com with relatively little difficulty (although I lost half a days worth of e-mail so resend it if it was important). The only thing that I am really slightly concerned about is the lack of already set-up stats package. I need something that I can use to track referrers (and the like). Anyone got any ideas?

Apologies about failures of service over the last 24 hours. The move to barbelith’s new hosts is going pretty smoothly, but is still relatively time consuming. The Bomb and Microlith will be up and running shortly (an hour?). The Nexus might take a couple of days more.

Mark said I could do it. Honest he did. He said I could redesign in his absence, and by christ, have I…

I’m going to see Final Destination tonight with a group of friends. I went to a press preview of it about a week ago, but it is no fun going to see scary movies by yourself. At least half of the fun is seeing what other people’s reaction is. My co-conspirator in the takeover of riothero (Katy) is coming along too. I can’t help wonder what she is going to think of it. I hope good things.

Everyone else is getting drunk afterwards, but not me. This weekend is hectic beyond measure, with at least two parties, a major web maintenance session, a hot date and a man coming around to install a phone line. And I have to do my washing. And ideally go to the gym.

A couple of days ago I was taken by the young gentleman I am dating at the moment to the bar on the 24th floor of what was the NatWest Tower in the heart of the City. After chatting for a while I dropped into the conversation that he was one of the hot topics of conversation at my place of work, as he had managed to cancel on me three nights in a row. He found this endlessly amusing and asked if there was anyone in the world who didn’t know about what we were up to. He then smiled broadly and said – “you’re probably publishing it on a website”. I changed the subject very quickly.