Author: Tom Coates

Cause for horror today. Someone went and bought reptilebrain.co.uk [who is] which fills me with absolute horror since I had just resolved myself to the fact that I could buy it even though it wasn’t a .com (I am afraid to say that I think regional domains were a huge mistake and are completely against the spirit of the net). Anyway – this leaves me with a new quest – think of a new domain name for this weblog as soon as possible, so when the big move comes I don’t end up with cabbageboy.com [NOTE: Since checked and cabbageboy.com is in fact no longer available].

Touching sentiments indeed from The Rumpus Room:

“On a totally unrelated note, has anyone ever seen any other pictures of the Barbelith guy? That one blurry little picture on his site suggests to me that he’s quite the cutie-pie, and I want to know for sure. If he is, then that — along with the charm and talent displayed on his site — may be grounds for another one of my innocently aggressive flirting campaigns. They’re so much less risky with people overseas who I’ll never meet, after all.”

For anyone who actually is even the slightest bit interested in seeing other photos of me, why not revisit the horror of Slutcore? Failing that, there’s a rather dashing photo at Epinions.

Hmmm. Popular opinion seems to be that I do indeed have a boner for Zeldman. In his honour therefore, I am planning to spend all my available time worshipping at the altar of the mangod: The Jeffrey Zeldman Fanclub. Thanks to riothero and So I Say… for showing me the way. Halleluiah!

Tactless Advert of the Day
From Zeldman comes the astonishing Hoboken BrewHaus advert. Hmmm – spot-quiz: “Does Tom Have A Boner for Zeldman?“. I don’t think I do, but I’ve been talking about him a lot recently.

Insightful Thing of the Day
I stumbled upon the current Good News/Bad News special feature at k10k today, and frankly, it was great. All the pent up frustration that we all sometimes feel about the net along with all the reasons why we can find it so very exciting. All in a little javascript pop-up window, with elegant little design touches. Perfect.

Gripe of the Day
Today’s gripe comes to you courtesy of i2design.net. My problem with this otherwise beautiful site is in the irritating lack of cross-browser compatible CSS. I’m using Netscape on a PC at the moment and the text is completely unreadable. And I don’t mean “eye-straining”, I mean so small that the pixels can’t even accurately render the individual letters. On a personal site, of course, it is never more than slightly irritating. But I have seen the same problem all over corporate sites (particularly when you are also considering different platforms) and it really isn’t very good.

Gratuitous Self-Referential Weblog Reference of the Day
I found the i2design link through riothero, who every regular visitor to barbelith has heard about more than once. I just wanted to say that I haven’t forgotten about the collaboration I said I’d do with him on hero.nu, and as soon as I am settled I will start work on it in earnest. By the way Mark, don’t you get cold? Put a woolly jumper on old chap!

Most Ridiculously Embarrassing Thing of All Time
So you’re wandering around with a young gentleman you might be relatively keen on, and he decides to duck back to your office with you. And then you decide to show him the view from the 7th floor of a tall building in the centre of London because he’s an architect and he might like to see them finish the roof of the British Museum. And then he wants to see what’s on the other side of the building so you think, maybe I should take him up to the roof so he can see more. And then he decides he fancies a quick kiss, which is nice. And then you go back to work. And then ten minutes later you are informed that an entire department of the company you work for was watching a reflection of everything you did in the mirrored building opposite. And then you collapse in embarrassment. This happened to a friend of mine. It did not happen to me…

Best News in Ages
So I probably have a flat! About bloody time as well. Let’s see – left old flat at the end of February, spent the first two weeks of March wandering around Norfolk and LA, and then all the time since crashing on floors. The new place is in Maida Vale, which is a lovely area, although not perfect for transport links. It’s a three bedroom Mansion flat. Very nice indeed. The only problem – I can’t move in until the 29th. This means just under two weeks of floor left before me. I am not thrilled by this prospect.

The “Look At Me” Award for Total Self Obsession
Two reviews about my sites (do a search for Invisibles): The Bomb and The Nexus.

Does anyone else find this funny? Microsoft gleefully cite Zeldman about IE5 for Macs:

“In this candid review of Internet Explorer 5, Web Standards Project leader Jeffrey Zeldman gives us the low down on why it will help the Web ‘whether you use a Mac or not…'”

And then they link to the Web Standards Project, where Zeldman is earnestly slamming IE5.5 for Windows:

“The Web Standards Project (WaSP) today denounced Internet Explorer 5.5 Windows Edition for abandoning Web standards Microsoft has publicly committed to supporting, and focusing on proprietary technologies which are certain to fragment the already-troubled Web space.”

I got an e-mail from Kerry today. I don’t think he’d mind if I quoted him on this:

“Popped into www.venicebeachcam.com and saw that it had pix of what we SHOULD’VE seen (had it been a better day). It’s gorgeous here now. sigh, if only you’d waited a month.”

I’m going to kill him. I swear to god I am going to kill him. Experience the true awesome difference between living in LA and living in London today, as Barbelith presents – PARALLEL WEBCAMS:

• Los Angeles
• LA Skyline
• Hollywood Sign
• Laguna Beach

• London
• Oxford Circus
• Millennium Dome
• The Thames