Fill your browser with your link-fuel and let’s Easy Rider information interstate 666. Feel the breeze in your hair – fluff-links for the quasi-hip:
So Project Stupidly-Long-Post about this iWire post is taking much longer than I’d expected, and work’s suddenly started taking up my mental space for the first time in a month or so, and I’ve been trying to get some stuff finished for Ben Hammersley and my door’s being fixed (long story behind that one connected to an earlier post of mine). And basically this all adds up to a busy little Tom who can’t think of things to write on his site. Except he’s been collecting things he does want to talk about, and rather than discard them, he’s going to do another linklog. But he’s going to do it shamefully and in full recognisance that he’s basically shirking his intellectual responsibilities to the world. And with the shirking of intellectual responsibilities in mind, let’s jump straight into…
Depressingly, at some point it looks like I’m going to be compelled to go for the full separate link-log option, but at the moment you’re just going to have to make-do with the annotated lists that I slap up every so often…
This is a post about why mainstream content publishers shouldn’t host weblogs on their sites – and the special circumstances under which they might be able to make it work. Firstly the reasons why they shouldn’t do it:
Now the special cases – the ways to approach something like this if you’re determined to do it:
There’s a great big thing in my head at the moment – all conceptual and wiggling – that I’ve been trying to write all day. So far, no luck. I’m stuck about two-thirds of the way through. So to pass the time, here’s a few links from around the web that I’ve been meaning to write up for ages.
The only news today in the blogosphere is that Google has bought Blogger. I have an almost infinite amount to say about this subject, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to have time to say it for a few days. Apologies…
It’s the day before Valentine’s Day, that most accursed of all days. Accursed for all time because of the way the saint in question was beaten with clubs and beheaded for worshipping the ‘wrong’ super-powered fantasy figure. The same day of disaster and terror that saw the gangland executions of seven mobsters in 1929. This day of poisonous snacks and symbolically ripped-out bodily organs. Like the Roman Saturnalia only without any of the fun and with a hell of a lot more Meg Bloody Ryan, is there really anything worse than Valentine’s Day?
Well I can’t make the stupid day go away, but I can distract you with frivolous trivia and trashy links!
Recently, in a visit to Covent Garden’s fashionable Magma graphic design store, my eyes found themselves irresistably drawn to a reprint of a Tove Jansson Moomin picture book from the late 1950s. The book – called unselfconsciously The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My [cover] – tells the story of how young Moomintroll stumbles upon Mymble, whose mischievous daughter has become lost in the wilds of Moominvalley. Each page is a stunning piece of design and artistry conveying an incredibly atmospheric – and uncomfortably scary – world. I bought the book immediately – there’s work inside that reminds me of the woodcut artist and typographer Eric Gill. This is not the kind of childrens book that people seem to make any more.
There aren’t really enough really good sites about Tove Jansson or the Moomins online – certainly not that convey the full impact of her artwork – but I’ve compiled a few useful links for anyone who wants more of an introduction to her work:
So how do I do this without spoiling things for people in the UK who don’t know what’s going to happen? And how do I do it without sounding like a total dork? How – in fact – do I talk about Buffy Season Seven (as being shown in the States at the moment) without giving too much away? It’s a tough one, certainly. Perhaps an impossible one… Nonetheless, I must take my strength from the example provided for me by my televisual heroine! Battle on against all the odds! Fight for what is right! Kill all the vampires! Um.
Ways in which Tom increasingly resembles Xander Harris:
Ways in which Tom increasingly resembles Andrew:
Dumb Theories about the End of the Series:
Other ways I could humiliate myself in front of my weblogging peers:
I think maybe it would be for the best if we just forgot I ever wrote this post. Let’s all just move along. Nothing to see here. Just too much caffeine and not enough good TV.
