Category: Random

Oh for god’s sake. There isn’t a Santa Claus. It’s your parents. They do it all. Ok? I mean, come on… How thick are you people?

So it’s coming up to Christmas and all over blogdom people’s sites are juddering a bit as they try to balance work, Christmas shopping, party-season-stuff and seeing their families. Personally I’m planning to go at least partially offline for a couple of weeks, catch up with my reading and try and assemble some coherent writing out of some of the ideas I’ve been having recently. This having been said, I imagine that posting to this site will probably slow down considerably in the short-term, but everything will be back to normal and bright and sparky early in the New Year… Assuming – of course – that I ever recover from seeing Greg Dyke dancing to Dee-lite’s Groove is in the Heart at a Christmas party a few days ago…

While I’m doing the gay thing, and more to remind myself than anyone else, here are a few of the stories that I got this morning when I did a search for ‘gay’ on Google News – just to show the battles are not yet won and that there is still a weight of prejudice and misinformation that must continually be fought…

• Three plead innocent in slaying of transgender Newark teen
  Remember this is a world in which murdering gay people can be considered to be a problem that the murderer has rather than a crime – cf. homosexual panic.

• A Church seeks healing
  In which this statement is made: “Liberals are pushing the notion that the Catholic clergy should be opened to women, or married men, while conservatives are suggesting the priesthood be closed to gay men.” This is despite the fact that the vast majority of child sexual-abuse happens inside families and is perpetrated by straight men against young female relatives.

• This Rawhide Kid rubs me the wrong way
  And I quote, ” Tamara and I were sitting at home on a Friday night about a month ago. I clicked on pay-per-view by time and got a list of movies. Then I scrolled up to previews and clicked. The last thing I expected (or wanted) to see was two shirtless males in a passionate love embrace, groping and playing tonsil hockey. It was as close to keeling over as I’ve ever come. Even closer than the morning I opened the paper and spied the headline “Men kissing men makes me sick” on one of my columns. I’m not saying everyone’s viewing habits have to be the same. But is it really necessary to make scenes like this available to 12-year-olds?” And I ask – if heterosexual scenes like that are not made available to twelve-year-olds either then you might have a point… Otherwise you’re just a member of that prejudiced group of nutters that can no longer say proudly that they think gay people are disgusting without getting pelting with fruits…

• Besieged Suisun City Chief says he’s gay
  And because it is still somehow acceptable to stereotype gay people as feckless nancies, it’s ok to write this: “It is a distinction that will almost surely focus more attention on the relatively tiny, 28-officer department to see what happens in the macho bastion of law enforcement when a gay man is leading the way.”

Right. It’s done. Finally. The wait is over. Almost eighteen months after I first swore that I’d sell my soul if someone would give me an iBook, I’ve finally snapped (like a twig in a blender) and actually gone and bought one. So I’m now typing this weblog entry on the keyboard of a 12″ 800Mhz G3 iBook with 640Mb of RAM and a 32Mb Video card. Bow down in jealous awe.

A link without an origin, I found this explanation and background to Keynesian economic analysis a few days ago, but couldn’t think of enough commentary on it to make it worthwhile. In the end I retreat to the anecdotal. I did Economics A-level at school. I was quite bad at it, and the teacher told my mother than I was bone-idle. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for that. I have a picture somewhere of Ben and Julian standing by the window with teenage hair and school-uniforms. And even if I lost the photo, the image would stick in my head regardless.

So in the dream, my mother is putting powder-blue mascara onto my eye-lashes. But it’s all clumpy and grotesque – like water thickly mixed with blue flour. She’s convinced it’s a really good idea. I’m not horrified by the concept, but I’m also relatively unconvinced it’s going to work.

With only a few hours to go, this is just a last minute reminder that Secret Santa 2002 closes in a couple of hours. Get there quickly before the Elves get irritable…

Of course the most important news in blogdom at the moment is the upcoming big gay wedding of Sparky and the Rooster (thanks to Google Images for those photos). I can’t say congratulations enough! I’m stormingly jealous as well – Dan is a wonderful sweet man who I’ve met once or twice now, and Rooster is… well… really hot. [proper pictures of the lovely couple (you’re looking at number one and two on that page)]

It continually upsets me that things like the Social Software Summit in New York happen and that I don’t get to go to them all. Hearing Clay speak on areas very close to my heart in London recently was tremendously useful and interesting, and I find it intensely frustrating that there are debates ongoing around the world that really matter to me that I can’t attend. Hence my need to buy an iBook, hide in Norfolk and finally assemble some of my thoughts into a publishable form…

P.S. That’s Matt Jones on the left there. And aren’t there are a lot of Apple laptops in concept-forming-land…

This will mean nothing to the people who come here to read rambling usability articles, or stuff on social software – or even the few people who come to hear me ramble on about what happens after-hours. This will only make the slightest sense to those few people in the world who are obsessed with Fame Academy, or more specifically Ainslie. Will the world please explain to me how David, the self-satisfied little pop tramp with a potential career as long as his butt-hair could possibly beat Ainslie? I mean, sure… Ainslie can’t really sing in tune that well… And yes, he has a tendency to get all worked up and run around like a lunatic, and coat himself in mud, and hide in cupboards… But at least he’s not a wanker?