Category: Random

Today the new Beck album was released. It had multiple covers. But which one to buy? Which is the right one? Which is the authentic cover and which are knock-offs? Which one expresses my desire for authenticiy most effectively? Which one declares, “I’m not interested in posing, I’m here for the music”? Which one is the most ostentatious? Because I don’t want that one. Which one will date the most? Which one is iconic and which are ludicrous? How do you make these decisions, these simple decisions, when there’s nothing to choose between them? How long can you stand in front of the counter in HMV paralysed by choice? At what point does indecision, does the inability to act at all, become legitimately frightening?

Matt Webb never links to weblogs. Ever. Except when they’re talking about some ludicrously complicated piece of where-RSS-will-be-in-20-years-ery, or something ludicrous-mac-rumour-with-a-utopian-edge-ish. He certainly never links to any funny weblogs. That, it seems, would miss the point.

Aside (1) on the rhetoric of webloggery. You know full well I’m about to say something to the effect of “Matt Webb has just linked to this really funny weblog”. Bear with me. Go along with the pretence that I’m about to do something so revelatory that you’ll implode with pleasure and surprised. It’ll make me feel better. I promise.

Aside (2) on being facetious. When I was about eleven I said something really really similar to the line above in an essay about something or other at school. And my teacher read it out in front of the whole class and said I was facetious. And none of us knew what that meant, and I’ve carried it with me as a scar for the rest of my life and it still brings pain to my heart when I think about it. So let’s pretend for a minute that I’m not being facetious, and maybe in that way I’ll get over that minor childhood trauma.

Aside (3) on what facetious means. Definitions of facetious according to dictionary.com include, “cleverly amusing in tone”, “characterized by wit and pleasantry; exciting laughter; as, a facetious story or reply” and “playfully jocular; humorous”. In retrospect, I don’t think he was using the word correctly, as it seems to be quite a good thing to be. Learn this lesson well, children. Teachers know jack shit.

So anyway, against all the odds, Matt Webb has just linked to this really funny weblog. Or at least he claims it is funny. I haven’t actually looked at it and don’t intend to either. Because this whole preamble was a way of excusing the fact that I’m about to link to a really funny weblog. Didn’t see that coming, did you. Ha.

Unbrokenglass.com is about the institutionalised dating misadventures of a young Jewish woman – and she’s had many. I’m not entirely up on my Jewish dating practices (or indeed any dating practices), but it appears that there’s some kind of precursor to computer dating that forms a significant component of Judaic cultural life. Without fear or shame of being pointed at down the pub for being the saddo who put the personal ad in the paper, you are set up with a variety of men or women (depending, note, on your own gender – and not your personal preferences) and then experience the wonder of eating food, chatting amiably and surrupticiously chewing off your own arm over the course of the evening. Eating food, chatting amiably and chewing off of one’s one arm being the only three components of the dating experience I’ve as yet experienced. And your Rabbi helps too, which is nice.

Here’s a choice quote from unbrokenglass.com: “I have to say that the guy who approached me had a phenomenal likeness to Bart Simpson. Very American-like of him really. I mean, he was short, blond, his hair was exactly like Bart Simpson’s, big round eyes complete with squeaky yellowish voice and manic smile. I wanted to make a joke about it but I very tactfully decided to shut up.”

God what an awful, overwritten post this is. I’m turning into a right hack.

Today’s top classy search that led to the door of plasticbag.org: What to do in London when you have a bored girlfriend that doesn’t know what she wants to do…

Apparently I turn up quite high in the search results for grumpy users of Alcatel’s Speedtouch USB ADSL modem. That would probably explain why, when they released a new version (2.0) of the driver for MacOSX (where previous drivers have – at best – a spotty record), I received an e-mail informing me of the fact, and asking if I’d publicise it. I’m delighted to, of course, but I’m too nervous to actually install it just in case I lose my connection again. Has anyone out there in not-a-big-wuss world installed it and run it with Jaguar yet? If so, e-mail me and tell me how it went and I’ll then inform “the world”. WARNING: Tom’s world may be smaller than yours.

“What’s the problem, HAL?”
“I think you know the problem, Dave. I’ve gone nuts.”

Micro-linkage saves lives. Remember that. And this mighty micro-linkage comes from the massive mouth of the Minor 9th. From monkey bone to lunatic space computer, you need to see the epic: One. A Space Odyssey [filmed entirely in Legovision].

I wonder – if weeks pass when you can’t think of anything to write on your site, if you have months where the most pleasant thing you can imagine is looking at the sky, if you’re vaguely content, but time seems to pass at a tremendous rate and nothing seems to happen. Does all this mean that you’re really living your life to the full?

So Nokia have declared the practice of warchalking to be a “simply stealing” according to an article at the BBC: Wireless hitchhikers branded as thieves. I’m beginning to feel quite a lot of sympathy for Matt Jones on this one – as time passes, it’s increasingly clear that he’s the figurehead of the ‘movement’ whether he likes it or not. And the mainstream media is more often than not mischaracterising the issue at hand, scaremongering to put it bluntly, making it seem like the action of insane terrorist cracker types, rather than community-minded liberals.

A brief thanks to the crew at onlineblog for letting me know that the Guardian Best British Blog Award is to be announced this time next week…

Mac-users and weblog enthusiasts have generally been pretty stunned by how neat and useful NetNewsWire Lite is at keeping them up to date with what’s going on around the web. It’s like a combined update list and weblog reader that sits on your desktop and fills everything with light and wonder. (Of course there’s a huge battle going on behind the scenes about the future of the RSS format, but we’ll pass swiftly over that.) Recently, there’s been talk of a Pro version of the software that you’d have to pay for, and to be honest I’ve been suspicious – it’s such a nice elegant little application – it doesn’t feel like anything is missing from it at all… But having seen this list of pro features I’m drooling… Weblog editing, filters, different views… Mmmmm….

First we had The Weblog Handbook, then We’ve Got Blog, then We Blog (all of which I’ve read or am reading). Then there’s the O’Reilly Essential Blogging, which I haven’t read yet – and now Blogging by Biz Stone and Blog on by Todd Stauffer. Is there really a market for all of them? So far, I’m embarrassed to confess, the one I’ve enjoyed most has been Rebecca Blood’s Weblog Handbook, which actually managed to remind me what it was that drew me to weblogs in the first place. Personal and engaging with a clear and almost kindly voice… Much recommended for beginners, and worth reading for those of us who’ve been around the block a few times…