Category: Random

I’ve changed my mind. Now I want to win.

My flatmate is looking for a house. I should be happy for her, but I’m not. The reason? My current work state is so sporadic and occasional that I just can’t be sure that should she move out, and if I was then forced to move, that would be able to afford a flat or guarantee that I would get it. Every time she mentions it, I get a shiver of fear. What happens then? What would I do?

Working from home, short of cash, recovering from houseguests, thinking about my future. There’s a fair amount of stuff in my head at the moment. I go out so infrequently at the moment (compounded by working from home) that I’ve almost forgotten what it is to enjoy other people’s company. It all seems like a tremendous hassle. And I wonder if it’s making me antisocial. Every so often I forget how comforting I find my own company. And then on other occasions it occurs to you that it’s a way of avoiding taking your place in the world. I think about what job I might get – whether the BBC will be interested in my application or not. And I think, if they are, what will it be like? Will it feel like I’m moving forward? Or am I killing time? And I think about love and sex and romance. And how I’ve decided against all of them. Or how they’ve decided against me. And how I’m happy with that. And I wonder, deep down, am I really?

Looks like I’m not the only person with a love of Graceland.

So, Blogger is two years old. Which means that this weblog can only be three months off from it’s second birthday as well. Originally known as barbelith, this weblog and I have had much fun with Blogger over the last couple of years. I’ve met a lot of people, written a hell of a lot of words and scratched together some fairly amiable designs along the way. I’m raising a glass and I’m saying cheers to everyone who remembers when Blogger looked like this (and this). Particularly to Megnut, Ev, Derek and Jason.

The life cycle of a meme: I’m currently obsessed by the NASA fakes Moonlanding page that has been circulating around the web recently. I first noticed it a few days ago on a routine trip to Brainsluice. Davo had been sent an e-mail with astonishingly amusing copy in it, and had decided to republish it. I read it, collapsed laughing and passed on. Next thing I saw, it was high in blogdex’s charts, and then I saw it on Metafilter. Several days later, it is still at #3 over at Blogdex and over thirty-eight separate sites are linking to it. The latest news is that it has apparently resurfaced ‘topside’ once more. Davo informs me that a friend of his received an e-mail linking to brainsluice.com, telling them to check out the moonlanding page.

Of course there are dangers associated with pages becoming wildly successful, the most significant of which is vast and unpleasant bandwidth bills. But most of us experience such surges only very occasionally (if at all). But the interesting thing for me in this is how you can almost track the spread of this page as it moves from site to site, language to language, and even begins to change media. Most interestingly, we remain unaware of the stories actual origins, although through some research I stumbled upon this Google cache of a page that is no longer up and running.

Genius.

Greetings from Thoco Horea, Setpolo of Dutonin. [Discover your Star Wars name at parris.josh.com.au, via Lukelog and The Barbelith Underground.

There’s an article over at guardian.co.uk about weblogs this morning. Which means, of course, that it’s also in the Online supplement of the magazine. As usual the article is prescriptive – it informs the world what makes a good weblog, intentionally or not. This time, the byword of a quality weblog is personal content.

“The basic premise, however, has remained unchanged. Imagine your own precious little black book (probably a distant teenage memory now) spread open for the world to see. All your hopes, mistakes, peeves and secrets made public but lurking anonymously in the depths of a search engine, daring to be discovered. “

Now, regular long-standing readers and writers of weblogs know that they are a fickle beast and that they change and shift in response to pressures in your life. For example, for the last few weeks I have been short of money, working from home and having remarkably little contact with the outside world. So where does my content come from? The things that I stumble upon from around the web. Links. But that’s not all. Long-standing webloggers are also generally aware that people they know read their writing – even if only very occasionally. Some may even have friends who read and write sites of their own. Bits of your life become circumscribed – ‘no write’ zones. You’re not being dishonest, but you have to limit your subject matter. Personal content is the first to go – and over time it becomes harder to find, produce and put online.

Needless to say, I read this article and felt that (while I think that it is missing the variety of weblog content) I had forgotten to write about my life for several months now. I’m going to think about how I might reintroduce it.

Click. Whirr. Crackle. Hi, This is Tom Coates. I’m sorry I’m unavailable to meet your weblogging needs. I am currently out drinking with Mo Morgan at the Warrington Hotel. Please leave your jibe after the tone. Clunk. Chack. Bump. BEEP.