Category: Random

I think, all things considered that we must consider the first foray in the war to have been a complete success. I, certainly, had a lovely time. Although I did spend money, which is, you know, bad.

Quote: I ain’t happy, I’m feeling glad, I’ve got sunshine, In a bag, I’m useless, But not for long, The future is coming on. [link]

Apparently I write things that are quote-worthy. Not recently perhaps, but once. On photodude.com/weblog (a remarkably well designed site), there appear to be at least three seperate weblogs in operation. One of them – the quote log – is a great idea, and includes some real gems. Concealed amongst these gems lurks: “We’re all stuck here. We have no choice. We are logging automata – forced by the web to prostitute our writing skills day in and day out until we die. We shall write until we drop. Then we shall be boiled down into a black unctious liquid and people will use us for ink.” I said that, although I don’t remember where… Do you remember where?

I can’t thank Davo enough for the new book from Disinformation: “You are being lied to“. I’ve already decided to use it as a basis for discussion over on Barbelith, with each individual article being a basis of discussion. The first one went up today: On Howard Bloom, “Reality is a Shared Illusion”, a discussion based around the article posted on the web here. More tomorrow.

Quote / Theory: “Life’s what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” I talked about this with Matt last night after the Black Belt Jones party. I’ve come to a strange accommodation with this quote. One of its many origins is the Lennon song Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy). I used to think that it meant that people were too caught up in their ‘other plans’ and missed the life that was passing by around them. Now I think that’s a seriously naive reading. I now think that rather than reading an ‘instead’ at the end of the sentence, the profundity of the sentence comes from the potential double meanings around ‘when’. i think an interpretation that makes more sense to me suggests that life does in fact not happen when you are not making plans – that the ‘when’ is a ‘while’ is an ‘at only those times when’. Living is in the distraction of things, not in their absence. I said all this to Matt. He thought it was depressing.

Quote: And if anyone objects that they are not worth the effort, I will cite Cioran (not a classic, at least not yet, but a contemporary thinker who is only now being translated into Italian): ‘While the hemlock was being prepared, Socrates was learning a melody on the flute. “What use will that be to you?”, he was asked. “At least I will learn this melody before I die.” ‘ [Calvino]

I’m meeting up with a friend from University who I haven’t seen in over five years. Nick Carey was this bearded wonder who used to roam around my old halls of residence, getting drunk and misbehaving. He used to have a scruffy mess of curly hair as well. Once, he and Fenner ran naked in the rain at night across Goldney’s lower paddock while I stood, eyebrow raised with an umbrella and their clothes. He’s been in Prague on and off for years now, and I keep losing track of him. I’m fascinated to know what he’s like now. I’m also horrified by him saying something like, “Jesus Christ – what the fuck happened to you?!

The BBC finally decides to cover the whole ICANN controversy: Domain Dispute Drags On. The whole issue frustrates me – particularly the potential loss of .org domain names as held by individual creative sites (such as plasticbag.org).

Why said Microsoft didn’t have a sense of humour? I’ll tell you who – pretty much every single rational and intelligent man, woman or child in the Western hemisphere.

Today I found a page in my referrers log which really quite interests me. It’s a Quick Essentials page for a fellow weblogger, which uses simple javascript window.open commands to open all the sites that he wishes to view on any given day in one go. When you click onto a link windows erupt onto the screen, allowing you to scan them all with tremendous speed. And each link launches sites with similar content. It’s an extraordinarily simple little piece of code, and ideal for an individual’s homepage. You may see aspects of its functionality incorporated into plasticbag.org over the weekend.