So Barbelith is now getting more hits than The Bomb. Go figure. Plague marches on relentlessly. Managed to get to sleep at 3am, alarm set to 8am so that I can get the train back to my parents’ house in Norfolk. Note to self: buy cold pills immediately.
Why is it that I always seem to do my best design on other people’s sites? It’s only small, but check out the new student guide button on Time Out‘s site. I think it came out rather well.
Plague remains on periphery. Hopefully I will fight it off before it gets a chance to get a foothold. At least today is my last day at work before Christmas – so I can spend tonight watching TV in bed and wrapping presents. Easy, warm, health-producing activities.
There’s this wonderful thing in Baudrillard where he says that it is dull to think of the world as approaching an apocalypse, but much more interesting to work on the principle that it has already happened. There’s this wonderful thing in Grant Morrison’s work in which he talks about how the spiritual armageddon has come and gone and the physical world is just taking a long time to catch up. These ideas appeal to me. But as Y2K approaches, I can’t help wondering whether or not we will all be hunter gatherers in the months ahead. For more see fear2k.com.
So my throat is slowly closing up and I am having trouble swallowing. With three days to go until Christmas, could I really be finally getting the flu? Please god no.
Battled away with Neonlit at work today, despite the fact that there are endless other things I should be doing. Finally got it to a place that I am comfortable with. Take a look. Cheer me up.
Support the eToys boycott (entry Dec 21). More tomorrow.
Every so often you come across a site which is interesting, incredibly well designed and really meshes with your own personal zeitgeist. Check out kabbalah.com.
So I finally watched Pirates of Silicon Valley the other day, which a friend had sent me from America a year ago. (I have just bought a new video which can actually show American standard tapes.) I am confused about my feelings towards it – and as time has passed it has remained stuck in my head.
There are a couple of reasons for this – it’s portrayal of Bill Gates and Microsoft is resolutely unpleasant, and while Steve Jobs doesn’t seem entirely pleasant either, I have more respect for his attitude and his vision. It doesn’t hurt that the whole film treats Gates as nothing but a scheming opportunist, nor does it hurt that Jobs is played by Noah Wyle, about who I made one of my first proper sites (and which I still occasionally update). But that isn’t all of it.
I think I have fallen for Apple. More musings as they come to me.
The non-corporate poll reaches 1000 votes…
I’ll tell you something for nothing. If we make contact with Aliens via Heineken‘s website, then I will be completely gutted. We’d be an interstellar laughing stock…
Something to make the Americans sick. You can now preorder the new Invisibles trade paperback “Kissing Mister Quimper” on amazon.co.uk but you can’t on amazon.com. More information on The Bomb (in the news and collections sections).
I missed a day. That hasn’t happened for ages. Perhaps I am suffering from the apparently catching weblogger flu… [Powazek feels bad][Kottke was sick]
Quick bit of politics. Imagine British party politics as two weights, one arranged on the right wing and one on the left wing of a finely tuned set of scales. Traditionally, as one party moved further out on its wing, the other party either had to extend itself similarly down its wing or gather more support in the middle. We now have a new model, as the party that moves further and further to the right sheds voters and MPs, while the party on the centre left has a quick lie down and a glass of port.
It’s a strange state of affairs when even Tories think their party is too right-wing…
I was going to suggest some links from people who hate Christmas. Yahoo has a reasonably decent selection of pretty average sites made by people who hate Christmas. But I don’t hate it – not really – I just hate the inconvenience and responsibility which I feel when it starts to approach. It would be better if Christmas really was a holiday – but families are hardly holidays – in fact quite often quite the opposite.
Still it will be nice to see my brother, who as ever I miss terribly…
No word from potential main squeeze as yet. There probably won’t be any unless either I make the effort or the New Year approaches.