So Jason yet again tries to show the rest of us up by producing a totally practical, well-fashioned and elegant new design for Romenesko’s Obscure Store and Reading Room. It’s not revolutionary, but it’s beautifully simple. He’s truly dispicable and he must be stopped.
I’ve been ploughing through some of Mark’s old weblog stuff hidden away on The Wayback Machine. I miss gems like this:
“Top 10 Ways to Write Good
10. Avoid alliteration. Always.
9. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
8. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
7. Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary.
6. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
5. Don’t abbrev.
4. Its important to use apostrophe’s right.
3. Who needs rhetorical questions?
2. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
1. Stamp out, abolish, eliminate and avoid unnecessary redundancy.”
“William Shakespeare’s middle name was Colin! Ok, that’s a lie. But that’s the point! What a great idea… Lie of the Day! Every day, a new lie!”
I’m fascinated by the way that the Guardian Online’s editorial team’s weblog only writes about Apple products. Speaking of which, I’ve just seen my first iPod in the flesh, and while it wasn’t quite what I was expecting, it may actually be better. It’s smaller than I thought it would be, more fun, slightly weirder looking though. Lust is mine.
So today is “Buy Nothing Day” – the third such event that I’ve been weblogging during. This year it has quite a stunning ‘uncommercial’ associated with it: Buy Nothing Day. I’m definitely pro-Buy Nothing Day – I’ve been a supporter of No Logo-style politics (to a large extent) for a substantial period of time now. Interestingly though it didn’t stop me last year, when I reported that the purchasing of a DVD player on such a day simply increased the terrible thrill of purchasing – that addictive high was all the more satisfying because it was illicit.
And Secret Santa is now #1 on Blogdex. Very exciting. Join up, you bastards!
Those damn kittens with their evil, evil minds and staring lunacy – creeping up on me in the night and blowing hot breath on the back of my neck, making me sweat and making my eyes dart around in their skull cage. I hate them all… Kill Kill Kill.
Secret Santa makes Metafilter.
Send me an MP3: I’m feeling old and staid and kind of dull. Fancy sending me an MP3 so I can try out some new music? Limited time only – only for a short time, as I’m not always on a good connection. Please send your suggestions to tom.coates@btinternet.com. Only one per e-mail (and one per punter) please! [Thanks to Darren for the idea.]
Blackadder: “To you it’s a potato, to me it’s a potato. But to Sir Walter Bloody Raleigh it’s country estates, fine carriages, and as many girls as his tongue can cope with. He’s making a fortune out of the things; people are smoking them, building houses out of them… They’ll be eating them next.” [more, ever more]
We don’t have Thanksgiving in the UK. As Mark quipped to me yesterday, “not a lot to be thankful for”. I said we didn’t really have many Pilgrim / Native American collisions in England. Or at least I can only assume that if we did have some, then they somehow missed the papers. America, I believe, invented the turkey and the potato – both Thanksgiving staples. Apparently Ancient Americans determined that turkeys and potatoes would be tremendous technological advances, and rapidly prototyped them out of thirty-six songbirds squished together and a couple of warmed stones. Years later, ironically, the place best known for both turkeys and potatoes in the UK is Norfolk, where my family live. There are, however, still no Native Americans there.