plasticbag.org

Literally about a year ago, I ran a headline competition, based upon illustrating some amusing headlines that I’d found somewhere on the net. During the process at some point I think I became suddenly horrified by how ridiculously geeky I had become, and so without even allowing the competition to run its course, I stopped putting up people’s entries onto the site. Well time passes, and what has horrified you in the past gradually becomes sickeningly mundane. So here are the final entrants, just under a year late.

“Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge” | outage.com

“NJ Judge Rules On Nude Beach” | outage.com

“Iraqi Head in Search of Arms” | www.baal.org.nz

Tremendous thanks are in order to Prol for finding me Peter Mandelson’s speech online. This is wonderful stuff – although I think it cuts out too soon – because I remember it taking an eternity for him to stop talking about himself and his ‘inner steel’. Dear god, man – who let the dogs out?

Delivered in the post this morning: American Beauty OST. Thanks so much to Ann for this. Here’s a sample that I’ve listened to over and over again with the windows open, looking out over the garden at the back of my flat – Mental Boy.

Frustration of the day: Contracts come and contracts go and you go through periods where you can’t get enough work and other periods where you can’t fit in the work that people want you to do. At the moment it’s just a question of wanting one particular contract above all others – it’s just much more interesting work. But I keep getting put off – delayed – and now the person who’s responsible for hiring for that position has gone on holiday. For another two weeks.

It’s amazing, astonishing even, what you can find when you wander through Haddock.org. Started off with a couple of self-searches for plasticbag and barbelith and ended up stumbling on this picture of Matt Interconnected. For … more … on Matt, visit his site – Interconnected.org.

Post-Napster, I find myself increasingly obsessed with filepile.org as a source of random mp3’s to experience.

The BBC presents an article on GW Bush’s European tour. This is a fascinating article, particularly as it shows up the differences between American and European culture. The section that interests me most (and which I agree with) goes like this: “The fact is that the new president is not of the same political culture as most of his European ‘friends’. And I am not talking here about a simple difference between a largely social democrat Europe and a conservative United States. The differences are wider and more unbridgeable. Europeans look at Bush as a proponent of the death penalty (which they regard as uncivilised) and an opponent of abortion (which the Swedish hosts of the summit regard as the right of any woman). They, particularly the Scandinavians and the French, see in Bush the worst kind of America – insular, uncultured and ignorant of the world.”

The decision to spend all day at home has led to me having had a frustratingly tedious day. I’ve accomplished little, built nothing, talked to almost no one. I did some washing up. This is my contribution to my planet. This is the radicalism of my my late-twenties.

Today on Barbelith: Division X in a nutshell – Of all the fiction suits in the world, someone had to put together the grittiest London cops and the feyest dandy of the crimefighting world, and call them a team.

There’s a fascinating site full of Blogger hacks and trouble-shooting advice over at archives.blogspot.com. Regulars may have noticed my own trouble with archives recently. These should be resolved shortly.