plasticbag.org

Text messages don’t really seem to be weighty enough to end a friendship. But what else can I do? It seems any other level of contact would be unwanted. It’s kind of gutting, the way these things play out – the way you know you’d have done things differently if you knew then what you know now. I suppose the next stage is to excise any presence from my life. Delete the phone numbers stored in the phone, delete the e-mail addresses stored on the computer. Close the door. Cut the cord.

David Bowie belts out the Velvet Underground‘s White Light/White Heat and at some deep spiritual part within me, I feel satisfied. White Light Make Me Feel Like … Lou Reed

In honour of brow-beating Matt into agreeing to come around and look at my computer, I hereby declare this to be Oz Prison Bitch Name Generator Day, and give my thanks not only to Wish Bone, but also to my other friends, Aryan Fuck Toy, Ass Executioner and Cock Gobler. And a special yo! to our main man, Juicy Ass!

I’m currently suffering designers-angst. I’ve been re-styling the Barbelith Underground overnight and did a quick new content bar, based a on the Guardian. This was partly piss-take (subculture ‘respectable’ / ‘detournement’), partly homage (I adore the Guardian’s layout) and partly effective design solution. But it’s still weirding me out and making me feel like a phony. Opinions, please on the new look.

Does this look and work in a remarkably similar way to this? I think I liberally ripped off the code for it from someone years ago, before I developed scruples. Can’t quite remember who. Probably arehaus. It was a long time ago. [Amusingly Matt pointed me in the direction of this, built by a friend of his, which is much more honest in its source code than I ever was.]

Via Barbelith (the caring subcultural community):

Plasticbag.org | Articles: An interview with a young lesbian woman about her experiences at school: “When I was about 15 I decided to come out as being gay to my best friend. She was great about it. I remember being so overwhelmed. Shortly afterwards I told some of my other close friends. They seemed fine, but were more cautious. They didn’t discuss it with me afterwards. I started to notice a change in attitude towards me at school. People kept their distance. Overnight there always seemed to be whispering around. Rumours started up that I was a slut – that I had slept with virtually every boy in the class – that I was weird – that I was a boy. When I was 16, a girl passed me a note. She asked me if it was true that I was gay. I was really surprised. I told her that I was, and she invited me to see a film with her.” more >>

Can someone tell me whether the organisation NARTH is essentially a hate organisation – albeit of a slightly different breed than the KKK? I read their stuff and I think to myself, ‘if they were saying this about black or asian people then they’d be screwed’, but it’s not quite the same is it? There is a quantifiable difference there.

I’m going to keep pushing this until I’m sure everyone has read it: “In November, an inquest heard that a 15-year-old choirboy had been found hanged in his bedroom. Darren Steele had been left at home watching Neighbours by his mother when she went out for the evening. When she returned she found him dead. A note by his body explained that he had killed himself because of the bullying that he was suffering at school. Darren had been bullied because other students thought he was gay. At the inquest, his friends explained that he had been regularly taunted as a ‘gay boy’ and a ‘poof’ because of his interests in drama and cookery. Over the previous five years he had been systematically punched, verbally abused and even burned with cigarettes by other students. He never told a teacher.” More >>

I have decided that the web would be greatly improved by the development of things™. We would not implement said things™ purely for their own sake, clearly. Instead they would be part of a coherent thing™ strategy. Said web thing™ will be on the cutting edge of emerging web technology and will be central to all e-commerce / community-building enterprises in the coming dot.com resurgence. Warning: things™ may not work. Things™ may cause bleeding.