plasticbag.org

I am rather more than 86% sure that I am a man, so I’m not entirely sure what use the test is, but nonetheless it is entertaining.

Amazon have started the Amazon Honor System, which operates in a similar fashion to Paypal, except that it is specifically geared to get donations from people via a button on a web-site. Metafilter are already trying it out: Give Metafilter A Hand.This could come in very handy for The Underground, which has transgressed its disk usage limits for the first time in … oh … months.

The Anti-Bloggies have been announced, and plasticbag.org is a winner again. Only this time, of course, it’s – you know – less flattering. I made quite a push for “Most Banal Content” but in the end that went to SURVIVORblog2, which is really unfair because I’m way more dull than they are.

The award that I won came as quite an eyebrow-lifter to me: “Best Use of a Blog for Personal Benefit”. In fact, while I suppose it would be ungracious of me to deny that that was ever my intention, I can certainly state that I’ve pretty much never received any personal benefit from the site other than a sense of quiet satisfaction. Barbelith regulars have sent me money to help maintain the discussion forum after it caused huge bandwidth problems, but other than a few Amazon links that no one clicked on, and a couple of kind – and spontaneous – presents (particular thanks to Lance Arthur) all plasticbag.org has ever produced is e-mail.

Well all that is about to change – it’s time I got some benefit from my larcenous image. Introducing the largest and most obvious link to an Amazon wishlist ever created (to your right). It’s red and white and it flashes at you. Buy me shit. Now.

Brief apologies to the people who are finding plasticbag.org at the top of Weblogs.com‘s update list all the time at the moment. This is due to the date and time black-strip above, which is fed in through an include. I’m contemplating removing the time, so it would only produce false readings once a day. It’s a pity though. Anyone got any better ideas?

With all these rules, one thing is clear to me – I’d be a useless gay man…

Two films in two days – not bad going even for me. Friday night was Shadow of the Vampire with Pippa. Every individual scene of the movie was pretty much flawless – I don’t think you could fault them if you tried. Many of the performances were pretty good as well. So how come it felt like it had about twenty minutes of build-up missing? A clumsy little film which is worth seeing if you have nothing else to do.

Saturday night was much more entertaining: Almost Famous at the Swiss Cottage Odeon. While Kate wandered off to watch The Claim, the rest of us downed a couple of double-vodkas before causing trouble in the auditorium. Mella and I whispered to each other, “Is it?”, “I think it is!”, “Shall we say something?” in hushed giggles before turning around to Nick behind us and asking quite loudly, “Excuse me, are you Joseph Fiennes?!” He was less than amused. As were his immediate neighbours. If we disturbed any of you people out there, then we are heartily sorry…

Of course the first consequence of seeing a film about rock-n-roll and love is that I would be completely caught up in the romance of it all and start thinking about my personal absence of both. There’s a moment in a Simpson’s episode which I think sums it up for me – the Comic Book Guy is walking down the road just before an atom bomb hits Springfield. And in his final seconds, with sudden realisation and total resignation he says ‘Eh. I’ve wasted my life.’

Have I ever told you how much I love that Meg Pickard woman?

Writing a weblog is, I suppose, much like squeezing oneself into a dinner-suit or glamorous frock every day in an attempt to make your rather ample or slight figure take on some kind of allure or interest to the general public – only, you know, for geeks.

An interesting feature that has recently appeared on Metafilter is the ability to view a list of every personal URL of every member, sorted randomly. Thousands of homepages, ripe for the plucking.