Archives for December 1999

So it's New Year's Eve... (December 31, 1999) So it's New Year's Eve. I am at home in Hampstead, waiting for some kind of information about what I am going to be doing this evening. My friend Toby is planning to be down at the Thames for the...

Etoys lawsuit... (December 30, 1999) Today's barbelith celebrates etoys decision not to press its utterly ridiculous law suit. Bear in mind though that the precedent probably still stands....

Mystery Men review... (December 29, 1999) Oops. I accidentally wrote an epinion on Mystery Men....

On being thrilled... (December 29, 1999) Hey guess what! Everyone has cancelled! Instead of seeing Dogma, instead I am staying at home and throwing away all my old papers! I couldn't be more thrilled......

Return to London... (December 28, 1999) I am returning to London tomorrow at which point I will immediately be going to see Dogma with Liz and whoever else I can find to accompany us. My plan is to clean my mind of all the crap that...

Cola Bottle Christmas... (December 27, 1999) Phew - the whole Christmas thing is gradually slowing to a halt. I am still at my family's house in Norfolk, but not for much longer. Wednesday morning I am on a train and should be back at home (and...

Bizarre Christmas Stories... (December 26, 1999) So Christmas has come and gone and with it comes the standard array of bizarre family stories. Last year all I could manage was the weirdness of my father specifically asking for (and receiving) 50 bic biros (blue). This year...

Death by cold... (December 24, 1999) 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...

Design plague apocalypse... (December 23, 1999) 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...

Neonlit is getting somewhere? (December 22, 1999) 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...

Support the eToys boycott... (December 21, 1999) Support the eToys boycott (entry Dec 21). More tomorrow....

On kabbalah.com... (December 21, 1999) 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....

Pirates of Silicon Valley... (December 21, 1999) 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...

1000 votes... (December 21, 1999) The non-corporate poll reaches 1000 votes......

Interstellar Laughing Stock... (December 20, 1999) 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......

Kissing Mister Quimper... (December 20, 1999) 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... (December 20, 1999) 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...

Time Out's Christmas Party... (December 18, 1999) Last Night was Time Out's Christmas party, held in King's Cross in London. An extraordinarily odd evening with much drinking, schmoozing, flirting and doing of stupid things. I danced like a devil. Other than spending 35 minutes in a taxi...

On DisinfoCon... (December 17, 1999) Disinfo.com is having a conference in NYC. Apparently, Mr Morrison is to attend. Very jealous....

Doom Patrol... (December 17, 1999) There is this comic book called Doom Patrol, or at least there was a good few years ago. It was written by the immortal Grant Morrison, whom we adore. Anyway - in this comic book there was this character called...

Blank Faeces... (December 16, 1999) So I used to run this site called Blank Faeces, which was designed to reward people who built interesting personal content sites on the web. Basically it wasn't a very good site, so after a great deal of thought I...

Blogger on drugs... (December 16, 1999) Blogger is wacked out on drugs and speed. Whoa baby - watch that new, intricate and clever interface do its thing. Woof. There's this quote in Heathers (the film with Christian Slater) which goes something like "Now I use my...

Rejection and Humiliation... (December 15, 1999) There's something wrong with the non-corporate poll, and I can't help thinking it has something to do with those scamps at glassdog.org. So, I am back in pining mode after two concurrent days of rejection and humiliation, both personal and...

The Movie Therapist... (December 14, 1999) Listen very carefully, my friends, for this is the most important thing I have ever had to tell you. This concerns the wonders of Movie Therapy. For years I laboured under the misapprehension that when one was miserable one watched...

Romantic Apocalypse? (December 14, 1999) Like a recurrent dream comes the non-corporate art poll. I went out for a drink with e-mail correspondent last night which was supposed to lead into a press screening of Three Kings but didn't. I then stumbled off alone around...

Wahoo... (December 13, 1999) Yay! The Bomb is the top rated site at Wahoo....

Christmas Shopping... (December 12, 1999) I went Christmas shopping yesterday. I didn't feel like a politically insurgent sexual terrorist at all. I bought biscuits, chocolate, videos and Lebanese candy floss from Selfridges in London. At no point did I stick two fingers up at the...

Vote for me... (December 12, 1999) Could anyone who has a chance (and likes The Bomb) go to Wahoo! and rate it for me. They only include people who have been rated more than ten times in their top-rated sites, and The Bomb languishes with five....

Traffic to Barbelith... (December 12, 1999) The front page of barbelith reached 10,000 hits today. This is quite invigorating. The bomb has now had nearly 40,000 visitors, the nexus over 15,000. What a nice way to start the day......

American Gigolo... (December 12, 1999) You remember what I was telling you about my interesting dalliance with a young American? Well hey! Lookee here. I made me a (tiny) gallery......

Three small things: Croon, Zeldman, Tumbleweeds... (December 11, 1999) Three brief things. The first is really important. Both Zeldman and I got the URL for Croon wrong. Which might explain why people aren't voting for it (link goes nowhere). Turns out it's not croon.com but croon.org. Bum. I suggest...

Zeldman and Tumbleweeds... (December 11, 1999) Zeldman.com has commented on the non-corporate art poll. To quote: "The poll asks readers to visit the independent content sites honored in the Vision, and vote for the one which gives them "the most hope" about the Web. Barbelith creator...

Prehensile apologies... (December 10, 1999) I take it all back. Prehensile Tales is directing people to the poll and doesn't even (really) try to influence the voting. I am Jack's Desperate Needy Apologetic Aspect....

Day from hell? (December 10, 1999) The almighty Queer as Folk has a new site. It's not brilliant but it's not bad. Today is the day from hell. I have to work all morning, make a short film (in half an hour at most), get my...

Heavy week for press screenings... (December 9, 1999) So I went out for a drunken binge with the people from my journalism course last night, which was entertaining. Dave, who works at Capital Radio did his standard trick of getting drunk and aggressive, which was as ever interesting....

I have no idea who I had lunch with... (December 8, 1999) So I had lunch with e-mail correspondent. My concerns allayed, I am now very much in the holiday spirit and wish to share this good humour with all concerned. So I hereby DEMAND that you all send each other a...

I'll show you mine... (December 8, 1999) Did you have a good journey into work this morning? If you live in London it is pretty likely that you didn't. Talk all about it at tubehell.co.uk. On a rather different note, I'm perturbed by the progress of e-mail...

Too much work to do... (December 7, 1999) Too much work to do. MUCH too much work to do. Co-worker at the Drone Factory is down with the flu, which leaves me toiling for two. On the plus side I bought myself a new VCR which is cool....

Note to self... Be more evil... (December 6, 1999) DAMN IT. DAMN IT. I FAILED THE ENTRANCE EXAM AT EvilPeople, INC. Note to self. Be More Evil....

Could this be Peter Quayle? (December 6, 1999) I'm in the middle of one of those "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" e-mail conversations that people who have just met and who are involved in the web get into. It's always a little odd -...

Arsdigita poll... (December 6, 1999) A review of some of the interesting sites on barbelith's non-corporate art site poll today. Once you have visited a couple of them, simply visit the poll above and express your preference!...

On Famewhore... (December 6, 1999) Famewhore is wonderful place to go for design inspiration. You are unlikely to find more polished design anywhere on the net, and with a sense of humour too. Quite heavy on Flash, Javascript and DHTML, go with your browsers set...

The Grant Street Journal... (December 6, 1999) The Grant Street Journal is a well designed personal project dripping with bittersweet insights and gripping content. Well worth a visit....

On SUFFOCATE... (December 6, 1999) SUFFOCATE is a group of web enthusiasts and designers who are given a different project each month. This month's concept is to communicate a message without using text....

On exhaustion... (December 5, 1999) Finally the end comes to an exhausting and debilitating weekend filled with tensions and parties. It would be hard to deny that I have had a cool time, but I feel completely washed out. And I have work to do...

No-Corporate Creative Poll... (December 4, 1999) I was so appalled by Zeldman's article on the POV 100 Top Sites Awards that I thought something had to be done immediately. So in the spirit of promoting creative and expressive sites all around the web you should immediately...

The Battle of Seattle... (December 3, 1999) It's very important that you all get over to The Nexus immediately and read the first person account of the Battle of Seattle (The Core). It's incredibly moving stuff. Here's a brief excerpt: "The whole way I was hoping that...

Tom's top ten restaurants... (December 2, 1999) So, I was supposed to go around for dinner at Nick's house with Emma and John-Paul. However, somewhere along the line someone has forgotten about this fact, and now it is no longer happening, which leaves me at a loose...

Epinions just can't stay still! (December 2, 1999) Epinions just can't stay still! Now you can post comments on other people's reviews. They've also redesigned the review pages - again I am not convinced by the new look. We shall see if it grows on me......

Reviewing Fight Club... (December 1, 1999) I wrote a review of Fight Club. Don't read it. I have no idea what I think about it....

On archiving... (December 1, 1999) Oh cool - I've figured out how the archiving works (duh). Have a look at my life over the last month. I've had a funny time......

AIDS information... (December 1, 1999) A range of important information that everyone should know about: Terrence Higgins Trust -- Information about HIV and AIDS in the United Kingdom CDC National AIDS Prevention Information Network -- from the Centers for Disease Control Gay Men's Health Crisis...

A day without art... (December 1, 1999)

Microlith... (December 1, 1999) Check out the beginnings of microlith (currently content-free) and the beginnings of my new stark monotonous grey aesthetic. If you complain, I rip out your spine......