Archives for February 2000

Evhead, Jason, Katy and more... (February 29, 2000) According to Evhead, Jason is wearing a cool t-shirt with a body tag on the front and an end body tag on the back (if this means nothing to you it means that you are a dinosaur and will be...

My passport arrived today... (February 29, 2000) My passport arrived today. Which means I am off to LA in a couple of days (probably Thursday now). Kerry is being really sweet and dropping me little warning notes about the weather in California at the moment. Let's just...

Bomb meet Suck... (February 28, 2000) The Bomb has been linked to from Suck. How cool is that. I mean - I should probably talk more about the article itself, but this is Monday Self-Promotion Night, not the Bi-Weekly Friday Philosophy Marathon....

Sucker for Ego-Stroking... (February 28, 2000) I love prolific. She said nice things (as least I think she did... why - "heh, heh, heh"?) about the pictures of me at slutcore. I'm such a sucker for a bit of ego stroking......

Genetically Modified Homosexual Corn... (February 27, 2000) "What are we going to do with a room full of genetically-modified homosexual corn?" asked Harry Hill on television tonight. I wanted to help him find an answer by sending you all to look at harryhill.com - but apparently it...

You turn your back for a moment... (February 26, 2000) I don't know - you turn your back for a moment and everything goes to hell. Metalog ratings It's a sad day when the only thing you can talk about is weblogging itself, but after a couple of weeks of...

Xenolith becomes Barbelith... (February 25, 2000) So I changed the name of the weblog from Xenolith to Barbelith yesterday, since it seems to be the most substantially operative part of the site at the moment. And now it looks like no one can find the thing....

The idea of web queeries... (February 25, 2000) The idea of web queeries is really growing on me (now if only I could do something about the name). I'm beginning to see the possibilites of this new form of journalism - a weblog that publishes important and entertaining...

Words are the binding agents for reality... (February 24, 2000) The slightly bizarre baltimorecitypaper.com has a feature about the disinfo.con. And I quote: "Easily the most charismatic speaker of the event was the wiry, shaven-headed Scottish writer Grant Morrison, whom, judging from the enthusiastic applause, is becoming highly regarded ......

What a mess I'm in... (February 24, 2000) You can wander on for days with everything seeming to be running smoothly before suddenly realising exactly what a mess you're in. Today I decided to book my van to take all my stuff up to my parents. Except I...

Zannah is Blog of the Week... (February 24, 2000) Zannah won the blog of the week over at blogger.com. Congratulations, old girl, you deserve it. In other weblog news, Fairvue is a site I haven't seen before, which drips design savvy and has a wonderfully tiny icon-based links bar....

Should I be 'less gay' in my weblog? (February 24, 2000) I've just signed up to join web queeries, which is a glbt community blog. I'm a little sceptical about the idea at the moment, mainly because I'm trying to work out what the difference should be between writing for it...

Wired will show you the way... (February 23, 2000) If you, like me, pine for the good old days on the net, before IPOs and uber-corporate assimilation, then you will be delighted to know that weblogs are our way back to the future we used to believe in. Wired...

Another timeout.com microsite... (February 23, 2000) Here's another little microsite that I built for timeout.com - Should Ken Livingstone stand as an independent candidate? Answer the question!...

Getting Ed Drunk... (February 23, 2000) Tonight is my last night out before I move on Saturday - and Nick, Toby and I have decided to say thank you to Ed the Barman (for all his loyal years of helping us get nicely lubricated) by taking...

Weird stuff... (February 23, 2000) I don't know if this is dodgy practice of not, but I've checked the other nominees, and at least one of them is doing it as well. Vote for Barbelith's Xenolith weblog as Pyra's Blog of the week. Queer as...

The ethics of discussing your friends... (February 22, 2000) A quick query on the nature of weblogging. One of my friends works in a pretty high-powered capacity in the British film industry. She tells me a fair number of really cool stories, which I generally wouldn't repeat (and certainly...

A dark secret... (February 21, 2000) The dark secret of my past, Noah Wyle: Man or Animal?, is updated for the first time in eight months. Embarassed I may be (first substantial site I built, about three years ago in one of my weird phases), but...

The daily weight of idealism... (February 21, 2000) Today's choice of news/music is inspired by a mood of self-doubt, insecurity and incumbent paranoia. At lunch I went to Virgin and noticed that John Lennon's "Imagine" has been re-released (at least in the UK) in a digitally remastered format....

On invisibles.com... (February 21, 2000) Here's an interesting thing (for you visitors to The Bomb). A young Bryant Durrell has registered invisibles.com. Looks like it happened quite a while ago as well. I only noticed because this person linked to it....

What a hectic weekend... (February 20, 2000) What a hectic weekend. I've seen Nick, Evil Nick, Kate, Toby, Steph, Liz, Ed and ... loads of other people. I have been to the cinema (The Bachelor sucks), the gym, Maxwells (twice), PJs (once), Waterstones and ... loads of...

Map of the Weblog World... (February 19, 2000) There's so much to talk about today, but I am going to start with one of the coolest things I have seen in years - a java based map of the weblog world. I am really getting quite keen on...

My last weekend in Hampstead... (February 19, 2000) It's a Saturday morning in mid-February in Hampstead and the beginning of my last full weekend in this flat. Over the next week I am loading up all my stuff into a van and driving it up to Norfolk, where...

I'm quite proud of this... (February 18, 2000) I'm quite proud of this one - a little tiny microsite I built at work today for the Time Out London Eating & Drinking Awards 2000. It's not particularly flashy, but it does the job....

Randomwalks, Little brother and Not Going To Popstarz... (February 18, 2000) This is the nattiest little feature I have seen on a blog in a long time. Look up in the top right hand corner of RandomWalks and you will see a little check-box. If you select it, all links on...

I'm scared of the dancing bunny... (February 17, 2000) Let's start the day with something frivolous and infantile. Say it with me: "I'm scared of the dancing bunny". I've had a lot of e-mails about whether or not I could pass for a proper web-designer. No one has said...

Redesign Madness... (February 17, 2000) There is a secret frantic redesigning madness coming over the weblogging community at the moment. Latest to fall for its charms (for the second time in recent weeks) is the inestimable megnut. The new look is bold and manages something...

"You are not a designer..." (February 16, 2000) Someone at work today would not let me express my opinion about the navigation scheme of a site that I am connected with, because - and I quote - "You are not a designer". I was incredibly frustrated by this...

A top ten of heroes... (February 15, 2000) A couple of days ago there was an appeal at work for people to produce a top ten of their heroes. At first I thought it would be an easy project, ten minutes at most. But the longer I thought...

Stats redux... (February 15, 2000) Don't ask about yesterday. I decided to pretend that it never happened and get on with my life uninterrupted. Although I should briefly say thanks to Liz, Nick, Katy, Evil Nick and Ed the barman. Barbelith's weblog has been named...

Let's get our stats out... (February 13, 2000) I think I am going to break some kind of weblogging taboo and discuss stats. I don' t know why it should feel so odd to do so, but it is almost as if (when you pass a certain stage)...

Weblog of absolute note... (February 13, 2000) Weblog of absolute note today has to go to mood-indigo.net. It's a an extremely well-designed and elegant log, with areas reflecting all the interests and aspects of Rachel. But I think the thing that attracts me most to the site...

On feelings of loss... (February 13, 2000) Complex studies have revealed the least visited page on barbelith.com. It is, I suppose unsurprisingly, a page on fin de siècle, an old site of mine that I have only recently reloaded, and which at the moment is only accessible...

Evil Valentines... (February 12, 2000) Admit it. Every single one of you out there knows that you would like to send one of these Valentine's Day cards to someone. I personally can think of a couple of contenders. In the same spirit, an old web...

The 5k award... (February 12, 2000) Occasionally when talking to people who aren't as anally-obsessive about the net as I am, or whose angle is almost entirely corporate, I realise that there are things that no civilian will ever get about web page design. The 5k...

Fucking Max cocks up again... (February 12, 2000) Did Tom have a nice friday night at Popstarz? No Tom did not have a nice friday night at Popstarz. Last you lot heard of Max was that he had stood me up two nights running shortly after we had...

Microlith up-and-running... (February 11, 2000) A brief site update before bed. Microlith's tiny little weblog is now up and running, the random Bomb quotes are functioning effectively, and the Dice Man choice-making machinery is picking up speed. "But what is Microlith?", I hear you ask....

I can't go to SXSW... (February 10, 2000) I honestly believe that there is nothing in the world that is too sensitive or awful a subject to be made a joke out of. Humour is built upon transgressive statements, but it is also built upon a common understanding...

Shauna's amazing flaunt.net... (February 9, 2000) After what seems to be an absolute age, Shauna's flaunt.net is finally broadcasting again. There was a time in the middle of last year when I visited her site almost everyday - she is one of the few people I...

Talented Mr Ripley... (February 9, 2000) Liz and I went to see The Talented Mr Ripley. It was a strange film in many ways - the pacing seemed really off, the film overlong and many of the characters acted in a rather implausible fashion. A while...

Everyone is talking about the redesign... (February 8, 2000) Everyone is talking about the redesign, and the site isn't even finished yet. I'm really quite embarrassed. Hit a bit of a wall today when I stared at it for three quarters of an hour trying to work out what...

I make people happy! (February 8, 2000) I make people happy!...

Visual Thesaurus and Blog-design update... (February 8, 2000) Now here's a (relatively) orginal use of new technologies. The Visual Thesaurus really illustrates what all those books about deconstruction and poststructuralist philosophy were on about when they talked about language as a system of differences, with meaning endlessly deferred....

Bumping into Cortex... (February 8, 2000) Just bumped into Cortex at riothero's webcam/chatroom. We did one of those I'll show you mine... conversations which introduced me to his elegant blog. Very much worth a visit....

Barbelith redevelopment update... (February 8, 2000) BARBELITH WEB-SITE DEVELOPMENT BLOG: "Damn Netscape!" and "Damn Cascading Style Sheets" and "Damn, Damn, Damn Blogger". I have just spent the last two and a half hours trying to get the Blogged text to sit nicely in a style-sheet in...

Self-referential weblogging site of the day... (February 7, 2000) Self-referential weblogging site of the day goes to the GLBT Weblog Portal. Barbelith's half-baked redesign project has been noticed so far by Evhead, Prolific and Riothero....

Evhead has gone and redesigned... (February 7, 2000) Evhead has gone and redesigned his site again... There's no keeping him down. The new look is pretty sharp, although it would be cool to have his photo back - I always think a photo makes a blog more personal....

Everything's broken... (February 7, 2000) Sheesh - you can't even tell where the links are. I'm too tired to fix it now. Hope everyone is having a good evening. I'll fix it all tomorrow. Please be patient!...

Not fully functional... (February 7, 2000) One of the slightly annoying things about using Blogger is that you sometimes have to redesign your site on the hoof - so you can check everything works when you upload the new templates. As you can probably tell, I...

Weblog Junior High... (February 5, 2000) It's such a pity. Weblog Junior High is a great idea. It really is. At last, an interesting metaphor for directories of weblogs. Unfortunately, the idea is undermined by the execution. I mean, how rude can you be? And the...

Megnut overhaul... (February 5, 2000) Sheesh! They are all at it! Now megnut has had an overhaul as well. I will confess I am not as keen on the look of it as I was the last one, but the content remains as fresh as...

Complete redesign of Evhead... (February 5, 2000) I don't know when it happened, but Evhead has gone and done a complete site overhaul. It's a pretty good look as well - it manages to keep a selection of complimentary colours going at the same time without looking...

Epinions.com has a new feature... (February 4, 2000) Epinions.com has a new feature. You can now "distrust" people whose opinions fill you with bitter revulsion. In theory, of course, it's a great idea. Whether or not it will work without being horribly abused - well we shall see......

How self-referential is this? Blogging (February 2, 2000) How self-referential is this? Blogging Blogger just to say congrats to riothero who should be very proud of himself for getting himself noticed by them in charge, thus progressing nicely down the path of web-celebrity-hood. He dropped me a note...

The Nexus has completely disintegrated... (February 1, 2000) The Nexus has completely disintegrated, and I have no idea why. I am working on the problem, but I don't really know what is going on, so I don't know how easy it will be to fix. Keep your fingers...