Archives for July 2002
You should be reading Matt Jones' site... (July 31, 2002) Matt Jones's site is currently on fire. If you're reading anything about the net at the moment, you should be reading that and not whatever infantile ramblings I'm preparing of an evening....
Ten signs you're being 'whipped' (July 31, 2002) So I was like talking to a friend at work and I asked him if he wanted to come over and play Halo all evening with Cal and I and he said he couldn't and I said he was like...
On the Royal Norfolk Golf Club (July 31, 2002) So my dad is seriously into golf, and plays all the time. He's been into golf for years. I used to try and play a bit, but I was completely bloody useless at it, so I don't do that any...
In which Tom is greatly disgusted with life (July 31, 2002) So you're given a choice between thing A and thing B. And thing A and thing B are as nice as can be. And there's nothing you know that will help you, you see... How do you decide 'tween thing...
On Dorian's Freaky Eye... (July 29, 2002) It's probably not worth going into this in great detail - particularly as I don't specifically know the detail. But the salient facts are: 1) Dorian came from someone and they'd done something to his eye. 2) His eye looked...
All Consultants are scum (July 29, 2002) I have an almost overwhelming urge to buy this mug - except it's got to be so expensive to ship cross-atlantic. Are there no caféshops (!) equivalents in the UK that are any good!?...
Guardian debate has dodgy introduction... (July 29, 2002) So at the end of last week I entered into an e-mail debate with Simon Walden from Guardian Unlimited about the Best British Blog award. The debate was supposed to be a public way of voicing some of the concerns...
On posts I don't have time to write (July 29, 2002) One of the terrible terrible (oh the pain) crises of weblogging is that when you have anything to write about in your life you have no time in which to write about it. So summaries of posts that I wanted...
BBC in Lemmings but with poofs shock... (July 29, 2002) Ok. Have you ever played 'Worms'? Were your tiny blobby creepy crawlies just a little too heterosexual? Did you hanker for some exploding thong action? Do you need a rolling tranny to bitch-slap your Village People friends? Then check out...
Tom is in the Guardian, because Tom fucking rules... (July 29, 2002) So if you fancy a laugh go and get your lardy arse over to the Guardian where you can read all about My New Media. It was done over the phone - which was a bit weird - and as...
.cock (July 29, 2002) So it occurs to me that if the Cook Islands formatted their top-level domains in the same way as the UK does, then you could get a site which would end in .co.ck - which shouldn't really completely amuse me,...
Tom Coates in NetNewsWire syndications export shock (July 26, 2002) If you're a Mac OSX user (and as such probably using NetNewsWire all over the place since I recommended it a couple of days ago), then you might be vaguely interested in seeing who I'm currently reading! And if you've...
Metafilter's bizarre text ad celebrates 'suicide girls' (July 25, 2002) I've just experienced the first text ad that I've actually wanted to click on. More than that, even - I've just experienced the first text ad that against all the odds I did click on. What did it say? "Suicide...
Tufte nonsense (July 25, 2002) Fertile customers of plasticbag drivel-log - would that I had time to chat! But for the first time in over a week I have hot running-water at home and I'm so excited I might ... wash myself! And I have...
plasticbag.org RSS (July 25, 2002) If you have a use for it, then you can now get an RSS feed from plasticbag.org at http://www.plasticbag.org/rss/plasticbag.xml. And why should you want such a thing? Well one good reason is because if you're on a Mac you could...
Things I don't really care about (July 25, 2002) Things that other webloggers are talking about today that I don't think are very interesting: Salon's Weblogs It's a dumb idea. When I was writing Learning from Weblogs (PowerPoint, large) I thought a lot about how people might think about...
Anita Roddick Fact of the Day (July 25, 2002) Amusing fact about Guardian Best British Blog award judge Anita Roddick. She's supposed to be running her own site, except if you want to write to her the only e-mail address you can use is staff@anitaroddick.com. Thanks to Mr Morgan...
Warchalking on the BBC (July 25, 2002) If you've been as fascinated by the whole warchalking thing as most of the geeks on the web seem to have been, then you'll be delighted to know that there was a piece on the BBC's Six O'Clock News about...
Useful articles on communities and moderation (July 24, 2002)
Thanks (July 22, 2002) One of the most gob-smacking parts of my birthday weekend was when my web-chums circled around me and, separating me from the flock of non-geeks, herded me gently but insistently into the conservatory. There they revealed to me that there...
Internet Magazine think I'm funny (July 22, 2002) Now this is funny: search Google for 'a bloody stupid idea'. And how did I find out about that? By reading this very entertaining little article at Internet Magazine... I'm kind of surprised - I don't want this to seem...
Story of a wonderful weekend (July 22, 2002) Birthday in a nutshell (I'll complete the post over the day): Thursday 18th July Midday: There's a tube strike in London so I'm working from home. The plan is to write a spec for a project at my new job...
Writing badly (July 22, 2002) Today ladies and gentlemen, I will mostly be writing like a barely-literate hack with no grasp of the English language and a tendency to create long, convoluted sentences with little structure, pace or glamour....
Blogroots (July 22, 2002) I've had my first interaction with Blogroots.com today - which I knew was on the horizon, but had somehow completely managed to miss the launch of. It's a metafilter-style board in structure (except that it has a nice category feature...
More about my birthday... (July 22, 2002) Contrary to popular reports, my thirtieth birthday in Norfolk was not a weekend retreat for a cabal of elite webloggers. Quite the opposite in fact - I invited Mo Morgan for god's sake! But there were webloggers there because I...
Onlineblog defends the Best British Blog awards... (July 22, 2002) As a brief aside before I get all excited about my lovely birthday weekend again (which I've no doubt is boring the world to death), I should probably return to the issue of the Guardian 'Best British Weblog' award -...
What happened to your gas supply, Tom? (July 22, 2002) Oh shit! I completely forgot to write about this, so I'm going to do it now, while I'm all full of blog-love. On Tuesday I came home after work to change for a dinner thing, except when I got home...
Holding onto the feeling (July 21, 2002) I kind of can't stop writing. Everything's all smooshie. It's all daze and blurry soft-focus. Not drunk soft-focus, but kind of happy internal trashy soft-focus. Like a bad novel's cover. I've got all these little pictures in my head -...
You've got mail. (July 21, 2002) I got two e-mails about my birthday that were important to me this year. One from someone I didn't expect to hear from, another from someone I really hoped I'd hear from. So one of them is really cheery -...
On having superpowers (July 21, 2002) I think my superpowers are my friends, who are lovely and wonderful and make me able to do all kinds of cool things that I couldn't do by myself....
Denise bakes Tom a cake (July 21, 2002) Awesome thanks to Denise for baking me this tiny pixel cake!...
Overwhelming birthday wonder (July 21, 2002) I'm rather overwhelmed by what's been happening over the weekend, so I'll just start by saying how happy I am, what wonderful friends I have and link to Meg's account of Saturday night....
Fuck me, I'm thirty years old (July 19, 2002) Omigod, I've just turned thirty....
Ban the Bl*gging Guardian (July 18, 2002) Do you think the weblogging competition is kind of tacky? Have you said so on your site? mail me and I'll link to the post! Life as it happens Metafilter NotSoSoft.com Mo Morgan kevan.org troubled-diva iamcal.com Copydesk.co.uk Grayblog TajMahal...
A public response to Neil McIntosh... (July 18, 2002) I don't hold Neil McIntosh fully accountable for the concept I'm only prepared to refer to as 'a bloody stupid idea' (and I advise you to do the same). Neil suggested on a publically available mailing-list that when I suggested...
The Guardian Best British Weblogger Award (July 18, 2002) The news of the day is that the Guardian are running a Best British Weblogger award, which I'm going to link to with the words 'a bloody stupid idea' because then maybe that'll get onto the front page of Blogdex....
Steve Job's Keynote Speech (July 17, 2002) Bigs news of the day has to be Steve Job's Keynote speech. A world of monkish zealots turns New York-wards for two hours of self-congratulation and wonder. The chips they put in our heads are working better each year. Soon...
What if you held a big weblogging competition and nobody came? (July 17, 2002) Idle thought of the afternoon - What if you held a really big weblogging competition and nobody came?...
Google interface takes over the world. (July 17, 2002) You know what's interesting? That a few years ago everyone was emulating Amazon and Yahoo! when they thought about designing e-commerce and information directory-based sites - but nowadays everything looks so much better when it looks like Google....
A working definition of 'ming' (July 16, 2002) A word much used in the UK at the moment is 'ming'. Not the Chinese dynasty - and not the intergalactic warlord either. But it's a word that's in fairly common usage at the moment and it's also a word...
The weather in Norfolk (July 16, 2002) For all those interested - this is what the weather's like in Norfolk for the next five days....
Six feet under is fucking Dallas, ok? (July 16, 2002) Why the hell hasn't anyone apart from me noticed that Six Feet Under is like the indie Dallas it's ok to like? I mean you've got the good natured, idealistic, scruffy one and his nervous, edgy, spiky partner. You have...
I broke my spork... (July 15, 2002) Kind of grumpy this evening. I went to see a really lame film with Cal which was really really funny, but that I got all mournful in the bus on the way home. I think it's cos I broke my...
What's crap about the web... (July 15, 2002) You know what's crap about the web? People no longer propogate my memes when they're really shit, just because I tell them to. What's that about? Jeez, people. How often do I have to explain this relationship to you? I...
Wishlist on Blogdex (July 15, 2002) For some unfathomable reason, my wishlist has suddenly hit #17 on Blogdex despite only having been linked to by me. It occurs to me how much fun it would be to get my wishlist to #1 on Blogdex, plus how...
Whedonesque launches... (July 15, 2002) Cool Buffy link of the day comes courtesy of Prol and friends who have been working on Whedonesque for ages now. It's a discussion board of the Metafilter tradition - only concerned with nothing but the products of Joss Whedon...
Heathers for fun and profit... (July 15, 2002) Best film of the eighties - Heathers - contains a variety of cool quotes. But the shooting script puts an entirely new spin on some scenes. Worth reading for the sheer number of classic lines... HEATHER MCNAMARA Look, heather left...
The Thirtieth Birthday Project (July 14, 2002) Rather than me writing a whole piece about the experience - why not open it up to everyone? Why not get everyone of you who has turned thirty to post their stories? Why not get everyone of you who knows a good site or joke or piece of information post it for all of us to see?
I was a teenage twenty-something... (July 14, 2002) So if I was going to be writing an autobiography anytime soon I think I'd call it I was a teenage twenty-something. I've come increasingly aware that I'm an awful adult. I'm just useless at it. When I meet people...
One final word on Amazon... (July 14, 2002) Issues of sexuality aside, it occurs to me that there are a variety of things that it would make a hell of a lot of sense if Amazon knew about you in order to better suggest products. The easiest example?...
More fun with Amazon... (July 14, 2002) So there's this new feature on Amazon.co.uk where you can buy two things together that are apparently connected for a slightly lower price. It's a really neat little feature that tries to determine what kind of things would interest you...
Amazon Recommends.... (July 14, 2002) I don't have gay spending habits. This is the only assumption that I can come to. After going diligently through all of Amazon.co.uk and adding and rating all the things that I own, the DVD recommendations page for 'Erotica' shamelessly...
Dodgy people in the world (July 14, 2002) There are some dodgy people in the world, with an exciting range of sexual interests that are more or less unfathomable to me. And then I'm sure that there are some things that get me off that probably would seem...
Your password's too short (July 14, 2002) Without Haddock I would never have stumbled up this one: Your Password Must Be at Least 18770 Characters and Cannot Repeat Any of Your Previous 30689 Passwords . [via James]...
Spiderman won't make you gay! (July 13, 2002) What the hell is it about the world that makes the word 'gay' so intrinsically funny to people? Currently doing the rounds: Spiderman will make you gay. I've got very very mixed feelings about this. I don't think it's overtly...
Birthday (July 13, 2002) So I was having a conversation with Matt Webb about my upcoming birthday when I will be thirty years old, and I said to him, "How do you think I can mention my birthday and link to my wishlist without...
Broadband (July 13, 2002) I'm supposed to get my broadband today. Fast interhighweb access 24/7 from my very own living room. Will anything in the world ever be safe from my rampaging eye? Will I now be able to download all those huge OSX...
In the midst of cameras... (July 13, 2002) In an important defence against the erosions of privacy and the introductions of a surveillance culture - as well as in an acceptance of the gradual erosion of copyright - we acknowledge Hacktivismo who are shortly to announce a new...
Dreams (July 13, 2002) Ok so I just had a dream that I was on a bus and I saw an huge poster on a bus stop which was blue and the name of a friend at the top with a picture of the...
The web is over (July 12, 2002) If you've ever read upsideclown.com, then the only thing you need to know is tha the web is over - print is back....
30 days to a more accessible weblog (July 11, 2002) Yet again, I'm probably the last person in the world to have noticed this - but Haughey has found a profoundly useful and important site that tells you How to make your weblog (and by extension your website) more accessible....
Upmystreet (July 11, 2002) So I'm approaching the end of my first week at upmystreet.com and so far I've mostly experienced a substantial degree of culture shock. It's so quiet here. The main noise is far-away typing and air conditioning. My normal exuberant wit...
New York Mac Orgy... (July 11, 2002) It must be the coolest Mac party of recent memory - the free-for-all Lapdance (to be held next Thursday in New York). Sponsorted by Wired, it will take place at Remote Lounge, a "digital entertainment lounge" in the East Village....
On Blogchalking... (July 9, 2002) What the hell is wrong with you people? Whorechalking is way funnier and more useful than fucking blogchalking....
A history of the ancient world... (July 9, 2002) So I was in Borders today, kind of looking for some kind of decent contemporary history of the Ancient World, because for some reason I never really managed to fit together some of the periods that I studied when I...
Scissors, Paper, Stone... (July 8, 2002) Long standing assumption: In the game of 'scissors, paper, stone' unless informed of the tendency of men to choose scissors on their first attempt, most men will tend towards choosing scissors on their first attempt. Scissors having psychological attractions for...
Party in the Park 2... (July 8, 2002) Weblog Party in the Park head-and-shoulder shots confirm that I am no longer the slimmest, nor the prettiest British weblogger. Sigh. Life is cruel....
On Lucky Star - advert, not movie... (July 8, 2002) It purports to be a film trailer. But the film isn't on Benecio Del Toro's entry on IMDB. It has a funky website, but it looks like a car advert. It's directed by Michael Mann, corporate-hunting director of The Insider,...
On starting at UMS... (July 8, 2002) I feel sick....
Introducing Whorechalking... (July 7, 2002) First there was war-dialing - where brute force was used to ring hundreds upon hundreds of phone numbers in the hope that one of them would give you access to a computer network. Then came war-driving - where geeks drove...
Saying farewell to Captain Fez... (July 7, 2002) Yesterday was a bit overwhelming. I went for dim sum to say goodbye to Luke, met loads of geeeks in Soho Square, went shopping with Cal and a guy called Paul, returned to Luke in the pub where thousands of...
Weird irritating Blog top 30... (July 6, 2002) Another annoying top list of UK weblogging: Which UK weblogs are the most popular Internet destinations?...
Buffy vs. Osama Bin Laden... (July 6, 2002) So it's Buffy vs Osama Bin Laden - Round one, Ding Ding! Metaquoting from Metafilter: "Any structured intellectual approach to describing this situation — and planning for it — is so uncertain that a valid structure can only be developed...
My boss's son has a website... (July 5, 2002) I found a neat little site this evening, with a few elegant little touches - become looks rather unassuming, but contains a full version of Connect 4, Pong, a rather elegant font called Feynman, and my favourite feature - the...
Google Link mapping application... (July 5, 2002) I think I'm in love with the Google Link Browser. It's particularly good fun when you're playing with weblogs....
On the end of a tiny era... (July 5, 2002) It occurs to me that the job at the BBC that I've just finished might very well have been the most satisfying working experience of my life to date....
Passed over by the Guardian... (July 4, 2002) Bloody Guardian Unlimited. Unlimited my arse. Limited. Limited in linkybloglove for yours truly. Link to every other bloody weblogger in the universe why don't you. Don't worry about me. It's not that I'm a dirty link slut. Oh no. But...
On Boremongering... (July 4, 2002) Word of the day: Boremonger - being someone who in defiance of international treaties commits crimes against humanity of the order of resolutely producing offensively boring content designed to pulp the higher faculties of the brain....
On launching new projects (July 3, 2002) Is there anything more stressful in New Media life than launch dates? I've been at the BBC three and a half months and Friday will be my last day working with Greg Dyke's Making it Happen project. During my time...
Bartificial Additives! (July 3, 2002) It's all shiny and new and designed just for you - Barty Trabaca has remodelled his online pied-a-terre in a contemporary apple green and powder blue combination with some experimental avante-garde typography and a stunningly apropros Mac OSX Aqua style...
The BBC needs Freaky Babies! (July 3, 2002) It may be hard to believe, but this morning at work I was asked to produce this picture of a freaky baby for a very important BBC event. Turns out they won't need it after all. Which is a relief....
How to spot a Highwayman... (July 2, 2002) He is a dandy highwayman? Or maybe he's a New Romantic throw-back? Or maybe he's a bit of gay homosexual? How do you spot a highwayman?...
Speaking of Anusol, You never thought of mine.... (July 1, 2002) Speaking of Anusol (and Stalin), I was surprised to discover today that the Piles Advisory Bureau is sponsored by the zinc-filled butt cream. And more surprised still to see that the PAB is currently running a competition to win a...
Self-perpetuating linkwankery part 10450... (July 1, 2002) Observant plasticbag fans will probably have noticed the "How did they get here" box at the bottom of the page - a cunning piece of kit supplied by Stephen's Web. Concept in a nutshell - publically available referrer log -...
Shaking a stick at Matt Jones... (July 1, 2002) More Matt Jones than you could shake a stick at this morning. The most important article being over at the BBC's dot.life section. I've heard that the eyebrows follow you wherever you go. Even to the loo. So be wary....
