I am unemployed, almost completely out of money, single and love-free, my flat is a disaster area and I can't seem to get a handle on the redesign of Barbelith. Still, mustn't ¥KVETCH.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Jason Kottke, commander of Osil8... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/01/1999 09:27:40 PM ----- BODY:Jason Kottke, commander of the omnipotent 0sil8, also runs a particularly fine weblog, dripping with design savvy. So visit kottke.org - it truly is the home of fine hypertext products.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: An epinion on Natural Born Killers... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/01/1999 11:30:09 PM ----- BODY:There is something really frustrating about writing something that you think is quite good and then having to think of what to write to follow it up. On the other hand I could be being precious. You decide - read my epinion on Natural Born Killers.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Forrest Gump - bastard evil vile film - and now epinioned... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/02/1999 12:20:47 AM ----- BODY:I think it is important that I make my opinions clear about Forrest Gump.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: A morning visit to the HSX... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/02/1999 05:06:58 PM ----- BODY:No morning is complete without a visit to the Hollywood Stock Exchange.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Final Fantasy VIII... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/02/1999 06:57:27 PM ----- BODY:To be honest, I can't even tell whether or not this is sad. Is anyone else my age excited about Final Fantasy VIII. I bought the last one on a whim, and it was gripping. Occasionally repetitive, but gripping nonetheless. Start saving your pennies...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: We're running out of information? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/02/1999 07:27:26 PM ----- BODY:Is it true? Can we possibly be running out of information? Is being catalogued and annotated faster than we can find it out? Smug's Leslie Harpold thinks so. Read "net worth".
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Megnut is a well constructed STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/02/1999 11:07:46 PM ----- BODY:Megnut is a well constructed and clear weblog that I am contemplating completely ripping off. I feel completely trapped by the dictates of a unifying design scheme (die, barbelith, die). Oh the horror. God knows, if anyone can think of anything, they should let me know as soon as possible. Tom
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On Blogger... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/03/1999 10:25:04 AM ----- BODY:The secret behind many a wonderful weblog is the incalculable power of blogger. It has a hell of a lot to recommend it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Soul-destroying web-design... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/03/1999 10:27:29 AM ----- BODY:Designing web pages is invigorating and stimulating when it works and frustrating and soul-destroying (seriously) when it doesn't. When I need a clue, or a bit of constructive advice, I go to A List Apart.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Time Out London Guide... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/03/1999 10:39:05 AM ----- BODY:Tomorrow I start a couple of days work updating the film section of the Time Out London Guide. Check it out.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Self-aggrandising paean to self-important individualism? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/03/1999 06:30:16 PM ----- BODY:I think I've sold you all out. I have been talking with an ex, and he thinks that I have turned this front page from a non-functioning advert for the collective to a self-aggrandising paean to self-important individualism. What you you think?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Ally McParanoid Schizophrenia STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/03/1999 10:20:55 PM ----- BODY:Does anyone other than me think that it is commendable that Ally McBeal's main love interest is on the brink of crippling hair loss? I have to say I am delighted, as I am approaching that brink myself. It's one (only mildly sarcastic) good thing to say for the almost offensively conservative programme. And I'm sorry but, if your delusions make you physically attack young children, you're not 'kooky' - you're suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Oh hated redesign... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/04/1999 10:49:17 AM ----- BODY:So - everyone on the Nexus hates the new look for this site. Which is a bit disappointing, I have to admit. It seems slightly pathetic to actually ask people for nice comments.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Film Festivals... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/04/1999 01:06:31 PM ----- BODY:Finding out information on film festivals in London is extraordinarily difficult. The only one that seems to have a damn site is the London Film Festival. It looks like it has the first British screening of American Beauty...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: You can ride them like ponies... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/04/1999 08:58:28 PM ----- BODY:"In my world there are people in chains and you can ride them like ponies." Supreme Dominatrix? Nope - Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The world gets weirder by the minute. If I didn't know better, I'd say we had already won...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: New job jitters... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/05/1999 12:58:06 AM ----- BODY:It's 1am and I can't sleep. I am starting a new job on Monday working for Time Out in London. I will be Deputy ******** on their website. Something half editorial and technical. I was really looking forward to it until this afternoon, when I talked to someone about the job. They have scared me rather badly and I find myself concerned that I have signed myself up for several months of drudgery without the chance to do anything constructive. It's probably nothing to worry about.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: d|i|s|i|n|f|o|r|m|a|t|i|o|n STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/05/1999 12:59:35 AM ----- BODY:Everyone knows about d|i|s|i|n|f|o|r|m|a|t|i|o|n but it bears repeating. All the information you could ever need to know about all the things that you are not supposed to know about.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The world is fucked up... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/05/1999 09:04:36 AM ----- BODY:So a 13 year-old school-boy is told to write a scary story for Halloween. He writes one (a pretty bad one at that), it gets a really good grade and he reads it out in class for extra credit. The story is considered to be a threat to his school mates, and he is taken to court and put in a juvenile detention facility for five days as punishment. Perhaps we haven't won yet after all...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Strange Cults of Webloggers... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/05/1999 08:51:18 PM ----- BODY:There was an Invisibles site called Target One a while back, and now the guy who built it runs Attack Force D, which is another weblog. I'm not entirely sure I knew what I was getting into when I started this - there seems to be this strange, hallucinatory cult of webloggers in the world. It's ... nice somehow.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Up on the roof... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/06/1999 12:42:31 AM ----- BODY:Occasionally, during the summer, when it got really hot and the air conditioning wasn't working at work, I used to sneak away from my desk on the second floor of the Time Out building and clamber from the balconies on the seventh floor up the service ladders and onto the roof. You can see all of London from up there - the Houses of Parliament, Canary Wharf, the Post Office Tower... I'm pretty sure I am not supposed to have done it. If I'd taken some photos, perhaps I could have sent them to Infiltration.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Inspirational minidiscing... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/06/1999 01:06:01 AM ----- BODY:My friend Michael is trying to finish his doctorate in Bristol at the moment. I fear it is a project doomed to failure but he has surprised me in the past (to put it mildly). He's asked me to send him a mixer minidisc so that he has something to listen to. I've been checking out the selection of ideas at red balloon and have come to the conclusion that they urgently need your help.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: What to do for New Year's Eve? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/06/1999 01:26:19 AM ----- BODY:The question in the air at the moment amongst my friends seems to be what to do for New Year's Eve. I've looked at various helpful sites but it hasn't really helped. Where shall we be when our lives are upgraded to version Y2K.1? Nick seems concerned that the Millenium bug will cause cars and planes to crash into mobs of similarly destructive Millennial cults and has suggested getting some people together somewhere in the west of England. I think it's an ark thing. Toby is determined to take polaroid pictures of people in the dome in Greenwich. What can be said.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Dogma previews... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/06/1999 01:44:15 PM ----- BODY:It has appalled the religious right in America, enthralled and amused reviewers and is generally considered to be Kevin Smith's most accomplished movie. And Dogma isn't even out yet.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On Britain's Millennium Map... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/06/1999 01:47:18 PM ----- BODY:Britain's Millennium Map - is it a historic achievement or an infringement of our privacy?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Reviews of The Bomb, Reviews of Chasing Amy... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/07/1999 12:44:01 AM ----- BODY:The Bomb has been given a wonderfully flattering review by Comics International.
Read my epinion on Chasing Amy.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Exploit the ethics of revolutionaries... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/07/1999 01:01:09 AM ----- BODY:British television at the moment is dripping with advertisements that parody or exploit the ethics of revolutionaries or non-capitalist states. There is something extremely unsettling about a Chinese gentlemen with a dodgy accent in Communist uniform stating that a brand of Chinese food represents "a Chinese Revolution". An advert for Twix recently claimed that the Russian cosmonaut in the advert had "less spine than this capitalist snack". But the most bizarre of all has to be the new Financial Times advert which has Lenin talking about share portfolios and "not Karl Marx, but Deutschmarks".
I feel slightly as if anti-capitalist memes are being raped in front of me - is it the equivalent of Roman soldiers sodomising their enemies after military victories? Fight back. Pollute the advertising meme-stream with adbusters.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: TimeOut.com here I come... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/08/1999 08:57:34 AM ----- BODY:Today I start work at timeout.com. More information on what I am up to when I have it. In the meantime, any suggestions on how to improve the site? *spark online is an interesting site which explores the frontiers of thought on technology. Get involved in their electronic consciousness. The propoganda section of Infinite Race has some wonderful nuggets of resistance. Abuse of power comes as no surprise. Holodeck 73 describes itself as an inspirational launchpad. Good design and a thousand interesting links. Read my epinion of Cube.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I survived my first day... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/09/1999 09:17:59 AM ----- BODY:I survived my first day in the new job. I can't say that it was exactly what I had in mind, but it could have considerable potential. I'll let you know in a few days. The quest to find out what my job title is and when I get paid begins today. Wish me luck.
A little quote from the official British government's Millennial survival guide: "What is the Millennium Bug? It's not a virus and you certainly can't catch it." I have decided to pretend that it is not the most facile comment ever made and instead make believe that they are simply lying, and that the Millenium Bug is the first computer problem to jump species.
I found this wonderful story at The Onion the other day. You go girls.
I went to the launch party for the new Neonlit book, where my friend Rhonda won £500 which she has to spend in two weeks with nothing to show for it. Turns out part of my job at Time Out is to help run the Neonlit site. I think it could be time to talk to Derek and Shauna at the fray and ember.org - two of my favourite online writing sites.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm Assistant Editor of timeout.com... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/10/1999 09:30:31 AM ----- BODY:I'm Assistant Editor of timeout.com, which is nice. I also get paid at the end of the month. All questions answered to my satisfaction.
The Wax has a wonderful regular poll - "Am I Normal?". Do you have complete conversations with yourself?
My friend Will does. He decided to come and stay at my place last night and flirt with my favourite barman, and then launched into a huge rant about how he has scary premonitions. This morning his new rant was about how when money becomes more electronic "they" will be able to control it more easily. Not the most detailed or fully-worked-out conspiracy theories ever, I have to say.
If you are after a detailed conspiracy theory to accessorise your daily rebellion, then why not try the Montauk project? There are thousands of damn sites about it.
I am a real fan of the design at hoggorm.com/ although for the life of me I can't be bothered to find out what it's about.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Assemblers, Irritability and Kinky Friedman... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/11/1999 09:05:38 AM ----- BODY:Before I get going, get this - someone is trying to build an Assembler!
I blew off two separate groups of friends last night so I could hide at home after work and watch bad TV. I walk in my door only to discover that Will is still there - sitting on my bed munching on bread and humous. My hopes for a piece of complete downtime dashed, I become moody and irritable.
This evening I am going to see Kinky Friedman in Camden with a group of friends. I've only vaguely understood the allure, so tonight should be an interesting experience.
Epinions has changed the format of their pages again, clumping up the loves and hates lists. Ick. Still, I'm sure I'll get used to it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: No censorship in MIT webspace... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/13/1999 12:20:33 PM ----- BODY:I remember a time when being at University meant savage and unwelcome censorship of web-space. Apparently this is no longer the case. Look at the wonderfully offensive things that MIT allows nowadays...
Missed yesterday's entry, which felt a little odd. It was my younger brother's birthday (he's fourteen now). He's been packed off to boarding school by parents eager to inculcate in him the ways of the uber-class. I bought him a copy of Day of the Triffids and some sweets from Muji. We will see (in years to come) whether or not he thinks I was a good brother.
Kinky Friedman was amazing. Classic songs like "They don't make Jews like Jesus any more" and "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed". There can't be many people more subversive than a Jewish Texan Country Singer / Detective Novelist.
There are some weird epinions things going on around the net. People seem to be becoming affiliates (glassdog, peterme), although quite why escapes me. I suppose there must be some point to it.
Speaking of personal sites - I have just stumbled upon jezebel.com. Frankly the world can do with more "impudent, shameless, or morally unrestrained" people.
Now I must go to the gym so I can contemplate the overt body facism of western capitalism...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Nexus Online Poetry Slam... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/14/1999 07:33:37 PM ----- BODY:
Announcing the first ever Nexus Online Poetry Slam! All the details are in the Core. I went to see Fight Club yesterday evening. Then I came home and wrote a long, complicated and detailed epinion about it. And then my computer crashed. Epinion lost. Today I have been visiting Pippa in Highgate. She is an old flatmate of mine who has moved into a flat with another old flatmate of mine purely for the purposes of making me neurotic with flat in-jokes and knowing looks. I'm kidding of course... Under the instruction of megnut, I went to find out my Wu-Tang Clan name. I was less than thrilled to find out it was "Dizzy Cow". Here's a few of my other friends. (If you don't believe me - check it for yourself!)
Nick Cornwell - Furtive Ventriloquist
Chris Bell - Ol` Filthy, Sweaty Bastard
Max Prutzel-Thomas - Temporary Spastic
Kate Myers - The Nation`s Favourite Galoot
Toby Stone - The Littlest Vandal
Pippa Sturt - Sweaty Butcher
Melanie Goldblatt - Tha Ever So Weary Assistant
Some things get me very unhappy. One of them is being completely crushed by someone else's pure design superiority. I am in awe of saturn.org.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Ruminations on Weblogs... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Personal Publishing CATEGORY: Personal Publishing DATE: 11/15/1999 10:29:24 PM ----- BODY:You can't talk about your life because people you know read them. I have on occasion (yesterday for one) suggested to a few friends that they should look at the site because there was this really satisfying link on it which I thought they should see. This is fine. But then you begin to realise that everyone has looked at it at one point or another - for god's sake your e-mail address has barbelith.com in it.
And then your fourteen year old brother is wondering whether or not your parents should be told about the what you have said on the site. And should I really be advocating the dismantling of the phallogocentric hetero-orthodoxy within his tender earshot? More to the point, how on earth are you going to talk about sex when you know your brother (half your age) is looking over your shoulder?
And speaking about sex - what happens when the people you want to talk about also read your weblog? You can't be honest. Period.
When I have had a hard day at the office, sometimes I like to relax by watching a balding web god scratch himself and listen to the Chemical Brothers. I plan to have him on screen at all times when I am at work. I think it will soothe me.
Look for the little downward arrow on the left side of glassdog.com. When you click on it, a whole new world of advertising wonder opens up for you. I like the idea of an advertising system like this, an unobtrusive mutual advertising system where good products are rewarded with loyal advertisers and bad products fail. Such is the web...
Hmmm... There's a lamentable shortage of links here today - not much of a web-log. Here are some cool places to go for a couple of minutes: prehensile tales : the finger : maura
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: So I missed another day... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/17/1999 06:34:47 PM ----- BODY:So I missed another day. Perhaps I'm not really committed....
Since I started working at Time Out full-time, I no longer seem to read a newspaper or keep up with the daily news. I no longer have any idea what is going on in the world. I can't even be bothered to read The Onion.
Being newsfree for a while makes you feel lighter - it's almost as good as not wearing a watch (which I didn't do for two years). I wonder how long it will last.
So tonight I have been invited to watch a football match in Finsbury Park (the pub's called the Fulback on Perth Road if anyone fancies joining us). I don't care about football in the slightest. It is not an affectation - I just don't enjoy it. However there are a large number of people who are going to be there that I like. What does one do? Drink oneself to death while all around burn David Beckham into their collective retinae? I fear I may be bored...
Decisions, decisions. Participation in the Day Without Art is much more my kind of thing. I can't decide whether I should participate though. I'll follow the instructions of the first person who e-mails me.
Evil, subversive site of the day must go to the tremendous disobey.com. Ghost sites is a laugh, netslaves cuts a little close to the bone for my liking, and the disobey news network will keep you bogged down with information for a few hours. Not that I read it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Football, weblog moods and stuff... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/18/1999 11:52:11 PM ----- BODY:A couple of things to talk about today. Where shall we begin? Um.
Guess what! About bloody time...
The new issue of The Invisibles is out. Tremendous news all round. Annotations, discussion, barbelith gets very exciting at these times of the month...
Weblog mood and it's relationship to daily page views
So what is the relationship between mood and page views? I have been analysing this over the last couple of weeks and have come to the conclusion that no one wants to read people being depressed. Or at least the people that DO want to read about people being depressed are slightly scary.
Let's put my theory to the test:
Cheery Logs:
absolute piffle
lemon yellow
mood swings
Naughty Logs:
eatonweb blog
have browser will travel
Sad/Cross Logs:
damn dirty ape
What's this football thing about then, eh?
I went to watch the football. I didn't understand how anyone could get so excited. Lost on me completely. I tried to explain to the assembled masses that if the players had handlebar moustaches, smoking jackets, armchairs and muskets, the game would be both more civilised and more entertaining. They resolutely refused to see reason.
Exciting new retail opportunities...
Seems you can buy anything on the net nowadays. Do you have a Zombie? Do you need a brain? Brains4Zombies.com is for you...
Catastrophe
My link to the great trans-cultural overmind has been severed. I still have TV, but since I am never in I have to use my VCR. But today I find that it doesn't work and many episodes of TV series have been eaten. I don't feel as liberated as perhaps I should. I need a new VCR.
I have lost count of the days recently in which there has been something that I really wanted to talk about and yet have not been able to.
Instead - see if you can trigger some form of latent epilepsy with this little gem of net freakishness. It has no point.
I'll be sorting out the annotations and news for The Bomb tomorrow morning. Now I plan to go and get trashed on cocktails.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On the Stately Homo... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/21/1999 07:10:06 PM ----- BODY:On the decline of the stately homo:
It's the end of the world. Quentin Crisp has died. He had a lot of very strange opinions - and a blue rinse - but he will be much missed.
On swear words:
Just a little piece on the use of the word "badger". Pippa had a car. The car was old. It didn't go very fast. Pippa had a twin sister called Bella. Bella and Pippa had overactive imaginations. The engine of Pippa's car was described as being powered by badgers. The badgers had names - I forget what they were.
So this charming little imaginative fiction comes to public attention when the car is being driven up a hill. Pippa declares she is about to "whip the badgers", and places a delicately heeled foot firmly onto the accelerator.
"Whipping the badgers" becomes, very quickly, a phrase that generates widespread hilarity due to its similarity with certain expressions referring to the stimulation of the male genital by its owners hand.
Keep in mind my brother sometimes reads this weblog.
"Perhaps", people say, "this is the female equivalent! And perhaps, therefore, to call someone a "badger" is to be almost as offensive as to refer to them by the commonplace vernacular for the organ in question. What a jape!"
There's a discussion all about swearwords on the Nexus at the moment (which includes another version of the "badger" creation myth), started by a devilishly foxy young actor. Frankly, you'd think he'd have better things to do with his time...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Jeffrey Archer - Rot in Hell... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/22/1999 11:00:02 PM ----- BODY:All together now - "Jeffrey Archer, rot in hell, rot in hell, rot in hell..." Watch with glee as a modern (downmarket) Sir Miles Delacourt rip-off gets his comeuppance. It's like getting Capone on tax evasion. Wonderful.
Every good student of deconstructive philosophy knows that any text can be seen to be advocating any one position and its direct opposite. Watch with awe as I write an epinion about Halloween that manages to justify it as a subversive and revolutionary text. You'll moisten. Trust me.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Fans of Attack Force D? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/22/1999 11:12:21 PM ----- BODY:Fans of Attack Force D (which include me) don't think he's ripped off barbelith at all. What do you think?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The beginning of the end... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/24/1999 09:07:01 AM ----- BODY:I don't know - you finally figure out that you do want to go out with a person that you've been vacillating about for ages, only to find that you've missed the boat by a week. And it's his birthday.
I don't quite understand what has happened, and frankly I find it quite hard to believe that a mere blond engineering student could have arsed things up. So basically it must have been me that threw the spanner in the works sometime over the last few weeks. Far, far from the land of happy bunnies...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Don't let the bastards grind you down... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/25/1999 09:31:28 AM ----- BODY:So I found this wonderful link back to The Bomb today. I have no idea what it says, but it sounds great. To quote: "Nìo » o site oficial do escritor Grant Morrison mas » como se fosse. Mantido por Tom Coates com um design super cool." See? Super cool...
Got a couple of e-mails about the state of my love life, which is a little unsettling, but cool nonetheless. To you people I say - keep your chin up and don't let the bastards grind you down.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Intratextual thinking... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/26/1999 11:34:08 PM ----- BODY:Here's an exchange for you from the Nexus. Possibly my favourite in some time. Discussing the latest issue of Grant Morrison's Invisibles...
IANJONES: And what struck me about this issue is how full of references to incidents in my own life it is. I will not go on about them because its dull. I imagine you all found similar references however, in which case the comic has achieved a kind reification of the hologramatic universe and the surface of magic mirror.
GANESHA: Yeah, it reminds me of how I daubed myself with my friend's ashes last year, and that time we infiltrated the cyphermen factory.
IANJONES: I was actually thinking a little more intratextually than that.
Well it made me laugh. For those of you that are interested, I have put up as many of the annotations for the new issue as I could, and there you go...
I haven't been suggesting many sites recently. However I can wholeheartedly recommend k10k.com for its design nous alone. Expect heavy influence on barbelith from them...
What else has happened to me recently? I won the soundtrack to Fight Club in a bizarre online competition accident. I'd tell you more, but I think I'm on to a "nice little earner". It's wonderfully moody and cool in places (and drags like buggery in other places). All I can say is, like most music, it just gets better the louder you play it.
I went to see EDtv, but don't think it interesting enough to write an epinion about. You shouldn't let that stop you watching it though - it's an idle afternoon's entertainment.
I have just found a book by Huysmans (you should all read his stuff - I swear it is wonderful) called La Bas, which includes first hand information on fin de siÀcle 19th Century Black Masses. A must buy.
Let me just undercut my "supercool" image by mentioning at this point that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer three video boxed set of the first half of the first series is now available in UK shops.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: A panoply of epinions... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/27/1999 03:55:15 PM ----- BODY:OK. So let's get something out of the way first. I know that not everyone agrees with my epinions (and I am sorry to go on about it so much, but I can't help thinking it's a great idea), but I don't understand why some of them are much read, and some haven't been read at all. It's got nothing to do with what the film is - Forrest Gump and Natural Born Killers are read a lot, while The Matrix, My Fair Lady, South Park, Head On and The Astronaut's Wife - well, no one seems to want to go near them with a barge pole. WHY!?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On being upbeat... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/28/1999 09:47:39 PM ----- BODY:A more upbeat weblog than normal...
I have a scheme... So I am currently working on a cunning new project that will unite all the various strands of the barbelith collective into one handy sized micro capsule of joy. The new venture is to be called "Microlith".
This is the way it works... I construct a pocket-sized easy to update mini-Barbelith, which will include little extra barbelith-esque treats - a sample from the Xenolith weblog, a random "Invisibles" quote machine, which will pump out elegant Morrison bon-mots and a "Dice Man" decision making machine. This micro site will be viewable in a tiny window about 150 x 250 pixels in size.
Now here's the clever bit. Those of you who are interested in daily interesting content will put a little code onto your pages. When people come to your pages, a pop-up window will appear (like those really annoying ads on Tripod and Geocities). Except THIS pop-up window not only has interesting content (see above), but also works as a form of web-ring, because every site that includes the code will also be listed in the members section of the micro-site - thus improving inter-Invisibles communications on our burgeoning micro-community.
I have been scheming this scheme for ages, and I think the novel combination of interesting content, webring and advert could really catch on. I'll hopefully have it up and running by the end of the week (at which point I am hopefully undertaking a second barbelith redesign in line with my new starker aesthetic). The Dice Man should follow shortly afterwards.
I went to see The World is Not Enough yesterday, and am horrified to report that I slept through a good third of it. Probably the only interesting part (that I saw) was the scriptwriters move from evil arch-criminals to the unlikely pairing of anarchists and uber-capitalists. The stuff that I did see didn't seem particularly up to par, but because of my abbreviated viewing I don't think I can really be expected to epinion it.
I got an e-mail from Tracy Scarpino about my writing on epinions and the xenolith weblog. For some ungodly reason she is getting a kick out of hearing about my family and my love life. So I thought I'd indulge her and reveal a few more crumbs about my little brother.
He's 14 (as of a couple of weeks ago) and attends a boarding school in Northants. He's called Peter and is by far my favourite relative, being decent and intelligent. Initially I was really anti- this whole boarding school thing, but if any kid is going to get the best out of it, I think it's him (I hope that he'd tell me if he hated it - he hasn't done yet). He is a great fan of the Simpsons, loves Cricket, the new Volkswagen Beetle, and (if the history file of his browser is anything to go by) is also quite the young male fan of Jennifer Aniston as well.
As yet there is no news on whether or not he is a proto-revolutionary punk anarchist, but I guess time will tell.
More examples of astonishing web design tomorrow....
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Microlith proceeds apace... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/30/1999 12:03:04 AM ----- BODY:Microlith proceeds apace. Heh heh heh.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Links from work... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/30/1999 11:04:44 AM ----- BODY:Bit of a change of pace today, as barbelith is updated directly from my place of work whenever I take a break.
I have stumbled upon a benefit that is happening in Los Angeles later this month. Gillian Anderson (Scully on 'The X-Files') is hosting it, and it is in aid of The Trevor Helpline. This is the first round-the-clock national toll-free suicide helpline for gay teens, who are three times more likely to attempt to take their life than their heterosexual peers are.
I don't normally go for advertising charity events, but gay suicides are robbing America and the world of sexual dissidents. What kind of system generates such mind control that those who can't follow the rules feel their only option is to kill themselves?
[Today's weblog comes to you live from Tom's place of work, Time Out in London]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Linkage... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 11/30/1999 06:11:55 PM ----- BODY:Not as many breaks as I hoped to have today, unfortunately. Still never mind. Bored with the hegemony of authors having their say? Shred it.
Occasionally I think you should look around at the people you work with and thank god that they are tense and irritable instead of me. Of course you only have time to do that when you are not tense and irritable yourself. In the meantime, these stressed people should be a source of endless entertainment.
Update on love-life. After several days of distance from my twenty-year-old (and an interesting sexual interlude with a young American) I feel genuinely more comfortable and settled with things. Young chap wants to be friends, which generated the wonderful comment from my tactless friend: "What the hell would you do with a twenty-year-old FRIEND!?". I, of course, only grudgingly saw the funny side.
So in the meantime I have decided just to flirt with my favourite barperson and leave it at that. Pretty sure he's not interested, but like all decent barpeople, he knows exactly how to maintain a decent level of intrigue without actually putting out.
According to evhead, "One in three men lie about the size of their e-mail inboxes by over-estimating the number of e-mails they receive - proving that size matters as much online as anywhere else."
Fed up of being at work now. I'm going home...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Microlith... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/01/1999 11:22:56 AM ----- BODY: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...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: A day without art... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/01/1999 12:38:17 PM ----- BODY: |
A range of important information that everyone should know about:
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...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Reviewing Fight Club... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/01/1999 10:31:50 PM ----- BODY:I wrote a review of Fight Club. Don't read it. I have no idea what I think about it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Epinions just can't stay still! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/02/1999 09:24:10 AM ----- BODY: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...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Tom's top ten restaurants... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Food & Drink CATEGORY: Food & Drink DATE: 12/02/1999 05:39:32 PM ----- BODY: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 end.
Tom's top ten restaurants/bars in London:
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 this story would get out. Hoping that the level of violence inflicted on non-violent protesters, peacefully assembled, would wake a lot of people up and show them the level of democracy in this country. Hoping that people would see what the level of force aimed at people who peacefully oppose the interests that are dominant in this country and the world. I returned home to have this hope crushed. The local news stations were reporting on the broken windows of businesses and not the broken bones of protesters. They reported on things like "police fatigue." Which I assume is when your arms get tired after you beat people for hours. They talked -and continue to talk about- the extremely "restraint, openmindedness, and gentleness" displayed by police."
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: No-Corporate Creative Poll... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/04/1999 11:33:13 AM ----- BODY: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 take part in the barbelith no-corporate creative poll.
There are over fifty creative and intelligent sites listed. All you have to do is check out a different three or four each day until the new year and vote on which one of them gives you most hope for the future of the web. This way I get to introduce you all to a whole huge world of wonder on the web.
SEE THE POLL IN ITS NATURAL HABITAT
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On exhaustion... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/05/1999 10:26:53 PM ----- BODY: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 before I can sleep.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On SUFFOCATE... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/06/1999 09:22:31 AM ----- BODY: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.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The Grant Street Journal... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/06/1999 09:27:26 AM ----- BODY:The Grant Street Journal is a well designed personal project dripping with bittersweet insights and gripping content. Well worth a visit.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On Famewhore... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/06/1999 09:34:14 AM ----- BODY: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 to KILL...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Arsdigita poll... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/06/1999 09:35:33 AM ----- BODY: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!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Could this be Peter Quayle? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/06/1999 03:50:25 PM ----- BODY: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 - particularly when one of your sites (this one) is the net equivalent of airing your problems with your transexual partner on Jerry Springer.
The person you are talking to suddenly gets an immediate insight into every aspect of your life - which can be particularly awkward their sites are well-designed corporate creatures, free of discussion of sex lives, family members, ex-partners and ongoing American TV series.
Time will tell what the reaction will be...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Note to self... Be more evil... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/06/1999 09:19:44 PM ----- BODY:DAMN IT. DAMN IT. I FAILED THE ENTRANCE EXAM AT EvilPeople, INC. Note to self. Be More Evil.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Too much work to do... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/07/1999 03:30:55 PM ----- BODY: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.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'll show you mine... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/08/1999 01:14:15 PM ----- BODY: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 "i'll show you mine if you show me yours" discussion which started on Monday. It's just got a little, well, corporate. Don't know what I think about it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I have no idea who I had lunch with... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/08/1999 03:37:42 PM ----- BODY: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 Time Out Christmas Card as soon as possible.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Heavy week for press screenings... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/09/1999 03:51:03 PM ----- BODY: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. By the end of the evening he was busy pawing Henry, who hardly seemed to notice.
Next Monday I have a press screening of Three Kings to attend. In fact this is a pretty heavy week for press screenings - and I will try to get something written for epinions on any films that are on general release in America. I think one of them is called Body Shots, and features Jerry O'Connell from Sliders.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Day from hell? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/10/1999 10:42:19 AM ----- BODY: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 hair cut, run back and work all afternoon, see a press screening (Tumbleweed) and then proceed to a drunken party. I fear I will be very tired tomorrow.
I think the non-corporate art poll is being highjacked by people from the various sites concerned. It's very important for you people to make your votes count!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Prehensile apologies... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/10/1999 10:52:22 AM ----- BODY: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.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Zeldman and Tumbleweeds... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/11/1999 12:06:19 PM ----- BODY: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 Tom Coates hopes the poll will guide newcomers to "the best content on the Net" Ò since the big portals clearly don't do this job. (They point to large corporate sites that advertise in their pages.) By nature, polls are popularity contests, and that makes us uneasy. Competition is beside the point. We think the last entry should read "All the Above." Still, we are happy that Barbelith - itself a damn fine site - is promoting independent content on the Web. 'Cause, people, it's our Web, not corporate America's Web."
I am completely honoured to be mentioned at Zeldman since it is, in many ways, the decentred centre of the web - connected intimately with the Web Standards Project and the fight to keep original non-corporate content visible on the web. It's as close to representing the "spirit of the web pioneers" as you can get.
I don't agree about the popularity poll thing though. I agree that polls are by their nature competitive - but only if they are taken seriously! The poll was designed to get people to look at some of the best independent content that the web has to offer, and the interactive part is merely a means to that end. However, if people think that it is against the spirit of the sites themselves then I'll remove it post haste...
TUMBLEWEEDS
Last night I went to the press screening of Tumbleweeds. It was an affecting, slightly off-kilter film, which didn't opt for the easy answers. I basically liked it. But it was more interesting as a treatment of mothers. You felt sympathy for the mother who serially marries and runs across the country with her young daughter, pulling her in and out of schools, getting involved with abusive and violent men. She was portrayed as so childlike and confused herself that she almost couldn't be held accountable for her actions.
I sat there thinking that although the film was entirely convincing and moving, exactly the same story, with the same script but a different director, could have just as easily portrayed her as an inhuman monster.
This aspect slightly perturbed me. It made me wonder what actions couldn't be justified on screen with a sensitive back-story and a likable actor/actress. And whether the love of her daughter should really be taken as such a barometer of her morality. It seemed just as likely to me that the daughter in ten years time would resent her mother with a vengeance.
I'll think about it a bit more and then I'll post an epinion.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Three small things: Croon, Zeldman, Tumbleweeds... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/11/1999 09:06:35 PM ----- BODY: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 that EVERYONE goes and looks at the site today and votes for it (should they feel that way inclined).
Zeldman himself (awe) has written to me and explains his feelings on the poll. Having heard him out properly, and heard his position through, I must confess I think I agree with him. Um. Finally, I wrote the damn epinion on Tumbleweeds. I am now consumed with guilt as I think I sound right-wing and single mother hating, which fills me with horror.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: American Gigolo... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/12/1999 12:25:36 AM ----- BODY: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...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Traffic to Barbelith... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/12/1999 09:54:50 AM ----- BODY: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...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Vote for me... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/12/1999 09:57:41 AM ----- BODY: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.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Christmas Shopping... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/12/1999 02:47:12 PM ----- BODY: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 ubercorporations. I must be getting old.
Here's an interesting site for you: The Incunabula Papers. I'll let you make up your own mind about it though because I have yet to make up my mind.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Wahoo... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/13/1999 10:39:22 AM ----- BODY:Yay! The Bomb is the top rated site at Wahoo.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Romantic Apocalypse? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/14/1999 12:05:12 PM ----- BODY: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 central London under the influence of alcohol and tobacco and freezing my arse off around Leicester Square while feeling like I was about to vomit. An interesting evening.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The Movie Therapist... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Film CATEGORY: Film DATE: 12/14/1999 04:35:44 PM ----- BODY: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 a sad film. Slowly over the years I began to realise that this wasn't the case. So here are some of my recommendations for handling emotional instability through Meme Therapy...
| Lovelorn/Lonely | The immediate temptation when one is in this kind of mood is to go and see some form of romantic comedy. The phrase "comedy" is the killer here, creating the impression that you will be invigorated and cheered up by the story. Unfortunately this is simply not true when you are feeling lovelorn - instead you are likely to find your own situation even more pitiable and begin to hate and resent the film itself. The best solution in these circumstances is to see a film that makes you feel powerful and pro-active, rather than one that makes you feel inadequate. Action films are always relatively good, but don't choose anything with particular lulls in it as these are likely to result in a loss of interest (Pulp Fiction has too large a range of emotional responses for example). A strong figure to identify with style and panache always helps. The Matrix is great for this kind of thing. Another way out of the impasse is to watch a terrifying film which fills you with adrenaline. The original Halloween is particularly good for this, Scream is OK, but Scream 2 is hopeless. If you are of a slightly more cynical bent, you can scrabble a certain amount of pleasure and bile out of a black comedy. This is not recommended for those unfamiliar with Meme Therapy as you are prone to savage eyebrow movements and attacks of biting satirical wit. Recommendations: The Matrix, A Bond Film, Terminator 2, Scream, Halloween. [Cynical Bent: Fight Club, Cube] |
| Anger | There are several forms of anger. If you suffer a form of frustrated anger with an authority figure or the like that you are unable to do anything about in person, then again a decent action film with a strong villain is ideal. However, the most elegant solution to this kind of problem is an anti-establishment comedy which ridicules a figure who represents your enemy rather than destroys them. For anger generated by job pressures, one of the many 80s comeuppance films (Working Girl, Wall Street) work very well. Anger against a partner is the only time when you can effectively watch a romantic comedy, but be careful that you choose the time well as the experience of watching the film will either cause you to forgive your partner and be sensitive and loving for a while, or you will immediately dump them to be with someone you think you can be sensitive or loving with. Be careful, romantic comedies are dangerous things. Recommendations: Working Girl, Wall Street, Mallrats, When Harry Met Sally, One Fine Day, The Matrix. |
That's all for now. Remember these are not general film recommendations, but ways of dealing with and alleviating emotional difficulties that you might be facing. Go with my love, my children.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Rejection and Humiliation... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/15/1999 04:51:15 PM ----- BODY: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 professional. I have been invited to see three separate people tonight - the wonderful Katy who is just down for the night, the heart-squished Josh R, who isn't having the best time in his love-life either and the ever-present Nick, who is determined to go and see Sonatine on the big screen.
I'm going to blow them all off so I can go home and mope effectively. This is good news for people who like barbelith, because these moods generally produce some of my best design work. You leeches...
Is the point of a weblog to record cool places on the net or to be really self-indulgent and talk about whatever you want? Hmmmm - an interesting question...
Americans should use Selectsmart to find the presidential candidate for them. That is, of course, if they are naive enough to believe pre-election promises. Apparently my ideal candidate is Bill Bradley. From having read the summaries of the various positions of the candidates, it's not that far off although the overt policy pronouncements of Al Gore aren't that far away from my own views (except for those views advocating meme terrorism and epistemological insurgency of course). [from Megnut]
I love the idea of iSyndicate and think the design (by the astonishing Powazek) is pretty elegant as well. I'm a little concerned that it will result in the homogenisation of the web, but it is just as likely that it will produce a world of better educated and more informed people. Which I suppose is probably a good thing...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Blogger on drugs... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/16/1999 12:10:16 PM ----- BODY: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 high IQ to decide what colour lip-gloss to wear". If you added to that discussions about inter-racial relationships and cultural stereotyping in Star Trek, you might have some idea of how far I have fallen over the last couple of years. Kudos to Nick to listening to me ramble on last night.
Red Meat appeals to the cynic in me, but is somehow unfulfilling. There's something too easy about most of it. You know - not quite biting enough. Having said that, this one is pretty lovely...
The non corporate poll has got into silly money as the glassdog.org crew blast it with infinite votes. I can't really be cross since it isn't a competition. Still it is a funny thing to do with your time.
In the interests of fairness, here's a few words about a few of the other sites that you should look up if you get a chance: Pixel Junkie is an elegantly designed site (rebuilt a couple of weeks ago) itself filled with links to sites of a similar classy standard. Much recommended. Soulflare takes design completely away from the technocracy of much online work towards a much more fluid, photo-impressionist style (forgive me if I get a bit florid here). A series of rotating exhibitions demonstrate some of the most intelligent work you will find on the net.
On an altogether more amusing note: for those of you who live in London check out pages 4,6 and 44 of the latest issue of Time Out. Advertrasharama.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Blank Faeces... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/16/1999 10:38:48 PM ----- BODY: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 completely ignored everyone who wrote in hoping to get an award.
Most of the sites that people sent to me were pretty bloody awful, but I have only just stumbled upon estetik - a site which was sent to me a month ago with a note asking for feedback. Well frankly, it's wonderful...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Doom Patrol... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/17/1999 11:24:23 AM ----- BODY: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 Crazy Jane. Jane had multiple personality disorder, with a separate super-power for each one. It sounds amusing, but it wasn't - she was a traumatised character who had been abused in her youth and who had absolutely no control over which personality (aggressive, catatonic, violent, sexual) appeared.
I don't mean to scare people, but this cutting-edge and much-loved character may be the focus of a new movie featuring (gulp) Sandra Bullock...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On DisinfoCon... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/17/1999 12:32:12 PM ----- BODY:Disinfo.com is having a conference in NYC. Apparently, Mr Morrison is to attend. Very jealous.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Time Out's Christmas Party... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/18/1999 06:23:42 PM ----- BODY: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 rank waiting for a cab to take me home, and the systematic drunken abuse of a young drug crazed gentleman (and the spending of unnecessary monies) it was probably, all things considered, quite a laugh.
Tonight I have a party in South London, doing gay karaoke. It is so cold outside and I am so poor and hungover that I have to confess the idea doesn't really appeal to me. Still it might be enough general distraction to stop me thinking about various love-life related things. Had a chat to potential main squeeze a couple of days ago, in which he said that he didn't think a relationship between us could work. I replied that I knew that, but that I wanted to do it nonetheless. The only question therefore was whether or not he wanted to as well. He said he'd think about it over Christmas. For such a non-committal answer I feel strangely elated. Time will tell I suppose.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I missed a day... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/20/1999 06:17:05 PM ----- BODY: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 wing and one on the left wing of a finely tuned set of scales. Traditionally, as one party moved further out on its wing, the other party either had to extend itself similarly down its wing or gather more support in the middle. We now have a new model, as the party that moves further and further to the right sheds voters and MPs, while the party on the centre left has a quick lie down and a glass of port.
It's a strange state of affairs when even Tories think their party is too right-wing...
I was going to suggest some links from people who hate Christmas. Yahoo has a reasonably decent selection of pretty average sites made by people who hate Christmas. But I don't hate it - not really - I just hate the inconvenience and responsibility which I feel when it starts to approach. It would be better if Christmas really was a holiday - but families are hardly holidays - in fact quite often quite the opposite.
Still it will be nice to see my brother, who as ever I miss terribly...
No word from potential main squeeze as yet. There probably won't be any unless either I make the effort or the New Year approaches.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Kissing Mister Quimper... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/20/1999 09:29:58 PM ----- BODY: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).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Interstellar Laughing Stock... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/20/1999 10:04:45 PM ----- BODY: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...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: 1000 votes... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/21/1999 09:44:54 AM ----- BODY:The non-corporate poll reaches 1000 votes...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Pirates of Silicon Valley... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/21/1999 01:32:36 PM ----- BODY: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 my feelings towards it - and as time has passed it has remained stuck in my head.
There are a couple of reasons for this - it's portrayal of Bill Gates and Microsoft is resolutely unpleasant, and while Steve Jobs doesn't seem entirely pleasant either, I have more respect for his attitude and his vision. It doesn't hurt that the whole film treats Gates as nothing but a scheming opportunist, nor does it hurt that Jobs is played by Noah Wyle, about who I made one of my first proper sites (and which I still occasionally update). But that isn't all of it.
I think I have fallen for Apple. More musings as they come to me.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On kabbalah.com... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/21/1999 04:57:42 PM ----- BODY: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.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Support the eToys boycott... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/21/1999 07:34:51 PM ----- BODY:Support the eToys boycott (entry Dec 21). More tomorrow.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Neonlit is getting somewhere? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/22/1999 07:24:08 PM ----- BODY: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 fact that there are endless other things I should be doing. Finally got it to a place that I am comfortable with. Take a look. Cheer me up.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Design plague apocalypse... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/23/1999 04:16:52 PM ----- BODY: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 on periphery. Hopefully I will fight it off before it gets a chance to get a foothold. At least today is my last day at work before Christmas - so I can spend tonight watching TV in bed and wrapping presents. Easy, warm, health-producing activities.
There's this wonderful thing in Baudrillard where he says that it is dull to think of the world as approaching an apocalypse, but much more interesting to work on the principle that it has already happened. There's this wonderful thing in Grant Morrison's work in which he talks about how the spiritual armageddon has come and gone and the physical world is just taking a long time to catch up. These ideas appeal to me. But as Y2K approaches, I can't help wondering whether or not we will all be hunter gatherers in the months ahead. For more see fear2k.com.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Death by cold... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/24/1999 09:14:45 AM ----- BODY: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 Norfolk. Note to self: buy cold pills immediately.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Bizarre Christmas Stories... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/26/1999 12:13:30 AM ----- BODY: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 I have the double pleasure of having received a carefully wrapped up can of soup from my uncle while my grandmother insists on wandering around the house saying very loudly, "Where's my pussy!?", "Have you seen my pussy!?".
Frankly I can barely keep a straight face. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Cola Bottle Christmas... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/27/1999 11:48:41 PM ----- BODY:
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 able to restore normal service) by the evening. Weird family stories by the bucket load, but I should probably not tell any of them. I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid conversations about politics, because I know they always end in arguments, but my mother insists that Tony Blair is an elected dictator resolved to consolidate his power. I frankly don't know what to say in response to a comment like that...
So I went to see Mystery Men [IMDB] [Epinions] [Official Site] this evening with my brother, who folded up all the arm rests and lay spread-eagled over several seats stuffing his face with cola bottle sweets. It completely reaffirmed my life-long desire to be a super-villain.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Return to London... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/28/1999 11:41:39 PM ----- BODY: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 has been accumulating - parents, relationships, little fucking arseholes fucking me around - you know - the whole enchilada. Hmmm... Never sworn so heavily on barbelith before. Feels strangely ... satisfying.
So I have finally found a purpose for the millennium. I am going to do a little stocktaking over the next couple of days and purge myself of every last extraneous and pointless thing in my life. I am going to throw away about a half of the crap in my room, get rid of a thousand bad friends, kill off all the sexual intrigue in my life and return to some form of automaton-like emotionless equilibrium. Accenuate the positive. Eliminate the negative... Savagely.
Oh yeah - WEBLOG - sorry - forgot about that for a few days. Hmmm. Let's see... I am currently unthrilled with students, sappy infantile concepts of Christmas, and DHTML snowflakes on web pages (these are all over the place and must be stopped).
A last note: Ask Jeeves doesn't half come up with some weird answers to perfectly reasonable questions...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On being thrilled... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/29/1999 06:37:22 PM ----- BODY: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...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Mystery Men review... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/29/1999 11:45:49 PM ----- BODY:Oops. I accidentally wrote an epinion on Mystery Men.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Etoys lawsuit... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/30/1999 11:29:27 AM ----- BODY:Today's barbelith celebrates etoys decision not to press its utterly ridiculous law suit. Bear in mind though that the precedent probably still stands.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: So it's New Year's Eve... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 12/31/1999 11:31:17 AM ----- BODY: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 events this evening, with a block of people. He is taking survival gear and rucksacks, which frankly sounds horrific to me. Nick, on the other hand, is dangling the possibility of a party filled with sexy young things for later in the evening - whether or not it is before midnight (or indeed where it is) I just don't know!
I feel profoundly exhausted by the requirement to enjoy myself this evening. That can't be right...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On Millennium Eve and how dumb it was... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/01/2000 10:33:09 PM ----- BODY:I wanted to get a new relaunched barbelith up today, but the site is so far away from being completed, that I just can't. Which is a pity. Happy new Millennium people. Use it well.
Last night in a nutshell:
Dull as it seems, my resolution for the upcoming year is to "do more gay things". I have decided that I know altogether too many straight people and far far too few gay people. I mean, am I not in touch with my community? Where is my sense of solidarity?
The web has been completely dead over the last couple of weeks - Christmas particularly killed peoples' desire to surf, and New Year seems to have done the same. The Nexus is almost empty, Kottke and Powazek have hardly been writing at all, there are no new IPOs on HSX and page views on barbelith have halved in around a week. It's all very aggravating.
Wired has exceeded expectations by producing the most boring "Things that will happen in the year 2000" I have ever seen. It's probably accurate, but frankly who cares when the future's so dull!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Where were you at midnight? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/02/2000 12:36:07 PM ----- BODY:Powazek has politely pointed out that he has written two new pieces for sf stories. I am an idiot. While we are at it, why don't you tell the fray where you were at midnight...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Internet Time (Part One) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Technology DATE: 01/03/2000 01:40:58 PM ----- BODY:Mr Blair, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, has given his approval to the creation of GeT Greenwich Electronic Time. The site for this is incredibly boring, and I can't help feeling rather misses the point. I mean of course it is handy to have a standard to measure time on the net, but Swatch's system seems to me to have more going for it (although it isn't particularly intuitive). It seems to me that one of the functions of Internet time must be to make it very easy for people to agree to meet online without having to take into account regional time differences. Therefore the system must be intuitive enough for people to be able to understand, while different enough from the standard layout of time to not be confused with it. It's important that people can say lets meet at XXXX and understand where that is in relation to their own time even when their own times are very different.
So here is a preliminary statement regarding BIT - Barbelith Internet Time. My suggestion is to keep with the 24 hour clock (because people have to be able to work out its relation to their own time when things like daylight saving and stuff kick in in the real world), keep it running from Greenwich (why the hell not, everything has done for years anyway) and only abstract its presentation. Something like 3113 for 1:13 pm GMT, minutes first, hours second. I know it seems ridiculous, but it should make time translation really easy while not allowing it to be confused with local time. Six figure numbers would have the seconds at the front - hence 003021 would mean 9.30pm exactly GMT. Someone who currently uses Eastern Standard Time would be able to say to someone two hours ahead of them to meet at 003018BIT which would be half past one EST and half past three for the other guy.
Has anyone got any other ideas?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Internet Time (Part Two) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Technology CATEGORY: Technology DATE: 01/04/2000 07:14:23 PM ----- BODY:I am back at work, and thrilling it is too... I am really taken with the way that metajohn has incorporated the date information into his blog. I may be forced to steal valuable sexy ideas from him.
INTERNET TIME PART TWO:
So the response to my first conception of Internet time wasn't particularly overwhelming. People seemed (how should I put this) ... confused ... by its purpose and/or functionality. Looking over it again they are probably correct.
So I have a new and better idea. Imagine this - you wish to organise a meeting with someone at 1pm your time. You decide on e-mail. You click on the new e-mail button, write what you want, and when it comes time to put in the time of the meeting you click on the clock icon on your toolbar. This icon triggers a "realtime" plugin which would bring up an image of a clock which you could click on, thereby selecting a time. This then writes a small piece of code into your e-mail which you would see as 1pm.
However this code at the OTHER end would be read by the plugin and automatically translated into the equivalent in their time-zone - thus your meeting partner would view it as 3pm (for example).
This plugin could then be added to any number of packages, automatically translating a particular timecode into what time it should be in the place where it was read. (Packages like word processors and web browsers are obvious examples - you can do something on the web like it with applets or javascript, but they go no further).
If you added to the functionality of the plugin by having it check the time against some form of authority (such as GMT) and automatically setting the computer's internal clock accordingly, you could have a really handy nice little device that would completely invisibly generate a standard for Internet Time.
And to make it more entertaining, you could have any number of additional translation timescales in place - you could specify you wanted to see times sent to you in Swatch Internet Time (automatically translated with Swatch's permission) or any number of wacked out systems. Think of it - on your home computer you could choose to work completely in StarDates (with the permission of Paramount of course). And if you wanted to extend it to dates, you could operate in a completely different calendar (although that might get a little too confusing). And it wouldn't matter at all, because to the people who you communicated with would all think you were making all these appointments in whatever system they preferred as well!
Is there anyone out there interested in developing such a mini-app? I even have a snappy name for it: THERMIDOR, after the month of the French Revolutionary calendar in which I was born.
More ravings tomorrow.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: What's the point? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/05/2000 11:09:29 PM ----- BODY:The point of weblogs is to talk about other weblogs - actually no, that is completely not the point. Still - never mind, eh? Metajohn thinks I am nice. Drat Fink has said in response to yesterdays ravings (and I quote): "i hate it when im confronted with intelligent thoughts on other blogs, then im forced to actually use my brain, which only reminds me that i hadnt been using it prior to that point".
The domain name www.year2000.com has been put up for auction on eBay. I think bids closed at around $10,000,000 [Full Story]. Why do I suspect barbelith.com will never be worth a penny? Huh? Answer me that!
I am adding stuff to The Bomb as we speak. It might be in your best interests to go and have a look!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: My first experience of a G4... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/07/2000 11:30:14 AM ----- BODY:British Telecom finally did something useful with the web. I know it is a shock, but it's true! No longer will I be paying 50p a shot for directory enquiries when I can go to www.bt.com/phonenetuk.
Yesterday a new G4 arrived in TimeOut.com's offices. I am in awe. Lust lust lust lust.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Best site on the web? My ass... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/08/2000 11:11:12 AM ----- BODY:What kind of advice is this: Mystery Meat Navigation: An Introduction. People are always asking me, "What's the best site on the Web?" My response is "There is no best site because the best site is the one that as soon as someone clicks a link to go there, money is automatically sucked out of their wallet."?
Well I am afraid Barbelith operates on a non-corporate principle, as I think do most of the very best sites on the net (at least the ones that I visit). So I am therefore more than happy to be (in the words of the man who I quote above) a web site that sucks.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Top Ten Simpsons... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/08/2000 07:41:45 PM ----- BODY:Under strick instructions from Jason Kottke I went and checked out Matt Groening's Top Ten Simpsons Episodes. I don't agree with a couple of them - Frank Grimes was appalling - but there are some classic moments here. "We have reached the limits of what rectal probing can teach us!".
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Catch-up time... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/09/2000 12:55:35 PM ----- BODY:Let's see - what have I been up to over the last week that I haven't told you about?
As far as I am concerned, the only news of the day is AOL buying Time Warner. A few months ago people were talking about how large media companies would be buying up Internet companies, but now it looks like the world is moving in another direction. AOL is already worth almost half as much again as Time Warner, which counts amongst its acquisitions an American TV Network, an international chain of shops and cinemas, Warner Bros films (who made The Matrix), Time magazine and DC Comics amongst many others. AOL on the other hand owns Netscape, ICQ and now has a controlling interest in the newly merged company. And this company is affiliated with Sun Microsystems, both of them allied against Microsoft's domination of the computing operating system market.
Things are just getting interesting...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: A classic Time Out review... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/11/2000 11:18:45 AM ----- BODY:Time Out's reviewers have reached new heights of perfection. The new Pet Shop Boy's single "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You Are Drunk" is described as: "More dirty grunting fuckpig pop from the leathered-up and greased-down mule-bucket gore-hounds." What can I say?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Classic Coates... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/11/2000 10:17:08 PM ----- BODY:I have been looking over sites that I built nearly a year ago now, and I can't help thinking that they were rather better than the crap I am building at the moment. I mean The Bomb looks pretty hot, but started around that time, I still think The Nexus looks like complete arse (particularly when compared with glassdog.org and Barbelith itself is little more than a gaudy stopgap.
So to help myself get myself back on form I have decided to upload one of my older projects Fin de Siecle to the site - it probably won't be updated any more in its current form (it was far far too much work), but hopefully it will inspire me to get around to rebuilding it, and the other parts of the site that are in desperate need. Whatever happened to Microlith, Dice Man etc etc? Well - I need about four months off work to get them up and running as well!
So go and check out the old Fin de Siecle and let me know what you think of it. I'll try and get the new one up and running sometime before July... (!)
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Went to see Head On... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/12/2000 11:46:00 PM ----- BODY:Went to see Head On again this evening. It's a strange film - sexy but laboured (if that is possible). I was hoping to meet a friend for a drink afterwards, but the various people I had in the frame for the role of "friend" decided to blow me off (in the American rather than English use of the phrase).
I occasionally suggest personal sites to look at. I can't imagine two sites more different than toby.stone.org and Lynn MacEachen's site. Toby is a friend of mine with a rather ... Edwardian ... sense of fun. Among his many galleries is one of a recent party he had at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London. I was invited, but was unable to attend. Having seen the pictures, I notice a surprising lack of fifth dimensional incursions, space-time supersolids and general political insurrection...
Lynn's site on the other hand is as 21st Century as you could hope for.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Minor Traffic Spike... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/13/2000 09:34:26 AM ----- BODY:I don't mean to be churlish, but how come for the last week barbelith has been getting about 150 visitors a day, and then yesterday suddenly gets over 300?! There's no evidence in the referrer log. What on earth is going on?
I have been separated from most of my e-mail because of a problem with my ISP. I can still receive it, but I can't easily reply, which leaves me feeling more than a little cyberimpotent.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Popstarz Plans... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/13/2000 09:44:05 PM ----- BODY:Tomorrow night I am thinking of going to Popstarz in North London. Now all I need is to find someone pliant to take with me.
SKY: Friends, ER, Roswell High, Veronica's Closet, The Simpsons. I swear - I'm in television trash heaven.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The horror of Saint Valentine... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/14/2000 12:25:40 AM ----- BODY:How sad is this. In one month exactly it is Valentine's Day. Every year it is a strange time for me, as I always find myself either tense about the relationship (or otherwise) that I am in, or feeling bad for not being in one. And the worst thing is all your coupled friends are too busy throwing flowers and underwear at each other to be any fun at all. Sheesh - some people can be so self-involved (joke).
This year is a particularly odd one. I decided a few weeks ago to aid my (I suppose) "ex" by keeping my distance for a while. Frankly I doubt he's noticed, but since everything has been calming down reasonably well (both internally and externally) I grudgingly think that it is probably a good thing. But I'm a sap for Valentine's Day and want to get him something. However, because of the nature of our relationship at this present time I need to get something that isn't too sappy, offers no pressure or anything but is still vaguely touching in a kind of lightly poignant kind of way. If I could find a way to be perfect and rise above everything then that would be great too.
I really really need some ideas. HELP ME.
In preparation for the full horror - here are some Valentines related sites: blinddate.org is the perfect place to set a couple of young proto-lovers up (or to cause mayhem by setting up bitter enemies). In a rather more trashy vein is Cupid's Cove - I don't have much more to say to that... "Loving You"'s Valentine's Site is almost enough to make me take an axe to people in couples, but I will probably manage to restrain myself for a few more weeks (four probably).
So I think I will end with an unnecessarily venomous guide to The Day of Pink. It's a little savage even for my tastes, but there's an explosion in it, so it's pretty much OK with me! Check out The Alt.Suicide.Holiday Valentine's Day Survival Kit.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Nick and the suit.. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/16/2000 12:42:03 PM ----- BODY:First of three things to talk about today is a bit of an announcement. There will be a gathering for anyone who hangs out in The Nexus on February 4th at Popstarz in London. More information as I have it, but it should be a tremendous laugh with much drinking and the like. Drop me a line if you are interested!
Second thing is a little diary entry - and is also about Popstarz. On Friday night I went out for a drink with Nick E. to the Leisure Lounge and Popstarz. I wasn't sure if I was going to be in the right kind of mood for all night clubbing, but it turned out that Nick was perfect company and we had a great time schmoozing and boozing. The club is about 60-70% gay, and Nick is about 95-100% straight, but he often seems to meet attractive and interesting women there.
Nick had told me earlier in the evening that he used to explain very firmly to any gentleman who flirted with him that he wasn't interested, thanks very much, but that he had decided in recent months just to play along and flirt back for a while and then wander off with a smug smile on his face. I told him I thought this was reasonably dodgy and could really interfere with the cheeriness and good spirits of anyone foolish enough to find him attractive.
This night however, he found himself very squarely in the sights of a rather aimiable-looking 6'4" besuited man. But appearances can be deceiving and within about five minutes, said collosal gentleman was exploring Nick's body with an altogether unexpected enthusiasm. Nick looked very sheepish. Several times he gestured to me to save him from this situation, but I decided that (since all he had to do was say - oops ... sorry ... straight) he probably deserved it and could save himself. With a great big grin on my face I made a cod impression of someone who didn't understand his request.
But Nick REFUSED to 'fess up to the Giant Suit - and as time passed he got simultaneously more perturbed and amused by his situation. For an instant I turned away, and when I glanced back Nick was alone. He grinned a grin, and made a gesture of relief and we danced some more. Suddenly I find Giant Suit leering up behind me. Doubling over to reach my ear he whispers to me "Why did you have to have such a HOT boyfriend?!".
Nick is in trouble.
Anyway - the rest of the evening was fun - I met a great guy from the LSE with whom I spent an entertaining evening and whom I wish I could see again, but don't think I will. I could tell you more, but I don't think I will. All in all a pretty entertaining few hours.
Finally, on a rather more geeky note, I have been looking at iSyndicate Affiliates (which was designed by our esteemed colleague at powazek.com) in preparation for the big redesign challenge I am setting myself. But it occurred to me that I hadn't seen many of their affiliates out there in the real world, which made me wonder if they would be of any use to me at all.
So I was interested when today I was sent the URL for a site called Fragile Minds which uses similar newsfeeds from places like moreover.com. Fragile Minds is an interesting site which illustrates that one an use these newsfeeds not just to replicate the content of the information provider but to allow you to produce a site in which everything you create is new, while still offering more of a service to the people who read your site.
I'm still not totally convinced by such newsfeeds, but it is cool that there are decent sites out there using them.
So that's it for today - quite an epic post - much longer than normal. Hope you are all having a good weekend!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: More epinions... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/16/2000 05:28:17 PM ----- BODY:I accidentally wrote some epinions of: Moby, Play / Roswell High / Empire Strikes Back. Sorry!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Understanding people is too hard... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/17/2000 05:04:03 PM ----- BODY:Hey look - barbelith's non-corporate art poll was clearly such a spankingly hot idea that it has been liberally appropriated by Vitaflo's gorgeous site [HREF section].
In personal news, having decided to get over ex (Max) and thrown myself vigourously into the pursuit of new foxy people, I get an e-mail from him asking myself and Chris out for a drink. I reply to e-mail. No response. I ring him, he sounds pissed off with me. I give up. Understanding other people is too hard.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: First hateful e-mail... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/18/2000 09:43:39 AM ----- BODY:I got my first incredibly offensive reaction to the weblog today:
"Please shoot yourself now. You should be ashamed of the shit that you put on this site. I know people that could do a much better job of it than you do (my six year old niece for one). I'm sure that Grant is sorry for endorsing your site. Fucking do it right or fuck off and let someone who is actually a fan do it."
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Sick of bad news... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/20/2000 07:58:55 PM ----- BODY:So I got a note from my Landlord:
"An old friend has been calling me over the past couple of weeks saying that he desperately needs accommodation as soon as possible. He has asked me if I have any space and I feel that I would like to help him out. I'm afraid that I will therefore have to ask you to vacate the room. I'm sorry if this causes you any problems and is disruptive for you, and I'm sorry to break the news to you in this way, but I hardly ever see you to talk to these days! Please retain this month's rental as return of your deposit and let me know as soon as possible when the room will be free. I am out this evening, but will be around tomorrow morning if there is anything you would like to discuss."
I think I might have to give up reading. I'm sick of bad news.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Post-Millennial Fall-out... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/23/2000 12:20:28 PM ----- BODY:I am at home today writing epinions and thinking. It's been a funny month/year/decade/century/millennium so far - in fact in many ways it has been downright unpleasant. A lot of my friends are reporting the same feeling of being lost, almost desperate for 'something'. I wonder if we wanted things resolved before the new year that just couldn't be resolved, and now we are coping with the fallout from our clumsy attempts to resolve them. To those of you who feel the edges of a spiritual apocalypse - good luck.
Word used to be a visually and intellectually stimulating place to be. Now I must confess I can't be bothered to read it. The knock-off Yahoo! look is so offensively dull when divorced from the pure functionality of the directory itself that it actively discourages me from reading the articles. Powazek is getting quite heated about their designers, and I have to say that generally I pretty much agree with him.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Reviewing Trompe Le Monde... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/23/2000 01:23:15 PM ----- BODY:Shit. Tom wasted a morning writing a review of The Pixie's last album Trompe Le Monde.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Typical Max encounter... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/24/2000 12:40:25 PM ----- BODY:I'm not normally one for this kind of thing, but someone suggested I have a look - and what do you know - it looks just like BARBELITH.
I have decided to have a policy in which I suggest links at the top of each new entry and those few of you who want to follow the unending soap opera of my life can then read on into the paragraphs below.
Biggest worry of the week is film censorship. There's this really interesting article about a film which has just been banned outright in Australia (disinformation). This comes at the same time that standards in the UK seem to be relaxing (with the release of films like Head On). I can't be the only person in the world who thinks that an adult should have no restrictions on what they CAN see, and that they should figure out for themselves what they WANT to see. Doesn't seem very tricky to me at all!
What have I been up to? I went for a drink with Evil Michael after work on Friday at the Leisure Lounge in King's Cross. He was great fun for a while, but became increasingly irritable and aggressive the more drunk he became. I get a little worried about him at these times, and frankly I don't know what to do about it. I then decamped to Popstarz, which was exhausting, but fun, and having been drinking for eight and a half hours I decided I should go home - only to discover that my landlord had wandered into my place, knocked a couple of things over, stood on a plate and removed my blinds without asking me. Since I have no curtains and face the sunrise, my actual sleep amounted to about two hours. And while I was hiding under the duvet from the world, Evil Michael rang at 9am forcing me to shout at him a lot.
Saturday night was spent with Max, with long and intense conversations in which I said that I didn't think I should see him for a while. He got a little upset by this, said OK, then we went to a late night showing of the Matrix and he rang me the next morning. All very strange.
Flat problems may be getting gradually closer to being resolved. Kate has suggested we talk about the possibilities of living together and with Manuella. I am more than happy to do this, except for the fact that they don't want to do it as quickly as I do (which means that I might have to live on people's floors for a couple of weeks - gulp). Still - at least it's a move in the right direction.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: In the middle of a redesign... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/25/2000 09:38:36 AM ----- BODY:Hey kids - look! I am in the middle of redesigning The Nexus.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: An interesting day... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/25/2000 11:26:57 PM ----- BODY:Interesting day - I met up with a guy I knew MANY years ago at Bristol. Very interesting day indeed.
This is a brief quote from the weblog at the beginning of November: "So - everyone on the Nexus hates the new look for this site. Which is a bit disappointing, I have to admit. It seems slightly pathetic to actually ask people for nice comments. [10:49:17 AM]" Opinions are mixed on the new look as well. Very strange day. Very strange day indeed.
American Beauty [Non-Official/Official] won three Golden Globes. My friend Katy designed a really impressive site for the film. My other friend Kate has a friend called Tara who is also really cool, pretty scary and inspired the phrase "GODZILLA! / tiny japanese village" (don't ask). She also worked on the film. We all wish her the very best. Very exciting times indeed...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Introducing Mark... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/26/2000 09:44:05 AM ----- BODY:The net gets younger and younger. Riot Hero is still at school (15! 15!) and is producing an above average weblog dripping with interesting little tricks and techniques. It's enough to make you feel practically octogenarian. He's never even eaten a lima bean.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The Bomb's going to be on telly... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/27/2000 10:30:03 PM ----- BODY:So an incredibly cool thing might be about to happen to me. Channel Four have a late night slot called 4 later. On this slot is a TV program called Disinfo Nation which is hosted by Richard Metzger with whom I have (many moons ago) had many an e-chat. Anyway - so I am checking my referrers log when I stumble upon the page above, in which tonight's episode is said to include (and I quote):
"Websites of the week belong to The Bomb, a fan site dedicated for Grant Morrison's cult comic book The Invisibles (which contains an amusing "Dress Up Lord Fanny" cartoon game), plus porn queen Rebecca Lord's own informative sleaze site (in which she doubtless dresses up her own Lord "F", just not in such amusing colours...)"
It looks like The Bomb is going to be on TV! Set your videos for 00.45am on Channel 4 (UK).
Mini Bio: Richard Metzger was in charge of scamming the corporate weirdos into funding disinformation before they freaked when they saw what he had done with it. Needless to say they let him, the company and quite a large amount of money go in one fell swoop. Metzger managed to get vast amounts of publicity and tapped into the zeitgeist that also abortively produced The X-files to produce a site that actually made money. He's now merged with the omni-directional Razorfish SubNetwork, but we don't blame him for that in any way.
There's so much more I want to talk about, but I haven't got time. Brief personal news items for those of you that care:
So The Bomb was indeed on TV last night. Slightly bizarre seeing my work up on the screen. Certainly not unpleasant, but strange nonetheless.
I have about a thousand links that I have been building up over the last week or so, but I am going to save all of them until tomorrow. Instead a quick bit of boring life monologue. Feel free to barf if it gets too self-indulgent.
For the first time in nearly a month, I am at home on a Friday night. I hate being at home on a Friday night. Cos then Saturday morning just oozes past so slowly and suddenly you only have a day left before work begins. Today's reason is as amusing as ever. I decide it would be a cool thing (you know - meet knew people, show Max how cool I am with the whole not going out this) to hang out with Max and friends - and drop him a note seeing what he is doing this evening. He says that he'll ring me today. And then he doesn't ring. At 5 I think I should find out what he is up to so I ring him. He sounds flustered and then says that on second thoughts it probably isn't the best idea if I go out this evening since he is trying to line up another guy. So I am left on a Friday night with nothing to do but sit around thinking about Max sleeping with other people. There's a fun evening for you.
Still I might manage to wangle a drink out of Evil Nick if I get a chance. Only time will tell.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The first IRL meeting of the Nexus... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/30/2000 12:42:51 AM ----- BODY:ANNOUNCEMENT: The first multi-national IRL meeting of The Nexus will be taking place this coming Friday (4th February) at various locations across the globe. Check The Nexus for details of local meetings.
For those of you in London - many of us (hopefully) will be meeting at the Leisure Lounge in King's Cross before proceeding to Popstarz's new home at The Scala. These are indie/alternative nights at mixed gay/straight venues. I will be at the Leisure Lounge from about 8.30pm and I don't expect to leave the club until approaching 5am the following day. I have no idea how I will recognise people, although someone suggested that we all wear black trousers and t-shirts, which is an intriguing mixture of Left-Bank Existentialist Philosopher and Denizen of Geekworld. If anyone wants more details, then just drop me a line at tom - at - barbelith.com - otherwise I look forward to seeing you there.
I'll stick up another reminder on Friday morning!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On "Browser 2.0" STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 01/31/2000 11:15:44 PM ----- BODY:A while ago there was a book called "Browser". Now there is Browser 2.0, and it's great. I was wandering through it in Covent Garden's Waterstones the other day and was amazed by some of the quality of the sites and browsers that it contained. Normally with these kind of books, the sites are all displayed to their best advantage in print, and when you see them on the screen they seem to lose something.
Anyway, as a sampler, here's a few of the best sites that it contained: cybergeography.org [much cooler than it sounds], visualroute.com [you remember all those bits in films where hackers are traced through loads of computers. This is a bit like that and you can do it on the web], and my favourite of the moment: BureauDestruct [check out the random 60s logo generator prog].
Can anyone figure out what the hell these people are talking about? The Bomb is mentioned half way down the page.
Life update: I went to see American Beauty on Saturday night and adored it. But it also sorted out loads of things in my head. So now I am living where I am until the end of the month, then taking two weeks holiday and moving stuff up to my parents (and either going to Mexico to see my ex-boyfriend or the SXSW Interactive thing in Austin, Texas so that I can finally meet all those cool people I see lurking around the net). Then I am back working in London and looking for a flat with Kate and Manuella while staying on the floors of friends. Note how I haven't mentioned Max in this two month period. That is because he is not going to be in this two month period (I give it a week, but let's try to be positive).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The Nexus has completely disintegrated... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/01/2000 02:05:32 PM ----- BODY: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 crossed, otherwise our burgeoning proto-community may have collapsed before it even really began...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: How self-referential is this? Blogging STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/02/2000 09:44:17 PM ----- BODY: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 to ask whether or not he should go to SXSWInteractive in Austin. I didn't really know what to say - I don't know what the atmosphere would be like. Anyone who knows whether or not a 15-year old web wunderkind would fit in should drop him a note.
Still wavering over whether or not I will be able to attend myself - if anyone fancies crushing my anti-establishment demeanor under the boot-heel of sponsorship then I would probably consider it. In the meantime there is always SXSWb to read - the community weblog for the event.
The Nexus, you will be glad to hear, seems to be working again - although not without the odd judder and near-collapse. Still no idea what is going on.
I'm taking a couple of days off work to rebuild Barbelith. I have lots of cool ideas, but I have been suffering web-designers block for almost a year now. [Sites like vitaflo don't help. Bloody talented arseholes.] Only Jack Fear's tough love approach ("build that site you pussy boy"-esque) managed to get me to rebuild the site last time. Can I do it by myself?
Is going to the gym evil? I have been attending occasionally for the last six months or so, but I am now confronted with the possibility of joining for a full year at a hugely discounted rate. But it seems somehow immoral. I can't decide.
Final note to Kerry. Get a grip man. xx
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Epinions.com has a new feature... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/04/2000 12:31:36 PM ----- BODY: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...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Complete redesign of Evhead... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/05/2000 03:01:43 PM ----- BODY: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 gaudy. And it's always a good read...
So the Nexus get together in London was a bit flat all things considered. I neglected to remember that the initial bar was going to be heaving because of Popstarz's move the the Scala. So Nick (The Tower) and I wandered around amiably for a couple of hours, stumbling across friends of ours looking slightly lost and waving a piece of paper around with "*NEXUS" written on it. Unsurprisingly it didn't work that well.
We did find one sub-cultural colleague, though - SleazeNation (alias Rob) appeared, and I think he had a pretty good time. After a while we all wandered over to the club and bounced around for ages. Bis were playing, which was cool. I got to hear them play Eurodisco live, which was fun. I also met a young man called Luke and we had a conversation about how we were both apostles (and then we had to reconsider as we couldn't remember whether Luke only wrote a gospel or whether he was one of THE TWELVE). Introductions over, we pounced on each other, which was entertaining. Nick thinks he looks just like Max, which is a little alarming.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Megnut overhaul... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/05/2000 03:12:18 PM ----- BODY: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 ever.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Weblog Junior High... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/05/2000 03:58:54 PM ----- BODY: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 reaction hasn't exactly been positive either. Powazek isn't thrilled about it. Only usr/bin/girl/ seems even the slightest bit into the idea.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Not fully functional... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/07/2000 01:20:30 AM ----- BODY: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 am halfway through the site front end redesign. Quite a lot of it isn't fully functional. Very sorry! I will finish it off tomorrow night. (I can't believe I am being so unprofessional).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Everything's broken... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/07/2000 01:28:26 AM ----- BODY: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!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Evhead has gone and redesigned... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/07/2000 01:05:10 PM ----- BODY: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. I'd do it myself if I had a better photo handy.
Ev also makes a couple of interesting points about my use of Blogger. He's completely correct of course, although it hadn't occurred to me to try it the way he suggests. Possibly because it was one in the morning, I wasn't thinking straight.
Weirdest news of the day comes via Jason at kottke.org. There is talk of a war between Simpsons creators and fans...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Self-referential weblogging site of the day... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/07/2000 06:11:30 PM ----- BODY: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.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Barbelith redevelopment update... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/08/2000 12:45:10 AM ----- BODY: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 Netscape. Have I succeeded? No I bloody haven't. So for a while I have removed them, leaving the text all blocky and ... normal ... If anyone has an explanation for my problems getting a span class=maintext to work on all the fields in Blogger, then please god drop me an e-mail. I NEED HELP.
I'm also mildly grumpy with Dreamweaver. I almost never use it, because of all the code fudges it produces (although it is by far the best WYSIWYG editor), but JUST THIS ONCE I decided that I couldn't be bothered to go through the process of hand-coding rollovers. And does it work? Well, almost but not quite. If I refresh the page I get lots of errors reported in Explorer. Bloody infuriating. I'll probably just convert over to my standard ones, but if anyone could swiftly debug the Dreamweaver-produced code then I would be grateful again.
Well anyway - I have managed to add less today than I hoped, but the front page is nearing completion. And once that is done, the others will follow swiftly. Although having said that, I might be going to see a special preview of The Talented Mister Ripley tomorrow night, so delays might occur.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Bumping into Cortex... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/08/2000 02:07:43 AM ----- BODY: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.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Visual Thesaurus and Blog-design update... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/08/2000 09:12:18 AM ----- BODY:
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. It reminds me a little of this program called "The Brain" that was some kind of online fad a few years ago (although this site actually has a point).
WEB DEVELOPMENT BLOG UPDATE:
I am aware of the errors that the page is throwing up at the moment, and I am aware that there is very little past the front page. All this is being worked on as we speak. In the meantime, let's pretend that this is a really interesting learning experience for those of you who have just started building sites, and follow me through the process day by day. Now won't that be fun?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I make people happy! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/08/2000 01:13:07 PM ----- BODY:
I make people happy!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Everyone is talking about the redesign... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/08/2000 11:23:36 PM ----- BODY: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 it is lacking. Can't decide....
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Talented Mr Ripley... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/09/2000 02:15:08 AM ----- BODY: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 ago people were talking Oscar nominations, but it would really be an injustice if it got any. Having said that, Matt Damon acted superbly and Jude Law just oozed charisma. I guess one of my particular weirdnesses with the film was that it was about this gay guy called Tom who kills lots of people. Which is like me, apart from the killing bit.
I have fixed the Javascript error that people were getting when they tried to use the Dreamweaver generated rollovers - I had to replace them completely with a piece of tried-and-true code. Unfortunately in the process I made it easy enough to follow dead internal links that I haven't built yet. Keep saying to yourself, "It's not shoddy, It's a collaborative experience in the process of web design". Of course it would be much quicker if I didn't have to work all day at timeout.com.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Shauna's amazing flaunt.net... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/09/2000 11:42:56 PM ----- BODY:
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 know who have managed to generate a site developed completely from themselves, their interests and personalities, without seeming self-indulgent or dull.
She runs a couple of other sites as well. I had a piece on one of them a while back - ember.org is a site where people talk about their first experience of love, whether happy or ... otherwise ... It's on a bit of hiatus at the moment, but there is still a years worth of oozing human experience to wander through.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I can't go to SXSW... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/10/2000 10:02:24 PM ----- BODY: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 of what the person who makes the joke actually believes. People are very negative these days about "political correctness" - but it was never about not making 'offensive' jokes about sensitive subjects, but about not saying offensive things and meaning them. Here's a good example of something unbelievably funny from the Onion (for those of you who aren't easily offended): Why Do All These Homosexuals...
I think I have finally reconciled myself to the fact that I am not going to be going to SXSW. I still feel that I might at any moment change my mind, but basically I think I must face the facts that I just can't afford it. Now I have to work out what to do instead.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Microlith up-and-running... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/11/2000 12:57:54 AM ----- BODY: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. Well, I have added the explanatory section to the site, and that will tell you everything you need to know. I'll do my best to get the rest of the site up and running as soon as possible.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Fucking Max cocks up again... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/12/2000 11:48:47 AM ----- BODY:
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 agreed to be 'friends'. He had demanded that we see each other regularly as friends because 'he really didn't want to lose me' (or something like that). So after these two events he swore blind that he would contact me in the following week and we would go out for a drink. I, understandably, didn't believe him. And how right I was - three weeks passed, I get all cheerful and functioning again, and then I wander into Popstarz last night to see him in marathon kissing sessions with his new boyfriend. When he registers I am there he bounces over to me and is all cheerful, as if it would be an astonishingly weird thing if I was freaked out by seeing him with someone else, and as if it was perfectly normal to ignore someone for a month and screw them around. So then I had two hours of bumping into the happy couple in various rooms of the club and feeling like dirt - which (as I am sure you can imagine) was fun. This morning I feel as if I spent the evening being kicked in the head and stomach.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The 5k award... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/12/2000 01:07:22 PM ----- BODY:
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 award is one of those things. The concept is simple and elegant - to design a page, complete in execution, concept and design, in which everything (HTML, graphics, scripts) must not amount to more than 5k. And the prize? 5000 (5k) cents. $50.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Evil Valentines... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/12/2000 07:53:42 PM ----- BODY: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 chum is holding her yearly Anti-Valentines Binge (involving much wagging of the fingers and sticking out of the tongues) on Monday. Happy couples in Soho. Watch out - here we come.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On feelings of loss... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/13/2000 01:26:48 AM ----- BODY: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 from this page. Look for the entry for February the 3rd. You could be the third person ever to have seen it!
I have actually just returned home from an evening out attempting to distract myself from incumbent life crises. Today has, in many ways, been one long attempt at distraction - not all of it successful. I'll be more honest than I probably should be in saying that I have never felt such loss about a ex-lover before. So anyway - in order to take my mind off things I have gone to see Toy Story 2, spent the afternoon shopping for Minidisc players and the evening drinking trashy Barcardi Breezers in a friend's house in Kensal Rise. It is now 1am and I haven't had to think about anything for almost twelve and a half hours. I am horrified to confess that this is one hell of an accomplishment.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Weblog of absolute note... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/13/2000 01:37:06 AM ----- BODY: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 is the same thing that attracts me to this form of communication in general - honest and personal online self-expression. Rachel is more than comfortable with exploring her cultural identity online - just as I (I hope) I am on occasion with my sexual identity. And she has managed to make the design of the page emerge from that identity, which in return reflects back and clarifies her sense of herself. A wonderful site.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Let's get our stats out... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/13/2000 08:04:36 PM ----- BODY: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) you feel a need to keep this information to yourself. Perhaps it is the online version of not standing directly next to people in urinals [I wonder what the female equivalent of that is]. Anyway - let's get this over with - there are around 250 visits to barbelith's front page every day (phew - I came out and said it), another 200 to The Bomb and the same number again to The Nexus. I hereby send this challenge out to everyone else in the weblogger community. I've shown you mine...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Stats redux... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/15/2000 09:51:09 AM ----- BODY: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 by Bloat as one of the top ten weblogs for the week, and the site has finally started to register on metalog's ratings page. I am pretty cheery about these things.
Opinion is divided as to whether or not talking about stats is taboo - but webloggers are talking about it all over the place. To start off with, check out the comments (and occasionally figures) of: prolific, riothero, evhead, bump.net, Ghost in the Machine, Oh Messy Life, Wetlog, rastorweb.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: A top ten of heroes... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/15/2000 01:18:52 PM ----- BODY: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 about it, the more I realised that I really didn't respond to the world in that way. When I was a kid, I never really had a hero - no role model to aspire to. After a bit of thought, I came to the conclusion that for many people today, the whole concept seems dated. So instead, I decided to concentrate on people whose life or work has interested or inspired me.
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 statement. It's true that I have no formal design background, and I am merely a self-taught HTML coder, but I honestly believe I could make a living from freelance web-site design. If there are any professional and/or freelance designers out there who could let me know if I am deluding myself or not, it would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway, enough about the frustrations of work. Pretty much every day I go and visit riothero's site. After my post yesterday about my heroes (about which I got a very nice e-mail from Mr Powazek himself), he posted a message to his site about the possibility of us collaborating on his new site - hero.nu (not live as yet). I started thinking about it immediately and have been considering it all day. And the answer is - let's do it!
The Oscar nominations came out yesterday, which cheered me up quite a lot, as I had invested in a good number of the films concerned at HSX. I was, however, disappointed that Wes Bentley wasn't nominated for Best Supporting Actor. I know he's young, but his performance was incredibly assured.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Redesign Madness... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/17/2000 10:00:13 PM ----- BODY: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 really obvious that I seem to have overlooked in my recent redesign - a great big obvious logo. Now why didn't I think of that?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm scared of the dancing bunny... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/17/2000 11:11:19 PM ----- BODY:
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 anything negative, but then I suppose I shouldn't really expect them to - I needed validation and I received it - thanks to you all. However, one thing is clear from the e-mails that I received - there are an awful lot of people out there with talent who are being passed over in the web design business for people who have managed to fudge their way through print design courses and don't really know what the hell they are doing. Without wishing to get all "support group" - keep the faith my brothers and sisters. It's those of us with the passion that produce the interesting sites...
A lot of people are worried about Mark at riothero. He's been having a pretty hard time of it lately. I'll tell you this much for nothing. I've been having a rough ride recently as well, but I wouldn't be fifteen again for all the tea in China.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Randomwalks, Little brother and Not Going To Popstarz... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/18/2000 09:36:51 AM ----- BODY:
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 the page open in a new window. If you don't select it, then they open in the same window. The whole sordid question resolved in one elegant move.
My mother and brother came and visited me for lunch yesterday. My family lives in Norfolk, which is a two and half hour train journey from London, so they don't visit that often. Yet again I realised how much I miss my brother when he's not around.
Tonight is a Friday night, and for the last month that has meant a trip to Popstarz in King's Cross to bounce around and flirt with people. This week however, that is not going to happen. Last week's thing is too fresh in my mind for me to even think about it. But I have to think of something to do otherwise I'll brood. Perhaps I'll go and see The Bachelor - although epinions of it seem rather mixed. Or perhaps I'll stay at home and order my first pizza online (Domino's) and watch Buffy and Angel on TV. That normally cheers me up.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm quite proud of this... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/18/2000 05:45:23 PM ----- BODY:
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.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: My last weekend in Hampstead... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/19/2000 10:52:57 AM ----- BODY:
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 my parents live. And then I have a month of homelessness (including two weeks of holiday) where I will be sleeping on the floors of friends. I am contemplating wandering over to America for a week or so - I might go and see Kerry in Los Angeles.
At the moment though, I am sitting in my bedroom looking out over Heath Street and thinking about the last year and a half living here - all the stuff that has happened to me, all the stuff I have had to deal with and all the stuff I have accomplished. It's a strange time indeed.
Things on the web move so fast. Yesterday at work I was asked to write a list of a few sites that I thought were well designed and interesting. I duly wrote this list from memory, only to find that glassdog.com had completely changed its look, famewhore.com was on a self-imposed hiatus and vitaflo.com (a recent favourite of mine) had disappeared completely without trace.
Opinions can change so quickly too. Derek Powazek, an old friend to barbelith, used to have a pretty low opinion of weblogs and weblogging - until he tried it for himself. Now he's written a piece about it - What The Hell Is A Weblog And Why Won't They Leave Me Alone?. It's interesting reading which raises a fair number of important questions (including "Why do people waste their time when they could be building something Big, beautiful and daring).
Even emotions seem energised and heightened on the web. Riothero has been in my thoughts a lot recently - when I first stumbled upon his site I was amazed by his energy, and as time has passed he has managed to connect that energy with a flair for writing entertaining and quick-witted copy. His latest move has been to put a personal letter online - one that resolves his recent crises with Lyda. It just goes to show how the weblog can become something completely beyond its initial remit as a bunch of interesting links, and can become a synthesis of confessional, entertainment, journalism, column and online diary - a new and interesting, albeit low-key genre of writing. I only have one question - I wonder if she knows?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Map of the Weblog World... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/19/2000 11:23:37 AM ----- BODY: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 the concept of a map or metaphor approach to keeping a record of webloggers, and this one is particularly impressive. The first thing that I noticed however was poor weblogs that according to the map don't have anyone linking to them at all. So - while I don't really believe that these people are all out in the cold - why not visit - justinhankins.com, Rob McNair-Huff's Weblog, dowler.net and noahgrey.com.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: What a hectic weekend... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/20/2000 11:23:16 PM ----- BODY: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 other places. I'm exhausted.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On invisibles.com... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/21/2000 09:20:07 AM ----- BODY: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.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The daily weight of idealism... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/21/2000 02:56:10 PM ----- BODY: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. I listened to it, and it really matched my current mood - Jealous Guy, How Do You Sleep and particularly Crippled Inside. The aspirational songs - Imagine for one - meant absolutely nothing to me for the first time in my life.
My sudden feeling of connection with Lennon couldn't come at a more difficult time for his memory. The papers today have been dripping with the news that he donated money to the IRA and Marxist groups in the UK and America. The BBC's angle is that the information might be innaccurate despite Lennon's feelings of solidarity with the IRA during the 60s and after Bloody Sunday. In retrospect it's pretty easy to see any affiliation with the IRA as ill-advised and dangerous - but at the time... Well - I don't know what I think, to be honest. As to the Marxist stuff - all power to him! While I might view communism as a rather bloated dinosaur (only slightly more bloated than capitalism, I fear), I have great respect for any man who lives under the daily weight of idealism. There's loads more information at lennonfbifiles.com.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: A dark secret... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/21/2000 11:42:21 PM ----- BODY: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 it's important to me that I'm never responsible for a Ghost Site.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The ethics of discussing your friends... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/22/2000 07:18:43 PM ----- BODY: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 not in a public place like this). In addition to these stories, she has expressed to me a couple of times her feeling that some people try to use her and her friends to get 'kudos' - valuing her job and the people she knows more than they do her. For these reasons I made a conscious decision not to talk about her on this weblog.
But then it came to me this afternoon that many webloggers discuss their friends to some extent - and that there really isn't that much difference between mentioning the exploits of a friend who works in a supermarket and one who is responsible for famous people's corsetry. What gives me the right to talk about Toby, Nick, Kerry or even Max without their consent, or even (on occasion) their knowledge. I am perturbed.
It's the final episode of Queer as Folk 2 tonight. It's difficult to assess quite how much impact this TV series had on gay culture in the UK. The first episode showed all kinds of things that you would never be able to see on an American TV station - a well plotted drama which depicted casual shagging and 'true love' in the gay scene, underage sex handled realistically, gay people working in supermarkets and (of course) a whole bundle of pretty people having relatively explicit sexual relations with each other. The trailers for this week's episode include the immortal Stuart saying "You're not queer, you're a straight guy who shags men". If you want to see more, there are one or two really good screencap archives.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Weird stuff... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/23/2000 12:33:38 AM ----- BODY: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 Folk 2 may have ended with a few slightly odd moments - the revolving car, day turning into night, the epic speech of Stuart Jones - but I haven't felt as invigorated after a TV program since, well since Queer as Folk 1. This whole episode felt like Thelma and Louise, only with a more uplifting ending. I'd be interested in hearing everyone's opinion about it.
I have had a really interesting conversation with prolific on the subject of my comments yesterday (writing about friends). Needless to say, our conversation was both thought-provoking and entertaining. She's using humanclick technology which I tried out a while ago. At the time I couldn't see why it had advantages over a normal chatroom, but I may be changing my mind.
Final thing for now: G L I F F writes: "Let's hear it for barbelith, the only openly gay weblogger, (as far as I know, anyway)." I'm terribly flattered to be mentioned at all, but you should all be aware of hit-or-miss.org which includes a whole lesbian and gay weblogger portal. There's some really good stuff there...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Getting Ed Drunk... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/23/2000 09:52:20 AM ----- BODY: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 him out around Soho and getting him drunk. All very satisfactory.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Another timeout.com microsite... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/23/2000 04:22:59 PM ----- BODY:Here's another little microsite that I built for timeout.com - Should Ken Livingstone stand as an independent candidate? Answer the question!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Wired will show you the way... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/23/2000 06:29:40 PM ----- BODY: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 will show you the way...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Should I be 'less gay' in my weblog? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/24/2000 09:17:25 AM ----- BODY:
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 and writing for barbelith. Should I be "less gay" in my weblog? Should I be only writing "for gay people" in the group one?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Zannah is Blog of the Week... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/24/2000 09:19:21 AM ----- BODY:
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. The only problem is, barbelith doesn't have a logo. Note to self - improve site branding asap. A couple of other nice people have started linking to barbelith - dailybread looks and reads really well. It's a pity she's cursed with that damnable GeoCities advert - stuff and rot has said lovely lovely things about the layout around here and has introduced me to a couple of sites I'll be visiting much more often - and finally, a proto-blog is coming together at Luke's site o' stuff. Could it be the world's first overtly Christian blog?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: What a mess I'm in... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/24/2000 06:29:39 PM ----- BODY: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 pretty quickly discovered that I wasn't going to be able to find a van for a reasonable amount of money. Everywhere is booked and the only place I could find a free van wanted to charge me £50 a day (minimum of two days) plus tax and plus an additional £150 if I wanted to drop it off at their depot in Norfolk. A little simple arithmetic makes that £250 - which is around $400. I don't think THAT is going to happen.
So I contact my parents and my mother agrees to lend me her car for the day, which is pretty cool of her, but it means that I have to be in Norfolk first thing on Saturday morning in order to drive down to London to collect everything. Which means that I have to leave tomorrow straight after work (otherwise I won't get home before they go to bed). Which means that all the packing has to be done tonight. All of it. From scratch.
This is turning into the week of hell.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Words are the binding agents for reality... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/24/2000 11:07:13 PM ----- BODY: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 ... The great underlying truth that makes this so, Morrison said, is that "words are the binding agents for reality," and hence can bent to our desires".
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The idea of web queeries... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/25/2000 09:30:59 AM ----- BODY: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 news and is edited/researched by a variety of people, most of whom will never have met one another. I think when I made the leap from thinking about it in terms of personal content and more towards comment and news, the whole idea made much more sense to me.
No one seems to have got my Voyager reference yesterday, which is probably a good thing to be honest, as I'm sure enough of you think I am a geek as it is. There's this episode in which Captain Janeway, the slightly jowly woman with the squeeky voice (and rather 'hands-on' approach to interstellar diplomacy) has been being attacked by a race called the Krenim (or something like that). As the cast all rock backwards and forwards in stylised "starship been shot at" ways, Janeway scowls and then remarks to herself, "this is turning into the Week of Hell".
The joke? The episode has the rather less optimistic title "Year of Hell". Let's hope I am not similarly ill-fated.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Xenolith becomes Barbelith... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/25/2000 11:05:10 PM ----- BODY: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. I still prefer Xenolith as a name for it, but I thought it was too confusing - people were calling the site all kinds of different things. Weird, disturbing things...
According to the age guesser, I am 31. I suppose it's not that far off the mark. Only four years. Still - quite clearly in the wrong direction. It works on quite a cool principle - each answer to each question corresponds with an age, at the end of the series of questions it asks you your actual age. Every question that you answer in the way they expect (eg. answer "duran duran" if you are in your thirties) is weighted slightly more. And every question that you answer in a way that they did not expect (eg. answer "Stretch Armstrong" if you are in your eighties) is weighted slightly less. In time - only the really accurate questions will carry any weight at all. The questionaire is evolving...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: You turn your back for a moment... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/26/2000 09:53:03 PM ----- BODY:I don't know - you turn your back for a moment and everything goes to hell.
Reasons to have hope for the future:
"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 was a fansite and was shut down by an overzealous production company. If anyone can find a decent Harry Hill site, then let me know asap.
I've written this post three times today and every time, something has fucked up. This is my final attempt before pouring coffee on my parents' computer and tearing out all my hair. And I have so much to say... I am finally back in Norfolk after the marathon moving session. After work on Friday I got a train back to Norfolk (arrived at 10pm), grabbed about four hours sleep before jumping into my mother's car, driving back to London, picking up Nick C and Nick E (who had very graciously helped me pack), finally managing to get back to Norfolk by half-past six. Bloody exhausting day, all things considered. Now all I have to do is wait for my passport and I'm off to LA. Watch out, Kerry - here I come!
There's an article in the Sunday Times today which is being discussed at the moment in the Nexus - it's about two superheroes called Apollo and Midnighter who are both men and having a relationship. Quite why this is a newsworthy story is beyond me. There have been gay superheroes for years - find out more at the Gay League of America.
I remain in regular contact with the ever-changing site of riothero. Over the last couple of days, he has said some really nice things about me in both e-mail and on his site - like it's good to be 27 and that I don't look like the back end of a bus. Which is nice. I'm a bit embarrassed actually, as I can't help thinking he must have hit the juice quite hard recently to have caused such brain-collapse and eye-failure. Anyway, the conversation reminded me of one of my old sites, which is basically a photo album. Check it out if you like: slutcore.
Just when you thought things couldn't get any more self-referential - the weblogging universe collapses.
Finally, a couple of updates on yesterdays posts. Not that it really matters, but barbelith has reappeared on Metalog ratings. riothero and wetlog have now explained to me why I had dropped off - apparently it is post-redesign linkage withdrawal. I suppose that makes sense. Having said that though, I think my reappearance at number 28 makes it clear that you only have to ask a stupid question or say something controversial to get rated once more. Go figure.
[Addendum: Thanks to Weblog Wannabe for the Smurfalizer link (see yesterday).]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Sucker for Ego-Stroking... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/28/2000 07:44:53 PM ----- BODY: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...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Bomb meet Suck... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/28/2000 07:49:22 PM ----- BODY: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.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: My passport arrived today... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/29/2000 11:19:09 AM ----- BODY: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 compare them, shall we? London weather vs. LA weather. Now which one do I prefer?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Evhead, Jason, Katy and more... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 02/29/2000 06:12:38 PM ----- BODY: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 unemployable within a year). Jason mentions the very same thing on his site - he is apparently wearing this shirt-of-almighty-cool. However, as far as I can tell, he hasn't done a stroke of work all day, which means I haven't been able to see him, which means no glimpse of astonishing clothing artefact. Very depressing.
Once upon a time there was this girl called Katy, and I met her at this thing that the ******** ** **.*****.**.** were having in London (it's a geek thing, and I am too embarrassed to go into details - see if you can guess). Anyway - it was my first IRL meeting with people I had met online and I thought everyone would be a complete freak. Needless to say, they weren't - and Katy has fast become one of my premièe online friends. Today she directed me towards a really cool thing that another online foxtress (Zannah) has put together: windoze 2000.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: 8am wake-up call... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/02/2000 07:58:50 AM ----- BODY:OK. It is 8am, and I am about to be driven to my train, from whence to another train, and so to the airport, and so for an 11 hour flight to LA, arriving around five-thirty pm. Wish me luck....
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On the way to LA... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/04/2000 07:23:13 PM ----- BODY:Thursday was a very long day. Not one of those long days where you feel like someone has grabbed each end of the day and stretched it, but one of those days when someone actually HAS. And not only that - they pulled with all their might.
I got up at 8am to the sounds of my parents arguing about who would have the privilege of taking me to the train station ("You do it", "No! You do it" followed by "I suppose I'll do it", "No, I suppose I'll have to"). An hour later, I am on my way to London. By 11am I am crossing London, and by 1pm I am at the airport. Two hours pass. 3pm - we board the flight and then it is a mere 11 hours before I land in LA. 6.30pm LA time (PST), 2.30am for me.
Kerry collects me and soon we are watching episodes of Friends that are repeats to him and partner (Sean), but have yet to even appear on cable in the UK (8pm PST / 4am GMT). Around 10pm PST (6am GMT) Sean and Kerry decide we have to go to a nearby club. I am surprised how chirpy I feel and agree instantly. But by the time we reach 7am GMT (11pm PST) I am wilting savagely. Kerry drives me back and installs me in a bed.
Where I suddenly (of course) find it impossible to sleep (for various reasons - not worth going into particularly). 2am comes and goes (PST), at which point Sean reappears - bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and with a great big grin on his face. It is nearly 5am PST, 1pm GMT before any of us manage to sleep. And by 10am the next morning (which of course I think is 5pm) I am wide awake - eager for stimulation again...
27 hours awake. 5 hours asleep. I will be dead before the week is out.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Sporadic Travel Diary... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/05/2000 10:42:03 PM ----- BODY:This is more of a sporadic travel diary at the moment than it is a weblog - but I don't suppose I can really do much about that - it's not as if I have much time for surfing at the moment.
LA is an extremely odd place - particularly for someone more used to the rhythms of London. Superficially they have a lot in common - large metropolitan masses, both of which are centres of a country's entertainment industries. But London is so much more condensed and compact, whereas LA is just so much more ... overwhelming ... than you'd expect.
I think the thing I feel strangest about is the absolute necessity of cars. In London, I can have a friend to stay and I need almost never see him. People can come and visit, crash on my floor, I can feed them in the evenings and chat to them before sleep - but all the rest of the time, they can jump on a tube and go and do their own thing (if they want). But in LA, if you don't have a car you can't even really move.
That puts strains on the guest, who lacks freedom of movement and is continually dependant on his hosts. And that in turn puts even greater strains on the hosts - who are continually having to be stimulating and entertaining (when I'm sure they would much rather be asleep). I should say at this point that Kerry and Sean have been more than great in this capacity - I have been taken to a couple of Hollywood(ish) parties, wandered around the shopping areas and seen a couple of films that aren't out in the UK yet - some good (Scream 3) and some ... less good (Drowning Mona) - I have been made to feel welcome by all concerned.
I can only hope that I am being as good a guest as they are hosts...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Radio Barbelith is back... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/12/2000 04:11:42 PM ----- BODY:Radio Barbelith is back on the air. Every day over the last week that I haven't been able to update the site I have felt more and more anxious - what if everyone got bored and wandered off? I mean - there are thousands of wonderful weblogs that are updated every day without fail. They wouldn't let something as tiny as a holiday interfere with their duty to their readers. (I am thinking of stable barbelith links like kottke.org, riothero and megnut)
Well, anyway, it's back and not likely to go away again in a hurry. And that's even considering the difficult situation I find myself in. Regular readers will know of my homelessness - a couple of weeks ago I moved out of my flat in Hampstead and took all my stuff up to my parents' place in Norfolk - and then of course I embarked on my epic voyage to LA. I am now back in London, only to find that Virgin have mislaid half of my luggage, my mobile phone has run out of energy and I can't contact any of the people who said that they might be prepared to put me up for a couple of nights. Tom Coates - homeless, without any clean clothes or means of communication...
But of course I must not dwell on such concerns (shit shit shit shit shit shit shit), and instead must talk about my time in LA. I can't even begin to talk about everything, but a few images really stick in my mind - flying over the lights of Las Vegas at night (able to pick out individual casinos and roads), half naked men bouncing up and down on coffee tables, the sun setting over Venice Beach and the madman with the bubble machine. And of course, my ever gracious and hospitable hosts, Kerry and Sean.
Quite a lot has happened on the web while I have been away as well. blogger has been redesigned (by none other than powazek himself and even riothero has reached some kind of design plateau after the frantic changes of the last month. More later, as and when I get the chance...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: There's a party in Austin and you can't come... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/13/2000 06:26:23 PM ----- BODY:"Hey Tom, there's a really big party going on in Austin, but you can't go."
SXSW fever is running rampant through the webloggers. And those of us stuck five thousand miles away can only pine for what might have been - and of course check out SXSWb, images by pb (day 1, day 2, day 3) and metafilter, and the commentary from powazek, prehensile tales and riothero.
Still it's not the same as being there.
I feel bad for not talking more about my LA time - so here are a few sites for the minor celebrities I bumped into: Loren Dean [at party with him - he wore lots of plaid], Tyne Daly [wandered around the pier in Venice Beach], Gina Gershon [sat behind us chatting away during a showing of Wonder Boys].
Needless to say I have found a place to stay (take a bow Evil Nick). Bed finally located around 7pm GMT. My luggage arrived this morning at work more or less intact as well. Everything seems to be coming together. I went to see The Insider so that I wouldn't fall asleep too early. It was a pretty strange film - only in America could people be surprised by the news that cigarettes are addictive. The most interesting part of the film (the media politics and strategies/counter strategies) were unfortunately the bits without the most interesting character/actor/performance. Russell Crowe is a god.
And before I forget - IF YOU DON'T ASK YOU DON'T GET!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: A bitchy question borne of frustration... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/14/2000 11:59:51 AM ----- BODY:Can someone explain to me how it is possible that I can cross the world and crash on someone's floor in LA for nearly nine days, but when I return to my home country and home city, almost none of my friends are prepared to house me for even a couple of nights. Has anyone got an answer for me?
As ever the best way to cope with the many disappointments and injustices of life (and people) is to ignore it completely and muck around on the net for hours. Which is what I intend to do.
I am delighted to report that vitaflo is back on the air at last. Not a lot seems to have changed, although the site is altogether more ... green ... The HREF section is still the best guide to the best design sites on the web - a constant source of inspiring work.
Here all about Grant Morrison's appearance at the DisinfoCon from the site itself. And I quote: "I probably shouldnÌt admit this here, but IÌm not familiar with 'The Invisibles' comic, so I had no idea who Grant Morrison was, but he was very funny, very drunk, taught us Magick, and sure that he had been on a ride with aliens in Katmandu, so he had my attention!"
And I am probably the last person to notice this, but Epinions has also finally launched it's full version, complete with clean and elegant design and cheery little smiley things. The only slightly depressing thing is that I have spent so much time running around like a headless chicken in recent months that I am in imminent danger of falling off the bottom of their Most Popular Movie Reviewers list.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Guide to Planetary... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/15/2000 12:53:38 PM ----- BODY:Trash culture purists only: A comprehensive and interesting site on the comic book Planetary.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Temporary plateau of weirdness reached... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/15/2000 02:01:18 PM ----- BODY:Temporary plateau of weirdness reached. Things remain weird, but have ceased to get increasingly so. Chris has said he will put me up for a couple of nights, which is really decent of him and means that I can now slide through into next week courtesy of him and Liz. I am getting increasingly worried about my new potential flatmates however - not in terms of whether I will get along with them, but about when we will actually find a place to live in and what compromises will have to be made in the process. Hopefully I will have resolved this by Friday night.
Most attractive new weblog of the day definitely goes to Fifty-Five.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On the epic saga of The Well... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/15/2000 02:18:20 PM ----- BODY:Any regulars to barbelith are familiar with the nexus - the anti-establishment post-counter-sub-cultural discussion forum. Recently there has been rather more in the way of conflict and flame-wars than normal - so much in fact that I have been sent a really interesting article from Wired about The Epic Saga of The Well (May 1997). The well was one of the first and most significant online communities, and it was - at times - wracked with conflict and crisis.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I respect honesty in reviews... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Design CATEGORY: Design DATE: 03/16/2000 01:50:33 PM ----- BODY:If there's one thing I respect it is honesty. But it's a dangerous thing - particularly when the question you are answering is loaded. Take for example Oh Messy Life's DLOG (presumably is to Designlog as blog is to weblog [although surely that's the less pronouncable NLOG]). Barbelith was featured there a couple of days ago, in a generally complimentary fashion (and I quote):
"Everyone's favorite self-doubting, nomadic Brit Tom has voiced doubts over whether or not he, being self-trained, has the skills to compete with the college-boy designers. After looking over Barbelith, the obvious answer is that he's a natural..." [Overall grade - B]
He continues to make some very valid points about barbelith.com being continually under construction - which of course is the biggest sin in the whole web world (although he omits to mention that I am homeless and mostly computer-free which makes finishing the site rather difficult). All of this is more than reasonable. I don't have a problem with it - in fact I am flattered that barbelith was considered worthy to be reviewed.
I'm a little less sure about his more scathing reviews. He says of regular barbelith link, riothero:
"I know he's only 15. At that age five years ago, I'd barely begun using email, much less learned HTML. Still, though, I must pull no punches! I must be a bastard and speak the truth as I see it, and the truth as I see it here is that Riothero.com is a boring site to look at." [Overall grade - D+/C-]
I think that this really exposes the flaw in his approach - is he going to review the personal sites of web-designers who have been building sites since they were invented (kottke.org, powazek.com - both favourites of mine). Or is he going to review the personal sites of the rest of us, whether we are 45 year old bank managers, 15 year old students or 27 year old journalists? And if he really is going to analyse both, is it fair to use the same criteria? And what about content? Popularity? Would he be as "brutally honest" if it was a twelve-year-olds first site? Because we all know how crushing these comments can be...
Although having said that, jish seems to be taking it quite well...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Weird queries... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/16/2000 01:57:53 PM ----- BODY:One thing I really need to know - does Darren of timemachinego go to the EasyEverything on Tottenham Court Road? Because if he does, I'd like to wave to him one day from the balcony at Time Out. Which reminds me - the website is currently running a online drugs poll which I worked on.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm still at Chris' place... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/16/2000 07:06:36 PM ----- BODY:I'm still at Chris' place which is nice because he doesn't expect me to go out and entertain him all the time and he likes watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is ultimate escapist entertainment. Tomorrow I'm on the move again though, which is exhausting - this time to Camden to stay with Liz. And of course I have my meeting with my new flatmates. The sooner I get a flat, the sooner I get my computer back. The sooner I get my computer back, the sooner I can finish the site (and the sooner I can get a good night's sleep).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Ah... Symbolism... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/16/2000 07:12:54 PM ----- BODY:Today began with a very sad event - a direct result of my vagrancy - somewhere in all the move I crushed one of the pairs of sunglasses I bought in LA. If I was of a more morbid disposition I would say it was symbolic.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: A day without blogger... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/17/2000 06:24:47 PM ----- BODY:A day without blogger. And a difficult day it was too. My complete inability to update the site at lunchtime or before work has been profoundly frustrating. In general this has been a pretty weird day, and one that cannot hope but improve (that is of course assuming that my meeting with my new flatmates goes well). After that, I am off to the Liquid Lounge, before (possibly) heading on to Popstarz. I'm wearing a dark blue Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirt with the number "36" on the back should anyone else be there.
What is it with A&F anyway? We don't have them in the UK (so forgive my ignorance) - I picked up some of their clothes while in LA with Kerry and Sean. The catalogues are renowned for their homoerotic imagery (and with good reason), but they still seem to sell just as much to straight men of a pretty conservatively masculine disposition as they do to gay people.
A&F are basically part of the same trend in clothing that spawned the horror of the Evil Gap Clones - ie. everyone wearing the same thing - looking the same. This is a great source of horror to many people, and given my politics you might expect me to have a similar reaction. Weirdly though, I don't - it's almost as if clothes have become so generic that they have become invisible - for most of us they are no longer the demarcation points of culture or class. Perhaps homogeneity has resulted in a certain amount of liberation. Perhaps if we all wore the same thing....? On the other hand, I always have in the back of my mind the line from A Handmaid's Tale - spoken by the arch-conservatives who want to 'free' women from dangerous things like 'free will' - that there are both freedoms to and freedoms from. It is the sign of the politically libertine to always aim for the former ("go libertines!").
Homogeneity in and of itself shouldn't be considered a bad thing - sometimes the act of mimicry inevitably carries with it a certain amount of irony. Take openlog for example - is this a piss-take, an affectionate (self?)tribute or a straightfoward design decision? It's the same and yet because of its mimicry it has its own unique identity. [Check out kottke.org if you don't know what I am talking about.]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: How did I miss haughey.com? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/17/2000 06:27:57 PM ----- BODY:Before I get down to business (as it were), can someone explain to me how I have missed haughey.com after all these months of weblogging. I can't even remember how I found it today. Very much worth a visit.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: A final thought... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/19/2000 11:39:54 AM ----- BODY:As a final thought - a bizarre Invisibles Preview has appeared on ebay. Does anyone know anything about it? If so, let me know.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Design critiques... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/19/2000 11:57:25 AM ----- BODY:Andy at Dlog has responded to people's criticisms of his weblog design reviews (including a slightly savage one from the real world). His reply is well considered and good reading. I was particularly gratified that he decided to clarify his criteria for review:
"Some people have voiced concern over how I'm judging the quality of a weblog based on design. I don't think that's the case, though - I'm just talking about the layout, the look of the page. As I mentioned earlier, Riothero is one of my favorite blogs. And kottke.org, for that matter, is a site I rarely visit. My stupid little "grading system" has nothing to do with how Good or Bad a blog is, just what I think of the design."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Describe your weblog... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/19/2000 12:11:36 PM ----- BODY:
I've just decided to join weblogs.com. I've been putting it off for weeks because I was stumped by the question "Describe your weblog". I always find those questions both alarming and absurdly difficult - it's like those bits on CVs (resumés for the Americans amongst us) where you have to explain why you are perfect for the job. They make me queasy. Anyway - this is what I have managed to come up with:
"A half-baked attempt to fuse personal writing on the web with commentary and links of a futurist, politicised and millennial nature."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: QuietRiot... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/19/2000 01:06:51 PM ----- BODY:
Mark at Riothero is having a pretty weird time at the moment - not that you would know it from the main page of his weblog. If you want to read some of the most heartfelt and occasionally painful writing on the web, you have to explore his Quietriot section. You need a password, but as long as you don't actually know him in real life, he's pretty cool about sending it out. Obviously I can't go into detail about what he is going through at the moment - that would rather defeat the purpose of the password - but let's just say that anyone who has ever been a teenager and in love will be able to relate to everything he says. In some ways it really reminds me of the writing I did when I was his age - I have these notepads hidden away somewhere at my parents where I used to write down all the things I couldn't say in public. I read them now and again and they hit me like a ton of bricks.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Being John Malkovich... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/19/2000 01:15:56 PM ----- BODY:I went to see Being John Malkovich yesterday afternoon with Liz, Katy and Rhonda. I can't tell you how excited and inspired I was. I think it has been years since I saw such imagination and playfulness on screen - and I don't think that I have ever seen it from a Hollywood studio. The Guardian has assembled a pretty useful page collating all the British responses to the film - definitely worth a visit.
This is turning into quite a year for impressive film-making - a few months ago, American Beauty stomped on my head, and now this! And next week - Magnolia. It's at times like this when I really hate the fact that UK release dates are so far behind the US.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Living in King's Cross? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/19/2000 01:24:37 PM ----- BODY:I don't even know where to start today - there is so much that I want to say. After a week back in the UK, sleeping on people's floors, I finally think there may be hope on the horizon. Kate, Manuella and I went to see a flat in King's Cross yesterday that blew me away. It's not the most beautiful of buildings, and it doesn't have a sitting room, but the bedrooms are clean and large and have lots of plug sockets (these things matter to me). But the most impressive feature about the place is its location. We can see King's Cross station from what would be my bedroom, and Popstarz is just over the road. I just hope everyone agrees to it - and soon...
I've been thinking about LA again over the last couple of days. I haven't heard much from Kerry or Sean since I left, and in a strange way I miss them. I was listening to Beck on the radio today and it brought it all back. His album is full of references to Hollywood and hot-tubs and the like which only really make sense if you are in LA - and of course it has special relevance if when you are being driven through the city your host points offhand and murmurs - "Oh - and that's where Beck lives..."
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On Moving... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/20/2000 11:16:58 AM ----- BODY:In about an hour I have to go and meet my prospective new flatmates (in the process probably missing an old friend's birthday party) to discuss their anxieties regarding the flat in King's Cross. I can't help but think that the experience is unlikely to be entirely positive - but I have to try to restrain myself from saying that I'll get a place by myself. I still don't want to, but it has occurred to me a couple of times that perhaps we are just looking for different things in a flat.
I don't get it - everything seemed to be going so well. The King's Cross place looked like it had at least two of us completely committed and only one waverer. How did that situation turn into one where I am the only one who still wants it? Over the last 24 hours I had really managed to resolve things in my head - the location seemed to give me opportunities to make more gay friends and to be a local/regular at one of my favourite places in London. By yesterday evening the ever-present anxiety of my vagrancy had almost completely faded, and my mind was swimming with the possibilities of living so close to the centre of London. And now...
Let's drown our relative sorrows with a few links: Are webloggers becoming self-indulgent?, Bump redesign madness.
With the end of the Invisibles in sight, I am again considering the fate of barbelith, the nexus and the bomb. This is what I have come up with so far (a quote from the nexus):
"My thoughts on the future of barbelith have been prompted by Eloi and a variety of other people's comments - some more carefully worded than others ... "My ramblings on the front page (which I accept might not be to everyone's tastes) - were originally put up because i didn't have anything else to put there - people weren't sending me things to put up and those that were were generating so much work for me that I didn't have time to do it, a full time job and eat or breathe. "However, I have roughly decided to buy myself a new domain name to shift the weblog into (because I enjoy doing it and I get a lot of positive feedback but I accept that it might not always be in the spirit of the Invisibles) and from there attempt to concentrate more on the subversive and political aspects of the Invisibles on Barbelith. "All opinions are valued - but projects that require considerable initial effort with limited difficulty in updates are preferable to me to those which are less initially time consuming but take longer on a weekly basis. I would ideally like to be able to almost completely leave the page for a few weeks without it dying. I am thinking of some system which would misuse something like blogger to put content into pages as easily as possible. Perhaps some kind of article submission proceedure, where I built a page which ten or so people were randomly chosen as editors for things people wrote to them (to spread the load), and could post them as required, with me only having to update the front page. It could be like a repository of articles somewhere between Disinfo and the Bomb's analysis sections. We could even use the articles currently in the analysis section to smooth over any gaps in the schedule. I would be thinking of getting between four and six new articles a week up. "I don't know really - what do people think of that kind of thing? Discussion could then follow in the Nexus. "Oh and bear in mind that the Bomb as to remain a substantial part of the site... "All ideas appreciated, as I say - and look out for web-applications and web-based publishing ventures that might help the site operate with as little FTPing, html rewriting etc etc as possible."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: SXSW / WXW1? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/20/2000 06:57:15 PM ----- BODY:
Two things before I get down to the serious business of complaining about stuff. 1) Derek Powazek has put his SXSW photos online. There are some great ones - particularly of Jason and Mark. 2) I am too jealous to even speak properly at the moment because everyone got to go to SXSW except me. Katy came to me with an idea a while back for a similar conference - WXW1 (West by West 1) - for London based internet obsessives and professionals. Would anyone actually be interested? Because if you were (you never know) we might actually organise it. Spread the word, gauge the interest.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: American Beauty in ASCII STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/21/2000 11:08:47 AM ----- BODY:I saw this ages ago but completely forgot to link to it. So here I present: American Beauty in ASCII.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Adieu Reptile Brain... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/21/2000 01:36:32 PM ----- BODY:
My plans to move the weblog to a new domain have been rather scuppered by someone having registered it four days ago (damn, damn, damn). It just goes to show - farewell reptilebrain.com [whois].
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On giving gay people guns... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Gay CATEGORY: Gay CATEGORY: Politics DATE: 03/21/2000 09:57:56 PM ----- BODY:There are benefits and there are horrors to staying on people's floors. Benefits include not having to pay rent, seeing more of your good friends and getting to know local geography. Horrors include continual exhaustion, sometimes uncomfortable bedding and making sure that you don't upset anyone by being under their feet 24 hours a day. Tomorrow morning I am wandering up to Kentish Town to look at a flat before work. I'm not convinced that it is the place for me, but I'll give it a go. I just wish I wasn't so tired all the time.
One of my oldest friends, Gideon, told me about an article in Salon the other day, and asked my opinion about it. It suggests that gay people should arm themselves with handguns in order to protect themselves from anti-gay attacks. Gideon's exact words on this one were: "an intriguing proposal by a journalist i know... any ideas? I can't decide if he's right or crazy".
I read through the article carefully. As I read through the first page my immediate reaction was one of mild horror - what was this man advocating? Did he really want to start some form of gang warfare on the streets of American cities - to put a whole new meaning to the phrase "gay mafia"? But then, on the second page I came up against this:
"The abiding fact is this: Homosexuals have been too vulnerable for too long. We have tried to make a political virtue of our vulnerability, but the gay-bashers aren't listening. Playing the victim card has won us sympathy, but at the cost of respect. So let's make gay-bashing dangerous. We should do that for our own protection. But we should also do it because we will win a full measure of esteem from the public, and from ourselves, only when we make clear our determination to look after ourselves"
On rereading the article it seemed clear to me that the article wasn't actually about arming gay people at all, but an appeal for an escape from the current politics of gay identity - a politics that defines gay people by their vulnerability - continually subject to name-calling, workplace discrimination, harrassment or attack. It wasn't so much calling for violence to counter violence, but instead desperately scrambling for something to replace "Gay Man/Woman: Perpetual Victim".
Queer as Folk 2, which recently aired in the UK, included some pretty startling scenes - a man taking on board all of the insults thrown against him in order to savagely expose the blackmailing attempts of his ten-year-old nephew, the same man blowing up the car of a woman who disinherits her estranged gay son (she called him to his father's death-bed to ask him to sign the papers) and a full-on confrontation between a name-calling hick and a poof with a gun. Each one of these scenes inspired something proactive inside all the people who saw them - the desire not to have to "run to daddy" when something horrible happened. It's the same feeling - the same discomfort with the idea of gay people as being weak and needing outside help to get them through their daily lives.
So what do I think? Do I think gay people should carry handguns? I don't know. But I know one thing for certain - we should be doing something.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: $220 in excess bandwidth! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/22/2000 11:52:46 AM ----- BODY:Netnation has just charged me $220 for excess bandwidth over the last two months. As of this moment, the nexus is closed completely. They are going to charge me a similarly ridiculous amount for this month as well. Frankly I am horrified and don't know what do do - although I think getting myself to a different host is pretty crucial. All you big time designers out there - kottke, powazek, glassdog etc WHERE ARE YOU HOSTED? This is an emergency. HELP!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Awesome response to my crisis... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/23/2000 11:55:17 AM ----- BODY:The response to my crisis yesterday has been pretty incredible. I've had many many suggestions about where to be hosted, and I am edging towards pair.com. If anyone has any good or bad stories about them, let me know...
The weirdest thing that has happened is that people have offered to contribute to help me pay off the debts caused by excessive bandwidth and to get the nexus back online. It's all very much appreciated, really!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Difficult days... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/24/2000 03:53:16 PM ----- BODY:The last couple of days have been (as I am sure you can understand) more than a little difficult - a sudden huge bill out of the blue (it now looks like the nexus uses around 80% of barbelith's bandwidth) didn't particularly help me in my quest to find a place to live. On top of that there are questions over how my job is evolving - there are suggestions of a move of emphasis which appeals to me in the short-term, but worries me when I think about the long-term prospects.
Anyway - I have decided that people don't come to weblogs to hear tales of woe and crisis, so I am going to try and concentrate today on things that are web-oriented and (above all) entertaining.
I'm a 69 in the Suave-o-meter. I think that means I beat Evhead. I think my mother would approve...
Just because I haven't been posting recently, doesn't mean that I have forgotten about web queeries. One of the most interesting and informative uses of blogger technology to date.
I spend six years living in Bristol - the San Francisco of the United Kingdom. The BBC's (oh so gripping) site even includes a quiz! The answer is incredibly obvious to anyone who has ever been there...
Oh, and according to zeldman, Lloyd Wood hates style sheets.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Why don't we write it down somewhere private? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/25/2000 02:16:31 PM ----- BODY:Can I ask you all something in complete seriousness? Do you REALLY think that Mark is more suave than I am? I mean, really?
Jason has been talking about the difficulties in writing about personal things on the web. This seems to be quite the crisis for the young weblogging intelligensia at the moment. The first stage of the barbelith weblog ended with an e-mail from my brother promising not to tell my mother, the second stage when I realised that my co-workers were occasionally glancing at the site. Mark at Riothero has this problem as well. He used to compensate for it by having a password protected weblog, but then his family demanded that he allowed them to see it. And now there is something on Jason's mind and he doesn't know how to express it. Moreover he doesn't know if he should:
"Why don't I just write it down somewhere private...a Word doc on my computer or in a paper diary? Somehow, that seems strange to me though. For a lot of the personal Web publishing crowd, the Web is the place for you to express your thoughts and feelings and such. To put those things elsewhere seems absurd. Or is it just me?"
The answer seems pretty obvious to me - the mild anonymity of the net allows us to talk about whatever we want - get support from people without having to expose ourselves in person and transform our lives into (mostly) interesting narratives. I used to run this site called Blank Faeces which was all about our ability to explore aspects of ourselves online that we couldn't do in everyday life. I think the sin of the weblogger or web celebrity is their (our?) compulsion to attach a name to the writings...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm homeless, goddammit! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/25/2000 02:37:58 PM ----- BODY:I got another e-mail today asking why I haven't been updating the bomb. Just to clarify to newcomers, I am homeless at the moment and have been for over three weeks now. As soon as I can find a flat (another one got gazumped from me today) then I will get down to rebuilding barbelith completely, and (of course) updating the bomb...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Exodus 8:2 "If you refuse STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/25/2000 11:51:23 PM ----- BODY: Exodus 8:2 "If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Is that an accent? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/26/2000 04:31:00 PM ----- BODY:
The question I was asked most often when I was in the US was: "Is that an accent?". To which the answer of course is ... "no". One of the weird things about the US is that, perhaps because of its size and relative importance in the world at the moment, it can be quite inward-looking. So while people in the UK are familiar with the States through television, film and the news, there are many Americans who will stare at a poor alien Brit with an utter lack of comprehension. So consider the bulk of today's weblog entry to be a light-hearted attempt to slap some sense into our American cousins. Your honour, I here present evidence to this effect..
DISCLAIMER: The above piece of writing is meant to be taken in a light-hearted fashion...
A little announcement regarding the Nexus. The site should be operational again by the weekend (no promises, but I'll see what I can do), but in the meantime there is a temporary alternative at onelist: TemporaryNexus.
In case anyone hadn't guessed from the bible quote last night, I went to see Magnolia. Katy, Evil Nick and I didn't really know what to expect from it. I'm still reeling from it today. The acting was all of the highest standard, the script was well written and, while the removal of twenty minutes might have sharpened it up a bit, basically it was certainly professional and original stuff. And yet I am still not completely convinced by it. The weirdest thing for me was that they actually put an intermission in it, which amazed me. I'd be interested to know if they did that in the US as well. Could anyone enlighten me? [Enlighten Tom]
A couple of brief bits of news on the flat front - Kate and I went to see a place in Kentish Town yesterday which was pretty impressive - large open rooms, a conservatory, garden, garage and balcony for only £330 a week. A wonderful place. I am a little wavering because it pushes my rent up quite considerably, although I don't think I'll see another place as good for a while. All we have to do is shunt Manuela around it and hope she likes it. At the same time, Evil Nick's flatmate has moved out a week early, leaving a place to sleep comfortably and privately (and on a bed no less) for a full week. So all in all, pretty good news.
Apparently I am not as suave as I thought I was: a slow saturday night. Despite this, people still want to meet me: Fairvue.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Oscar 2000 Moments... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/27/2000 07:12:04 PM ----- BODY:Oscar 2000 Moments
It's a bit of a blur to me. Oscars ended 6.30am GMT. I arrive at work 10.00am GMT. I need a drink.
<MikeWOIFM> Puce? is puce a good color? Or how about Barbelith Orange?
<zannah> i though puce was a purpleish
<MikeWOIFM> I was presenting options.
<Anita> puce isn't websafe
<nullJason> puce isn't safe, period.
<Anita> puce is maroonish red -- means "flea"
<zannah> puce is cute.
<nullJason> I thought it was greenish.
<MikeWOIFM> puce is certainly not safe to wash with whites.
<John_metajohn> puce sounds like what I would do after eating one of Mikes roadkill pancakes. [courtesy of null]
When I was at University, I was told once to always start with a quote. And I'm even in this one. I'm like one of those names on paint sampler cards - "Barbelith Orange". How satisfying is that...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Ceiva Internet-Enable Photo Frame... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/28/2000 03:45:39 PM ----- BODY:Possibly the most futurist gadget I have seen in months is the Ceiva Internet-Enabled Photo Frame. It sounds like a ridiculous idea, but I honestly believe that it might become a must-have purchase not just for web-geeks and their families, but also for small spaces in nightclubs and bars. It's really the simplest thing - a small, high quality screen which plugs into the phone socket. Every day, at cheap rate, it dials up a server where your friends have e-mailed their latest photos of their children, their holidays or their genitals, the images are downloaded and displayed in a rotating slideshow. You can choose specific images to display through the website if you have favourites, and you can update them more quickly simply by pressing a button on the frame.
The potential for bloggers is endless. Imagine being on an Evhead, megnut or powazek image mailing list, which would update the frame on your desk every day...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm a poll-starter, twisted poll-starter... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/28/2000 07:36:40 PM ----- BODY:Can't chat - in a hurry, but I just thought I should say that I have started a couple of polls over on the TemporaryNexus about the relaunch of the Nexus and what happens when I move the weblog... You might have to sign up to be able to vote...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Raising the bar... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/29/2000 11:43:09 AM ----- BODY:I tell you, just when everything appears to be running smoothly, powazek raises the bar again. His new design is, simply, lovely. Clean colours, a web-friendly open feel with legible text (not using Verdana - a shock for me). It has a certain David Carson print-media 1998 feel to it.
Everyone knows of Ask Jeeves, the search engine that is supposed to be engineered to answer real English queries in an almost conversational style. So what happens when you try to actually have a conversation with it? FNwire interviewed the butler.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I went to the doctor... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/29/2000 04:12:08 PM ----- BODY:I went to the doctor about my mad gut and digestive complaints and he told me that it was a combination of a mild infection, lack of sleep, a bad diet and a considerable amount of stress. Great. Can't see any of THOSE changing until I get a flat... While I was reeling from that news, I received some donations towards the Rebuild-the-Nexus fund. I am amazed and honoured and will do my best to get it up again as soon as possible.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Theatre of Cruelty... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/29/2000 06:45:00 PM ----- BODY:I'm in love with this story from zeldman:
Theater of Cruelty: Our friend Mark was freelancing for a client we'll call Roger. They had just completed their project and were sitting in Roger's office. After a long, uncomfortable silence, Roger glanced up from his desk and looked Mark meaningfully in the eyes.----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Moving domains... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/30/2000 11:05:47 AM ----- BODY:
"Mark," sighed Roger, "you know how sometimes you stare at your address book, looking over all your friends' names and phone numbers, and you suddenly realize that they're not really your friends at all? That you have nothing in common with them, you don't even like them, and you're pretty sure they don't like you either?"
Mark said, "No."
Barbelith is going to change. Because a few people have sent me money to get the Nexus going again, I don't feel comfortable having personal content on the domain name. So I have decided that over the next week or so, I will buy a new domain, shift the weblog over to that, and then reorganise Barbelith as a cooperative article based site.
But this leaves me with a problem - finding a new domain name. After the loss of my beloved "reptilebrain.com", I am at a bit of a loss. So I thought I'd make an appeal to you people, who know the spirit and rhythms of the current site: have you got any ideas?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Brief Life Summary... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/30/2000 06:10:16 PM ----- BODY:Brief life summary: DRINKING TOO MUCH BEER AND VODKA. This will be the third night in a row that I have ended up in Point 101 (Tottenham Court Road tube, under Centrepoint). I am going to get a disgusting beer belly and then no one will want me.
Riothero redesigned. Mark's rolling design project reached a height today, when the background kicked in, dragging a simple orange table structure into the 21st century. And another thing - what other weblogger would post urgently: "Jesus Christ! I'm sexy!"...
Not that I care (I was instructed not to), but I am really glad to see that Barbelith has finally resurfaced on beebo.org's weblog ratings.
There's some argument going on around the weblogs about bloat. I haven't really been following it, but apparently it's quite interesting.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Student Clubs for Time Out... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 03/31/2000 10:59:19 AM ----- BODY:Another little micro-design-project for Time Out: Student Clubs Competition. Very tight deadline on this one. I think it worked out quite well.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Two anecdotes about clubs... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/01/2000 01:47:50 PM ----- BODY:In order to maintain the record of the week, I decided that I should go drinking directly after work last night. And (I suppose inevitably) this resulted in a few of us ending up at Popstarz. Which led to:
TWO ANECDOTES ABOUT BUMPING INTO PEOPLE IN CLUBS
Anecdote One:
As I wander through the passages of the Scala, I keep passing this bloke who looks vaguely familar. And he keeps making 'knowing' looks in my direction. I will be completely honest and say that as he wasn't really my type, I decided to have a ponder, but not launch into a conversation that might be misconstrued as flirting.
Anyway, after a couple of hours of this kind of behaviour, we find each other wandering towards each other in a corridor. There's no real reason to avoid chatting, so I turn and say to him:
"I'm really sorry - but you look really familiar, have we met?"
"Yes", he replies, "I fell over in front of you twice while clubbing at the old Popstarz about four months ago..."
I look slightly dumbfounded, and don't really know what to say. He glances down at my favourite t-shirt of the moment, a dark blue A&F thing, and continues:
"At the time I was really embarrassed, but now you are wearing that stupid t-shirt, I feel a lot better. I hope to hell you are being ironic." And then he walks off.
Anecdote Two:----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: A couple of announcements... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/01/2000 02:06:07 PM ----- BODY:
As I wander through the passages of the Scala, I find myself running into this other guy who looks both familiar and rather devilishly attractive. After my experiences with the nasty t-shirt hater, I am a bit sceptical of wandering up to strangers, and so I leave it - particularly when it becomes clear that he doesn't have the slightest clue who I am either.
As it approaches 3am, however, it suddenly hits me - this is a guy that I met (once) around a year ago when I visited a friend in Cambridge. I must have spent no more than four hours in his company.
Slightly sceptical of my realisation, I wander up to him, and indeed - it is he. We chat for a while and then wander off back to our respective friends. At which point my friends (Rhonda, Evil Nick et al) decide that it is beyond necessary that I flirt with him. The young gentleman listens manfully to my abortive attempts to demonstrate my interest with a light smile, while I slowly turn an inelegant purple. And then, with a look of mild exasperation, he pounces...
Before I get going, I have a couple of annoucements. Mark has clearly finally lost it - his exposé of the evil Jason Kottke makes that abundantly clear. And while we are at it, is it just me, or are his clothes becoming an increasingly rare sight on the webcam? I give him about four months before he is doing illegal online strip-shows and changing his name to Candy.
I have just downloaded and installed IE5 for Macs, and I am generally quite impressed. The larger default text sizes came as a mild shock to start with, but I seem to be getting used to it quite quickly. The one thing that is clear is that the aids to cross-platform compatibility mean that those sites designed to alter their behaviour for the Mac platform may now have to rethink their style sheets and text sizes once more. Microsoft have a surprisingly good page on sizing text in CSS for standards-compliant browsers called, "Points, Pixels, DPI and You".
In other news, I finally sorted out the barbelith archives, which are now permanently accessible through the grey strip at the top of the page. I've been flicking through old entries, and the one I am proudest off (from last November) reads:
"I went to watch the football. I didn't understand how anyone could get so excited. Lost on me completely. I tried to explain to the assembled masses that if the players had handlebar moustaches, smoking jackets, armchairs and muskets, the game would be both more civilised and more entertaining. They resolutely refused to see reason."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Very tired of being homeless... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/02/2000 04:04:24 PM ----- BODY:
I am becoming very tired of being homeless. Yes, that's right - I am STILL homeless. A friend has given me permission to crash at his place for a couple of nights (with a break in the middle so that he can have sex with someone without me knocking on the door and asking if I can pilfer some Orange Juice), but there is still only the vaguest notions of new flatishness in the near future.
I went to see Erin Brokovich last night with Katy (soon to be starting her own weblog), and we got so excited by the classiness of Steven Soderbergh that we are going to go and see The Limey tonight.
For those people disappointed by my recent shortcomings on updating The Bomb, I have finally added most of the annotations for issue 3#2 from the Nexus. Should I have missed anything, let me know immediately. [Let Tom know]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: *spark STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/03/2000 11:53:34 AM ----- BODY:Another month, another issue of *spark. This month, the features include the intoxicating (virtual morality), the revolutionary (hacktivism: the new protest movement?), and the inspirational (surfing towards bethlehem?). I am taking the way *spark operates as a form of model example of what I want the new barbelith to achieve when I finally sort out the architectural parts of it - in some ways it is already a project that should appeal to the subcultural elements of the Nexus...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Admin Notice: Regular Nexus people STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/04/2000 11:19:06 AM ----- BODY: Admin Notice: Regular Nexus people and the like - Hadalis is holding a post-finalé bash in Winston-Salem, NC on May 26 -29. If you are interested, the e-mail address you need is: Hadalis@gateway.net.----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: So I had lunch yesterday STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/04/2000 02:16:01 PM ----- BODY: So I had lunch yesterday with the guy I met at Popstarz, and it really was quite enjoyable. I don't want to foul things up, so I won't go into details - except to say that I'm probably seeing him again this evening. It's all very exciting.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Barbelith goes metalogic... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/04/2000 02:33:13 PM ----- BODY:
.Barbelith goes metalogic:
And I had a lovely evening last night with Sam and various friends of his. Just in case you were wondering...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Angling for links? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/05/2000 03:47:04 PM ----- BODY:
If this isn't unabashed.com angling for links, I don't know what is:
"i'm not sure i'll ever get many people visiting my site... i'm not into that whole 'blog everybody else' mentality. i don't want to post that someone else has a good post... just to get some reciprocal links happening. i have a list of sites that i like to visit... because they're good. cuz i like them... i'm not looking for anything from them-- or anybody else for that matter. that's it. c'est tout."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: If I told you that STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/06/2000 07:16:03 PM ----- BODY: If I told you that I had spent today with my co-worker starting the process of changing 16,000 separate web pages to work with new banner and button ad coding (requiring around 165 separate hard includes), would any of you feel any sympathy for me? Said enterprise (plus last night's uncomfortable sofa cushions) have resulted in a dull pulsing headache which feels like someone has stuck an air pump into my brain and is slowly inflating it against my skull. All in all, the last 24/48 hours have been completely overwhelming - there has been no area of my life which hasn't been confusing or confounding or intense. That's not to say it's all bad stuff - not by any means - but there's just too much of it.
So, Project Cool recommended Lockjaw today. I guess I can see why, it's quite ably put together. I was just wondering about the lo-fi feel of the site - and the preponderance of grainy imagery. It reminded me of a trend in print design a while back for an almost fanzine feel. I don't know if it translates that well to the web though - I mean there is so much real lo-fi stuff, I am not sure that it is easy to tell when it is intentional.
Evil Nick is off to visit a young woman in Los Angeles. He's never been out of Europe before. I try and figure out what to say to him about the trip and can only come up with, "you'll be surprised how alien you feel". In order to get a flight at short notice, he has had to go via Frankfurt. Total length of outgoing flight - 14 hours. That's got to hurt.
I don't love Ben Brown, I just think he's nice.
At some point in the last day or so (according to my referrer log), Zeldman linked to me. But then when I try and look at his site, I keep getting timed out. What's that about? Can someone tell me what he said?
Oh, and if you have a minute to spare - have a glance at my latest microproject - the Best London Cinema poll. I'm never really sure whether or not they are any good or not - I mean they work, and they do what they are supposed to, but they are hardly the most attractive of designs. I was much happier with the Eating and Drinking Awards one. But then I had more than an hour for that...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Ever more Hard Includes. Will STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/07/2000 05:49:39 PM ----- BODY: Ever more Hard Includes. Will the madness never end?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Never been so exhausted in STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/09/2000 07:34:16 PM ----- BODY: Never been so exhausted in my life. May have found a house in Arsenal of all places. Completely gorgeous little place - only problem is that one of our number has to sleep in a half completed loft conversion.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Slackness in the weblogging front... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/09/2000 07:52:00 PM ----- BODY:
So I have been a bit lax on the old weblogging over the last couple of days, which frankly is unforgivable. But all that is about to end. I stumbled upon the Guerilla Banner Project today, and I haven't been as chuffed for ages (translation for Americans: thrilled/pleased). These random people look at their favourite sites and produce alternative banners for them. Most of them are pretty cool. Particular favourite of the moment "Love Me, Love My Penis... Prehensile Tales.
There are reasons for my recent laxity though. One of the unpleasant ones involves the bill finally arriving for March's excess bandwidth. I have to grab together another $150 to pay them off, and (in doing so) dispose of the epic Nexus debts. This charge having been disposed of, I can get down to the business of moving hosts. I didn't want to do anything until the bill finally arrived (and I had actually put down the deposit on a flat) and now it looks like that was the right thing to do!
Something to make people jealous here. You never can tell in these situations, so it might be a fraud, but I appear to have been sent an extremely entertaining and in depth e-mail by none other than Michael Moorcock of Jerry Cornelius fame. And it's all about The Bomb and Grant Morrison...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Today I feel jittery, unable STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/10/2000 12:54:21 PM ----- BODY: Today I feel jittery, unable to concentrate, prone to extraordinary mood-swings, exhausted, claustrophobic and wired. I have no idea why I should feel so awful, although I am currently researching Sleep Deprivation.If you do a search on Yahoo! for "Sleep Deprivation", the first thing you come up with is needcoffee.com. It's not that helpful, frankly, but it is quite entertaining...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I keep being reassured, but STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/11/2000 02:47:00 PM ----- BODY: I keep being reassured, but this still alarms me:
"If you become too indispensable to a specific project, then that is likely to be your project forever. If you get bored with that project, too bad. If you want to learn new, saleable expericence in case something does happen to your job or to your project, too bad. I can understand not wanting to move into management, but if that is what you want, too bad. Finding one particular job that you want to stick with is great, but it could become an albatross around your neck." [Excerpt from Considered Harmful]----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Yet another Tiny Tom Time STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/11/2000 05:52:28 PM ----- BODY: Yet another Tiny Tom Time Out Microproject. All you Londoners, win tickets to MTV's Five Night Stand.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I got a charming e-mail STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/11/2000 06:09:01 PM ----- BODY: I got a charming e-mail today (thank you Txiki). It directed me towards glassdog.com and the Lifechange Cardwrack. Very cool indeed. I'm familiar with glassdog of old, but this new aspect... Very cool indeed.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm in a much cheerier STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/11/2000 07:27:22 PM ----- BODY: I'm in a much cheerier mood today, but I still can't really focus properly - everything I try to write spirals out of control. So (as you can probably see) I am restricting myself to short snippets of interest (ooooh - a traditional weblog) rather than my usual vaguely coherent longer posts.
A few days ago, Zeldman mentioned me in his daily log. At the time this came as a pleasant surprise, but more and more over the last few days it has started to encroach on my mind. I am in a more paranoid space than I have been for months, but I have started wondering why he would want to read my shambling missives. I honestly don't understand it. And of course it doesn't help when he goes and declares war on Microsoft. Now I'm actually scared of him. And what kind of person is not only mentioned in important articles, but has those articles screencapped for the product demos of huge companies? I mean - the man's got to be some kind of superhuman godlike uberman.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Is it just me, or STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/11/2000 07:46:34 PM ----- BODY: Is it just me, or does Blogger work really strangely on IE5 for Macs?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Interesting how this might seem STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/12/2000 12:31:11 PM ----- BODY: Interesting how this might seem to be a confession - I smoke.
Observations on Smoking and Being a Smoker:
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Ooooh. More Bubbles. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/14/2000 10:24:26 AM ----- BODY: Ooooh. More Bubbles.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I got an e-mail from STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/14/2000 10:56:42 AM ----- BODY: I got an e-mail from Kerry today. I don't think he'd mind if I quoted him on this:
"Popped into www.venicebeachcam.com and saw that it had pix of what we SHOULD'VE seen (had it been a better day). It's gorgeous here now. sigh, if only you'd waited a month."I'm going to kill him. I swear to god I am going to kill him. Experience the true awesome difference between living in LA and living in London today, as Barbelith presents - PARALLEL WEBCAMS:
"In this candid review of Internet Explorer 5, Web Standards Project leader Jeffrey Zeldman gives us the low down on why it will help the Web 'whether you use a Mac or not...'"And then they link to the Web Standards Project, where Zeldman is earnestly slamming IE5.5 for Windows:
"The Web Standards Project (WaSP) today denounced Internet Explorer 5.5 Windows Edition for abandoning Web standards Microsoft has publicly committed to supporting, and focusing on proprietary technologies which are certain to fragment the already-troubled Web space."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Best News in Ages So STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/15/2000 04:51:38 PM ----- BODY: Best News in Ages
The "Look At Me" Award for Total Self Obsession
Two reviews about my sites (do a search for Invisibles): The Bomb and The Nexus.
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Gripe of the Day
Today's gripe comes to you courtesy of i2design.net. My problem with this otherwise beautiful site is in the irritating lack of cross-browser compatible CSS. I'm using Netscape on a PC at the moment and the text is completely unreadable. And I don't mean "eye-straining", I mean so small that the pixels can't even accurately render the individual letters. On a personal site, of course, it is never more than slightly irritating. But I have seen the same problem all over corporate sites (particularly when you are also considering different platforms) and it really isn't very good.
Gratuitous Self-Referential Weblog Reference of the Day
I found the i2design link through riothero, who every regular visitor to barbelith has heard about more than once. I just wanted to say that I haven't forgotten about the collaboration I said I'd do with him on hero.nu, and as soon as I am settled I will start work on it in earnest. By the way Mark, don't you get cold? Put a woolly jumper on old chap!
Most Ridiculously Embarrassing Thing of All Time
So you're wandering around with a young gentleman you might be relatively keen on, and he decides to duck back to your office with you. And then you decide to show him the view from the 7th floor of a tall building in the centre of London because he's an architect and he might like to see them finish the roof of the British Museum. And then he wants to see what's on the other side of the building so you think, maybe I should take him up to the roof so he can see more. And then he decides he fancies a quick kiss, which is nice. And then you go back to work. And then ten minutes later you are informed that an entire department of the company you work for was watching a reflection of everything you did in the mirrored building opposite. And then you collapse in embarrassment. This happened to a friend of mine. It did not happen to me...
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Insightful Thing of the Day
I stumbled upon the current Good News/Bad News special feature at k10k today, and frankly, it was great. All the pent up frustration that we all sometimes feel about the net along with all the reasons why we can find it so very exciting. All in a little javascript pop-up window, with elegant little design touches. Perfect.
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Tactless Advert of the Day
From Zeldman comes the astonishing Hoboken BrewHaus advert. Hmmm - spot-quiz: "Does Tom Have A Boner for Zeldman?". I don't think I do, but I've been talking about him a lot recently.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Hmmm. Popular opinion seems to STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/16/2000 07:50:35 PM ----- BODY: Hmmm. Popular opinion seems to be that I do indeed have a boner for Zeldman. In his honour therefore, I am planning to spend all my available time worshipping at the altar of the mangod: The Jeffrey Zeldman Fanclub. Thanks to riothero and So I Say... for showing me the way. Halleluiah!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Touching sentiments indeed from The STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/16/2000 07:57:17 PM ----- BODY: Touching sentiments indeed from The Rumpus Room:
"On a totally unrelated note, has anyone ever seen any other pictures of the Barbelith guy? That one blurry little picture on his site suggests to me that he's quite the cutie-pie, and I want to know for sure. If he is, then that -- along with the charm and talent displayed on his site -- may be grounds for another one of my innocently aggressive flirting campaigns. They're so much less risky with people overseas who I'll never meet, after all."For anyone who actually is even the slightest bit interested in seeing other photos of me, why not revisit the horror of Slutcore? Failing that, there's a rather dashing photo at Epinions.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Some bastard bought reptilebrain.co.uk... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/16/2000 08:19:18 PM ----- BODY:
Cause for horror today. Someone went and bought reptilebrain.co.uk [who is] which fills me with absolute horror since I had just resolved myself to the fact that I could buy it even though it wasn't a .com (I am afraid to say that I think regional domains were a huge mistake and are completely against the spirit of the net). Anyway - this leaves me with a new quest - think of a new domain name for this weblog as soon as possible, so when the big move comes I don't end up with cabbageboy.com [NOTE: Since checked and cabbageboy.com is in fact no longer available].
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On the male competitive arena... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/16/2000 08:39:26 PM ----- BODY:So I went out for lunch today with a group of friends and their friends and was disturbed to find myself feeling defensive and edgy which dragged me back about ten years to gawky teenage years of perpetual embarrassment. I've been thinking about it all afternoon and I can't really understand why I should have felt that way, except that it coincided with the arrival of Fenner's friend George, who for some reason unsettles me deeply. I think I find his absolute confidence unpleasant. From the point of his arrival onwards the lunch stopped being about a group of old friends getting together and chatting comfortably and started to become some kind of male competitive arena, in which mobile phones were carefully compared and examined, hair-cuts and clothing were noted for signs of appropriate consumption and physical presences were assessed for signs of weakness. I fear I was the only one feeling uncomfortable, and I could just as easily still be feeling the effects of too little sleep and continual vagrancy. I don't know really...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Barbelith mentioned in Powazek interview... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/17/2000 05:02:15 PM ----- BODY:It just goes to show, flattery will get you everywhere! I don't think you can even guess how thrilled I was that Barbelith was mentioned in Powazek's Latest Interview. It's an interesting article quite apart from the reference to me (although that is clearly the most important part)...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Calling all Londoners - Your City Needs You... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/17/2000 05:17:18 PM ----- BODY:"Calling all Londoners - Your City Needs You." Or at least that is the message that is being broadcast 24 hours a day as the contest for the new position of Mayor heats up. There is a substantial site for the campaign [Mayor For London], posters have been springing up on every spare inch of wall space and almost every TV bulletin or newspaper oozes scandal or corruption or photo-opportunity.
In fact campaigning has been so widespread that it is rapidly nearing saturation point. Today, as I approached work, I was confronted with Ken Livingstone's purple campaign bus, filled to the brim with grinning anorak-wearing octogenarians blasting poor quality pop-music with a half-hearted slightly embarrassed voice-over.
But who should you vote for? This is where Fantasy Mayor comes in. This seriously useful site first asks you who you were planning to vote for. And then it presents you with fifteen policy statements - you choose the degree to which you agree or disagree with them and then it presents you with a list of the candidates that you share most policy points with. The results are always interesting, and often not what you expect. Against all odds, I have ended up with Frank Dobson...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Frustrating Flirtation... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/17/2000 05:50:54 PM ----- BODY:I've been having frustratingly brief flirt-mail all day from Sam in Cambridge. He's busy building models out of whatever it is architects build models out of, and his hands (apparently) are covered in cigarette burns, superglue, sawdust, pen marks and the like. Which would explain the frustratingly brief bit I suppose.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On work equipment... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/18/2000 03:41:20 PM ----- BODY:What does it say about ones proto-revolutionary zeal when one is excited about finally having a direct phone line at work. I've moved offices and now have a sexy (possible) G4 with DVD player and Mac OS9 as well. If only the monitor were larger. Although having said that, there have to be limits...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Touched by the hand of STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/18/2000 04:32:57 PM ----- BODY: Touched by the hand of camworld:"Someone has been submitting barbelith.com through my submission form every couple of weeks for the past few months. And every time I visited, the site just didn't grab me. I don't know if the design has changed or his writing style has changed since I last visited, but it's turning into a pretty good site full of witty commentary and great links. And the design is decent, too."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm one of rumpus.net's Cute STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/18/2000 04:35:49 PM ----- BODY: I'm one of rumpus.net's Cute Boys on the Web!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The Web is All About STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/18/2000 04:38:32 PM ----- BODY: The Web is All About Me - or so you might think from looking around this morning. But before I even get around to that, I have to make it clear that riothero has just stepped his design up one substantial gear. It's the cleanest, most elegant design he has ever produced. Mark, please, leave it like this for a little while!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On writing about one's partners... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/18/2000 07:57:24 PM ----- BODY:
So I am sitting in my new office, everyone else has gone home and I have a few things to get done before I can go drinking with Nick and friends. I've got the Sex Pistols playing on the G4 as compensation for the Drum and Bass that has been in the background for much of the day. I've been thinking a lot today, between bouts of savage work, about what limits a weblogger must set on themselves.
I remember reading an article a few months ago about how a guy kept an incredibly personal and detailed online diary. All his friends knew about it, as did his girlfriend. She made the astonishing statement that she actually checked his diary to find out the state of their relationship. It sounds horrific, but it seemed to work for them.
Other webloggers, while accepting that there will always be things which they don't feel comfortable talking about publicly, are less certain about where these limits lie.
A few weeks ago, Jason Kottke said that there was something happening in his life that he really wanted to talk about, but didn't feel able. Meanwhile, Riothero keeps his relationship with Lyda very much in the foreground of his log. Of course, this hasn't been without its difficulties.
I'm very interested in hearing about how people reconcile this difficulty (although the question I perhaps should be asking is "Why would anyone want to talk about their relationships publicly on the web anyway?"), but I suppose at the end of the day it comes down to this - the only appropriate public comment about a partner is one that they are happy with.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: "Hi, my name's Tom. I'm STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/19/2000 03:22:39 PM ----- BODY: "Hi, my name's Tom. I'm ringing ... this is quite hard for me ... ok ... right ... I'm ringing because ... I have a sad ... ridiculous ... teenage crush on ... Wes Bentley. Can you help? ... um ... hello?"I'll admit it. I loved The Matrix as much as any other red-blooded gentleman, and I am excited about the prospect of another two films. Otherwise why would I have invested so much imaginary money into them at hsx.com. Over the last couple of months, my fascination has waned a little however, only to be rediscovered when I stumbled upon an article which confirms that Carrie Anne Moss is going to be in the new films as well. She's the last of the mainstays of the first film to sign on. And that is just the first part of the rumourfest... God, I'm such a nerd.
Someone should start a site about dead blogs. I mean - once they're out of date, they are mostly pretty pointless things. And there are a great many dead blogs. The scariest fact? That a blog can be dead after as little as two weeks without an update. Cases in point: Carpe Diem [ironic name], Vision Thing [brought to you by the number 3] and Commblog [it's all about Marketing].
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: It's been a difficult day STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/19/2000 09:08:29 PM ----- BODY: It's been a difficult day - exhausting, stressful, and for a little while more at least, I don't have my own home, or my own bed, to look forward to. So that must explain why it is 9pm and I am still at work. I got everything done that I realistically expected to about an hour and a half ago...
I've not been particularly inspired to write today (except about the war between city people and country people, which for the sake of diplomacy I have decided to pass swiftly over). So I decided to do my duty and blog a couple of stories for Web Queeries. I was surprised how tricky it was to write for - it's really difficult to tell whether or not you can write in a flighty fashion or whether one should be more news-conscious. Judge for yourself whether or not I did a good job.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: No good idea goes unexploited, STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/20/2000 03:04:42 PM ----- BODY: No good idea goes unexploited, they say, but there are worse people to do it than the Guardian, who have just launched their own weblog. Quite how much it has in common with the kind of things that I do (or the other thousands of bloggers) is debatable, of course. [via linkmachinego]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: How many times do I STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/20/2000 06:26:39 PM ----- BODY: How many times do I have to tell you? The Web is all about ME. Seriously, though, about a year ago I got really pissed off because a friend of mine said out of the blue: "You do realise I don't fancy you right?". I was furious - I mean, it's not like I don't have enough to deal with without people spontaneously telling me I'm unattractive. One of the wonders of the web helps compensate this behaviour: people you've never even met before say that they think you don't look like the back end of a bus. That's got to prop up a beleaguered ego!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Ah... Those scamps on the STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/22/2000 12:08:56 AM ----- BODY: Ah... Those scamps on the Nexus - look what they've come up with now! A way to pity barbelith...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm a bit perturbed by STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/22/2000 12:18:28 AM ----- BODY: I'm a bit perturbed by riothero. I mean his "Top 10 Things That Would Be Different If The 12 Apostles Had Been Gay" is clearly well meaning and occasionally very funny ("The water at the Wedding Feast of Cana would have turned into dry martinis with just a splash of Curacao for color") but also strays close on a couple of occasions to dubiousness. I think it's one of those things where you can make the jokes if you're part of the club, but if you're not... I know Mark of old, and know him to be a decent and fun chap, and I am certainly not suggesting any impropriety on his part. It's just his words sound... odd...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Today is one of those STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/22/2000 12:31:15 AM ----- BODY: Today is one of those weird days where you blog after midnight (ouch - how Gremlins is that?) and you don't feel like it is really Saturday at all because you haven't slept yet, but it is, and you know that your blog will show it to be Saturday. So you can't say things like "Today I went to see American Psycho with Rhonda and John" nor can you say "Today I travelled up to Norfolk to see my parents and my brother" or even "Tomorrow Gideon is arriving from Mexico by way of Israel, and that I am really looking forward to it because I hardly ever get to see him", because really it wasn't today and it isn't tomorrow, it was yesterday and today. But then you don't want to confuse people...
My web-hosting weirdness continues unabated. After having been charged roughly $400 for excess bandwidth (and me sending them a stroppy e-mail saying that there was no reason that they couldn't have automatically bumped me up to a higher level of package (costing me 0.25% of the money I was charged) when I reached the limits of the current one), I have just been sent a concilatory letter offering me an extra Gb of traffic a month, plus doubled server space and 10 more POP3 accounts. It would be tempting if I wasn't still going to spiral over their bandwidth allowance. Honestly - Netnation are still not in my good books...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Six months of weblogging... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Personal Publishing CATEGORY: Personal Publishing DATE: 04/23/2000 12:16:54 AM ----- BODY:
The 1st of May (next Sunday) will be my six month anniversary of weblogging, and I find myself confronting the same questions and situations now as I did when I began. My first entry came together at the beginning of November [1/11/99], when was just about to start a contract at Time Out. At the time I didn't know what the job was or even what the title was. Now I am about to be promoted - at least this time I know what the title is.
The same concerns about writing occupy me as well. Is it all right to write about friends and family? How candid should a weblogger be? Why do I want to write about myself and is it a positive means of expression, or is it too constrained to be anything other than completely artificial. When I am frustrated, can I vent? Or must I be wary of saying something that I might regret later? It took me only two weeks [15/11/99] to start worrying about these things, and I haven't found a solution yet:
"And then your fourteen year old brother is wondering whether or not your parents should be told about the what you have said on the site. And should I really be advocating the dismantling of the phallogocentric hetero-orthodoxy within his tender earshot? More to the point, how on earth are you going to talk about sex when you know your brother (half your age) is looking over your shoulder?"
And the most depressing thing of all? As I am (finally) about to move in to my new flat I decide to find out when all this horror began - when the spectre of homelessness first loomed above my head. I find that while I only (!) moved out of my flat at the beginning of March [2/3/00], I first started talking about the process way back in January [20/1/00]. It's no wonder I feel tired all the time...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I have about fifty minutes STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/23/2000 02:56:01 PM ----- BODY: I have about fifty minutes before I have to head into Norwich to get on a train back to London. Tonight is pretty hectic - it's not easy to prepare for a meeting with a hero who you really want to be a collaborator with. And then I meet Sam again before wandering off to Gideon's party. Altogether far too much to do...----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Well designed weblogs are a STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/23/2000 03:00:42 PM ----- BODY: Well designed weblogs are a particular fetish of mine. And riothero has gone and found me another one. Mark describes it as a mix of powazek and barbelith, which is rather decent of him. Introducing: sja...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Grant, Gid, Sam and Sleep... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/24/2000 07:47:16 PM ----- BODY:
Yesterday In A Nutshell:
Leave voice-mail with Grant Morrison (author of Invisibles, Doom Patrol, Lovely Biscuits, Animal Man, JLA, Arkham Asylum, Zenith, er ... Zoids) confirming location of the Nexus meeting in central London for 6pm at Point 101. Get on train from Norfolk. Train goes wrong. Get bus from Ipswich to Colchester. Get train from Colchester to Liverpool Street. On train get very worried that I am going to be very late and that no one will turn up. Panic. Ring and text message lots of people. Rhonda is a bit weird on the phone. Cornwell is nowhere to be found, Toby is a bit dazed sounding. Dave is on voice-mail.
Arrive at Tottenham Court Road in a bit of a panic, carrying two extremely heavy bags which I am living out of until I move into my new flat next weekend. Go upstairs. Am told that I can't go upstairs because there is a private function up there. Go up anyway. Lots of people sit around looking slightly nervous. Am about to leave when one of them recognises me and introduces himself. Realise that all of the people are there for the Nexus meeting and to meet Grant. Look around. No Grant. Scared of being lynched.
After about half an hour decide to go and find Grant's hotel's e-mail address. Go downstairs. Bald guy and stunning blue-lipped platform-booted girlfriend stands by the bar. Grant has been told that there is a private party upstairs and has been hanging around looking slightly lost. Hugely relieved. Take him upstairs. There is much talking. Nexus people now met in the flesh: Gentleman Assassin, RolloKin, It, Sleazenation, Macavity, 70sman, Stephen and others. Try to persuade people to drain Grant's head dry and then run off and do something cool with it. Very happy with how it turned out.
But have to leave early to pick up Sam at Belsize Park tube (8.30pm) to proceed to Gideon's party. Take Will who has turned up at Point 101 gathering. Buy Vodka. Collect Sam proceed to party. Get tired. Wake up. Dance around for a bit.
Josh turns up. He's gone blond. His boyfriend who looks a bit like Eddie Izzard reveals intimacies that he probably shouldn't, including Josh's skillful hands and his own predisposition towards full body shaving. Illustrates latter point with a quick flash. Sam looks amused. Sam makes pasta. If Sam eats dairy products he gets depressed and tired. Hence pasta not very interesting. He adds chilli oil. We smoke on the balcony. I fall asleep. He attempts to wake me up unsuccessfully. I get grumpy.
Go to sleep on floor in sitting room. Party over.
Today for Dummies:
Got up. Had cigarette. Went to Camden with Gid, Sam and Will. Went to Cyberdog. Had a joint. Ate a blackcurrent and apple pie and a large Fuse. Went around the Jubilee line with Gideon. Got a bit tired. Updated my weblog.
Mastering Tomorrow:
Back to work. Very tired. Training my replacement. Very strange.
Web Queeries (which I write for occasionally) has been named blog of the week over at Blogger. It's a particularly worthy one because it actually offers a useful journalistic service with an entertainingly personal spin.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: What now? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/26/2000 06:11:41 PM ----- BODY:You build a website for a comic book, and then get the logo of the website in the comic book and then get the website mentioned in the comic book and then the comic book ends and you think - WHAT NOW? Pick up a copy of The Invisibles today, and then go and visit the Nexus.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Exhausted but Euphoric... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/27/2000 10:48:05 AM ----- BODY:
I'm exhausted but euphoric as things finally seem to be coming together. I'm moving in to my new flat on Saturday, finally catching up on work, and I got some sleep (my first for ages). And it's sunny! But still, I am still not at peak efficiency. So let's start the day with some gentle blogging:
Is anyone else bored of Diana, the ever saintly (practically canonised) Princess of Wales? Certainly garden.com doesn't appear to be. All over the net at the moment I am seeing The Princess of Wales Rose banner ads. Is this really the thrust of the new economy? Should we all buy chintz and commemorative mugs now?
The most amusing thing about Wired's article about National Phone In Sick Day is that in the UK we get the day off anyway. In fact, next week will be our third four day week in a row. I love Bank Holidays.
And while I am at it, I just thought I should say congrats to Meg for both a highly successful redesign and having an incredibly cool web savvy mother. Jealous much, web kids? I know I am.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: We climb the mountain because it's there... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/27/2000 08:42:36 PM ----- BODY: Mark at Riothero doesn't half make life difficult for himself. I mean what possible reason could he have for dedicating his weblog for the last couple of days purely to the examination of the value and function of women?Whatever the reason is, it's certainly stirring up some debate: uncorked thinks (reasonably) that Mark is being too flippant, precocious.org that he is being complimentary and that people who are pissed off are rabid PC weirdoes, ctrl-alt-ego would "rather be called a girl by someone who seems to be expressing how brilliant I am than be called a woman by someone who's putting me down", metagrrrl just thinks he's nice as far as I can tell, much-blogged by me Tracy Scarpino (of OUCH! infamy) acts as an apologist for him because she believes him to be being misconstrued, gaylery shouts "Yay!" occasionally when she thinks Mark has proven a point while io.com's teeth are set on edge. Phew!
What a state of affairs to have gotten oneself in! And has he stopped? No! Of course not. In fact he's started blogging Conservative and Pro-life Women's Sites, Feminist Sites and talking about Men's Issues. Surely he must know better, I hear you cry? Surely he's just going to get a whole lot of other people all riled up! Start a big fight? Yes I think that he might! And why does he look so smug...?
Well why do you think? The question answers itself. Let's review it again: "Why has Mark said lots of things that got people all riled up and writing about him?" Could the answer be that simple? Is all this palaver really about reached the summit of beebo.org's weblog ratings. Because he's getting remarkably close...
Why, you may ask, climb this metaphorical mountain (on the backs of supporters and dissenters alike)? The answer for centuries has been "Because it's there".
But Mark and I know better. We climb the mountain for fun, we climb the mountain for life, and we climb it (frankly) because it is shaped like a great ... big ... penis ...
To add a touch of poigancy to the debate at this time, while we are at it (as it were), and as dick climbs the mount (so to speak), some other poor sod (that isn't what I meant) (called interestingly enough, Marc) went and bought disappointedvirginity.co.uk. And frankly, good luck to him...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The board is mentioned in the Invisibles... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/27/2000 08:59:24 PM ----- BODY:Very frustrating. People tell me the Nexus is mentioned in The Invisibles this month, but it's a day late arriving in the shops. In the meantime, some people have been asking how they can get their hands on Fortune Hotel, which includes a piece by Grant as well as Douglas Coupland, Will Self and many others. I have found it on amazon.co.uk, but nowhere else. Sorry!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Oh Messy Life explains The Invisibles... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/28/2000 10:34:54 AM ----- BODY:And if you haven't got the slightest clue what I am talking about, or what the attraction of the Invisibles is, and how I am going to feel about the fact that it has now ended then go and talk to Oh Messy Life, who manages to explain it perfectly. Enjoy.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Grant mentions Barbelith... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/28/2000 02:33:26 PM ----- BODY:"If you missed the Secret of the Universe the first time around, do what Gideon says on page 8 or go to www.barbelith.com where all those cool eggheads and stoner motherfuckers will do their best to "explain" it to you. If THE INVISIBLES exist anywhere now, it's on that forum and in your heads. If you still ain't had your fill of fucked up theories, I can be contacted there with the rest of them in whatever form it takes in the future."
If you are here because of the above quote, start off with The Bomb, and then proceed to the The Nexus. And stick around because the new revolution is just about to start...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Being on-message... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 04/29/2000 11:09:11 PM ----- BODY:I don't want to get too off message at the moment, so I am going to keep my personal commentary log pretty brief over the weekend. Regular viewers will find normal service resumes on Tuesday after the Bank Holiday, after I have moved in properly, and after the current rush of Invisibles people just finding the barbelith family of sites settles down a little bit. In the meantime, Invisibles people, look down the page a little for what you are after.
In the meantime, a little rant from Warren Ellis about the state of the comics industry should be looked at by all people who are passionate about them, or grew up with them and can't get them completely out of their heads (no matter how they try).
And for the regulars, a little something to keep you cheery: Sissyfight - be a vindictive girl and pick on other people for fun. And watch out for MissyBitch, because I made her mean and strong and sassy as the day is long.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Moving into 69a Heath Street... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/02/2000 05:37:41 PM ----- BODY:Weekend over. And not a moment too soon. I returned home on Friday, had a brief row with my mother on Saturday morning about the way I ate weetabix, sorted out all my personal belongings into "london", "storage", "throwaway" and "sell" piles, slept badly and then drove down to my new flat on Sunday morning. And then I drove back to Norfolk again. And then I got a train back to London again. Exhausting.
Monday was a £150 Ikea fest in full Bank Holiday mode. And I still forgot to buy lightbulbs. Scream 3 in the evening and then Buffy box-set 2.2 eased me to bed. Best thing about new flat: having my own bed. Worst thing about new flat: not having a working telephone (being fixed). Most annoying thing in relation to new flat: being unable to find the telephone number of our local cable TV company.
I went to see Scream 3 with Katy - an old (!) friend and similar devotee to the cult of the web obsessive. She has often expressed to me a frustration at our distance from the webloggers that we read regularly. And so on that note, and with the birth of Katy's brand new blog "kitschbitch.com", I hearby declare the beginnings of the London Elite Weblogging Detachment - or LEWD for short. Come forward LEWD boys and girls, and LO! I shalt blog thee...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Katy has been talking about STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/03/2000 01:57:46 PM ----- BODY: Katy has been talking about the Anti-Capitalist Riots that happened in London on May Day:"I don't think even the sensationalist news reports quite prepared me for what I saw:essentially the aftermath of pure carnage. I'd expected to see looted shops, broken glass, and a lot of mess, but it really was shocking to see the Cenotaph, a memorial to Britain's war-dead, daubed with graffiti. I'm all for free speech, and I think demonstrations can be very effective when they're conducted well - but the desecration of these commemorative landmarks just revolted me."I've been thinking about this since the events actually took place, and although I have yet to wander around the areas concerned, my feelings on the event and its aftermath in the press are anything but clear.
I saw a piece in The Sun today which suggested that a vote for Ken Livingstone was a vote for "THEM" (them being the people who "defaced" the Cenotaph). I saw the word "EVIL" bandied around in a couple of places as well, and a general horror of people not honouring the honoured dead of our country - the same "evil" people who gave us Churchill with a green mohican, and who daubed comments on the memorials of people who gave their lives in World Wars.
But what actually is the problem? Is it that they parodied Churchill? Is it that they don't appear to care about "war heroes"? Because if this was written down and placed in a magazine or on a website people wouldn't get anywhere near as irritated. Is it then just property damage? It doesn't appear to be that either, because you don't see any news reports focusing on how evil you must be to deface a MacDonalds.
Instead it seems that people have invested a symbolic value in the objects themselves - the Cenotaph and the statue - that these material products are the actual feelings of a country made manifest - turned into stone. But is that really such a big deal? Is it really any more appalling than writing anti-war statements on a phone box?
As I said - I can't make up my mind - I just don't know what I think about it. But one thing seems clear to me. Many (most? all?) of these people aren't protesting about capitalism. They're not aiming towards a more noble ideal (Communism? Socialism? Social Democracy? Liberal Democracy? Anarchy?) - instead they are products of a dissatisfaction with the way contemporary society limits and belittles the individual.
Their protest is a reason unto itself - an expression of freedom. It's an aggressive freedom certainly, a non-communitarian freedom probably, even (possibly) an unworkable, impractical, EVIL freedom - but it's freedom nonetheless. It's punk with a cover-story, rebellion with a pseudo-cause. And such spirits will continue to erupt, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The Cenotaph and related issues... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/04/2000 11:16:51 AM ----- BODY:
I've had a few comments about my post yesterday about the daubing of the Cenotaph. They tend to say that there are legitmate targets for protest who have transgressed morally (one person included Churchill in that list) and non-legitmate targets which include the Cenotaph. I have been thinking about this at length and I have come to a few conclusions.
A blog based around Haiku? Who would have thought such a thing was possible. Haiku the Blog proves that it is. I've been quite bored today, so I have been trying to remember an haiku that an old flatmate of mine and I wrote a few years back. We were awfully proud of it:
Waiting is a game
Not a very good one though
Like Monopoly
In Cluedo they die
Like in Agatha Christie
But not of boredom
And lo did the Onion say something very funny, and verily did I blog it:
Clinton Consults Surgeon General On Behalf Of Friend Curious About Homosexuality----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: There aren't that many weblogs STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/04/2000 11:27:38 AM ----- BODY: There aren't that many weblogs talking about the riots in London on May Day. I had decided initially not to talk about them (I thought everyone would be at it), but as time has passed I find the subject more and more interesting. I would love to see more commentary from people though - if anyone sees anything good, e-mail me on tom@no-spam-please-barbelith.com. In the meantime, read other webloggers: KitschBitch, BlueLines, Grim, Blorg and Ed's Weblog.
WASHINGTON, DC--President Clinton spent several hours behind closed doors Monday with Surgeon General David Satcher on behalf of an unidentified friend who is curious about homosexuality. "As a favor, this friend of mine asked me to ask the Surgeon General a few questions," Clinton said. "This person said he's had some funny new feelings lately, feelings he doesn't feel comfortable talking about, so he was hoping I could ask for him." Clinton said Satcher assured him that the feelings his friend is having are "completely natural."
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Referrer logs reveal that yesterday, STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/05/2000 10:53:21 AM ----- BODY: Referrer logs reveal that yesterday, Barbelith was visited by 666 people. This unholy convergence of number and anti-establishment content leads me to conclude that I must be the anti-Christ. This is quite frustrating as I have enough to do already. I just don't have the time. I am going to a wedding tomorrow (working on the assumption that at some point ever I will get my arse in gear and organise it). In the meantime I have to organise a working phone system, the disposal of two double beds, the repair of a boiler and the installation of cable television. Bringing about apocalypse will just have to wait a little longer...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Death of the Weblog? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Personal Publishing CATEGORY: Personal Publishing DATE: 05/05/2000 01:01:46 PM ----- BODY:
Did everyone in the weblogging world get sent this link: Death to the Weblog? It's a really weird site, which I can't quite get a handle on. It seems to be about 2/3 spoof and 1/3 serious, or maybe the other way around, and includes great quotes like this:
"It just seems so restrained... like they worry. "Oh God, what if 'so-and-so' reads this???". FUCK EM!!!! If people can drag a loved one on a talk show, and drop a bomb like: "Honey, there's a reason why we haven't had sex in our eight years of marriage...I'M REALLY A MAN.", in front of 20 million people....Why can't we call someone an asshole on our webpages????"
This is one of the oldest online personal publishing problems: the "what if someone I know reads this" syndrome. The things you gradually excise out of your daily monologue to the world increase with time (does this make your weblog less interesting). The first minor spat I had with Sam before our unceremonious parting (case in point - don't think I mentioned that) was about whether or not I could legimately talk about our burgeoning relationship in a public place. And then there's my oft repeated story about when my brother e-mailed me about something I had written asking if I thought he should tell my mother. And then of course there's the fact that everyone at work knows that I post my thoughts here. Am I to be fired, excommunicated or even prosecuted simply in order to maintain the purity of my weblog? I feel the same impetus as every other weblogger to tell the truth (what's the point otherwise), but there will unfortunately be limits.
In the meantime, what is one to write about? It has to be said there are indeed a lot of boring weblogs. Many of them just don't match my interests (and I am sure that barbelith doesn't do it for everyone), but there are a few that are genuinely dull. Honestly, I think it all comes down to passion. Write about what you care about and everything is fine. If that is something in your personal life, then fine. If it is something in your professional life, great. If it is something on the web, also cool. You just can't go wrong with an attitude like that.
There's this really interesting weblog run by a guy called Matthew Rossi that I read occasionally, which has been looking at the criticisms in "Death to the Weblogs" (metacubed has a piece too). I think I'll leave this subject on this point because he illustrates how one can take a fairly average subject and make something gripping out it. He says:
"While [the "Death to Weblogs"] rant was right about a lot of what goes on in Weblogging, it was also guily of it. Where's the rage?----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Why don't Americans understand British English? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Language CATEGORY: Language DATE: 05/07/2000 06:15:01 PM ----- BODY:
"Where's the 'I slave over the embers of my diseased imagination all day to bring you blogs about my twin brother, a necromantic hold over inside the lining of my skull, about Yahweh as Azathoth, about the arcane attributes of mayonnaise and Zueglodon sightings...and the best you can give me in return is dietary restrictions? A POX ON THEE!' Where are the howlings of 'Be more like Meghan! Be more like Barbelith! Hell, be like none of them...but for God/Yog Sothoth's sake, be something other than this! If I wanted painfully boring details of your life, I'd be reading Proust!'?"
This post is SOOOOO not going to go down well. Tracy and Katy are having a conversation about American and British English. Before I begin, I know that I am jumping rather savagely into the fray on this one, that I don't mean any disrespect to anyone, and that I am responding in a fashion that is full of generalisations. If I seem to go over the top, bear in mind that I am talking more about a cultural phenomenon than about arguments with individuals, and also bear in mind that I have just as many (if not more) issues with the cultural attitudes of Britain.
TRACY: I think the English are very nice, but when I was teaching English in schools run by British expats, I wasn't too fond of them. They used to laugh at the Americans and tell us our accents made them sick to their stomachs. I wasn't allowed to teach "American" English. I had to tell my students that their tennis shoes were called "trainers" and their underwear were called "pants." Then when I went out for drinks with them after class I would say, "Forget that British nonsense, this is how you should really say it." Because isn't it true that most foreigners (and these were businesspeople I was teaching) are going to be doing more business with Americans than with British?
KATY: That said, I'd just like to reassure Tracy that we're not all like that. Boorish expats really aren't representative of us all - thank goodness! If it's any consolation, I'd like to say that when I was living in the States, I always said sneaker, cellphone, baked potato, zucchini and gas. Verily, Tracy spaketh the truth - I wouldn't have got very far talking about trainers, courgettes or petrol. Though I must confess, I still couldn't bring myself to call trousers 'pants', and women's underwear 'panties'. You can take the girl out of England but you can't take England out of the girl I guess...
Now excuse me, but I really think that Tracy needs to be taken to task a little here. I mean I don't want to come over all Riothero-ish, but really! I mean really! Before I begin, I should make it clear that I do not in any way condone telling people that their accents make them "sick to their stomachs". And I don't want to go into details about how if it were a school run by people speaking British English then it makes sense not to confuse your students with two sets of vocabulary for everyday things (although it makes much more sense to teach one branch of the language [whichever one] and then supplement that with a separate class on local variations in Australia, England, US, English-speaking parts of the Far East etc). Nor am I going to talk about how the attitude that you should tell your students to "Forget that British nonsense, this is how you should really say it." is just as bloody dodgy as the stomach comment. No - I am going to leave all that beside and concentrate on an old bugbear of mine.
In the UK, everyone can understand pretty much everything that an American can come out with. Every accent has been heard on television, or in the cinema or met in person. Similarly, the English can understand pretty much everything that Australians, South Africans and New Zealanders say. Australasians in their turn can understand pretty much everything that people say in the UK and the US. The idiom might seem strange but it is still comprehensible. So why is it that Americans have so much trouble? And what height of arrogance is it to assume that people learn English to speak only to Americans?
The fact is that America has become culturally dominant through the media across the world. The American Dream has been packaged and repackaged and circulated through the world and the world has eagerly bought it up. In the process, the world has become familiar with the US of A. But also in the process, America has become more insular and inward looking - unwilling (on the whole) to import entertainment products (except redubbed and repackaged cartoons) from the rest of the world. And as the news companies (TV and print) compete for market share, they have become gradually more and more caught up in the idea that Americans want to hear about America - that everything important happens there first.
But this insularity does not mean that the rest of the world has to adapt to service [the] US (Borg joke). Our biological and technological distinctiveness will NOT be added to their own. Frankly, Americans understanding or not understanding British English is a matter for the US education system. it is not our responsibility to make it palatable to North Americans. I'm sure the French or the Japanese would feel the same way if it was suggested they should simplify their language for the purposes of tourists - why should the UK be any different?
In Scandinavia at the moment, mobile phone technology and information technology is integrated into the structure of the world like nowhere else. People are already doing all the things that are still being promised in the US, in the UK and the rest of Europe, and in the rest of the world. And the world takes notice. But I heard of a meeting in the last six months where a US company started talking to a business in the UK talking about the magical times of the future when all these things would be possible - a magical time that THEY were helping to bring about. The patient UK CEO listened carefully and then told him about the Scandinavian projects. The US company hadn't even heard of them, but they didn't care! They simply didn't believe that a system that was not invented in the US could catch on.
I don't have a problem with American English, nor do I have a problem with the gradual homogenisation of language that is inevitably going to occur as international boundaries go down (although I can understand why people might get annoyed). After all, language is a living thing and phrases and structures from other cultures get co-opted all of the time. English (in all its various forms) is full of these borrowings, moreso than any other language. But these ideas: 1) that those of us who speak British English should not teach our own language [because] 2) all foreign people learning English are interested in only in America, 3) that British English speaking people should adapt their language to make it more comprehensible to those trained in American English while 4) Americans remain culturally unwilling to make any attempt to understand anything that happens outside their borders. Well, frankly, I find that slightly ridiculous.
For more on this subject, check out my post for 3/26/2000. If you are furious with me or need to get involved in this particular scrap, e-mail me at tom@no-spam-please-barbelith.com.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: LEWD, the London Elite Weblogging STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/08/2000 04:30:43 PM ----- BODY: LEWD, the London Elite Weblogging Detachment that I alluded to a few days ago is beginning to come together. Or at least it seems likely that it is - people seem to have been rather flummoxed by my complete lack of contact details. Sorry to not so soft, LEWD blog #1. Daily Doozer is also trying to start some kind of IRL weblogger meeting, which I am more than up for. Perhaps it can become the basis for WXW1 (West by West One), Katy's idea to compete with those American chappies and their SXSW.Dull weblogger? Take a life altering pill and become more vibrant and throbbing. Continuity.nu was the only site that picked up on my challenge to spice up a blog, and even then, well:
"There are a few [weblogs] that are genuinely dull." Thanks, Tom. Webloggers all over the world are now thinking, gosh, I hope I'm not dull.Just for fun, and because I am terribly proud of (most of) them, here are a few buttons I recently designed for timeout.com:
    |
Oh and one last thing! Mark! What on earth are you talking about?
"I had a randon ICQ message the other day, asking me what kind of shampoo I use. Stupid question, right? But the more I've thought about it, the less stupid it became. I *KNOW* people by their scent. If Tom was to use Herbal Essence instead of my suspected Head and Shoulders, he'd be a totally different man than I thought him to be."The scariest thing is that I actually don't even know what shampoo I use. At the moment I am stealing odds and ends off my flatmates. That could mean anything. Particularly as I don't have a sense of smell. I could be dousing myself in a great big girlie "flowers and ponies" kind of shampoo. Ick. Gross. Note to self: Go To Boots. Buy Shampoo. And Shaving Cream. And Light-Bulbs.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: My comments about language (yesterday) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/08/2000 05:00:54 PM ----- BODY: My comments about language (yesterday) seem to be echoing around the net with some speed. In the course of the day I have written a very apologetic e-mail to Tracy for using her as a launch-pad for what is clearly a much larger rant, been chastised for criticising American culture as low-brow (never my intention), been introduced to the regional variations of dialect in Newfoundland, been agreed with by a New Zealander and told I am naive by someone else. Here's a selection of the best comments that have emerged in response to my ravings:
Matthew Rossi: "When you just assume the rest of the world exists to become more like you, you don't need to worry about things like [culture]. America is a monster. A bastard born out of deformed magecraft and naked opportunism, it rolls over other national identities like the Cohort of Julius Caesar meeting Vercingtorix. Bastard confident, a great big engine that chews up shit and blood and hate and spits it out all over the landscape."
Prolific: "I was taught by mostly Brits and Americans in a teacher training college in Utrecht. Oddly, there were none of the 'my English is better than yours' vibes there, perhaps because these were language teachers. We were told 'adopt an accent, any accent, be it American, English, Welsh or Irish. It will help you sound more convincing.'"
Kitsch Bitsch: "I can most wholeheartedly agree with Tom when he says that the worldwide awareness of American vernacular far excedes the average American's awareness of regional versions of the language."
Daily Doozer: "I don't want to get into a nasty argument about cultural imperialism and the proliferation of American media. I don't want, particularly, to talk about any perceived or real damaging societal effects. Personally, I think that at the moment I'm a typical student and I've completely lost faith in capitalism (and it's probably a phase I'll go through before I become a corporate lawyer)."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: God! I finally took the STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/09/2000 09:33:39 AM ----- BODY: God! I finally took the emode "What is your true colour" test that has been cycling around the blogs, and it came out with this, which is a bit of coincidence if you ask me:
"Vibrant and charming, ORANGE is the color of your personality."New blogs proliferate like some form of weird fungal infection on the net. There never seems to be an end to it (good). And along with blogs come blogmemes - viral ideas attached to the fungal media produced by relatively disease free human beings. The blogmeme of the moment is a design feature - the dotted-line. After the relative success of barbelith orange, I will come out and say that dotted lines will be the only thing to be seen in this summer. That's so a good look...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Oh Lord, won't you buy me... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/09/2000 02:35:01 PM ----- BODY:
Does anyone want to buy me a computer? In my two months of homelessness, I have used net cafe computers only. And now I finally set up my own computer and it seems like I have stepped back about eight years in time. I don't think I can handle it. The most terrifying thing about it is how much I dislike it being a PC. I have been a PC user for nearly ten years now. TEN YEARS. I made all those Mac jokes about how they were crappy and shoddy and boring and pointless and ugly. And now I find myself desperately pining for the sexiest G4 on the planet. I mean just look at it. I can't stop drooling!
It worked for k10k.net - they've got Apple sponsorship - so why can't it work for me? I'm a shameless prostitute. I'll have myself tattooed with the Apple insignia. I'll do anything, goddammit... So this is a blanket call to the world out there: -
Oh Lord, Won't You Buy Me an Apple G4----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Come on now kids, play STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/10/2000 09:09:46 AM ----- BODY: Come on now kids, play nice...
My friends all have PCs
I don't know what for
I've built many websites
But now I'm in awe
Oh Lord, Won't You Buy Me An Apple G4
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Now with permalinks. I have STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/10/2000 01:05:39 PM ----- BODY: Now with permalinks. I have been resisting this trend for quite some time now, because it would expose my weird habit of continually adding to an individual entry. I have used this technique to keep a certain amount of logical flow on a page, and to keep important entries that I make in a day right up at the top. But now, alas, no longer. The other reason I have resisted these things is that I have this horrible feeling that barbelith is beginning to look cluttered. Things are just not where they are supposed to be, and there is too much colour pollution in my beautiful serene web/site/pool. But hey. That's a matter for another day...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I thought it would be STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/10/2000 01:10:49 PM ----- BODY: I thought it would be interesting to come up with some really cool, and yet weird and fucked-up domain names - you know - ones that no one would ever buy, and then name them here and see if anyone bought them. I came up with a few really good ones, including my absolute favourite rabidrabbit.com. Shock of all shocks: they've all already gone...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Theories of weblog popularity... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/11/2000 04:25:10 PM ----- BODY:
I have a theory that for a weblog to be popular, it must i) have a definite focus for its writings, ii) be written well, iii) have a clear and appealing visual presence and iv) fabricate some form of online personality that people actually like (or be famous). My theory can be extrapolated into explaining why some weblogs are less popular than others. Those sites that are based upon complete whim of content will therefore be at a certain disadvantage, unless the personality expressed is particularly effervescent. I present the following breakdown of the top eight weblogs (according to beebo.org, [Issued May 11, 16:42 GMT+10]) as proof or disproof that my theory holds water.
[NOTE: Half way through this rigorous process, I began wondering whether or not this exercise was turning into a weblog review kind of thing. Which really doesn't interest me that much. But since the post was so bloody long already, I thought I should probably see it through. Make up your own mind as to its validity (if any) and worth (if any). I promise I'll try and think of something more interesting to write about tomorrow...]
I'm always amazed that my favourite weblogs aren't more well read - I guess it reflects a divergence of interests in the community as a whole. Where were: riothero, megnut, kitschbitch, powazek etc etc... [Later Note (13/05/00) Evhead explains everything]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: So, I am sitting at STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/11/2000 06:35:28 PM ----- BODY: So, I am sitting at work, having spent the day being shown how to force quark documents through extraction tools and sql databases, thinking about organising my travelcard, sending off replies to letters about preview screenings of films and wondering where I am going to stash my gym clothes when I go to the party that Nick, Toby and two other people are organising in a bar in Chalk Farm. It's supposed to start around 7.30, which give me an hour to get there. It looks like my flatmates aren't going to be able to make it as they both have work commitments. which means I have to put my chin in the air, down a few satisfyingly strong drinks, and try to find my inner chirpy fun person...----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Anti-Microsoft day... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/12/2000 12:31:16 PM ----- BODY:
It's Anti-Microsoft Day at Barbelith Towers today, as completely spontaneously I have come across several pieces of information about the many-splendored Macro-Company that have caused me to feel little white-hot daggers of outrage course through my body.
If you feel the same way about these stories, and all the other weirdnesses that Microsoft have done, make it Anti-Microsoft Day all over the web by putting this little banner on your site with a link to your favourite example of their bloody stupidity.
[Current participants in the May 12 Anti Microsoft Day: Wanderlust, bluishorange, Dakota Smith (Shameless Self-Promoter), Atesque, L N B B, thegardencafe.com, she says, FrogBlog, Haiku the Blog, linkmachinego, gaylery, L/noleum, Zippyblog, Rasterweb, Golb, Digital Asylum] [People who think I am full of shit and don't understand that the odd gesture of teenage rebellion never did anyone any harm, even though most of us are using Microsoft products: Ed's Weblog]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm really worried that when STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/13/2000 11:16:31 AM ----- BODY: I'm really worried that when I move this weblog to a new domain, that you'll all forget me and won't link to the new site. Which would really upset me. Nothing I can do about it though really.----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Even though Anti-Microsoft Day is STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/13/2000 11:24:05 AM ----- BODY: Even though Anti-Microsoft Day is now well and truly over pretty much everywhere in the world, I just thought I'd add one more thing, gleaned from powazek this morning. There is a current discussion at Metafilter about an article at Macintouch that says:
"Macintouch is reporting that Microsoft has disbanded the IE for Mac team and is discontinuing development of IE for Mac. So much for a 5 year commitment...."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I have finally decided which STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/13/2000 10:58:29 PM ----- BODY: I have finally decided which domain to buy when I shunt the weblog onto a new server. Please god let it not go in the few days it will take me to get organised. I don't think I can take another reptilebrain fiasco. Obviously not saying a word to you lot, as you'll rush out and buy it in a shot, which would depress me deeply.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I know that everyone in STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/13/2000 11:04:30 PM ----- BODY: I know that everyone in the world has blogged it, but still - I'm pretty keen on the MetaCamPage. Gives me the opportunity to keep tabs in a big-brotherish fashion on lots of people at the same time, rather than merely one at a time...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I found text through my STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/13/2000 11:07:19 PM ----- BODY: I found text through my referrer log. She was writing really nice things about many of my favourite blogs (and indeed myself). I get a few comments about my colour scheme, but really it is nothing compared to this - a whole block of colours that really really shouldn't work well together (and which you'd have to have a fair amount of nerve to even try to use together), but which work brilliantly. All in all, an elegant piece of design. Simple and effective.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: It occurs to me that STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/13/2000 11:15:00 PM ----- BODY: It occurs to me that the awesome blogger could do with a search and replace facility. I mean, I know it could be a right pain in the arse, but what happens when someone moves their blog to a new domain? I mean, how useful would it be to be able to just replace www.barbelith.com with www.whateverthefuckIchoosenext.com, while still maintaining the integrity of the permalinks?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I've had a great day. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/13/2000 11:23:49 PM ----- BODY: I've had a great day. On Thursday night at the party I bumped into this guy who I had only met once before (when I was told very firmly that he was straight). Well, I am now reasonably sure that this is innaccurate! We went out for lunch today (Soho, £42 each, OUCH) and then went shoe shopping and looked at sunglasses and watches. We fooled around at every chance we could get. Gap will never be the same. Hopefully will see him again tomorrow when I'm going to see Gladiator with about a thousand other people.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: About bloody time. I have STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/14/2000 12:02:20 PM ----- BODY: About bloody time. I have FINALLY updated The Bomb.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Men, Women, Breasts and Circumcision... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Politics CATEGORY: Politics DATE: 05/14/2000 02:33:43 PM ----- BODY:
Very much delighted to see that blogger has chosen the feminist media watch collaborative weblog as their log of the week. I'm relatively well informed in feminist theory as many of the issues in queer theory are derived from previous work in feminism, and there are many cross-roads and common interests between the two academic branches. However, no longer being in an academic environment, it is increasingly difficult to keep up with the issues. A couple of the debates really interested me:
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Wow. Woke up this morning STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/15/2000 12:46:14 PM ----- BODY: Wow. Woke up this morning and read this on prolific.org:
"I started reading Barbelith because it was a relief to find a 'British' voice in the ocean of mainly Yankee blogs. But I wouldn't have stuck with him if it hadn't been more than just being British. Being personal, insightful, and perhaps being queer too. I don't know, I'm vaguely interested in gender issues, always have been. Then of course came the famous redesign, the colours and realising that for the first time, 'web design' had made me feel 'happy'... drawing emotions I normally experience listening to music, or being with someone special."I'm all glowy!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I have been using an STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/15/2000 04:42:19 PM ----- BODY: I have been using an Ultimate Bulletin Board for ages at the nexus. I have always been really happy with its functionality (although it is pretty heavy on the old bandwidth), but less comfortable with it aesthetically. It's highly adaptable, but never really adaptable enough for my tastes. But then I stumbled upon dreamless,org. Not only am I astounded by the look of the pages, I have absolutely no idea how it has been done. For me to get the nexus looking like that would (as far as I can tell) require considerable amounts of engineering in the code behind the scenes. Can anyone explain to me how this has been done? [Explain it to Tom]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Oh the power! Oh the STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/15/2000 04:53:04 PM ----- BODY: Oh the power! Oh the sheer undreamt-of power! Watch in stupified awe this weekend as Katy and I assassinate Mark and take over Riothero. No promises that Katy will take all her clothes off or start a big fight with women (sorry guys), but we will try to emulate our young host in every other way possible. I am so looking forward to this...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I've been meaning to do STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/16/2000 01:54:08 AM ----- BODY: I've been meaning to do it for ages and now it is done - the photo bar at the top of the page rotates the images, thus making the site infinitely more interesting than it already was. Will the excitement never end?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Weirdly, a lot of people STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/16/2000 07:09:05 PM ----- BODY: Weirdly, a lot of people have commented on my thoughts on why a weblog is popular. More interestingly, exactly what I feared would happen has happened - by actively trying to demonstrate whether or not my theory was true or not (ie. by producing reviews) I have wandered slap bang into the middle of the debate (once again) about whether weblogs are popularity contests and whether or not good design is something that can be quantified.
It's strange - in most other areas of web site creation it is considered a given that there are certain designs that are better than others. Unreadable content is surely always the sign of a bad website, as is unclear navigation. I consider kottke.org to be incredibly well designed - it's clear, elegant and easy to find your way around. So I can only half agree with Blog for One when he says: "on a personal site, one should be able to do whatever they want, and not have to worry about being judged, or measured, or ranked" because while no one should feel under pressure to compete, there is no reason to think that the design, content or character of a personal site cannot be improved, nor that the individuals who run those sites are not interested in doing so.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Congratulations are due to Derek STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/16/2000 07:24:42 PM ----- BODY: Congratulations are due to Derek Powazek, who has been named Creative Director of Pyra, the young team of web scamps and entrepreneurs who are fighting corporate evil in San Francisco. Katy is completely right though - in about three months there won't be anyone who isn't working for them...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: In which BMW interferes with my love-life... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/16/2000 07:39:09 PM ----- BODY:
In the UK at the moment there is this whole debacle about Rover, a company that makes cars that very few people buy, even though they look rather nice. The company, which has been owned by BMW for a while, has been making savage losses and has finally been sold to another company called Phoenix for the nominal price of £10 (approximately $15) [BBC].
Now normally this news wouldn't interest me in the slightest - I am afraid that I hold little hope for the future of British manufacturing industries and don't see the point in investing in heavy machinery which has the sole purpose of pouring even more money into a large hole in the ground.
However on this occasion, the huge amounts of legal and administrative work that has to be done by people close to the whole enterprise is really impacting on my social life. Entertaining and charming dinner companions are being captured and locked in small rooms to check contracts, leaving me without anything to do in the evenings but drink too much and watch the South Park Movie. This state of affairs must come to an end! So I say to thee, oh law firms of London - LET MY PEOPLE GO!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Film pitches on HSX.com STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/16/2000 07:52:04 PM ----- BODY:If you are ever on for a laugh, check out the descriptions of films at the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Ignore for the moment the tremendous fun of investing in stocks based on the performance of films and stars at the box office, and concentrate instead on gems of inspired summary like this:
"Fast Flash to Bang Time is a drama that will star Wesley Snipes and be directed by Gary Fleder (Kiss the Girls). The story is about a drug-addicted FBI agent and his sex addict female partner who fall in love and try to stop a terrorist attack."
Funny as that is, however (and trust me, I shall be first at the door of the cinema for it) , it cannot compare to a film that I have actually invested in. Called Munchies, this film is currently in development. And it's plot? While hsx says nothing, I know for a fact that it is about anorexic teenage girls who end up as cannibals. I mean, how cool is that?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: While at work today, I STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/16/2000 08:00:15 PM ----- BODY: While at work today, I was rung up by an old University friend from Bristol, who was stopping off in London for a minute period of time between his epic jaunts around the world promoting his internet empire. He's heading off to California in the next few days - San Francisco via Los Angeles - where he is likely to stay for at least a month. And he'll be going back again around a month after that. He kept tantalising me with stories of the exciting world of internet start-ups and huge salaries - tempting me with the possibility of interesting and varied jobs for a young web coder/editor/producer like myself. And I have to say that I am beginning to think that he might be right.----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: How cross would you guys STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/17/2000 12:08:49 AM ----- BODY: How cross would you guys be if I decided to start designing for a baseline of 800x600 screen resolution and above? I mean I know that around 10% of you still view sites at that resolution (Global Statistics), but that means around 90% of you don't. I think this deserves a poll. Is it OK to design for 800x600px resolutions?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm not entirely sure that STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/17/2000 09:28:05 AM ----- BODY: I'm not entirely sure that I feel entirely comfortable with my new random display of images (above). I mean - I love it, but it seems that people are refreshing the page to get a different set, which is completely artificially upping my stats. How is a boy supposed to keep track of what's going on in the world, I ask you - I mean really?! [This behaviour is particularly frowned upon: naughty Prol!]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Books that I am currently STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/17/2000 11:24:31 AM ----- BODY: Books that I am currently reading: Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon, William Powell: The Anarchist Cookbook. Music that I am currently listening to: Beck: Midnite Vultures, Beck: Mutations, Jeff Buckley: Mystery White Boy, PJ Harvey: To Bring You My Love, Bjork: Homogenic, Dust Brothers: Fight Club Score, Moby: Play, Sean Lennon: Into The Sun.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Lance Arthur on "Awarding": "The STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/17/2000 03:14:43 PM ----- BODY: Lance Arthur on "Awarding":
"The corral is closing in. Can't you feel it? They're rounding up the wild horses and taming them. They're sending in the thought police. They're closing down the library and burning any book they deem dangerous, inappropriate, wrong."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The Feminist Media Watch has STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/17/2000 03:51:09 PM ----- BODY: The Feminist Media Watch has been getting a hell of a lot of coverage in the weblogging world over the last few days. I myself wrote a couple of long pieces on them a few days back [have a look]. I thought it might be interesting to do a quick review of some of this coverage.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Anyone want to be a STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/18/2000 12:09:21 PM ----- BODY: Anyone want to be a web designer at timeout.com in London? Talent and passion a must! Check here for more details: timeout.com vacacies.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Two pieces of barbelith news: STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/19/2000 12:43:02 AM ----- BODY: Two pieces of barbelith news:
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Speak Out Loud is a STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/19/2000 02:56:58 PM ----- BODY: Speak Out Loud is a new blog that is just getting itself started. He admits that he has been mercilessly refreshing my page (á la prol), in order to get the pretty pictures all in a row. He's even got a page up that proves he's succeeded. Did I inspire him to this lunacy?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: As moves are made in STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/19/2000 07:07:05 PM ----- BODY: As moves are made in the UK to sort out the mess of the sex laws (many of which are ignored, some of which implemented savagely - at least until relatively recently), the Guardian presents a quiz that may surprise the Americans amongst us. Particularly as one of the questions is: Is it legal for two gay men to nail each others testicles to a table?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm going to see Final STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/19/2000 07:22:40 PM ----- BODY: I'm going to see Final Destination tonight with a group of friends. I went to a press preview of it about a week ago, but it is no fun going to see scary movies by yourself. At least half of the fun is seeing what other people's reaction is. My co-conspirator in the takeover of riothero (Katy) is coming along too. I can't help wonder what she is going to think of it. I hope good things.
Everyone else is getting drunk afterwards, but not me. This weekend is hectic beyond measure, with at least two parties, a major web maintenance session, a hot date and a man coming around to install a phone line. And I have to do my washing. And ideally go to the gym.
A couple of days ago I was taken by the young gentleman I am dating at the moment to the bar on the 24th floor of what was the NatWest Tower in the heart of the City. After chatting for a while I dropped into the conversation that he was one of the hot topics of conversation at my place of work, as he had managed to cancel on me three nights in a row. He found this endlessly amusing and asked if there was anyone in the world who didn't know about what we were up to. He then smiled broadly and said - "you're probably publishing it on a website". I changed the subject very quickly.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Mark said I could do STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/20/2000 01:21:45 AM ----- BODY: Mark said I could do it. Honest he did. He said I could redesign in his absence, and by christ, have I...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Apologies about failures of service STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/21/2000 10:42:46 AM ----- BODY: Apologies about failures of service over the last 24 hours. The move to barbelith's new hosts is going pretty smoothly, but is still relatively time consuming. The Bomb and Microlith will be up and running shortly (an hour?). The Nexus might take a couple of days more.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: So I have moved over STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/21/2000 12:39:43 PM ----- BODY: So I have moved over to pair.com with relatively little difficulty (although I lost half a days worth of e-mail so resend it if it was important). The only thing that I am really slightly concerned about is the lack of already set-up stats package. I need something that I can use to track referrers (and the like). Anyone got any ideas?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I was looking around beebo.org's STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/21/2000 12:45:35 PM ----- BODY: I was looking around beebo.org's metalog about half an hour ago, and came across a really cool site (an onfocus component) all about that conversation that you have with friends or significant others about where to go out and eat. I was so taken with it that I blogged it for accidental riothero (which is what I decided to call Mark's site in his absence). And then I get a phone call from Peter, a "friend or significant other", who wants to go out for dinner this evening. I almost ran back to onfocus, and when I had finished, I had generated this:
Tom: So, what do you want to eat?Now I'm terrified that it might actually happen...
Peter: I don't know what do you want to eat?
Tom: I guess I'm not really that hungry.
Peter: Yeah, me neither.
Tom: How does Italian sound?
Peter: Hmm, we have that a lot.
Tom: yeah.
Peter: So you're really not hungry?
Tom: Well, I could probably eat something.
Peter: Like what?
Tom: Just about anything, really.
Peter: How about Curry?
Tom: Yeah, I guess that's ok.
Peter: I don't know now.
Tom: You don't know? Come on.
Peter: We could order Chinese.
Tom: You're too lazy to go out and get food?
Peter: No, I guess not. Where do you want to go?
Tom: I was thinking that new Italian place.
Peter: That's all the way downtown!
Tom: It's supposed to be good.
Peter: I guess I'm just not in the mood.
Tom: Well, what are you in the mood for?
Peter: You said just about anything.
Tom: Anything but Italian.
Peter: You suggested that earlier.
Tom: I did? hmmm.
Peter: I always feel like Curry, but we never go.
Tom: That's fine..
Peter: I guess I'm just not in the mood.
Tom: Well, I could probably eat something.
Peter: We could order Chinese.
Tom: yeah.
Peter: You said just about anything.
Tom: I was thinking that new Italian place.
Peter: You suggested that earlier.
Tom: We could flip for it.
Peter: What are we arguing over?
Tom: Italian or hamburgers.
Peter: heads.
Tom: I don't have a quarter.
Peter: Curry.
Tom: Yeah, I guess that's ok.
Peter: Let's get a pizza.
Tom: Yeah, ok.
Peter: What's your favorite number?
Tom: 7.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Apparently, Mark is really chuffed STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/22/2000 05:35:58 PM ----- BODY: Apparently, Mark is really chuffed that Katy and I haven't thrown riothero down to the pits of beebo.org's ratings. Anyway - he's back soon, so no doubt I'll hear all about it soon enough. I have to say that I love the fact that his mother drops me the odd note and has been checking on his position for him. That's really sweet. My mother tends to glaze over a bit when I get going...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I had a lovely evening STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/22/2000 05:42:11 PM ----- BODY: I had a lovely evening last night with current squeeze, although his complete inability to arrive anywhere on time might get a little galling over time I fear. I reached that "I run a website and you are on it" point of a burgeoning relationship, which has raised a few eyebrows in the past. When he actually read what I had said, of course, he was relatively comfortable with the whole thing (or so it seemed to me). Oh poor untrusting fool... Of course, now I have to work my way through all that "who rings up the other one first" stuff. Which should be interesting...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Sir John Gielgud has died. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/22/2000 06:26:06 PM ----- BODY: Sir John Gielgud has died.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Peter, can I ask you STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/22/2000 10:20:58 PM ----- BODY: Peter, can I ask you a question? You didn't go out with David Hockney did you? It's really hard to explain why this is interesting to me...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm all over the place STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/22/2000 10:52:39 PM ----- BODY: I'm all over the place today - I can't concentrate on anything for more than about thirty seconds. It's probably the riothero effect. I'll tell you this much for nothing, writing for that place is like bathing in Class A drugs. Anyway - I am in the middle of catching up with my correspondence and site maintenance now that I am finally settled properly in my new place, have moved servers and have set up the now fully functional (but completely ugly) Nexus replacement: The Barbelith Underground which is full of bloody lunatics as ever.
I was really touched to see that people at Metafilter were worried about the site during its downtime the other day. Certainly, this was not a good look for the pages. Still, things are gradually getting back to normal. And the site is even slightly slimmer now that I have disposed of some of the surplus content.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Welcome back Mark - we've STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/23/2000 09:06:46 AM ----- BODY: Welcome back Mark - we've missed you terribly...
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----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Meeting up with Mark Olynciw... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/24/2000 08:52:44 AM ----- BODY:
Mark asked:
"Tom, Katy? What do Brits do on July 4th? This year, instead of shutting yourselves indoors and mourning the loss of this wonderful land I'm presently standing on... How would you like to meet ME? I'll be in London, England this summer on July 4th, the American Independance Day... that's funny in so many ways..."
British people don't do anything particularly special on July 4th! That's supposedly the day that you colonial types won your freedom from us cruel European overlords. For some reason, we don't feel any particular need to celebrate that fact. Although every American themed bar in the country gets all jazzed up. And all the Americans do too. We look at them with raised eyebrows, in an indulgent fashion.
As for meeting up - that sounds really cool! Why will you be here, again!? Oh and while we are at it, what an earth are you doing up at three in the morning?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Time Out is taking me to New York! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/24/2000 08:59:52 AM ----- BODY:Best news of the moment - I am sitting at work thinking about this site I am building for Time Out which covers all the summer festivals in the UK when I get given an envelope by my boss. I open it and read the first paragraph: "You have been invited to celebrate the fifth birthday party ..." - sounds cool - "of Time Out New York" - sounds cooler - "in New York City in October - all flights, hotel etc included!" - OH MY GOD. All permanent staff are tromping off over the Atlantic for an epic piss up and shopping expedition. How cool is that?!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: We went to see "Honest"... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/24/2000 09:15:12 AM ----- BODY:Katy and I went to see Honest yesterday at the big première in Leicester Square. I have to say I don't think I have seen such an absolute pile of twaddle in years. Individual scenes were great, some of the dialogue was really good, some of the camerawork was wonderful, some of the direction was cool. But most of all of it was just awful. Don't go and see it (unless you want to see All Saints' breasts).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: What mean thing is Eduardo Arcos saying? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/24/2000 09:20:00 AM ----- BODY:I have no idea what he is talking about, but I kind of get the impression that I don't like Eduardo Arcos. Anyone want to translate for me?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Brief update stuff... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/25/2000 10:48:51 AM ----- BODY:Two brief pieces of site update stuff. 1) This seems to me to be a great idea. 2) I have had lots of translations of Mr Arcos' unpleasant comments sent to me. Thank you very much everyone...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I don't bloody believe it. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/25/2000 10:55:04 AM ----- BODY: I don't bloody believe it. The new domain name I had decided to buy as soon as my pay-check came through has been sold. This is the second bloody time this has bloody happened. First reptilebrain.com, now subbacultcha.com! I don't bloody believe it. This one was sold four days ago! I swear to god I am going to kill someone. The only thing I can think of is that Network Solutions is selling information on which domain names people are searching for. Is this possible? Is it being done?----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: No noise from current squeeze STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/25/2000 02:47:02 PM ----- BODY: No noise from current squeeze since Sunday night. I wonder if that means anything?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: After two days and considerable STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/25/2000 06:30:25 PM ----- BODY: After two days and considerable pressure and tension, I hereby reveal my latest design project for Time Out. I'm pretty pleased with it - Time Out's Complete UK Festival Guide...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm sorry, but Jeffrey Zeldman STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/25/2000 06:53:30 PM ----- BODY: I'm sorry, but Jeffrey Zeldman rocks so hard and fast he could vibrate himself through a mountain. In his latest article "HTMHell" at Adobe's site, he comes across as a freedom fighter for independent creative content on the web. And Christ knows, we need more of those. Here's a sample quote from what must be considered a call to arms, a Manifesto for the true digerati - the people that like to play and create and communicate, rather than the people who consider a "good internet idea" to be selling sportswear (however ineffectively):
"So here we are. Ten years into the largest informational makeover since Gutenberg. Five years since software makers, ad moguls, and multimedia megaliths smelled the decaffeinated freeze-dried Folgers. And how have we harnessed Berners-Lee's incredible gift to the world? Now that the means of production have been handed to us on a silver modem, what are we doing with them?----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I went to see Mission: STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/27/2000 09:21:10 AM ----- BODY: I went to see Mission: Impossible 2 last night at a special press screening at the Empire in Leicester Square (I'm having quite the glamourous life at the moment). My honest opinion: it was bloody awful. Totally ridiculous, pointless film full of overblown stunts, empty of plot, totally lacking suspense, intrigue and likeable characters. Thandie Newton is the magnolia (paint colour not movie) of the current crop of actresses. Two stars who exude less passion and sexual fire I can't imagine. It was like seeing Yogi flirt with Snagglepuss (except prettier). Waste of money (except I hadn't paid any). In fact it made me so cross, I wrote my first epinion in months...
We're selling stuff. Swapping stuff. Buying stuff. And watching the dot-commies hemorrhage ad dollars the way Chevrolet and Chrysler used to."
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Chronicle of a bad night's STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/27/2000 10:12:48 AM ----- BODY: Chronicle of a bad night's sleep:
"Now, I came around when Tom and Katy were Accidentally Rio Theros, because Goddamn those two are witty, smutty and vile. I love them. Like a stream of bat's piss, they shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark"In the meantime, since we have parted company, both Mark and I have slipped savagely down beebo.org's weblog ratings. I only say this in passing as I am too exhausted to draw any conclusions from it.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm continuing my quest to STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/27/2000 01:05:24 PM ----- BODY: I'm continuing my quest to discover whether Netsol is selling information on the domain name searches performed through its service. I've had a few e-mails from people who are divided in opinion as to whether I am being paranoid or not. However I stumbled upon a figure that slightly alarmed me. In an article at CBS Marketwatch there was this statement:
"In the first quarter, we saw astounding acceleration in '.com,' '.net' and '.org' domain-name registrations worldwide, as total new market registrations grew 120 percent from the previous quarter,'' said Jim Rutt, chief executive officer [of NetSol]. "In fact, more than one-third of all existing '.com,' '.net' and '.org' domain names were registered in the first quarter of 2000.''So I suppose the race is on. If you have some names you want, buy them now. You may not get another chance. [Discuss]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Odds and ends of news STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/27/2000 09:16:41 PM ----- BODY: Odds and ends of news from the internet: o gaylery.com has been redesigned (I am probably the last to notice this fact). Basically, it looks amazing. Very clean, intelligent design complements the already sharp content. o A great quote from eod.com:
"This whole external male genitalia thing is really badly designed. I mean, do I have to carry a VCR around with me all the time just because I watch a movie every once in a while? "----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Notes from the world of STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/28/2000 11:59:06 AM ----- BODY: Notes from the world of design:
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The shower in my flat STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/30/2000 01:21:41 PM ----- BODY: The shower in my flat has gone wrong, leaving us with dubious water pressure, occasional scalding heat and quite a lot of icy cold. Showering is now nigh on impossible. We have a bath instead, but that isn't the point. We asked our landlord's maintenance company to come around and look at it while we were at work. They came. They checked. They decided that there was nothing wrong with it. They left. They e-mailed me stating that I should clean the limescale off it, but otherwise it was fine. It looks like we might be in for the long haul on this one...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Quotes from my current favourite STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 05/30/2000 03:15:18 PM ----- BODY: Quotes from my current favourite threads on the Barbelith Underground:
I got an e-mail from Kerry which included this open letter to Dr Laura:
Dear Dr. Laura,----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm really interested in Atesque's STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/01/2000 09:01:12 AM ----- BODY: I'm really interested in Atesque's redesign - it's got that wonderful ordered madness feel to it. Feels like an punk or metal album cover. Something with a lot of energy in it...
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's law. I have learned a great deal from you, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.
When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?
I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
Lev. 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not Canadians. Can you clarify?
I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 10:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
Lev. 20:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
A Fan
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm delighted to report that STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/01/2000 01:12:30 PM ----- BODY: I'm delighted to report that Neonlit, which I have been running for Time Out, has just been selected as a Pick of the Week by Yahoo. And it's a particularly good week to visit as well, as it includes a feature about Martin Amis.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm absolutely terrified that this STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/01/2000 10:39:26 PM ----- BODY: I'm absolutely terrified that this article: AppleInsider -An Exclusive Inside Look at Adobe Photoshop 6 will be the final straw that forces me to go out and buy myself a Mac on some kind of huge loan arrangement.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Someone needs to whup the STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/03/2000 02:32:37 PM ----- BODY: Someone needs to whup the ass of the Daily Doozer. In the meantime, ask the Magic Eight Ball some questions of your own...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I've bought a new domain STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/03/2000 02:51:06 PM ----- BODY: I've bought a new domain name, and the barbelith weblog will shortly be moving over to it. Only it won't be called barbelith any more (duh!). In the meantime, service may be a little sporadic. Bear with me in this exciting time...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: This would be a really STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/04/2000 11:02:22 AM ----- BODY: This would be a really interesting literate science fiction quiz if it wasn't for one simple fact. You answer a question, it tells you that you're wrong, and then when you check the answers, it thinks you have put down a completely different answer to the one that you actually have. What a waste of time.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Kerry's riddle... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/04/2000 01:38:51 PM ----- BODY:
Kerry is becoming quite ubiquitous. I quoted him a couple of days ago, and now, Mark at Riothero is quoting him as well. I promised Kerry that I'd set up a weblog for him on my server, and I still haven't gotten around to it, which just illustrates what a bad person I am. In the meantime, he will have to remain the dark figure behind the scenes - the Charlie behind the Angels.
Anyway, he sent Mark and I the same riddle:
1. In a street there are 5 different houses in five different colours. 2. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. 3. These five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar and keep a certain pet. 4. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same beverage. (pretend there is a drawing of five houses here -- identical in shape (but not colour) in every way. House 1 House 2 House 3 House 4 House 5 The question is: Who owns the fish? To prove you are not guessing, specify his nationality, colour house, brand of smoke and preferred beverage. Clues: - The Brit lives in the red house - The Swede keeps dogs as pets - The Dane drinks tea - The green house is on the left of the white house - The green house's owner drinks coffee - The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds - The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill - The man living in the center house drinks milk - The Norwegian lives in the first house - The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats - The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill - The owner who smokes BlueMaster drinks beer - The German smokes Prince - The Norwegian lives next to the blue house - The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water
It took me 25 minutes. Have a go and e-mail me when you think you have the answer, and I'll tell you if you are right...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: So the secret's out [thanks STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/04/2000 08:51:00 PM ----- BODY: So the secret's out [thanks sja] - I have registered and paid for plasticbag.org (don't go there yet though because there isn't anything up). I'm interested in people's opinions on it. After the other two going in about twenty minutes I got a bit nervous about this one...----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Everyone is doing terribly well STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/04/2000 08:52:58 PM ----- BODY: Everyone is doing terribly well on the whole riddle thing. Yay Barbelith regulars. You've whupped the ass of riothero's readers!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I got an e-mail. It STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/04/2000 09:01:40 PM ----- BODY: I got an e-mail. It reads as follows:
"I understand you have to be careful who reads what but the main (though part of a huge) reason I check your site is to see how things are going on the relationship front. Unresloved plot thread left dangling needs a knot tied in it."Okay. Time to expose self to the world. My most recent object of intrigue has literally fallen off the planet. Completely. Gone without a trace. After flirting our way through the sale of Land Rover (don't ask), and going out for a meal, and going up the NatWest tower, and doing any number of dubious things all over the place (behaving very badly), we finally managed to have an evening alone with each other and I haven't heard from him since! I thought I might be more affected by this turn of events than I actually am. It still seems like a pity to me, but it's nothing I can't live with. He knows I write about stuff here, so he'll probably read this and get really pissed off with me. Still, what can you do, eh?
Anyway, in the two weeks since I last saw him, Sam turned up out of the blue at lunch time and we chatted. The most memorable part of the conversation was that apparently you can't buy decent stretchy black underpants in Cambridge (which I wasn't aware of until now). It's was lovely to see him again. And then a couple of days ago, this guy called Sean re-appeared in the UK. He's very cool, is doing a Classics doctorate (so we could talk about Froma Zeitlin and Jean-Pierre Vernant which was nice), likes Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is an obsessive foodie. Honestly though, I don't think I have the energy any more!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I have read Bertrand Russell STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/06/2000 09:28:29 AM ----- BODY: I have read Bertrand Russell on Christianity. I am familiar with the range of argumentation. I am well read in Gay and Lesbian Studies and Queer Theory. I am more than capable of forming a decent argument. But frankly, I think there has to be room for being frivolous in life, particularly when confronted by something as patently absurd as the Church. Evidently some people disagree...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I've had loads of people STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/07/2000 09:16:32 AM ----- BODY: I've had loads of people sending me the answer to the riddle I posted a couple of days back. Most of you got it right. For those of you who didn't and who still want to know the answer, wander over to the Gallery of Visual Journal Entries. Better luck next time!
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AUTHOR: Tom Coates
TITLE: Campaign for a Better Blog
STATUS: Publish
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DATE: 06/07/2000 10:42:47 AM
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Campaign for a Better Blog
Mark at www.riothero.com (notice the absence of link) said:
"I hope you see that this ISN'T like high school. I DON'T go to less popular weblogs and laugh... I DON'T pull Tom's [Ed: ME!] pants down and whisper 'Ner Ner Ner' in his ear.... I DON'T care what the community thinks of me... and to prove this, I'll quit defending myself."Ooooh. I think this little chicken's getting too big for his boots...
But what can YOU do?
Mark bases his entire world view upon Beebo.org's Weblog Ratings - which is a very dangerous thing to do, because...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I swear to god, this STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/07/2000 05:47:00 PM ----- BODY: I swear to god, this man rules the world...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: It's not an edict. Sheesh. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/07/2000 09:58:24 PM ----- BODY: It's not an edict. Sheesh. Anyway - okay, I'll link to you on the condition that you DON'T LINK TO MARK (just for a couple of days!): zippyblog...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Christ, Kerry, these things are STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/07/2000 10:07:09 PM ----- BODY: Christ, Kerry, these things are getting easier and easier. [I won't link to him (for a couple of days - see down the page), but go and check out www.riothero.com for the riddle in question] Anyway - this one took about 80 seconds. And it's my turn to blow the answer! Read on if you dare.
Stage One: The guy at the back of the queue cannot be seeing two grey hats in front of him. If he was seeing two grey hats, then he would know that his hat had to be red. Stage Two: The guy in the middle now knows that he and the guy in front of him cannot both be wearing grey hats. Therefore, if the guy in front of him was wearing a grey hat, then he would know that he was wearing a red one. But he doesn't know. Which means that the guy in front of him has to be wearing a red hat. The third guy having heard this exchange (and being very clever) now knows that he is wearing the red hat. If you'll pardon my English colloquialism: Piece of Piss.----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Now featured at Jezebel's Mirror STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/08/2000 10:34:15 AM ----- BODY: Now featured at Jezebel's Mirror Project: Me, Evil Nick and Katy poncing around in a dance studio in the O2 Centre, Finchley Road...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Flow, Clog and Reflex... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/08/2000 10:39:19 AM ----- BODY:
I have contracted one of those unpleasantly dehabilitating cold virus things that makes your nose fill with sticky stretchy green goo that means that you have to sleep on your back so that it "flows" down rather than clogging up your nostrils and making it hard to breathe. Which results in the side effect of a body that acts as if it has just discovered the cough reflex and is really quite proud of it. Which results in a throat that closely resembles ground beef with salt rubbed into it.
Or at least I think it would, if I could stop shivering enough to tell... I've taken the day off work so that I don't spread it to all my colleagues, and feel gross and annoy people. I'm sure that it's the right thing to do, but I'm bored already [10.38am].
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On Boylog... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/09/2000 09:23:41 AM ----- BODY:So, anyway, I went to this weblog called BoyLOG this morning, and the first thing I did was jump into blogger and write a slightly snarky comment. I think I was still reeling from this TV program on yesterday which was about people with online diaries. They all came across as completely self-indulgent self-promoters. Perhaps I am the same. I don't know.
That's beside the point. So I get to this site this morning and the first thing I see is this very attractive picture of a young man wearing very little but an absurdly cheeky grin. First thought (honestly): Nice... Second thought (honestly): What an Egotist!
But then I started to read it. Good stuff. Honest stuff. Much more honest than I feel able to be myself. Much more frank. Much more ... revealing. And after I had read pretty much all of it (some swiftly, some less so), I came to a new conclusion. That Chris of BoyLOG is just OPEN. Open about sex, about love, about his body and about his life. So go and read it. Read it thoroughly. Come to your own conclusion. And take your time to do so...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On Contrasts.net... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/10/2000 11:59:09 AM ----- BODY:I don't know, maybe sometimes I do go over the top. Who can tell? Contrasts.net?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Self-immolation is for girls... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/10/2000 12:15:42 PM ----- BODY:I think I've done a bad thing. Peter wanted to go out for a drink this evening, and I said yes. Then I suggested that Sean might like to come along. Peter said yes [who the hell is Peter]. Sean said yes [who the hell is Sean]. Then I thought - cool! I can get a great big group together and we can go wander the streets of Soho. So I sent Max a text message [who the hell is Max]. And he's coming as well. At the time it seemed like a really good idea, but now the whole idea is making me incredibly nervous. Cornwell, one of my oldest friends, has disavowed all responsibility for what may happen. As he puts it - "self-immolation is for girls"...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Katy's complete disaster? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/10/2000 06:53:43 PM ----- BODY:Katy is not always as supportive as she might be. For god's sake, my dear, there's no reason that it should be a complete disaster.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Numbers that I own... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/10/2000 07:03:57 PM ----- BODY:I own 9, 13, 16, 22, 28, 42, 43, 46, 56, 57, 63, 64, 77 & 96, but I think there are a few that are REALLY missing... [via prol]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Meeting new webloggers... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/11/2000 08:52:41 PM ----- BODY: I went to the UK webloggers meet this afternoon with Katy (who also writes a goodly amount about the experience). It's a pity that I wasn't more in a mood to party, as it was really quite fun. Special kudos to Luke, for being cool and giving me all kinds of advice on Macs vs PCs (and looking like Chandler Bing) and to Jen, whose site I looked at as soon as I got home. It's really bloody nice...----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Sometimes, when I'm out with STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/11/2000 09:10:11 PM ----- BODY: Sometimes, when I'm out with people and I'm misbehaving and being mischievous, I really feel like I'm on a roll. But not a good roll. Instead, one of those uncontrollable rolls that aircraft have which subsequently turns into a spin which then (inevitably) turns into a crash. And all the way down, I look to the people around me to help me pull out of it. And when I look, most of them are watching me with a smile on their face, saying indulgent things like - "Look at him go. It really is a wonder isn't it".
People seem to like giving sanction and licence to well-intentioned cocky sociopaths. But all I really want them to do is to take me in hand - to quietly and firmly and with tremendous affection (but little demonstration and no condescension) tell me that I've done enough, that I can stop now, and that I probably should.
I'm not going to go into the full details of last night's activities. I think it is almost enough to say that it seems that Max is still talking to me, Katy is still talking to me and I am assuming that Peter is, even though I haven't heard anything from him today, which slightly worries me. Katy liked them both (oh youthful tongue, canst thou ne'er be stilled?), Peter seemed particularly taken with Max (oh youthful groin, etc etc) and Max had a big spot on his forehead (oh youthful pores...).
I said many stupid things, suffered many stupid things, disposed of members of our party to have conversations with other members, and then grabbed the other members and said things to them that I shouldn't have said - with a big grin on my face that said, "Please don't be cross with me, I really don't have the slightest control over myself, and wouldn't I be boring if I did?". And I drank too much. Head swimming, life flashing before my eyes, I stumbled home thinking wild and untameable thoughts.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Current weblogging design favourites: wetlog, STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/12/2000 09:38:27 AM ----- BODY: Current weblogging design favourites: wetlog, public weblog, magnetbox, keithbrown.com, tame.net, Web Therapy, Confessions of a Wannabe Actor, underachievers.com.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I am going to respond STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/12/2000 01:24:10 PM ----- BODY: I am going to respond to Jason Kottke's comments about weblogs in full shortly. In the meantime here are a few thoughts on the matter.:
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Having thought about it carefully, STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/14/2000 12:32:55 AM ----- BODY: Having thought about it carefully, I have decided that lists like "the best albums of the 90s" are mildly pointless (if endlessly diverting). But that doesn't matter surely? They are interesting exercises, and so without apology or explanation here is an extremely long list of names - which frankly is easier than a proper post about "World Hunger" or "Macs Versus PCs (Which One Will I Buy?)". I call this phallogocentric/anal classification: "My 100 Favourite Albums Ever":
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Wise up, UK webloggers, and STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/15/2000 03:35:14 PM ----- BODY: Wise up, UK webloggers, and get yourself a copy of PCFormat. Picture the scene - I'm sitting at my desk, pretending to do work and sending my boss cartoons involving kiwi birds being chopped up into little bits and stuck in fruit salads, when suddenly said boss shouts fuck! and raises his eyebrows skywards. Summoning me over, he slowly opens up the pages of PCFormat to reveal a two page spread on Weblogs. Blogger is featured prominently, and there are detailed walk-throughs of setting up your own weblog.
All very interesting, I think, and slowly and carefully read through the article. It's a fun piece, which mentions a good number of weblog related sites, from groksoup to eatonweb. And then there is a section on British weblogs...
This looks like it could be interesting, particularly as many of the British webloggers met up last weekend for a couple of drinks. perfect.co.uk is mentioned, as is Need to Know and haddock.org. And then right at the bottom is this little tiny throwaway comment, almost completely lost on the page:
"Our own favourite is Barbelith (www.barbelith.com) for its great design."This is obviously completely delightful, and has brought a real spark into my day (which was relatively sparkful already, if I'm honest). But it only gets better. There are also two panels with slightly longer reviews of weblogs, including screenshots. Barbelith is there as well. As are: Zannah, eatonweb, slashdot.org, Ooine, robotwisdom, Daily Doozer, metafilter, mutability and Rebecca's Pocket. Yay us, guys. We rock...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Thanks to Dan at Daily STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/16/2000 07:00:44 PM ----- BODY: Thanks to Dan at Daily Doozer, who has scanned all of the PCFormat feature on weblogging. Read away...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I have written and rewritten STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/17/2000 08:52:46 PM ----- BODY: I have written and rewritten this post about thirty times, and every time it sounds too flippant. So I'm not going to bother writing anything detailed or in depth. Fuck it. I feel like someone slid the hook from "I Know What You Did Last Summer" into my stomach and with superhuman strength forced it towards my throat. Or I feel crazed and in control of a passenger jet. But mostly I just feel cold, and cruel, and hollow, and vengeful and actually partially dead. There will be no more posting tonight.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm really keen on anti-advertising. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/18/2000 10:42:41 AM ----- BODY: I'm really keen on anti-advertising. I wonder occasionally if I should try to persuade my boss to run banners for really creative sites as house ads instead of some of the dubiously designed ones that we currently run. I wonder if that would increase general click-thru rates?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Vile Stick-Insect Ally McBeal... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/18/2000 08:27:24 PM ----- BODY:
Today's briefing is brought to you through the tremendous power of absolute and total denial. The day has been filled with all the activities that help me distract myself from bad stuff around me. These include: Chocolate, Random Sex, Music, Daydreaming and The Gym. I am now going to finish the day off with a considerable bout of Pimms drinking outside in the sun.
Which brings me to that appalling harpy Ally McBeal and the stick insect that plays her. You can decide for yourself which of the two I find most reprehensible - but let's just say the actress plays 'whining drivel-monger' with such consummate skill that I can only assume that she was born for the role. And I won't even get started on the whole "this is just a piece of right wing propoganda disguised as a women's issues program" speech that I normally give at these points, because everyone always looks at me funny when I rant, and I'm frankly getting bored of it.
Anyway - back to the point. On this, the hottest day of the year in the UK, with the most glorious sunshine and the most ridiculous (if pleasant) proliferation of half naked people, I have to read the that the insane Calista (SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE: eat more pies woman!) has declared that, "England makes me stink because it rains all the time".
I doubt the link will stay valid for long, so I quote in full the article in question:
Calista Flockhart: "Britain Makes Me Stink"----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Sometimes Mark just does the STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/19/2000 09:30:46 AM ----- BODY: Sometimes Mark just does the coolest things (and of course, if he got himself permalinks, we could treasure them forever, instead of being forced to quote them at length):
Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart doesn't like visiting Britain because the rainy weather leaves her smelling like a wet dog. The waif-like actress discovered the uncomfortable truth when stranded in a storm on a recent trip to London. She told talk show host David Letterman that although she liked London, the weather put a real damper on things. She said, "It was great but it rained every day that I was there." When Letterman asked, "It's supposed to rain in London, was it misty and romantic?", Flockhart replied, "It was cold and damp. Do you know what happens in London when it rains? You start to smell. It's true - you start to smell like a wet dog because what happens is you go out and you're all happy because you're in London, then it rains. And you don't have an umbrella, because I'm an American, so then it's sunny but you're wet and you smell."
barbelith dream by Mark Olynciw----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Katy and I have just STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/21/2000 01:03:13 PM ----- BODY: Katy and I have just had a great idea for a new money-making venture targetting a completely underexploited section of the e-marketplace - professional hitmen and the criminally violent. The idea is just like that in Strangers on a Train, where two people arrange to kill each other's worst enemy. Since there is no connection between them and the person they kill, there can be no apparent motive (and the person who might have a motive can have a solid alibi). Hence, they are much less likely to get caught.
I was an Englander, born and lived there my entire life, with accent and all. And Tom was an obvious American, with I LOVE USA shirts and all. Now everything else went along as it does today, him and his weblog, and me with mine....only it was the year 2044.
Suprisingly Tom and I kept our winning good looks over the years, in fact- we looked very much as we did today.
But in the year 2044 they have such remarkable inventions you do know. Such as this streaming webcam that I was using to spy on my friend. I watched him during the day at work, at dinnertime eating a very healthy McDonalds meal, and at night when the parties started....until the next day in which the same thing went on for.
One day Tom and I got into this heated argument because he had promised to me that we'd go eat a picnic in Belgium. (I'm sorry, even my subconscious has no idea between the cities or countries, and where they are in Europe) But Tom cancelled. Because of his work as a 'Network Scientist' he was unable to fly to England for this elaborate lunch I had planned.
I was upset, got into drugs...some of that snorting kind....dropped out of high school, and eventually the IRS had to take away RIOTHERO. I became a mess, living on the streets of England. Every once and a while the Spice Girls would invite me in their home for some tea. I would ask them if it was English tea or American tea...because you KNOW how I hate Americans ever since Tom did that to me. And an hour or two later, I was back on the street hungry again.
It was raining this night, and so I knocked the windows in in this boarded up post office building. I hoisted myself up and fell unto the floor of the Post Master's office. He wasn't there of course, he had got home for the night... but I was busy snoopy around, looking at the latest technology in air mail, etc.
As I was walking out of the hallway to find something to devour, I kicked this large cardboard box and I look down to see my name on it! And the return address is from Waterford, CT- HEY! That's where Tom is from! I rip off the cover, pull out all that fun poppy packaging, and look inside. It's picnic equipment.
A tablecloth, dishes, candlesticks, spoons, and bottle of wine, a frisbee, and basically everything else anyone would need for a successful picnic. Last but not least I reach my hand into the box to pull out Tom and Katy theirselves!
They treat me to an elegant picnic on the roof of the Post Office where it's now stopped raining. The food's delicious, the weather is just fine (not the sweaty kind), and it's the 'splendidist' picnic that's ever been had.
This site would act as a medium of exchange much like ebay, where people could fill in who they wanted dead, and where they were based. This would be stashed on a database until the next stage was complete. They would then be sent a random e-mail from another member, with the details of who they should be poisoning or stabbing or shooting or throttling.
Once confirmation of this kill was made (through some kind of link to the national death records), then the details that had previously been stashed on the database would be sent to another random member who had just signed up, who would be expected to follow through the process themselves. If there was no kill registered within a certain amount of time, then the name and address of the substitute murderer could be sent to the person whose kill it was originally. And since that person must have already killed someone to have got to that stage, this would be enough instigation for the substitute killer to do their job.
The business model is quite simple - targetted advertising from the gun lobby, rope merchants, concrete suppliers and the like would constitute the bulk of the revenue, although clearly paramilitary groups and mercenaries might like to recruit through the site (for a small fee of course). Therapists might also find this a lucrative market to target. And after an initial free period (possibly), high quality service (from someone who has killed a great number of people) could be costed, with the site acting as a broker and taking a commission.
Legally, of course (at least in the initial stages), the site would be completely safe from prosecution. I mean - it's like Napster isn't it!? We could put a warning up that read, "no one at our site condones the killing of people" or even "killing people is bad - if you are thinking of killing someone, please contact our psychotherapist at our special discretionary rate". It's not like we'd be killing people ourselves (and if we did, I think we could argue that that was separate from the activities of the company).
The only problem is the domain name: killyourcolleagues.com is quite nice, but then so is killthemall.com or ihadtodoitfortheirowngood.com... Opinions would be appreciated, or even venture capital...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Barbelith is now brought to STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/22/2000 08:21:21 AM ----- BODY: Barbelith is now brought to you via a G4 400, 192Mb RAM, DVD drive, TV card, Zip Drive, 17" Studio Monitor, Kritter USB webcam, OS9. Long live the Mac Revolution.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Murder Portal E-Business Venture Update: STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/22/2000 12:13:24 PM ----- BODY: Murder Portal E-Business Venture Update: The domain name: ikillu.com sounds extremely close to e-memes "ICQ" and Mahir's "I Kiss You". Tagline: "The Mafia Revolution Responsible For The Deaths Of..." Find out more at kitsch bitch...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Newsflash: Powazek Quits Weblogging. While STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/23/2000 09:00:13 AM ----- BODY: Newsflash: Powazek Quits Weblogging. While in an unrelated, but nonetheless relevant counterpoint, Mark has said:
"I didn't do it for myself, I didn't do it for you, I did it because I had to. I am Batman."----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On Adding Functionality to Blogger: STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/23/2000 09:40:06 PM ----- BODY: On Adding Functionality to Blogger:
On 23/6/00 3:16 pm, Matthew Kingston at hit_or_miss_org@hotmail.com wrote:
Tom-On 23/6/00 9:32 pm, Tom Coates at tom@no-spam-please-barbelith.com replied:
You use Blogger for your weblog, right? I'm wondering if you've seen my "Blogger Comments Manifesto" (http://hit-or-miss.org/blogger_comments/) and have any thoughts about Blogger and comment systems.
Matt of hit-or-miss.org
It's certainly a very interesting subject. Personally I am interested in seeing Blogger become an online content management system that is flexible enough to handle the updating of different types of sites. But more of that later...
A comments tag would also certainly be useful, but one things occurs to me that might be worrying. How much information might your system be asking Pyra to store? Assuming that more people read and comment on the weblog than actually write the log originally, each log would at least double in size (or more accurately the less visited logs would increase a small amount, while the larger ones would become basically 9/10s comment based). I don't know what their business model is, so I couldn't comment on how much bandwidth and disk space they are prepared to pay for without recompense. It seems to me that it has to be a finite amount.
As I said earlier, I personally see the future of Blogger as being a way to manage content for a variety of different types of site based around the same principles as it does now for webloggers. More in depth types of sites, or commercial ones could require a subscription fee, while the weblog template could be free as a taster. Certainly the uptake on Blogger seems to be enough to warrant a more sophisticated, less simple and more expensive version. I mean - I pay for the ubb as it is, and that is certainly nowhere near as flexible and pleasant-to-use a tool as blogger.
An example close to my heart: A magazine site for example would be a prime market for an expanded blogger-based system and is something that I am going to attempt to generate shortly using a good few fudges of my own and a little too much hand-coding. But what I would really love is the ability to write an article with a title, and then define a separate template for a home page or category pages which would then render some taster content and a link through to the article itself, combined with an archive that allows one to list things by title rather than just date.
This would be extraordinarily useful for people who wished to generate webzines (like, for example, ME).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: On Pottery Barn, Friends and Advertising... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 PRIMARY CATEGORY: Television CATEGORY: Advertising CATEGORY: Television DATE: 06/24/2000 09:42:30 PM ----- BODY:
Do you remember that episode of Friends where Rachel is obsessed by the Pottery Barn? Well when I first saw it I thought to myself - hmmm, what a strange premise for an episode. And because we don't even have Pottery Barn in the UK, I don't think it even occurred to me that it was a real shop. If it had, I think I might have raised an eyebrow or two. But one thing that would never have occurred to me is that Pottery Barn might have sponsored the whole episode. I can't help thinking the whole thing is totally corrupt. I mean I'm used to TV shows having product placement and advertising and sponsorship, but I will not spend my life watching 22 minute long advertainments for huge multi-national companies. I swear to god - it's my idea of hell...
Excerpt from Adbusters June/July 2000----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I am working on a STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/25/2000 11:05:30 PM ----- BODY: I am working on a not so secret project with young Katy. I'm not going into details yet, but it's a little tiny fun site which we are going to do for a laugh. I'm going to stick it on the plasticbag.org domain name when it's done, just so I don't feel it is completely going to waste. As she reports, we also went to see Reindeer Games (known as Deception in the UK for some reason), which basically was really quite poor. Half of it should really have been a comedy feature with John Candy and Steve Martin. The other half was like some weird fusion of Reservoir Dogs and Wild Things. Very strange. Not very good. Don't go and see it.
FRIENDS FOR SALE: Now advertisers can turn sitcom plotlines into product promotions. The Pottery Barn bought an episode of Friends and the right to have Rachel, Ross and the gang spend their 22 minutes of airtime surrounded by Barn decor.
It has always been implicit in television that the programs are just delivery vehicles for the advertising. But that equation got a whole lot more explicit in February, when the production company Basic Entertainment - the money behind such shows as Politically Incorrect and critical darling The Sopranos - agreed to partner up with the world's second-largest advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson. The two promptly produced a love-child: the agency's new "content/entertainment" arm, called (c)JWT.
The rationale behind it all: When the ad is the show, it becomes impossible for viewers to mute it, ignore it, or actively miss it whilst getting snacks.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Assembler.org goes live... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/26/2000 10:28:43 AM ----- BODY:
The new assembler.org has gone live, and very good it is too (now with downloadable DHTML scrolling code).
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Say it loud and say STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/27/2000 05:32:38 PM ----- BODY:Say it loud and say it often: "I am proud to be a dumb shit" [courtesy of boylog's anti-smoking section]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: So ICANN are considering new STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/27/2000 10:55:32 PM ----- BODY: So ICANN are considering new top-level domains for the web - to which we can only breathe a sigh of relief and pray to god that the new ones will be both functional and worthy of getting excited over. People are straying too far into country domains to find the URL of their dreams because the current hierarchy is collapsing under the weight of demand.The most worrying aspect of the new domains is intellectual property rights and "passing off". If you have a name trademarked over several countries (and you don't even have to be a particularly large company to do this), you can legitimately sue someone who is using your trademark in their domain name as long as they are encroaching on your subject of business. For a company like Yahoo! of course, there is very little that ISN'T their business already. Hence lots of people could be sued.
This is all sounds fine and dandy, but often it isn't. Just because someone else doesn't have the right to do what you are doing with the name doesn't mean 1) that they can't buy the domain name anyway or 2) that they won't buy it and then decide to break the law (on the assumption that you just won't take them to court). Which means that an increase in available domain names may very just mean an increase in the outlay of medium and large sized companies who wish to protect their brand.
Clearly, the most sensible step is to clearly use the TLD to define strict areas of interest - strict in that they are clear and easily definable (like .arts or .xxx) rather than that they are enforced strictly. Enforcement should be irrelevant if the names are clear enough. The alternative - a proliferation of vague domain names such as .web (for which the apparent TLD analogue .net already exists) and .firm (TLD analogue.com) simply means that Yahoo! have to buy them. Large blocks of domain names will then disappear from public consumption. It is unlikely, for example, that Yahoo! could or would want to make a case for preserving its copyright on yahoo.xxx.
Of course the corollary of this is that a decent block of these domains have to be produced at the same time. If this is an incremental process, then new domains will be bought incrementally by the companies concerned which is to be avoided. Some of the proposed TLDs are: .arts .kids .xxx and I think perhaps that additional ones might cover the types of website presented as well as the subject matter at hand - perhaps some form of searchengine or directory TLD might be a useful one, or .zine or even .log (.blog?)
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: So after my long and STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/28/2000 03:21:17 PM ----- BODY: So after my long and expressive tract of yesterday, it's time to ask your opinions: Which new TLDs (Top Level Domains) would you like to see on the net? And feel free to add your own ideas...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Odds and ends of news: STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 06/29/2000 09:07:34 AM ----- BODY: Odds and ends of news:
Ha. I'm starting a chain letter. I wonder if it will work. If you want to read it, e-mail me and I'll send it to you.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The healing power of comic-book violence... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/01/2000 09:10:50 AM ----- BODY:I've been reading an extraordinarily interesting article on comic-book violence and it's capacity to help children express their natural aggression. And, frankly, I'm loving it. I couldn't agree more with the sentiments in it. In some ways, it is remarkably close to some of my doctoral work on Natural Born Killers, identification and violence, and I'm contemplating sending my work to the author to see what he thinks of it. In the meantime, here's one of the most insightful things I think I have read in years:
"We risk confusing [children] about their natural aggression in the same way the Victorians confused their children about their sexuality." [Read the article]----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Self-promotion gets me hot... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/01/2000 09:12:13 AM ----- BODY:
Blatant self-promotion turns me on.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm off to London's Groucho STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/01/2000 08:09:08 PM ----- BODY:I'm off to London's Groucho Club this evening for the birthday party of a friend of a friend. I'm a little intimidated by the whole idea, so plan to lubricate myself with a couple of drinks down in Soho with Nick and Sam before I head over. Loads of people I know seem to be going - Nick C, Kate and Mella (my flatmates) etc etc. It's also Gay Mardi Gras today, which I have dutifully avoided. I am beginning to wonder whether it should be like the Gay Christmas - ostensibly a good idea, but actually an opportunity for getting pissed on...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Saturday night at the Groucho Club... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/03/2000 09:33:12 AM ----- BODY:Saturday night at the Groucho Club: I felt apprehensive all day - after all, I was going to a party hosted by friends of my flatmate, and felt like a bit of a hanger on. I talked to Mella about it and she quite properly said that it wasn't like we had a chance to go to the Groucho Club every day, that I should just get over it and try and have fun. So I arrive at the party around 10 and within a few moments have found Nick C, Kate, Mella and Rachel sitting chatting in a corner. We muck around for a bit, get some drinks, and sway in between the hordes to have a look around...
The party is held in two rooms on the side and back of the Groucho club, and we don't really have much contact with the main part. I'm a little disappointed about this, since an old friend of mine, Tall Michael, works there. I thought it would be really nice to stumble upon him (as it turned out he wasn't there anyway). One room looked a bit like ballroom only much smaller - a fair amount of faux glitz on the walls, a decent amount of light and a tressle-tabled bar on one wall. The other room was much more interesting - comfortable sofas, a bit more darkness, and a selection of DJs.
I had been advised to do a little celebrity spotting - although almost everyone at the party worked in an even more media occupation than mine, and were either singularly unimpressed by celebrity or were trying extremely hard to pretend to be. That's not to say that this was a celebrity party - most of the people there were behind the scenes film and media people of various (young) levels. It reminded me a bit of the parties that Kerry and Sean took me too in Hollywood while I was there, although with less gay people...
Around 11.30pm I bump into Ben Chaplin. I say "bump into" because I'm too embarrassed to go into the complicated arrangements that I engineered in order to be in a position to "bump" effectively. After a singularly brief exchange we go our separate ways, at which point for some reason I feel compelled to pat his stomach. I have absolutely no idea why. He cheerfully exclaims, "see you in a bit, yeah?", with a big grin on his face, and that's the last contact I have with him in the evening.
At this point (having been rounded set upon by Kate and Tara for my appalling behaviour), we set to dancing with great enthusiasm. The DJ that we weren't so keen on has been replaced by the lead singer of the Bluetones, who is a tiny bloke, with infinitely cooler taste in music. I'm too embarrassed to ask him to put on a Moby track, even though the album is lying right in front of him. Kate decides to ask on my behalf, but he tells us that the next DJ is more into dance, so we should leave it until then. Disappointed we continue to dance. At which point, he puts on Talking Heads. I am so delighted that a plant a smacker on his cheek. Kate looks on, amused but exasperated by my increasingly entertaining/exasperating behaviour...
I have a sit down at this point, because I am increasingly worried that I look like some form of scaffy monster with increasingly bad hair. But this allows me the thrill of watching Kate in her tight red dress and (hidden) black proppy-up underwear thing dance around likea maniac with Rachel. I am summoned up by Mella at an opportune moment, and we bounce around franctically to whatever is playing at the time.
By about 1.30 I am considering leaving - I'm completely exhausted. While the others resolve some of the tensions of the party behind the scenes, I decide to go to the loo. I spend about a month and a half waiting for the cubicle to empty (only one punter, a hundred years of waiting). When it does open, this bloke emerges who look remarkably like Jeremy Northam only thinner and with longer hair. I mention this resemblance to one of my friends who stares at me like I'm some form of root vegetable and assures me that if he looked like Jeremy Northam and sounded like Jeremy Northam, then it probably was bloody Jeremy Northam.
Duly chastised, I drink more... About 2.30 we emerge from the club, eyes blinking and get in a cab. And then for some ungodly evening the whole way back we belt out versions of Nina Simone's "My Baby Just Cares For Me" as we drive down the Edgeware road... All in all, an entertaining evening...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Meeting Mark... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/04/2000 05:03:36 PM ----- BODY:Guess who Katy and I are off to meet in about fifty minutes. That's right - the young riothero himself - currently staying in a hotel in Paddington. It's a pity the weather is so bad at the moment, though - he's really going to get the wrong idea about the UK. Anyway - let's see what he thinks of London so far?
"Harrumph! The English has no consideration for the 4th of July!"
<snarkiness follows>
I don't think we really need to go into too much detail about why that is a pretty weird thing to say. I mean, much as it would be cool to celebrate the UK finally disposing of it's wayward nephew [Rupture agrees], it is after all the celebration of America's independance from this "old country". Actually I got into another mood with America after watching Chicken Run and U-571 and realising that American media is all about self-congratulation, while UK media is all about self-deprecation, and that some Americans don't get that our media is no more representing the truth of our country than theirs represents the truth of the good ole USA.
</snarkiness ends>
Actually really looking forward to seeing Mark. I'm a bit concerned that I have a stomping headache and am all stinky and smelly and that he's going to look at me as if I fell from Planet Kak. Still, we shall see what we shall see... Oh, and apparently Vance will be there as well!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Yowser. Had a great laugh STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/05/2000 11:30:44 AM ----- BODY: Yowser. Had a great laugh with Mark, Vance and Katy last night. Katy and I scrambled for hours across the Wastelands of the Westway, emerging damp and confused between Paddington and Bayswater. Having finally found the hotel residence of our young associates, we met each other, looked a bit nervous (especially Mark) and tried to work out what to do next.At which point, Mark's mother introduced herself, which meant that I immediately had to make a joke about getting her son drunk and dumping him in a strip joint in Soho, which went down remarkably well considering, but I probably wouldn't make again if put in the same situation.
So Katy and I dragged them off to find a restaurant so we could soothe our cravings for food. We found this appalling tapas place, which cost far too much and really wasn't very nice and chatted and made bad jokes and swapped stories of other webloggers, and heard all about Mark's experiences at SXSW, and which bloggers were tall, which were short and which were great big spotty geeks.
Basically, much fun was had by all - and hopefully we will be meeting up again either tonight or tomorrow night - depending on when they are leaving for the next stage of their trip. One last thing though - MARK! I FORGOT TO BRING MY PHONE TO WORK! E-MAIL ME OR RING UP KATY!
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Bastardising the British... STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/05/2000 09:45:18 PM ----- BODY:
Quotes from recent Salon article about the Patriot and my increasing frustration with Hollywood film-making:
The prizewinning historian and biographer Andrew Roberts called the film Patriot "racist" in the Daily Express, and pointed out that it was only the latest in a series of films like "Titanic," "Michael Collins" and "The Jungle Book" remake that have depicted the British as "treacherous, cowardly, evil [and] sadistic." Roberts had a theory: "With their own record of killing 12 million American Indians and supporting slavery for four decades after the British abolished it, Americans wish to project their historical guilt onto someone else."
Now I don't like the Daily Express, and I'm not claiming for one moment that the British haven't been culpable for some pretty bastardly things in the past (but no more so than the Dutch, the Spanish, the French - in fact every other major Old World Country). But you know - I can't help thinking the guy above has a point. The British have been the bad-guys too long - there is simply no need for this characterisation by Hollywood. No need at all. We're either effeminate fops (Hugh Grant), Nazis or we are dirty people who live in mud huts without electricity and speak in "impenetrable" regional accents. Any visitor to these shores would see that it just ain't so.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Mark says: In London, from STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/06/2000 08:44:14 AM ----- BODY: Mark says:In London, from what I can tell (people screaming and such), people love the Internet. They are willing to pay these ridicules prices to play for a just few minutes...Load of bollocks. Go to an Easy Everything net caf» and you'll be able to get around an hour of net time for £1 ($1.40) - if you go in the middle of the night they'll even give you up to six hours for the same price...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: OK. I think it's time STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/06/2000 08:48:13 AM ----- BODY: OK. I think it's time certain people came clean. Megnut and Kottke go and see The Perfect Storm on exactly the same day and have pretty much exactly the same reaction to it. Question de jour: did they see it together?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: So, I missed seeing Mark STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/06/2000 08:54:48 AM ----- BODY: So, I missed seeing Mark and Vance last night because I had to work late and because I left my mobile phone at home, which meant that neither of them could get in touch with me all day. Absolute disaster all around really, as Katy had too much work to do and had to hide at home as well. I have sent Mark a tremendously apologetic e-mail and hopefully we'll all think of something cool to do this evening.
Sam turned up out of the blue(-ish) last night as well. He'd left his rolling tobacco on our TV. He watched Ally McBitch with me and my flatmates and seemed completely unable to grasp who it is just about OK to like (Ling, Biscuit) and who must die in unending torment (Ally, Nell etc). I still contend that it is a Nazi TV series. Anyway, at some point in the evening, when I was chasing Kate around the flat trying to blow a raspberry on her stomach, I got clocked by his huge metal watch on his arm. Last night I had a black-eye, and I'm too scared to look this morning. Mella says it makes me look macho, but she'd say anything, frankly...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I'm surprised by the response STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/06/2000 05:28:21 PM ----- BODY: I'm surprised by the response I'm getting to the megnut/kottke pairing that I alluded to earlier. Seems that there is quite an undercurrent of gossip in the weblogging community, and that everyone wants in on the action. Quotes from an unnamed source:
"I too noticed the "Perfect Storm" reference from both Meg and Jason. But did you notice these?----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: CRISIS: Everyone who hasn't been STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/07/2000 10:01:58 AM ----- BODY: CRISIS: Everyone who hasn't been to riothero yet today must follow these instructions IMMEDIATELY. I posted a note to the site (Katy and I still have access). Anyway - for some reason it erased the last weeks posts completely. Absolute horror on my part. Complete and utter horror (how/why could this have happened?). You people have to help me fix this crisis:
Meg - "Only one to-do scheduled on the whole day stretching before me: bake a blueberry pie"
Jason - "Jason's 4th of July wrap-up: made blueberry pie"
Meg - "... parties and tete-a-tetes-a-tetes and tours and tastings"
Jason - "Went wine tasting yesterday"
Meg - "The Right Stuff is one of my favorite movies of all time"
Jason - "recent movie viewings: the Right Stuff ..."
... and then of course there is their appearance together in Jezebel's Mirror..."
. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: As I was walking home STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/07/2000 02:04:47 PM ----- BODY: As I was walking home this evening, a little girl was riding her bike in the middle of the street. She still had the training wheels on as she wobbled and struggled to peddle. It reminded me of when I was little and how badly I wanted a bicycle but couldn't get one. My parents wouldn't let me have a bike until I was 12; my mom was too afraid I'd hurt myself. I'd pass the bike section in the store and just look, having given up asking my parents about it long ago. I eventually did get one after much pleading and begging. Amazingly, getting my driver's license at 16 and the subsequent borrowing of the family car passed without incident.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: The weirdest thing about the STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/07/2000 11:45:35 PM ----- BODY:
The weirdest thing about the web is that you can write intelligent articles on quantum physics, Natural Born Killers and the naming of extra TLDs - you can accidentally start fights, flame wars and full online wars - you can do all of this and more. And then one day you quote a weird story about a little girl on a bike that you saw on two other people's websites and everyone wants a piece of you. Is this the weblogging equivalent of Stupid Pet Tricks...?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: Hmmm. Katy's version of how STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/08/2000 01:20:44 PM ----- BODY: Hmmm. Katy's version of how we spent the evening with Mark and Vance is a little overblown in the fantasy stakes, I fear! A more balanced description of the evening would be:----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: London based members of the STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/08/2000 04:18:34 PM ----- BODY: London based members of the Underground are summoned to the Spreadeagle Pub on Camden Parkway tomorrow (Sunday) at 2pm. Around ten to fifteen invisibilists will be there, eagerly awaiting your ability to buy more beer and destabilise western democracy.
[map] [find out more]
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I never really go to STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/08/2000 04:41:46 PM ----- BODY: I never really go to Bloat, but I was reading (properly for the first time) the notes at the bottom of Beebo's weblog ratings page and thought I'd see how barbelith was doing. So I went and had a look. Nothing. Not a mention at all.
Well at least that was how it appeared at first. On a whim, I opened up the HTML for the page and did a search, and there I am floating invisibly between Rebecca's Pocket and Evhead. Weird. I have to say that I quite like it. Completely invisible. And long may I remain so...
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Tom Coates TITLE: I don't know what's weirdest STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 0 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 0 DATE: 07/09/2000 09:49:34 AM ----- BODY:
I don't know what's weirdest - that megnut and I should suddenly appear on metalog (because of the whole little girl thing) or that Jason didn't. Find out more about th
