[ Thursday, January 23 ]
SLACKER SCANDAL: AREA MAN CONTINUES TO FIDDLE AS ROME NEARS 12TH MONTH OF BURNING
Heresy. Torshin has removed Raiders of the Lost Ark from his (extensive, I may add) list of recommended movies, citing vague things about lack of character development and 'just because it's fun doesn't mean it's a good movie'. I would argue that just because it's fun it doesn't make it a bad movie either, but there you go. Everybody then should go here, and take a look at the films on his list (comparison is important), and see if you think Indy 1 deserves a place among them and we'll get some public discussion thing going on via blogs (I can claim it's vaguely thesis related. It's the Habermasian Public Sphere people! The HABERMASIAN PUBLIC SPHERE, ah, who am I kidding). I'm mostly interested because it seems a pretty automatic edition to me, and I'd like to see if public opinion is with me, or if it just proves I'm an Indy fanboy (which I wouldn't consider myself to be at all, although watching them again recently on TV made me realise how much I enjoyed them, and would look forward to a 4th installment, although with some reservations) as well as a SW one. Of course it's a list of Torsh's own particular choices, so public opinion is largely immaterial and will not result in him changing it or anything, but I'm intrigued now. I suggest those with blogs comment if they are interested, or perhaps people could weigh in with an opinion briefly at Tark's guestbook. I know Nic and Tim are mostly with me so far. I could perhaps expect people like Jed and Arc to come down on the side of the argument that presents George Lucas (especially) and / or Steven Spielberg as people with no talent (but a staggering amount of luck), but I don't know.
The extended discourse on this matter between Nic, Tim, James and myself and this subsequent blogging have of course merely proved themselves thesis avoidance devices this evening. I have though succeeded in printing out a number of useful articles and reading them in the 4 hours I have been here, and managed to surprise myself by rediscovering some enthusiasm for the whole enterprise. Perhaps the key is late nights and energy drinks. At any rate, in a surprise move I have every intention of doing some more work as soon as I finish writing this. No, really! I'm wondering about it myself. At any rate I keep coming across these examples in articles of like these mega-blogs that attract 25,000 plus readers today, and what's most interesting is that I've never heard of them. I submit for your interest anyway Andrew Sullivan, (who can apparently push a book into the Amazon Top Ten best sellers just by giving it a good review) Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit and Dave Winer at Scripting.com. These 3 guys are apparently some of the biggest figures in the blogosphere, and Dave Winer is virtually Godfather of Blogs (he's sort of credited with having the first one.) Unfortunately (well for me, anyway) Sullivan and Reynolds are both hawkish right wing conservatives, although Sullivan at least comes up with some interesting thoughts on things like abortion and same sex marriages (not as 'anti' as you might think). Reynolds can be reasonably funny. However their 'shut up liberals, let's bomb Iraq' gets a bit much after a while. This kind of thing (from Sullivan, I include the link as he does) being typical:
"Is this the League of Nations? The answer, I regret to say, is yes. If France, Germany and China succeed in ensuring that the war to disarm Saddam doesn't have the sanction of the United Nations, then the U.N. is effectively dead as a viable international body."
Hmmmm. Interesting to see though what the opposite end of the political spectrum thinks about things.
Dave Winer on the other hand is super enthusiastic about personal publishing and has many links to interesting tidbits. They're all worth at least a look anyway I think.
Today I succeeded in severely damaging my bike. I wish there was a good story behind this, something about it being run over by an 18 wheel truck just seconds after I dived off it to knock some damsel in distress into a position of safety (possibly Gwynneth Paltrow, she's in the country), but sadly the actual story goes as follows: I went around a corner too fast, didn't trust my tyres to turn sharply enough, and rode, at approximately 30 kmh, into a concrete wall. This act of somewhat amazing incompetence proved doubleplusungood for my front wheel (although it turned out surprisingly OK for me, all things considered) which was mortally wounded, unless there's some magic that can be wrought on it at some kind of wheel-shaped objects straightening plant. Inconveniently, I believe wheel-shaped object straightening is something of a cottage industry around these parts and could prove hard to locate, and I may have to replace the wheel and possibly other bits damaged beyond my ken at some cost. Curses. Should have trusted the tyres.
On the links page now we should have (Hey, look everyone! Links! Sorry Mark, your appearance was overdue, just had to sort my life out. Apologies to others too who will probably be there shortly pending a review) another cool blogging thing: some bright spark got it into their head to publish probably the world's most famous diary (apart from maybe Anne Frank's), that of Samuel Pepys, in blog form, a day at a time, with annotations and visitor comments. Excellent authentic historical stuff, and a great way to read it, especially if you were put off by tackling the whole print version due to its enormity, or the fact that you were formerly a callow young youth who went 'History? Diary? Pshaw!' at every opportunity (as I was). Perhaps I should start keeping daily print diaries on the off chance that I become a famous literary figure in the future, inadvertently. Pepys though was an adulterer who lived through the splendidly decadent Restoration, the Plague, and the Great Fire of London, so I'll have to have the old Chinese curse applied to me to even compete.
Right, as everyone has now gone home but me, it must be time to do some work. To finish this evening, an excellent quote from Joseph Heller I came across at random which went something along these lines:
'I'm often confused when I read something saying I've never written anything as good as Catch 22. I mean, why expect it from me? Nobody else has, either.'
Snappy. Not too far off either, I think.
Right, back to the readings.
Tim [05:48]
[ Monday, January 20 ]
Easy targets
Ooo, look at it, it's my first post of (gack) 2K3. Happy New Year to those readers in, in alphabetical order for no good reason, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Wellington. Apologies to a few people as well for whom the following may prove overly esoteric (Coe's Ford, for example, is not Sebastian's car). Complaints have been received; I almost decided to not update just to annoy people (who posts in another man's blog? Good lord Tim, I'll have your hide) but I decided a better kick off to the year in blogs was to insult a few of my friends. So here we go:
1) Simon (or more accurately probably, his marketing people), who seems to have fallen for the phrase 'in touch with today's youth'. See here. You may need to refresh it a few times, but I quote:
Sarah and I had tickets to J.Lo on Friday night.(J. Lo! Super keen!) She was going to pick me up on the corner outside work. I looked outside the window at about three, and it was pouring down! (I was so surprised I could barely restrict myself to just one exclamation mark!!!) So I email Sarah saying how tragic it would be if I showed up with frizzy hair (this bit mocks itself. No further effort is required on my part) and how we should meet at the pizza place instead. (The pizza place is somehow more waterproof. Sarah was clearly going to pick her up on her bicycle.) I was just heading out when I suddenly thought, "What if Sarah didn't check her email?" (My God! If she doesn't check her email, she won't notice it's raining!) I raced back in - she didn't read it! (I began hyperventilating!) I can't use the work phone, (as my IQ score means I am not allowed near important office equipment)so I called her mobile from a payphone outside (taking great care to avoid the frizzy hair scenario. Thankfully, the journey from building to phone box proved less wet that the one from building to car would surely have done!!!!!!!!) I was like, "Why didn't you check your mail?" and she was like "My geek brother was playing some game on the computer!" (...and I was like: who wrote this?) That was close. (We are talking frizzy hair here people. Thank Britney for Message Tag!) We wound up having a huge night!(I forgot my name and spent the night in detox!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Dear oh dear oh dear Si. Not to worry though, I'm sure the story will prove a hit with the hip young, er, ditzes. Not so sure about pushing a web application and referring to the 'geek brother' though, you might be alienating your client base a bit there, not to mention betraying your origins. For shame sir, for shame. However, as a non-driver I care not a fig for the fact that your car is automatic, and refuse to join the chorus of condemnation. instead: new car, nice work.
2) Tim: Accuse me of not updating, will you? Fair enough I suppose, but you're doing heaps of updating, and why? Because you're procrastinating and procrastinating and procrastinating, in a last desparate fashion. Don't deny it, you poor bastard, (Nice work on sticking it to The Man though.) you posted in MY blog, you're so avoiding your thesis. Anyway, aren't we past that whole "Moob, (another required dictionary addition Si), I updated faster than you, ya boo sucks" thing? I would have thought that we'd all be mature enough now, except perhaps for:
3) Warwick. "Masta Updata" (sic) indeed. Sleep with one eye open, lest all 20 volumes of the print version of the Complete Oxford English Dictionary fall unexpectedly onto your head from a suitable height. Nice Counterstrike poem though (possibly the world's first...actually maybe Walt Whitman wrote one).
4) Nic - chooses to pass up Coe's Ford for no discernible reason, save "...getting a good night's sleep." Excuse me? See previous rants on this subject, and remember the James Bond villain stole the line from me. Good work to Teena and Adam for ignoring the sensible option and making their first Pilgrammage. They have earned their place in Valhalla. Unlike some people. Some credit earned though by Mr Mason through participation in drunken shenanigans with young hoons last night. Fear the Brothers Allan, they are a Troika of Power.
Time for a lift home, I think. But first, I'd just like to give big ups to ME, firstly for that fulminating right foot screamer into the top corner from waist height yesterday (shame that the other 99 percent of the game was spent running around totally ineffectually getting bruised) and also for remembering and proving even while drunk and in the face of widespread disbelief that:
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player
Who struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot
Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
...is from Macbeth. Haha, I wave my otherwise useless English degree in your very faces, you pretenders.
Right, bitching done, very cathartic. To the Nicmobile. (Dalalalaladadadaaaaaaaa!!!)
Oh, and this is strange. But kind of handy.
Ben Allan [17:13]
[ Tuesday, January 14 ]
I'm so slack, I post in other journals becuase they can't be bothered posting in their own.
Ya ya ya ya ya.
Sweet.
Oh yeah, Ben sucks for not posting in over a month. A MONTH! Even Waz and Si do better than that. And that unfortunately IS saying something. Although, I'm not sure of what.
Tim [17:05]
