Archives for July 2000
On visiting family... (July 31, 2000) So my mother and my little brother are coming down to London this coming weekend. Kate and Mella, my flatmates are off on holiday on Saturday, and are not returning for a week and a half - so it seemed...
On Tom's Fucked Up Dream Life... (July 31, 2000) Tom's Fucked Up Dream Life [the first in a series]: So I'm lying on this bed, fully clothed, half buried under a pile of cushions, with Pacey Witter (from Dawson's Creek, also fully clothed) using me as a pillow. He's...
On ways to become famous... (July 31, 2000) Ways to become famous #1 [the first in a series]: Taking the lead from such prominent celebrities as Sarah Jessica Parker and Sarah Michelle Geller, add the name "Sarah" to the beginning of name, thus producing media friendly nomenclature: "Sarah...
On design swapping... (July 31, 2000) Oh the young scamps. Jason and EOD play "swap the designs". Which brings me to my other idea. I'm thinking about putting this current template out for anyone to use once the redesign comes into affect. Should anyone want it...
On late-night television... (July 31, 2000) Stayed up until 1am last night (big deal - half an hour later than normal) to watch the MTV Movie Awards on Channel 4. Why can't the Oscars be like that? It was great fun!...
On a redesign in progress... (July 30, 2000) The redesign is proceeding apace, and with it comes all the usual anxieties - that the new design isn't as good as the last, that it isn't as clear, that it doesn't fill the page as well, that it basically...
On iTari and iBrator... (July 30, 2000) I'll admit it. Even though I love Apple, I still thought that the iTari pisstake was funny. It's not as good as the iBrator though......
On background gifs in Netscape... (July 29, 2000) I've been inside all day, on one of the nicest days of the year, and why? Because I'm finally getting some redesigning done - getting some code together which isn't completely awful. Picture the scene - I've got a mock-up...
On the personal life of the weblogger... (July 29, 2000) Weblogs (at least those with online diary content) are strange things. They force you to make decisions about which parts of your life are open to everyone and which parts of your life should remain discreetly behind closed doors. Even...
On TV Go Home... (July 28, 2000) It's a site that has been all around the British media, praised almost without exception for its biting wit and foul mouth. It's a site that takes a bastion of British life - the Radio Times - and then rips...
On Duncan, Designer... (July 28, 2000) So there's this guy at work called Duncan, and he's a designer with this large consultancy firm, but the poor love hasn't had a web site for ages, which I thought was a bit lame really, because if you are...
On trustworthy opinions... (July 28, 2000) You can always trust the opinions of someone who likes Hunky Dory....
On MP3 and Napster... (July 27, 2000) Further to yesterday's post, there is more about the legal difficulties of mp3.com and napster over at Wired news at the moment. I'm in the middle of discussing it with people over at alt.security.pgp as well at the moment. I...
On music and asymmetrical encryption keys... (July 26, 2000) I've been reading this really interesting article at Hack the Planet: "Route around the labels", which describes a form of voluntary payment scheme for MP3s. To be honest, I've read it a couple of times and some of the technical...
On other people's travelling... (July 24, 2000) My parents always used to go on really boring holidays. Their idea of a great holiday was to find a house with a pool two miles down a dirt track, which was itself 2 miles away from the nearest...
On Romantic Love? (July 24, 2000) I've been really slack the last few days. I've been trying to recover from huge work stresses last week which set up shop in my mind and wouldn't leave, no matter how many times I tried to evict them. I'm...
Thoughts on Encryption and Privacy... (July 21, 2000) FACT ONE: There is increasing invasion of privacy by governments. There is no denying that the surveillance of the public is at an all time high in Europe and America at the moment. In London we find ourselves routinely...
On disorders of gender identity... (July 21, 2000) Offensive/Weird Quote from Britannica.com: "Psychosexual disorders: Homosexuality and psychosexual dysfunctions such as impotence are treated in the articles sexual behaviour, human and homosexuality. The following section is concerned with disorders of gender identity and with preferences for unusual or bizarre...
On ICANN and the new TLDs... (July 21, 2000) It's been a while since I talked about the new proposed top-level domains that ICANN are currently considering. There have been loads of articles about this recently (see below), but I have written up some of my queries on Metafilter...
On incredibly disturbing pages... (July 21, 2000) Is it my imagination or does this incredibly disturbing page [thanks Mark] keep refreshing every twenty seconds?...
Origins of the word "Barbelith"... (July 21, 2000) Grant Morrison: "The word 'BARBELiTH' is derived from a dream I had when I was about 20 or 21 and coincided with my first structured 'magical' experiences and a minor nervous breakdown (in the dream, BARBELiTH was the name of...
Tom's thoughts on cryptography... (July 21, 2000) Tom's thoughts on cryptography FACT ONE: There is increasing invasion of privacy by governments There is no denying that the surveillance of the public is at an all time high in Europe and America at the moment. In London we...
Katy found Evil Pupil. I (July 20, 2000) Katy found Evil Pupil. I went to it. I thought it was great. I put it on my weblog. The End....
A quick Oasis interview... (July 20, 2000) I had to bash together a quick Oasis interview page in the very narrow confines of Time Out's templates yesterday. In about half an hour I produced this: The Brothers Grim. It's OK, I guess......
Working specs for a Barbelith rip-off? (July 20, 2000) I'm a bit weirded out by dvdauthority.com apparent working specs for a barbelith rip-off site (including the name of my site in the URL of all things). Anyone know what it's about? Bizarre.......
New Apple Products... (July 20, 2000) I've been waiting for this for a while, and I have finally been rewarded for my patience. Full glorious photos of Apple's new products - gorgeous, unholy, beautiful evil things like a new keyboard, a new cube computer (not much...
Thanks everyone! (July 20, 2000) I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who sent me an e-mail or an e-card to wish me Happy Birthday. Thanks, everyone! Really cheered me up!...
Thanks Heather! (July 19, 2000) Thanks to jezebel for the wonderful card!...
On Life statistics... (July 19, 2000) Let's ignore for a moment the fact that it is my 28th Birthday today, and that I am completely weirded out by that, and that I don't really want to think about it, but that it keeps appearing in my...
Riothero is back in the blog-active... (July 18, 2000) Finally. Mark is back in the land of the blog-active. And with hands covered in urine, no less. How ... revealing! Still - it's good to have him back... On a completely unrelated note, does anyone actually have the image...
My posts have been so (July 18, 2000) My posts have been so ridiculously long of late, that I have instituted horizontal rules between them to help people figure out which is which. My next plan - t-shirts that read "Tom is your friend" and "Tom loves you"......
On Birthdays and The Patriot... (July 17, 2000) God. There is just so much I want to get through today, and there just isn't the slightest chance I am going to manage it. Potted summary of a couple of things: Birthday Oh god. I'm 28 on Wednesday. The...
More on Gay Marriage... (July 17, 2000) A few people seem think I fell from the womb an angry crusader for queer politics. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. I started my big gay life as the biggest anti-queen you can imagine - my...
On PGP and Tom's file at the FBI... (July 17, 2000) When I survey the epic terrain of my web presence from a dispassionate stance what I see worries me. Not because I am particularly self-indulgent (which I can be, admittedly), not because I am particularly dull (although, god knows, I...
Will Barbelith escape their fire?! (July 17, 2000) Finally, today I stumbled upon a weblog called Bad Blogs. And how did I stumble upon it? I did a search for barbelith at blogger and it came out top. And I quote: "Barbelith would usually escape our fire..." Phew!...
Dreamweaver and Blogger don't bore people. People bore people... (July 15, 2000) I love A List Apart. I really do. But is anyone bored of the anti-weblog riff? It's a banal conversation at the best of times. It's good that they are easy to build (html isn't exactly the trickiest language itself...
Coverage of the Yell Awards (July 14, 2000) I've been looking for some coverage of the Yell Awards all over the place, but I can't seem to find any at all. Has anyone actually seen anything about it anywhere on the web? [E-mail me]...
Tom's Night Out at the Yell.com Web Site Awards... (July 13, 2000) [Being an expository piece investigating corporate web site hell and a scientific study of the effects of combined alcohol abuse, loud music and the presence of a television crew] The Yell UK Web Awards is a pretty strange creature. Ostensibly...
Considering my current ethical dilemma (July 13, 2000) Considering my current ethical dilemma regarding redesigning, I was delighted to see that Weblog Wannabe is just going for it. Go for it, babe!...
Why are married people being financially rewarded? (July 13, 2000) Jonno and Sturtle have been discussing my "anti-gay-marriage" piece. "I understand what he's trying to say: historically, marriage has been a sort of institutionalized inequity, so if queer politics are about reshaping norms and ideas of what's acceptable and getting...
Quote of the night: "I'm (July 13, 2000) Quote of the night: "I'm sure that's not words." Name that film......
Mella's Chocolately Shatner (July 13, 2000) Kate and I just returned to the Wu-tang name-a-lizer site. Delighted to find out that our flatmate's name translates into CHOCOLATELY SHATNER, which I believe is some kind of stomach disease or a reference to a Star Trek star's sick...
Thoughts on Gay Marriage... (July 11, 2000) Just read an article on Salon.com called: "Same-sex marriage - I don't care if it is legal, I still think it's wrong -- and I'm a lesbian." and it brought home again a lot of the things that I was...
Thanks to jack for this: (July 11, 2000) Thanks to jack for this: "my post on friday about tabloid journalism and people being paid to write each other's personal site content-- it was a joke. İi'm sorry if it wasn't clear to all readers, because tom seems like...
So I spent last night (July 11, 2000) So I spent last night watching Queer as Folk 2 [I love you Blackstar] with Mella, which made me want to go and blow up cars again, move to America and threaten people with guns. Before we decided on QAF...
An e-mail from Meg Hourihan... (July 11, 2000) Got a lovely e-mail from Meg, which has reassured me completely and made me feel less like a prurient scandalmongerer. It also included this line: "I'm so glad you copied that little girl bike post too, now everyone's copying. Man...
What do you do when (July 11, 2000) What do you do when you have nothing left to say? I suppose the only answer is read - catch up with the weblogs that you've missed recently, and try and find some ones you haven't read before. Underappreciated weblog...
I'm seriously considering signing up (July 10, 2000) I'm seriously considering signing up to bigmailbox.com - and thus allowing all of my regular readers to have an awesome "yourname@barbelith.com" e-mail address. Does anyone know of any other companies that do this? Opinions?...
Ways to really piss people (July 10, 2000) Ways to really piss people off [courtesy of my boss]... Do a check for Shockwave before letting someone into your site. If they don't have it, tell them to fuck off. Otherwise let them into the site. Where, of course,...
Pictures from the meeting of (July 10, 2000) Pictures from the meeting of Katy, Mark, Vance and I: 1 --- 2 --- 3...
I'm working on a redesign (July 9, 2000) I'm working on a redesign - my first for about six months. I'm feeling a combination of delighted and horrified with its progress. I was looking around at a few sites that really caught my attention and screen-capping them, grabbing...
I don't know what's weirdest (July 9, 2000) 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 the whole Little Girl Viral Meme at Metafilter......
I never really go to (July 8, 2000) 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....
London based members of the (July 8, 2000) 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]...
How we spent our evening with Mark... (July 8, 2000) 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: Having met them both at Tottenham Court Road,...
The weirdest thing about the (July 7, 2000) 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...
On a little girl on a bicycle... (July 7, 2000) 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...
PHEW: Managed to save Mark's (July 7, 2000) PHEW: Managed to save Mark's recent blogs from the abyss. Thanks to everyone concerned!....
We've erased bits of riothero... (July 7, 2000) 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...
I'm surprised by the response (July 6, 2000) 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...
So, I missed seeing Mark (July 6, 2000) 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...
OK. I think it's time (July 6, 2000) 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...
Mark says: In London, from (July 6, 2000) 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...
Bastardising the British... (July 5, 2000) 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...
Yowser. Had a great laugh (July 5, 2000) 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...
Meeting Mark... (July 4, 2000) 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...
Saturday night at the Groucho Club... (July 3, 2000) 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...
I'm off to London's Groucho (July 1, 2000) 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...
Self-promotion gets me hot... (July 1, 2000) Blatant self-promotion turns me on....
The healing power of comic-book violence... (July 1, 2000) 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...
