pleonasm:now

Ouch

At first I thought this was fake, but apparently it's not. And I won't link to them, but some other pages on this site are even more harrowing.

Come on down

While scanning cable TV for news this morning, I chanced upon The Price Is Right on CBS. Assuming that it was a rerun of a show taped in the 70s, I sat and laughed at the hideous brown and yellow sets, Bob Barker's flared polyester trousers, and the tackiness of the prizes (faux-stone fireplaces, double-wide trailers, and so on). Then a contestant stepped up: a 90s frat-boy in full-on Gap gear. I guess they haven't changed their design in all these years. If you don't believe me, check out this promotional t-shirt still being mercilessly flogged by CBS.

If there's a cure for it, I don't want it

(Name that song, BTW.) I see that the Cure have a new Greatest Hits CD out. It pains me to admit that I used to love this band, way back in the late 80s. I even went so far as to see them in concert at Wembley Arena in London in, oooh, 1989 or 1990. I have vague memories of catching a packed tube back into central London afterwards, and, having nowhere else to sleep, passing out on a bench in Leicester Square amidst crowds of tramps, then waking up at 5am and catching the first tube of the day back to some British Rail station or other. Those were the days! I also have horrible memories of donning red lipstick, black nail varnish and black clothing (trousers, shirt, army boots, torn overcoat, the lot) on regular occasions. Now I can't even listen to the Cure's music any more without cringing. Oh, and did anyone else notice that their Greatest Hits compilation just happens to be missing the track Killing An Arab? Why, what a surprise, in this day and age. I ask you.

It's in the seventies and sunny again, here in Californ-i-a. Outside, now!

15 november 2001

Blogs

It looks like it's time to update the list of blogs I link to on the right there. Torrez appears to be finished for good. Lost For Life is rarely updated, and pretty short on content these days (pot? kettle? black?) - a shame, as the daily journal of Jeff Levine, which he himself seemed to think would not be of interest to anyone, was actually quite interesting. And since Heather's outraged family discovered her blog, Dooce, with its scathing comments about her sister's fried hair, it's been toned down considerably; it's still well-written and humorous, though, so I may keep that one in the list. Blogs I will probably add soon include the superbly designed, highly animated Nobody Here, and Spy Hamlet (yet another hilarious redesign from the very talented creator of the now-defunct Thicke of the Night).

Sporadic

So much for my writing here every day. I did start writing for NaNoWriMo, though. The words just poured out - I'd written over 2,000 before I knew it - but I haven't read it back yet; I won't until I'm finished, as recommended by some of the creators of NaNoWriMo. I'm not sure if I can keep that level of creativity up, though, and I don't know how authors manage it day after day. Interestingly, Spy Hamlet (see above) mentions that Limegirl, like me, missed the NaNoWriMo deadline and is starting a splinter novel-writing group. I shall investigate.

I went to the beach on Friday. The Pacific Ocean was absolutely freezing, so I only went in up to my ankles, but it was warm on the sand, and I got a bit of a tan. Bliss.

11 november 2001

A novel idea

It's National Novel Writing Month - too bad until I didn't know about it until today. I've always wanted to write a novel. Correction: I've always wanted to have written a novel; it's the actual writing part that doesn't appeal to me so much. It's like wanting to have read the great novels, but not being able to be bothered to spend that much time and expend that much intellectual energy.

But I may just give it a shot. The goal is quantity (50,000 words), not quality, the principle being that you just have to hammer it out; revision can come later. If I start tomorrow, that gives me 23 days, which works out at approximately 2,174 words a day. That sounds attainable, given the fact that I frequently wrote longer papers in dizzily brief periods of time throughout college. But which genre? Detective? Science fiction? 1940s Blytonesque girls' boarding-school hi-jinks? The possibilities are endless, but I think I'd like to try a genre I never normally read. Watch out for me on Oprah's Book Club touting my latest bodice-ripper blockbuster soon ... or perhaps not.

7 november 2001

Back

You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything here since the middle of September, almost two months ago. I've tried several times to start writing again, but every time I've drawn a blank. Everything seemed so trivial compared to the events of September 11th. How could I possibly write about Netscape bugs, humorous weblogs and pop music after such grave events occurred? How could I be frivolous and flippant at a time like this?

As time has passed, I have realized that that's exactly what I need to be right now: trivial, irrelevant, irreverent. I need an outlet. That's what this site always has been, of course; and now I need that more than ever. I'm back, and I hope to start posting here regularly again, starting tomorrow.

6 november 2001