pleonasm:now

A fine romance

I would link to the following, but it will be gone in a few days, tragically unarchived. It's from the UK's satirical magazine Private Eye, in whose Diary section “Jilly Cooper” discusses her week in a hilarious, inspired parody of the style of the real, romance novel-writing Jilly Cooper. Here we have an extract from her new novel, in which “Lord Guy Bigge-Crotch escorts the to-die-for Amelia through his priceless well-researched collection of 16th century Sevres vases for the very first time”:

“And this,” said Guy, picking up another priceless exhibit, his eyes still fixed on Amelia's full, high, incredibly springy breasts - soft and yielding, yes, but also ruthlessly ambitious and thrusting, “is one of my finest pieces of hand-crafted antique china. It's from the 16th century, which of course actually means it was made sometime in the 1700s.”

Amelia noticed Lord Guy's long, long, really very long fingers clutching the priceless Sevres vase. How she wished they were even now unbuttoning her expensive wet-look silk blouse which cost £375 from Prada in London's impossibly glamorous New Bond Street. “I love him,” she sobbed to herself in a frenzy of despair whilst maintaining a look of deepest composure on her face, covered as it was with a layer of perfect spot-free skin.

“Oh, hang it - who cares about bloody china!” sighed Lord Guy impatiently, as with a manly swing he threw the priceless Sevres vase over his rippling, feverishly sweating left shoulder, “All I want, Amelia, you hugely successful but nonetheless strangely insecure international beauty, is to bury myself deep inside your smouldering breasts”.

Amelia swooned. “Mon Dieu!” she gasped, as she watched her breasts smoulder in his hugely successful hands. At moments of passion, the hot, red, moist French blood of her mother, the impossibly glamorous but desperately unhappy Comtesse Madeleine de Villefranche, seemed to course through her tongue. At that moment, the priceless 16th century Sevres vase shattered against the priceless 15th century Ming serving-dish and both fell headlong onto a priceless 36 piece Louis XIV dinner service, smashing it into hundreds of little pieces.

“Whoops! Don't MING us, we'll MING you!” said Lord Guy, bringing out his impossibly long and hugely successful manhood which glistened like the moist nose on a healthy pedigree Labrador puppy. Amelia clutched her sides with laughter at his brilliant pun. “SEVRES you jolly well right!” she quipped in response, her smouldering breasts springing up and down like excited dachsunds at dinner time. “Bonjour!” she added, once again her passionate French blood seeming to take control of her body as she raced headlong onto the field of passion.

31 january 2002

Outage

I was going to post some more links that I've collected over the last few months (pre-move), but Cox Cable Internet is down. Again. As a result, I can't visit the sites in order to sum them up in my usual pithy, highly witty style. (I wish.) So, I'll just have to ramble, and post this whenever the connection comes back up.

When I first started accessing the net from home, I had a simple 56K modem. How long ago that seems, though it was actually only about five years ago. It was simply normal to download large files in the background while I did something else: write an entire term paper, build a web page, play a game. It would take hours to download a browser installation file; sometimes I'd leave it going when I went to bed, and it still wouldn't be finished by morning. It didn't bother me. That was just the way it was.

How things change. Now that I've had DSL or cable internet for almost two years, even the shortest delays are maddening. That 20MB file still hasn't finished after two whole minutes?! It takes longer than 20 seconds to download an mp3?! Yet now I'm sitting here, wishing I could plug the computer into the phone jack and crawl across the web at a snail's pace, but there isn't a jack in this room, so I must wait, disconnected, writing this and not knowing when I will be able to post it. I want my 56K connection back.

A bad sign

I spotted the banner ad below on some website - can't remember where - and marvelled at the lack of proofreading. Hey, you know what I wanna elimate? Damn banner ads. They should definitely be elimated.

30 january 2002

A fresh start

What a month. I've flown to Europe and back, packed up my old apartment in Paris, got rid of tons of old junk (very cathartic), sorted out heaps of paperwork, and moved back to San Diego. I'm still a little jetlagged - it takes me forever to get over it, every single time - and very busy, as I just started another degree program. Another Master's degree. Yes. What was I thinking? Actually, it seems great so far, and it's good to be busy and have a goal once again, after the last two years of uncertainty.

I need to build a website for school - and soon - to organize the huge amounts of information (schedules, deadlines, course links, assignments, projects) that I'll have to keep on top of if I don't want to get hopelessly lost and kicked out. Frighteningly, it's been quite a while since I've designed anything new, rather than merely updating existing sites, and I've actually forgotten one or two things. I foresee long nights with multiple pots of coffee and crates of No-Doz®. Ah well - who needs sleep anyway?

New links in the sidebar include the jolly amusing apathy, the interesting blog entropy (which I have yet to explore fully - there's a lot there), and the consistently hilarious blog of Camper English, whose level of alcohol consumption is mind-boggling.

29 january 2002