february 2003
Desperate Attempt to Appeal to a Minority Demographic®, Part 1
Cool-2b-real.com: In which “real girls” are “keepin’ it real” by eating - erm - beef, and droppin’ the letter “g” when they’re sayin’ present participles, because it’s, you know, like a totally real and happenin’ thing to do. This site is also the home of the bizarre poll question, which, at the time of writing, is: “What type of beef do you most like to eat with your friends?” Hmmm - just the kind of thing teenage girls talk about for hours with their friends on the phone!
“Hi, Becky! Did you do your math homework yet? Math is so hard!”
“Oh, hey, Melissa! Forget math, what about beef? I always enjoy a beef wrap for lunch! How about you?”
“Hmmm, I prefer spaghetti and meatballs. They give me smooth skin and shiny hair!”
“Wow, I’ll totally have to try that! Maybe then I can be real, like you!”
“You might, if you keep eating beef! Oops - I meant to say eatin’. Gotta keep it real!”
28 february 2003 
Desperate Attempt to Appeal to a Minority Demographic®, Part 2
Asianbud.com: In which bottled cat’s piss
beer is marketed to the “Asian community” - you know, that totally
homogeneous group of people who are all easily swayed by patronizing ad campaigns
that pander to every stereotype about their race. Hey, look, there’s a Chinese calendar! That will definitely
appeal to Korean, Thai, and Japanese people as well! Oh, and let’s make the entire
website overwhelmingly red - all Asian Chinese people love
red, so that might make them want to buy more beer. I’m not sure, though -
they’re so inscrutable!
Before you write to complain, that was a joke. Sheesh!
28 february 2003
Lost in translation
At the Auron ski resort in the French Alps, “you will have time to take advantage of the loosened enough and wild (kicked away enough and wild) landscape by nibbling at your snack.” The resort is easy to get to: “to go to it, no laces and little coast.” And if you get tired, remember that “the most exhausted will opt for the warm chocolate.” (Looks like someone uses Babel Fish instead of paying a real translator.)
If you prefer golf to skiing, head over to Golf of Isola 2000, near Nice. Here, “one can speak about golf of mountain with its hilly landscape, its made uneven, its ravines, its valleys, its larches without forgetting chamoises.” (Mustn’t forget those chamoises!) Oh, and don’t forget to start the day by saying “Hello balls!” (More of this here.)
Röyksopp have had great success in Europe, but I’ve only just heard their album, Melody A.M. The opening track, So Easy, is stunning. (The sample is from Bobby Vinton’s 1963 hit Blue On Blue, fact fans.) My other favourite tracks, in no particular order, are the single Remind Me (the video, viewable on their website, is a must-see), the Portishead-esque Sparks, and the haunting Higher Place. My album of the year, no contest. (OK, so it was released in 2002 ... whatever!)
Talking of great music, listen to Glenda’s Playboy Magazine. (Via sharpeworld - scroll down to read about Glenda.)
Ever wanted to rearrange the letters on a store, church, or cinema sign? These guys went out and did it.
HTML authoring in
French. In written French, one leaves a space before sentence-ending question
and exclamation marks. Unfortunately, most browsers will automatically break the
line on that space, if necessary. So, if you’re coding web pages in French, be
sure to keep a bucket of s
handy
!
27 february 2003
Honey bunches o’links
Chair disaster. Great Flash animation.
The Law of the Playground is “the least coherent encyclopaedia of playground insults on the internet.”
Etoile Polaire is an unofficial Björk site (as opposed to her official site). Unfortunately, the Björk Remix Web is still being “redesigned,” but at least they caught the San Diego ticket scammer.
Ghostzilla browser “shields you from the looks of people around you when they try to see if you are surfing the Web.”
Harry Hill has a site. It’s a kind of magic.
Nature Sex: hilarious pictures of botanical rudery.
TV Misguidance is your alternative TV guide.
25 february 2003
Ch-ch-ch-changes
You may have noticed that I have been, shall we say, not here much lately. It’s the usual combination of work, massive amounts of studying, rarely getting home before 11pm, being sick of computers after sitting in front of them all day at work and school, and so on. You’ve heard all that before. But it’s also due in large part to some extremely stressful circumstances in my personal life, which I won’t go into for legal reasons (there are lawyers involved, and even though I’m not directly involved, it’s having a huge impact on my home life). I’ll just say that my state of mind over the last few weeks has not been (and for the foreseeable future will not be) conducive to being very creative on this website.
It’s widely agreed that there are two basic categories of weblogs. There’s the journal kind, which is what this site used to be, mostly. And then there’s the link log kind, which is what this site is going to be from now on. I’ve always dumped links here from time to time, but henceforth that’s all it will be. I’ll still comment from time to time, and throw in the odd observation, and who knows, maybe one day it will return to the journal format. Stranger things have happened, like Andie McDowell actually being hired for movie roles.
See you soon.
24 february 2003