This entry was posted on
Tuesday, July 1st, 2003 at
8:44 am and is filed
under Uncategorized.
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Date
20030701
Only Interesting to Bloggers
Time
08:44
Why we need Echo* (*new name coming soon).
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Date
20030701
Doing The Rounds
Time
08:48
A new headline to suit those items that you’ve probably already seen a million times, but that I need to blog for my own reference:
The Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products
That note on the fridge door.
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Date
20030701
Time
08:51
27-Year-Old Man Poses as Teenage Girl. He’s over 6 feet tall and weighs 180 pounds, but has still managed to convince people that he’s a (very ugly) teenage girl – and has taken shelter with a number of families under this guise.
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Date
20030701
Time
08:56
Finally, a message of hope and fellowship from the stars.
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Date
20030701
Time
08:59
Overpriced but quite cool vintage sideshow banners (link via Ultimate Insult).
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Date
20030701
Time
09:02
I’ll be signing up for the 2003 Blogathon as soon as the back-end lets me.
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Date
20030701
Time
09:03
Bloggers Gain Libel Protection (but only if they live in the States). Turns out that this is a conversation after all. Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said:
“One-way news publications have editors and fact-checkers, and they’re not just selling information — they’re selling reliability. But on blogs or e-mail lists, people aren’t necessarily selling anything, they’re just engaging in speech. That freedom of speech wouldn’t exist if you were held liable for every piece of information you cut, paste and forward.”
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Date
20030701
Time
09:12
Roy Taylor Ministries presents American Pie and the Armageddon Bible Prophecy.
And I looked, and behold a pink carnation and a pick-up truck, and upon the pick-up truck one sat like a lonely teenage broncing buck, having on his head a thorny crown, and in his hand a coat he borrowed from James Dean. Or something like that.
Hmmm. I’ll have to take a closer look at this. Time to refer to the Annotated “American Pie” page….
Wow, how about that? Mick Jagger is Satan! Now it’s all starting to make sense!
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Date
20030701
Time
09:23
Heh. A Microsoft Word version of a certain dossier was published online. Microsoft Word keeps quite comprehensive revision logs that anybody who downloads the file can dig into. Similar documents are now published in PDF format.
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Date
20030701
Time
09:29
Israel acknowledges running secret detention centre. Prisoners are kept in black, windowless cells. When they ask where they are, they are told: “On the moon.”
And, presumably, that their name is now ‘Alice.’
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Date
20030701
Time
09:33
Jim Carrey run down by Stephen Hawking. The Sun is there.
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Date
20030701
Time
09:35
I’m sure that Howard Dean’s a good man and a solid candidate, but I really wish that he’d taken the time to blog properly. Now every politician with dollar signs in their eyes is going to take one look at this and decide that Dean’s faux-blog is the model to follow.
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Date
20030701
Tim Yeo: Campaign Hijacker
Time
10:25
Well, how about that? Tim Yeo has actually taken action, asked a question that nails down a date, and received an answer. August is the promised delivery date. Knowing the folks from Tony Blair’s communications unit, the exact date is probably the 47th of August, but at least we have something beyond vague guestimations such as ‘in the new year’ or ‘very soon.’
The interesting thing is that this question was submitted on Thursday 26th June, the day after I requested (as part of a very kind offer) that he ‘ask a question in parliament designed to nail down an actual delivery date on a viable service for Tony Blair’ (see Bloggerheads archives for Wed 25 Jun).
See? I told you he reads his emails.
Pity he doesn’t answer them.
Applause for the action. A mighty big ‘yah-boo-sucks’ for the ongoing hypocrisy.
Thinking that perhaps Mr Yeo was a technophobe, I gave up on email and called his office yesterday on the telling-bone. I left a message. I left my home number. Did I get a reply? No.
Now, of course, we get more column inches for Mr Yeo and still no recognition for the core campaign that actually drove this forward.
I’m happy about the result, but I’m still mightily pissed off with the attitude, so if Tim Yeo thinks this is enough to calm me down, he’s very, very wrong.
An apology is still due. And I’m going to continue to fight for it.
UPDATE – Thanks to Rog for the scan of The Mail on Sunday. More pictures will follow soon. Today, I’m publishing Tim Yeo’s phone numbers and email addresses on the Tim Yeo : Campaign Hijacker page and the Tim Yeo weblog.
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Date
20030701
Big Brother 4
Time
10:28
You know, I came *this* close to actually watching Big Brother last night after hearing whispers that the new inmate Lisa was really a man.
Then I realised that I didn’t give a damn either way, and spent the evening watching lousy documentaries instead.
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Date
20030701
Something Awful
Time
11:57
If you’ve turned up here from the Something Awful forums, can you please send me details of the specific thread where the linkage is? My referral stats won’t feed me the info, and the search function won’t work (yes, I’ve paid) and I’ve hunted and poked around, but simply cannot find the bloody thing. It’s probably just another mention of Mustard Man, but I’d like to know all the same. Ta.
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Date
20030702
Time
08:41
The Funjunkie competition is starting to heat up. The challenge is to show your devotion by sending in a picture including you and their name. The prize is a digital camcorder, and girly body parts are enjoying a late run.
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Date
20030702
Time
08:45
Aggravate your hangover with the Headacher. Don’t be afraid to play with the pull-down menu. There are some spectacular concepts in the collection that will make you want to stab your eyeballs with a pencil, and I’d hate for you to miss any of them. (Link via Ultimate Insult.)
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Date
20030702
Animal Kingdom
Time
08:50
Mutilated cat cases continue in Denver and public reaction to the slaughter of eight puppies in Arcata has led to the arrest of two brothers. Meanwhile, a huge, gelatinous sea creature washed up on the shore is baffling Chilean scientists.
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Date
20030702
Time
08:56
Web firms choose profit over privacy. Most of them do their level best to convince/fool you to opt in, but some companies take the opt-out list and sell it regardless of customers’ wishes. Everyone’s getting spammed anyway, so who’s going to know, right?
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Date
20030702
Time
09:02
Poll suggests that 52% of Americans believe the US has found clear evidence that Saddam was working closely with al-Qaida. I say ‘suggests’ because they only polled 1,000 people. Still…
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Date
20030702
Only Interesting to Bloggers
Time
09:07
Businesses use blogs to help get their name out there. Still very limited take-up in the commercial sector. Honesty scares some people. Most marketing managers also consider Adwords to be a form of search engine optimisation, so the full benefits of blogs completely pass them by.
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Date
20030702
Time
09:09
Ah, this explains the minor traffic spike resulting from a sudden rush of searches yesterday for Michael Carroll. It was either a bunch of journalists looking for an angle or extra paragraph on this story, or a bunch of readers reacting to same:
16-year-old wins lottery.
UPDATE – This may also have something to do with it:
Lottery winner fined for benefits fraud
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Date
20030702
Time
09:18
Honest observation or digitally-altered pot-stirring? When in doubt, listen to the rhubarb. Most folks are taking this at face value and reacting pretty much as you woulkd expect, but I found at least one chap amongst the linkage who plans on doing a little fact-checking. Well, actually, I suspect he’s really calling to enjoy a minor rant. We shall see.
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Date
20030702
Time
09:31
Overheated sperm getting you down? Shield your precious seed with the protective wonder of Sauna Pants. This site contains some irresistible Engrish.
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Date
20030702
Telemarketers
Time
09:35
Telemarketing victim strikes back by calling back. About 100 times. Heh.
“I just called them every five minutes and let them know that, no I don’t have a crack in my windshield, because this seems to be something they are very concerned about.”
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Date
20030702
Tim Yeo: Campaign Hijacker
Time
09:37
A new image has been added to the gallery today, entitled:
“Conservative Beefcake”
I’d really like to know what’s going on in Tim Yeo’s mind.
Does he think this storm will blow over? Maybe he’s of the opinion that said storm is taking place in a teacup.
All I know is that I deserve an apology and I’m not going to leave the man alone until I get one.
Really, is it that difficult? The man has made at least one apology before (regarding Tory failures on the BSE crisis).
Here, listen to Tim Yeo saying ‘sorry.’ The word didn’t stick in his throat. The heavens didn’t fall. What’s stopping him from turning this minor disagreement into a major web presence?
I really would like to know.
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Date
20030702
My 10th Wedding Anniversary
Time
10:09
Tomorrow is my 10th wedding anniversary. Last year I said something nice about the missus. This year, it’s your turn.
Bloggerheads may seem like little old me operating independently out of my web-shed, but without the ongoing backing and inspiration that this woman provides, it probably wouldn’t exist at all.
Remember, this is a woman who gave me full and unwavering support when I went out and marched for peace (again and again and again). Who understood why I had to go out in the wee small hours with Out Of Order signs or a handful of playground chalk. Who took it very well when I called her from Trafalgar Square to let her know that I’d just suffered a minor collapse, so if she saw it live on TV, then she shouldn’t worry.
Above all, this is a woman who is incredibly tolerant of the time I spend glued to my computer.
Show your appreciation with a short email today via the following address:
kate AT bloggerheads DOT com
Thank you.
(Note – Emails will not be blogged. They’re for the missus and the missus alone.)
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Date
20030702
Time
10:47
That image of Lisa from Big Brother (see yesterday’s bloggage) is currently No.1 on the Lycos Viral Chart. Resulting traffic spike? As far as I can tell, about 3 or 4 people searching for ‘bloggerheads.com’ in Google.
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Date
20030702
Time
15:24
Damn, I missed Canada Day. Again. Oh well, there is this (thanks, Simon).
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Date
20030703
The Political Weblog Movement
Time
07:53
There’s going to be very little bloggage today, but I will take a few moments to send you in this direction:
Political weblogs: spread the gospel
Thanks to everyone who sent email yesterday. It was and is appreciated.
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Date
20030704
Told You So
Time
08:34
To everybody I’ve had a drunken conversation with in the last two months:
1. Sorry about your cat.
2. Remember how I pointed out that in 1997 stark new warning labels were introduced on cigarette packets in Australia and a cottage industry sprang up overnight selling ‘amusing’ fake labels to cover them up? Well, stark new warning labels have been with us in the UK for about 8 weeks now… and a cottage industry has sprung up overnight selling ‘amusing’ fake labels to cover them up:
FakeFags.com
FagTags.com
The former company hopes to market themselves via an affiliate scheme. The latter seems to think that sticking their labels all over the walls of the London Underground is the way to go.
UPDATE – Michael Pastor was kind enough to email details of a site that lets you download free samples. Not that you couldn’t make them yourself with MS Word in about 2 minutes…
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Date
20030704
Telemarketers
Time
08:36
How Farkers deal with Telemarketers.
In other news, Telemarketers are seeking new ways of invading your life now national ‘do not call’ list is in place. They just don’t get the message, do they?
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Date
20030704
Time
08:38
Wyoming man fired from Home Depot for criticising the CEO on his website.
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Date
20030704
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
08:44
Yesterday’s Guardian article on political weblogging is currently #3 on the Blogdex chart. Here’s their list of people talking about it, and here’s another list courtesy of Technorati.
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Date
20030704
When Monkeys Run Amok
Time
08:49
Escaped circus monkey invades pizzeria and vandalises ladies room.
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Date
20030704
Flash Games
Time
08:51
Peeball! A genuine challenge, and more fun than flushing halfway through and trying to beat the cistern. (Link via FunJunkie.)
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Date
20030704
Time
09:02
Bush Asks Congress For $30 Billion To Help Fight War On Criticism.
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Date
20030704
Time
09:04
Go Joe! See the missing G.I. Joe episodes and photos of G.I. Joe in WW2.
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Date
20030704
Oldies but Goodies
Time
09:08
The Rocky & Bullwinkle Horror Picture Show. I’m sure I remember seeing this back in 1998, but every good effort deserves a revival now and again.
Speaking of which, Tom Watson’s ‘Teens!’ page is enjoying a solid comeback (including reported discussion on the Popbitch boards and – strangely – inclusion in the Wimbledon commentary).
Cue many, many abusive emails from outraged individuals – most of them over 30 – who genuinely think that Tom is ‘for real’ in trying to get down wiv da yoof.
Tom is now posting extracts from the best of these at his regular weblog, but I think he might be a little misguided in blaming the Yeo crew for the bulk of it. Yeo’s not that smart, and people in general are that stupid.
If that sounds a bit harsh, consider that 8% of of Londoners say ‘take me home’ to a cabbie, before promptly failing to remember their address.
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Date
20030704
Corporate Fun and Games
Time
09:30
Boycott Blockbuster and dig deeper into The McGriddle. I saw these monstrosities when I was in Boston. They have maple syrup baked into the bun. Baked. Into. The. Bun.
Eggs, bacon, sausage – and maple syrup? I’m sorry, but just the thought of it makes my stomach turn.
Incidentally, you may remember the whole ‘you can’t take photos in Starbucks’ fuss recently. Well, I tried to take a picture of the McGriddles range on offer, and this is the result.
Why is the photo so blurred? Well, just out of shot is a till attendant taking a good hold of my elbow and telling me that I’m not allowed to take photos inside McDonalds.
Silly me, I forgot to write a letter to the central office and ask permission first.
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Date
20030704
Feedback Friday
Time
12:48
After over a year of banging my head against the brick wall of business, I shifted my attention to politics. I now see this area as ready to snowball. I’m talking to some folks what I trust to offer a set-price solution for MPs who need a blog, so I can move on.
Or, rather, back.
From next week onwards, my focus will return to e-commerce.
That is all.
(Oh go on, then. You can make a comment about that if you really feel you need to. It is Friday, after all…)
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Date
20030705
Time
17:11
Tom’s Teens page: ‘just another’ viral campaign? Charming. Someone’s nose is out of joint.
UPDATE – Actually, it may very well be mine. Oh well. I’m still trying to work out just what is going on with this sentence:
“On first reading, we thought it was just another viral campaign from search-engine optimist-cum-Internet prankster Tim Ireland, whose production credits appear on the site. But no, Tom Watson is a real live politician. So yes it is another viral.”
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Date
20030707
Does What It Says On The Tin
Time
08:23
bathroomsurvey.com
www.deadmalls.com
www.hairyback.com
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Date
20030707
Time
08:24
New internet service allows citizens to create dossiers on government officials. If you don’t talk with us, we’re going to talk about you…
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Date
20030707
Time
08:26
Doped-up rats run amok in Queensland police station after digging into display of speed and pot.
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Date
20030707
Time
08:30
BBC reports rumbles Amsterdam spammer. His world is now crashing down around his ears. Go and watch the fall.
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Date
20030707
Flash Games
Time
08:36
Save the little space-dude’s home. Poke around for the clickable links. You’ll work it out.
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Date
20030707
Christianity Watch
Time
08:38
Lightning hits preacher moments after he calls to God, asking for a sign.
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Date
20030707
Time
08:43
Tom’s Teens page was featured on Pg. 2 of Saturdays’ Financial Times. They gave the wrong URL. This caused many people to (finally) discover Tom’s 404 page (hint: if you only get a standard warning, try this.
(UPDATE – Sorry. Used wrong link on ‘this.’ Something more useful is now in place.)
Another newspaper called as a result. They were convinced that Tom’s site had been hacked.
Now Tom’s running a competition, challenging web folk to design a better 404 page. This entry is my favourite so far.
Oh, and on the subject of hacking, please look both ways before you cross this street.
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Date
20030707
The Political Weblog Movement
Time
08:54
Despite the New Focus, I will be attending the following Voxpolitics Seminar:
Can Weblogs Change Politics?
I urge anyone interested to RSVP today to help them nut out the numbers.
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Date
20030708
Time
08:25
Rejoice! The Guardian is to be published in the U.S. in a weekly magazine format. I’ll be plugging them every step of the way.
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Date
20030708
Time
08:29
Transfer money, make friends and get a transcript of your entire online relationship as part of your monthly bank statement with the miracle of communication that is CashMail.
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Date
20030708
Time
08:37
Bush administration claims that a return to nuclear testing may soon be necessary. A new generation of nuclear bunker-busters is in development, and the Nevada desert looks ready to rock again.
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Date
20030708
Time
08:43
Cashing in on a celebrity death with Adwords? Now that’s class all over.
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Date
20030708
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
08:46
The Open Government Information Awareness site (I blogged some news on this yesterday) looks rock solid in top position. If they need a revenue stream, they should sell GIA identification cards. I’d buy one.
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Date
20030708
Only Interesting to Bloggers
Time
08:52
TypePad is in beta-testing and Dave Winer talks about the ‘Blog This’ feature on Google’s new toolbar and AOL’s entry into weblogs.
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Date
20030708
Christianity Watch
Time
08:58
morons.org: “Yes, Virginia, there are fundamentalist religious extremists in Europe.”
Guardian: Evangelicals plan next anti-gay campaign.
Isn’t there already a puritanical church or two that these people can go to?
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Date
20030708
Time
09:03
The Internet Is Shit. But we don’t have the evangelists to thank for that – or even the chattering masses. The biggest problem is ignorance on the business front. This is where everything from pop-ups to banners to spam originates from. It’s also why 99% of corporate web presences are a complete waste of space.
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Date
20030708
Time
09:10
Bargain shopper busted with fabricated barcode labels. The first of many such stories, I assure you.
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Date
20030708
Time
09:13
This site for the Paranormal & Ghost Society is quite possibly the ugliest site I’ve ever seen, but it contains many joys even before you get to the core content. Have a read through disclaimers that are scattered throughout the site; the man is a legal genius.
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Date
20030708
Hulk Smash!
Time
09:19
1. Keyboards for people with fat fingers.
2. Cheap Hulk knock-off toy found to have enormous penis: The Sun is there.
3. The Hollywood Sites, Hollywood URLs article is drawing quite a few visitors who are lost and cannot find the site for the new Hulk movie.
UPDATE – Check out this newly introduced alternative URL for the movie. Nice to see that someone’s paying attention. Now perhaps they can read the rest of the bloody article. They need categorised and indexable info like this on their own site, for a start.
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Date
20030708
Flash Games
Time
09:30
Take pot-shots at Clippy.
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Date
20030708
Tim Yeo: Campaign Hijacker
Time
10:52
Ongoing Tim Yeo activity is being shifted over to the Tim Yeo weblog. Because the man clearly has no plans to get back to me and the last thing I want is Tory porn on my front page every other day as a result.
The TY weblog will continue to stalk this little man, right up until the next election if needs be.
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Date
20030708
Time
17:21
If you’re going to tattoo your child, ensure that it’s done by a company you can trust.
Heh. I can feel the heat of outrage from here.
Pure common sense tells me that it’s a hoax, but for those who need something concrete, Snopes already has a listing for this.
More? OK. The related Metafilter thread not only reveals who the culprits are (scroll about halfway down this page for details), it also rumbles them for stealing the design from this site.
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Date
20030709
Time
07:35
Hey, how about that? I’m older than Jennifer Lopez. I wonder if she’ll go out with me?
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Date
20030709
It’s War! And Somebody’s Telling Porkies!
Time
07:36
Bush administration admits claim that Saddam tried to buy uranium was slightly misguided. The cat’s on the roof…
In other news, the dossier sideshow continues here in the UK.
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Date
20030709
Anybody But George
Time
07:42
How To Rig An E-lection In The United States
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Date
20030709
Time
07:42
More on AOL belatedly jumping on the blogwagon:
Burning Bird has fond memories of what happened when AOL users were unleashed on Usenet.
How can I say this without offending AOL users?
Hmmm.
OK, so the ads may make an attractive case. The free CDs may have an attractive case, and after 12 of them arriving in your mailbox I suppose you can’t really be blamed for trying just one to check it out. And yes, AOL is almost impossible to remove from your systems once it’s installed.
However…
Staying with AOL after being online for more than 3 months is a lot like living with your parents beyond the age of 30.
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Date
20030709
Time
07:48
Stephen Hawking visits strip club. The Sun is there.
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Date
20030709
Stories That Mean Nothing
Time
07:50
Simon Cowell has said he could turn Prince William into a pop star. The new series of Pop Idol must be just around the corner. Here’s hoping it does as dismally as the latest version of Big Brother.
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Date
20030709
Naughty Bits
Time
07:53
1. After 19 years of silence, paralyzed man speaks. He used his new-found ability to make a pass at the nurse.
2. Was the defendant’s mother scratching her scalp with her middle finger or making an obscene gesture at the judge?
3. Thinking of taking the kids to see Stonehenge this year?
4. Over 70 rude words downgraded from ‘taboo’ to ‘slang’ by Collins English Dictionary. There are still 16 very rude words left over. See if you can list them all.
(This is not a competition, I’m actually trying to trick you into writing a list of dirty words just as the boss is walking past…)
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Date
20030709
Time
08:03
Jason Alexander’s KFC contract terminated after his meeting with PETA. KFC claims there’s no connection.
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Date
20030709
Time
08:05
8-year-old charged after torturing kitten.
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Date
20030709
Time
08:06
Check out the reversible matchbox gallery (link via Ultimate Insult).
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Date
20030709
Feedback
Time
08:09
Ed Neal took a precious minute from his busy schedule (which mostly involves wondering what the girl next door would look like with her head on a stick) to give the following advice:
“Don’t sweat the petty stuff.. and for god’s sake.. DON’T pet the sweaty stuff!!…”
Thanks, Ed.
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Date
20030709
Photoshopping
Time
11:55
Go to Google and search for ‘photoshopping’ for mucho bigness.
UPDATE – And to celebrate, here’s a nice picture for you….
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Date
20030710
It’s War! And Somebody’s Telling Porkies!
Time
08:31
Tony Blair says:
“I should tell you I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction… programs, no doubt at all.”
Oh, OK. So long as there’s no doubt at all…
Donald Rumsfeld says:
“The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence… we acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light – through the prism of our experience on 9/11.”
The cat fell off the roof. Watch this space.
UPDATE – Please note that if Labour do lose the next election, it won’t be because of MP rebellion. It will be because of the lack of such rebellion when the chips were down.
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Date
20030710
Time
08:38
I’m a creature of habit. I’ve bought (and subsequently worn to death) endless pairs of Converse All-Stars for well over a decade. But I won’t be buying them anymore.
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Date
20030710
Time
08:41
Cover up your rude bits at the beach with wholesomewear.com
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Date
20030710
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
08:43
BBC: CIA warned Bush administration that claims about Iraq’s nuclear ambitions were not true months before they used them to make their case for war
More below under ‘Porkies’. Boy, I’m really starting to regret acting like a naive peacenik…
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Date
20030710
Time
08:47
Beer found in can of Diet Coke.
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Date
20030710
Time
08:50
Blog. From. Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!
Welcome… to the worrrrrrrrrrld of tomorrow!
etc…
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Date
20030710
Time
08:52
Store owner on assault charge after spanking a boy for teaching his parrot to swear.
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Date
20030710
Time
08:53
McDonald’s restaurant closed after routine inspection. The staff had been changing expiration dates on the milk.
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Date
20030710
Video
Time
08:55
Watch Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck do their bit for the war effort.
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Date
20030710
Time
09:02
Yay! Glamour pet photography rules!
(UK readers may be expecting something a little different. Prepare yourselves for disappointment… or considerable relief.)
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Date
20030710
Time
09:23
Tom’s Teens page: BBC gets joke, sees point. Oh, I do love starting the day with a big win.
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Date
20030710
Time
10:43
Dissertation Could Be Security Threat.
“They’re worried about national security. I’m worried about getting my degree.”
Heh.
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Date
20030710
Time
14:18
Someone else is out an about with the PayPal Email Scam. Two versions of this have arrived in my Inbox over the last hour.
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Date
20030710
2003 Blogathon
Time
14:36
I’ve got my first sponsor for the 2003 Blogathon.
Raise a drink to Whitey, who’s kicked me off with a generous $50.
It starts at July 26, 06:00 Pacific Time. That means (I think) that I have to leap from the starting gate at July 26, 14:00 GMT.
24 hours of blogging. Just imagine it.
If you plan on watching, please do blow the dust off your wallet and sponsor Bloggerheads in the 2003 Blogathon.
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Date
20030710
Photoshopping
Time
15:01
Dave Bowman Kenobi prepares to reboot.
There’s a big’un over at B3ta, plus two more 2001/SW crossovers from today and yesterday:
TIE-Pod
Mystery at Tycho
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Date
20030711
Time
08:33
File sharing bad. You bad. Summer come. Want share files? Share fun way with FunJunkie Summer Burn. Is good.
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Date
20030711
Oldies But Goodies
Time
08:34
Howard Stone found that he could make his van backfire at will. So he rigged a camera in the rear of the van to capture people’s reactions to the beastly explosions. A classic.
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Date
20030711
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
08:39
Crouching Tiger, Raging Ping Pong (streaming Windows Media file).
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Date
20030711
Time
08:42
Someone should talk to this woman about eggs and baskets.
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Date
20030711
Time
08:43
Visit Yesterland.com, a form of digital afterlife for discontinued Disneyland attractions.
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Date
20030711
Time
08:45
The Astor (Rubiks) Cube. This is just great. People pulling together to create something amazing and subversive, yet ultimately harmless. I must remember to send a copy of this to the Space Hijackers.
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Date
20030711
Follow Up
Time
08:50
The Guardian interviews Terry Wallis. Who? He’s the chap who woke up from a 19-year coma the other day and almost immediately made a pass at the nurse.
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Date
20030711
Time
08:52
Criminals and geniuses do their best work in their 30s. Mainly to impress chicks. Criminal geniuses, on the other hand, are above such petty concerns.
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Date
20030711
Time
08:59
Watch George Bush watching elephants doing what elephants do to make little elephants.
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Date
20030711
Time
09:04
New Battlestar Galactica series set to suck.
Richard Hatch (Apollo) has been fighting for a new series of Battlestar Galactica for years via battlestargalactica.com, but it looks like he and the fans have been screaming into a vacuum. A ‘re-imagining’ (read: ‘misguided rip-off’) is on the cards and Hatch & the boys are less than happy about it.
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Date
20030711
Steady On…
Time
09:12
Saddam Hussein arrested in Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
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Date
20030711
Time
09:14
Marvel Scraps Plan for Comic Book Princess Di. No mutant Lady Di in spandex? Awwwwwww….
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Date
20030711
Time
09:15
The Pentagon’s plan for tracking everything that moves.
Last night, it struck me that a jolly good choice for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square would be a statue of George Orwell.
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Date
20030711
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Date
20030711
Time
09:22
A fabulous reaction To Tom’s Teens! page. Nice to see so many people having fun with it. Smiles are hard to come by these days.
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Date
20030711
Search Engine Optimisation
Time
10:31
Google is definitely making some major changes to its back-end and ranking algorithm. I’ve noticed a lot of stuff going on right now that hints at big changes in the wind – as I did just before the Google/Yahoo! deal went through.
And, as with the back-end cleanup that preceded this landmark deal, Bloggerheads’ results have subsequently gone up, not down.
‘Photoshopping’ shot up the other day. I just noticed a big improvement to ‘out of order’ searches, too (up from #10 to #2).
The holy grail of generic search results, ‘religion’, now places the Universal Church of the Interactive Network at an all-time high of #128 in Yahoo!
It’s going to be an interesting summer.
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Date
20030711
Photoshopping
Time
12:56
Behold the Dawn of Wookies!
Part One is kind of average.
You want to check out Part Two, you do…
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Date
20030711
2003 Blogathon
Time
13:00
Rich from FunJUnkie has chipped in with an added $24 of sponsorship. You can throw more money my way by clicking here.
All proceeds from my little corner of the Blogathon will go to Amnesty International. I’ve got a kind of plan for the full day of bloggage, too:
24 Hours, 48 Questions
You ask, I answer. I’d like to be able to bring a form of FAQ to life from the activity, but don’t feel you have to stick to the boring stuff. Instead of ‘Frequently Asked Questions,’ think ‘Seldom Answered Questions.’
Priority will be given to sponsors (so be sure to include your sponsor name when you submit a question). To ask a question, just send an email via this link. (This will send emails into a special folder that I promise not to look into until 2:00pm GMT on July 26th.)
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Date
20030711
Time
16:20
Yay! A site dedicated entirely to all the hands that get chopped off in the Star Wars saga. There are a lot of them. Except in Episode I, which has none. No wonder it sucked.
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Date
20030711
Time
16:53
In case you were wondering, the Star Wars Photoshopping Project started 227 days, 6 hours and 10 minutes ago with this seemingly harmless post at B3ta. Just in case you were wondering.
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Date
20030711
Time
17:06
Finally, a candidate America can believe in:
Tony Blair for President! You know it makes sense.
UPDATE – Big version oif this image is being shown over at B3ta.
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Date
20030714
It’s War! And Somebody’s Telling Porkies!
Time
08:33
20 Lies About the War. One of the cheekiest, used primarily to counter growing protest: ‘Iraq’s oil money would go to Iraqis’
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Date
20030714
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
08:36
‘AOL Journals’ To Bring Blogs To Millions. There goes the neighbourhood.
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Date
20030714
Too Much Time On Their Hands
Time
08:38
A semi-comprehensive list of goofs from Gilligan’s Island.
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Date
20030714
Time
08:41
Albuquerque man faces trial for hitting wife with pillow.
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Date
20030714
Time
08:43
Man who wins $73.6 million says he want to “finally get me a tractor with brakes.”
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Date
20030714
Follow Up
Time
08:48
Family feud swirls around coma man. Welcome back, son. By the way, your daughter is now a stripper, but your wife has been busy having other children to replace her.
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Date
20030714
Time
08:53
PCs hijacked by Trojan programs to deliver porn ads. The same Trojan may also be contributing to the delivery of those recent Paypal email scams.
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Date
20030714
Time
09:00
Holidaymaker takes down killer roo with an axe. Now there’s an adventure holiday concept for you. Load the ute up with axes, chainsaws and harpoons and hit the outback for a genuine ‘kill or be killed’ scenario. With roo-burgers for afters, of course. Killer Cockatoos will be next, you just wait and see.
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Date
20030714
Time
09:05
Police inform mother of son’s death via voice mail.
“You. Have. Three. Messages. And. No. Son.”
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Date
20030714
Does What It Says On The Tin
Time
09:08
Strike up a pen-pal relationship with an inmate via writeaprisoner.com
A genuinely hot prospect was dug out of the files by Roddy (who emailed today to ask very nicely if he could link to The Star Wars Photoshopping Project).
Inmate Susan Smith is a god-fearing soul who likes rainbows. She considers herself to be ‘sensitive, caring & kind-hearted’… and is currently serving a life sentence on the charge of murder.
UPDATE – It seems that Susan is getting so much attention that a press release is called for. Turn out she’s famous.
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Date
20030714
Time
09:16
Recall Notice: Beware of exploding toads.
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Date
20030714
The Political Weblog Movement
Time
09:17
Please note the new time for the Can Weblogs Change Politics? seminar at Westminster tonight:
14th July, 7:00 – 9:00pm
Grant Committee Room, House of Commons
Get there early if you want a seat folks. It’s going to be crowded.
UPDATE – ZDnet: Weblogs help create a political hot spot
UPDATE 2 – The weblog seminar is currently the top news item in the BBC Technology category. (Thanks, Martyn…)
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Date
20030714
2003 Blogathon
Time
09:22
Tom is thinking of signing up for the 2003 Blogathon. It won’t be the first time an MP has worked around the clock (no, really) but the idea of taking policy suggestions and debating one each hour certainly sounds new to me. He wants your suggestions. Go and chip in.
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Date
20030714
Tony Blair’s Email
Time
10:37
A further baby-step. The following announcement has been added to the Downing St site:
“A facility to allow you to email the Prime Minister will be made available during August.”
Interesting that they’re also starting to refer to it as a ‘facility’ instead of an ‘address.’
1. Do you think they actually read my specifications?
2. If the new service follows these specs to the letter, should I send them an invoice?
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Date
20030714
Time
10:57
Man Gets Life Sentence For Sucking Boys’ Toes. 15 years without parole. Martin points out that this amounts to 1.5 years per toe. However, there are 20 sets of toes to take into account. On the other hand, the sentences are being served concurrently rather than consecutively, so that means…
Oh, I don’t know. Can we drop the maths and instead spiral into a Pulp-Fictionesque debate about foot massages?
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Date
20030714
Time
12:03
See William Katt and Kurth Russel read for the parts of Luke and Han at Star Wars: The Screen Tests.
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Date
20030715
Does What It Says On The Tin
Time
08:55
www.boredofthebeckhams.com
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Date
20030715
Riding High on Blogdex
Time
08:55
PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption. Agreed. It’s probably the most useless format available for publishing online documents – but it makes them look ever so pretty.
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Date
20030715
Time
08:57
Vicar headbutts photographer at wedding. The Sun is there.
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Date
20030715
Time
08:58
Lightning strikes woman’s tongue stud. She can count herself very lucky that she didn’t have piercings in more (ahem) exotic places.
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Date
20030715
Christianity Watch
Time
09:00
The Evolution Irritation Site is has ‘facts,’ ‘truths’ and Jackpots galore. Jackpots? Don’t worry, you’ll see. Enjoy.
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Date
20030715
Time
09:02
Announcing the winner of the FunJunkie Digital Camcorder competition (insert drum roll here).
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Date
20030715
Flash Games
Time
09:06
Yes, we have no weapons of mass destruction!
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Date
20030715
Time
09:08
Chewbacca delivers Episode III spoilers. Damn, that reminds me… I meant weeks ago to start a petition to get Star Wars Kid a cameo in the movie. Oh well.
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Date
20030715
The Political Weblog Movement
Time
09:25
The Can Weblogs Change Politics? Seminar headed up by VoxPolitics went very well indeed. Andrew Orlowski still managed to bitch about it even though he was over 5,000 miles away at the time and remains completely without a clue. Tom from Plastic Bag was there, though – and he’s got a few words to say about Andrew this morning (plus a photo of Tom Watson in the pub).
Tom, Dan and I were a little late getting to the Westminster Arms. We had a little drinkies on the terrace first to celebrate Dan’s victory in the 404 competition (I should be able to get the new 404 page live sometime soon).
Interesting times on the terrace…
You may remember a few weeks back that I got in touch with Lembit Öpik’s office about the weblog format. They said ‘no,’ which surprised me. However, after cornering the man himself on the terrace (it was either talk to me or jump in the Thames) I can tell you that he personally find the idea quite interesting.
Watch this space.
UPDATE – Richard Allan has a short report on this, and quite an interesting idea. Adopt an MP. Get in touch. Help them understand it. Those that end up wanting it as a result are prime weblog material. Those that don’t we can do without anyway.
Oh, and here’s a selective blow-by-blow by Nick Barlow. Heh. The use of the word ‘disintermediation’ actually drove me from the room. I took a full 5 minutes to recover.
Finally, for your reference, here’s a comprehensive rundown of what was said by the main speakers and a few pictures from the event.
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Date
20030715
Time
13:34
BBC reports on last night’s political weblog thingie.
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Date
20030716
Time
12:24
Meet Mark Andrews, aka Chicken Man. Chickens changed his life, a life that is now doubly rich in that he has married Chicken Woman.
Chicken Man’s hobbies include:
1) Riding the Big Red Truck
2) Sitting in the truck window
3) Steering the truck
4) Scratching for bugs and worms
5) Taking a nap in front of a fan
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Date
20030716
Time
12:27
Cook County sheriff’s officer Ronnie Baffield caught two men engaged in a rather personal fashion in some shrubbery. Did he arrest them? No. He offered to let them go if they painted his house and got him a good deal on a computer. The officer has since been charged with bribery and official misconduct, and a good thing it is, too. The whole deal of goods/service exchange lingers dangerously close to socialism.
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Date
20030716
Time
12:31
Cafepress offers print-on-demand books.
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Date
20030716
Time
12:33
Work for eBay. It’s fun.
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Date
20030716
Time
12:34
Two men charged with manslaughter following the death of an Oxford University student. He was flung from a giant replica medieval catapult ‘in a 30 metre arc’ – but, sadly, this was a good few metres short of the distance required for him to reach the safety net.
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Date
20030716
It’s War! And Somebody’s Telling Porkies!
Time
12:39
Bush shifts blames for Iraq lies. And so ends the promised era of responsibility. They’re busy trying to line up scapegoats over here, too.
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Date
20030716
Follow Up
Time
12:44
Web Site Asks Susan Smith To Drop Ad. I grabbed a print-out of the personals page in question yesterday, for my own personal reference. I didn’t know she was famous when I first blogged it, I was simply charmed by her love for rainbows.
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Date
20030716
Yet Another Lame Quiz
Time
12:47
What threat to the Bush administration are you?
I’m morally deficient. And dangerous.
BTW, I just got an email from Rainbow Heron, who writes:
“I was just listening to NPR and all of a sudden they started talking about weblogs and MPs. They were talking about Tom Watson’s decision to blog and then mentioned you by name (Tim Ireland) as being a help to him in setting it up. They also briefly mentioned Richard Allan and the Adopt a British MP campaign.
“Just wanted to say, congratulations, you’re on the radio in America.
“Also, the first time I ever heard (or rather saw) of you was on NBC Nightly News way back during the war. They briefly showed that soft pron pic of Bush & Blair in the flag together. Thought it was interesting but they didn’t give you credit for it. In fact, there was no mention of where it came from.”
Tch! Typical. Still, it was out there doing its job, and that’s what counts I suppose.
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Date
20030716
Flash Thingies
Time
12:54
The difference between Italians and Europeans.
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Date
20030716
Search Engine Optimisation
Time
12:58
The Yahoo/Overture deal has a lot of folks expecting Yahoo to drop Google. I don’t see this as a bad prediction, but I do think it would be a bad decision. Yahoo was losing users by the truckload when Google was an alternative (rather than being fully integrated). I think they’re going to return to equal or greater losses with a central database driven primarily by paid listings.
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Date
20030716
SEO: The Holy Grail
Time
13:19
Today, The Universal Church of the Interactive Network is 127th in Yahoo for the generic search term ‘religion’. That’s an all-time high, folks. Convert today and bring us one step closer to the top.
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Date
20030716
The Political Weblog Movement
Time
14:06
Hmm, here’s an interesting notion. Marc’s local MP is Phil Willis (who has committed the cardinal sin of using frames and therefore hiding most of his content from people who may care about it). Phil is the father of Rachel Willis.
Who she? She girl who, until recently, was face of AOL.
AOL has just announced the inclusion of weblog technology in the next version of its service.
I’m sure that, given time, even the most clueless PR hack will be able to put the pieces together.
On a lighter and brighter note, I met Carolyn Bennett on Monday night and she has very kindly furnished me with linkage.
Carol’s quite excited by the concept of blogging (her site already includes rolling updates, so she’s pretty much halfway there). If you live in Canada and ‘have the technology’ as they say, then perhaps you should get in touch and make an offer of help. Armed with Movable Type, there’d be no stopping her.
UPDATE – Oh, and there’s this from yesterday’s Guardian… Political blogs: a brief guide
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Date
20030716
Time
14:59
Interns, office relationships and email:
what could possibligh go wrong?
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Date
20030716
Photoshopping
Time
16:53
“I find your lack of faith disturbing…”
Big one’s over at B3ta.
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Date
20030717
The Political Weblog Movement
Time
07:55
Here’s a list of every blogger who attended the recent seminar at Westminster.
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Date
20030717
Time
07:57
Some 19th century textbooks for you to enjoy (link via Ultimate Insult).
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Date
20030717
It’s War! And Somebody’s Telling Porkies!
Time
07:59
Why This Bush Lie? Part 1 (Hint: It wasn’t his first.)
Salon.com also nails down a whopper (registration required).
UPDATE – Sky suspends journalists over bogus story. The ‘launch’ of a cruise missile was staged from a docked vessel. Presumably, a wobbly cardboard set was not available at the time.
BTW, keeping troops in Iraq is costing us £150m a month.
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Date
20030717
Follow Up
Time
08:02
Snopes.com really is on the ball lately. That intern breakup email blogged yesterday has not only been confirmed, it is quoted in full here. Have fun.
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Date
20030717
Christianity Watch
Time
08:04
Bishop charged over fondling woman in casino. Being highly intoxicated in a gambling den wasn’t quite enough of an expression of freedom, it seems. You can also add profanity to the charge-sheet, apparently he used ‘some nonbishop type language.’
Also, a New Mexico family is suing the local church over a funeral which did not go as expected. The priest allegedly said the deceased was ‘only a middling Catholic who was going straight to hell.’
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Date
20030717
Photoshopping
Time
08:08
London Mayor Mayor Ken Livingstone has offered a £100,000 reward to anyone who can invent a solution for keeping the underground cool. There are some outstanding ideas being aired over at the BBC, and the influence of the photoshopping community is clear. (Here’s one I made earlier.) Kids will be learning about us in art classes within the next decade, you just watch.
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Date
20030717
Time
08:16
How to handle a call from a suicidal person.
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Date
20030717
Time
08:16
Yay! It’s a genuine four-legged chicken.
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Date
20030717
Blogathon 2003
Time
08:21
A mystery donor has so far made two very generous pledges of $25, but I must admit to not recognising the nickname used. You know who you are, so please send me an email so I can let everyone else know.
If you haven’t sponsored yet, get the crowbar out and open your damn wallet.
Also, if you haven’t submitted a question for the day (anything you’ve ever wondered about me or Bloggerheads), then feel free to submit a question now.
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Date
20030717
Universal Church of the Interactive Network
Time
08:25
The call-to-arms yesterday resulted in at least one convert. Welcome to the fold, Rich.
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Date
20030717
Back to Business
Time
08:28
I really think I’ve made the right decision – and at the right time. The whole Political Weblog thing looks set to tick along happily without me. And in the right direction. Job done; time to move on.
Added, on the e-commerce side of things, there is lots and lots and lots of good to be done. My main competitor seems to have a few funny ideas about ethics. I’m looking forward to blowing him out of the water with an honest and sustainable approach to search engine optimisation and online marketing in general.
The main benefit for you guys will be new and valuable content produced by people who can afford it (because they need your attention and genuinely wish to earn your respect).
Hell, I may even (finally) be able to convince one or two of them to open up and talk to us like human beings. Weblogs for MPs set an excellent precedent for this, but to sell the idea I do have to use wanky boardroom-speak like ‘in this case, the person is the brand.’
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Date
20030717
Time
10:37
OK, so this chap goes to test drive a Porsche a couple of weeks ago, at Chilham Sports Cars in Kent.
The car was advertised as having a full service history etc. but when he turned up, the car was a load of crap and they didn’t really give him the time of day.
Before this, CSC had a wonderfully comprehesive site at chilhamsportscars.co.uk – now there’s a new one with some important information for consumers at chilhamsportscars.com
The latter is well worth some Google-juice, IMO:
Chilham Sports Cars
Beware the voice of the publishing consumer.
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Date
20030717
It’s War! And… ahhh, you know the rest by now.
Time
13:12
Bush’s Cover-Up Precedes the Scandal. Again, the path seems to lead back to ‘old-faithful,’ the so-called dodgy dossier. Convenient, and typical of our so-called special friendship.
Now, while we’re on the subject, let’s have a little fun:
Pop along to Downing Street’s website and type ‘dodgy dossier’ into the search engine there. Top result is… yep, you guessed it. Type in ‘fabrications’ and you get the same result.
Entertaining enough in itself, but let us explore further…
Type in ‘Iraq lies’ and the top result is this document claiming that the ‘Oil for food’ program is improving life in Iraq.
Type in ‘warmonger’ and the top result is Tony Blair’s statement opening the Iraqi debate back in March.
I’m sure there’s more. Go and play.
