Almost Forgot
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday dear Lara
Happy birthday to yoooooooo.
Bile And Loathing
"It's easy to hate models; we'd all like to make a living getting fucked in speedboats and staying hooked on other peoples' [sic] heroin. But a model who's an ungrateful asshole to boot actually deserves the inevitable cruel fate of her lot: an early middle age of sagging tits, Botox, secret Rogaine treatments and fat stockbroker boyfriends with hairy backs."
The New York Press has published its first list of The Fifty Most Loathsome New Yorkers, and a strange mix they are too. That's Naomi Campbell extracted above, by the way.
Warning (highlight to view) - copious quantities of bile and a reference to "Drew Barrymore's well-worn snatch" ahead.
The Negativity Of Insomnia
Hmmm. Pretentious, even by my standards.
Not that I was feeling particularly negative while not sleeping last night, but as I was awake, I put yet another alternate stylesheet up. This one's called 'Negative', although it isn't truly a reverse of the default, because some of the contrasts weren't very good. But it's white on black, so I can call it negative if I want to. As always, you can set your preference via the browser if you've got one clever enough, or as a personal default over yonder.
Ripper News
Buried in an item about the unbearable Manchild is some insight from Anthony Head into the currently-likely format of the much-discussed Buffy spin-off featuring his character. It looks like the new thinking is to create a feature length TV film, rather than a series, at least at first. [Via Ain't It Cool News]
More Gloom
Well, exactly a week after the last funeral I was at, I found out last night that another friend's parent died earlier in the day. Not someone I'm so closely connected to, this time, but even so, contributing to an ongoing air of gloom among my friends. Clearly a bad time of the year all round.
Bloggers In Real Life
Part two of an occasional series:
Just in from meeting with Oin and Tammy, after a very pleasant evening. After meeting Cath a few weeks ago, this could almost be described as becoming a habit. Anyway, after a few beers and the first Thai food I've had in an age, I'm feeling fairly mellow, so I may see if I can put the mellowness to use and try to get a decent night's sleep.
Cheers guys.
Economists, Conspiracists And The Free Encyclopedia
A new selection of links which have caught my eye:
How Economists really work. (Requires Flash)
How to create an online oddity out of a *very* strange supposed conspiracy at the heart of the British government. [Courtesy of Gerard.]
And
How to create a very different kind of encyclopedia. [As discussed with ChrisR yesterday.]
The Blues And The Greens
Meant to mention at the weekend that I've put two new optional styles for the site in place. You can choose your preferred default from the About this site page.
I've been dabbling in all sorts of different combinations of colours, with what I will have to admit are mixed degrees of success. My 'Rainbow Flag' efforts have been particularly unfortunate. I'll keep trying. In the meantime, if anyone has any particular preferences I'd be interested to hear.
Putting these up has also given me the opportunity to indulge in possibly the most obscure cult TV reference I've ever managed. Anyone who spots it, let me know - I'd be gratified to know that it's not just me.
Fraternity
I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about my brother and our relationship. The reason for this, as is probably obvious to regular readers, is his imminent departure for the Gulf in his role as one of 'our boys'. We've had an interesting, often volatile, relationship over the years, and I'm not ashamed to waste some of my bandwidth and your time sharing some of the things that have been going through my head in the last week.
To start with, some background: There's a four year gap between us, which is far from ideal - as I left junior school, he started it: As he started secondary school, I was in fifth year and studying for my O levels. So we always had to battle against fundamentally different interests and priorities (he was the sporty one, I was the bookish one). And by the time he decided to jack in his A levels and sign up, I was away at university, so there's been significant distance between us for much of our lives.
When he signed up, I had to re-evaluate a great deal that I thought I knew and felt about him. He seemed to grow up from the annoying little git I'd always had to deal with into a responsible adult almost overnight. The antagonism we'd always had towards each other eased up, and a different, more balanced relationship emerged. I had to deal then with the possibility that one day he would be sent into a conflict zone, and indeed into conflict, which is perhaps why I'm managing to deal with his upcoming posting with as much equanimity as seems to be the case. (Interestingly, I never thought that my mother had actually taken that reality on, which I think is borne out by her current reactions....).
He's achieved a huge amount in the last fifteen years, taking on a difficult trade, and an often highly-academic one, with diligence and remarkable success. At the ceremony to mark his most recent certification and associated promotion, he won the award for having been the best student at both practical and theory components: My mother was in floods almost before they'd finished announcing his name....
I think that, without ever really noticing it, we've become far more alike than I for one ever thought possible. Taking different roads than those which most obviously presented themselves to us, and creating careers that no one in their wildest dreams would have anticipated for either of us back in our school days, we've both managed to reach points where we can hopefully admit to a degree of satisfaction with our achievements.
We also have some very specific shared understanding of family - when I heard he was going, my first thought was to make sure he had me, and not mum, down as his "In the event of a catastrophe" person. (No way do I want her to be getting that phone call.) He, of course, had already made sure of it.
I don't see him often enough these days, and I clearly won't be seeing much of him in the next six months at least, but he's never far from my thoughts. And at the risk of descending into entirely unaccustomed sentiment, I'm very proud of him.