7/2/00 - An article on swearwords in British newspapers mentions how coy the tabloids are in this respect and reports one of the greatest headlines ever:

"Detailed checks show The Sun and The Mirror have carried no profanities in the past year, despite headlines like "Wife superglues her hand to John's willy" and "No knobby bobby keeps jobby", in the case of a sex-change policeman/woman."

"When the librarians went on strike in south-west Essex a few years back, the headline in one local newspaper read "Book Lack in Ongar"."

"There are many things which seem to have existed since the world began. They are in daily use and it never occurs to anyone to think that they could be any different. Right up to the late sixties this could have been said about the all-purpose glue."

A discussion of "truckin'" can be found at the Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics:

"This site provides footnotes for Grateful Dead lyrics. The standard procedure will be to provide links for words or phrases which might benefit from some elucidation, without attempting to give definitive "interpretations," since that's a very personal endeavor."

7/2/00 - Err, new Bloom County?  (via Pigs&Fishes)

7/2/00 - An interview with Gong Li, not exactly revealing.  And the headline 'Queen Gong' is awful.

6/2/00 - I got to do the Blues Show this morning and played an artist with coolest name, Dr. Hepcat.  It seems he was also the first African American DJ in Texas.  Unfortunately the links on the page to an interview and the Hepcat Quiz(!) are dead.

6/2/00 - Darts not lively enough for you?  Then improve it with Darts Calls and Chants.

6/2/00 - I know 'White Van Man'; it is my brother.  He will be pleased to see this but probably not this:

"The Minister for Transport, Dr John Reid, has welcomed The Good Van Code - an initiative by the Freight Transport Association to promote safe and responsible driving... Dr Reid said: "White Van Man is not a term of affection. But we can do something to improve White Van Man's reputation...""

"Talish Butt, a cricketer in the Bradford League, says: "People say Yorkshire people are racist, but I don't think they are. They just don't like outsiders. Not just from outside Yorkshire, either. I mean, in Bradford they hate people from Leeds."

Sarah Rogerson, a social worker from Doncaster, says her views can't really be taken into account as she has only lived in the county for 25 years and therefore can't be regarded as a Yorkshirewoman."

4/2/00 - This is great!  People getting their mobile phones stolen by people dressed as giant mobile phones:  [warning: requires Quicktime] (via bud)

"There is nothing worse than a hippy chick with a mobile phone! This one was enjoying a nice pint of cider when retribution struck. Luck for us that she was wearing platform shoes or we might not have made it!"

"Now that the corrected version is on sale, postal officials have admitted another glitch: The dramatic photograph on the stamp is flipped, giving a mirror image of the real view."

4/2/00 - From an email entitled .com madness:

"...once an Internet company is considered established, or committed to a line of attack, it loses its allure. It leaves itself open to the sort of hard analysis Internet companies strive to avoid. To be desirable an Internet company must be ever so slightly unknowable. It must remain forever in a state of pure possibility.

A Bloomberg user recently pointed out what must be one of the purest examples of pure possibility, an Internet company called NetJ.com Corp. NetJ.com is smaller than most of its Internet cousins. It has a market capitalization of a mere $22.9 million...

The only hint that NetJ.com is in any way different from the general run of Internet companies is Bloomberg's description of it: NetJ.com currently has no business operations. 

This raises an obvious question: how can a business worth $22 million have no business operations? Assuming that the Bloomberg machine must be mistaken I went to the documents filed by NetJ.com with the Securities and Exchange Commission. There I found the following confession: "The company is not currently engaged in any substantial business activity and has no plans to engage in any such activity in the foreseeable future."

That sentence is a nice example of businessspeak gussying up a simple fact. Translated into English: We do nothing and we intend to continue to do nothing."

4/2/00 - The 2nd Overlooked Film Festival.

4/2/00 - If you're a Kubrick fan (and you live in the US) you may want to sign this.

"Warner Bros has decided to release Stanley Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut, only in the R-rated USA version. No unrated or director's cut is planned for US release."

4/2/00 - Gratuitous pig link.

4/2/00 - No doubt this will get a buzz going on the weblog wires, Weblog Junior High.  I never went to Junior High so that undoubtedly explains my non-appearance.

1/2/00 - Everything you wanted to know about MartinAmis.

1/2/00 - I was disappointed.  Not a single joke about polymers!  On second thoughts maybe that's a good thing.  (via Bifurcated Rivets)

But here is cartoon about electrostatics.

1/2/00 - Where does Michael Moore get his ideas?  (via Bird on a wire)

"Coming quickly on the heels on a controversy caused when independent filmmaker Michael Moore convinced Presidential candidate Alan Keyes to jump in a "portable mosh pit" the day before the Iowa Caucus, Moore's series "The Awful Truth" has today announced that it will now take its throng of 100 moshers to New Hampshire and challenge the rest of the Presidential field to 'dive in for democracy and body surf the electorate.'"

1/2/00 -  Did you know that you can only submit work to Slate by mail?  (It is an online magazine remember.)

1/2/00 - Really awful examples of the 'e-' prefix.  The worst has to be e-email!

1/2/00 - This sounds like it's worth a visit but it seems pricey to see a single piece of art:

"Isolated in and interacting with the high desert of southwestern New Mexico, the sculpture consists of 400 stainless steel poles situated in a rectangular grid array one mile by one kilometer. A full experience of The Lightning Field depends upon the opportunity to view
it alone or with a small group of people over an extended period of time...
In order to make visits affordable to the broadest range of the public, we require a
minimum fee of $85 per person per night, except in July and August when it is $110."

1/2/00 - If I go home I'll be able to find a great collection of crap pictures, basically every single one my mother has taken.  (via gorjuss)

1/2/00 - A great list of sleepers from the '90s.  Out of the list I really liked Zero Effect and Living in Oblivion.  (via Camworld)

1/2/00 - The latest thing to worry about, the rough alignment of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Sun, plus the Moon and Earth, on May 5th.  Fortunately scientists provide us with the real story.  (via fearsome)

1/2/00 - A very handy resource, the National Dive Bar Review:  (via Footprints)

"A dive bar does not smell nice.
A dive bar does not have something called "Jazzberry Ale" on tap.
...
A dive bar’s restroom is missing at least one commonly considered essential item for a public restroom (e.g., toilet paper, mirror)"

1/2/00 - Gratuitous pig link.

1/2/00 - John Peel's all time Festive 50.  It is not up at his homepage.  But you can compare it to the all time list from 1982.