14/1/01 - Anyone planning a wedding has to read this site, Etiquette Hell. (via Pop Culture Junk Mail) 

14/1/01 - Images of New Mexico. (via dangerousmeta) 

14/1/01 - Errr, people  keep linking to Web Log Scoop Index, but it's dead, dead, dead.  The last update was the 19th of April. 

11/1/01 - Cool new polymer treatment: 

"The basic technique is simple: a substrate is stretched slightly and then coated with a polymer. When the tension is relieved, the substrate pulls the polymer molecules so close together that no other material is able to bond to the polymer molecules. Devices coated with the friction-free polymers can bang against each other without scratching and cannot become coated with anything - even liquids."

11/1/01 - The American Dialect Society's Words of the Year are in.  The winner is, yawn, chad.  I like the Most Outrageous category: 

"Most Outrageous was wall humping, rubbing a thigh against a security card scanner to allow access without the inconvenience of removing the card from one's pocket. Other candidates were starter castle, a dot-commer's first home, and McMansion, a big new home in incredibly bad taste."

11/1/01 - What's at the heart of a Burger King strawberry milkshake: (via Looka) 

"A typical artificial strawberry flavor, like the kind found in a Burger King strawberry milk shake, contains the following ingredients: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butanone (10 percent solution in alcohol), a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, g-undecalactone, vanillin, and solvent."

Answering 'Not at all' to all their questions: 

"Your score is not typical of a person suffering from social anxiety disorder. However, if your participation in this self test is due to concerns you may have about your overall well-being, we strongly encourage you to make an appointment with a qualified healthcare professional to discuss your feelings."

"Steven Soderbergh made a documentary of British prog-rock band Yes in the mid-80s called 9012 Live. In an interview with Soderbergh, Observer journalist Andrew Anthony asked incredulously if the film was made after This Is Spinal Tap. Soderbergh replied: "Yeah. I took Jon Anderson to see it and he came back and told the rest of the guys about it. They started watching it, like, every day because it was so their world.""

"I never thought I had seen Yes perform until I viewed this. Sure, You probably won't find it in your local video store or even bootleg on eBay, this is the definitive version of 90125 and anyone who ever liked music should watch it. Knobgobblingly good, this film has been underrated by film and music critics such as Rolling Stone and Bob Guccione. Nevertheless, time will prove them successful masters of their genre. On par with A Hard Day's Night."

10/1/01 - Mark Thomas is God.  MEP's interests is up.  And it seems someone did register Are MEP's on the make?

Mark's website is in The View From Here style. 

If only my own website was online - then I could be first with the news! 

5/1/01 - Article on the 25 films placed in the US National Film Registry.  For someone keen on films I've seen far too few of these. 

5/1/01 - Life Magazine's Top 100 people of the Millennium. (via Pop Culture Junk Mail) 

5/1/01 - I might be tempted to vote in the Bloggies.  Please note my vote is for sale. 

5/1/01 - An article on bad styles of 2001 predicts the trends for 2001: 

"Sharp but not aggressive jackets and tailoring 

Tongue-in-cheek boy chic - braces, ties, corsets, camisoles..."

This one says that it's going to be a 'cheap and nasty Eurotrash look', perhaps more my line. Unfortunately no pictures of the 'sailor slut ensemble'. 

3/1/01 - An article on R. L. Burnside. 

3/1/01 - Xenofilkia anyone? 

"What is filk? I usually define it as songs that interest science fiction fans: primarily songs about fantasy or science fiction or related topics."

3/1/01 - From a story about charity shops, pity the poor co-workers: 

"Stefanie... works in Oxfam because, she says, the Lord has told her to... "I come here once a week because it is my mission: the Lord put it on my heart that I must be here a short time and spread the message. I talk to the other volunteers here about Jesus all the time and even when they don't want me to, I just carry on talking.""

"This real life soap opera follows the triumphs and tears of a group of young people chosen to be the latest pop sensations. Selected from thousands of hopefuls who auditioned across the country, the new group will attempt to storm the charts with their first single, due out early next year. And the TV cameras are there to record pop history in the making - from the first audition, to the day the single is released, Popstars documents the entire incredible process."

3/1/01 - At last, a Windows version of scp that I can get to work, iXplorer. 

1/1/01 - Putting those nightmares in a song, The Pub With No Beer: 

"...Old Billy the blacksmith first time in his life 
Has gone home cold sober to his darling wife, 
He walks in the kitchen, she says you're early me dear, 
But he breaks down and tells her the pub's got no beer."

"Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde, 
Sodium citrate, ammonium cyanide, 
Mix 'em together and add some benzene, 
And top off the punch with trichloroethylene. 

Got gassed up last night with some furfuryl alcohol, 
Followed it up with a gallon of propanol, 
Tanked up on hydrazine 'til after noon, 
Then spit on the floor and blew up the saloon..."

"Maybe someday I'll go back again to Ireland, 
If only my ex-wife would pass away, 
Sure, she has me poor heart broke with all her naggin' 
And she has a mouth as big as Galway Bay. 

See her drinking sixteen pints of Arthur Guiness, 
And when the barman says, "It's time to go.", 
Sure, she wouldn't answer him in Gaelic, 
But in a language that the clergy do not know."

"Front section head: "Wrestler uses braun to save truck driver." 
Gosh, you'd think the jaws of life would have worked better than an electric shaver."

1/1/01 - The Times' sports quotes of the year: 

"?I get asked a lot why so many people take an instant dislike to Doug Ellis. My answer is that it saves time.? 
Ron Atkinson"

""I've lost many, many friends through natural causes, through alcohol, through drugs, through AIDS. And every time I lose a friend or a loved one, it reminds me how great life is." -- Patti Smith"

"Now that the election from hell is finally over, some people are expressing concern that Florida's image has been damaged by the fiasco.  This presumes the rest of the world previously viewed Florida as a sane and civilized place, which it didn't. If anything, the rest of the world is a little disappointed that more Miami-style weirdness didn't come into play during the past five weeks."

"Slow Wave is a collective dream diary authored by different people from around the world, and drawn as a comic strip by Jesse Reklaw."

"Battered by revelations about mad cows, chickens tainted with dioxins, calves fed on sewage and sausages infected with listeria, France's gourmet pride suffered another blow yesterday when a three-star chef said he was banning all meat except poultry from his menus."