Volume 40
31 Aug 2002
The reading list is now (mostly) generated straight from the database which is good.
RIP Lionel Hampton
30 Aug 2002
I have been trying to get Bifurcated Rivets included on the weblogs.com list. I think that my XML-RPC pinger is working now.....
More tests.....
This is another test
This is another test
This line is a test and can safely be ignored.
RDF feed for Bifurcated Rivets is now available here. Do let me know if you make use of it.
I found a gallery I had not been to today, not half a mile from here. And it is running a smashing exhibition of Japanese prints (all too expensive for me of course) including some excellent shunga.
Started doing much needed updating to the reading list - lots more to do yet though.
Fabby version of the Foggy Mountain Breakdown on Steel Radio (.com) at the moment. I really wish they had a program listing so that you could find out who was playing!
I'm not keen on the new look MisterPants - the columns iw ay too narrow so th epage is way too long.
Legs that mock, knees that bow - somehow I think it unlikely. Check out of some of the others - appalling, though given that the page is headed "Upholding the authority of the Bible from the very first verse" one could expect little else I suppose.
So they finally got the 1901 census online and of course it is no use to me as it is only for England and Wales damn it.
29 Aug 2002
Booknotes - relentlessly pushing books on (mostly) American history, or, at least, the American view of history.
28 Aug 2002
Natural yoghurt and a little houmus makes for a rather nice dressing for pasta salad.
Guidelines for Alphabetical Arrangement of Letters and Sorting of Numerals and Other Symbols
27 Aug 2002
Readerville - the trouble I have with book groups is that they all seem to read fiction and i rarely read fiction. Why can't we have a non-fiction book group?
25 Aug 2002
Listening to Morten Gunnar Larsen (no good, working links) playing ragtime. Excellent stuff. Picked up his "Fingerbreaker" for £1.99 in Virgin and also got Eileen Ivers "Crossing the Bridge" for the same price. It's good too, though it is a little too riverdanced up in some places for me - cracking fiddle player though.
Went to the new garden at Alnwick Castle today. My hackles are more than slightly raised. They charge 4 quid to get in, the thing was funded from some enormous amount of milennium money and there is nothing to see, certainly nothing that would cost 6 million quid. OK, there is a quite well done cascade, but mostly it does nothing and is surrounded by "Keep off the grass" signs. The planting is rather dull what there is off it. Maybe in ten years it will be wonderful, but how the hell one of the richest landowners in the country managed to persuade someone to give them money basically to do up their old garden and then charge people to get in, entirely escapes me. Grrrrrrrr.
24 Aug 2002
Gil tells me that tomorrow's time travel links are broken. I think he clicked on the wrong parallel universe link. Your linkage may vary.
23 Aug 2002
Hope you all enjoyed yesterday's memory erasure links!
21 Aug 2002
I am entirely knocked out by Steel Radio! Been listening all day now - fantastic version of Rocky Top on at the moment. The only sad thing is that there doesn't seem to be any kind of play list and the adverts are amazingly amateur - so amateur as to be fun in fact, but if it encourages someone to buy me a pedal steel guitar for Xmas then so be it :-) The guy who does the adverts sounds exactly like Troy McLure!!
Freedom to tinker "is your freedom to understand, discuss, repair, and modify the technological devices you own"
Steel Radio!!! Steel guitar only!!!!! (I'm trying out SonicBox and definitely impressed with it) "It don't mean a thing if it don't bend the strings"
I'm listening to WPHB 1260 - Faron Young at the moment. Wonderful stuff, I love those broken-hearted but up-tempo songs - and they always have fantastic steel guitar players on them.
Just back from doing the local BBC radio breakfast show - something about "silver surfers"
20 Aug 2002
19 Aug 2002
Bill Keith playing with Bill Monroe and then check him out with Jim Kweskin linked from that page. Damn hippies!
Reading Capital of the World - that'll be the same world as the one that takes aprt in the "world series" I suppose...
The Mars Records "Biofeedback Meter Sessions Where a Man Regained Hidden Memories Of Military Service on Mars"
Flying Saucers "Coffee & Tea Products, Sci- Fi Entertainment Products, UFO & Alien Products, NASA and Astronaut Products, Survival Food Supplies, Special Gift Items, Unique Fun Stuff, Special Delivery Information"
Well done flash intro, nothing super-interesting or anything, just a feeling of professionalism about it.
18 Aug 2002
16 Aug 2002
Maxi-Vague "Every afternoon, parents and lifeguards dash into the surf to retrieve dazed and bedraggled toddlers knocked off their feet and all but swept away by the phenomenon"
I might just mention scapepig and scapeelephant just in case someone else starts a fruitless search...
Scapecat and Scaperat appear, but not in English langugae pages.
Scapegrace - I assume this is some kind of goth/metal band, but the page is so dark I can't read it!
scapegrace - magazine of manners. (Actually magazine of nothing at all as it is just a front page...)
15 Aug 2002
I've been playing around with Last-Modified headers and stuff to see if I can improve the cacheability of the pages - let me know if you see anything weird happening....
I am chastised for suggesting that Native Americans took scalps - in fact they got the idea from Europeans who took far more than they ever did. So, my apologies to all my Native American readers, but at least I didn't say "Red Indians" did I?
14 Aug 2002
Pekin, Illinois - the marigold capital of the world. Not forgetting Miss Marigold 2002, the lovely Courtney Swan. (Check out the pictures of the ceremony...)
I picked our broad bean crop on Sunday - delicious lightly cooked with a french dressing and some caraway seeds.
13 Aug 2002
12 Aug 2002
Lots of links waiting to be checked out and included...
Same holiday as last year and the year before, so not a lot to report. Weather was variable. Saw basking sharks, took a surfing lesson (possibly pictures later), drove back in torrential rain and horrible traffic (11 hours), dripping pipe in house soaking kitchen walls. Took daughter to Edinburgh today - the traffic is a nigthmare there, but the drive there and back was gorgeous.
RIP (belatedly) Edsgar Dijkstra and Kristen Nygaard
25 Jul 2002
Off on holiday for two weeks.....
Check out page 1 of the Superman for a "Scientific Explanation of Clark Kent's Amazing Strength"
24 Jul 2002
>Virtual Colour Museum< "Do you know Isaac Newton’s Theory of Colour? Or maybe Goethe’s? We present you with a total of 59 easy-to-understand, richly illustrated colour theories from the Antiquity to modern times: in short, a complete cultural history of colour written by Prof. Narciso Silvestrini and Prof. Ernst Peter Fischer."
23 Jul 2002
Busy today....
22 Jul 2002
Glenn Gould memorabilia - I partiuclarly like the rubber stamp that says "Glenn Gould, pianist"
El Circo de Bibis de Carlos Contreras Nice B&W circus photos. (This page didn't work in Opera)
1001fotografos - move your mouse over the menu at the left.... (All the rest of the site is "En Construccion"
Nice photo of the Baltic and the Millenium brdge in gateshead on New Things weblog (a new one to me)
21 Jul 2002
On Saturday night we went to an outdoor concert at the Natioanl Trust estate nearest us (Gibside). It rained in torrents for the whole evening people were leaving in droves. We were pretty damp, but the firework display at the end was good. (The music was middle of the road classics and "songs from the shows" - very well played, but not really to my taste - too much operatic warbling for my liking.
RIP Alan Lomax
19 Jul 2002
18 Jul 2002
I'm watching the Steve Jobs keynote. Lots of bullshit of course, but there is some really nice stuff. I really do want an iPod, though what I really want is a new Apple PDA that has the iPod functionality in it as well as all the other stuff the Newton could do, and bluetooth and 802.11 of course.
17 Jul 2002
Went to see Minority Report last night. Enjoyed it, though it could do with some editing to make it shorter. Some weird inconsistencies in it though: there are all these hitech buildings and vertical roads and stuff, but every time you see a Washington skyline there is no sign of a single high building.
16 Jul 2002
I was trying to find the words to "I'm a little busybody" but so far have failed.
Ugh, i just clikced into a U2 webring. Nasty.
Stop Abductions (with a Al beanie of course!!) I bet it works too - do you know anyone who has been abducted whilst wearing one?
15 Jul 2002
I was watching today's gem from Sharpeworld (Skipping to Christian music for the greater glory of god!) but I also slipped a BUD Powell CD into the machine at the same time and the music started exactly in sync with the skipping which was very odd.
12 Jul 2002
Mark Fiore - very funny flash animations. The SF series is excellent even if I probably don't get half the jokes!
"After doing nothing it is good to rest" - excellent Spanish proverb. How true.
One thing you can say for the Anti-porn Guy is that you know where he stands. I think we should introduce him Diane Whitham (see yesterday)
11 Jul 2002
Dawn Whitham - what can I say? She has some bizarre ideas about website design certainly. (Fainthearts may wish to watch their step)
10 Jul 2002
Royal outraged by gassy fanfare. Great story, but the first paragraph is rather interesting too.
RIP Rod Steiger
9 Jul 2002
Ah, the silver sphere thing seems to be part of an adventure game that isn't rendering properly.
Sorry about the database glitch - various software changes in progress. Supposedly invisible to the end user ;-)
Sharpeworld has more awesome content every day, and I hope that you all read it, however, I have to steal this link as it is completely incredible.
Scanners can mistake chocolate for bombs. Just what you want on a flight back from Belgium.
8 Jul 2002
Odd picture from a long series taken by the Utilikilt people when they visited Europe. I still think that the Utilikilt looks like a great idea.
Blather : "blather is words. bunches of words, strewn about in a twisty tangly web of pontification, insight and nonsensical delight. but really it's an experiment to see what shape this will take when left at your mercy. take a gander and let us know what you think."
Just back from doing 10 minutes radio for the Vegetarian Society on Radio Newcastle - it's National Vegetarian Week
Catless appears to have a traffic ranking 4,769 at Alexa. I wonder what that means in pounds and ounces.
TouchGraph Googlebrowser - I can't get it work properly, but it looks fun. I suspect it is because I am behind a proxy or something.
It was Newcastleton weekend, and we had a spiffy time. Not so many people there this year and it rained it a bit but there were some stunning sessions and I heard a lot of tunes I need to learn. it was nice to get out under canvas again. (Well it was nylon this time as we were in our KolonSport tent which I was given by a Korean student. The name always engenders sniggers.)
Time for a new volume methinks - I still need to go back and fix the missing links from last weke. Unfortunately (or fortunately) a lot of the lost items were random rants about things that didn't have links.