Archive for April, 2007
April 29, 2007 at 7:51 am · tag/s : blog, computers, experiments, pain, research, web
is it just me or do other people get that sinking feeling when they go to a website to get some information and the dreaded flash loading bar appears in the screen? according to some marketing company 80% of web users hate flash intros (and they want my creditcard details if i want to find out more, so they’re probably lying) - but i am one of them. in fact i hate all flashy flash websites in their entirety.
yo : web “designers”, be ye professional or enthusiastic amateur : when i see your stupid flash intros i immediately close the browser window and go somewhere else, because i hate flash. in fact, spare me your cascading style sheets and the rest of your fledgling “webdesign” skills altogether : just give me some good old html, or better still : a full rss feed since i just want the text. and i doubt if i’m alone…
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April 23, 2007 at 8:17 pm · tag/s : beauty, blog, mp3, music
what! another walkmen post? i just can’t help myself. the blogosphere is wildly excited about a new walkmen song red river (which is on the spiderman 3 soundtrack - you can hear it on the very annoying spiderman3 myspace site which i am not going to link to). but the saftmasheen song of the week is a different walkmen track : from their most recent and much maligned third album another hundred miles off. this classic slice of postpop is called another one goes by, and in keeping with its title had escaped my attention.
go here to hear it - if you listen to it three times in a row, you’ll be completely addicted.
warning : some seriously dylanesque hamilton leithauser vocal stylings are evident from time to time. but hey … you’ll be singing it in the shower, you’ll be whistling it on the way to the supermarket, and you’ll curse the fact that you have gone out with out syncing your ipod and now you can’t listen to it until you get home.
April 17, 2007 at 5:39 am · tag/s : amerika, art, death, pain, people
despite a whole melatonin i wake very early from a very strong vivid dream about my friend simone who teaches at virginia technical university in the usa and i can’t get back to sleep : it is before 5am, i am still rubbing the sleep from my eyes when i see the surreal news headline on the net : 32 dead people … 32 people who got “what they obviously did not deserve…” in the words of one witness
and the people who were wounded jumping out of windows didn’t deserve it either.
nor did the people who were scared out of their wits. or those who have lost friends or family.
and neither did any of the people of blacksburg and the students and staff at virginia tech, who were without any exception, amongst the most friendly and civilized people i have met, when i was a guest lecturer there in december 2006.
in my dream we are arguing about art, as usual, whilst the tragedy which is the real world continues to happen all around us.
April 10, 2007 at 5:43 pm · tag/s : blog, strange
ok i know it is not world toilet day (“let’s celebrate together!“) yet, and no, you don’t have to hold on until november 19… but there are many items of interest for people interested in the world of water closets on the website of the world toilet organization which has as its logo a toilet seat in the shape of a heart. for example : beautiful restroom images, details of courses run by the world toilet college, like the Restroom Specialist Training Course (which consists of two parts : Clean Hard Floor and Clean sanitary fittings, fixtures and toilet doors) and information about the upcoming International Toilet Conference 2007 in india which includes a Visit to Sulabh International Museum of Toilets.
yay!
April 2, 2007 at 8:39 pm · tag/s : blog, film, text
jairjun points to an issue of Granta which has an essay by the famous dutch writer Maarten ‘t Hart (that’s a genuine apostrophe in his name) who claims he was “hired as rat-trainer for Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu in 1979.” they didn’t get on. sadly granta doesn’t believe in putting its texts online, although the same issue has an online extract from a piece by atom egoyan (one of my heroes) about his apparent admiration for the actor who began his career as peter in jesus christ superstar but who counts such films as weapons of masturbation (“It’s Armed & Ready To Blow!”) amongst his more recent starring rolls
