Saturday, January 22, 2005

Word of the Moment: Manichaeism

Manichaeism, n.

A dualistic philosophy dividing the world between good and evil principles or regarding matter as intrinsically evil and mind as intrinsically good.

Friday, January 21, 2005

The Name's Voyant... Claire Voyant

Whoa. Is the White House reading my blog?

White House Scraps 'Coalition of the Willing' List:
"The White House has scrapped its list of Iraq allies known as the 45-member 'coalition of the willing,' which Washington used to back its argument that the 2003 invasion was a multilateral action, an official said on Friday. The senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the White House replaced the coalition list with a smaller roster of 28 countries with troops in Iraq sometime after the June transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government."

I Love Paris (And So Does Keef!)

I'm a bigBigBIG fan of Keith Knight's comics, particularly the "K Chronicles", which is possibly my favourite comic ever.

The other week Keef mentioned that he and his wife were in Paris, and had unwisely (see next parentheses) solicited his readers (of which I am one) to contribute suggestions of cool places to go. Naturally I sent along a very quick (read:14-page) email giving some directions to what I considered my funnest (sic) places in Lutèce.

Rather than call his local loony bin to report me as missing, Keef very kindly reprinted my whole email on his blog, and responded to me today with this:

but that meat sandwich that you mentioned at the finkelstajn deli...that was it for me. it was unbelievable. i will have dreams about that for months...

No joke, I have now told three Paris-bound people now about that deli(cious) sandwich, and all three have come back raving about it. I should really add "find a pusher of caviar d'aubergines" to my "before I die" list...

Like a Red State Alan Partridge

Yahoo News asks the pressing question: What Do You Know About George W. Bush?

From this, I learned that Dubya loves pralines & cream ice cream, hates for people to be late, and considers "books" to be a desert island necessity (probably for use as toilet paper.)

Good to know they're really covering the issues. Personally, I would have asked some different questions...

1. What was the US debt in January of 2000? What is it currently? (For a bonus, Bush has signed every spending bill that has come to his desk - True or False?)
2. How many 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi?
3. How many "Coalition of the Willing" troops served in Iraq in 2003? How many are serving now?
4. How are things in Afghanistan these days?

My Tongue Is Bleeding!

Sometimes, this stuff just writes itself.

"President Bush has made a sweeping promise to stand with oppressed people if they challenge tyrannical leaders."

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Why I Love the Internet, Part 129

Somebody out there obviously finds Armando Iannucci as funny as I do, and has very thoughtfully archived a whole whack of interviews, reviews and articles with, by and about the man. Cheers!

"Putting the 'Amen' in Amendment"

For getting the point across with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of wit, there are few editorial cartoonists in the US who can beat Tom Toles.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Word of the Moment: Ecru

adj.
Having the color or appearance of unbleached stuff, as silk, linen, or the like.

[F., from the Latin crudus, raw.]

A Christmassy Wedding Present

Earlier in my still-nascent blogging career, I mentioned The Wedding Present, a new-to-me band that I'm digging muchly. Suffice it to say, I'm digging them even muchlier after reading this fan's blog entry:

A week ago I went to the Scopitones site and ordered the new single (the first for seven years) from my favourite band, The Wedding Present. Yesterday evening there was a knock at the door. ‘Here’s your Wedding Present CDs,’ a smiling woman said, handing me a package. Wow, I thought, that’s service for you. And then in the dark behind her, I noticed a familiar face. ‘Oh hello,’ I spluttered. ‘I don’t supposed you fancy signing these while you’re here?’ It was none other than David Gedge himself, lead singer of the band.

(Eerily enough, a Cinerama song started playing as I was reading this. More fodder for the conspiracy theorists [cf.: nutters] who claim the iPod has mind-reading capabilities?)

I Don't Approovve

I just received this email in my inbox:

Hello,

our bank has approovved your mrtgage request. You can
r e finance, buy a new house or maybe get some cash.
Do not worry about bad creddit: we got you covered.

The soonest you apply, the better deal you get. It is
possible to get $300,000 for $250 per month.


Less like the blind leading the blind than the illiterate and immoral fleecing the illiterate and gullible? ¡Veeva naaturral seeleecttion!

Monday, January 17, 2005

Susan Kare Shirts

Reading through the aforementioned Folklore site has given me a great appreciation for the work of Susan Kare, the artist behind the original Macintosh icons. A link on the site led me to her web store, which is, disappointingly, a CafePress front (which doesn't speak to quality.) So I won't be buying any of these delightful shirts anytime soon, but I will lust after them until I can afford one... (Or two, or three...)

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii8

My cat somehow created a draft blog entry, complete with title. I believe "iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii8" means something like "get away from that feckin' computer and get me some canned food pronto, useless human!" (Not being fully fluent, I can only interpret from context...)

Sunday, January 16, 2005

A Kindler, Gentler, "Three-Ply" Steve?

Thanks to what I thought would be a quick visit to the Apple Folklore webpage, I've spent the better part of today reading about Steve Jobs.

Being an Apple devotee, I'm well steeped in legends about Steve. I've read a number of interviews he's given, which usually consist heavily of brazen declarations of his companies' importance and not-even-thinly-veiled insults lobbed at competitors (Witness: "With Jobs, it was never enough to say 'we're right on this and they're wrong'. No, it was always 'we're right on this and they're idiots'.")

Such a mercurial personality, when combined with the legendary stories of Apple's founding and development, generally make for a pretty shallow understanding of what makes him tick. So it pleased me to uncover these interviews that feature some humanising revelations amidst the visionary prounouncements. Here, Steve discusses childhood inspirations,
how he met his wife and what kind of toilet paper he prefers.

Fascinating guy. He's definitely an invite for my fantasy dinner party. (Though I would be worried about him scoffing at the other guests, and possibly turning his nose up at my choice of toilet paper...)

Word of the Moment: Ad-phorism

A great little phrase, newly coined by the New York Times: "Marketing aphorisms: ad-phorisms"