Thursday, October 28, 1999

Bring on the cheez!!

MUST...UPDATE...WEBLOG: Tired and monumentally busy, but the urge to annotate is strong. Did ya miss me? By the way, 20 folks have signed on to A Day Without Weblogs. Have you?

CONGRATS! The preternaturally witty Lileks has a book deal! And a better use of dead trees I cannot imagine than the immortalization of the Gallery of Regrettable Food. Way to go!

AND WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT: Another Internet humor wellspring, Illiad, has parlayed his geeky web comic User Friendly into an O'Reilly book. The open-source cartoonist (aka J.D. Frazer) is the subject of a Salon profile.

YES, IT'S HUMOR DAY here in The BradLands. The Brunching Shuttlecocks has gotten off some good licks lately, including ratings of TV Remote Control Buttons. This take on "play" is a classic:

Classic in its simplicity, "Play" takes its place along such timeless buttons as "On," "OK," and "Toast." Some may claim that "Play" is too naive for a complex post-podern, pre-contemporary, inter-millennial world where buttons like "Standby" and "Zero Back" hold sway. However, without beacons of selection like "Play," we sink into a quagmire where "control" is relative and we are most "remote" from our own souls.

And then, there's L. Fitzgerald Sjöberg's assertion that "I Oughta Be a Law." His maxims regarding Usenet filtering are hilarious for the same reason that all humor is funny — they're painfully true. <sigh>

POLITE SOCIETY DEMANDS LAWS: And Murphy's given us a wheelbarrowful. PARTY! PARTY! It's going to take me several weeks of spare time to wade through all the priceless content at TV Party, featuring wave after wave of boob tube nostalgia. Bring on the cheez!!

Tuesday, October 19, 1999

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The BradLands is going on a break. Seven uninterrupted days to spend attending to those matters that are truly important in life: writing in my journal, creating handmade wrapping paper for the upcoming holiday season (which I will, in turn, sell and donate the profits therefrom to the local orphanage), fixing up a nice curry for supper, sewing a supremely witty Hallowe'en costume for a neighbor child and, of course, winging overseas to sort out that whole pesky Middle East peace accord.

Lies, all of it. Actually, I'm just going on vacation. An undisclosed destination where undisclosed pleasures and diversions await. See y'all next Tuesday.

Monday, October 18, 1999

Six billion

TICK-TICK: (11:58 am) Michael Genrich has twelve hours to restore my faith in humanity. Or, at least, my faith in Michael Genrich. The Daily Instigator Launch Watch continues...

EPINION ENTERTAINMENT: Wendell, the wit-in-residence at One Swell Foop, exposes what I've long suspected: The Incredible Truth About Minneapolis. Shocking!

REQUIEM FOR A DRIVE-IN: After almost 70 years in operation, basic breakfast and late-night perennial The Parkmoor is closing. Although the Clayton location, a local example of pseudo-Googie architecture and design, is likely to be demolished, the restaurant's owner promises a new beginning in the new millennium. [Post-Dispatch]

CLOWNSQUAD: These ain't your daddy's clowns.

POLL POSITION: What's the deal with those now-ubiquitous online polls? [Filter]

Here's some info to chew on. Apparently, more people who saw "The Phantom Menace" sided with the Empire over the rebels. If money were no object, 69 percent of Americans would buy a ride into outer space. And 42 percent would refuse to buy an electric, non-polluting car.

YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY, BABIES: Last week, world population topped 6 billion ("more than tuned in for the final episode of Seinfeld" — People). Here's a look at how that breaks down, day by week by month by year.

COMIX: Unfabulous Ethan Green discovers delightful conveniences for the modern gay man about town. [PlanetOut]

QUERY: Anyone know of an online resource for information about building a video wall (i.e. splitting a single video signal to display across multiple monitors)? Care to share?

Tuesday, October 12, 1999

George Washington’s wood

gAyOL: Michael Alvear looks at the thriving gay chat community on America Online and wonders if Instant Message windows are becoming the bathhouses of the '90s. (Becoming?) [Salon]

If AOL has a policy, gay men don't seem to know about it. They're too busy ordering from what they perceive as an online sex catalog. And why not? The items are always in stock, there's a liberal exchange policy and you can take delivery in a matter of hours.

The absurdity is captured by writer John Royce, who — upon seeing how his gay friends use AOL — quips, "Gay men don't need to support theater. They ARE theater." And now, America Online is their stage.

LIFE AT COUNTY GENERAL: This might be the best source of information for fans of NBC's hospital drama ER on the worldwide web. Not surprising, really, since newsgroups and newsgroup FAQs tended often to be the definitive online resource on a given topic before the ascendance of the web and the ever-rising noise:signal ratio on Usenet these days.

WHO'S YOUR GAME DAD? Why, John Scalzi, of course. A nifty looking, smooth reading site that aims to be a guide to parents about appropriate videogames for their young'ns. The catch: Scalzi's wisely steering clear of edutainment and clearly kid-oriented titles, and focusing on "mainstream" products that may or may not be right for certain ages. (Scalzi also keeps up the tasty scalzi.com, home of Whatever.)

OH, COME ON! Skittish school boarders are altering thousands of textbooks on the off chance that 12-year-olds might snicker about the Father of Our Country gettin' wood. [via EduWatch]

WHO KNEW? Our man Cam is a showtune fan. I have to say that I wasn't as taken with the Hey, Mr. Producer compilation as was he, but hey, everyone's entitled to his epinion. <grin> (I signed up with epinions early on, but I have yet to post anything. Maybe musical comedy CDs and videos should be my focus, since they constitute the bulk of my home entertainment purchases.) And speaking of musical comedy...

ALMOST CERTAIN TO LAUNCH BEFORE THIS: I've been devoting a few brain cells daily to a new BradLands feature called Specific Overtures. It's intended to be a memoir, reflection and commentary on the unique joys of experiencing musical comedy through the medium of Original Cast Albums. The site is not quite ready for primetime, but I hope to put the finishing touches on the opening feature this weekend. Stay tuned.

Sunday, October 10, 1999

SportsNight slash

FLIRTING WITH RESEARCH: A Webster University researcher studies the psychology of flirting. [Post-Dispatch link expires in a week]

CELEBRITY DIRT: ...and just your basic run-of-the-mill dirt from the unwashed (ahem!) hoi-polloi. It's all there at the Museum of Dirt.

SPORTSNIGHT MEETS SPICE CHANNEL: Sports Night may be the most intelligent sitcom on the air, and indications are good from the season premiere that it's going to continue to be so. Not surprisingly, there's a significant archive of slash fan fiction that's sprung up involving the show, much of it speculating on a romance between Dan and Casey and much of it—and this is surprising—not bad. [Some racy stuff, for mature audiences.]

DOES REGIS KNOW ABOUT THIS? Can you really win a million dollars just for using a web directory?

UNDER THE RAINBOW: Queer consumerism gone wrong, horribly wrong. [Holy Titclamps!]

ABBA-CUSS? Sign up now for the trade conference that's sure to be a hit come January 1: Abacus World Expo, from your friends at the Y2komic, After Y2K.

ATTENTION FILM BUFF: Every movie musical on TV this month. [TV Now]

...AND ONE THEY MISSED: Channel 9 (KETC) is airing a Great Performances film of the stage version of Crazy for You, the "new Gershwin musical" adapted from Girl Crazy that took a few Tonys in 1992, on October 20 at 7:30 pm. It's on the PBS schedule as well, although local broadcast times and dates may vary. Recommended.

Thursday, October 7, 1999

Python at 30

ANOTHER TV PARODY I'M TOO BUSY TO MAKE: Who Wants to Be a Legionnaire — hosted by Regis Philbin. Young men from many lands, escaping from troubled lives, answer trivia questions for the glory of France. [vaguely related link via Memepool]

WEBLOG-ROLLING: Laurel's back, Steve's away. And I completely identify with the reasons for both. <sigh>

OBLIGATORY MONTY PYTHON 30TH ANNIVERSARY REFERENCE (SORT OF...): This weekend, I picked up the new Clint Black CD, D'lectrified, an interesting selection of covers, new songs and whatnot produced entirely "off the grid." ("Warning: No electric instruments used in this recording.") One of the cuts is a minor retooling of "The Galaxy Song," one of my favorite Python tunes from The Meaning of Life. Eric Idle even sings backup vocals. (Clint Black will be a guest on The Late, Late Show with Craig Kilborn tonight.)

Monday, October 4, 1999

Who Wants to Be a Frigidaire?

TYPICAL: Michael Genrich, yet another man who is merely leading me on. <sigh>

INDEPENDENTS DAY: An update on BookSense, the consortium of independent booksellers poised to take on AmaBarnesZonBorders&Noble. [courtesy of St. Louis' own supremely wonderful Left Bank Books]

TV SHOW PARODIES I'M TOO BUSY TO ACTUALLY MAKE:

• Third Watch from the Sun — aliens invade earth to learn about human behavior by posing as fire fighters, police officers and paramedics.
• Who Wants to Be a Frigidaire? — hosted by Regis Philbin. "You say you want to keep food cold. Is that your final answer?"

Sunday, October 3, 1999

15 minutes

WELCOME SCRIPTING NEWS READERS: Today, Dave Winer linked to my May 1999 essay on the raison d'etre behind The BradLands and the state of the Weblog Nation (tip o' the hat to JJG for that term), a little rant called Why I Weblog. If you're visiting The BradLands for the first time today, please make yourself at home, explore the archives and enjoy our hospitality.

OK, EVERYBODY, ONE MORE TIME: In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. And some people will try to squeeze out 5 or 10 more, using a wonderful invention called the worldwide web.

PC-CENTRISM. UGH!: So, the day after I install a new hard drive in my Mac-compatible, I get wind of a recall of Western Digital drives within a specific lot. They've made a diagnostic utility available to test if your internal drive is at risk, and the PC version is easy enough to find, linked from their website. Danged if I could see an option for Mac folks. Fortunately, MacWeek/MacCentral ferreted it out. (I'm safe. Whew!)