Sunday, July 19, 1998

For the last time

"I'm not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain." — Carol Leifer

"Don't spend two dollars to dry clean a shirt. Donate it to the Salvation Army instead. They'll clean it and put it on a hanger. Next morning buy it back for seventy-five cents." — William Coronel

"I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else." — Lily Tomlin

For the Last Time: Yep, the skeptics—which included just about everyone except some of the more gullible on-line and traditional media—were right. The "Our First Time" soon-to-be-former-virgins were hoaxters after all. The site's host ISP posted a wrap-up. (On the other hand, we may yet discover that even the hoax was a hoax and all a publicity grab by the ISP. Wouldn't surprise me in the least.) "Mike" is still a hottie, though.

Incidentally, the controversial site's supposed brain-man was Ken Tipton, a former St. Louis area actor (or, as his bio avers: "[He] grew up in the small St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, Missouri.")

Meanwhile, Time Magazine finally got around to running the look at Missouri transgender politics that reporter John Cloud visited here months ago to research, featuring fellow PREP board member Shannon Ware. [Time]

There may be redress for we spam-drenched wretches yet: Seattle man makes spammer pay [Seattle Times]

Sam Williams suggests Hollywood take on the potential armageddon behind Y2K. Let us hope that Sandra Bullock is available. [Upside]

MacWindows has turned out to be a particularly useful site for helping my marketing Macs survive and thrive in the realm of COCA's peecee/Novell network. Props, too, to Three Macs and a Printer.

Site News: Some added info on the bio page, the reprise of a popular sidebar from the original BradLands site, and general tweaking all around. Oh yeah, and despite the fact I want to keep these pages quick to load, I'm experimenting with the graphic header and other bits here and there. Thoughts?

Saturday, July 18, 1998

David Remnick is in

"Brad is kind of hard to describe. He's like a cross between Nathaniel West and Mae West." — someone describing me at a recent party, to which I was not invited.

Maybe there isn't a First Time for everything: New revelations about Our First Time fortify original suspicions that the planned public deflowering of two "teens" is, in fact, a big ol' hoax:

• The Web's sacrificial virgins [Salon]
• A tangled Web for virgins site [Salon]
• Teens to Lose Virginity Online — Or Are They? [Netly News]
• And, of course, the inevitable parody site.

I will say this, though: But for the black box covering his head, that "Mike" is kind of cute. <grin>

I'm a bit behind the curve on this, so by now pretty much everyone who cares knows that senior writer David Remnick is in as the new editor of The New Yorker. [Washington Post]

This is a good thing. While I was intrigued to imagine what Spy's Kurt Anderson would have done at the helm of "maybe the best magazine that ever was" (Harrison Salisbury), and I'm fairly overjoyed that weasly Michael Kinsley didn't get the nod, I think Remnick will bring some of the literary cachet and edgy zip the magazine's been missing in the Brown years.

I mean, I liked most of the pop accessibility Tina Brown brought to The New Yorker, but the pendulum had begun to swing too far. And while Remnick promises "some radical changes" and the buzz that we may be facing fortnightly publication rather than weekly (as has been expected for some time), I'm fairly hopeful about the long-term prospects.

Some random weekend reading:

I recently rewatched the movie Clue (Madeline Kahn is great!), but—musical theatre fanatic though I am—I had no idea there was a stage musical. The plot is quite different from the movie (some would say thankfully), but it looks like fun.

Only 18 months remain until we see if the Y2K problem is much of a problem. Forbes wonders if, in addition to our ATMs going wonky and the national power grid suffering some glitches, we might have to worry about the former Soviet Union raining nuclear death upon us for want of a couple of digits. [Forbes]

The Vidiots are gearing up to present the best and worst of the 1997-98 TV season, as only they can. The fun continues all next week. [TeeVee, multi-part episodic]

The Education of Little Geek: I spent a fair amount of my adolescence noodling around programming Apple ][, Texas Instruments and (God help me) TRS-80 computers. Greg Knauss recalls his days as a starry-eyed game writer with dreams of fame and fortune in this on-going 8-bit memoir. [An Entirely Other Day, multi-part episodic]

Friday, July 17, 1998

NewHoo debut

Sign of the Times? Spotted on a Methodist church in the Central West End: "Sun Worship 11 am"

I'm Re-reading Sedaris: "Snowball just leads elves on, elves and Santas. He is playing a dangerous game." — from "Santaland Diaries"

The Daily Instigator Watch continues. ("Not as late as Windows 98")

...and The Loser Chronicles seem to have gone AWOL. Any sightings?

A new weblog appears, nice looking and substantive (although not recently updated). Say hello to Pigs and Fishes. [Heads up from Robot Wisdom]

Apple Computer is doing just fine, thankyouverymuch, with 3rd quarter profits that have even former naysayers ceasing their search for adjective synonyms for "beleaguered." Meanwhile, it looks like Tom Hanks is gonna play Steve Jobs in the movie! [Daily Variety]

The proprietor of the impressive Obscure Store & Reading Room has an equally impressive account of his observations at the Jeffrey Dahmer trial. [Obscure Store]

An Internet Directory to Watch: The volunteer-built NewHoo. (Editors wanted!)

A concise and cogent debriefing of the recent Supreme Court decency in the arts ruling, by a writer who clearly "gets" Karen Finley. [Kansas City Star]

Build your own supercomputer, for fun and profit. [Lotus.dev, heads up from my buddy Chris]

Assume the missionary position with these wacky tracts. [Brunching Shuttlecocks]

And speaking of the missionary position (ahem!), have you heard the brouhaha about Our First Time? Smells like a really slick publicity stunt: Two "teens" plan to lose their virginity live on the Internet.

• Media Falls Hard For "First Time" Sex Site [TechWeb]
• Their First Time? [Brunching Shuttlecocks]