Monthly Archives: March 2004

Portion Distortion

Catching up with the excellent writings of Chris at prosaic (who’s new design is simple and elegant) I was directed to an article at sfgate.com (The Obesity Crisis) which is fascinating and rings true. I am sure that, over the last ten years, the amount of food I have consumed has increased massively as a result of the size of the portions that I eat (rather than eating more meals). Anyway, methinks I should head off the the gym now and resist the urge to simplify the look of this site …

On this day…

2004: Add Listen To Musak’s Content to My Yahoo!
2004: Gay Weddings
2003: Deborah Orr on the Oscars

Add Listen To Musak’s Content to My Yahoo!

You will see, on the right hand side of the page, a new link added so that you can add the content of Listen To Musak to My Yahoo!

Yahoo! has always been my favourite portal and for many years My Yahoo! was my homepage. These days I tend to favour Bloglines so that I can read the content I am interested in. I think this is a great new feature for Yahoo! and it’s good to see them being inventive again.

As usual when big portals roll out features it seems that it’s only available to users of the my.yahoo.com domain rather than those of us who have correctly set our country to UK and are thus pointed to uk.my.yahoo.com. Still, removing the uk. portion of the URL allows you to see this feature.

One of my usability gripes about Yahoo! has always been the way the switch you between localised domains. You can read some content at news.yahoo.com and then suddenly be shunted to uk.news.yahoo.com with no obvious way back. It’s one thing they have needed to address for a long time. On the otherhand, I wait to see how good My Yahoo will become as a newsreader.

Anyway, add me. Thanks.

On this day…

2004: Portion Distortion
2004: Gay Weddings
2003: Deborah Orr on the Oscars

Link Dump

Things I should speak about but there’s too much happening in the world:

  • The tories are holding a ‘gay summit‘ which is a shock to those of us that remember Margaret Thatcher’s rants. I am certain that, at one point, it was the Conservatives who wanted to round us all up shoot us.
  • Andy points to a site for hot Brazillian men – which amuses for some reason that I can not explain.
  • And over at Man of the Moment, I am receiving a lot of comment spam on Andrew Kinlochan which means I need to find the time to upgrade this instance of Moveable Type to implement some of the spam blocking features. In researching them, I notice there’s a whole raft of new functionality in the next release. I am, sadly, excited by this news.
  • Six Apart, the guys behind Movable Type, have grown phenomenally this year. Mena’s written something about it which goes to show how difficult it can be communicating when you’re a small company.
  • Lance Arthur has written 13 Reasons Why You Could Be My Boyfriend and, as always, it’s a very well written piece. But one of the items really struck a chord with me for some reason: ‘6: You Have Passion‘. It got me asking myself, ‘what subject am I passionate about?’ and, right now, I am not so sure (although I can go on about my new found love of the gym and roller casters if I am pushed). I don’t think that’s healthy.
  • Dan Savage got legally married – but to a woman: ‘We emphasized to the clerk and her manager that Amy and I don’t live together, we don’t love each other, we don’t plan to have kids together, and we’re going to go on living and sleeping with our same-sex partners after we get married. So could we still get a marriage license?’ How fantastic.
  • And I learned a new acronym today: SPIM (spam over instant messaging). You heard it here first (maybe).

What a great day.

On this day…

2004: Straight Men Are Shopping Kings?

Straight Men Are Shopping Kings?

I have never been one to consider myself well dressed, fit or particularly over-groomed. Clean and tidy (I hope) but I have never been one to peruse the fashion rails at Selfridges for the latest gear. Therefore, I don’t consider that I fit any gay stereotype. However, it appears I now don’t conform to the male stereotype:

We surveyed a group of guys in Birmingham and they said rather than meeting down in the pub, they would now meet in Selfridges for a drink and then go shopping 

The Scotsman

That’s it. Time to ditch the M&S shirts at once.

On this day…

2004: Link Dump

Recommend TV To Me

Oh dear, technology is really getting the better of me. Reading my selection at Bloglines, Matt at Hit or Miss pointed me to his TV recommendations page. One of his recommendations is Hedwig and the Angry Inch – which I have been meaning to view for a long while. So, a quick search at MyDigiGuide and I see it’s on Sky Movies 1 this Thursday. Now, when Sky+ implements some kind of web-interface I will be away.

On this day…

2003: The Recruit

Gay Weddings This Week?

According to The Observer today, the Civil Partnerships bill will be published on Wednesday. Certainly I am in favour of the bill as I think my relationship with PY deserves some recognition of the 12 years we have spent together. But it’s not marriage and, therefore, there’s no equality. Still, as they say, one small step at a time.

The same paper is also reporting that the Irish parliament is about to be facing the same debates. Shame Mr Bush doesn’t look to Europe for more than just hired guns.

On this day…

2003: Space-time continuum abused for financial gain
2003: Piccadilly Circus, March 2003
2003: Has the tide turned for free online content?

Where Was The Colosseum?

first meal in at a stansted hotel - here we gostarting the trip at a best western hotel

Rome is supposed to be a very beautiful city. On Wednesday night I left London for Stansted where I grabbed a few hours sleep and some food in a hotel before heading to the airport for the 7am flight. Arriving at Rome Ciampino airport means a bus trip to somewhere central and a taxi to the office where I was to spend the next two days.

so this is what I actually do for a living - green lines on a whiteboardmore food - thursday evening pizza in rome

Thursday night I managed to wander around the suburb I was staying in and found a nice local restaurant who cooked the most fantastic pizza. Then it was back to the hotel to catch up on some of the sleep I missed before heading back to the offices for another day’s work and then a metro ride to the bus station to take me back to the airport.

rome ciampino airportthe ryanair flight back to stansted

And so, yet again, I got to see nothing of one of the world’s most fantastic cities. I really must learn.

On this day…

2006: Ten Years Of The Palm
2003: Don’t Hide Your TrackBack

Here We Go Again

And right now I am off on another of my business trips. This is a nightmare as I have to be at London Stansted airport by 6am tomorrow morning so I am off to a hotel nearby right now. The nice relaxed state I have been in since returning from Florida is about to go out of the window.

On this day…

2004: Live From The Red Carpet
2004: Riding The Top Coasters In The World
2003: Geneva, 12 August 1949

Live From The Red Carpet

Did I miss much while I was away? I know I missed Tom winning a Bloggie or two – congratulations to him. plasticbag is always interesting reading but ‘Why do bloggers kill kittens?‘ must be one of my favourite posts of recent times. His idea of ‘a representation of a person online’ is a good idea about what a site is – including mine – but I have to say that I just plain enjoy his writing – regardless of if I agree with it or not.

On this day…

2004: Here We Go Again
2004: Riding The Top Coasters In The World
2003: Geneva, 12 August 1949