The Early Years (2002-2005)

Mark Simonson writes about the differences between Arial and Helvetica (and Grotesque): The “a” in Helvetica has a tail; Arial does not. Also, the bowl of the “a” flows into the stem like a backwards “s”; the bowl of Arial’s “a” simply intersects the stem with a slight curve. (Interestingly, the Grotesque “a” has a tail, just like Helvetica. The bolder weights of Helvetica have no tails, an inconsistency that bothers some people. Maybe it bothered Monotype, too.) Arial’s “a” has always seemed a little badly drawn to me, but maybe it’s just me. (Link via A Capital Idea)

Scented panties and underwear that, um, enhances a guy’s look? The Village Voice wonders whether all this underwear innovation is any sort of progress. My question is, how embarrassing is it to be the model for Melon’s scented panties? “Okay, honey, look sexy - now, I want you to act like you’ve finally got rid of that smell in your crotch!”

After some discussions on Bloggers.SG 2005, some of us folks headed over to the Elevations 280 party being held at Market Street carpark, where we caught Bentley Rhythm Ace and the Freestylers.

Ways I optimised my computer on Saturday: Enabled Windows XP Prefetch only for my boot files instead of all files (using MajorGeek’s Prefetch Clean and Control) Disabled all unnecessary Windows XP services (using the Elder Geek’s guide) Switched from Trillian to Miranda, which uses less memory, plus allows me to put up a nice picture of Coconut as my background. Things seem good - certainly my hard drive seems to be accessed less, which indicates in my mind that there’s less call for virtual memory. 256 MB of RAM doesn’t go as far these days as it used to…

I gotta say, “Martha Stewart hates house arrest” is one of the funniest headlines I’ve read, and I’m not a Martha-basher. What, she was supposed to be having a ball?

Moodgrapher graphs changes in those Livejournal “I’m feeling…” moods over the last 7 days, so you get a sense of how LJers are feeling. Here’s the chart for “horny” for instance:

The Guardian’s arts blog reports on the impact of the London bombings on the West End: For the first time since the second world war, every performance in London’s West End was cancelled yesterday. With police advising people to stay out of the capital, most other venues cancelled live performances yesterday evening. Today however, London’s vibrant cultural life is slowly returning to normal. The Barbican’s Mostly Mozart festival season will begin as scheduled tonight; the arts venue have decided to make the performance - of Haydn’s Creation, free of charge (space permitting), and will refund ticket holders.

Sadly, Singapore had to be the site of baseball’s removal from the Olympics: SINGAPORE – Baseball and softball were tossed out of the Olympic program for the 2012 London Games – the first sports cut from the Summer Games in 69 years. The International Olympic Committee then rejected the five sports wanting to get in.

Tony Blair: “It is particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa, the long term problems of climate change. It is also reasonably clear it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G8. There will be time later to talk about this.

Very, very sad. May be a G8-related terrorist attack? Scanning the Guardian News Blog furiously for updates: 1110 PA is reporting fears of “many” dead after a series of what are now, patently, terrorist bomb blasts around the city. Eyewitness reports talk of terrible injuries, and “many fatalities”.

For the fifth year, Kobayashi utterly destroyed all competition to win the annual Fourth of July hot-dog eating championship - 49 hot dogs, 12 minutes. Slightly off his 53.5 dogs last year, but still, the man’s a legend. And check out the fact that he still has those abs:

Here’s a photo I took a while back of the Court Square Diner in Long Island City, Queens, near the Citicorp Tower, with the 7 (I think) in the background. Was on my way to see either PS1 or the Socrates Sculpture Park.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched A Hard Day’s Night, Richard Lester’s chronicle of early Beatlemania and the Ur-pop film, the prototype for the “get me to the stage on time” band movie. How strange to see the Fab Four with that retrograde insouciance, before the cares of the world took over (or perhaps before Al Aronowitz introduced them to Dylan), before snarls and quarrels and ‘artistic differences’. Just four likely lads from Liverpool, shot beautifully by Gil Taylor in crisp black and white, women in pursuit, the world lain out at their feet.

Oh frabulous joy! Blogger has now fixed the problem of the div:clear tags - here’s the permanent solution. The folks at Blogger explain it this way: Before launch, the templates passed our tests but because of the open nature of Blogger templates, we weren’t sure which kinds of template modifications were going to be affected. (Link)

To my American visitors - happy Independence Day! Time to bring out the BBQs, sling on those “Kiss the Cook” aprons, and throw some burgers on the grill. Man, I miss the Fourth of July festivities and fireworks displays. I remember walking with my friends along Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Mass., down by the Charles River, trying desperately to find a good spot to watch the fireworks from. In the end our view was blocked, but the spectacle was still something worth seeing, and the seeming bonhomie and goodwill of most people made the atmosphere fun. I also remember, a couple of years later, walking past Bellevue to the East River, craning my neck above the crowd on FDR Drive to see the fireworks. I was supposed to go to some Fourth of July party (I can’t even remember whose it was now) but the general arrangements weren’t very clear and I got lazy so I just walked down from my apartment to get a look in.

The moment I read the article title on Boston.com ("Hairless pooch wins ugly dog contest") I knew the winner would be a Chinese crested. I didn’t realise just how ugly it would be. (That last link is to an actual picture of the ugliest dog, and may put you off meals or induce vomiting. You have been warned.) There Are No Male Groupies: an old piece I recall reading 5 years back, but still fun. The life of Leila Hadley Luce, author, namer of NyQuil, and woman about town. If you haven’t been on the bandwagon yet, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Three MP3s to download, including “Upon This Tidal Wave of Blood”, which I thought sounded really good when I played it at my DJ gig last week.

Last night, I attended Spice Odyssey, the opening event of the Singapore Food Festival organised by at-sunrice, the culinary institute. The event involved traipsing around Fort Canning Park learning about the different uses of spices in cultures and history at various stations, each manned by Johnson & Wales (at least, I think they were all from Johnson & Wales) students here on some sort of exchange programme. Lots of fun. There were stations on how expensive spices were in the past, an introduction to making your own 5-spice powder (fun with mortars and pestles), using spices for cosmetics and so on, and each station was all accompanied by some little tapas/amuse bouche-style things to try. Mmm.

Hal R. Varian writes in the New York Times on Günter J. Hitsch, Ali Hortaçsu, and Dan Ariely’s research on online dating: Start with the self-reported characteristics. There was a strong Lake Wobegon effect in the data, with only 1 percent of the population admitting to having “less than average” looks. Even so, only a third actually posted a photo. The reported weights of the women were substantially less than national averages and about 30 percent were blonde. The reported weights of the men were consistent with national averages and only about 12 percent were blond.

Well, all went well at the gig last night - there’s us two co-DJs at the end of the night. Thanks to Jon for co-DJing and thanks to all who came. Here’s a set list.

Apparently I’m a strict moralist a la Peter Singer, at least according to The Philosophers’ Magazine morality quiz, and at least insofar as I apparently personally don’t hold much truck with the idea that when it comes to moral principles, there is a deeper moral obligation towards your family and fellow citizens than towards people in general: