The Early Years (2002-2005)

Here’s an athletics-based theological question, but one that’s perhaps relevant on Oscar night (although actors seem less wont to thank God in acceptance speeches than musicians): does God care who wins?

I just glanced through the Observer blog (via Ben Hammersley). Talk about how to use corporate blogging - this one really lays out the guts of the process of taking a newspaper to press, and is quite open about the choices that have to be made, as well as how they respond to other newspapers:

Today’s Sunday Times (no online version of the article) has a piece on the planned conversion of the long-defunct St James Power Station, recently the site of such art exhibitions as Reconstruction of a City. The station will be turned into a huge club complex, about 10 times the size of the recently-defunct Embassy. The developer’s website notes that in bringing in the funk, the space will hold 3 restaurants and 9 (9!) clubs.

Spent part of Saturday night watching Everton run rings round Villa. They really are Champions League material this season, and I couldn’t be happier. Funny thing about Cahill, Osman, and Arteta is that they kind of have a pretty-boy look, but they definitely play tough…

I’m a BlogClicker member (sign up here), because I like the randomness of blogsurfing without the ridiculousness of Blogger’s Navbar, which inevitably launches fake blogs selling pharmaceutical products and teens with thecursors that change into a crosshair. One thing that intrigued me was this guy’s effort to turn his backyard into a “wildscape” - a good way to “go green”, I think, and one that’s not so often talked about.

I thought I was fairly obsessive with my collecting (and attendant cataloguing). But this guy is the uber-pack rat - he’s got everything from key rings to decanters.

They’ve caught the alleged BTK. Finally.

Fun links from slashdot: the first picture ever put up on the web was… a picture of four women. No, get your mind out of the gutter. And some random folks at Berkeley used Post-Its to recreate a scene from NES Super Mario Brothers in their building:

For us carnivores, Bacontarian is a bacon-eater’s blog. Nothing like the sizzle of a rasher as you throw it smack onto the pan.

Firefox domination grows, judging by the fact that Internet Explorer 7 is now divorced from Longhorn. I’m just hoping it has tabbed browsing and removes ActiveX. And clearly so do some of the commenters on the IE7 blog.

Feeling too sparse to parse anything too long, so here’s some itinerant thoughts, springing from the recent heat: When you take the MRT to work, it’s quite clear that Singapore is under a dry spell. From the fleeting vantage point of the train, you can see fields of dried-up grass, bleached blonde, stripped clear of moisture. Rainforests, deprived of the thing from which they derive their name.

Apparently Paris Hilton’s cellphone was hacked because her “secret question” to reset the password was “what’s your favourite pet’s name?” Duh. Even non-Simple Life viewers could look Tinkerbell’s name up. Heck, Ms Hilton even feuded with Britney Spears over whose dog was cuter not too long ago. (I don’t watch the show, but a steady diet of Us and People magazines from ComicsMart - bias warning: relatives own the store - has kept me au courant with the monickers of pampered pooches.)

The EU and ASEAN recently signed an accord to clamp down on spam, according to EUbusiness: At an EU-ASEAN conference in London this week, the EU’s 25 member states and 13 Asian partner countries agreed notably to boost legal tools to fight spam as well as constantly seek new technical means of blocking the unwanted mails.

Well, American 80s music - the Stock/Aiken/Waterman stable are clearly not represented… sorry Rick Astley and Kylie.

Found a blog by Martha O’Connor, a writer who’s getting a book published by SMP in May. Cool stuff. And I also just discovered this piece by Edward Nawotka on literary blogs in USA Today, which mentions blogs like MobyLives and Maud Newton.

Now I see where the money is in rolling out all these 3G mobile phones… virtual girlfriends! I think it’s funny that the virtual girlfriend sounds fairly high maintenance: Vivienne likes to be taken to movies and bars. She loves to be given virtual flowers and chocolates, and she can translate six languages if you travel overseas. She never undresses, although she has some skimpy outfits for the gym, and is a tease who draws the line at anything beyond blowing kisses.

Oh man. What is Slash without his top hat?

So ugliest-celebrity-around Paris Hilton had her cellphone hacked. I just thought some of the list of contacts that she kept on the phone was funny: Ashley but not Mary-Kate? Hmm. Southwest Airlines? Does she need to fly budget? Um, not that I’ve seen the list. Anyway, they’ve arrested the guy who did it.

I turn 27 today, and it feels like there’s so much I haven’t done that I should have by this point in my life… time to make some resolutions.

One of my favourite bloggers, Kottke, has decided to quit his job and become a full-time blogger. I like Kottke because kottke.org remains one of the few major “personal” blogs i.e. he just blogs about and links to anything he finds interesting - as he puts it, “I’m interested in too many things to settle on design or programming or writing or a particular topic” - which is what I’m interested in maintaining for dsng.net (although my baseball thoughts will remain in another realm).