You Look Nice Today is my new fav podcast – it’s 43 Folders‘ Merlin Mann with two other hip-ass Silicon Valley types talking uniforms, odour clouds, and Snare! These guys were described on Digg! as ‘Twitter superstars’. How the HELL does one become a ‘Twitter superstar’? I still don’t think I’m using it right.
Author: Richard Irvine
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Lad’s weekend
Last weekend, 6 old friends drove to a remote Coromandel bach for a weekend of hard-drinking, bullshit-talking good times only possible when partners stay at home (no offence!).
It was a brilliant, save the PS2 plug non-compatibility SNAFU. The best bits were:
– The fridge:
– Unashamed, unapologetic and unmuffled farting was definitely on the menu. Mixed blessing, this one, in fairness
– Meat and potatoes was the order of the day, cuisine wise. I did cop a load of flack of buying Rosemary at the supermarket, though
– Winning the golf was nice – Coromandel golf course is a neat little track, and they didn’t mind us playing as a six
– The sunset on Saturday:
– Especially heartwarming to see the chaps quickly revert to a pack mentality once we started playing Mexican, descending like wild dogs on anyone DARING to drink with the wrong hand, use first names, or caught making false accusations (if you’re my Facebook friend you can see all the action). I didn’t even get my usual ‘dice hate me’ hammering, and all liquids enjoyed stayed on board. That shit’s beautiful
Massive thanks all around, esp the providers of said bach. Looking forward to next year alright.
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Stop Making Movies About My Books!
Brilliance from The Onion – a poem written as Dr Suess protesting recent tsunami of crap-like Jim Carrey / Mike Myers / Dreamworks adaptations of his books.
The Onion – sometimes it makes me want to be a top comedy blogger, sometimes it makes me want to chuck it all away, they’re so good.
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A walk in the woods
Just watch it – this is what the internet is for
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Cat on a hot mac keyboard
Now you know who actually writes this stuff
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Links
I’ve just thundered in with a coupla posts on The Aucklandista – Two short points on Auckland bookshops, and I want to ride it where I like. I reckon you should get over there and read ’em, it’s heaps better than this blog.
Are you too nice? Do you only say ‘no’ to questions like ‘you won’t mind me giving you a Chinese burn and nicking the last sticky bun, then?’. Check out this article. It seems the secret to success is finding your inner Donald Trump. And yes, I can see their point. Dick.
The best muppet-based heavy metal primer you’ll see on the intenet this week can be found here.
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Unplugged in Opito Bay
I went off the grid for a few days with my girl. As I left the office on Friday, I wrestled with my conscience – does the laptop come or stay? With my T3G card, I get reasonable connection pretty much anywhere – but that’s not really a holiday is it? It wound up staying.
So, apart from a couple moments of PDA email weakness, I was unplugged. And it was great. Spent quality time. Got loads of reading done. Ate well.
Learnings? NEVER check work email while you’re away, it’ll only stress you out – there’s not much you can do about it, is there? And what about returning to 500+ unread RSS items? Time for a good old trim, methinks, going through that seems too much like work.
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Get out of your lazy bed
What Now fans, get ready to be jealous, very jealous. Here I am with the witty and charming Michele A’Court.
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Gawker Media – sharpest keyboards on the interwebs
The Observer interviews Gawker Media’s Nick Denton
Nick Denton is the blogosphere’s Baron Silas Greenback, sitting pretty in his New York loft/lair, having figured out what EVERYONE wants to know – how to make money off this here blog thing.
I’ve loved Gawkers’ hilariously insulting beatdowns on the ‘internet famous’ for brief periods at a time. I pored over the original Gawker‘s missives from the Conde Naste cafeteria. I laughed at movie stars crashing their Mercs into each other on Defamer. I particularly enjoyed Valleywag while Nick Douglas was at the helm. They were cool, but as I didn’t technically LIVE in New York, LA or Silicon Valley, a lot of it flew over my head. And frankly, there’s too much of it. 12 posts a day is the editorial minimum and, mostly, I don’t have time to trawl through all that in any meaningful way. I see the RSS feeds offer ‘top stories’ only now – let’s see how that goes.
Gawker’s bloggers seem to live the dream, despite Denton’s miserly pay scale, and most, if not all, use it as a springboard to bigger and better things. For me, being a Gawker editor, bashing out snarky one-liners all day on a Powerbook, pausing only go out for pastrami on rye wearing a black turtle neck is total writerly rockstardom (see also: Joe Eszterhas bashing out Basic Instinct in the Hollywood hills fuelled by Jack Daniels, or Woodward and Bernstein having Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman play them in the movie).
Bonus link : The Observer’s 50 most powerful blogs – get something new for your RSS reader
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Dungeonista
Gary Gygax, the inventor of Dungeons & Dragons, a rope from the rowboat of social interaction for young nerds the world over, died today. Here’s a long article by a guy who went to meet Gygax in his lair.
My own role-playing innocence was shattered when Mum arranged a playdate with a fellow D&Der. He had an amazing array of characters with mega ‘experience points’, the hard won currency of this murky little world. When I wondered about the amazing LOTR-style adventures he must have embarked upon to amass such bounty, he replied matter-of-factly “I cheat”.
Bastard. It never crossed my mind that in this game of fantasy, you could just make shit up. Kids, eh? I didn’t play so much after that.
Those 20 sided dice did come in handy years later for drinking games, though.