how to validate a form as xhtml strict. you have to wrap the input elements in a div tag. don't ask me why. i would have thought that wrapping it in a form tag was plenty. things like this do make me sympathise with the anti-standards people. it's like brussels putting out legislation about the size of bananas in the same week they call for greater harmony within europe. just stupid. this thread figured it first.
2/28/2002 10:52:50 PM #

 

we just watched monsters inc again. i heart sully. i want fur like that. i also want a picture of roz for my desk at work...
2/27/2002 11:39:18 PM #

 

mit technology review via blogger. quote broadcasting will place issues on the national agenda and define core values; bloggers will reframe those issues for different publics and ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard. unquote. which looks cunningly like halcyon's prediction on independents day that quote the people deciding what music gets promoted and heard will not be record companies, but a network of power-mad "bloggers." ... blogging will save the world from being choked in data smog. unquote. that's alright then.
2/27/2002 12:10:04 AM #

 

if you've never written a webpage in your life, you will not be interested in this. skip. i just figure that if zeldman can get away with the interminable web designer's journey, then i his faithful reader can bore back. so... look what i did look what i did. i made the links page validate as xhtml strict. not transitional. strict. yay me. this is the end of a long argument with myself, the triumph of function over form, accessibility and validation over prettiness. specifically coloured scrollbars. these are explorer proprietary code, and will not work with an xhtml doctype. and much as i love my coloured scrollbars, i love the idea at least of code that's portable to every device that's possibly going to be used to read it. i remember too well the early version four browsers where it seemed as though it might become necessary to write an entirely different set of pages for each browser. i don't want anything to come to that again. i like standards. now i just have to change all the other damn pages. gulp.
2/26/2002 08:14:00 PM #

 

well there is no doubt that my problem is that i am bored. i keep having dreams about being back at college. i'm desperately trying to go to the library and my feet won't work. it's as though i'm on a scalextrix track that's taking me in the opposite direction. i don't think this could be much clearer. and then when i do things, i do feel happier. last night, i wrote simon's message board (at last) and read a whole chunk of the cults of the roman empire. which requires concentration and recall, not just pootling along with the plot. and it was good. not rocket science, but good. and the best thing, reading the book and thinking it was hard going, and then feeling as though my brain was unfurling and maybe still can think as much as it used to. what i now do about this, of course, is another question. i can quite see myself becoming some mad old lady in tweeds telling the newspapers on her seventieth birthday how she's got four hundred and nine different qualifications.
2/26/2002 01:48:09 PM #

 

schroedinger's lottery ticket : i've won til i check the numbers.
2/24/2002 11:13:58 PM #

 

from the people who brought us monkey poo, now we have the sociology of comic books. remember to admire my sister's beautiful back-end (that's coding not arse) while you're there.
2/24/2002 02:04:48 PM #

 

this is a very interesting article about david irving's continued refusal to accept that his reputation lies in little pieces at his feet. the man himself is repulsive. without the courage to openly proclaim his revolting supremacist politics, he hides behind a facade of revisionism, claiming for example that hitler knew nothing about the holocaust. yet i find the whole legal saga heartening. it is important to tell the truth about history, and when lies like this are told, it's important that they are not confined to academia and obscure publication, but are plastered across the front pages of the tabloids as well. for that much, we do have david irving to thank.
2/24/2002 12:58:43 PM #

 

thanks to little black cat for leading me to neil gaiman's blog, containing amongst other gems lemony snicket's review of coraline, possibly the funniest thing he's written outside his own books.
2/23/2002 07:38:21 PM #

 

ooh look. evhead's gone all zeldman orange.
2/23/2002 12:47:54 PM #

 

wow. marianne pearl's statement. sense beyond the call of duty.
2/23/2002 12:15:55 PM #

 

no, don't delete your blog. generate teen angst instead.
2/22/2002 11:27:11 PM #

 

read before you write. this is an interesting take on quality of blogging. mahoney states that when reading rubbish quote you'll find yourself mortally afraid of -- and automatically avoiding -- the same mistakes in your own writing unquote. i state that this does not mean go delete your entire blog in a friday night alcohol-fuelled fit of unworthiness. no really...
2/22/2002 11:22:31 PM #

 

how to stay calm in the face of too much to do. make a list. write down absolutely everything you must do. the small things as well as the big things. break down the big things into smaller things, in sublists if necessary. write down some things that are irrelevent too. if i'm doing this at work, i always write have lunch, both to force myself to stop and have lunch and so that there will be one thing that i want to do on the list. cross off each thing as it is done. most importantly, ensure that there is one thing on the list that you have already done and can be crossed off immediately. this inculcates a sense of achievement right from the beginning, and demonstrates that, even if you do nothing else today, you'll have still done something. this is the way i stay sane.
2/22/2002 07:52:32 PM #

 

my friday five 1. hey, baby, what's your sign? do you think it fits you pretty well? aries fits me loosely. I'm crap at leadership. i don't believe anyone ever does anything as well as i do so i hate being responsible for their mistakes. aries are also supposed to be arrogant, for which i might qualify... hate to be wrong, bad at compromise, often in a hurry, guilty to all of these. probably what's atypical is that i tend to associate more easily with my sign's bad points. creative, resilient, loyal, honest? 2. what's the worst birthday gift you've ever received? nothing spectacular. i just hate being given toiletries. i like what i like and i don't want nasty gift packs of other stuff that smells funny. yeuch. 3. what's the best birthday gift you've ever received? my cat tabitha when i was eleven. 4. what's the best way you've celebrated your birthday thus far? i like my 21st when i was housesitting. i had a mad old mansion in cambridge in which i had an extremely alcoholic party. i'd had all my hair cut short that morning and no one recognised me. i also like the year before last b took me to hay on wye, a town with thirty-odd second hand bookshops. that was a dream. 5. what are your plans for this weekend? saturday night we're going to see the houserockers a rockabilly kind of band who are playing in the windsor castle, our local. anyone else in london n2 should come. i have four days til payday--i have no money--i need retail therapy too, so i guess i'll be flexing my credit card a little.
2/22/2002 11:35:42 AM #

 

the song that is stuck in my head today is the execrable more than a woman by victoria beckham. i'm sure that no one has missed the irony of this title from the woman who is famous for being rather a lot less than most of her gender in both the between the ears and the curves departments.
2/21/2002 12:35:12 AM #

 

i heart my knitting. i only started at eight oclock tonight and i have almost finished the back already. big needles and fat wool are the way forward.
2/20/2002 11:55:20 PM #

 

linuxkitty discovers how to cure depression.
2/20/2002 04:03:03 PM #

 

i have finally started the links that i was supposed to do. this is majorly under construction. it's missing bunches of stuff for one and also my css bores even me. but hey it's there. special mention once again for mizdos. if brandy doesn't win the most redesigned category in next year's antibloggies, you'll know i forgot to nominate her. i christen this design after a saying said by my friend lyn's friend anne: life's too short to dust a pile of ironing.
2/20/2002 02:51:07 PM #

 

when there is synchronicity between url and irl, i feel i have to take notice of it. the very day that brandy posted about knitting, jill was talking about it too. accepting the fact that i am turning into, well no not my mother but one of her close relatives, i ordered wool and pattern from here and less then a week later it has arrived. i feel very excited about this. if nothing else, it's going to be a wonderful excuse to buy stuff off ebay.
2/20/2002 12:31:05 PM #

 

via kottke. mit has a vacancy for a nuclear reactor operator. the thing that scares me about this is that they're only going to pay them $15k. that's dollars.
2/20/2002 11:34:50 AM #

 

now tell me something. when blogger isn't working right, why do i think that clicking the publish button more forcefully with my mouse, and holding it down for a couple of seconds instead of just clicking it, is going to make it more likely to work.
2/18/2002 11:49:31 PM #

 

memo to self. when you're having your quarter-life crisis which seems to be going on for a while now and feeling as though you've achieved nothing of the brilliance you once took for granted would be your lot, remember that when you were very small, you had one ambition. i am the product...of endless books. there were books in the study, books in the drawing room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds reflecting every transient stage of my parents' interest, books readable and unreadable, books suitable for a child and books emphatically not. nothing was forbidden me. [c.s.lewis] i wanted a house like that. now i have one.
2/18/2002 11:37:50 PM #

 

i can't wait to see foot-powered laptops. fat blokes in suits pumping away to make their mobiles work. even better than when they all got motorised scooters last year. via slashdot.
2/18/2002 11:15:30 PM #

 

today i did something i've never done in almost-thirty years of reading books. i dogeared a corner to mark my place. surprise, the world didn't end. the library police did not arrest me. my mother hasn't called. yet. let me explain. in the red corner. the poster in broomhill children's library in sheffield. more scary than moses' tablets. i shalt not lay a book face down. i shalt not write on a book. i shalt not not not dogear pages. in the blue corner. i carry paperbacks around with me in my huge bag that's filled with other kinds of rubbish. i'm not a purist about them. i like them to look battered and a little grubby, like a woman who's been kissed so her lipstick is smudged, you can see they've been treated with love. why would i use a bookmark when a it's going to fall out of the book in my bag, b i'm going to lose the bookmark while i'm reading the book and c i've already dogeared half the pages just by carrying the book with me anyway. so i did it. i turned the corner of the page over. i did the thing that makes sense, not as i was told. another sacred cow gone.
2/18/2002 07:56:25 PM #

 

when the limitations of bush's vocabulary start causing currency fluctuations, i can't help thinking the whole thing's gone beyond a joke.
2/18/2002 01:36:55 PM #

 

this is cool. spinach is tastier and nutritionally superior to lettuce.
2/17/2002 10:43:11 AM #

 

if anyone can tell me how to stop explorer adding a file called links to my favourites, i will be very happy. they're bookmarks for goodness' sake. what would they be except links? sheesh no i don't want photoshop in program files, i think i'll put it in favourites. i'm installing xp this afternoon. b already did it on his pc. i'm scared. what if it eats my stuff.
2/16/2002 10:54:06 AM #

 

i dreamed i went to hogwarts. and was having an affair with severus snape. severus snape was still alan rickman. that's alright then.
2/16/2002 10:09:15 AM #

 

how did the guardian know what i have in my cd collection? i own a frighteningly high proportion of these. though they seem to have missed badly drawn boy. via blogdex. i heart dave. if you haven't seen this yet then you are five minutes behind me. this would so be an improvement on having to eat macdonalds food.
2/15/2002 04:01:31 PM #

 

and now, the real thing. 1. what was the first thing you ever cooked? buns i expect. or scones. some cake thing. i've been cooking longer than i can remember. my mother believes that girls should know that kind of thing. 2. what's your signature dish? hmm. vegetarian moussaka possibly if i'm cooking for b. or big gloopy pasta things. mum loves those i think because i use more herbs than she ever does, so if i'm cooking for my parents i make that. if it's anyone else, i'm probably showing off so it could be anything. 3. ever had a cooking disaster? (tasted like crap, didn't work, etc.) describe. yes. i once made the most hideous indian meal ever for abi and nick at college. i don't know why they were too polite to say anything. 4. if skill and money were no object, what would make for your dream meal? i'm quite adventurous and also profligate in my ingredient-buying, so the first half of the question doesn't apply. my dream meal is something i've never cooked before that turns out to be delicious. that b says he wants again without being asked. it probably involves a lot of garlic though. 5. what are you doing this weekend? after writing that lot, i'm cooking thai.
2/15/2002 03:17:12 PM #

 

this is so funny. requires flash. via here with its lovely new design. now i'm worried about chris. there was meant to be a new stylesheet for his page every day this month. since 11th there has not been. it's horrible to say i hope he ran out of ideas. but it's better than the alternatives. sometimes i would say that running out of ideas is the worst thing that could happen to anybody. but i'd be posturing when i did so.
2/15/2002 10:07:51 AM #

 

i can't bear it. i need questions. i'm going to make my own. 1. are you lonesome tonight? nope. i'm going to the pub with b and then getting food delivered while we watch lock stock and two smoking barrels again. 2. who put the bop in the bop-she-wop-she-wop? the bop-she-wop-she-wop was a collaborative project between morrissey from the smiths, leonard cohen and radiohead. 3. why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? because i have bird's nest hair today. 4. why does it always rain on me? because i always forget my umbrella. 5. d'you know what i mean? haven't a clue, mate.
2/15/2002 09:22:38 AM #

 

there is no friday five. my plans to be top or at least top hundred are foiled again. i feel that i should include some content for the numerous people who land up here looking for suzie kim. unfortunately i don't know who she is. do they mean the nursing professor from the university of rhode island or the scouts merit badge counsellor? or possibly some porn person who doesn't show up on google.
2/15/2002 08:33:23 AM #

 

the song that is stuck in my head today is called three jolly huntsmen. according to me. according to fortean times which inspired the stickage and google it's three jovial welshmen. leads me to this and this. but i still can't find the verse i'm sure i remember: and all night they hunted and nothing they did find but two lovers in the lane and those they left behind. one said they were two lovers, one said nay, one said they were two lunatics, their clothes blown away. happy valentine's day.
2/14/2002 12:01:16 AM #

 

a culinary issue. don't tell americans they're fat. via evhead. i like chips. i like chocolate. i do not want these. i do not like them, sam i am. i don't fancy a glass of this either. i told myself i wasn't going to blog about weightwatchers. it's too boring. but i did just want to say i now have only two pounds to go to my goal. this is very pleasing indeed. also kind of scary, when b goes out with his brother and i can have whatever i like for dinner just for me... and what i have is spinach. mmm. wonderful spinach. and carrots. that is really really sad. i am torn between a twenty-something belief that this is just to lose two pounds and then i can order a pizza. and a thirty-something hope that i have changed my ways so drastically that i will never order a pizza again. there is no nutritional value in pizzas. they are bad bad bad. people in hell eat pizzas. shame they're so damn nice then.
2/13/2002 08:22:48 PM #

 

on the basis that half the films with oscar nominations have not yet been released in the united kingdom, i would like to nominate myself for next year's bloggies for the well-designed and erudite work i'm going to do in 2004.
2/12/2002 05:06:53 PM #

 

if they made ketchup, would it be open sauce?
2/12/2002 09:29:58 AM #

 

quick! go check out brandy's anti-valentine's design. this is so cool. however, i suspect the queen of redesign is not going to leave it there long. the only person who redesigns more often is chris; this one is pretty sexy, but there's something about this one too. i still hate horizontal scrolling. but that's okay, jakob nielsen says i don't have to like it. i see wasp has a tantalising new front page up. relieved to see they're not giving up altogether. the song that is stuck in my head today was going to be the final countdown by, uh, which hairy rock band was it, europe. however, thanks to the episode of the simpsons which is on in the background, it's now bringing in the sheaves as sung by todd flanders. great.
2/11/2002 07:42:58 PM #

 

amazon amaze me. i look and look for half-remembered but well-loved books from my childhood and then suddenly they appear in the catalogue.
2/10/2002 09:45:29 PM #

 

princess margaret's death has brought the predictable bout of comment. i have to admit that it's made me feel more sympathetic than usual towards the royal family. so much of the retrospective of margaret's life has simply listed her losses and lacks: prevented from marrying the man she loved, sneered at in the press for acting like a normal person, prevented (apparently) from exploring the catholicism that fascinated her latterly because of who she was. and now gods help us a posterchild for the anti-smoking movement. and it's made me think that monarchy is a waste as i always suspected. but not only a waste of taxpayers' money, and of respect and honour which would be better given to those who have earned it. a waste too of the life of an intelligent woman who could have been so much more and done so much more if it were not for her birth. born into a position which lost its relevence about three centuries ago and never had any relevence for a woman anyway. we stopped needing minor royalty when we found other ways to govern the provinces and lead the army. should we keep them on to patronise charities and fill the tabloids? margaret seemed to spend most of her life trying to find more purpose than that. sad.
2/10/2002 10:38:41 AM #

 

good stuff via this reliable source of stuff. chinese city pile up. if you don't like your school uniform, become a satanist. we made pancakes, as people with jobs can't observe shrove tuesday at the appointed moment. these were the savory kind, made into a kind of tower with sauce of mushrooms, onion, garlic, spinach, creme fraiche, cheese and lots of black pepper. mmm. i'm so full i think i'm going to puke.
2/9/2002 10:21:18 PM #

 

i want a monkey too daddy!
2/9/2002 04:34:25 PM #

 

after these messages. no one but me will have noticed that the link colours on the books pages have changed. no one but me will care, but i care enough for all of us. bob from visibone invented the colour reference chart that made this painless.
2/9/2002 11:43:34 AM #

 

james lileks has a lot to be responsible for. i found a t-shirt with an art frahm picture on it today for sale in chiswick and it was thirty nine quid. stupid celery meme.
2/8/2002 06:40:05 PM #

 

my friday five. 1. what's the most romantic thing you've ever done for someone else? i sent someone a single red rose once. she cried. i don't do romance, normally. 2. what are your erogenous zones? apart from the usual, there's the bit by my right hip that makes me jump in the air. and my neck, big time. 3. how old were you the first time you had sex? care to expound? i was 15 and drunk. that's as much information as any of us need. 4. what's the most unusual place you've ever had sex? on a psychiatrist's couch (not with the psychiatrist). on a train. in a wood. in a field. in a doorway (in the middle of the night). 5. do you have plans for valentine's day or is it just another thursday? no plans yet. b, if you're reading this, dinner would be nice.
2/8/2002 02:45:50 PM #

 

wow you can find just bout anythang on that ol internet. including why plucking my eyebrows makes me sneeze.
2/7/2002 11:08:35 PM #

 

yes yes yes. joe takes a stand against pop-unders. hubloodyrah.
2/7/2002 10:35:38 PM #

 

when aids happened in the 80s, my church told me it was god's judgement on homosexuality and promiscuity. it seems from this that the idea is still current. not that i was thinking of going back anyway.
2/7/2002 07:17:00 PM #

 

the song that is stuck in my head today has been there all week and is a very annoying version of addicted to love that keeps seguing into like a virgin. there is probably something deeply freudian in this.
2/7/2002 05:07:46 PM #

 

browser features i would pay money for. how now you can right-click in ie and open link in new window? i want an option to open in the same window, even if fuckwit webperson has done the target _blank evil.
2/6/2002 10:27:10 PM #

 

suckers.
2/6/2002 10:05:10 PM #

 

ooh i just discovered another thing that i hate about netscape 6. if an image isn't showing, rather than putting up a red x or whatever, it just leaves a space.
2/6/2002 06:16:38 PM #

 

the problem with america is that it worships a carpenter. via lance who frequently makes me wish i were a single gay male.
2/6/2002 05:09:53 PM #

 

tantalising. so, donna tartt's new novel is, er, a novel, is it, random house? thanks for the overwhelming information. want it want it want it now!
2/6/2002 12:47:39 PM #

 

mmm. i have a day off work. i'm sitting at home drinking coffee at eleven-twenty in the morning and wondering exactly what to do with this little piece of freedom i have. i'm not going to do any of the things i ought to do. like get my hair cut. or sort the laundry. maybe i'll get grimoire written up for the books page. maybe i'll go see gosford park, though as this will involve me putting on clothes and getting off my arse, it's unlikely. on the other hand there is something attractive about getting a day of work and spending it in the cinema on my own. i could have nachos and ice cream and no one would know.
2/6/2002 11:30:46 AM #

 

often quizzes are a waste of time. then one comes along that gives me just the answer i would have chosen. you're t'pol. you are very analytical and logical, as any good vulcan is, but this makes you stick out like a sore thumb. you're cold and calculated, but there's a softer side to you that you tend to keep under wraps. take the enterprise quiz! brought to you by redanubis
2/4/2002 10:43:53 PM #

 

i just installed this as recommended by kottke. google and dictionary.com right from my browser. can the world get any more convenient than this.
2/4/2002 10:38:52 PM #

 

monsters inc. go. find a child to take if you must, but go see it anyway.
2/4/2002 12:08:30 AM #

 

d j taylor seems to have missed the point rather with these observations on the top library authors. what libraries lend most of is nothing to do with the literary tastes of their users, but is controlled by the pathetic state of their budgets. i am sure that if they were organised like blockbuster and could own multiple duplicates of this month's top sellers, the list would look very different. the simple fact is that they cannot afford to replace the thirty year old novels that constitute the majority of their stock. this has two implications. firstly that people who want to read the new pratchett, rowling or pullman buy it or borrow it from a friend. their chances of borrowing the library's single copy are nil so they don't bother to try. and secondly that the old books look to be continually popular because they are the only books which can be borrowed. we have no chance to see if helen fielding would do well with borrowers because the single copy owned by any one library cannot make any impact against the sheer numbers of their outdated stock. this means of course that lists like today's one fail to address the total alienation of the majority of the population from the library system and so collude with the continued underfunding it receives. and they wonder why literacy rates are falling.
2/2/2002 05:23:16 PM #

 

if you're still watching buffy, this is very funny tho not as laughable as some of the plotlines recently.
2/1/2002 10:52:59 AM #

 

my friday five 1. have you ever had braces? any other teeth trauma? yep, I had braces for two years age 9-11. they were horrible. 2. ever broken any bones? nope, not a one. 3. ever had stitches? i had three on my left cheek when i was two, when our dog bit me. i was trying to hug him. he didn't like children. fortunately it hasn't made me scared of dogs and the scar itself just looks like a dimple. 4. what are the stories behind some of your [physical] scars? see above. i have a small half-moon scar on the bottom knuckle of the index finger on my right hand where i broke a glass while washing it. my first thought on pulling my hand out of the water with a fountain of blood coming out of it was what if i can't type any more? then somerset made me drink sweet tea which i hate but probably stopped me fainting. 5. how do you plan to spend your weekend? i can hardly believe this but my cold's back. so i'm going to spend it in bed with lots of coffee and toast and books.
2/1/2002 10:27:29 AM #

 

apparently all that spam about schoolgirl porn is for real.
2/1/2002 09:02:55 AM #

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