Jakob predicts that web services will spell the end of homemade websites. Though he misses the obvious huge example, I think he’s probably right to an extent. But on every project, you have to guage the importance of the requirements and whether spooging those into a pre-built solution is acceptable. For example, I use PicoSearch for search functionality on my Dahl site. It’s not ideal, but it’s not enough of a priority for me to expend the time and energy to write something myself. But for both RDF and w-g, I decided that I needed to write my own database-driven blogging system. Blogger isn’t always reliable and I wanted something that I could have more control over. So while I think web services are going to lower the barrier to getting online for a lot of people, I don’t think they’re going to completely negate the need for people who know how to create custom solutions. The longer you’re online, the more you want to create a unique place just for you.

London’s new open-air public urinals have finally been unveiled. Here’s what gets me about this: women don’t pee all over doorways and walls. Why the hell do men have to do it? We actually have to cater to Neanderthals who think that just because they can piss standing up, they should be allowed to do it anywhere? No! No, I say. Get rid of the urinals and start ticketing the bastards. Post their pictures on websites that state “I am not toilet trained.” Create a database so women can look up their dates and find out of they’re a public pee-er. Electrify doorways known to attract these fools so they learn to hold it. Why the hell can’t you learn to go before you leave the pub, like any normal female?

Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf got hitched. Aww, that’s sweet. And they’re expecting a kid! I wonder if it’ll feel pressured to play tennis.

Ebert tells the newspapers how it oughta be. Good for him.

Spike quit smoking. Well, James Marsters did anyway. I kinda hope they don’t make the character quit, though. It’s bad enough that they made him all nice now; at least let us watch him smoke and imagine that he’s still a badass. And hello? He sings? B, we are so there. (Link courtesy of Fresh Hell.)

I’m refreshingly naïve. That article would be even funnier if I didn’t resemble it so much.

Max pointed me to the truth about Corey Haim, who I adored so much as an adolescent that I even once considered buying a “Big Bopper” magazine just to get his poster. I ask you, out of all the stars in License to Drive, how is it that Heather Graham has become the biggest star? Oh yeah, she’s a hoochie-mama.

South American fire ants are spreading through Australia, causing irreparable crop and environmental destruction. Just what I wanna hear while I’m planning to migrate. Has anybody else read a story called “Leiniken and the Ants”? I seem to remember reading it in high school about a guy who tries to defend his plantation from these things and ends up getting killed. I can’t seem to find any references to it on the Net though. Maybe I’m spelling it wrong…

Depressing. I just did a quick count on my Last Searches page and determined that out of the last 100 Google searches that led to this site, 82* of them were of a pornographic nature. 82%, folks. Is that what the Internet is all about? Ugh. I feel dirty. Time to shut down for the night, methinks.

* You might count them differently. I included any search that mentioned “Lolita” in a non-academic context in the count, as well as any search mentioning one of the Hilton sisters. (In my experience, every search related to them is sex-related.) I didn’t, however, count the people looking for dodgy software cracks, which is just as disgusting in a different sort of way. And I didn’t count several vague searches for “goddess”, although the original intent of those searchers is open for debate. So really I could’ve said that, like, 90% of the searches I get are of a prurient or immoral nature. Great.

Heh. Here’s that auction my Dad wanted me to try to win for him. Sorry, Pops. I’m afraid your dream of watching MJ with Spike will have to go unfulfilled. It’s up to a hundred grand now, and though my severance package was pretty phat, it wasn’t that phat.