web-goddess

Month: April 2001

  • Courting the Catholics

    Let’s see, on Monday Metafilter wondered if George Bush’s new strategy is to “court the Catholics.” I’d say the signs are good… On Wednesday Notre Dame announced that Bush is going to be this year’s commencement speaker. Ugh.

  • The infamous coffee burns case

    Steve points to an interesting page full of the real facts about the famous McDonald’s spilled coffee case. I always thought it was a frivolous lawsuit, but hearing that a 79-year-old woman had to have skin grafts on 6% of her body changes things a bit.

  • Foot-and-mouth

    Oh good Lord. As an experiment, two journalists from the Guardian walked around London asking American tourists about foot-and-mouth disease. Unfortunately we Yanks pretty much lived up to all the stereotypes. These people were idiots (“Is that the one where you have to burn your shoes?”), with the notable exception of one 13-year-old kid.

  • Hello Kiwis!

    I just found something else cool on Quadra – a site where you input your location and it tells you where you’d come out if you dug a hole straight through the Earth. From London, I wind up in the Pacific just off the coast of New Zealand.

  • Cats

    Did I mention we’re thinking of getting a cat? Because we are. I just came across what must be the biggest innovation in feline-human interaction ever: a computerised cat door that will only let the kitty in if she’s not holding something in her mouth. How cool is that?

  • The Wind Done Gone

    Toni Morrison’s come out in support of that Gone With the Wind parody I mentioned before. Apparently so have Harper Lee and Pat Conroy. Is Harper Lee still alive? I didn’t know that. And wasn’t “To Kill a Mockingbird” her only novel? Wow.

    Edited 18/04/2025: Link is dead and not archived.

  • David Moats essays

    I just finished reading all ten Pulitzer Prize-winning essays by David Moats of the Rutland Herald newspaper in Vermont. Mr. Moats wrote about the landmark Supreme Court ruling that led to the institution of civil unions for gay couples. It was the first Pulitzer for a Vermont paper in history. I highly recommend them.

  • Polls

    If you downloaded my Simple Poll System to try out at your own site, you should know that I just fixed a bug that cropped up when you tried to view the results before anyone had voted. Re-download the source files and just replace “pollresults.php” if you need to.

  • New Poll

    In honor of my lunch today, a new poll has been started. Please take two seconds to give me your views on the gift from the gods that is hummus.

    Results from the old poll: Well, apparently you guys didn’t notice much of a change in the site. By “new design”, I was referring to the now full-screen page width and the row of colored boxes down the left side of the page. As Snookums pointed out though, these aren’t big changes and only design-obsessed geeks like me would even notice. I was basically doing the cyber-equivalent of “Do you notice anything differently about me?”, and you guys were giving me the stammering boyfriend “Uh, no?” act. Point taken.

  • Harry!

    Download Prince Harry Desktop Wallpaper! My friend Liz always did prefer Harry to Wills, because she liked the fact that he looked awkward and not quite so smart, which she thought would make him a little bit more fun. I’m not sure about that, but he does look better now that he’s hit puberty. (Link courtesy of NIMISIS, which has been promoted to my weblogs list.)