web-goddess

Feeling it was time for a little ego-boost, I just took this Typing Speed Test. I did it three times and got 86, 94, and 93 wpm. Didn’t have any errors, mostly because as soon as I make them I back up and correct them. It’s an ingrained habit. I suck at sports, but I rule at typing. Yeah, baby! (Link courtesy of Fresh-Hell.)

New Poll: In honor of the argument I’ve been having with my friend Kelly for the past half hour, the new poll asks which band is better, R.E.M. or U2? (I think you know which I voted for.) I look at this sorta like the Beatles/Elvis theory that got cut from “Pulp Fiction.” It’s impossible to like them both the same amount, so you gotta pick one that you like more. Which is it gonna be? And be sure to leave your comments so the argument can continue.
 
Results from the old poll: Oddly enough, it spread out in a reverse bell curve, meaning that most people either read no weblogs each day or else tons of blogs. At least I’m not alone in my obsession.

Hey, Steve – great idea! Now why don’t you open one in London? Pretty please? I’m tired of going to the Virgin Megastore and finding a measly eight Mac games crammed in the corner next to five hundred PC titles.

Okay, so for a while now I’ve been trying to discover the name of a TV show I used to watch back in the 80’s. It was about a kid and somebody else that travelled through time fixing things (sorta like “Quantam Leap”, but with famous historical incidents). In particular, I remember an episode where Thomas Edison was having trouble inventing the lightbulb because all the different materials he tried for filaments kept burning through. In the end they discovered that a thread from the kid’s shirt did the trick (which is of course completely wrong, given that the kid probably wasn’t wearing a shirt of tungsten, but I wasn’t the type of viewer to question). Anyway, what’s the point of this?

So Bill from Mermaniac left me a comment today and I went to check out his site (which, by the way, is very cool). I started digging in his archives, and lo and behold I found a post about that very show! It was called “Voyagers!” and it only ran for a season. This site and this site have information for other nostalgic viewers.

And by the way, thanks Bill. I feel like a splinter has been removed from my brain.

Still listening to “Reveal.” I think now that I like “I’ve Been High” best of all. When I first heard it, it just sorta went on in the background and I didn’t feel strongly about it either way. The more I hear it though, the happier it makes me. It’s a quiet song, but I think it should be played loudly. It just gets better and better as it goes on… and by the time you reach the ending, you feel physically uplifted. What a great feeling.

Britney is going to star in a video game. Which is cool and all, but the press release goes on to mention that she’ll be joining “the ranks of Michael Jackson, the Spice Girls, Kiss and Aerosmith, each of whom have featured in computer games”. Can anyone name any of the games these people were “featured” in? I thought not.

The Art of the Mix is a site that immediately made me think of Max. It’s devoted to the art of making mix tapes and hosts an archive of over 9,000 mixes made by music lovers around the world. I haven’t made a mix tape in ages. I could never get the technical aspects of it right. My tapes would always be punctuated by loud “KER-CHUNK KER-CHUNK” noises between songs.

A recent discussion on the Mac couch:

Snookums: haha. It would be a bit hard on your arse

Me: Somebody commented that it would look sweet with Happy/Sad pillows like the Mac startup screen.

Snookums: now, if they were all up and running it might be better — then it would be warm and have a pleasant vibrating effect

Looks like this idea occurred to John too. Great minds think alike.

I found it! TIME Magazine was the culprit. In the very last paragraph of this story, he mentions that he’s been living with a man for three years and that he now describes himself as a “queer artist.”
 
I’m not as upset as I was. TIME’s story isn’t called “Michael Stipe is GAY!”, and the admission doesn’t seem to have been dropped as a bombshell. So it’s not as exploitative and promotional as I thought. I guess he just wanted to try and slip it in there under the radar. Good for him. I’m gonna stop talking about it now, because it isn’t anybody’s business but his.
 
(Although I will snarkily remark that this makes yet another similarity between Stipey and my ex.)

R.E.M. Wierdness: This is so odd. Last night Nick tried to tell me that Michael Stipe came out and announced he was gay. He claims he heard it on the radio. I scoffed and told him that he shouldn’t believe it, because people have been questioning Stipe’s sexuality for years and he’s always said that he felt it was his own private business. And besides, I said, everybody knows that radio stations get all their news from the Internet anyway, so who are ya gonna believe?
 
The weirdness, though, is that this morning Snookums reported hearing this rumor on “This Morning with Richard and Judy”, the UK’s most popular breakfast show. So what’s going on? He didn’t, did he? I mean, timing it to the release of his new album (“Reveal”) is just a tad too promotional for my tastes. I’ve been trying to find confirmation on any news sites (I know, I know – a bit hypocritical given my statement to Nick) and I can’t find it anywhere. Rolling Stone‘s got nothin’, and R.E.M.’s site is mum as well. Have you heard? Can you point me to a concrete source?