web-goddess

This is it, folks. Boudicca (my lovely iMac) is leaving me to find a new home with my friend Kingsley. Not only that, but the Snook’s computers will be packed up for the shippers tomorrow. As a result I shall be without access to the Internet until we fly home next week and I can pick up my new iBook. A frightening proposition, isn’t it? I haven’t gone cold turkey on the Internet in seven years. Wish me luck, and I’ll see you next week.

Would you pay a penny per page to visit this site? No, I’m not contemplating a new revenue model. This scheme is supposed to be the great solution to getting compensation on the web. The ensuing Slashdot discussion points out some of the big problems. What exactly constitutes a page? Would I get charged every time I refresh? Wouldn’t this result in sites breaking down content even further to spread it out over the most pages possible? Additionally, I’ve gotta wonder how well this approach would translate internationally. I’m moving to Australia but my own websites are hosted in the U.S. One U.S. cent is probably going to constitute a larger portion of my income there than it would in the States. I imagine it would be even worse in developing nations. So is this really the best solution for making the Web globally effective, by setting up an economic barrier to those who might benefit from it the most? What about students and teachers? Most of my Dahl site visitors log in from schools or libraries. Should they have to pay per page too? I’m not gonna lie to you; I like the idea of being able to make a living off my hobbies. But as a surfer myself, I can’t believe this is the best step forward.

Hooray! The next Star Wars film is opening on May 16th in Australia! (That’s the same day as in the U.S.!) Here’s the full schedule…

Salon interviews the man who invented the Pill. Pretty interesting, especially the bit about why there won’t be a male contraceptive pill anytime soon. The guy also has a pretty radical stance about voluntary vasectomies. Huh.

Max points to an interesting article on how to write a college admissions essay. My school gave you a list of topics from which you had to choose, but most of them were boring “Read this Maya Angelou book and tell us how it affected you” type crap. I went for the “Write about your hero” option. So who was my hero? See if you can guess. I wrote about her love for her family (even though she fought with her sister a lot), her spunk and imagination (especially that time she squeezed all the toothpaste into the sink), her unconventionality (and the way she’d pull perfect Susan’s boing-boing curls), and her sensitivity and courage (like when the girls had to bury Picky-Picky). So who was it?

It’s only the second day, and Peter Buck’s air rage trial has collapsed. The judge has dismissed the jury for some reason. The whole thing is like a circus. Why in the world would a stewardess serve someone fifteen glasses of wine in three hours? I don’t care how famous they are; that’s just ridiculous.

I know I’ve been slacking off on the posting. It’s insane though. We leave in one week. We’re not packed. Boudicca (my computer) is leaving on Thursday. The shippers are coming on Friday. Our oven heating element is broken. My sister leaves in four days. Flying right now seems kinda scary. We still don’t have anyone to take the double room in the house. It sucks.

Are you a Pom? (For you Yanks, a Pom is an Aussie slang term for a British person.) I scored a sixteen, which puts me worryingly close to being one. Hopefully I’ll be able to rectify that in the near future. (Link courtesy of Kristen.)

I’m a magnet for assholes. Yes, truly. I discovered this tonight at the Paul Kelly concert in Shepherd’s Bush. Paul Kelly is a famous Australian musician that Snookums and I like a lot. (He also resembles Principal Snyder from Buffy a great deal.) The show was great, but the audience members around us were not. In front we had a pair of tarts, both in “one-armed tit tops” (TM Meg). The one to the left was being chatted up by an obnoxious loser the entire night. They talked through the entire damn show, including both encores. It was the rudest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. At one point during a lull in a quieter song, I heard them discussing the merits of the Spice Girls. (And lest you think we were sitting in some obscure corner of the balcony, we weren’t. We were standing in the center of the stalls 30 feet from the bloody stage.) I spent ages trying to work up the courage and righteous anger to tell them off. Justice was served, however, when a tall man in front of them lifted his short flossie girlfriend up onto his shoulders, placing her ass right in the chatty tart’s face. My laughter was not quiet. Okay, enough ranting. It’s been a long day. The Harry Potter review will have to wait til the morn. Sleep tight, kids.

THAT WAS BLOODY BRILLIANT.
Yes, that’s me out in front of the Harry Potter poster at 8:15 this morning, half-asleep in my glasses. (Click on it to see the full-size version.) And yes, I did walk all the way through Hammersmith with that lightning bolt on my forehead. There were probably 30 people (mostly parents and kids) at the first showing, and I was the only one who came “in costume”. There was a slight emergency when the film stopped just as the Quidditch sequence was beginning, but they eventually got it sorted and it gave the kiddies a convenient bathroom break. EVERYBODY LOVED IT. I’ll write a more lengthy review later in the day (must sleep), but for now, my advice is to get on the phone and book your tickets for the first show possible. You won’t regret it.