Everything Old Is New Again

Unless, like The Gweilo Diaries, it's dead.

Old and in the end rather trivial news, but news to me. I only discovered it today while doing some catch-up blogsurfing. It seemed unreal. When I started blogging not-so-very-long-ago, I only knew of three blogs: Neil Gaiman's, because he's a comic-writing, book-blogging love god, Adri's, because she was my host, and Conrad's, because he was Adri's first ticket to the big(gish) time. Boing Boing—what's that? Instapundit—lame name; is he for real? And so on.

I wish I could say I'll miss The Gweilo Diaries, but really I just think it would be a small nice thing if it was still around; the truth is I rarely if ever read it, and then only for offbeat news for me to link to (e.g. dog rape). I didn't grok the biggest part of the blog, that is being pages and pages of mostly-Asian current affairs commentary interspersed with boobies half the mass of their owners (which didn't actually mean they were particularly big). Of course, it's exactly that mix which made Conrad such an institution of Asian blogging—people came for the political rants, but they stayed for the boobies. Or, erm, something like that. Gweilo Diaries taught me the fine art of selective blogreading. Read: how to keep the blogrolled peace by linking only to the things one agrees with or which are innocuous enough to disagree on, and ensuring the fuck stays up-shut regarding the rest.

Until next time, Conrad. In the spirit of selective blogreading, I'll remember you as an island of intelligence in a sea of idiots, and for knowing more than me about issues I feel bad for not giving a shit about. Cheers.

-

That aside, not much seems to have changed in my (bizarrely composed, now that I think of it) blogroll. Adri went on forty-seven hiatuses in the time I take to have a nap, and returned to a million welcome-backs inside an hour. Simon World is Simon World, except its layout which seems to have pulled a Talented Mr Ripley. Mumpsimus has gone from strength to pwnage, except that last post and accompanying story, both certifiably free of pwn—forgive. David Fiore natters on about comics and I'm happy to listen. The list goes on (though the blogroll is diminished—I'm lazy and besides, I never liked some people that much anyway*).


*Not you, of course! I love you.

Just heard

Over my shoulder (I'm sitting in the school information resource center, i.e. computer lab):

Other clerk: What're you reading?

Me: Reviews.

Other clerk: Oh, DVDs ah?

Me: No, reviews of books.

Other clerk: (in stricken tones) Books? OH MY GOD. You're crazy.

Which is a step up from another exchange I had when I was at division:

Other other clerk: What're you reading?

Me: A book of essays.

Other other clerk: You mean a storybook?

Me: No, it's non-fiction.

Other other clerk: You mean. . . a textbook?

-

Here's the review I was reading, by the by, and a deliciously cruel one it is, too—

[T]here is a disproportion between the failures of this Con and VanderMeer's rather self-congratulatory outrage. Michael Moorcock is supposed to be on a panel; but he arrives late, and takes the microphone only to say he's not joining the discussion (speaking, VanderMeer tells us, "in his reedy British accent". Which of those two adjectives is intended as the more damning, I wonder?). VanderMeer rails at him like Dean Swift after a bad batch of blue smarties ("shriveled cock ... premature ejaculation") but the reader only wonders what precisely the Big Deal is. The climax of the piece concerns Harlan Ellison telling a story about how he sent a dead gopher through the mail because a publisher had reneged on a contract for a book called Alone Against Tomorrow. VanderMeer lengthily relates that Ellison had told the same story at a previous Con about a completely different book, and moreover that he, VanderMeer, has "audiotape evidence confirming" the deception.

I know what you're thinking. It is hard to believe that such iniquity can exist in the world. Why is Ellison still walking freely about God's clean Earth? Under the American justice system, famous throughout the world, he should surely have been locked away long ago.

Thanks to the victim himself for the link, though it's an old one.

Now It's On. . . Again

Hello, world.

I'm back—sans readership, sans insensitive title, sans (for the moment) spam, thank god. Many thanks to Patrick for the name of this blog; he used to have an (inactive) group blog here, but generously passed it on to me.

Cry havoc! Let the bitching begin! Mothers, lock up your daughters! (They frighten me!)