euphoric goth ostrich

[devi]

Hasty life-update: On Friday accidentally went clubbing, that is, went to gig at the Zodiac which turned out to be a club that just happened to have an hour or so of live band. Rather good club too. Though at first, when I thought people were just doing the 'stand around and wait for the band' thing, was surprised by the random strangers attempting to hug me. Band were Goth As F*ck despite playing breaks and other dancey stuff, I mean, they were called Devil's Gun and their first track was called Raising The Beast and they had a waily girl singer for that 'touched by the hand of Ofra Haza' effect. They should totally play Whitby. Danced myself sober, wheeled my bike up Cowley Road with others who were walking home, ringing in the ears and pleasantly tired in the legs.

On Saturday there was a pub lunch at Iffley Lock where I fed ducks and geese and then there was a murder mystery on a boat in Africa (aka Jo's flat) with no actual murder in it but plenty of intrigue and treachery (undyingking, my compliments, wasn't it one of yours?). I was a journalist who was Not All She Seemed and my accent flopped comically from bad posh-English to bad mishmash-American all night. It still fascinates me how in games like these people can put on completely different selves. It's kind of liberating.

Other than that, I've mostly been sitting in the red room working a lot on the travel book. I don't even mean sitting for hours hitting Refresh on my friends page and trying to psych myself up to work, I mean really working, without having to force myself, up to ten hours a day, because I want to. Ten thousand more words in this last week, either written from scratch, from brief notes, or patched together from longhand journals. Editing, formatting, making breakout boxes with information in them, investigating that Amazon Affiliates thing, fiddling with the cover. Also putting together a website on which to pimp self, though this makes me a bit uncomfortable. (Here are my reviews! Here is everywhere I've been published, which isn't really very many places! Buy my book! Go on! Oh dear.) Spent today finding bits of PHP on code websites and bashing them till they do what my site needs them to do. Feeling burnt-out now and nursing glass of wine.

carbonunit sent me twenty quid by Paypal before Christmas when I was panicking about money. carbonunit is a lovely and generous person, and perhaps might like to know that his money has just covered most of the cost of my domain registration and webhosting for the coming year.

But I still haven't got a job. My CV is out there, I've had a couple of interviews recently with schools who say they'll phone me when they have work for me to do, I have lots of potential work in March and April, but no job-as-such yet. I worry that all this book stuff is just an especially interesting-looking bucket of sand for me to stick my ostrich head in. But I only worry for periods of about five minutes at a time and then I get an idea for something I can add to the text or the site and back goes my head in the bucket again. Yeah.

Whoops! I forgot the main point of this post!: I've been looking at author websites and general web-stuff for inspiration, but haven't found anything that's set my world on fire, and some of the really cool-looking blogs I used to read a few years ago have actually become much more boring. So. Plz recommend me a website that you saw recently and thought looked cool/interesting/unusual/"whoa-I've-never-seen-anything-like-that"/just nicely done? I won't poach their look wholesale. (I couldn't - my web design skills aren't up to it.) I'm just looking for ideas.

Comments

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

I remember the Zodiac. I went to see Saint Etienne there, about ten years ago, and very good they were too. It's a pretty vanilla place, as is entirely coloured by the nature of the players and crowd - they do have a very wide of entertainments there, as at various times I've come close to seeing both Stephen Fretwell and Courtney Pine there...

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean - I was surprised at the danciness of that gig as I've always thought of the Zodiac as the place Oxford people go for their fix of indie.

[mr-snips.livejournal.com]

Sounds to me more like you're building a cool sandcastle in the bucket than sticking your head in it:-)

As for websites, my favouritest ever author site is the Jasper Fforde one. This is because of the content rather than the style, though - I really liked the "DVD extras for your book" concept.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

You can't eat sand, though :)

But thanks for the tip. I'll check it out. Content is just as important as style. If not more so.

[thecesspit.livejournal.com]

I believe Death on the Gambia is by his partner in crime, Steve Hatherley, rather than UndyingKing.

But still hats off to 'em.

[mr-snips.livejournal.com]

You can't eat sand, though :)

I beg to differ. Though I've got to admit it doesn't look like he's enjoying it...

[evilrobotshane.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if the site is working right this minute, but this bloke put together this online computer game thing that's sort of fun for a little while to promote his book. And it succeeded in making me read the blurb for the book and think that I'd probably buy it second-hand or borrow it if I happened across it, which I guess means it failed too. http://www.nationstates.net/

Of course, that's harder to do with a travel journal. Frogger clone, as your miniature tourist dodges Beijing traffic?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

That's right, but I'm happy to share the credit ;-)

We're working on a revision atm, just updating it a bit -- it was our first game on sale (here btw, anyone reading who's intrigued ;-), and more recent ones are a bit smoother and nicer-looking.

[juliet]

ringing in the ears

I've been saying this to a lot of people recently: please get decent earplugs! http://www.widget.co.uk/asp/prodtype.asp?prodtype=111 - the ER20 at the bottom (worth getting the cord as well). They are *great* - don't make things muffled, just reduce the volume all over. kitty_goth resisted me nagging at him about them for months, saying that it would spoil gigs for him, then finally cracked just before Xmas. First gig he went to, after about 10 min he said "I'm not sure about this, I'll take them out," did so, went "AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" & whacked them straight back in again (discovering in the process that his initial discomfort was because he'd put them in wrong). He is now a total convert & enjoying the lack-of-ringing :-)

(I used to know someone on a mailing list who'd given themselves tinnitus from too much loud music - to the extent that at the age of 25 they could no longer attend gigs/clubs at *all*. This scared the shit out of me.

In other news: before Xmas I offered to send you some big brown envelopes & a sheet of stamps - do you still need these? And if so, cd you let me know your address? (I think the comment requesting such got lost in the Great LJ Comment Losing).

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I actually am already a convert to earplugs after trying it during the Diamanda Galas gig at ATP and finding that when I pulled them out I was in actual pain until I put them back in. I just haven't managed to get a decent pair yet. So cheers for the link!

I'll mail you my address. And yes, thank you, I do. I've not done much official submitting in the last month or so as have been working mostly on this thing, but soon I'll be starting up again...

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I do have various plans of webtoys and games and things to bring people to the site. I like the Frogger idea, though.

I didn't think the Nation States game was that relevant to what the book was about, mind.

[dr-f-dellamorte.livejournal.com]

Goth breaks?

I think I see an opening in the market! ~wrings hands~

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Actually, Love Requiem would fit into that opening just fine :)

(Though it's got a sense of humour, which can't be said for an awful lot of goth)

[dr-f-dellamorte.livejournal.com]

NOVELTY goth breaks.

Faaaabulous!

[dr-f-dellamorte.livejournal.com]

PS remind me to send you a CD when we finish the new batch!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I didn't say the N-word! Do you see me saying the N-word? *runs away from the N-word*

[dr-f-dellamorte.livejournal.com]

Heheheh!!! I fear not the N word...Have you heard our ' 70's Night'? :)

[mooism.livejournal.com]

Linky link link link (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/bathingape).

A List Apart covers practical and theoretical issues related to making and maintaining websites. Their visual presentation conveys a sense of how they want to be thought of, and the articles generally back this up. The linked article talks about the difference between design and style.

[carbonunit.livejournal.com]

Neat! Although I thought you'd spent the dosh on that 25 quid bicycle you bought immediately afterwards.

My favourite authors site is Greg Egan, but it's pretty intense. He's a highly qualified java programmer and he illustrates all the science in his rock hard SF novels with applets which demonstrate concepts like quantum entanglement and 5 dimensional geometry. Pretty, but I still don't really understand them.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

The bike has saved me a heck of a lot of money in the last couple of months, but I hope the webhosting will be just as worthwhile an investment :)

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Yes please! And no, I didn't get the old one either and would like to.

Heck, I should just put my address up on LJ, though at this time of year it looks like cynical solicitation of valentine's messages.

[dr-f-dellamorte.livejournal.com]

Hahahah!!! NEVER put your address on the internet. Because then INTERNET PEOPLE will only contact you.

Mail me!