Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Tsunamis, Amazon, and an otter awoken

Now I don't want to kill any cats [not yet, anyway], but as regular readers of this blog-on-hiatus should know, it takes rather a lot to make me post something here. This is not because I don't have something to say, but rather because I'm always worried that if I do so I'd miss out doing something more important. I just can't justify it, and that makes me feel guilty. Boo hoo, indeed. Screw that. I've just noticed that amazon.com have a notice on their main page for sending money to the Red Cross's Tsunami Help Relief Aid Thingymajiggy, which, at the time of writing and checking [notwithstanding the slight gap between the two] has received $1,455,906.41 from 27016 people via this method. I found out this existed from an article on slashdot.org, one of the worst websites in the world, where people were complaining that Americans are too stingy and don't care about the world and are stupid. Here in good ol' Blighty, of course, people have stiff upper lips and no sex, and are very kind to animals and savages. We fund the BBC, that Light Unto The Nations; we have a very nice Queen (Gawd Bless 'Er!); and we speak much better English than everyone else, especially those stingy, stupid Yanks. Which would explain why amazon.co.uk has absolutely no mention of giving any money to the Red Cross on its main page. Being a kind and generous soul myself (and very possibly an American), I provide screenshots of the two aforementioned main pages. You may, if you like, take a moment to consider how small we are relative to the universe, the incredible information-generating capabilities of us mere mortals [well, not me, obviously, on the mortal or information-generating points], and again the futility in which we engage in these activities. Then you may look down (or scroll down if appropriate): Image Hosted by ImageShack.us Image Hosted by ImageShack.us Fascinating, right? I'm glad I did this. No idea when I'll sort out the rest of the site, due to my having almost no time to focus on stuff like that. Whatever spare time I do have is taken up with reading lots of random sites, feeling proud that I'm reading about lots of Important Things, and then sleeping. I'm sure my life won't always be like this, but I have a niggling feeling that's a totally unjustifiable hypothesis. So many thoughts, so little time. Muchos gracias to those signing the guestbook. The boost to my ego that you would even consider visiting my site gladdens me immensely, especially when said signing is full of bile. A special "thank you" to 'i', who gladdens me immensely not just by the ego-massaging, of course, for sure..