The more things change, the more they, er, don't actually at all

Torshin has haiku
On his web page; it even
Mentions the weather.

But not cherry blossoms.

This afternoon has been spent contemplating a change to the format of this site. However, after some dithering, I elected not to do anything, due to my lack of HTML knowledge, and dissatifaction at the non-availabilty of cool blog formats for people who are virtually HTML illiterates. I am getting slightly sick of this rusted dome thingy though, but what else is there? Luthers icky greeny-brown thing? (Did everyone know, by the way, that that particular template of his is named 'Aliens Stole My Wallet'? Weird.)

I had a fairly good look around the web today for something interesting, and noted an interesting phenomenon: all the free web templates available are girly. I don't know why, but it's all flowers and swirly bits and puppies and sunsets and arty photos of girls with lipstick on. Where's all the killer robots, heavy industrial machinery, Giger-ish bony things and square, manly edges and non-rounded corners? I think there's definitely a niche market here waiting to be exploited. Jed, get onto it.

As Saint has noted, I am getting all excited about blogs and their world-changing powers, hahaha, as I do research about them. Unfortunately so far this has manifested itself as more blog entries, rather than more thesis. Damn. But here is a cool concept / prediction from one academic source (the St Louis Journalism Review):

"Contemporary journalists face an evolving pattern of news delivery that may have a surprising consequence: futuristic digital media, with its open borders, may reincarnate the probing, prodding, muckraking newshound more typical of typewriters and the Watergate era than CNN.com and the Internet...journalists of the digital age will return to labour intensive beats characterised by reticent, inaccessible and often difficult sources."

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Hard-drinking hacks dubbed something like 'Scoop Malloy', who wear trenchcoats and fedoras that have a card in the band saying PRESS, and conduct meetings in shady bars in the small hours with paranoid sources who turn up floating in the river 2 days later, and break into buildings and get shot at, all just so they can run into the newsroom yelling "Chief! Chief! I got the story!" Journalists who live the life of Tintin in other words, only without the stupid haircut and that often annoying prat Snowy (the Scrappy Doo of the graphic novel world).

Well, OK, so perhaps I'm romanticising things just a tad. But no more sitting in your office growing fat making phone calls, journalists! And you know why, because of the Satanic and suddenly untrammelled power of PUBLIC RELATIONS, MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!.....

Excuse me, I think the thought of 40,000 words in less than 6 months is doing funny things to my head. I think I had better go have a lie down.