DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I saw a comment in a web forum recently that contained this apologetic introduction: “I don’t mean to flog my own site, but…”

I thought: what the hell, usually I do mean to flog my own website. If I stumble into a discussion on a topic I spent three hours writing about last month, of course I’m going to point to it. How is this a bad thing?

And so I decided there should be an acronym or abbreviation for this, to get the tedious and phony apologia out of the way efficiently, clearing the way for immediate inbound linkage.

Thus, NTFMOB: “Not To Flog My Own Blog”

Sample usage: in a discussion about the sweet/salty/sour/bitter tongue-region map you learned about in grade school, I might write:

NTFMOB… but in fact the taste map is all wrong.

Strictly speaking, NTFMOB is not an acronym, I think, just as HTML is not an acronym. It is an abbreviation and an initialism; it’s spelled rather than pronounced.

I think the proper way to render the abbreviation in HTML is:
<abbr title="Not To Flog My Own Blog">NTFMOB</abbr>…

Now, go forth and flog and multiply. And, of course, link back here to ease your karmic guilt for pointing to your own website all the time.

The Matrix website contains a short story by Neil Gaiman, entitled Goliath. It uses and expands on some of the ideas in the first Matrix film. If you liked the movie, you’ll probably like the story. It’s a free read, and contains neat illustrations, and neater implications.

Neil Gaiman has written a number of compelling books, my favorite of which (at the moment) is Neverwhere.

I want your opinion, and I’ve made it really easy for you to give it to me… with both barrels, if necessary.

If you have a moment, please take the survey.

A co-worker was describing the Burning Man festival during a staff meeting. “You don’t have to do drugs,” she said. Imagine the jolt of context that provided to the few people who live out of state and had never heard of Burning Man. The reactions were entertaining.

The Chron has some great photos: Burning Man photo gallery 2003