We are all out of new guests. We need more. Or the same ones again. Please, I’m begging you to volunteer, otherwise Uborka will fade away into nothingness.
In fact, you’ll be delighted to know that there is a rematch scheduled between Vaughan and Graybo the week after next; but we do need someone next week.
But who’s going to serve cocktails next Friday?

The modern information society is really good only at moving information about. It has become massively easier to converse over vast distances: Gigantic quantities of bits can be transmitted via satellites in orbit around the earth and cables deep down on the ocean floor. But all these channels fail to answer the vital question: What are we to say to each other?
Is there anything interesting in being able to move information about? Does it mean anything in itself that communicating has become easier?
If communication overcomes sociological barriers, it does actually mean something – to society. The dissolution of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is closely related to the way modern means of communication created numerous noncentralized connections between people inside and outside what used to be such closed societies. Means of communication are vital in societies where communication is in short supply.
These are sociological issues, which are important in themselves. However, there are also more theoretical, conceptual questions: At the purely physical level, thermodynamically speaking, things are different. It has only recently become clear that measured as a physical phenomenon, the moving of information about the place need not have any significance at all. From the thermodynamic point of view, the transport of information is a nonevent.

Hello,
my name’s Dan and I, along with my knife-and-stick wielding partner Jack, will be guesting this week. I come to this partnership with no small amount of trepidation, as Jack invented the online journal in, I believe, 1991, several years before Al Gore invented the internet. I, on the other hand, get given a diary every year, fill the first three pages with what I got for Christmas and then use the rest of the pages to jot down phone messages and pointlessly elaborate doodles.
My friend Adrian has been telling me I should start a `blog. On the surface, it seems like a good idea. I certainly love communicating with people and giving my opinion to all and sundry. But scratch a little deeper, and I start to get a little wary. Who would read it? And why? Would I merely be shouting into the darkness? While I enjoy reading other people’s `blogs, I think I’ve yet to grasp the essential question of why `bloggers do it. What do you get out of it? What does it bring you?
I can definitely appreciate the upside. There’s obviously a social aspect (how can I not be jealous of these legendary blogmeets y’all keep mentioning?), and I believe it’s been mentioned that there is therapeutic value in being able to spew your thoughts into the aether.
But surely these positives are countered by some disturbing negatives- that both strangers and friends have access to your thoughts and feelings on a variety of subjects. I fear I’d find myself ‘tailoring’ my `blogs with a specific audience in mind- or multiple specific audiences. I can’t say I spend a great deal of time in the blogosphere, but even during my limited contact I’ve seen some worrying things- stalkers, psychos, hell, poor old Atrios (my favourite `blog) even got threatened by lawyers to have his identity revealed! Given the frightening netizens that exist, is it really safe to ‘put yourself out there’, so to speak?
Considering that most of the people who read this site appear to be bloggers themselves, I thought I’d put the question to you all, maybe give me some clarity on the subject: Why do you `blog? What are the positives, and the negatives? I’d be highly interested to hear your thoughts on the subject.
d

Three quarters of Shiny Tight Stuff is in da house. There has been an infernal racket coming from the spare bedroom for most of the day, as well as a lot of giggling. Then we* went out to attempt a pub crawl, but only managed four pubs before closing time. Now The Band is playing altogether a different instrument [nothing sleazy]: the PS2.
Tomorrow, they have promised a very short gig.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a total snob.

Good morning. My name’s Jack and I’ll be your gaggingly enthusiastic host here on Uborka for the next week.

Along with my partner Dan we’ll be serving you some of the most lip-smacking, calorific, mouth watering, get-down-to-Weight-Watchers-and-beg-for-mercy pieces of… actually though, now I think of it I’m not 100% sure where Dan is.

Despite yesterday’s flurry of increasingly hysterical emails encompassing the popular themes of Goodness Is It Next Week Already, My How Time Flies and The Panic of Impending Uborka Guesting Has Started Me Off with Those Naked in My French GCSE Dreams Again, there remains some not small confusion within our partnership over who gets to wear the spangly leotard and who gets to throw the knives.

(He’s currently arguing most persuasively for the leotard, seemingly with the view that leaving this guest spot with detachable legs is a more than fair trade-off.)

So. Yes. Moist, crumbly, melt-in-the-mouth goodness lovingly handcrafted just for you, as soon as I find Dan and make him stop picking those sequins out of there.

Not just in need of spectacles, mind. [Chuckling] Not a wee bit short sighted. Errol Trabbet couldn’t see a bloody thing, and he’d been driving a bus for West Midlands Travel for almost 4 years when they relised. [Stumbling over lung-deep guffaws] He probably wasn’t blind when he started, mind you, because he learnt the routes well enough, but after while that flaming loon was driving from pure memory. [Tears are streaming down Truncheon’s jowels by now, as he laughs uncontrollably at this memory]

The Uborgy’s greatest moment: finally forcing the Doctor to start a weblog.
Also, estee has, as always, insightful [deleted typo: inciteful] words on the subject of guest-performing at Uborka.
And, I think when I get to 1000 poems, I will stop.