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Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Old writing, but enjoy anyway...
June 2002
For the past few years we have been trying to get the courage to move out of our townhouse. A number of excuses have delayed our departure: work layoffs, a difficult pregnancy; a demanding little infant girl; ennui. Now as we approach the final week of full-time occupancy in Ruralsville, we are bogged down in junk. Really, where did we get all of this stuff?
Some things I remember acquiring with zeal, and now I am not sure what all of the excitement was about. When did I really think I needed a candle sharpener? I can’t remember the last time we baked bread, made pasta or ice cream. However, the cappuccino machine was a must.
We boast an impressive accumulation of abandoned, random music, books, crafts, clothes, appliances, decor and personal products. Some of the clutter is stuff we would not have eaten, read, worn, listened to or used, even under the influence. The pantry closet is so full of stuff the door does not close without some convincing and a single canned addition requires dreaded reorganization. My husband surely volunteers to shop so I have to do the put-away. I find myself fantasizing about a blowtorch and an unburdened drive off into the sunset. My husband fantasizes about a large white room with nothing but a glass desk and built-in, wireless, net-capable computer at the center.
Our little daughter is only 6 months old and has also accumulated junk. How she has done it is a mystery. Personally I think she has a double-life as a baby by day and a physicist by night. “By adding hydrogen to this polymer-resin, I can make 10 bottles into 300, lalalala, babababa.”
The basement is even more daunting than the rest of the house. Friends and family have also used our basement. Through a near-miracle Rob recovered some RAM for a computer from our basement and as a result it has achieved epic status as a place of fascinating plenty. I’ll admit that not everything is junk but most of it is. Here we have carefully stowed everything that had no immediate use upstairs in a random jumble. Then each and every item has been thoughtfully coated with a fine layer of lint from the dryer, insect debris, hair, other cat byproducts and the odd bit of mildew. Mix in a few living creatures, some truly horrifying and clearly mutated by something we stowed down there. Despite actively working on the move neither of us has ventured to move a single item from the basement in months. It is a shared, unspoken terror. We only go down there to reset the breakers or do just as much laundry we need so as not to be naked.
Then there is another fear; what do we do with the acquired “gifts” that we would not have bought in a drugged stupor? Will former friends suddenly reappear and remember what they bought us? Will they notice the items are conspicuously missing? Once discarded, will these items find their way back to us like zombies in a B movie, but this time with revenge on their minds? I am afraid we will probably take them along, again only to gaze upon them in a closet and swear an oath to have a garage sale. Sadly it is probably easier to shove them in to the boxes we pack than to try to weed them out.
Other, even more frightening items have arrived in our home in a mysterious way. I have no idea where they came from or how. Perhaps I sleep-shop or maybe friends with similar clutter problems sneak them into our house one at a time, in their underwear. We have to start a campaign to covertly return these items. I plot returning items to stores sans receipt “No, I don’t want a refund or exchange, just take it back!”
Strangely I am not a shopper at all. I don’t generally impulse buy. I mull over items for some time. I look through catalogs and circle the interesting items, only to recycle them. I am also fairly selective. There are very few items that really catch my eye. Few stores can boast more than an item or two that I actually like. Registering for my wedding was difficult, since I did not find enough items in any couple of stores to really constitute a wish list. I had to be brow-beaten into making an Amazon wish list last Christmas.
Another thing is troubling me about this junk. Our townhouse is not very large. The house we are moving into is much larger. Although we are only taking over a portion of this house, our area is maybe 1.5 to 2 times the floor space that we currently enjoy. Our stuff does not fit well. During the trip to the new place our stuff has absorbed moisture, emitted a gas, or undergone fission and expanded like a soufflé. The overall mass has grown by 200-300%.
My parents will occupy the other half of this house and their junk problem is approaching heroic status. I am certain that my Mom’s plan is to somehow sneak her stuff into the closets and boxes in our side and pretend it was ours in the first place.
I think my strategy is going to be to leave many items behind, until the old house sells and then I will run out of time and energy and have to discard everything. Maybe I’ll leave them as “gifts” for the new occupants, like an evil batch of bread starter.
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June 2002
For the past few years we have been trying to get the courage to move out of our townhouse. A number of excuses have delayed our departure: work layoffs, a difficult pregnancy; a demanding little infant girl; ennui. Now as we approach the final week of full-time occupancy in Ruralsville, we are bogged down in junk. Really, where did we get all of this stuff?
Some things I remember acquiring with zeal, and now I am not sure what all of the excitement was about. When did I really think I needed a candle sharpener? I can’t remember the last time we baked bread, made pasta or ice cream. However, the cappuccino machine was a must.
We boast an impressive accumulation of abandoned, random music, books, crafts, clothes, appliances, decor and personal products. Some of the clutter is stuff we would not have eaten, read, worn, listened to or used, even under the influence. The pantry closet is so full of stuff the door does not close without some convincing and a single canned addition requires dreaded reorganization. My husband surely volunteers to shop so I have to do the put-away. I find myself fantasizing about a blowtorch and an unburdened drive off into the sunset. My husband fantasizes about a large white room with nothing but a glass desk and built-in, wireless, net-capable computer at the center.
Our little daughter is only 6 months old and has also accumulated junk. How she has done it is a mystery. Personally I think she has a double-life as a baby by day and a physicist by night. “By adding hydrogen to this polymer-resin, I can make 10 bottles into 300, lalalala, babababa.”
The basement is even more daunting than the rest of the house. Friends and family have also used our basement. Through a near-miracle Rob recovered some RAM for a computer from our basement and as a result it has achieved epic status as a place of fascinating plenty. I’ll admit that not everything is junk but most of it is. Here we have carefully stowed everything that had no immediate use upstairs in a random jumble. Then each and every item has been thoughtfully coated with a fine layer of lint from the dryer, insect debris, hair, other cat byproducts and the odd bit of mildew. Mix in a few living creatures, some truly horrifying and clearly mutated by something we stowed down there. Despite actively working on the move neither of us has ventured to move a single item from the basement in months. It is a shared, unspoken terror. We only go down there to reset the breakers or do just as much laundry we need so as not to be naked.
Then there is another fear; what do we do with the acquired “gifts” that we would not have bought in a drugged stupor? Will former friends suddenly reappear and remember what they bought us? Will they notice the items are conspicuously missing? Once discarded, will these items find their way back to us like zombies in a B movie, but this time with revenge on their minds? I am afraid we will probably take them along, again only to gaze upon them in a closet and swear an oath to have a garage sale. Sadly it is probably easier to shove them in to the boxes we pack than to try to weed them out.
Other, even more frightening items have arrived in our home in a mysterious way. I have no idea where they came from or how. Perhaps I sleep-shop or maybe friends with similar clutter problems sneak them into our house one at a time, in their underwear. We have to start a campaign to covertly return these items. I plot returning items to stores sans receipt “No, I don’t want a refund or exchange, just take it back!”
Strangely I am not a shopper at all. I don’t generally impulse buy. I mull over items for some time. I look through catalogs and circle the interesting items, only to recycle them. I am also fairly selective. There are very few items that really catch my eye. Few stores can boast more than an item or two that I actually like. Registering for my wedding was difficult, since I did not find enough items in any couple of stores to really constitute a wish list. I had to be brow-beaten into making an Amazon wish list last Christmas.
Another thing is troubling me about this junk. Our townhouse is not very large. The house we are moving into is much larger. Although we are only taking over a portion of this house, our area is maybe 1.5 to 2 times the floor space that we currently enjoy. Our stuff does not fit well. During the trip to the new place our stuff has absorbed moisture, emitted a gas, or undergone fission and expanded like a soufflé. The overall mass has grown by 200-300%.
My parents will occupy the other half of this house and their junk problem is approaching heroic status. I am certain that my Mom’s plan is to somehow sneak her stuff into the closets and boxes in our side and pretend it was ours in the first place.
I think my strategy is going to be to leave many items behind, until the old house sells and then I will run out of time and energy and have to discard everything. Maybe I’ll leave them as “gifts” for the new occupants, like an evil batch of bread starter.
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Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Translate This!
Just got this email from a friend... not sure if I really wanted to know...
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in case you've ever wondered how lorem ipsum translates into english:
"But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?"
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in case you've ever wondered how lorem ipsum translates into english:
"But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?"
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My vision of laptops in the future
okay fellow geeks...
The Future of Video Screens?
This amounts to what I have been saying for a couple of years... this is what the future of laptops is going to be (or even cell phones/PDAs, for that matter). I didn't think it would happen this soon, but it looks like they are getting close to a "roll-able" video screen.
Think about it. We already have a flexible/roll-able keyboard. Toshiba announced it can make a 3GB hard drive the size of a nickel (!) in about a year or so. Add a roll-able screen (which could theoretically perhaps expand to, say, a nice wide 25" screen) and voilá! You have a compact and collapsible laptop that breaks down (and perhaps weighs the same) as a rolled up newspaper.
Hip.
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The Future of Video Screens?
This amounts to what I have been saying for a couple of years... this is what the future of laptops is going to be (or even cell phones/PDAs, for that matter). I didn't think it would happen this soon, but it looks like they are getting close to a "roll-able" video screen.
Think about it. We already have a flexible/roll-able keyboard. Toshiba announced it can make a 3GB hard drive the size of a nickel (!) in about a year or so. Add a roll-able screen (which could theoretically perhaps expand to, say, a nice wide 25" screen) and voilá! You have a compact and collapsible laptop that breaks down (and perhaps weighs the same) as a rolled up newspaper.
Hip.
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Saturday, December 27, 2003
My new favorite browser is Mozilla Firebird. It's capable of doing pretty much everything Microsoft's Internet Explorer can do with some cool extras. You get tabbed browsing, which lets you run several open web pages in one window. There's built-in searching through Google. The speed is amazing. And, best of all, there are extensions!
Extensions allow you to add new features onto the browser. At the moment, I'm running the excellent AdBlock, which lets you zap any and all ads or other irrtating content at will; StatusBar Clock, which adds a nice clock to the browser window; and a knockoff of the Google Toolbar written by some OpenSource people. The ad filter is amazingly simple and effective, and the other enhancements make using Google so easy, I can't recall what I used before.
Firebird's available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, with identical functionality across all three. It's only at version 0.7, which means that it will continue to improve. Hard to believe, given how stable and fast it already is. Go check it out!
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Extensions allow you to add new features onto the browser. At the moment, I'm running the excellent AdBlock, which lets you zap any and all ads or other irrtating content at will; StatusBar Clock, which adds a nice clock to the browser window; and a knockoff of the Google Toolbar written by some OpenSource people. The ad filter is amazingly simple and effective, and the other enhancements make using Google so easy, I can't recall what I used before.
Firebird's available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, with identical functionality across all three. It's only at version 0.7, which means that it will continue to improve. Hard to believe, given how stable and fast it already is. Go check it out!
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If you haven't discovered Jonathan Carroll yet, good! This makes you a lucky, lucky person, if only because you have something guaranteed to be wonderful awaiting you in your near future. It's like hearing that next week, you're going to meet a devoted and slightly kinky new lover, or maybe come into your perfect dream job.
I first heard of him reading the colophon to William Gibson's "All Tomorrow's Parties," if I remember rightly. A few days after that, I was on a client site waiting to begin a design project, and the wait stretched out for a couple of hours. Bored, I hacked out through the client's web filters (don't waste time at work, dammit!) and hit the now defunct Contentville.com site, looking for something to read. They had the first chapter to Carroll's "The Wooden Sea" online as a teaser freebie. I read it, got hooked, and ordered the book in the space of a half-hour.
I just got "White Apples" and "The Marriage of Sticks" for Christmas, and I'm a few chapters into "Apples" now. It's about a likeable womanizer who dies, and gets brought back to life for reasons yet to be disclosed (to be disclosed, by the way, by his latest girlfriend who seems to know more than just lingerie). He's just learned that an ex-girlfriend, who might be his true love if only she'd stop leaving him time and again, is now pregnant with his child.
Carroll's books tend to start off in lush but basically familiar settings populated with interesting but recognizeable characters and then unexpectedly veer off into the surreal. Really, the surreal. For example, "The Wooden Sea" ultimately made me wonder, "Are the aliens real or a result of the tumor?" You see what I'm getting at? Sooooo-reeeeel.
The funny thing is that within the weirdness, Carroll gets you asking yourself some pretty fundamental questions about your life, relationships, and everyday assumptions. If you've ever gone somewhere you'd swear you've never been before only to suddenly remember, vividly, a visit there as a small child, you'll recognize the particular flavor of "deja-startled" that comes from reading these books. Carroll's writing is an odd road to a familiar place. I strongly encourage you to see where these paths take you.
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I first heard of him reading the colophon to William Gibson's "All Tomorrow's Parties," if I remember rightly. A few days after that, I was on a client site waiting to begin a design project, and the wait stretched out for a couple of hours. Bored, I hacked out through the client's web filters (don't waste time at work, dammit!) and hit the now defunct Contentville.com site, looking for something to read. They had the first chapter to Carroll's "The Wooden Sea" online as a teaser freebie. I read it, got hooked, and ordered the book in the space of a half-hour.
I just got "White Apples" and "The Marriage of Sticks" for Christmas, and I'm a few chapters into "Apples" now. It's about a likeable womanizer who dies, and gets brought back to life for reasons yet to be disclosed (to be disclosed, by the way, by his latest girlfriend who seems to know more than just lingerie). He's just learned that an ex-girlfriend, who might be his true love if only she'd stop leaving him time and again, is now pregnant with his child.
Carroll's books tend to start off in lush but basically familiar settings populated with interesting but recognizeable characters and then unexpectedly veer off into the surreal. Really, the surreal. For example, "The Wooden Sea" ultimately made me wonder, "Are the aliens real or a result of the tumor?" You see what I'm getting at? Sooooo-reeeeel.
The funny thing is that within the weirdness, Carroll gets you asking yourself some pretty fundamental questions about your life, relationships, and everyday assumptions. If you've ever gone somewhere you'd swear you've never been before only to suddenly remember, vividly, a visit there as a small child, you'll recognize the particular flavor of "deja-startled" that comes from reading these books. Carroll's writing is an odd road to a familiar place. I strongly encourage you to see where these paths take you.
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Friday, December 26, 2003
Ok. Mars is now the official "Planet of Death" for space gear. The Martian version of the "Strategic Defense Initiative" seems to be working nicely.
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Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Merry Christmas! Okay, pleasantries over, on to the meat: mad cow has made it to America! I can't imagine what the beef industry was thinking. They've know for at least a few years that feeding beef to cows (what insanity is that, anyway?) causes them to transform from meat into big, dumb biohazards. Idiots. I'm guessing that if plutonium turned out to add 1% to a cow's sale weight, McDonald's would be a green, glowing haven for mutants. I don't have a lot of time to rant about this today, but I just wanted to mention it. Grrrrr...
Ho ho ho!
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Ho ho ho!
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Monday, December 08, 2003
You may have already read this Vonnegut story somewhere, but if you haven't, please do. Something about political correctness is getting to me this week, and I can hear the shotgun blasts ringing insistently in the back of my head. Too much CNN, maybe.
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Wednesday, December 03, 2003
I'm an 80's kid. Born in the 60's, hit high school in the 80's, actually had the hair (one weekend, for a girlfriend, wasn't worth it...). Want a nostalgia trip? Check this out:
I got a 68.3, so apparently I was there, but impeding the formation of long-term memories...ummm...somehow.
Have fun!
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I got a 68.3, so apparently I was there, but impeding the formation of long-term memories...ummm...somehow.
Have fun!
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Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Buzz Lightyear meets Gollum. Think about it.
(Okay, I know it's not much, but I'm still recovering from a serious tryptophan overdose...)
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(Okay, I know it's not much, but I'm still recovering from a serious tryptophan overdose...)
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