I’ve got Internet in the ol’ domocile now. Actually, I’ve had it for a few days. Why, then, the sudden silence in the Media Empire? The answer is surprisingly simple: I have Internet in my home now.
You see, the first few days of near-unlimited high-speed access to every one and zero the world has to offer are a heady time. Oh yes, there is a virtual world calling out, saying only ‘taste me, swim in my fantasy’, and that is what I have done. The ones, the zeroes, they have thrown themselves at my retinas and eardrums by the billions, sacrificed and lost now in the transience of flashing neurons. But that’s OK, they were just copies of other ones and zeroes. The supply, it seems, is limitless, and soon it appears the distribution of them will be virtually unlimited as well.
The digifest is wearing off now, as I have had my fill of ridiculous japanese animation and my brain is exploding from the information regarding moving Jer’s Novel Writer to the GCC 4.0 (Apple version) compiler, which I will have to do to get my programs onto the Intel Macs.
On a related note, as my productivity recovered in the last few days I released a new version of Jer’s Novel Writer (0.6.0.0), and wrote a hell of a lot of Pirates. Just got to get learning Czech back onto the schedule and I’m golden!
Okay, back after a week vacation. Did anything happen around here? I mean besides Buggy showing up for the first time in a year.
While on vacation, I read “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” and “Into the Wild.” If any other readers would care to share thoughts and ideas on these books (or “Desert Solitaire” the book I read last month), I’d be interested.
By the way, Jerry, was your “Seldom Seen Smith” nom de plum for your Pirates producer intended as an homage to Abbey’s character of the same name in “Monkeywrench Gang”?
Well, there was Carol Anne being hit on the head a week and a half ago and then being blamed for it by an uninformed person, and being taken to the Sierra County Emergency Room along with another injured crew member from their boat. And me having to run our boat aground on the rocks when the fuel line ruptured and the centerboard wouldn’t go down. And, this coming weekend she goes to California to pick up her new racing boat. Other than that, not so much, kinda quiet.
It is entirely coincidental that there was a Seldom Seen Smith, a Bonnie, and a Rudolph. And maybe a couple of other names. Doc Sarvis was one of the cast members I never adequately recorded.
Desert Solitaire is good, but Fool’s Progress is just about the most heart-wrenching piece of prose I’ve encountered. You don’t stop hating the guy, but you understand.
Pat – there’s different kinds of quiet. There’s the quiet after a loud noise, there’s the quiet before the storm, and there’s the quiet of the battlefield when both sides are exhausted. Y’all have all those and more, which makes it extra-super quiet.
Was just rereading Plato’s Phaedrus after a very long time. Interesting, the phrase “I’m golden” is a biggie — it means “I just did so well in the Olympics, any statue of me that gets put up will be solid gold.”
McDonald’s has been featuring US Olympic athletes on its bags, and the slogan that accompanies the pictures is “I’m golden.” That might work for Apolo Ohno, but definitely not for Bode Miller.
The slogan is for the fries.
Carol Anne, what are you doing reading such mass marketed, supermarket checkout lane drivel? Oh, looking at the timestamp on your comment, I see you were trying to put yourself to sleep.
When you’re done reading dusty ancient tomes with no pertinence to today’s world and start reading stirring tales of Real Men struggling against real hardships in the American Southwest and the wilds of Alaska, let me know. You might find the works of a chap named Jack London as a suitable bridge to Krakauer and McPhee.
McPhee’s a dork. Using glaciation to refute plate tectonics is like using the blue sky to refute life.
Actually, Jack London is one of my favorite authors, especially during November. There was a guy who could really run up the word count.
Jerry,
Are you dismissing an entire (and extensive) body of work that encompasses much more than just geology because of a single difference of opinion? Although there are multiple reasons to dismiss Michael Crichton, should his works be consigned to the bonfires of censorship because he’s Bush’s leading scientific advisor dismissing global warming (blue sky and life)?
Glaciation and plate tectonics: sounds like “Assembling California.” Do you recall if this is the book that dorkified McPhee for you? I should like to go reread the chapter to better understand your moral outrage.
Krakauer continues to delight me. Anybody read his latest on the Mormon Church? Sounds like a big shift from his outdoors writing.
In Suspect Terrain was the book I was referring to, after I read that many’s the year ago, I confess I had no interest in reading anything else by him. Maybe some of his other stuff is less quacky.
The idea of Crichton being a science advisor bothers me much more than the bad science in either of those writer’s books.
The only Krakauer I’ve read is Into Thin Air, a damn fine read.