耀
a
r
o
4
e
d
g
2
l
p
a
n

a
r
o
n
h
s
i
a
o
w
a
s
h
e
r
e

 

 

So at first I wasn’t going to write anything when I found out about George. That was in the wee hours of this morning. But now I’ve just waken up and it all hit me again, so I’ll just say that he will be missed. The Beatles showed us what it all could have been like. Too bad we have instead what it is.

He’s pushed the President, Mr. Ashcroft, and the nationalist follies right off of the front page. Rightfully so. Good riddance to them. And goodbye George.

I hate looking for jobs. I really think I’m barking up the wrong tree… what I’m looking for is a role, not a job — a way to make a living doing something exciting, dangerous, useful… something that maybe most other people don’t want to do? I don’t need a wage, just a place to sleep and food to eat and freedom from owing anybody anything other than my labor and knowledge.

There must be opportunities like this out there somewhere, but I am too insulated, too conventional in lifestyle, upbringing and education to have any idea where to look. I only know that somewhere out there, there are hard-working, muddy Americans doing interesting and helpful things as a lifestyle choice, rather than working a job to support suburban afternoons. If only I knew where to look, who to talk to! There are of course the nonprofits, but those all seem to start with an internship and work experience, neither of which I have.

I’ve even toyed with going out and picking up one of those government grants books, but I’m not convinced that sort of thing is legit and really don’t want to feel gullible and Forrest Gump.

Snow! Finally, we have real, permanent (as in here for more than an hour) snow in Salt Lake City. It’s only a little, but it’s a start. Maybe it won’t be a tropical winter games after all. I’m not the biggest sports fan, but with all of these big college football games, all of this food and all of this snow, I’m having a hell of a nice holiday weekend.

Now if only I could lay my hands on some usable cash… I’m trying to eBay off some equipment, so maybe that will be fixed soon as well. Then I can get down to the usual December business…

Be sure to check out the cam for a view out the window.

Addendum: my favorite thing about heavy snow is the way it turns night into day. That’s the real reason I could never live in a snow-free zone. There’s also the eerie, beautiful silence that snow makes — all traffic noise, all wind sounds, all sounds of any kind disappear. I understand the science, but the effect transcends conception or reflection. Silence of this type simply is, and I love to open a window in winter and listen to the nothingness.

Waiting to see if there will be any snow that I can attach in a photo before I send out the obligatory Happy Thxgvg! e-mail to everybody I know online. Olympics soon (*shrug* all right, couple of months), but we’re high+dry+warm here in Salt Lake City right now.

Debt can be a really lousy thing for personal progress, take it from me. Well, don’t… I was on the verge of doing a little uncomfortable holiday bitch-and-moan, but I really don’t feel up to it or right about it — not the time or place, I guess, so instead:

Eat, drink, be merry everyone. Happy Thanksgiving. Christmas next. See you in December. No shit.

Back after being offline for a few days. Long story. Point: people who know me know that I don’t dream in my sleep, ever. But for the last three nights without the I/O monster running, I’ve been dreaming continuously. Wild! I wonder if white noise (the kind made by five hard drives and eight fans) changes some part of your sleep pattern responsible for dreaming?

I haven’t really been without the 24/7 system noise in my sleep chamber since sometime in the late ’80s. Interesting. I wonder if it’s having odd effects on my mental health?

*loud bear-like barking noise*

I’m trying to get myself to read a book for a change. The number of books not read by this liberal arts graduate over the last six months is truly shameful. I have all of the volumes by Proust just sitting here waiting for the right moment. Damn it, where is that moment!? Since I got my degree it’s just been job search and CNN. Damn it, if September 11th hadn’t happened, neither of these things would be an issue.

Lots of other stuff I could say here, but after tossing it all in and cutting it all back out, I think the book-terror link stands on its own pretty well. Silly, silly me, eh?

The snap-cam is pointed outside right now, where the leaves are falling and there have been pigeons around all day coo-ing. I love it. Fall is for me, Winter is for me, Spring and Summer are for somebody else in a bathing suit and a gardening hat.

On other subjects… I don’t want to think I’m turning into one of those crazy conspiracy-theorists, but the plane crash in Queens the other day smells funny to me, as does our response to it. I’ve had a few decades to get used to reality now, and I can’t remember a plane crash in which parts of the plane just “fell off” in midair. Even stranger, though, is our ability to determine the exact cause of the crash as “not terrorism” in the same week. Jeepers, I guess the investigative crews for all of those other crashes throughout the ’80s and ’90s were just dead slow when they needed a year or even several just to form a preliminary report…

Could it be that our government just wants us to keep buying plane tickets because our lovely cash economy is in trouble?

Capitalism is evil. Corporations are evil. The free market is death to the common man and will always be so. It’s been that kind of day.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a complete leftist. In no way do I love the right wing, but the ongoing Florida vote counts by “independent” research groups have got to stop. The election was a whole year ago, get over it. War is afoot, we can’t continue to be bothered with unanswerable trifles.

And no, I don’t think Gore “would have” won if things were counted “correctly” — an overvote is an overvote, and I don’t think we should count any of them. If someone can’t be bothered to read the instructions, then they don’t respect the process and don’t deserve a vote. And if they don’t understand what’s printed on the ballot, then how can Democrats claim that such a vote has any meaning, no matter who was voted for? So why am I talking about overvotes? Because so far every recount including only undervotes shows Bush still winning. Don’t worry, you Gore folks, Al and George aren’t really all that different. Just swallow your pride a little. At least Bush can say “let’s roll” with some degree of sincerity.

How about we make a real change next time around? Could happen… [*sigh*]

Okay, this is minorly cool. I rigged up an el-cheapo Web-cam system using and old RCA camcorder with dead read/write heads and I’ll just use XawTV to disseminate (as a part of the desktop snapshot) when I want to appear. Probably a rare thing that I’ll just do every now and then for kicks.

Actually, I’m still not sure about serving snapshots from my personal system. From the moment I added the record to the DNS system and took the server online until now (just a few days) I’ve recorded 16,000+ touches from the Nimda worm. That’s in just a few days on a server that just entered the DNS and went online. That’s ridiculous. No wonder systems that have been online longer are getting hit so hard traffic-wise. Sheesh.

I was looking at a picture of myself a couple of years ago with longer hair. I liked it. I was about to slash/burn once more but now I’m thinking I want to grow it a little. We’ll see… Probably everybody will complain at me again like they did when I had a semi-goatee…

New public face on things: screw this job search, I am going back to freelance authoring. I’ve got my next proposal/workup under construction and will be shopping it around to publishers by midweek. I feel pretty good about the decision, but money will be really tight (read: nonexistent) for a while. I guess I might see if I can find some part time labor-intensive work to get me in shape and bring in supplementary bucks.

You’ll notice a few cute changes start to occur to the page over the next few weeks as well. Well actually I suppose they’re more additions than changes — things to add a more in-real-time feel to the site and maybe draw some traffic. Why traffic? I don’t know… Because there’s so much you can do with traffic these days… Don’t ever expect a forum or chat, though. This site comes down from the ivory tower. The last thing I need is in-real-time feedback!

I’ve also discovered more rendering and general browser bugs. In Mozilla 0.9.5 serious XUL bugs can still cause things like image caching to break. Solution appears to be using the Modern theme rather than the Classic theme. In Konqueror, my pages load correctly the first time, but clicking “reload” causes them to break. Damn.

So now I need to make a call. Am I a freelance writer or not? If so, I need to commit and get to work, rather than dicking around with resumés and human resources directors all day. Damn it, I wish it was that simple. Unfortunately, I don’t think a freelance cash flow could keep up with my bills right now.

On the other hand, since all I’m doing is sending out resumés and going to job fairs and interviews looking for a larger income, my bills are continuing to pile up. At some point the whole thing breaks down and I go to work at a convenience store. That bit is actually coming quite soon now if something else doesn’t develop.

Damn, that sucks. I should have just started work on another book back in March or April, I’d be coming into my next advance right now. Instead I decided I wanted to get into the “real” workforce. Damn stupid of me, damn stupid.

I guess you’re never satisfied with what you have until you’ve lost it.

Archives »

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
August 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
September 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
June 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
March 2012
December 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001
February 2001
January 2001
December 2000
November 2000
October 2000
September 2000
August 2000
July 2000
June 2000
May 2000
April 2000
March 2000
February 2000
January 2000
December 1999
November 1999