(no subject)

I am listening to ads right now.

They are for mortgage companies. And Chevrolets. And high-caliber mattresses. And eTrade.

I don't think the traders even... no, they don't, that's not CNBC. That's the TV Guide Channel or something. I have no idea how that happened- the telescreen was set to CNBC when I left last night.

I'm not complaining.

Oh yeah.

Ain't gonna write 'bout politics no more for a while. Unless maybe they're someone else's politics. That could be amusing. I could pick a totally random country and get myself into a froth about the way things are being run in Lisbon, or Dhaka, or whatever the capital is of Chad... eh, we'll talk about that later, maybe. I'm just gonna say two things:

One, I started reading Snow Crash on the train in to work this morning and that is a terrible thing for a naturally cynical sysadmin who has always been vaguely afraid of having her soul sucked out by technology to read.
Two, nothing makes for good Hellblazer fanfic like the mixture of cynicism at one's country, disappointment in one's fellow human beings, and a powerful dislike of government.

Methinks this election will be just the kick in the pants I need to get the next HB:H chapter written. If only because dammit, I gotta get Neal Stephenson out of my head. I can't get more than two sentences into that book without hearing either Lawrence Fishburne or Avery Brooks narrating. This is NOT A GOOD THING when I am about to spend my day wrangling computers and walking along the bed of the River of Neon. (Side note: is it just me, or is anyone else vaguely squicked by the idea of the oncoming Matrix MMORPG? I mean, really, my fellow geeks paying for the privilege of living in a virtual world in which the premise is that we're all living in a virtual world for the sake of our silicon masters? Why don't we all just put on name tags reading "Hello, my name is CYPHER" and get it over with?") So, yeah... Hellblazer is probably the healthiest way of dealing with all of this, even if it's been a while since I last read a Sorting Feast scene. I'll catch up.

Quizfoo. yay.

Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose. You are a
mystery novel dealing with theology, especially
with catholic vs liberal issues. You search
wisdom and knowledge endlessly, feeling that
learning is essential in life.


Which literature classic are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

And here I thought it was going to come up LOTR. Funky. I never read Name of the Rose, but Foucault's Pendulum was pretty cool. Mind you, The Island of the Day Before was the first book I ever wanted to hurl across the room so that it cracked the author upside the head and knocked him ass over teakettle- but I really liked Foucault's pendulum.

I also think that every time an Eco book gets rendered into English, an asylum in Italy somewhere opens up another private room, and the translator is ushered in to spend the next six months putting his brain back together. But that's me.

I don't feel much like singing right now.

This is important because I"m supposed to have choir practice.

I don't feel like singing just now. I need to talk to people, though. Talk with them, even. And I've got knitting group tonight at the same time as choir practice, so I think I'll go to that. I don't care what we talk about as long as it takes me out of my own head. When I'm at choir practice I only devote maybe ten or twenty percent of my brain to the singing; the rest goes on THINKY THINKY THINKY mode and by the time I get out of there I'm probably blowing capacitors or-

Crap, I'm going Neal Stephenson on myself. I'm gonna go eat chicken and rice-a-roni and then I'm going to go knit.

Seeyaz.

(no subject)

Okay, remember my web page on how to pass for Canadian? I have to update it tomorrow. Two reasons: one, I still have to insert a reference to the Tragically Hip in the music section. Two...

Two. Yes. Er. Down towards the bottom of that page I make the following comment:

"Canadians generally know things like, oooh, which of the provinces have access to the ocean and which don't, whereas most Americans could probably be made to say that you get real fine surfing in Alberta. (Hint: this is the equivalent of asking for the vast sandy deserts of Maine.)"

Today I got the following email:

i'm sure you've received this link. they're not "vast", but regarding deserts of maine--

http://www.desertofmaine.com

i need to visit your country (besides niagara falls)

*blink*
*blink*
*stare*

Visitors find it difficult to imagine among the rolling hills and rambling brooks at the end of Desert Rd. there is a Desert. Once you take your first step through the gift shop's front door, however, your doubts will vanish as you enter the vast and sandy DESERT of MAINE.

Bwah???