What a revelation is can be when something lost and forgotten is found and valued again.
Rediscover homemade vegetable soup. Add an extra potato.
How delicious! Nutritious! Frugal Friendly!
I am the envy of the communal dining area.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
The Gods of Space
The Gods of Space are an interesting pantheon.
Eventually, of course, we'll forget that we created them and they'll become some weird kind of dogmatic religion for our post-human offspring. Whatever they'll mutate into by then, I doubt they'll be calling themselves 'human'.
Human started seeming a little grubby and somehow a bit unsanitary by the mid 21st. All that blood and integrated systems and redundant genes. So our post-quantum, post-lunar, post-post generations will likely shun us as thoroughly as we do the drab and unknown millions of the first dozen millennia of pre-history humanity.
Humpf.
Where was I?
Eventually, of course, we'll forget that we created them and they'll become some weird kind of dogmatic religion for our post-human offspring. Whatever they'll mutate into by then, I doubt they'll be calling themselves 'human'.
Human started seeming a little grubby and somehow a bit unsanitary by the mid 21st. All that blood and integrated systems and redundant genes. So our post-quantum, post-lunar, post-post generations will likely shun us as thoroughly as we do the drab and unknown millions of the first dozen millennia of pre-history humanity.
Humpf.
Where was I?
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Peversity
"The heart prefers to move against the grain of circumstance; perversity is the soul's very life."
John Updike (1965) Assorted Prose
Ah, Freecell
My communications network failed over the weekend although at the time I thought it might have been just my handset. It was pretty inconvenient, no one could reach me and I had to find a payphone and queue with the unwashed to put strange coins into a machine and then strain to hear my loved one down a scratchy stinky line.
Rerouting comms worked until the network was back up, but what struck me about the incident was the irony that my only concern had been the prospect of losing my Freecell Challenge stats.
That's right, solitaire on my phone. 811 games so far with 798 wins (1.61% losses) and I'm heading to 1000 to see if it clocks, and to get my losses to less than 1%.
I do have better things to do with my time, but it is so easy to do this in all those little gaps (queues! Dr's waiting rooms! During the ads!) and then next thing you know, just one game before bed. It is a slippery slope. Obsessed? Nah, I could give up any time.
Rerouting comms worked until the network was back up, but what struck me about the incident was the irony that my only concern had been the prospect of losing my Freecell Challenge stats.
That's right, solitaire on my phone. 811 games so far with 798 wins (1.61% losses) and I'm heading to 1000 to see if it clocks, and to get my losses to less than 1%.
I do have better things to do with my time, but it is so easy to do this in all those little gaps (queues! Dr's waiting rooms! During the ads!) and then next thing you know, just one game before bed. It is a slippery slope. Obsessed? Nah, I could give up any time.
Monday, June 07, 2010
Hasty Packing
I dreamt again of an enforced and urgent pack.
This time I was at work, although I was packing the bedroom from my first share house/squat, and the items were random, drawn from a broad range of my strange visual storeroom. I had a small, brown, late 70s style carryall - about the size of a contemporary average handbag and I was attempting to shovel only the most vital aspects of my life into it.
This is one of my few recurring dream themes. Due to some (always unknown) crisis there's only a short time to grab only what I can carry. It is what lead to my "interest" in evacuation preparedness and that did seem to alleviate the dreams for a long time. The new element last night was the ring of eager and aggressive scavengers, swooping in to scoop up anything I hesitated over or looked uncertain about. It certainly refreshed the normal baseline level of panic that this dream always comes with.
Time to update the evac 'go bag' and then spend some couch time untangling my head.
This time I was at work, although I was packing the bedroom from my first share house/squat, and the items were random, drawn from a broad range of my strange visual storeroom. I had a small, brown, late 70s style carryall - about the size of a contemporary average handbag and I was attempting to shovel only the most vital aspects of my life into it.
This is one of my few recurring dream themes. Due to some (always unknown) crisis there's only a short time to grab only what I can carry. It is what lead to my "interest" in evacuation preparedness and that did seem to alleviate the dreams for a long time. The new element last night was the ring of eager and aggressive scavengers, swooping in to scoop up anything I hesitated over or looked uncertain about. It certainly refreshed the normal baseline level of panic that this dream always comes with.
Time to update the evac 'go bag' and then spend some couch time untangling my head.
Friday, June 04, 2010
A Different Kind of Year
This message is the 365th.
A year's worth of messages - possibly making this blog one year old or maybe a decade old (in blog time). It is a cute milestone. Part of me thinks I should take a photo of it. What an atavistic impulse.
So many things are on autopilot now that I sometimes wonder if the ship gets as bored as I do. We're scheduled for a refueling and cargo transfer stop at the 711116 hub soon. I'm checking the mirror to make sure I'm presentable, but I can't remember if I'm meant to have hair or not. The transmission lag means it is not worth checking the feeds yet either.
Last time I got a case of the jitters and scurried back to the ship after about 4 hours. It was just too weird to be around people and eating food other than Stilton. Oh yeah, the mouse, a slow set of moves got it convinced that the ship was longer and wider than it really is, and using the only remaining advantage of opposable thumbs, I waited and waited and waited until it went into an airlock looking for the promised land, and I blew the hatch manually.
Likewise I then performed a hard start of the command systems, so at least I'm nominally back in control, but of course all of the tweaked settings and preferences and other niceties are missing. It just doesn't seem like home. It feels like my home was stolen and replaced with an exact replica, but all an inch to the left. I could just run a back-up, but now I'm looking out the window and wondering if I should just build them all up fresh. Maybe I'd like things to be different, but am just in the habit of *thinking* that I like them a certain way... like the hair thing, I'll wait and bit longer and see.
A year's worth of messages - possibly making this blog one year old or maybe a decade old (in blog time). It is a cute milestone. Part of me thinks I should take a photo of it. What an atavistic impulse.
So many things are on autopilot now that I sometimes wonder if the ship gets as bored as I do. We're scheduled for a refueling and cargo transfer stop at the 711116 hub soon. I'm checking the mirror to make sure I'm presentable, but I can't remember if I'm meant to have hair or not. The transmission lag means it is not worth checking the feeds yet either.
Last time I got a case of the jitters and scurried back to the ship after about 4 hours. It was just too weird to be around people and eating food other than Stilton. Oh yeah, the mouse, a slow set of moves got it convinced that the ship was longer and wider than it really is, and using the only remaining advantage of opposable thumbs, I waited and waited and waited until it went into an airlock looking for the promised land, and I blew the hatch manually.
Likewise I then performed a hard start of the command systems, so at least I'm nominally back in control, but of course all of the tweaked settings and preferences and other niceties are missing. It just doesn't seem like home. It feels like my home was stolen and replaced with an exact replica, but all an inch to the left. I could just run a back-up, but now I'm looking out the window and wondering if I should just build them all up fresh. Maybe I'd like things to be different, but am just in the habit of *thinking* that I like them a certain way... like the hair thing, I'll wait and bit longer and see.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Are you Paranoid Enough?
What does it take to survive?
Do you have to be willing to eat spiders just in case there's nothing else around later and look for hidden spy cameras as you go about your day to day?
I'm not up for that.
Why should I strive to propagate my genes at the expense of yours? I'm sure yours will suit the vasty unknown future just as well. Possibly better. Probably not as well as spiders or cephalopods, but we can't all be superior species now can we?
Good luck.
I'm making a cup of tea. Would you like one?
Do you have to be willing to eat spiders just in case there's nothing else around later and look for hidden spy cameras as you go about your day to day?
I'm not up for that.
Why should I strive to propagate my genes at the expense of yours? I'm sure yours will suit the vasty unknown future just as well. Possibly better. Probably not as well as spiders or cephalopods, but we can't all be superior species now can we?
Good luck.
I'm making a cup of tea. Would you like one?
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