TRANSCRIBED NOTES Etc:
We Ain't Going Nowhere Soon

Back From The North South

A Wearing-Out Weekend

Sunday 20 November 2005:   At Home

Stay up all night, online. Sleep late. Unload more stuff from the RV. Stay online a lot. Think a little. Rest a lot. Take a walk. Communicate some. Whatever.

Meanwhile, today I read an online article about how we (residents of 'civilized' lands) are deluged with images: THE IMAGE CULTURE by Christine Rosen. And I'm reading a provocative book, THE ALPHABET VERSUS THE GODDESS: The Conflict Between Word And Image by Leonard Shlain. Shlain proposes that alphabetic literacy (masculine left-brain activity) overwhelmed image literacy (feminine right-brain activity) and overthrew early matriarchal cultures.

Now note what's happened with Judeo-Xianity (and even Islam): in biblical texts (the DECALOGUE or 10 Commandments), the 2nd Commandment (Exodus 20:4) stipulates, "You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth..." All images of real people and things are prohibited. ALL. Not just religious images like icons or figurative crucifixes, but ALL non-abstract images. TVs, movies, printed pictures, paintings and drawings and engravings, they're ALL banned. Any believer who creates or consumes images is thus damned. Bye-bye, all you Catholics and Orthodoxoi. So long, thou skuzzy televangelists. Roast in Hades, Rev. Bat Rabidson. They're YOUR rules, so YOU burn.

In our world we sleep and eat the image and pray to it and wear it too. —Don DeLillo

Monday 21 November 2005 - At Home Again

Don't sleep late. Things to do. Calls to make. Things to haul inside. A walk to take. Get ready for tomorrow. It'll come soon enough.

Meanwhile, some of you may have heard of the recent Sony Rootkit flap. (See BoingBoing for coverage.) It's like this: Sony loaded buggy DRM (Digital Rights Management aka copy-protection) software on their latest music CDs. (Parts of that soft­ware were initially open-source, so Sony violated the open-source licence by not releasing their total code, but that's another sin.) Stick one of those DRM-laden CDs into your computer, and a spyware Rootkit is installed in your machine. Sony can then monitor what happens on your machine, and hackers can use its buggy interface to attack your system. Bad news.

Customers are pissed-off, returning flaky CDs to stores and refusing to buy DRM-laden CDs. Bands are pissed-off, fearing loss of sales and face, their cozy relationships with customers ruined. Sony is barely apologetic, but they obviously fear and loathe the customers who provide cash. (And they're getting their ass sued off at this very moment.) Other music labels are pissed-off, because this puts THEIR own DRM schemes in a bad light. Bad news for everybody in the music biz.

But let's get personal. We don't buy Sony CDs anyway — like the other major labels, they're overpriced and overloaded with cloned crap. But we do buy Sony electronic products, many of them — at least, we used to. Both of our most recent (expensive) Sony digital cameras have done bit the dust; the DSC-V1 was repaired badly, the DSC-P10 has smudges inside the lens system. We likely won't buy any more Sony cameras. And with Sony showing contempt for the customers who feed them, we might not buy ANY more Sony stuff. Maybe.

Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. —Bruce Mau

Tuesday 22 November 2005 - Damn Sac Again

Into Sacramento (Folsom actually) for medical stuff: vaccinations and Xrays. And the usual shopping, at several large tiring sites stuffed with pre-holiday crowds. Most of these Folsom trips turn into 8-12 hour drives; today only took ten hours from departure (7 am) to return (5 pm). No time for us to do or read or think anything interesting. Bother.

Meanwhile, I haven't worked up any good rants about govern­mental or corporate or religious or social or other malfeasance and/or idiocy. The shoppers were annoying but the drivers weren't bad (roads were emptier than usual), the weather is clear and bright and only moderately smoggy, the clinics went fast, etc. Nothing much to bitch about, but exhaustion.

I saw and heard no mention in online or NPR news today that this is JFK day, 42 years since those gunshots were fired in Dallas. We have different conspiracies to occupy us now; old assass­inations don't attract much attention. Is this good? Do the still-living conspirators sigh with relief?

Oh wait, here's a news item from the National Journal: "Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda." There it is, the smoking gun. The lies are revealed. Do something.

Mothers are like court jesters: they tell the truth but it has no impact. —Jasmina Tesanovic

Unto Thanxgiving (USA) Weekend

Wednesday 23 November 2005 - At Home again

Resting. Another slow day. Things will happen tomorrow. And in case anyone cares (unlikely), I've decided to let SkeptiLogAgog bite the dust, 'cause it's too much work to maintain it. And I'll convert these journals into a blog. Somehow. Somewhen. Will the format change? I dunno yet. And I'll probably have to move the EatIt! food blog from its old Sonic.Net home over to Klaxo.net 'cause I'm getting bandwith overload. Expect these changes before the end of 2005. Maybe. But Micro Films?

Thursday 24 Nov 2005 - Thanksgiving Day (USA)

I take it easy. We finish unloading. Maureen makes a special sweet potato recipe for the family gathering. Late afternoon, we gather at Beth and Brad's with their families for another superb dinner. Abuelitas news: Bobbie is just out of pacemaker battery replacement surgery and doesn't attend; Ginny comes out of her home-hospice room. Carter news: Trevor will attend Humboldt State for a Natural Resources degree; Chris will attend Stanford Medical for further P.A. certification; Kittra will appear at Xmas. We'll do the Xmas dinner — only 14+ expected. Sacre bleu!

Friday 25 November 2005 - Black Friday (USA)

Finally, rain. Steady rain. Tall cedars and firs and madrones drip foggily. Chimes swing on the front porch. Our meadow sprouts. In the heights, snow. Meanwhile, Sharon has been tending Bobby for the last couple days; Maureen takes over today and tonight. I have the place to myself! The cat's away, the mouse shall play! HA! I can turn the radio up! I can compute! I could eat saurkraut if we had any. But even if I wanted to, I can't go Black Friday shopping. Just as well; no money here. Bother.

Saturday 26 November 2005 - Still At Home

I cooked and delivered dinner for Maureen and Bobby last night. Maureen is staying over today. I have most of today to myself. HA! More mischief... But to what end? Write as needed; rebuild the website; get ready to start selling stuff. BTW the latter may involve a trip to SF, and yes it'll be good to see Jodeana and Troy, but will we visit the new De Young Museum?

Sunday 27 November 2005 - What Weekend?

Maureen cooked dinner (ham & sweet potatoes & cornbread & string beans) last night for Bobbie & Fred & Sharon & us, served at Bobbie's. Maureen does another dinner tonight and goes back to mother-sitting tommorow; an 83-year-old recovering from surgery is non-trivial but she should be OK in a few days. Late afternoon, Prof. Terry and Eileen show up, enroute over high mountains from high desert to low coast. We learn that our old Forestville house was abandoned, then refitted and is now selling for 50% more than we got four years ago. Sacre bleu!

Ooooh, teeth are such a bother until it's time for corn on the cob. —Peter Swanson

Unto The Start Of December

Monday 28 November 2005:   Cold and dreary. A light dusting of snow, too little for interesting images. Maureen goes Bobbie-sitting today thru Wednesday; I go picture-working and stuff-flogging. No UFOs.

Tuesday 29 November 2005:   In the deluge, a deer and a wild turkey variously poke around our mini-meadow. The eBay postings are now up. Maureen's back from Bobbie-sitting for only a couple hours.

Wednesday 30 November 2005:   I'm losing track of time; my wake-sleep-cycles in this dark season are disconnected from clock time. And I'm almost continually occupied at keyboards. Nerd nerd nerd...

Thursday 1 December 2005:   Maureen is back for most of today. Bobby-sitting is tapering off. More pounding rain, no snow here today — maybe soon. Horrible light for high-contrast photography. Bother.

Friday 2 December 2005:   Large stones will fall from the sky. Some will be inhabited. Widespread panic; the media goes mad; politicians make excuses; prices fluctuate. Then life goes on. Whew.

If you cannot say what you have to say in twenty minutes, you should go away and write a book about it. —Lord Brabazon

Click here to see what happens next. If you dare.