MisterNihil.com
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31.1.03On the Death of a Muse: How little we knew ye, muse of the center step. Your passing will be known by all, mourned by a select, priviledged few. That you have passed is a sadness; that you have returned to the earth that bore you, a blessing. No words suffice. The occasion stubbornly refuses to lend itself to gravity, and remains one in which levity is lost. The most fitting tribute would be in song, and the most fitting song would be sung silently as one ekes out a quiet existence for a few more days. In your example, we must revel: To live life with one's head down is to live life briefly; to live quietly is to die quietly. Your peaceful final days were, I hope, as pleasant as any others. In your memory, as we could never do in your life, we shall finally give up your mortal trappings, that they may find a worthy recipient. This final act of charity shall be performed in your name, and before we do so, we shall allow your tiny abode to stand empty for an appropriate period of mourning. You shall be missed; your passing shall be observed; I can only hope that our lives will be better for your part. Posted at 11:06 AM - - - - - - - 30.1.03How disturbing is it when your house disappears when you were paying somebody to watch it? So, I came home today to the sound of the alarm system in my home beeping. I punched in the code, and saw that it had an error message. I called the alarm system company, and was informed that I have to pay SWB (the local phone monopoly)(Oh wait, if you're reading this in America, they're probably your local phone monopoly also...) for a land-line, even if I will never use it, in order for my monitoring to be active. This alarmed me, not because they require that I pay a monopoly, but because that means that the system has been absolutely ineffective since last month, and that they didn't notice. My house disappeared from their systems for a month, and they didn't notice. It begs the question: What the hell am I paying them for again? Posted at 6:47 PM Good (non-gross) news from the dentist: The fellow I went to in April got married and moved to Houston. I saw the other dentist, who is a perfectly nice person. One of my fillings from last time didn't seal properly, so the sensitivity and ache aren't just my imagination. They're gonna fix it for me in two weeks. Life is good. My teeth are pretty clean in general. The hygenist said to switch to a toothpaste without all the bells & whistles & crap in it. She said whitening and tartar control are just gimmics to sell toothpaste. She was also surprised to learn that I'd been brushing with charcoal for about three of the last six months (I think that's the right figure. Toshi? Is it?) So that was my morning. Posted at 9:55 AM - - - - - - - 29.1.03What do these words have in common: Gifts, Jewelry, Baby, Chocolate. Yeah. Me neither. Posted at 2:30 PM Let's try this out, shall we:
Posted at 2:19 PM - - - - - - - 28.1.03It starts with a lark; a joke; bragging because you know you could have done better, given a chance, a kitchen and 300mb of web space. Then, all of a sudden, you are the proud owner of 300mb of web space and a domain, and the daunting task of actually putting your encoding where you mouth is. You cast about, looking for, if not the answer, then at least an answer. Answer, answer, answer. Perhaps Veggies? Perhaps not. Perhaps both? Who knows? And then you have to ask why, particularly, why did you go and pick those two names, above the others. Are they right? Are they catchy enough to be easy to remember without being so catchy you might possibly succeed? It's a puzzler, but there it is. Projects and projects. They don't stop arriving just because you've finished (sorta) one of 'em. Now it's all a matter of discovering that rarest of comodoties, Time. Time, time time. I know it's that time again... You follow me? Posted at 1:57 PM - - - - - - - 27.1.03I don't know if my folks read this page or not, but here's an item of interest for my dad, found on William Gibson's Blog: Borges.The particular story is down at the bottom of the page. So, yeah. Posted at 3:44 PM Class tomorrow and My Name is Excited. Posted at 12:14 PM Wrasslemania was cool. I made it to the semi-finals (the match before the last match. Semi-finals, right?) and the guy who beat me went on to win the whole thing so I don't feel bad. I had a wrestlin' name, and a mask, and theme-intro music, and a strategy and everything. Clarify: That's arm-wrestling. There was an arm-wrestling tournament at work last night. Some people got it into their heads to make an event out of it, and it managed unquestionably to be one. So, that was my weekend. Oh, and I am now the owner of a bowling shirt. Lucky for me, I'm going bowling this coming weekend. Life works. Posted at 12:11 PM - - - - - - - 25.1.03The rules I'm aimin' ta follow for web design: Contrast Repetetion Alignment Proximity Gleaned from Toshi's Web Class. And By the way, making an archive page SUCKS. The one that it comes with as a default is just a list of the dates on a grey background. Man, I hadda do a lot to that. And Javascript, if you don't know quite what you're doing, also sucks. Posted at 2:57 AM - - - - - - - 24.1.03Just in the interests of completeness: The Chronicle Article The Bookslut Article The BookPeople Response That's what's happening in my neck of the woods, as it were. Posted at 4:18 PM - - - - - - - 23.1.03In 2004, both Toshi's and My birthday will fall on full moons. Posted at 4:39 PM Y'know the whole "sleep on it, it'll sink in," type of thing? I'm impressed. It doesn't work with everything (for example, I'm feeling hungry right now, and sleeping wouldn't do a whole lot of good), but when it does, it's OK. So, yeah. Oh, and also, we've got our Bob Schieffer books in (they aren't officially on sale until Monday, and we're doing our event tomorrow. We've got an exclusive. Life is good). We were a little anxious about it all, but it worked out nicely. On the slightly less cool side, the bookslut article in the Chronicle came out this week, and focuses heavily on the feature about how much my bookstore sucks. Whatever. I guess she's allowed to attack who she wants. Posted at 2:50 PM OK, attempt 2: YAY! Stlye sheets are wackyfun! Posted at 11:58 AM From The Onion: Cancer: (June 22—July 22) Next week, you will find yourself in an office romance. Unfortunately, all the female employees will have been replaced by shrieking drag queens. Posted at 11:09 AM - - - - - - - 22.1.03Good god ya'all. I feel sick. Posted at 4:13 PM Wow. In this day and age. Wow. Posted at 3:15 PM There's an Inventory Manager here, who is an absolute prince, and a hell of a bookseller. A quote from him: The book, "How to read a poem and fall in love with poetry," we have... carried this book, we have loved this book, we have adored this book, we have... sold it on the 21st, yesterday." OK. Back to your lives. Posted at 10:36 AM - - - - - - - 21.1.03I've actually dealt with this crap regularly. Funny. Posted at 4:38 PM Sharon says: Yay, Ben! I'd already gone to check it out this morning, actually, knowing that you'd finished your homework. The trick is gonna be keeping up with you. (Actually, I'm flattered that you're taking it seriously. Beat Shawn up after class, or something, to get him motivated, k? There's a dear.) Posted at 1:17 PM Hey, Sharon. Anybody who isn't Sharon who visits that site is a Bad Egg. It was my first homework assignment for a class. It probably isn't any o' yer bidness. Posted at 11:15 AM - - - - - - - 20.1.03Dostoevsky, by the way. Posted at 3:51 PM I had a post about Russian Stuff, but I got scared and took it down. Ask me, I'll spill, but I'm afraid of the Russian Mob. Afraid. Posted at 1:04 PM - - - - - - - 17.1.03OK, First, I f* HATE Styrofoam m*f* Packing Peanuts. Hate hate hate. If I never have to DEAL with another one, I'll be happy. Calmer now, This is cool. These seem like a nifty thing to waste a little money on. AND I AM COVERED WITH TINY BITS OF STATIC-CHARGED m*f* STYROFOAM GODDAMMIT! That is all. Posted at 1:42 PM - - - - - - - 16.1.03So, new Harry Potter. Like, yeah. Supposed to be fully a third longer than the fourth, ISBN 0-439-35806-x. Here's a place where yourownself can order itsownself. Yo. Speaking of which while not at all speaking of which, I read a book called Lamb, which was enjoyable, all around. Also, I just finished Land of Laughs, which was keen, and will be a 'classic of modern fiction' any day now. Just wait. A-a-a-ny day now. I'm seriously. Next is Master & Margarita. I've got into a book group and this is the second book. The first was Land of Laughs. I'm also reading a mildly disappointing collection of fictions called The Literary Werewolf: An Anthology. It's not that it's a collection of mildly disappointing fictions, it's just that the collection itself manages to be kinda wimpy, with excerpts from whole novels pared down to fit into a rather puny 272 pages. The first story in the book is February from Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, which is fine, but the story without the pictures or the other 11 months is mostly pointless. That's not the worst: Before each section, the editor/collector puts a description of each story within the section (the Erotic Werewolf, the Unwilling Werewolf, the Truncated Werewolf, etc.) with the Whole Plot, including the Whole End of the story. On the two pages of King she included, she not only included the whole story of the whole Cycle, she extrapolated out the end of the February section, detracting from its quality. Now you're caught up on what I'm reading. Cope. Posted at 3:18 PM Eek. The publishers are starting to recognize me. Eek. Or maybe that's good. Posted at 11:27 AM The Princeton Review put out a list of the top ten party schools and I am proud to say that no school I have ever attended made the top ten. Yay! Princeton doesn't think I'm a Party Person! Oh. Posted at 9:38 AM - - - - - - - 15.1.03Hope for Non-SingersMarci Lynne is doing a CDsigning/Workshop/Thing at Book People. She's a local vocal coach. Say that fast, whydoncha?Posted at 4:40 PM - - - - - - - 14.1.03If you search for "Spongebob" in our computers at Work, Spongebob books come up. The entry just previous to Spongebob: Mary Spongberg's Feminizing Venereal Disease. I just thought you'd like to know. Posted at 3:27 PM YAY! PRO! YAY! Spel Chek! YAY! Posted at 10:10 AM - - - - - - - 12.1.03Sometimes there aren't words. Posted at 9:20 PM - - - - - - - 10.1.03I had a moment when I realized I was living one of those situational-word problems we used to get in school. You know, Ben is sending out checks for consignment authors. It takes him 2 minutes to write each letter (to accompany the checks) and address each envelope, and he has five checks to send off. The checks are numbered sequentially, and he has already put two checks into envelopes when he realizes that he has not recorded the check numbers into the appropriate consigners' files. He now holds checks numbered 0628845, 0628846 and 0628848. If he picks a number to write on the two completed consigners' files, what numbers should he write to be the most sure he has the right numbers? What is the chance he will write the correct number on the correct file? If Ben has to go to the bathroom in the next seven minutes, what are the chances he will not make a puddle? The answer of course, is that I opened the sealed envelopes, and wrote the correct number on the correct file. the missing check number was (garble garble garble)(it doesn't matter, I changed the numbers anyway) and I didn't make a puddle. Life is good, and I did the job right. Posted at 9:48 AM - - - - - - - 6.1.03To the tune of "Hanging": Some days I'm so high that I can See your blind spot (beat) some days my eyes are blue Some days there's a god who even is what I'm not (beat) some days he loves you too. Posted at 11:38 AM - - - - - - - 2.1.03Out here in the Booneys, we ain' got no Dee Ayus Eyull. You wanna use our caybul mod-em? Venting at Nothing. It's what makes America Great. or crappy. Posted at 5:02 PM I filled a garbage can with tissue, not out of malice or practical jokiness, but out of a need to dispose of a metric assload of used tissue. One. At. A. Time. Bein Sick Sux. Posted at 5:01 PM - - - - - - - | All material copyright 2002-2003 Ben Gibbs. | |||||||||
