Month: September 2002

This morning, I received twenty-two e-mail messages. Of those, fourteen were spam with subject headers like “secrets about your credit” and “meet singles in your area” and, strangely enough, “garden ornaments”. Of the eight remaining, three were University-wide or departmental mailings that did not pertain to me, three were links to this Italian coffin maker (of which I was already well aware thanks to Neil Gaiman and the folks at Invisible City), one contained the results of a poll on whether or not a fellow capper should attend a Janeane Garofalo show (90% said yes), and one was a mass e-mail from Warren Ellis’ mailing list Bad Signal, which gets sent out two or three times a day.

Man, real e-mail would be nice.

There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be. It’s easy. — The Beatles

An interesting interview [part 1, part 2] with author Kurt Vonnegut at the McSweeney’s homepage:

Q: When I was reading Dr. Kevorkian, I was reminded a bit of a Japanese film from a couple years ago called “Afterlife.”

Vonnegut: I haven’t heard of it.

Q: It’s premise is that those who have recently died are taken to a waiting room for one week, during which time they must choose only a single memory from their entire lives which will endlessly replay for them, while all of their other memories are erased.

Vonnegut: So everybody’s fucking, right?

Q: See, that’s the peculiar thing. Maybe in your world or mine, everybody’s fucking. But in this movie, some of the memories are much simpler, almost elegant. Many people can’t choose a memory at all.

Vonnegut: See, that’s a whole different culture. I don’t know anything about it.

Q: Any idea what memory you might choose?

Vonnegut: [Long pause] I think it would be the moment where I was doing everything right, where I was beyond criticism. It was back in World War II. It was snowing, but everything was black. The trucks were rolling in. I was surrounded by my buddies. And my rifle was between my knees, my helmet on my head. I was ready for anything. And I was right where I belonged. That would be the moment. It would have to be the moment.

Q: There are not many moments in a man’s life like that, I would imagine.

Vonnegut: No. But you know who gets those kinds of moments all the time? A musician. They’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. I look at a symphony orchestra and everybody’s doing exactly right. How the fuck do they do that? It’s like watching somebody’s who’s just inherited a big bunch of money. “Well, enjoy yourself…. I’m just gonna fuck off — you know what I’m saying.”

After Life really is a touching and wonderful film. And it’s true, there are not many moments like that in most of our lives, when we feel as if we truly belong, as if we’re doing exactly what we’re supposed to be doing, as if everything that has gone before was simply preparing us for this moment. To know that all is right with the world and that you are ready for anything because you are where you are supposed to be. Treasure those moments when they come.

All right then. Redesign. I’m reasonably happy with it for now. It still needs some tweaking, I’m sure, but that will have to wait. At least I didn’t accidentally delete my weblog when I rewrote the template. That would not have been good. Any thoughts? Like it, hate it, not especially impressed one way or another?

To the gentlemen on the phone with my boss right now: I wasn’t trying to be rude when I asked you to repeat your name a second time. I honestly could not hear you, either because the telephone connection was poor or because you quickly raced through the unfamiliar words. My boss had to ask you to do the same when I handed him the phone. As I explained to you, I was perfectly happy to put you through once I could tell him who was calling. I just did not want to hand the phone over to my boss with nothing but a shrug and an “I don’t know” or “your guess is as good as mine”. I apologized for asking you to repeat your name, politely explained my reasons for doing so, and assured you that my boss was in fact available. I understand that my request may have been more than a little annoying, but threatening to hang up and discard the proposal you were calling to discuss really wasn’t necessary. It was, in fact, more than a little rude and certainly no way to conduct business.