is a blog by Brendan
So this is the room into which we checked,
And this is the room we were in three hours later.
So my advice is, always complain about the air conditioning.
These images brought to you by my new wide-angle lens, which is the second-sexiest thing I own, second only to my new Bose Wave WHY DO I KEEP BUYING SHIT SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE ME STOP
How have I not written about this yet! My uncle John has returned to blogging, and he’s busily winning merit awards with his fantastic collage pieces, of which I own two, which means I am also a winner.
Remember my list of potential destinations? The least likely of them has become the best choice, and in fact the one I’m making: on March 3rd I’m flying to London, to live with Holly, Kevan and Catriona until Roz arrives in August to take their spare room for fall term. I’ve worked out the tax-related bits and I have my boss’s approval to keep working for Indelible on Greenwich time. I have purchased plane tickets and an iPod. This trajectory does not reverse.
The whole thing fell into place with a suspicious ease, as if we had assembled a Lego castle merely by shaking the bucket, but I am not looking askance. Five and a half years ago I was writing here about how I had to turn down my semester abroad to keep my Comp Sci degree; now that degree is making it possible to go after all, with people I like, and to hang out with my mom and sister and Maria there. Real life seems to have a plot.
I’m going to London!
Responses to my last post, saved from the feed:
Ben: “All this copyright nonsense gets worse, eventually spiralling into ‘The War on Information’.”
Josh: “Assuming that your parents are baby boomers, your parents’ generation were unique, the only generation in history to have been able to consume without responsibility. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that any future generation will have that opportunity.”
Kevan: “I’m not sure how bad a thing it necessarily is, but the next generation being able to dig through their parents’ online diaries and data shadows is going to be quite big and strange. Reading unguarded entries about what their parents really thought of you when you were young, stocking up on ‘if you did this when you were my age, why can’t I do it now?’ ammunition, and being able to stalk some of your crushes or bullying-targets all the way back to birth.”
Catherine: “Also, the increasing dichotomy between rural and urban cultures. People from, say, Seattle can be a mite uncomfortable in rural Georgia. People from, say, Atlanta are often a mite uncomfortable in rural Georgia.”
All thoughtful, all excellent. Catherine’s response is closest to my own worries: that we will allocate greater bandwidth to strident, divisive, polemical speech than to speech that crosses boundaries. I’m not arguing for censorship of radicalism here–my own brand of radicalism is specifically anti-censorship–but warning against the rapid propagation of our trust networks through people who will tell us only what we want to hear. When you can find a thousand people who agree with you more easily than you can find one dissenter, you are on the road to becoming an instrument.
Tonight I got an email from Mr. Munson. He’s teaching his first Creative Writing course this semester, and he wants to use Anacrusis as a (positive) example.
Maybe someday I’ll sell a story or a novel and be inducted into the ranks of the print-published; maybe not. Either way I’m going to look back at January 5, 2007, as the day I Made It.
Yesterday Maria and I looked at the best apartment in the world, and today she applied for the lease; assuming she gets it, we’ll be moving in mid-February, and I will probably just be leaving my stuff in boxes in anticipation of leaving Kentucky. My very, very tentative plans for the move are to buy my brother’s truck for the transportation involved and drive to wherever I’m going sometime between February and April.
For those of you paying attention: yes, this means I’m going to get my driver’s license.
There really isn’t a better time in my life to do this. Everything I need to do my job fits in a backpack, and I can work from any coffee shop in the country. All that’s missing is a destination.
Excluding New York City and the South in general, where should I move? I want to live in a metropolitan area with a healthy tech sector. Also, truck or no truck, I want somewhere with good public transportation. Chicago (sorry, Flora) and St. Louis don’t really interest me; all the places I’ve traditionally talked about are coastal, but it’s not like I surf. Said places:
The pachyderm in the pantry is that except for the unlikely choices (North Carolina, London, possibly Hawaii), I have no friends in any of these places, and I am spectacularly bad at meeting new people. All of my current friends were obtained through academic programs with enforced social contact or Internet. So, friends on Internet: where should I move?
Update 1038 hrs: Maria got the apartment! Who wants to give me driving lessons?
Thanks to everybody who has commented or emailed with advice and information. You guys are the best Internet ever!
William, co-king of the Anacrusis mashup, made a Dinosaur Comic out of Odysseus:
Scott: “I assume the witch is going to try and hinder me as me, my madman and my dog try to leave the room?”
As seen camwise, the dog has ceased to destroy my copies of Halo 2 (I bought the one with the aluminum case) and occupies most of her days now staring out the window. Eventually she will evolve wings, and yea, the people will learn fear of the Hawkpuppy of Broadway.