6-28-00

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Read some interesting journals here:

June 2000

6/28/00

You know, I've had my scanner for two years now and I've never scanned a body part. Well now I have. And NO -- it's not my butt or boobs, thank you. I scanned my hand (oooh, a little rhyme -- sort of). Yes, dat's my hand -- the left one actually (I would have used my right hand, but hey, gotta control the mouse somehow). Interesting how smooshed against the glass the palm and fingertips look, huh?

Sigh. Getting allllloooottt of writing done. Yessiree. Scanning my hand -- now that's productive. Sure beats the photocopy of my index finger of a few years ago. Yup, slllooowww day.

I have to admit, one of my guilty tee-vee pleasures are the current crop of "reality shows" -- beginning with The Real World and Road Rules on MTV, Cops on Fox and Trauma: Life In the ER on TLC. Recently I've become one of the many beguiled by Survivor on CBS. (And for the record, I'm betting that Richard of the Tagi Tribe will be the last "survivor." He seems the canniest of the whole lot. Just my opinion, of course...) Nothing like prurient interest and plain old voyeurism to nab ratings and audience share. And at least I admit to enjoying these shows. I just nod my head and roll my eyes when I hear someone prattle on about how much they loathe The Real World, yet they seem to know all the names of the housemates... Hmmmm... Hypocrites are soooo entertaining.

Ah, the anticipation of each night's Tribal Council and another tribe member booted off the island. Tells alot about us, of course. That basic human fondness for backstabbing -- and watching it happen. 'Course, I was really hoping that the producers were originally planning to drop all sixteen participants on that "deserted" island with nothing but a single backpack and their wits. Now, that would have been a survival test. But, naturally, the producers decided to Road-Rule the show by having competitions (one tribe actually won a spice rack...huh???...to "liven up the rice" one Pagong member had commented. Oh my, how will we survive without turmeric and oregano?). The smarmy, blow-dried, Banana-Republic-ed host is beginning to get on my nerves, though. Send him into the jungle with the fire ants and snakes. Heh.

Well, I shouldn't be too critical of the Tagians and Pagongians -- they did, after all, eat live beetle-larvae. Ugh -- the way Gervase shook his head vigorously from side to side with his eyes squeezed shut, you just knew that what he'd chewed and swallowed was full-on nasty. And, of course, the Tagi tribe had to display their tongues to prove they'd actually swallowed the fat little grubs. Burp. Oh, but the culinary experiments were just beginning: Pagong eats roast rat -- and likes it!!! Even squeamish Gervase wanted to go hunting and butchering and roasting more rats after having a taste. (Hmmm, I wonder if he's brought his new-found fondness for vermin back to civilization. Barbecue at Gervase's house: "I thought we were having chicken..." "Hey, these aren't feathers...it's fur....!").

So, who will be booted off tonight? My bet's on Colleen if Pagong doesn't win immunity. Who on Tagi? Tough to say -- but I would vote to bump Dirk-the-Bible-thumper post-haste (even though he did run real fast in the last competition). I'd kinda hate to see Sean-the-cutie leave (for obvious reasons -- he's easy on the eyes) -- but he's a lousy fisherman and seems more preoccupied with constructing a bowling alley in the sand (hey, he would have been perfect on Gilligan's Island).

So, in between job-hunting and watching the "dead glass eye" (one of Harlan Ellison's tee-vee euphemisms), maybe I'll add more words to Mind Diver. Friday's output was 1,050 words (5 pages) -- I'm actually tracking my daily output on a little calendar I've created. I've got to finish the sucker by the end of August -- a tall order, but I'm gonna try. Her Grand Illusion is up to 100 pages -- but I have a clearer vision of Mind Diver at the moment, and I'd rather devote my energy to that project for now. Ah, deadlines (it's no wonder the word "dead" is included in the term).

The blasted @Home MX email server has been really flaky for the past two days -- and judging from the posts in the @Home newsgroups, there ain't a lot of happy people out there. Firstly, I couldn't even send an email -- the message seemed to go *poof* and I got SMTP error messages ("insufficient storage" shit). From what I gather, some fuckwit-lamer attempted to compromise @Home's firewall and send a nasty virus. This could be rumor -- I have no idea. All I know is that I'm pretty sure I lost a crapload of email messages -- especially my Sparks list-serv posts. Grrrrr! Apparently, because of the MX server glitches, a HUGE email backlog was created -- probably a lot of messages just disappeared into the ether. Sigh. Here I have this super-fast high-speed connection, with sometimes unbelieveable download speeds (I laugh when some sites warn that the "pictures and graphics may take a while to load"), but the email server is no better than my dial-up ISPs. It's pretty embarrassing -- and pathetic.

Well, I've really gone on and on with this one. I guess I'll save my remaining rants and musings for other entries. Any complaints -- talk to the hand. Heh.