date: 10/22/95 23:48 PM
by: Mark Thomas [sorabji@paranoia.com]I can't decide what to do with something I've written. I'll figure it out sooner or later, but it's not like I do this stuff professionally or anything, so I'll just get to it in my own sweet, precious, unspoiled time. It's about October 20th, and the month of October in general; I've always dreaded this month, something about October 1 strikes a nerve in me, and it feels like the bell that rings for Sylvester Stallone in Rocky at the point where Apollo Creed realizes that his match against Balboa will not be a cakewalk and that Rocky will even be a pain in the ass about it. It's one of my favorite movies, and I can't think of a greater loss to movies than to think of what a waste Sylvester Stallone's immense talents have gone to. *
Realized recently that one should be careful when saying things like "You look Irish," or "You look just like Lyndon Johnson." Careful, because no matter how arbitrary or frivolous the comment may seem, the person you tell will likely spend the rest of their life telling others "They always said I look Irish," or "Maybe I should run for office." Of course, if you say something even vaguely flattering, like if you compare a woman to Katherine Hepburn or a man to some great spiritual leader, then your observation will likely be mentioned to others not only for the rest of the observed's life, but with credit due to yourself. Well, it's nothing significant, I don't s'pose. *
It's in the same league as my feeling that if you go to a cocktail party and display any kind of talent, I mean any kind of talent, no matter if it's playing Chopin Etudes blindfolded or juggling 2 beanbags, you will receive applause, even a standing ovation. I think it's just one of those nice little things about life, and goddamit I live for the nice and happy things. *
I have jury duty tomorrow. I'm a finalist to sit on a jury for a case which will last "4-5 months," according to the judge and the army of attorneys I met with briefly last week. Well, it was not just I who met with them, it was several people; I don't know if my pitifully larcenous past will rule me out of consideration, but I'm not really sure how to feel about it. It would be fun to be on such a jury, and the case sounded mildly intriguing. I'll find out more tomorrow, but for now I think I'll eat some ice cream. * Oh, but I was at work today, and I was absolutely positively the only person there (as was the case last night, and the night before), or at least I thought I was the only person there until I went into the men's room and heard this guy taking a furious, noisy shit, I mean it sounded like a fucking jackhammer, and I really thought that there were construction people in there working on things but no, it was just some guy taking a dump! I mean jeez, some people are discrete about this kind of stuff, but others have no shame whatsoever, they grunt and wheeze and gasp and you practically feel the turds coming out of their asses just by being in the same room with them when The Magic Moment occurs. This guy was going at it for several seconds, and maybe it was just the shock of realizing what the noise was that made it seem so much louder in my mind, but it sounded violent and righteous and I bet it splattered junk all over the fucking place in there. I was so alarmed I couldn't even stay there, and I took my business to another men's room on another floor, but not until I was reasonably sure I had heard this stranger's bowel movements through to their bitter, disappointed finis. *
Have been experimenting a little bit with frames and ledges and other HTML novelties; frames seem straightforward enough, but it's hard to imagine that they could be any uglier. I could go without the fat scrollbars and could use colored frames, but at any rate I don't think they're valuable enough yet for anyone to bother with. I like Netscape fine, but Mosaic is still my #1 choice; it's a far more elegant suite and it's far more stable, at least in my experience, than any other browser. And now it even supports some Netscapese, which could only have been called Netscapese until everyone adopted it, and sooner or later everyone will adopt everything and these frivolous browser wars will die a quick and cash-hemmoraged death. Yes, it's simplistic, but it's late and I don't have the energy right now to flesh this out. But Mosaic is and will always be number one for me, it is designed not with trendy multi-media extensions or useless applet compatibility in mind, it's designed instead as an information browser and an information presentation software, and that would seem that browsers are best created to meaningfully communicate information and ideas, not hype and holler, God I sound like such an asshole. *