24 Dec 2006
This not-a-weblog has been up here since 1998, which is a long long time in Web years. So maybe it's a bit silly that I'm still handrolling the thing (which is one of several reasons that I rarely update it) when I could be using real blogging software. Or at least, following Karen's lead, going forward to the past. For now, just between you and me, let's say that GNAW is on hiatus. I might pop up elsewhere, and when I do, maybe you'll hear about it. OK? OK.
14 Oct 2006
From the "why bother?" department: look, Chan's on the AOL!
13 Aug 2006
Continuing to mine the vein of ketchup: I cannot remember why the simple exclamation "Olé!" was so funny at Sycamore Hill. But boy, was it. Also, Sycamore Hill was pretty great, even though a friend was absent. In other mountain news, I went back up there for familial purposes this month. Sites seen and worth seeing include the Franklin Gem & Mineral Museum, the Balsam Mountain Inn, Clyde's Restaurant (nice indie diner in Brevard), the ornamental bridges of Lake Lure, Chimney Rock Park, the Judaculla Rock, an International style building (no longer Sherrill's Studio) next to the Macon County Courthouse in Waynesville, and the Scottish Tartans Museum.
29 Jul 2006
What happened? Where am I? I see this line in the deepest crevice of my to-do list: "post about Wiscon." Which seems a bit silly, given that Wiscon was months ago, and since then I've run another Sycamore Hill with Doc, and I've been to Trinoc*con as well. So, how about some random thoughts instead? Wiscon was Wiscon; I had quality time with my people (you know who you are), I got to know some other folks better, and it all went by way too quickly. Our plan to connect through Detroit rather than O'Hare worked out well. Go, DTW! Boo, ORD! The Ratbastards karaoke/dance party was fun, esp. in the economy size ballroom with the pro gear. Although I was shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that the average Wiscon attendee is more familiar with bad 80s pop than with the works of Buck Owens (RIP). Favorite moment of the weekend: being at the Tiptree display when Carol Emshwiller showed up with a fan letter from Tip to her, thinking it wasn't worth anything. (It sold for seven-hundred bucks, as I recall.) Favorite beverage sequence: getting some Isle of Jura Superstition, then a slug of Balvenie from Minz, and then some Tyrconnell from a random (extremely nice) guy in the hallway. That was the same night as the Jeremy Lassen Zoot Suit Russian Dumpling Expotition, well documented by the fabulous Meghan McCarron. What else? I read with Gavin J. Grant, Christopher Rowe, and Scott Westerfeld, and the audience seemed to dig everything. I scored a copy of Twenty Epics, which y'all should all buy, OK? Last words, last words, out.
20 May 2006
I spent five hours today at Artsplosure (which really should be called Craftsplosure) blundering around checking out the street performers. Old and new faves are: the Yo-Yo People, Daredevil Chicken Club in their binary form, and Royer's One Man Band. I also spent some time, as I do, wandering around downtown looking at buildings, or spaces where buildings used to be. The apartment building to which Lee Harvey Oswald placed his one phone call? Been gone for a few years now. In it's place, nineteen whole parking spaces. Nineteen!
In mostly unrelated news, y'all check out the cute pix of April's Grip of the Month.
5 Apr 2006
No further eloquence is necessary. He was good, and we miss him.
17 Feb 2006
My version of Amish computing is this: I haven't changed my personal email setup in, ahem, twelve years. That was 1994, when I switched from MCIMail to a real ISP. That's right: I use ssh to log in and I still use pine to read mail. I don't worry about Outlook viruses. I read email as text, the way gopod meant it to be. To see pictures or PDF files or other attachments, I have to download them to my local machine with scp. If someone sends me a URL, I copy and paste it into my Web browser.
This has worked out well for me. I don't mind the extra keystrokes to log in or to download attachments. All I need to check email securely is a machine with ssh, which means all Macs running OS X, and pretty much any Linux or UNIX box. Every so often I download all the nice RFC822 standard mail files and archive them on my main home machine. Given that my Internet provider doesn't support IMAP, and given that I don't want to change my email address, I think this is the best solution for me to have email access from anywhere, to have it be secure, and to have all my mail (before I archive it) in one place. But I'm open to any ideas y'all might have.
28 Jan 2006
I have (essentially) been tagged/torched by Sumi to reveal five random things about myself. As opposed to five weird habits I have, which is good. Being a packrat, being in the Clean Plate Club™, these are not weird habits! Wait, here's a weird habit I do have. When I'm listening to someone who has the verbal tic of "do you know what I mean?" or "do you know what I'm saying?," every time they say either of those phrases, I respond subvocally. In my mind I'm saying: "yes, I do know what you mean" and "yes, I do know what you are saying." Over and over. Sometimes, if they're on the TV, I'll respond out loud.
Five random things, ahem. I lived in a canvas tent for two summers. I've got Cherokee blood in my ancestry, along with the more obvious and plentiful Scots and German blood. I wrote a story about the Devil's Tramping Ground but I've never actually been there (and need to remedy that). I was kicked out of the National Honor Society. When I was in the second and third grades, my hero was Leonardo da Vinci. So, there you go.
6 Jan 2006
Y'all don't forget to pre-view (pre-listen?) and pre-order Chan's new record. In answer to your query: David Larson. In answer to your query: security guard, hardware design engineer, theater technician, freelance writer; Blade Runner, The Big Lebowski, The Limey, The Princess Bride; a faux-colonial built in 1960, a high-rise built in 1969, a quadraplex built in 1983, a bungalow built in 1927; I Spy, My So-Called Life, Survivor, any NFL game; Vegas, Lexington KY, Hoboken, Ocracoke; Bloglines, Gavin's not-a-journal, Sumi's diary, the weather; barbecue, pho, dim sum, pie; Antarctica, Lexington KY, the greater NY/NJ area, Los Angeles in 1966.
1 Jan 2006
I resolve that I probably will never get around to spieling about the following topics here:
- How the traveling Kerouac exhibit we saw at UNC, complete with On the Road scroll, is really cool (even though I have extremely mixed feelings about Kerouac).
- How, even though I am not and was never that into video games, I used to be the champ of Colony 7.
- Speaking of writers about whom I have extremely mixed feelings, how the best aspects of Hunter Thompson (demeanor and dialogue) always reminded me of Gomez Addams (Gomez from the TV show).
- How I thought (in 1985) that the two bands who would eventually break big were Sonic Youth and Saccharine Trust. Oh well, it's a .500 batting average.
- How the problem with capitalism is that it generates power law curves, not bell curves.
- How the current definition of "lolita" has not much to do with Nabokov's definition, and why that's effed up.
- How it's still dumb for rich rock stars to sell their music to commercials, and why it's good that folks like Neil Young and John Densmore are not doing so.
- The reason why I still giggle when I hear "Who Are You" or "Rehumanize Yourself" on the radio.
And so on. This remains a not-blog, so for more stuff, travel back in time to 2005.
Comment on this Web page via (PGP Key)