23:36 10/18/2003
The day started off kinda wrong, mostly just becaujse we couldn't drag our tard butts out of bed. I hit the snoozebar a coupla times, and so did JD, and the last time he accidentally set the clock.
So the first thing that I saw when I finally awoke, the clock said 3:35, and I assumed that was PM... I hate 12-hour clocks, especially after late nights.
But my panic was for naught... it was, in actuality (I wish that I wouldn't keep saying that... a bad habit of mine. After all, if it wasn't actual [a fact], I wouldn't have anything to do with it without specifying otherwise...) it was 09:30. And the first meeting was at 10:00. So we hurried, and skipped breakfast, and even took a cab to the Omni.
The first meeting was "Everything that you wanted to know about journalling but were afraid to ask" or something like that. Yeah, I know, it shouldn't be in quotes unless I'm sure that that's exactly what it is... but I'm looking at a teeny-weeny abbreviated schedule provided by celluloideyes.com.
Anyway, it was good, as were all of the meetings. Except.
No f***&^g PA systems. In any of the meetings.
And I'm getting rather older, and my tinnitis is progressing, and I have a damned hard time hearing. So I spent most of the meetings standing up, so that I could at least lip-read a little bit. And I started sitting a little closer whenever possible.
But I did get a lot out of most of the meetings. For one thing, CSS. No, it's not a new TV show, it's a relatively new way of formatting content on the web. Both JD and I are rather enthusiastic about it. It was brought up in the second meeting that we attended, "Web Site Makeover", which had a very knowlegable panel, people whose work I have admired for years.
Then it was lunch... JD and I went to a place which was recommended to us last night, the Hickory Bar and Grill. $2 beer, and excellent sandwiches.
Back to the Omni, for a panel on writing for your readers. Interesting, but nothing that I haven't really thought about for the last seven and a half years. But good discussion, nevertheless.
And finally, better or worse, about life changes brought about by journalling online. Which got me to thinking... many of the things that I write about involve other people. And it seems that I am always thinking about... how I might transform this experience, whatever it might be, conversations, just about anything.
And what that does for me is... it makes me think about that experience as it's occuring. About what I might do, about what I might say, what is the best way to handle this situation.
I try to portray myself as a nice, honest guy in my journal, and most of the people that I've talked to about it are pretty much fooled. Well, not really... I think of myself as a nice guy, too. But... I've never been as nice as I want to be. I've never been completely honest... about my life, about my desires.
But... I want to be.
No, I will probable never speak completely honestly about my life nor my desires here. My sex life and my work life are mine own, as is my desire to set up a very benevelont disctaorship (with good relations with DC, of course) in a small third- or fourth-world country.
My honesty, that I value so much?
Folks, I steal software. Yes, I have done so in the past. And I justify it to myself, through a mechanism that I have set up in mine head, one that would never stand up in a court of law. And I'm not even big-time about it, either. A petty thief. When I steal it, I don't sell it, I give it away. I don't do it because I need it, I do it bacause it's, uh, fun, in an odd sort of way. And to try it out, of course. I have purchased several programs that I wouldn't had if I hadn't been able to use them first.
And the same with music. I've got reams of CDs and vinyl, and I have stolen everything that I've bought... off the web. Simply becasue I'm not really enough of a geek to figger out how to get the vinly into MP3 format. So, most of it I've bought once, at least. And yeah, there's some stuff there that I haven't bought. But that's a whole 'nother story.
But the whole point here is... my journal has made me toe the line. I don't want to write anything that puts me in a bad light... so I don't do things that will do that.
I don't mind appearing stupid, or clumsy, or lacking in social graces. But I do hate apearing dishonest, as I dud in the previous two paragraphs.
And yes, it may appear stupid to come out as a petty software thief. Online, for all of the world to see.
But. I bought WIN95, and I bought WIN98, and I bought WIN98SE, and I bought W2K. Well, that last one is kind of a lie, 'cause I only paid $15 for it. You know that I know that probably wasn't a legal copy. But the SN that I got for it worked....
So. I'm not completely honest, heh. I have my limits, and I have my price.
There was a guy sitting in a bar, and a woman came in and sat down beside him. They had a conversation, and after a while, he asked her if she would have sex with him for $100,000. She thought about it for a while, then said yes. He then asked her if she would have sex with him for $20, and she slapped his face.
"What do you think I am>", she screamed.
He said, " We've established that, we're just haggling over the price..."
Anyway, the meeting was over before I could catch the moderator's eye, so I never got ot put it to the panel, deammit.
There was also a few opinions batted around about anonymity, and I, Doug Franklin, of Nilknarf dot net, am entirely against it. At least, in that way, I am projecting my honesty. What I say is mine, mine alone, and I stand behind my words. Always have, always will.
Anyway, back to the meetings... the next one was Tech Talk, and it was very interesting. Only I got a little ahead of myself, it was the second one after lunch. Another great panel, resources that I plan on making use of really soon.
It was dinner on your own, and JD and I wound up at the same place again. Only we weren't really hungry, so we shared a meal... all that he wanted was a salad, and they had fresh trout on the menu... we talked the waiter into letting us to break it up. I got the entree, JD got the all-you-can-eat salad bar that came with the entree. And the trout was excellent.
They had a jazz archestra playing, a tuba, a trumpet, drums, a banjo (A BANJO?) and a clarinet. They were excellent, a really interesting sound, I liked it a lot.
There were also two pretty girls sitting next to us, and there was a football game on. One of the girls knew some of the kids in the game, and her team almost won. That was entertaining.
After we were done eating, we went to the entetainment for the evening... they had rented a 90-seat theater, and two of the members put on shows that they had written. Monologues, essentially, but the performers were fantastic. Kinda like standup comedy, but more like drama... I don't know how to classify them, but they were good, and they moved me a lot.
Then... off to the the Kareoke bar.
There were a lot of jounallers there, and they all seemed to be having a good time.
JD and I both had headaches, though, and nobody came over to talk to us... and we're both too damned polite to go over to someone and initiate a conversation when the person is having a conversation with someone else... especially when we've got headaches.
So... I miss Renee not being here, dammit.
And it's 01:11, time for me to shut this device down and get to sleep. The alarm is set for 07:01... that's AM, for all of you AM-PM people.