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walking west

Saturday, September 30, 2000

You're driftwood floating underwater
Breaking into pieces, pieces, pieces
Just driftwood hollow and of no use
Waterfalls will find you, bind you, grind you
And you really didn't think it would happen
But it really is the end of the line
So I'm sorry that you turned to driftwood
But you've been drifting for a long, long time

Headphones bring the lyrics too close.

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I know I said I'd refrain from posting until the weekend, but I'm going down to San Jose tomorrow to see my friends there for a couple of days (and give them/burden them with a new TiVo, delivered yesterday), and anyway, Friday night is the weekend, isn't it?

Besides, I just made myself depressed by wandering around San Francisco for a few hours and contemplating the increasing likelihood that living here is just not going to happen; and I've got to write something to snap myself out of it. Five working days between now and when I hop on that plane. It's not looking good.

Okay, where to start.

I realised this afternoon that I was a $1 bus-ride away from one of the most picture-perfect scenes in the world, and that I was running out of time to take advantage of it. So I walked down the hill, waited for a #44 bus, rode out to Golden Gate Park, walked along the edge of Sunset to Park Presidio, and waited for the #28. And waited. And waited. And the sun went ahead and set.

The bus finally turned up and trundled out to the Golden Gate Bridge, half an hour too late for one of the most picture-perfect scenes in the world. I didn't bother getting off at the bridge to take a photograph of the dark. I'll try again next week.

It was time to eat, so I decided to sample a Tibetan restaurant (the Lhasa Moon, 2420 Lombard Street). I've never had Tibetan food before. The Tsel Phing, 'bean thread strings, potatoes, and celery sauteed with ginger and Emma (Tibetan peppercorn), served with Tingmo steamed garlic-flavored bread', was unexpectedly delicious. Like a cross between Indian and Chinese with its own twist. I'm a convert. (To the food. Kundun notwithstanding, Buddhism doesn't tempt me.)

But leaving aside the fine food (and the Thara, 'homemade yogurt shake natural flavor and brown sugar'), dining solo in a restaurant is never the cheeriest of experiences, and I left feeling pointedly alone. I wandered along a few blocks and walked up Fillmore to Union St, which I hadn't seen on previous visits to SF. It was full of bars and restaurants and life.

I bought a postcard in a bookstore showing Dorothy on a yellow-brick road leading to a collage of San Francisco landmarks.

Says it all, really.

Look, snap out of it. It's just a city. There are other cities. There are other great cities. Just keep focussed, keep going.

Yes, but... I'm tired. It's six months since Jane and I opened that letter and found out our house was being sold out from under us. Six months in which our lives have turned upside down. And I don't regret it—not any of it—but I'd really hoped that this might be an end to it, and we could get on with the next phase. That Walking West would end when we stop walking. Because if truth be told, we've been walking for five years.

[There was more—a series of false starts, none of which stayed on the screen for longer than a sentence or two before being deleted. I wanted to end this post on an upbeat note, because in the wider scheme of things I'm feeling pretty positive, but right now the stream of consciousness has hit a dam.]

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Friday, September 29, 2000

I suppose I'd better post something here before midnight, just to see if anyone takes the bait.

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Wednesday, September 27, 2000

Gaah. Sometimes I wish I had a computer that wasn't hooked up to a modem. My brain is filling up with ideas, but they're getting drowned out by white noise from the web. Look, I think I'm going to have to go cold turkey for a few days, just to make some headway with the (yes, again) big idea. If I post here again before the weekend, write to me and tell me to stop messing around with Blogger and start doing something more important than one-paragraph posts about scarves.

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The Droplift Project: a brilliant example of guerrilla art. Via MetaFilter—and speaking of which, Matt has now implemented a feature which allows you to list a MeFi user's posts and comments. Like, for example, mine. Very handy. Not that I've done much posting or commenting on MeFi. Probably because I started blogging four days after I joined.

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The Many Scarves of Doctor Who (via Grouse!). When I was a teenager I used to wear a scarf of Bakerian dimensions, inspired by his and knitted by my Mum, but the colours were totally different. I probably looked like a bit of a goose wearing it, but who cares; it served me well.

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Tuesday, September 26, 2000

It's Bad Web Art time! Here's a little something I call: The Joy of Hotmail [75K GIF]. Suitable for 1024x768 desktops, or framing.

I really must check that account more often.

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I love winning stuff. Jane got me hooked on it. First it was the CDs in a student newspaper limerick competition... then the plush Snoopy toys in a peanut butter competition... a whole box of M&Ms... some silver-plated ice-cream scoops... a magnum of champagne... and the big one: a week-long trip for two to Kuala Lumpur to see the 1998 Commonwealth Games. (Okay, so Jane won that one. But I got to go with her.)

So I couldn't help myself. Even though I'm only a US resident for two more weeks... even though I can't take a TiVo with me to Australia, because there's no service there and the voltage would blow out its motherboard... even though it will cost me ten bucks to sign up for the first month's service to receive the prize... I just had to enter their giveaway. A US$199 value! Do you know how much that's worth in Australian dollars? Millions! Well, hundreds. More than an ice-cream scoop's worth.

It took two whole agonising hours to hear back from them, but—I won! So now my friends down in San Jose get a free TiVo. (I'd give it to my roommates, but I'm already paying them rent.)

It was a '250 words or less' competition, so you know that I just have to post my entry here. Even if it's free advertising. Hell, I have no shame. Give me prizes, and you too will get a plug in my blindingly popular weblog. Yes, folks, there's nothing I like more than watching TiVo while reading Woroni, eating a Sanitarium peanut butter sandwich and some Sara Lee ice-cream, and sipping on Hardy's champagne!

(Oh my God. I've turned into John Laws.)

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You know, now that I don't look at it every day, I quite like the design of my previous weblog again. And, conversely, I'm getting bored with this one (although it's had better staying power). Time to think about what comes next. Familiarity breeds content.

Just to warn you all, the postings could get a bit infrequent from here on, and could die out for a while after I hop on that flight home. I'll be having a bit of a rethink. And if the big idea comes off, I could be busy with other things. (But good things. Oh yes.)

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My roommates get back from Japan and Bali today. I guess they'll want to start using their computer again. No more surfin' USA for me. Not as much, anyway. Bah, I wish I had one of these.

Woman in fancy dress [descending from ceiling suspended on a ribbon of ethernet cable]: And so you shall!

Rory: What the...? Who the hell are you?

Woman: Why, your fairy techmother, of course.

Rory: Of course.

Fairy Techmother (for it is she): All you have to do is write 250 words or less on why you want one, and send them to me. I'm giving away ten every day between now and the end of October.

Rory: Hang on, that sounds like the TiVo giveaway.

Fairy Techmother: I'm sure I don't know what you mean.

Rory: Does this supposed iBook record TV shows digitally and play them back through a regular TV?

Fairy Techmother: Um... maybe.

Rory: That's a TiVo.

Fairy Techmother: This one's made out of green and white plastic.

Rory: That's not the point. Isn't the competition only for US residents? I'm an Australian. I can't enter.

Fairy Techmother: Then why are you writing this pointless mythical exchange between the two of us?

Rory: Because I'm pissed off that I can't enter the competition!

Fairy Techmother: You could, you know. Technically, you're a resident of the US for two more weeks.

Rory: Won't do me any good if I win and have to leave it behind when I go.

Fairy Techmother: Four nights a week of Regis Philbin without commercials.

Rory: Damn it. You know my weak spot. You're on.

Fairy Techmother: I knew you'd come round.

Rory: I still want an iBook.

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Monday, September 25, 2000

My old friend Scoot, skeptic par excellence, has pointed out in response to my nuke-reminiscing that '"nuclear winter" has been completely discredited,' and that to say as I did that 'nuclear winter, we knew, had no room for people' is not true. Curse that rapier-sharp philosopher's mind of his, it always undoes my fine hyperbole. Okay, for 'knew' read 'believed'. (In my defence I should say that I was trying to describe how things seemed to certain teenagers—like me—in the early 1980s... and whatever the facts of the matter, there was a lot of nuclear-winter talk around then.) (Hang on, why am I defending myself publicly from Scoot? He doesn't even have a weblog!)

I still wouldn't want anyone to push the button.

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Interview with the (Secretary of the) Vampire. Hitler's secretary, now 80, describes her experience of the man in this interview with The Times. (Via Arts and Letters Daily.) 'After all the despair, all the suffering, not one word of sorrow, of compassion. I remember thinking, he has left us with nothing.'

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There's something big going on in my mind right now... an idea bigger than one weblog, one website, or one person can handle. I'm trying to figure out how to make it work and make it happen. It's as if I've struck oil in my back-yard, but don't have the resources to do the drilling and build the well. Right now I'm standing with my foot over it, trying to work out what to do next.

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Today (Sunday) I was planning to go to a big open-air concert in Golden Gate Park featuring Beck and Travis... but it was sold out. So instead I went to a Free Shakespeare in the Park production of Henry IV, Part 1, which was being performed not too far away. A good production, but now and then Falstaff and young Prince Hal would be interrupted by the distant bass and drums of 'Devil's Haircut' and 'Turn'. They ploughed on regardless as if nothing was happening. The best part of valour is discretion.

Since I missed seeing Travis in the flesh, I went and bought their album instead. And it's amazingly good. A little Radioheadish in parts (although Radiohead are moving the goal-posts with Kid A by all accounts). Still, I had the same complaint about Muse—until I bought their album a few weeks ago, which is very good as well. What the hell, the more bands influenced by Radiohead the better. I can still remember what it was like feeling totally out-of-touch with popular tastes when I was listening to The Bends three times a day and everyone was still talking about them as if they were one-hit-wonders with 'Creep'.

Some people enjoy being the only ones in the know about their favourite bands, but it just makes me wonder if I'm a freak... doesn't anyone else think Matthew Sweet is a pop genius? Didn't anyone else listen to Suede's Coming Up fifty times in the week they bought it? Where are all the Semisonic fans? Hello? Anybody?

Right, that's it. I'm going on a forced diet of Britney until I feel in tune with contemporary popular culture.

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Old West