Blatant Advert

StarOffice, Sun's commercial version of the runaway open source office suite OpenOffice, is now available for free (for Windows users) via Google's Google Pack. Google Pack is an amazing selection of free software lovingly selected by the always cutting edge cats at Google to provide Windows users with the best software money can't buy. If you're looking for an office suite and have not jumped on the OpenOffice bandwagon yet, give StarOffice a try.

Looking for... what?

How has escapism helped? Is reading fiction escapism? Is dreaming escapism? Is hope? Does fantasy have a place in the life of a critical realist? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? How many demons can run in the memory of a server? What does "I'm peachy" mean from someone who doesn't like peaches? What, ultimately, isn't natural? Are some foods supernatural in origin? If McDonald's isn't natural, does that make it supernatural? McManna? Natural vs. Supernatural or Natural vs. Artificial. Unless you're eating outside off the carcass or the vine or branch, some human artifice has likely been involved. Supernatural - God's artifice. Artificial - human artifice. So what's natural? When God and humans stay out of it? If you believe in God, how can anything not be supernatural? If you don't, how can humanity be anything but natural? Wishing you were all here...

Stardust and Other Quick Tidbits

Stardust the movie was different from Stardust the novel. Usually, that means the movie was bad ("I can't believe how they ruined such a great book!"). In the case of Stardust, however, we have a great movie loosely based on a great book, and they both are very good for what they are!

In other movie news, the collector's edition of Serenity is coming out this month. Bloody marketing departments...

Bookwise, William Gibson has released Spook Country, so I need to get my name on the public library list asap. Gibson's 1984 debut novel Neuromancer won three major science fiction awards (as well as introducing the word "cyberspace" into the English language). While there was cyberpunk fiction before Neuromancer (both actual cyberpunk like Rudy Rucker's Software, as well as proto-cyberpunk, like John Brunner's Shockwave Rider), Neuromancer provides a highly visible successful starting point for framing the cyberpunk movement (Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is, arguably, the last great cyberpunk novel. It was published in 1992).

Elsewise, the remodeling nightmare continues to become more and more Freddy Krueger-like. I'm still emphatically hopeful that come Halloween, we'll have a Very Pretty library... otherwise, I hope the library slashes me sooner rather than later. Well, it's not really as bad as all that (but some moments it feels that it is ;-)

White Wolf's Changeling the Lost is due out this week. The first version of Changeling was (as I've mentioned before) my favorite rpg that I never played. However, I've heard very bad things about White Wolf's reboot of their World of Darkness, so I will admit to being a bit afraid of what Changeling will look like this go-round.

Oh, and speaking of gaming, another bit of my childhood dies. As of issue 359, Wizards of the Coast has decided to end the publication of Dragon magazine. In my early days of pre-Internet gaming, Dragon is what connected me to the wider world of D&D. While I know monthly dead-tree pulps are no longer the primary source of news for hip young wired gamers, I will confess to having felt a bit of sadness at the news. Call me a dinosaur if you will (and "velociraptor" if you please), but I still like flipping through magazines.

Well, beyond my old man's aches and pains, I got nothing more, so... later, gang!

panic

the pounding of my heart
is strangling me.
harder to breathe,
to think,
to see and hear and touch...
each beat
and my head goes
blank,
i feel nothing but panic:
ice cold
and sweating.
i swallow a lungful of air,
and then...
another heartbeat.

i want to run,
to scream,
to explode,
to hide,
to faint,
(my hands won't stop shaking)
everything seems
a million miles away:
the sounds,
the sights,
every thing is fleeing,
everything except the fear:
i feel it
with every nerve,
all too close,
possession,
the demon of adrenaline
has me body, mind, and soul;
i smell its
overpowering stench,
my stomach is twisted and tight,
like my fists,
white-knuckled and clenched
(when they open, they keep shaking)
i cry,
breathing in sobbing gasps,
and then...
another... damned... heartbeat

Quick Update

Out sick... county fair weekend with the kids (and rain)... finished HP7 and a re-read of Stardust and almost finished with The Dawkins Delusion?... the re-modeling will not likely be finished before the students get here... took XP off my machine at home (so now it's 100% slack)...

Laughing, singing, walking... dizzy, delighted, delirious... Wandering and wondering, not so much waiting as being (maybe...)

Unsuffer Me

A song from Lucinda Williams' most recent disc, West. No particular reason I'm posting it, except that I like the lyrics. Like most good love songs, this could be the soul's cry to God.

Unlock my love
and set me free
come fill me up
with ecstasy

surround my heartbeat
with your fingertips
unbound my feet
untie my wrists

come in to my world
of loneliness
and wickedness
and bitterness
Unlock my love

Unsuffer me
Take away the pain
Unbruise unbloody
Wash away the stain
Anoint my head
With your sweet kiss
My joy is dead
I long for bliss

I long for knowledge
Whisper in my ear
Undo my logic, undo my fear
Unsuffer me

Unlock my love
And set me free
come fill me up
with ecstasy
unsuffer me
Take away the pain
Unbruise unbloody
Wash away the stain

surround my heartbeat
with your fingertips
unbound my feet
untie my wrists

come in to my world
of loneliness
and wickedness
and bitterness
Anoint my head
With your sweet kiss
My joy is dead
I long for bliss

I long for knowledge
Whisper in my ear
Undo my logic, undo my fear
Unsuffer me