hot tea sweetened with cranberry juice, 2 parts tea to 1 juice. Inspired by ads for an Ocean spray concoction. Not quite the thing. Much less juice next time.
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05:50:12 PM,
Sunday 6 June 2004
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Going to start writing down thoughts about what I read as I read them, so to fix them, stop them waddling off and becoming feral, vague impressions. I shall be talking through my hat, because I think better that way. If I try to compose, it starts being less like thinking, which I enjoy, and more like writing, which I don't. May get organized and make a seperate blog for the purpose.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer- pg 6
Having finished NewJack: Guarding Sing Sing which strangely enough, cheered me up about prisons, made them and their cruelties comprehensible and banished the shadowy monsters, and piqued my curiousity about police states and similar. This was the obvious next book. It's a 1960 4th printing, picked up from a lovely bookstore in Brookline some time ago when I was looking for something light to read. The story starts in 1933; the book was written 27 years later. The book is 43 years old. There's a bright line along my time-line, I'm not sure where it is, but 1933 is on the far side, and 1960 isn't; 1960 feels much closer to now than it was to then. The line may be the extent of my parents storytelling-range. The nameplate on the book has an address written before the zip code, which was introduced in 1963. Chestnut Hill 67, Mass. Never read anything about WWII or Nazi Germany before, always skipped around to more obscure corners, scared away by all the kooks and fanatical miniuture-makers. From the Forward:
Adolf Hitler is probably the last of the great adventurer-conquerors in the tradition of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon, and the Third Reich the last of the empires which set out on the path taken earlier by France, Rome and Macedonia. The curtain was rung down on that phase of history, at least, by the sudden invention of the hydrogen bomb, of the ballistic missile and of rockets that can be aimed to hit the moon.
It feels almost nostalgic, as though he feels he's writing the last such book that can be written. He compares himself to Thucydides, since he lived through the story he is telling. A new thought for me: the Third Reich being the last hurrah of an ancient form of government activity that has been made obsolete by technology, which has now gone, leaving only the British Monarchy, a desire to draw red arrows on maps, and similar anachronisms in it's wake. After this, wars of conquest, wars of territory were over. Things have changed recently, but you could still say our latest war is different, more intervention and adventure than conquest, not about territory but maintaining order on the pheriphery. Whether war can be used for this purpose is not at all clear. I think the story I think in more often is the Third Reich as the beginning of a new tradition of totalitarian rule, made possible by new technology, and kept at bay, more or less, since. Either way, there's the idea that sometime early this century, the rules all changed, and perhaps changed again recently.
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09:18:06 PM,
Saturday 5 June 2004
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I tire of looking at myself. Have been replaced with the pulpit in King's Chapel in Boston. The large block floating over the pulpit is a sounding board, not a test of God's goodwill.
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06:52:01 AM,
Saturday 5 June 2004
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Dream: The New York Times changed its font to a tall, blocky serif font named 'No Interest'. The closest match I could find is Sylfaen, only with larger, more angular serifs. This was the entire content of the dream. I do not read the New York Times, and have only a passing interest in fonts. I haven't drawn one since high school, and have no strong opinions about them.
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06:35:33 AM,
Saturday 5 June 2004
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I have been temporarily defeated by cryptic error messages.
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11:42:38 PM,
Friday 4 June 2004
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Words I don't like: Concision
"The Times gets it right when they say that the way this was announced was "almost bizarre." Actually, here concision should be the handmaiden of precision. Drop the "almost". It was bizarre."
TPM
Far better brevity.
Also: x is the handmaiden of y
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01:58:06 PM,
Thursday 3 June 2004
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Phase 1: Create a air-hockey type game. Done, unless I implement spin or paddle rotation.
Phase 2: customizable paddles and tables. Nearly there. Need a tessalator and a GUI.
Phase 3: a larger systems of leagues and tournaments for the beasts to play in. At this point I'll have a passable arcade portion of the game.
Phase 4: a genetic system for paddle customization.
Phase 5: A lifecycle for the paddles, including a more complex soul, effects of aging, injury, unforeseen explosions, sulks, education and so on. The coaching part of the game. I've been thinking that perhaps the paddles will be trainable to, sometimes, if not confused or distracted, respond to commands given by flag from the trainer.
Phase 6: A economic framework of paddle-breeding, wild paddle poaching, egg trading, (paddles imprint like birds, and become sulky and explosive if handled by others) prizes, foods, buildings, paddle pyschologists, gene-splicing, and so on. The simulation part of the game.
Phase 7: Online play.
Phase 8: Better Graphics, especially explosions.
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05:08:15 PM,
Wednesday 2 June 2004
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Turning houseplants: Necessary to maintain healthy balance and stop them from leaning out of their pots, or cruel torment, locking them into an eternal, futile pursuit of the only thing they really want from this life?
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12:43:15 PM,
Tuesday 1 June 2004
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The new bridge, and what is left of the old highway, supports and rubble.
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11:11:54 PM,
Monday 31 May 2004
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11:11:53 PM,
Monday 31 May 2004
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Back from listening to the Great High Mountain Tour. Highlights: Reeltime Travelers; The Whites; the Nashville Bluegrass Band; Ralph Stanley singing O Death; someone in a porkpie singing John the Revelator; a banjo player named Ron Block; and a Dobro player named Jerry Douglas. Alison Krauss had an awful version of Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow. The Carter Family catalog is a trap for the unwary. The appeal of the songs, emotionally, is that they're terribly sad, but sung in an plain way, without the vocal trappings of emotion, and this comes across as courage. Because the singer isn't showing the emotion, you feel it doubly in sympathy. If they're wailing, you don't need to, because they've got it covered. She slowed the song down, added heartbroken warbles. It turned into a self-pitying song, a whine. She was singing the way the song, sung right, makes me feel, and in doing so, turned it into first-rate glurge. Like a cat covered in syrup.
One day I'll learn to think about why I like things, rather than why I don't. Hard, though. If something doesn't work, you can find what went wrong, but if it is working, it's because a hundred different things went right.
For me, knowing what instrument I would like to play is like a cat having a favorite model of car. However, I will mention that the dobro and banjo have now both leapt in front of the accordion.
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11:09:41 PM,
Monday 31 May 2004
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01:39:18 PM,
Monday 31 May 2004
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