It pleases me so to read these words. I have not amusing holiday anecdotes, nor tales of wanton drunkenness. Words that I bring to the table describe nerdish tragedy and dorkly triumph. A pair of weeks thence, I stumbled on the notion that if one could use one of these fancy (albeit, underdeveloped) iPod Touch thingamajigs to connect to one's home network through a VPN over the internet and subsequently use VPC to control one's home computer, one would have the power of one's desktop in the palm of one's hand. At least, whenever one was within range of a wifi network connected to the internet. A seemingly brilliant idea.
Such a notion pushed me to research the possibilities. Theoretically, it could work. In practice, there are several technologies that need a bit more development. However, the research involved installing Mac Tiger Server on one of my numerous home computers. In fact, it's running right now with three active accounts; mine, and both of yours. The problem is that Mac Tiger Server doesn't give me the control over FTP and web services that I'd like. Anyway, basically, my news is this: I'm setting up a web and FTP server that we can use for things such as this blog. Also, much more. Currently, I'm working on a project to build an x86 machine into a G4 tower case so that I can test different operating systems on it to see which one will suit the concept the best. Why an x86 machine? Because the Ubuntu project is abandoning PowerPCs (and so is everyone else). Why try to retrofit the damn thing into a G4 Tower case? For shits and giggles. Why embark on this project at all? Because I've spent almost all of my free time lately researching network protocols and modern programming languages and no one has stopped me yet.
Though the initial goal has been long forgotten, I have found new meaning. The project has become as such: Though the Triumvirate doesn't convene as much as it used to, it is not defunct...we are something like retired superheroes, merely going about our lives with one ear pricked up in the direction of our long silent communicator watches, subconsciously waiting for the call back into the action of the old days...I want to facilitate the communicator watch. No, that's not quite it. Not entirely. I also want to recreate that time in the van on the way home from Decorah the weekend the Focus smashed into the ditch...when we had the wifi network setup while driving down the road at 60mph. The same freedom of information and ease of connectivity except, like, wherever we go and whatever we do.
I suddenly realize that I promised tales of nerdish tragedy and dorkly triumph...well, I was really referring to the downfall of my iBook...again. It was replaced by a broken G4 iBook that I got from work for $50 and fixed...it was up and running later that night. It served me well for approximately five weeks. Apparently, the G4 iBooks have a defect. In every G4 iBook, the processor will eventually separate from the logic board in a more or less unreversible way. Long story less long, I fiddled around until I had created a makeshift tablet pc out of parts from my old iBook and this new iBook. Currently, it's serving as a way to control my Mac Tiger Server, which doesn't have a screen, keyboard, or mouse of it's own.
Anyway, I'm buying a used powerbook, building a Frankenstein server, watching too much anime and want it all to somehow add up to keeping in touch with you two assholes more than we have been...
Friday, December 28, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Shooting Off at the Christmas Mouth
Christmas Eve proved to be an odd but not unpleasant experience. Two intensely hoppy microbrews on a chronically empty stomach did their share in giving me rosy cheeks to complement my multicolored scraggly Santa beard. Mix in a glass of pinot and stir by grasping cousins in both arms and carrying them around upside down while other cousins hop lightly onto any other exposed bit of weight-bearing flesh. Now, stuff your holiday Peter full of well-seasoned meat, and highly adorned starch and sugar. Now, with dinner accomplished, it's time for weird conversation carried out by variously tipsy people pushed out of comfort zones by the sheer weight of long-held religiousity and ritual, and the simple pressure accompanying the huge magnitude of exchange upon which daintily rests the fragile and precarious sanity of each of the young children in the room. I learn through a series of generally over-powered exchanges that each of the children has been very good this year, each performing the staggering number of tasks that can only be carried off through a complex division of mental gymnastics which provides children with a life of gradually decreasingly-unreflected zen and their parents, or perhaps just their mothers, with the complementary existence of unreflected, facilitatory, chaotic fanaticism. I throw people into a tailspin by confessing that among presidential candidates I resonate only with two predictable losers: an over-goofy, constitution-carrying, babyface and a (gasp) republican, (gasp) libertarian, (gasp) anti-federalist. It doesn't seem to make any sense. What about Jon Edwards? No, only socialists and avowed fed-killers are allowed on my political bandwagon currently.
I discover that the raw-hide, bone-like instrument that the dog has been slovenly jostling back and forth across the room is actually a dessicated dick of beef. They come in a box, thirty all hard and red and glistening. My uncles chuckle at this reality and pass me a Scarlett O'hara. This is apparently the manifestation of booze that corresponds best to wrapping paper and the act of witnessing childlike glee. As I sip the sweet, tart drink, I stare off into space, thinking about how the dog would fare encircled by her snacks, staring straight down the barrels of thirty re-bodied bull penises.
Finally, the time comes, and one uncle becomes my designated driver back to the big city. I say my goodbyes to all and am shuffled into the latest in business-acceptable automobila. And as we glide through the sparkling dark of the wet portland night I am made privy to those things which uncles hope will find common ears of masculinity, deviance, humor and zeal in their nephews. Finally, I am dropped off. I don't feel the facial dullness or the tingling shifting weight of alcohol any longer, they've given way to a deeply pleasant warmth. I stand in the street and watch as my uncle's car heads around the block before lighting a cigarette. Despite its apparent preference for plying me with drink, Christmas Eve is clearly on shrooms.
P.S. Thanks Eric for destroying those textual blueballs. Apparently, I've got semen reserves all over the fucking place, just raring to be digitized.
I discover that the raw-hide, bone-like instrument that the dog has been slovenly jostling back and forth across the room is actually a dessicated dick of beef. They come in a box, thirty all hard and red and glistening. My uncles chuckle at this reality and pass me a Scarlett O'hara. This is apparently the manifestation of booze that corresponds best to wrapping paper and the act of witnessing childlike glee. As I sip the sweet, tart drink, I stare off into space, thinking about how the dog would fare encircled by her snacks, staring straight down the barrels of thirty re-bodied bull penises.
Finally, the time comes, and one uncle becomes my designated driver back to the big city. I say my goodbyes to all and am shuffled into the latest in business-acceptable automobila. And as we glide through the sparkling dark of the wet portland night I am made privy to those things which uncles hope will find common ears of masculinity, deviance, humor and zeal in their nephews. Finally, I am dropped off. I don't feel the facial dullness or the tingling shifting weight of alcohol any longer, they've given way to a deeply pleasant warmth. I stand in the street and watch as my uncle's car heads around the block before lighting a cigarette. Despite its apparent preference for plying me with drink, Christmas Eve is clearly on shrooms.
P.S. Thanks Eric for destroying those textual blueballs. Apparently, I've got semen reserves all over the fucking place, just raring to be digitized.
Offspring of the virgin's womb
Maybe it’s that holiday spirit, maybe it’s that I just got the official Forest City update from the Johnsons, maybe it’s that I just read through the entire history of this endeavor, maybe it’s the gentle goading of Peter. For whatever reason, I’m so nostalgic I could shit. This really was a brilliant idea, and it has served us well, and my laziness is no reason for it to stop now, just when we see each other the least, just when we need it most, just when the vestiges of the Triumvirate could be crucial to sanity and a last ditch effort to remain distinctly un-adult.
You guys are funny fuckers and I need an old school laugh, so god damn it, serve me up a hot heaping plate of bullshit lightly seasoned with assholery and kingfuckerchickenery.
I mean, for god’s sake Ty, I haven’t seen you since you dove the dive of a plastered swan onto your coffee table and beat down your true inner nerd by breaking your geeky computer games into shards and frisbeeing them around the room. That was a fantastic weekend, but too long ago. For all I know you’re now a long haul truck driver with a penchant for Billy Graham and Long Island Ice Tea who has children or pets or houseplants or something. For all you know I’ve pierced my balls, taken up yoga, and invented a revolutionary sex toy.
Because there are only a few people in the world who are blessed enough to know precisely how funny this is, I give you selected vignettes from A Very Thompson Christmas:
1. My grandmother put a hairbrush in my stocking. Maybe she thought my pubes might be getting a bit unruly, I don’t know.
2. Uncle Bob doesn’t really understand that his particular brand of political humor and incessant goading doesn’t really mesh well with the newest member of the family, an ADHD 9th grader that Cindy and Calvin have adopted. Most of the inside jokes cause Khalil to look exceedingly alarmed and ask "Are you going to do that to me?" At which point we explain that no, of course not, nobody in their right mind would do that. "But that really happened?" Yes, grandma Doris used to do that to Cindy and Carol and Bob. Then he announced that he was riding a bike back to Seattle. And grandpa tried to go with him.
Anyway, I don't have much of consequence, but I wanted to pretend there was something. Merry Stuff and Happy Things in any case. Post something. I don't care if it's a transcript of a conversation your balls had with each other, I'll read it, and I'll even enjoy it I promise.
You guys are funny fuckers and I need an old school laugh, so god damn it, serve me up a hot heaping plate of bullshit lightly seasoned with assholery and kingfuckerchickenery.
I mean, for god’s sake Ty, I haven’t seen you since you dove the dive of a plastered swan onto your coffee table and beat down your true inner nerd by breaking your geeky computer games into shards and frisbeeing them around the room. That was a fantastic weekend, but too long ago. For all I know you’re now a long haul truck driver with a penchant for Billy Graham and Long Island Ice Tea who has children or pets or houseplants or something. For all you know I’ve pierced my balls, taken up yoga, and invented a revolutionary sex toy.
Because there are only a few people in the world who are blessed enough to know precisely how funny this is, I give you selected vignettes from A Very Thompson Christmas:
1. My grandmother put a hairbrush in my stocking. Maybe she thought my pubes might be getting a bit unruly, I don’t know.
2. Uncle Bob doesn’t really understand that his particular brand of political humor and incessant goading doesn’t really mesh well with the newest member of the family, an ADHD 9th grader that Cindy and Calvin have adopted. Most of the inside jokes cause Khalil to look exceedingly alarmed and ask "Are you going to do that to me?" At which point we explain that no, of course not, nobody in their right mind would do that. "But that really happened?" Yes, grandma Doris used to do that to Cindy and Carol and Bob. Then he announced that he was riding a bike back to Seattle. And grandpa tried to go with him.
Anyway, I don't have much of consequence, but I wanted to pretend there was something. Merry Stuff and Happy Things in any case. Post something. I don't care if it's a transcript of a conversation your balls had with each other, I'll read it, and I'll even enjoy it I promise.
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