Does it bother me that so much time is passing that I will never remember? The vast majority of events I experience are not recorded in any form, save the filmy associations of long-term memory. No, it doesn't bother me. Although it's as if I've lost part of my life to the hazy or nonexistent documentation, the actual experience was no more interesting or intense than the absence of its memory in retrospect. Yes, it's as if I'm not living my life, or any life. These grey times will never be thought about again, and the way I see it right now, that's about as much as they deserve.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -The main replicant badguy, Blade Runner

Blade Runner is the Most Sampled Source in the database at sloth.org.

Rutger Hauer's character (who says the above quote), was named "Batty" according to IMDB, but I don't think they say his name in the movie.

But when life isn't tedium, boy, it's great! My palski Eric got married to my other, more recent palski Jen. Their wedding was very unconventional, and very beautiful. As I'm sure happens to many people, seeing a couple dedicate their lives to one another made me wish for a similar situation, one in which I had found someone I could unreservedly bond my life to. It isn't that I especially want to find the perfect person at this point, though. It's the aspect of meaning and sincerity that was evident in the situation, maybe one of the few instances of this we are allowed,in our adult lives, to be overwhelmed by. The same sort of awe and glee we feel as kids in the presence of magic, whatever form we found it in.

In the next couple weeks I either will go to Assembly or miss it due to lack of plane tickets. Why I have I waited this long to get my tickets? Because I thought someone else was making the arrangements. It isn't an emergency, though. The actual tickets to Assembly were relatively cheap, and if I miss it, I can go to the misleadingly named "The Party" later in the year. Assembly is held in Finland, at Hartwall Arena in Helsinki City. My Norwegian friend KimCatherine says that Finnish people are ugly and drink too much. This is the only thing I know about Finland. Assembly, back when I first heard about it, was a democoding competition, where people brought in and/or coded on the spot graphics and sound demonstrations to show off their coding skills.(This type of thing would later be dubbed "Multimedia presentations" by idiots.) ("coding" would also later be used to mean "laying out web pages via HTML", also by idiots. It annoys me because of the massive, several-orders-of-magnitude difference in time, effort, and creativity required to actually code a demo vs. "coding" even the flashiest, coolest web page in the world.) (So what are you doing when you are making web pages? The same thing W. Richard Stevens was doing when he wrote books using Groff, you're writing. Except not as well. What if you don't write the "content", you just tag it up? "Layout". e.g. "I'm busy laying out a bunch of stupid web pages for my stupid web page laying out job.") Assembly today is a massive nerd convention with a good percentage of the attendees made up of "mainstream" folks who just want to play quake. There is a section reserved for the "scene", though.

This reminds me. I've seen much imagery of "cool computer geeks" in the past couple of years. Being a geek became cool, and people started saying "oh, I'm a geek," in the same careless way one might say, "oh, I'm an artist". These days, geeks wear leather pants to work, dye their hair green, and go to all night parties. This is because they are cool. (Not always these exact cool attributes, but it's a good starter set.) People YOU AND I KNOW in the computer industry get away with calling themselves geeks and being cool at the same time. This is not possible, here's why: The origin of geekdom is in the careful study of things. Young geeks, by virtue of having no other time to do it in, spent much of their youth researching, reading, experimenting, and obsessing over things that had nothing to do with socialization. The reason geeks are geeks (not the cool kind) is because they are very familiar with something technical from prolonged exposure. Can you stay on top of technology by going to all night parties? For the same reason, movies featuring geeks geeking must depict geeking in some radically stylized way, because the reality of geeking is a lot like sitting in a little, dark room staring at something for ten hours. Not blockbuster material, and not glamorous. Or maybe it's reading a 2 inch thick book about something while you eat, before you sleep, at the airport, on the train, during every situation in which a cooler person might socialize, and to the exclusion of all other activities. "Oh, THOSE people!" the [cool] geeks are saying, "those are DORKS." Fortunately, they never cared what the rest of the world called them, be it geek, dork, tool, or "yes, sir.". For me, it is the fact of competence which is cool, and I can easily idolize those who excel at their job. Go geeks go!

Now that I'm thinking about thinking about books, I'm noticing that my room is infested with opened books. They cover every flat surface which isn't supporting a pile of loose-leaf documentation or a computer. From where I am sitting I can see the following books:

Book	Comment
UNIX Network Programming W. Richard Stevens	I had been reading about sockets last week, and I just re-opened it to see if he had used troff or groff to write it.
Programming Perl Wall, Christiansen, Schwartz	I use perl a lot, thus I refer to this book when I need to be sure. Everyone's got one. Blue, has a camel on it.
Javascript: The Definitive Guide (3rd) David Flanagan	One day I decided to read this whole book, cover to cover. I'm about halfway through.
Master Class Assembly Language Lots of people	I was wondering why video cards needed IRQs, and I remembered this book has a section about the I8259 programmable interrupt controller and related routines. Then I got all interested in interrupt programming.
The Roland DR-770 manual the roland people	I'm creating a cakewalk instrument definition for the DR-770 drum machine. This means typing in the name of every drum in every kit, which I read out of here. This is an ongoing project which may take months.
Rock Discipline John Petrucci	I want to be a guitar shredder, so I practice exercises out of this strict-sounding handbook.
QoS and Traffic Management in IP and ATM Networks David McDysan	Yay QoS. Saving the internet. This book presents the theory behind the designs using easy-to-understand scientific equations which cover half the page.
The Fall Albert Camus	Ed dropped off a bunch of books for me recently. This is one. I read it when I need to build up a good head of angst.
SNMP, SNMPv2, SNMPv3, and RMON 1 and 2 William Stallings	Although SNMP is just amazingly fascinating in its own right, I coincidentally have to use it at work! Lucky me! I can read these books for business AND pleasure!
The C++ Programming Language, (sp. ed.) Bjarne Stroustrup	I almost missed this one because it's in my lap. There's actually standard C++ now and I want to know it. It has many time saving features that make me think it wants to compete with perl (e.g. the string type)

Clearly, I'm way behind on my "recreational" reading. (scare quoted because although it is recognized that I mean non-technical reading, I often read technical references in my "off" time, just for "fun".) This list only features books visible from my desk, which is a work area. There are more "recreational" type books in my bedroom. (One of which is "Cryptonomicon", which I finished on the plane ride to the wedding.) Keep in mind that every one of these books is splayed open, face up for reference, or face down to keep the page. and some of them are partially on top of the others. I know I'm not the only one who does this.

Ah yes. And because of Generous and Thoughtful Person who decided to send me CDs, I now know that it is Boards of Canada who made that song that goes "Orange!" which they were, coincidentally, playing at Hank's house (Hank is a friend of Eric, Jen, and Me, who was also the Minister at the wedding)