JBot Mania

So, I tell people that the little kitten I have ran off with a giant piece of turkey (half her entire body size) on Thanksgiving, making a disturbing growl as she grabbed and ran. I also explain how she then proceeded to hiss if I got near her “kill”. I let her keep it.

I have since replayed the event for Sora with another piece of turkey. Exact same sound. Exact same ferocity.

Then I came upon the following. Not only does it look strikingly similar to the little fiend that I am harboring, but, it’s making the same noise!

you’re so fine, you bl… can see my bra.

Damn it…

clipped from www.cnn.com

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — Most Americans think they’re helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they’re contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas.

“It is being recycled, but it’s being recycled in the most horrific way you can imagine,” said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network, the Seattle-based environmental group that tipped off Hong Kong authorities. “We’re preserving our own environment, but contaminating the rest of the world.”

Eight states, including five this year, have passed such laws, and companies such as Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Sony now take back their products at no charge. Some require consumers to mail in their old gear, while others have drop-off centers. HP says it also now designs its equipment with fewer toxic materials and has made it easier to recycle.

Personally, I do agonize a bit about where my electronic junk is going, thus it sits in my office. The real key here is what HP is doing with making it easier to recycle their products. The nature of technology makes it hard to buy an item with the notion that it won’t be surpassed in a relatively small number of years. You can’t just buy less often with some technology. It’s not realistic. You need to address the problem from a different angle and make what you’re selling more easily turned into something else once its usefulness has ended.

I’ll admit, I have alot of addictions. Most of them are food related. Cake mix, crème brûlée, hibachi…

But that is just addiction—not fetish.

ad·dic·tion [uh-dik-shuhn]
-noun
1. the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

fet·ish [fet-ish, fee-tish]
–noun
1. an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency.

2. any object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion: to make a fetish of high grades.

3. Psychology. any object or nongenital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation.

So what is my fetish? Books. Books are my fetish. Not the act of reading books, but the books themselves. The physical book. The item that you hold. Every facet of their physical form is my fetish; typography, layout, binding, end pages, lead type, lithographs, deckled edges, wood carvings, gold leafing, Artists’ books, incanabula, gatherings, gallies, the depth of the impression of type…this is my fetish. This is my potent spirit, the object of my reverence and devotion, that which causes a habitual erotic response.

It only made sense then that I went to Smith College in the Pioneer Valley. On a recent trip back there I was able to see a small exhibition in the Neilson Library devoted solely to a bookbinder. The sheer excitement and glee with which I hovered over the collection and described to my guest some of the subtleties, made it clear that I have missed my book exploring years at Smith—the chance of finding a book in the stacks not taken out since 1921. As you’ll see from this wonderful and nostalgia producing NY Times article, I was in just the right place during those formative years: In the Valley of the Literate.

At Amherst Books, a local professor read from his new book on Chinese history at 5 p.m., while a children’s book author, also local, followed at 7:30, along with cider and pumpkin bread. Across the street at the Jones Library, a lecture on the graphic novel got under way at 7 p.m. At the same time, dealers were raising their bidding cards at an auction of rare and antiquarian books at the Hotel Northampton, 15 minutes away. Up the street at Smith College, several hundred students and community members gathered at 8 p.m. for a poetry reading, while the Broadside Bookshop sold books by the author at a table in the back of the hall.

All this on a Tuesday evening. The next day, a local paper listed 20 more author readings and book events coming up that week.

If you love books, here is the quintessential reason to go to Smith College… if you have a vajayjay, of course.

On another note and back to an addiction: here’s a hilarious 8 seconds of crème brûlée: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFhsgkseQEM

A few weeks ago, somebody backed into me in a parking lot and bruised my poor baby. She’s now in the shop and I am driving a behemoth Chevy Impala. It’s deceptively large and it’s only a matter of time before I smash it. Damn my frugality and not purchasing the rental insurance.

I’m fairly confident that she’ll come back even better than she was… still in need of brake work, a new window motor, and a new catalytic converter—but she’ll look marvelous.

Stay tuned for a before and after gallery.

I took the laptop into the bathroom when I had letloose.

Well, like I said, I went to a four day conference last week in Virginia, on the heels of which I started my NEW JOB!

It’s keeping me really busy for a position without a real job description, but I am sure that much of that has to do with my insane fear of failure. That will abate eventually. My official title is Technology Specialist which means that I get to play with stuff, make recommendations, and pretty much chart my own course. I love it.

All of this new experience and some technical difficulties have made it hard to post, so I apologize. One major hurdle, I lost the cord to the camera I used to take a number of postworthy pictures, such as my battered car, now in the shop for repair and the gigantic boat they gave me for a rental. So much more said with a picture.

Tonight I am rewarding myself with cake mix. This bone crushing schedule of a real job, numerous outside obligations to organizations, the never ending work on my house… it may be the death of me.

On my way back today from my trip to a four day conference that I will discuss later, I, of course, centered myself by finding the local NPR station. During the long trek from Virginia, I was able to hear a program called Studio360 which was devoting an entire week’s show to “The Great Gatsby”. I got lost within the show as I remembered some other more personal connections to the work—the kind that make you whispy—all made possible by the many readings I heard. I have included a player below for you to listen to the entire show in its various segments. This is a program I would podcast.

As we all did I’m sure, I first read ‘The Great Gatsby” for some school assignment. I can’t remember what I thought of the book as a whole, but I do remember being a bit frustrated with Jay Gatsby. Why was our hero a man who, for all his showmanship, was a truly sad and lonely individual? I guess I never saw him as a hero and, in reality, he was never intended to be.

I think at the time I couldn’t understand why we would care about a character like Gatsby. Why would I want to watch someone living such an obvious and empty fantasy? As I’m growing older and ratcheting up my life experiences, it’s getting clearer. We all have the potential, and at times the desire, to be Gatsby—to reach for that green light but almost willingly be borne back ceaselessly into the past. The past and the never-to-be become more alluring than our mundane present, than the actual achievement. Learning to live with that comes natural to some, but not to others. Some of us prefer to live like Gatsby.

One reason to host with Dreamhost would be their entertaining monthly newsletter. Here is an excerpt:

Block those nasty robot spiders NOW, before they spider your website and crash your server… and DECADES before they invade your home and eat your babies.

If you’re interested in actual information of value about Dreamhost as a hosting service… think of it as a utopia where you can control pretty much everything you could want. No more calls to Tech Support begging for them to do something you could easily do yourself. And yet, you could still call… you know, if you’re lonely. I get the idea that they are lonely too.

More to come.