Meanwhile, I hope to be back soon, and with a vengeance heretofore unseen -- which I think you'll agree is saying something -- as soon as I get this new Mac Powerbook configured to my very specific and highly nefarious needs. I have Denise Howell to thank for badgering me into taking a walk on the wild side by finally shit-canning that OS-from-hell: Microsoft XP Home. Ptui!

Some of you may find it mildly interesting that I first learned about (real) computing (my 1981 Apple IIe doesn't count as "real") by teaching myself Unix at Ricoh in Tokyo in 1984. I was pretty bored in that job. In every fucking job I've ever had, to be honest, which as you know, I always am, even though it leads to these sorts of gratuitous digressions. But what the hell. My whole fucking LIFE has been a digression. Anyway, Panix sent me mail a while ago -- I've been on an Information Fast; the latest thing; or hadn't you heard? -- saying they were about to shut me down for nonpayment of $22.50 (it's the economy, stupid), and here I am with this Mac laptop with none of my usual supercool apps set up yet, so how am I going to get the requisite bucks to them -- just in case I decide this whole Internet thing isn't some flash-in-the-pan fluke -- like say, hominid evolution -- when I have this incredible (you can laugh, but it was for me) EUREKA MOMENT. So I open a terminal window on this little boxlette and viola! I'm in BSD Unix, like a fish returned to the ocean after years of being subjected to cruel and unusual User Friendliness. Oh yeah, I know how this shit works! I telnet to Panix from the command line, change my credit card info, pay my bill so I won't lose the email address I've had for ten years now (whiich is why I get 400 spams a day), not to mention losing the entire EGR site, far-famed for the fact that its homepage has not been updated in about two years, then exit the telnet session and the terminal window. Hey, am I a fucking professional or what?

The only real problems I'm having with the Powerbook so far is that, due the incredible temperatures generated by its awesome processing power, it's slow-cooking my hands as they rest on its sleek anodized aluminum shell. Sort of like sauteing your palms in an elegant and hugely expensive frying pan. And the other thing is that I'm sitting on the floor doing all this shit, so my body -- hardly in good shape to begin with -- is being permanently contorted and distorted and I'll probably never walk again. To be fair, this is not, strictly speaking, Apple's fault.

Jesus Christ, I almost just lost this entire post! WTF does Command-Back-Arrow actual DO in Blogger Pro? Some very dangerous shit, is what. Makes your whole post disappear. Fuck. Spooky. Because I'm not like some of you people who blog every goddam day about something or other (I can't keep up; it's making me crazy; as if I had far to go). No. For me, writing is a sacred thing. Each word must be carefully considered, weighed, mulled over, its connotations and juxtapositional conjunction with previous words and (possible) meanings thought about deeply, agonized over. So losing three or four paragraphs, which is more than I've written in about two months, would constitute a loss of immeasurable proportions, a national tragedy, something to be deeply mourned by a world already enmired in sadness. Do we need that? Certainly not.

So, whew! Hi gang. Hope yer all having fun in the cocksucking DEPRESSION we're being dragged through by the scumbags who CONTROL EVERYTHING!!!

Oh yeah, and I'm trying out these new meds lately. Not sure they're really working, but more about that later maybe...