Reports from the Front
Hello again, friends, faithful readers, and curious onlookers! This is your old pal Ignatius Q. Waxwater, with another installment of Uncle Iggy's Patented Post-Postmodern Neo-Urban Slightly Skewed Bedtime Stories.
Since I will very soon become the old man I have always felt myself to be, let me begin my monologue with the perennial opening of old men everywhere...
It has been very foggy here the past three nights, which has made driving home from work quite the adventure. The fog was of a weird variety, too: *very* thick patches on the ground, but the view to the stars overhead was clear as a bell.
Speaking of which, it seems I can no longer say the word "Fog" to myself anymore without automatically following it with "on the Barrow-Downs." Some people find it appropriate to quote from the Bible, or Shakespeare; I, on the other hand, find it difficult to get through life without quoting from either The Lord of the Rings or Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. You would be surprised how often it comes up.
Which further reminds me--I don't think I actually *read* The Lord of the Rings *once* this year! *Or* Harry Potter! And there probably isn't enough time left to try. Shame on me. My excuse is that I was trying to read new things this year, which I did do somewhat, but still I suppose life isn't worth living if you don't schedule some time for the classics. Usually I get the itch to read Tolkien in the spring (which makes no sense, as the story begins in the fall, but that's just the way it seems to work), so we'll see what happens come March or so.
I bought myself a new notebook computer for Christmas. My previous laptop is now six years old, which ranks it somewhere in the Ordovician Period, as it currently resembles a trilobite. I mean, it still works, but it's slow, prone to screen blackouts, and doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, so Bingo, Tic-Tac-Toe, and Mother-May-I are about the only games it can run. So I figured it was time for something new. I'm writing this post on the new lappy right now, as a matter of fact, and things are just peachy.
A new year approaches. What will 2011 be like? I think it will be a prime year for science, a prime year for arts and letters, a prime year for sport, a prime year for crappy midseason replacement shows--basically, it should be a prime year all-around.
(Pretty lame math joke, even for me, eh? Next year will be better, I promise.)
Some people will celebrate the change-of-year formula with large gatherings in Times Square or Grant Park; others will celebrate in smaller parties with good music, a lot of booze, and hopefully enough fun to outweigh the hangover tomorrow. As for me, I'll mark the switch the best way I know how--with the Marx Brothers movie marathon on Turner Classic Movies.
"Here's to the new year. May she be a damn sight better than the old one, and may we all be home before she's over."
Happy New Year!
Since I will very soon become the old man I have always felt myself to be, let me begin my monologue with the perennial opening of old men everywhere...
It has been very foggy here the past three nights, which has made driving home from work quite the adventure. The fog was of a weird variety, too: *very* thick patches on the ground, but the view to the stars overhead was clear as a bell.
Speaking of which, it seems I can no longer say the word "Fog" to myself anymore without automatically following it with "on the Barrow-Downs." Some people find it appropriate to quote from the Bible, or Shakespeare; I, on the other hand, find it difficult to get through life without quoting from either The Lord of the Rings or Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. You would be surprised how often it comes up.
Which further reminds me--I don't think I actually *read* The Lord of the Rings *once* this year! *Or* Harry Potter! And there probably isn't enough time left to try. Shame on me. My excuse is that I was trying to read new things this year, which I did do somewhat, but still I suppose life isn't worth living if you don't schedule some time for the classics. Usually I get the itch to read Tolkien in the spring (which makes no sense, as the story begins in the fall, but that's just the way it seems to work), so we'll see what happens come March or so.
I bought myself a new notebook computer for Christmas. My previous laptop is now six years old, which ranks it somewhere in the Ordovician Period, as it currently resembles a trilobite. I mean, it still works, but it's slow, prone to screen blackouts, and doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, so Bingo, Tic-Tac-Toe, and Mother-May-I are about the only games it can run. So I figured it was time for something new. I'm writing this post on the new lappy right now, as a matter of fact, and things are just peachy.
A new year approaches. What will 2011 be like? I think it will be a prime year for science, a prime year for arts and letters, a prime year for sport, a prime year for crappy midseason replacement shows--basically, it should be a prime year all-around.
(Pretty lame math joke, even for me, eh? Next year will be better, I promise.)
Some people will celebrate the change-of-year formula with large gatherings in Times Square or Grant Park; others will celebrate in smaller parties with good music, a lot of booze, and hopefully enough fun to outweigh the hangover tomorrow. As for me, I'll mark the switch the best way I know how--with the Marx Brothers movie marathon on Turner Classic Movies.
"Here's to the new year. May she be a damn sight better than the old one, and may we all be home before she's over."
Happy New Year!