One more flight to go!
Well, we made it out of Indiana and safely to Los Angeles, though we seem to have brought the crappy weather with us. As usual, the stress of traveling has killed my immune system and I’m suffering from the nastiest of colds. Thank God for Nyquil. Anyway, tonight the Snook and I board our last plane for the long haul – 16 hours to Sydney. I’ll probably be lynched long before that though, by a gang of passengers incensed by my hacking cough. Next time you hear from me, I’ll no longer be a resident of the Northern Hemisphere. Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving!
Month: November 2001 (page 1 of 6)
Just checking in! We made it to America and now we’re sitting at my aunt’s house watching the Macy’s Parade. Security on the international flight was actually pretty lax; other than a dog sniffing me there didn’t seem to be much out of the ordinary. My sister claims that domestic flights are much worse, so we’ll see how that goes when we take off for L.A. next week. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Shh! I snuck online on Nick’s computer but don’t tell Snookums. He’s trying to see how long he can go without it. Anyhoo, thanks for all the kind words below. We’re just about ready to go. My computer Boudicca was sent off to live with her new family, and 90% of the rest of our stuff left with the shippers on Friday. (We sent TEN big boxes!) Now we’re down to a suitcase each. It’s very liberating. We leave Tuesday at noon and we should land in Chicago that afternoon. The next time you hear from me I’ll be home in the U.S. of A.! I can taste the Mountain Dew now…
This is it, folks. Boudicca (my lovely iMac) is leaving me to find a new home with my friend Kingsley. Not only that, but the Snook’s computers will be packed up for the shippers tomorrow. As a result I shall be without access to the Internet until we fly home next week and I can pick up my new iBook. A frightening proposition, isn’t it? I haven’t gone cold turkey on the Internet in seven years. Wish me luck, and I’ll see you next week.
Would you pay a penny per page to visit this site? No, I’m not contemplating a new revenue model. This scheme is supposed to be the great solution to getting compensation on the web. The ensuing Slashdot discussion points out some of the big problems. What exactly constitutes a page? Would I get charged every time I refresh? Wouldn’t this result in sites breaking down content even further to spread it out over the most pages possible? Additionally, I’ve gotta wonder how well this approach would translate internationally. I’m moving to Australia but my own websites are hosted in the U.S. One U.S. cent is probably going to constitute a larger portion of my income there than it would in the States. I imagine it would be even worse in developing nations. So is this really the best solution for making the Web globally effective, by setting up an economic barrier to those who might benefit from it the most? What about students and teachers? Most of my Dahl site visitors log in from schools or libraries. Should they have to pay per page too? I’m not gonna lie to you; I like the idea of being able to make a living off my hobbies. But as a surfer myself, I can’t believe this is the best step forward.
Salon interviews the man who invented the Pill. Pretty interesting, especially the bit about why there won’t be a male contraceptive pill anytime soon. The guy also has a pretty radical stance about voluntary vasectomies. Huh.
Max points to an interesting article on how to write a college admissions essay. My school gave you a list of topics from which you had to choose, but most of them were boring “Read this Maya Angelou book and tell us how it affected you” type crap. I went for the “Write about your hero” option. So who was my hero? See if you can guess. I wrote about her love for her family (even though she fought with her sister a lot), her spunk and imagination (especially that time she squeezed all the toothpaste into the sink), her unconventionality (and the way she’d pull perfect Susan’s boing-boing curls), and her sensitivity and courage (like when the girls had to bury Picky-Picky). So who was it?
Newspaper headlines I noticed while waiting in line at Sainsbury tonight:
- “OH MY GOD, NOT AGAIN” – Daily Mail
- “SAME CITY, SAME AIRLINE, SAME TIME… COINCIDENCE OR BIN LADEN?” – The Mirror
- “KABUL FALLS” – Evening Standard
I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the days of tube strikes and criminal nudity.
It’s only the second day, and Peter Buck’s air rage trial has collapsed. The judge has dismissed the jury for some reason. The whole thing is like a circus. Why in the world would a stewardess serve someone fifteen glasses of wine in three hours? I don’t care how famous they are; that’s just ridiculous.