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Microsoft & the Wizards of Doom (One more time bravely into the fray) Here
come da fudge It's the 21st century, but how would we know? Everywhere you turn are tottering leviathans on Viagra who think they've entered the Kingdom of Halliburton. Redmond invents electricity, water, and air. Hollywood thinks it can sell more music by making it harder to play. Democrats say voting for war is working for peace. Ashcroft is positive embryos vote Republican and Krauthammer's for nuking the French. Pretty soon we'll have debtors' prisons and burn slackers at the stake, assuming we can find any trees. I've said before that this gang is way beyond satire, but I wish they wouldn't keep proving me right. Personally, I'd take diversity, ferment, and growth over sameness, suppression, and death, but then I'm strange. (You can tell from the computer I'm typing this on: it's one of those other ones.) However, take heart, innocents: it's all going to get better sooner than you think. Just don't be taking a nap in the shade of El Bloato when its ticker gives out. See, the good thing about Redmond über alles and all the rest is that they get to fulfill their ultimate destiny as dinosaurs on dope, and we all get to go home sooner. I think. Let
yer little light shine When I think about the people, the cultures, the institutions that have come and gone, the ones that come to mind the easiest are the ones I miss the most. I do not particularly miss Adolf Hitler, segregation, or the Vietnam war, to cite a few reverse examples. I very much regret the passing of my father-in-law, Buddy Holly, Martin Luther King, Milton Berle, clean water & air, affordable health care, and little kids being allowed to ride their bikes without those stupid helmets. Give me a minute and I'll think of a thousand more, and what they'll all have in common is that they contributed to the overall amount of love and joy in the universe... That may seem like a consolation prize, to be remembered with a lump in the throat, but don't forget you can't take it with you, 'cause when you're dead, you're dead -- unless someone thinks of you fondly and turns on the light. All the conniving dominators of this or that -- be it operating systems, religion, petroleum reserves, or conventional wisdom -- will end up masters of nothing if they don't lift your spirits, choke you up, or make your heart go pitty-pat. Microsoft will be like Standard Oil or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, bleah, who cares. (In the meantime they'll make your life miserable, put you out of business, and corrupt the political process beyond all imagining, but sorry, that's the best I can do.) First
things last: Even your mother knows what blogging is these days, so I don't need to explain. And since this is one of the few areas of the Interent not currently suppressed or co-opted, I think it's important. Of course, what amounts in many cases to a stream-of-consciousness journal in the sky can try your patience. Even at Salon, there's a lot of, "my girlfriend/boyfriend is a Nazi nudist" kind of crap. From reading the titles, you'd think everyone's a comic (ick!), a pundit (ack!), or a sly pornographer (ook!). But we're trying. What I'm using the bandwidth for is all of the above except with pictures and more devious motives. I've been know to post quick & dirty photo-essays, carefully crafted outpourings of my (eww) innermost thoughts, an occasional rant , and even subtle messages to people I hope are checking in. Some items are excerpts from current writing projects, others are brand-new essays I might collect later for publication, and some are downright pitiful things I should never have posted in public. That's the beauty of blogging, as well as the reason it's a fit subject for Doonesbury. The point of all this is achieving critical mass (duh!) so I can buy new underwear at Wal-Mart and maybe a big loud motorcycle to take orphans for rides on. Click early and often, you'll be glad you did. Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr invites your comments. While you're at it, visit FOTOFEED.COM for a major treat.
(Current year's columns just below)
"GRACK!" is © copyright 2002, John H. Farr, all rights reserved
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