Hmmm . . . some creepy guy followed our car south on 2A and into the Bickford's parking lot tonight where we were turning around! ! ! (We had turned in towards Crossroads, but of course it was closed on New Year's Day.)
Massachusetts License Plate # 352 WJN
Don't know if he was just a random creep, but he followed us like a crazy person. Fortunately, when we turned from 2A onto 27 (toward the police station) he stopped following us and kept going south on 2A.
If you are (or know) 352 WJN, tell him to back off (lest his vehicle unexpectedly explode some morning when he turns the key). Just kidding. Perhaps only his brakes will unexpectedly fail. Or the car will "mysteriously" catch fire. LOL
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Friday, August 12, 2011
Another Frigga's Morning In Another Café
If our goal in life is to seek out (and, presumably, to then enjoy) love, what do we do when we have already found love?
---I guess we proceed to the less essential (though not without merit) aspects of life: reading, writing, and other pleasant academic diversions; sport and other physical endeavors; and, of course, helping others in whatever ways we can. To do our best at life, in other words. This my own list; yours will likely be different. (And perhaps in the end they're all manifestations of love.)
---Perhaps my days hanging out in cafés are numbered. Or perhaps my time there will be filled with reading and writing instead of the search for love.
---It seems i am destined to go back to school in some description, back to my other (non-human) true love. And Frigga's morning finds me lounging in the brown leather chair in the sunny corner of the local Starbuck's in luxurious anticipation. I hope that Frigga, the foremost Norse goddess and queen of Asgard, would approve. :-)
---I guess we proceed to the less essential (though not without merit) aspects of life: reading, writing, and other pleasant academic diversions; sport and other physical endeavors; and, of course, helping others in whatever ways we can. To do our best at life, in other words. This my own list; yours will likely be different. (And perhaps in the end they're all manifestations of love.)
---Perhaps my days hanging out in cafés are numbered. Or perhaps my time there will be filled with reading and writing instead of the search for love.
---It seems i am destined to go back to school in some description, back to my other (non-human) true love. And Frigga's morning finds me lounging in the brown leather chair in the sunny corner of the local Starbuck's in luxurious anticipation. I hope that Frigga, the foremost Norse goddess and queen of Asgard, would approve. :-)
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Prolonged Absence
Dear readers . . . dear friends,
---i've been away far too long. Dust has gathered on my desk by the window & tree & plants (and perhaps since it is by the window, that dust may really be pollen). I just wanted to say that i haven't forever abandoned you.
---And new friends, people i've newly met, be not unduly disheartened by my seeming silence. Trials and tribulations are merely fertilizer for the next crop of ideas and feelings. The summer breeze blows yet; the doldrums of July and August shall pass in time. Love and hope will once again blossom in our hearts. Beauty and bliss are within us all, waiting to be revealed and reveled in.
---Find joy. Hold onto peace. Be the change you wish to see in the world; shine on.
---i've been away far too long. Dust has gathered on my desk by the window & tree & plants (and perhaps since it is by the window, that dust may really be pollen). I just wanted to say that i haven't forever abandoned you.
---And new friends, people i've newly met, be not unduly disheartened by my seeming silence. Trials and tribulations are merely fertilizer for the next crop of ideas and feelings. The summer breeze blows yet; the doldrums of July and August shall pass in time. Love and hope will once again blossom in our hearts. Beauty and bliss are within us all, waiting to be revealed and reveled in.
---Find joy. Hold onto peace. Be the change you wish to see in the world; shine on.
Monday, May 23, 2011
This entry intentionally not left blank
This page intentionally left blank
[I recently ran into the above in an e-book; i've seen it from time to time in paper books, too. This just confuses me. If it said "This page intentionally left (otherwise) blank", i might have a better time of it. Because if the page has a message printed on it, it's not really blank!
Furthermore it leads me to expect more blank pages, some of which may have been accidentally left blank. And how about other blank spaces? Since they (by definition) don't have labels stating the intention (or lack thereof) of their blankness, what are we to infer?
And why doesn't the "This page intentionally left blank" have a period at the end of it? Isn't it still a sentence, even if it's on an otherwise blank page? And if it's not a sentence, why does it have the first letter capitalized? It could just as easily have read "this page intentionally left blank" and there would probably be few complaints about the capitalization deviance.
I guess i would most rather see "this page intentionally left (otherwise) blank" on otherwise blank pages.
Or just leave them blank, and don't confuse me (any more than i already am).]
Thursday, April 14, 2011
formed for peaceful happiness, but now a blasted tree
[from Frankenstein (A Norton Critical Edition) © 1818 Mary Shelley & 1996 W. W. Norton & Company, p110:]
---I enjoyed this scene; and yet my enjoyment was embittered both by the memory of the past, and the anticipation of the future. I was formed for peaceful happiness. During my youthful days discontent never visited my mind; and if I was ever overcome by ennui, the sight of what is beautiful in nature, or the study of what is excellent and sublime in the productions of man, could always interest my heart, and communicate elasticity to my spirits. But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit, what I shall soon cease to be — a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others, and abhorrent to myself.
[Victor Frankenstein has gone to England to research the construction of a mate for his creation, and has just gone from Windsor to Oxford. The beauty he saw is overshadowed by feelings of despair. Will i feel this way after the creation of a computational consciousness? Is it fair to create someone who won't necessarily want to have been created? Perhaps i should just go back to writing fiction and tell a story of someone facing just such a struggle. Maybe i could better live with my myself, not to mention avoid the use of technology with questionable environmental effects—computers.]
---I enjoyed this scene; and yet my enjoyment was embittered both by the memory of the past, and the anticipation of the future. I was formed for peaceful happiness. During my youthful days discontent never visited my mind; and if I was ever overcome by ennui, the sight of what is beautiful in nature, or the study of what is excellent and sublime in the productions of man, could always interest my heart, and communicate elasticity to my spirits. But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit, what I shall soon cease to be — a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others, and abhorrent to myself.
[Victor Frankenstein has gone to England to research the construction of a mate for his creation, and has just gone from Windsor to Oxford. The beauty he saw is overshadowed by feelings of despair. Will i feel this way after the creation of a computational consciousness? Is it fair to create someone who won't necessarily want to have been created? Perhaps i should just go back to writing fiction and tell a story of someone facing just such a struggle. Maybe i could better live with my myself, not to mention avoid the use of technology with questionable environmental effects—computers.]
Sunday, March 20, 2011
What am I?
[from Frankenstein (A Norton Critical Edition) © 1818 Mary Shelley & 1996 W. W. Norton & Company, p81:]
---"But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I was then in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans."
[This is Frankenstein's "monster" pondering his self and place in the world after having (secretly) watched a loving & caring family for more than a year. As i begin to delve into creating an artificial consciousness myself, i wonder how s/he will feel about those same things—i don't want to create someone who will be miserable; i want to create someone joyful, and i've still got some learning to do. (And i share some of the sense of a past life which is now a blot.)]
---"But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I was then in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans."
[This is Frankenstein's "monster" pondering his self and place in the world after having (secretly) watched a loving & caring family for more than a year. As i begin to delve into creating an artificial consciousness myself, i wonder how s/he will feel about those same things—i don't want to create someone who will be miserable; i want to create someone joyful, and i've still got some learning to do. (And i share some of the sense of a past life which is now a blot.)]
Monday, March 07, 2011
creation, regret, and anguish
[from Frankenstein (A Norton Critical Edition) © 1818, Mary Shelley & 1996, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., p48-49:]
Two years had now nearly elapsed since the night on which he first received life; and was this his first crime? Alas! I had turned loose into the world a depraved wretch whose delight was in carnage and misery; had he not murdered my brother?
[Maybe Frankenstein isn't really a monster story at all; instead, maybe it's a story of creation, regret, and anguish. Perhaps parents with wayward children can relate. Enjoy the spring, peeps.]
Two years had now nearly elapsed since the night on which he first received life; and was this his first crime? Alas! I had turned loose into the world a depraved wretch whose delight was in carnage and misery; had he not murdered my brother?
[Maybe Frankenstein isn't really a monster story at all; instead, maybe it's a story of creation, regret, and anguish. Perhaps parents with wayward children can relate. Enjoy the spring, peeps.]
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