Off I go into the night. If I’m attacked by roving gangs of survivalists (who crave my stash of canned peas) and don’t return, please remember that you can always say “Planet SOMA? That went out with the twentieth century…”
Month: December 1999
The End of the World
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I don’t care.
OK, so the world isn’t really going to end, but it sure seemed like it was at my friendly neighborhood Safeway tonight. The lines were ten deep and there wasn’t a jug of water nor a decent can of soup in the place. It was crazy. Looked a little like a supermarket in North Carolina when half an inch of snow is predicted.
Me, I was just excited to see that Safeway has started carrying Sylvia Queen of Soul Food canned beans and still had Frosted Mini-Wheats on sale. I have milk jugs and can store my own water just fine, thank you.
The SFPD (all of whom are working tomorrow) have commandeered a majority of the parking spaces within three blocks of my house. Shops in Union Square are boarding up their windows for the weekend. It’s getting a little creepy ’round these parts.
Yer humble host has arranged to be safely stowed on the eastern side of Potrero Hill watching the fireworks in a purely residential area which drunk idiots and terrorists will probably avoid. I’m leaving my car there for the weekend.
So I guess this will be the last journal entry of the 1990’s (or the 1900’s, or even the 1000’s, for that matter). Should I say something profound? Should I wax nostalgic about the last 100 years? Probably not. The older I get, the more sketchy I am about what really happened the Middle Ages. Must’ve been all those mushrooms.
I’ll just close by wishing everyone a happy new year and inviting you to visit a dramatically unchanged Planet SOMA tomorrow.
Late
No new computer. No one’s made that $500 pledge yet either. But I am finishing work before 11 tonight. That’s something, isn’t it?
New G4?
I’m thinking of buying a new computer. Of course, I’ve been thinking of buying a new computer for a year, but this time I’m thinking of buying one this very week, since I’ve found a nice new G4 on sale for about $1300. Strangely enough, this will be considerably less than I spent for much less machine four years ago.
Of course, my move into the USB universe will require new peripherals, etc., so it’s not like I’ll get off quite as cheaply as the above might suggest. But it sure would be nice to be able to open big files and not to worry (for a while at least) about cataclysmic disasters involving my hard drive. It would be great to get DSL without having to buy a new card and without worrying whether it would do any good with my wheezing old 1995 machine.
And why not spend all this money right now? My finances are always precarious, but this way I’d be broke with a much faster computer. That’s an improvement, right?
Maybe it’s time for the first annual Planet SOMA Pledge Drive. I could insert pledge breaks right in the middle of all my most popular pages, making appeals to guilt and offering overpriced premiums. For a $10 pledge, I could offer an autographed JPEG. For $25, a color copy of my Best of the Bay award from 1998. And $100 could get you a cum-stained jockstrap or a pair of official Planet SOMA used Nikes. But I hate to think what I might have to do (or to whom) for $500.
It could work, couldn’t it? Or did I piss everyone off yesterday with my email sabbatical?
Things I love today:
- Christmas leftovers
- The triumphant return of Bringdown.com
- Blue Oyster Cult
Things I hate today:
- “In the Heat of the Night” at 6:00 instead of 5:00 on TNT
- Michelina’s Signature frozen entreees
- The new condo-loft project which is about to obscure the Herb Caen mural on Mission Street
- This damned “freezing cold inthe morning but warm in the afternoon” weather which renders a coat first a necessity and then a burden
On Email
Hmmm. How will I remember the final week of 1999? Probably as one where I was working an awful lot. This, of course, bodes well for things like eating and paying the rent, but not for answering email nor for site updates. Methinks the newest installment of Do You Bring Bottles will be delayed by a few weeks. Sorry.
It might do the whole site a world of good if I took a little break anyway. It seems I’m not writing about anything particularly interesting lately. I’ve been in a relatively good mood the past few weeks, which is cutting into my traditional crankiness. My life has taken a rather subdued turn of late. And I’m finding it increasingly difficult to spend leisure hours sitting in front of a computer, particularly with all the freelance I’m doing right now.
This is not to suggest that I’m giving up the site or even taking an extended break. I’m just threatening to pay a litle less attention for a few weeks, or at least until I feel inspired to write about something interesting or do something exciting. And I reserve the right to change my mind at any time. So there.
What I am admitting is that I’m taking a bit of an email break. It’s just gotten to be too much, I’m way behind (again), and I get this creeping sense of doom each time I look at my In Box. So I’m not going to worry about it anymore.
I used to answer all site-related email almost immediately, often at length. Two things have changed in the past few months: first, I get much more mail now and second, I’m less inclined to spend a couple of hours a day answering it. My lack of response has nothing to do with how I perceive the sender; in fact I often brush off interesting people more readily than quick questions, simply because the intersting mail requires a more thoughtful response (and therefore means more work).
I’m so very flattered that people take the time to email me about the site, and I feel bad about it, but I can no longer beat myself up about every single message I don’t answer (or take three weeks to answer). I just can’t spend so much time attached to a keyboard anymore.
This is, of course, not to say that I’m no longer answering email or that I don’t like getting it. I’m just answering non-essential, non-urgent mail at my leisure. And that means some of it isn’t going to get answered.
Ooh. That felt good.