Posted on

Wishing for wi-fi

As I passed a little café today, I noticed that they had an 802.11 wireless hotspot. Inside, a woman with a sleek little notebook computer happily surfed the web with a tall, foamy beverage on the side. And I thought to myself, I want to try that.

Sure, my Dell laptop is a little too chunky to be fashionable, and doesn’t sport the cool glowing-apple logo on the lid, but I could relax in a pleasant atmosphere and… do whatever it is that I usally do at home in a more comfortable chair. I guess I’d read the news sites or something. E-mail? I could log onto my favourite multiplayer game, I suppose, although it would be dead slow.

Even though I occasionally see the bohemian-geek in the corner of Lugz or The Grind or Starbucks or Blenz, typing out their manifesto-poem/one-act socio-eco-political play, I couldn’t possibly focus on writing with so many distractions.

It might be more relaxing to sit with a newspaper instead of a keyboard and screen. And at home, instead of a hard chair. Ah, screw it. I’m not going wireless.

Posted on

Uh… what kind of meat is that?

There was a white box van in front of me on my drive home from the grocery store. On the back, it said “A&S; Meats & Poultry”. At first glance, I thought it said “ASS Meats & Poultry”. Sometimes it’s absolutely vital to spell out the word “and” in full.

Posted on

Phwoar

I’m just back from seeing Adrian Bedford at the first stop of his book tour — a reading at The Grind Café. It was excellent to finally meet Adrian and Michelle. It’s an example of the power of the net to allow people to make connections all over this floating ball that we call Earth. Neat stuff.

If you haven’t met Adrian yet, I’d highly recommend it, as he’s a clever and witty guy, and he’ll sign your copy of Orbital Burn, absolutely free! Even in the short time we were able to chat, he imparted a great deal for me to mull. I’m mulling even now. Principally, his advice was to start small and work my way up, which seems far more sensible than what I was doing. I started with an epic, 1,500-year plot and worked up from there, expecting to finish in a couple of months. Maybe that was a bit too much for my first attempt.

I wish Adrian and Michelle all the best as they wend their way across the continent, stopping in Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, Toronto, New York, and finally Boston for the 62nd World Science Fiction Convention.

Posted on

Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring…

It must be a sad sign of my geekdom that I didn’t even notice when my cell phone stopped receiving calls or taking messages. Honestly, I’m so wired to the net that I conduct almost all of my exchanges via e-mail and chat. While I was happily e-mailing with everyone, I didn’t notice that my last received call was on August 5th. No voice messages.

So far, only one person has sent me an angry e-mail, and I’m truly sorry about not calling back. If you called and left a message since the 5th, please try again by e-mail. I’m not ignoring you. I’m just oblivious to finer points of operating this “telephone” device.

Posted on

Aerodrome news: flightless shuttle

Over the days that followed from my previous entry, the unusually-shaped pod morphed itself into the cockpit of this Space 1999 inspired shuttle.

Unfortunately, I went a little overboard with the prims. The limit for a functioning vehicle is 30 (plus an avatar). This has around 170.

Needless to say, it can’t ever fly like a normal vehicle. I played around with it as an attachment for a while, but it’s nothing I can actually use or sell. Like other interesting failures, I’ll send it into the dark corners of my inventory.