Monday 2 July 2001

Pic of the day: These flowers are past their prime. The sun has reached and passed its height, and so have they. And I don't feel too young myself either. Perhaps even my journal is declining? (Or perhaps I should go get some sleep.)

Journal envy

I've been thinking about a permanent link to my two cosmic twin journallers. That would be cosmic triplets, I guess, but no one ever talks about cosmic triplets. But the point is, if you like the Chaos Node, you'll probably love Nova Notes and Deconstructing Destiny (formerly Hexagesimal Rainbow). Note that I could have linked to them right here - but then you would go there and perhaps not come back. The problem is, these journals are similar to mine, but they are better.

For instance, there is layout. Or there is not. I told you, I am brain damaged when it comes to layout. I have no trouble using tables for layout, for instance. But I have trouble seeing why. It took me well over a year to find out that it was perhaps not ideal to just run the text all across the page. In fact, it took months before I started to use visible paragraphs, much less sections. Not because I could not do it, but because I myself read like an OCR machine. Fonts? Borders? I could not care less. The words. It's all about the words.

And these people actually have lives. Especially Schroeder of Nova Notes. In fact, sometimes he may have almost too much real life, such as when his son suddenly died one day. How can they even have time to have lives and at the same time have as much imagination as I have?

***

But at least Pamie has closed her online journal, Squishy. She was probably the most admired (and therefore most envied) journaller in our virtual neighborhood. Pamie was certified funny. She could turn on fun like you turn on the hot water. And she did, day after day. Eventually she had to close down because it cost to much ... there were so many visitors that she could not serve them from a small private account, the way we do, but had to rent lots of bandwidth. And with online advertising going down the drain, she simply could not afford to be popular. Oh well. One less competitor ... and one less example to lure people into online journals in the first place. But envy doesn't think like that.

Pamie was even more envied than The Mighty Kymm, who is still very active. Light knows how many newbies have linked to Kymm in the hope that she would link back. (She doesn't, usually.) Don't ask me what's so great about her journal. I mean, she is a nice and helpful person, but she just writes about everyday things all the time, like cats and stuff. At least the times I have tried to read. She writes well, but she never stops to ask the important questions in life: Why do electrons circle around protons and not the other way around? Why did primates ascend to sentience but hippos did not? (Particularly since hippos are strikingly similar to some German tourists, in body as well as attitude.) Why is there prejudice in the world?

***

In contrast, Deconstructing Destiny is like a poet's spirit possessing an analytical engine gone berserk. Sometimes. Other times it's just vague ramblings, perhaps. Just like me. Or perhaps I'm just unable to follow her abstractions. Still, she has long sentences, archaic polysyllables, and a tendency to start writing things she never finishes. What is not to love? She must be my long lost twin ... except that she's years and years younger and of a different ethnic groups. Hmm. You've heard about the twin paradox, right? :)

"If an infinite number of monkeys were writing on an infinite number of web-connected PC's, it is unavoidable that sooner or later some of them would write web journals." No, that was not the twin paradox. I've forgotten what this one was called again. But anyway, the problem with having an infinite number of monkeys typing away is that it is all in vain unless some intelligent being reads their output.

The online defender of the Anthropic Principle would be Al Schroeder of Nova Notes. If not my cosmic twin, he certainly qualifies as my cosmic older brother. (Actually, he is a lot more like me than my physical older brothers, who are all nice enough people but not very cosmic.) He is something as rare as a christian who writes fiction. Real fiction, not just thinly veiled parables. Some thickly veiled parables, and some pure fantasy and science fiction. His journal is down to earth though, dealing with the complexities of sharing time between a demanding job, hot hot wifey love and an autist son, plus the painful memories of losing his firstborn. How does he get time to write? How does he get time to draw a new picture each day? And most intriguing, how does he get time to live?

Here's my theory: He's got a small gizmo from the far future, probably in the shape of an innocent looking little hourglass, or perhaps a wrist watch. When activated, it catapults him to his secret hideout a hundred thousand years into the future. Here he spends all the time he needs, waited upon by highly advanced robots and beautiful genetically engineered humanoid animals. This gives him the time to read hard-to-find books, think out new ideas, write them down and illustrate them. Then he activates his gizmo again, and in an instant he is back in Nashville where he lives his "ordinary" life.
Or perhaps not.

***

Time for my sales pitch. If these journals are so good, why would you ever return to the Chaos Node?

Well, for one thing my entries are color coded, so you can see at a glance whether there will be hot hot sexengs (so far only in my dreams...) or cool cool computer games, or essay-like discourses on nature and society, or just daily blatherings.

And! I store a copy of my latest entry always in the same place. So if you have a Palm or Pocket PC, you can tell AvantGo to fetch it every day when you update your portable. I really wish the others had that.

And finally, you should read the Chaos Node because it's all about me! And you love me just the way I am, right? :)

When I believe that, there will presumably be a permanent link page. For now, these journals were mentioned:
Pamie's last entry
The Mighty Kymm ("Sweet as a biscuit")
Nova Notes
Deconstructing Destiny