Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Importance of Being Edgy
(1)
Kootch seems to have mostly recovered from jet lag and altitude lag (Denver is 5000+ feet). She goes through this stage every year and we both know what to expect and how to handle it.
Old Computer is still chugging along, but I sense that it might be in frail condition given the age of its operating system, and so I am transfering my DROG files to New Computer via floppy disk. I am also printing an archival copy as a backup. DROG was written using Creative Writer. That children's word processor happened to come with other software included in the purchase of my first modern computer back in '96. I had previously written my 'diary' on my old Apple II+ computer using Word Salad (my cryptographic text editor). Those files remain in the closet on REALLY floppy disks, but I later transferred the files from that first modern computer to Old Computer and, now, to New Computer (which is really fairly old nowadays but still humming along using Windows XP). I'm reading some of it as I print it. Fascinating stuff.
Today I noticed a horrible error as I was reading along: I had transposed the names of Phil Donahue and Okra Winfrey in a piece I was doing at the time, on circumcision. It was my practice in those days to watch both shows religiously, and I apparently got the two shows mixed up on that particular subject as I was writing along (probably half drunk) one night. Ugly. Very Ugly. My apologies to both. I console myself with the conjecture that what few readers I had back in those days recognized the mistake immediately and were not much affected by it. I am very aware, based on my previous readings of my previous writings, that it is important to be fairly politically correct in order not to turn off readers immediately, but also to be fairly politically incorrect in order to stimulate logical inquiry on the reader's part.
Kootch seems to have mostly recovered from jet lag and altitude lag (Denver is 5000+ feet). She goes through this stage every year and we both know what to expect and how to handle it.
Old Computer is still chugging along, but I sense that it might be in frail condition given the age of its operating system, and so I am transfering my DROG files to New Computer via floppy disk. I am also printing an archival copy as a backup. DROG was written using Creative Writer. That children's word processor happened to come with other software included in the purchase of my first modern computer back in '96. I had previously written my 'diary' on my old Apple II+ computer using Word Salad (my cryptographic text editor). Those files remain in the closet on REALLY floppy disks, but I later transferred the files from that first modern computer to Old Computer and, now, to New Computer (which is really fairly old nowadays but still humming along using Windows XP). I'm reading some of it as I print it. Fascinating stuff.
Today I noticed a horrible error as I was reading along: I had transposed the names of Phil Donahue and Okra Winfrey in a piece I was doing at the time, on circumcision. It was my practice in those days to watch both shows religiously, and I apparently got the two shows mixed up on that particular subject as I was writing along (probably half drunk) one night. Ugly. Very Ugly. My apologies to both. I console myself with the conjecture that what few readers I had back in those days recognized the mistake immediately and were not much affected by it. I am very aware, based on my previous readings of my previous writings, that it is important to be fairly politically correct in order not to turn off readers immediately, but also to be fairly politically incorrect in order to stimulate logical inquiry on the reader's part.
