The Internet does a good job of creating an illusion of anonymity. I say illusion, because while on the face of things it would seem impossible for anyone to connect what you do on the Internet to the real you, there is a connection, a very real connection, made of fibre-optic cable, sillicon chips and electrical impulses, which anyone with the knowledge can trace to the person tapping the keyboard. It doesn't help that, with an illusion of assured facelessness, people tend to be more careless with information they leave on the Web. It takes just a little carelessness spread out across various sites, and all one has to do is bring all these indiscretions together to build a picture, of the real person, their friends, and satellite photographs of their home. It's almost terrifying, when the supposed anonymity proves to be a sham.
Then again, perhaps all of us, deep down, want to be discovered. After all, there is a way to remain truly unknown, and that is to refrain from all connections. By taking pot-shots into the darkness of the Web, perhaps the intention is that, someday, someone will reach back and say, "Found you."
Until then, there is a thrill, in having a little secret which no-one knows about but which anyone could reveal with little effort, like some sort of superhero from a book.
Except this is real life, and you don't get a retcon, and the main character always dies in the end.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Friday, 19 February 2010
This Is Average
My room window faces a hill. On the plus side, it blocks out the brunt of the hot Australian summer. On the minus side, I occasionally have to use electrical lighting even in the daytime.
I can't stand Cadbury Creme Eggs. Why anyone would want to imitate raw egg using a sugary product is beyond me. Eggs are delicious as they are.
Why would anyone travel several kilometres for a pizza restaurant? This had better be some good pizza.
This morning I was talking to my supervisor in his office, when a downy gray feather slowly descended from the ceiling to the floor. I accused him of being a pigeon smuggler, a magician or possibly a werebird, which he vehemently and laughingly denied. I pretended to suspect nothing, but I knew something was amiss. Further evidence came in the form of a small black feather on the staircase, even though, once more, there were no more birds to be seen in the area, and indeed no means by which any avians might access the building. More on this issue as I investigate.
Calling is different from emailing. This I have discovered. Cone falls, on the other hand, are something else entirely.
This entire post was the product of boredom.
I can't stand Cadbury Creme Eggs. Why anyone would want to imitate raw egg using a sugary product is beyond me. Eggs are delicious as they are.
Why would anyone travel several kilometres for a pizza restaurant? This had better be some good pizza.
This morning I was talking to my supervisor in his office, when a downy gray feather slowly descended from the ceiling to the floor. I accused him of being a pigeon smuggler, a magician or possibly a werebird, which he vehemently and laughingly denied. I pretended to suspect nothing, but I knew something was amiss. Further evidence came in the form of a small black feather on the staircase, even though, once more, there were no more birds to be seen in the area, and indeed no means by which any avians might access the building. More on this issue as I investigate.
Calling is different from emailing. This I have discovered. Cone falls, on the other hand, are something else entirely.
This entire post was the product of boredom.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Pack Up, Shut Up, Go
Here it is, once again.
To cram everything into a 40 x 60 x 100 cm space. To pack away life, home, everything familiar into an unfamiliar feeling and lock it all away. To split myself into two once again and live two lives across a piece of ocean.
I used to want a life of adventure. But now I realise that the more you travel, the more places you place your mark, and the more places call back to you. It just gets easier to ignore the voices the more you do it.
I just want one place which I can truly, definitively call home. But that will have to wait for a few years.
Just a little longer now. Wait for me.
To cram everything into a 40 x 60 x 100 cm space. To pack away life, home, everything familiar into an unfamiliar feeling and lock it all away. To split myself into two once again and live two lives across a piece of ocean.
I used to want a life of adventure. But now I realise that the more you travel, the more places you place your mark, and the more places call back to you. It just gets easier to ignore the voices the more you do it.
I just want one place which I can truly, definitively call home. But that will have to wait for a few years.
Just a little longer now. Wait for me.
Monday, 8 February 2010
Clutter
It was, I think, 2002 or 2003 when we moved into the new house. It was certainly a nice house, bounded by a small jungle on one side and a river/canal on another. My main interest, however, was the bathtub in the master bedroom. Perhaps now I could attempt that water-wasting yet oh-so-decadent method of self-cleansing, as immortalised in both media and literature!
Not so. My mother was too crafty for me. "Finish clearing your room," she suggested, "and I'll let you use the bath."
I didn't earn the right that year, or the year after. Each year, in fact, the task grew steadily harder as I amassed more material., making it more and more difficult to put everything into a coherent order. Finally, in self-defence, I decided I wasn't interested in the bath and allowed the clutter in my room to do as it would.
Then, at some point, I became an adult.
Today, I have finished clearing my room. I have gone through every item in my possession, and thrown away some four or five large bags worth of material which I no longer value. The room is now organised, and if I chose I could locate most of my possessions if necessary. The task is complete.
The room feels emptier, somehow.
Not so. My mother was too crafty for me. "Finish clearing your room," she suggested, "and I'll let you use the bath."
I didn't earn the right that year, or the year after. Each year, in fact, the task grew steadily harder as I amassed more material., making it more and more difficult to put everything into a coherent order. Finally, in self-defence, I decided I wasn't interested in the bath and allowed the clutter in my room to do as it would.
Then, at some point, I became an adult.
Today, I have finished clearing my room. I have gone through every item in my possession, and thrown away some four or five large bags worth of material which I no longer value. The room is now organised, and if I chose I could locate most of my possessions if necessary. The task is complete.
The room feels emptier, somehow.
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Inside Out
I like to keep things inside.
Oh, no, don't get me wrong. I have raging fits of temper. I have moments when I spill all, as coherently as it appears to me at the time, with furious, brazen words. There are times when I suddenly have the urge to be honest, to tell the truth as I see it.
But most of the time, I keep it inside.
Part of it is that I have no one to talk to. Not out of want of trustworthy people, but rather that they seem to have problems of their own or, as the case may be, they more readily part with their problems than I do. Being selfish under such circumstances would be wrong, and perhaps pointless as well. If someone badly wants to unload their secrets, they would not pay a great deal of attention to another person's issues.
So I keep it all inside.
It works, I suppose. I've gotten good at talking out the truth with myself. And when the cause is uncertainty, rationalising the facts or even doing a bit of research helps. As for the rest, well, my body has a very strong will to survive, even when I don't.
It's both frightening and empowering, to rely on oneself.
Oh, no, don't get me wrong. I have raging fits of temper. I have moments when I spill all, as coherently as it appears to me at the time, with furious, brazen words. There are times when I suddenly have the urge to be honest, to tell the truth as I see it.
But most of the time, I keep it inside.
Part of it is that I have no one to talk to. Not out of want of trustworthy people, but rather that they seem to have problems of their own or, as the case may be, they more readily part with their problems than I do. Being selfish under such circumstances would be wrong, and perhaps pointless as well. If someone badly wants to unload their secrets, they would not pay a great deal of attention to another person's issues.
So I keep it all inside.
It works, I suppose. I've gotten good at talking out the truth with myself. And when the cause is uncertainty, rationalising the facts or even doing a bit of research helps. As for the rest, well, my body has a very strong will to survive, even when I don't.
It's both frightening and empowering, to rely on oneself.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Don't Follow Me, I'm Going to Zorbitron
I have to say, I love the Borders Bookstore. There are a wide range of books on the most fascinating of subjects, the environment is comfortable for browsing, and in spite of the posh atmosphere no one looks at you askance when you walk in wearing a T-shirt and shorts. This morning, with some time to kill, I wandered in with my mother. Borders was fairly empty at the time, this being a working day. My mother made a beeline for the non-fiction, and found what she was looking for with a compact book about actors and actresses. This sort of thing doesn't interest me greatly, and I was about to move on to another section when I spotted The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, now in its third edition. Intrigued, I flipped through it.
It was, as its name suggested, very much in the style of an encyclopedia. Various animated feature films, television specials and television cartoons were listed, with a short run-down of the voice actors and production crew, and a brief blurb. The text was relieved with the occasional greyscale cartoon screen capture, and a few pages of coloured images at the centre of the book.
I have often wondered about the relevance of such books in the age of the Internet, that endless repository of information on more subjects than any one person could possibly be aware of. What could be the purpose of purchasing a book when information can be so readily obtained with lesser cost to both the wallet and the environment? Perhaps the allure of a book is the promise of accuracy, and in the collection of information carefully prepared by the author. In order to read up about, say, Turbo Teen on the Internet, one must have first seen it mentioned somewhere. A book would have already done the necessary research, and presents the information in a clear and accurate manner, ready for consumption.
Digressions aside, I continued to scan through The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, marvelling at the sheer number of animated features which have been created thus far. I stopped at a familiar name.
THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE
Ah, the 1986 classic which is much reviled by some fans and loved by others, and notable for its polarising decision to kill off most of its popular cast. I continued to read.
Set in 2005, the Transformers and their archenemies, the Decepticons...
The Transformers are actually a class of autonomous robots, of which the Decepticons are a single faction. A fairly common mistake, nothing too ser-
...are at war with one another when an Earthly group, the Autobots...
Wait, what?
...enters the picture and helps send the Decepticons into outer space.
I must have stared for sometime, re-reading the sentence to check if I had read it wrongly. When it became apparent that I hadn't, I had to clamp my mouth shut to hold in my giggles. Where on earth had the author gotten that information? The almost complete inaccuracy was astonishing. Not only were the Autobots erroneously listed as being a separate, "Earthly" group from the Transformers, but the blurb also stated the complete opposite of what happened at the beginning of the movie.
Then again, perhaps it I was being unfair. Mistakes are common, and surely I couldn't expect the author to have a complete understanding of all the subtleties in every cartoon he had listed in his book. Surely this was only a one-time error. I looked in the section on television cartoons.
TRANSFORMERS
The Autobots, residents of the planet Zorbitron...
At that moment I had to double over to keep my laughter, if not completely inaudible, at least at a low volume. Part of me doesn't want to know how "Cybertron" managed to end up so mangled, or where the author got "Zorbitron" from, but another part really, really wants to know!
But I think I'll stick to using the Internet as a source of information on cartoons. Especially since this encyclopedia of "animated cartoons" lists Walking with Dinosaurs, but not any of the Bionicle movies.
It was, as its name suggested, very much in the style of an encyclopedia. Various animated feature films, television specials and television cartoons were listed, with a short run-down of the voice actors and production crew, and a brief blurb. The text was relieved with the occasional greyscale cartoon screen capture, and a few pages of coloured images at the centre of the book.
I have often wondered about the relevance of such books in the age of the Internet, that endless repository of information on more subjects than any one person could possibly be aware of. What could be the purpose of purchasing a book when information can be so readily obtained with lesser cost to both the wallet and the environment? Perhaps the allure of a book is the promise of accuracy, and in the collection of information carefully prepared by the author. In order to read up about, say, Turbo Teen on the Internet, one must have first seen it mentioned somewhere. A book would have already done the necessary research, and presents the information in a clear and accurate manner, ready for consumption.
Digressions aside, I continued to scan through The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, marvelling at the sheer number of animated features which have been created thus far. I stopped at a familiar name.
THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE
Ah, the 1986 classic which is much reviled by some fans and loved by others, and notable for its polarising decision to kill off most of its popular cast. I continued to read.
Set in 2005, the Transformers and their archenemies, the Decepticons...
The Transformers are actually a class of autonomous robots, of which the Decepticons are a single faction. A fairly common mistake, nothing too ser-
...are at war with one another when an Earthly group, the Autobots...
Wait, what?
...enters the picture and helps send the Decepticons into outer space.
I must have stared for sometime, re-reading the sentence to check if I had read it wrongly. When it became apparent that I hadn't, I had to clamp my mouth shut to hold in my giggles. Where on earth had the author gotten that information? The almost complete inaccuracy was astonishing. Not only were the Autobots erroneously listed as being a separate, "Earthly" group from the Transformers, but the blurb also stated the complete opposite of what happened at the beginning of the movie.
Then again, perhaps it I was being unfair. Mistakes are common, and surely I couldn't expect the author to have a complete understanding of all the subtleties in every cartoon he had listed in his book. Surely this was only a one-time error. I looked in the section on television cartoons.
TRANSFORMERS
The Autobots, residents of the planet Zorbitron...
At that moment I had to double over to keep my laughter, if not completely inaudible, at least at a low volume. Part of me doesn't want to know how "Cybertron" managed to end up so mangled, or where the author got "Zorbitron" from, but another part really, really wants to know!
But I think I'll stick to using the Internet as a source of information on cartoons. Especially since this encyclopedia of "animated cartoons" lists Walking with Dinosaurs, but not any of the Bionicle movies.
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