Descender 1 December 1998

Oh America. The Waterboy over Babe? You break my heart.

I saw the newly released print of the extended director's cut of (draw breath) The Last Emperor this Sunday. I've never seen the film before, either. Gorgeous, gorgeous, but then Bertolucci's films always are. 4 hours long but didn't seem it; I had heard that the last third was a bit draggy, but not so as I noticed. Awfully cozy re-education camp, though. I could stand a bit of re-education myself. I confess!

It's incredible to imagine, the changes he faced. I found myself figuring out how old Pu Yi was at the major points of the film. 42 when he finally and completely lost even the dreams of being Emperor, at the end of World War II. From the Son of Heaven, whose every turd is examined with care, to a Russian prisoner. I try to think about encompassing such a shift in that much time, and my mind deflates.

Then again, I don't have leather-clad women flying into my palatial retreat offering betrayal, sex, and opium either. So I'm not all that sympathetic with him.

Yesterday I found that it was a really good idea to lay completely flat and move as little as possible for as long as possible. The most humiliating part of my ongoing decline, The Digestion Wars, have resumed in earnest. God save us all.

Well, me, specifically.

Today is still happening.

7:59 PM: Well, there you are! Silly hedgehog.

Someone here has had the bright idea of emptying ALL of the CDs out of the 100 CD changer, so that they can use it to play one CD at a time. Because as we all know, my music is what's important, and when I want to listen to my music, I don't want to risk hearing anything else, because it might not be something that I chose. I might never even have heard of it! Gasp!

AOL's mainstream corporate bent has long made it akin to the antichrist in the eyes of early Net users, scores of whom came to work at Netscape in its youth. Those employees helped establish a casual, freewheeling Netscape culture. According to Case, that culture won't change under AOL.

"You can definitely keep your dogs," he said, referring to a Netscape policy that lets staffers bring their furry best friends to the office.

Oh boy! Sheesh. Our new stepdad did the same thing when he came out here. "But we love your quaint San Francisco ways! With your dogs and your homosexuals and your people with funny hair!" Sure they do. Until they stop.

On the other hand, the teaser for this story - "AOL on Its Knees : The dork from the back of the online class throws money at cool Netscapers to make them be friends. " - is pretty vomit worthy as well. As I recall, people with money were never treated as dorks, not seriously, and certainly not if they spread it around. This was written by someone who wouldn't know, though, I betcha.

9:20: Some mysterious higher power has put out all these containers of leftover takeout Indian food for general consumption. Mmmmmm. There is just not enough curry in my diet.

Bad dreams. I dreamed that I was waiting in my apartment with this little yellow revolver for someone who was going to come and murder me. But I finally had to - had to heck, barely managed to - put the gun down and leave because it was taking her too long to show up and the revolver was too tempting.

So remember when I was wondering who it was that had been looking me up by name on Yahoo? And I made my funny joke about hoping it wasn't an ex-wife? Ha ha. Well, I still don't really know exactly about the searcher, but I'm relatively sure that the Betty that sent me mail the other day is the Betty I knew, dated, lived with, cheated on, broke up with, got back together with, moved in with again, sat around and watched Miami Vice and drank Cape Codders with, got married to, and broke up with again finally for the last time, way back there in the 1980s, when Reagan was King and you were all in grade school. No, of course, not you - I mean them. You know. Long time ago.

The strangest bit, apart from wondering if that's really who I heard from and how too-Internet that is in general, is that I think her picture of what I'm thinking, and my picture of what I'm thinking, and about what exactly I don't know, aren't too much in sync. I never do know what I'm saying anyway. And never did. People are too hard, Perl is better.

Hey, did anyone from Kids go on to a big career or are they all dead now?

Willfully blind self-indulgent nebbish or amusingly quirky old coot? And how bout that local sports team? Discuss among yourselves.

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