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spatchAll this reminds me very little of a fellow I worked with back in the Dot Com v1.0 Days who had bought into the entire pioneer spirit hook, line and whatever. If you read anything Nick Negroponte had to say in the late 90s, you know what I mean. Back then everybody was a visionary by sole right of participating, and boy did this cow orker believe it to the highest degree. He fully believed himself to be a trailblazer among trailblazers because he slung HTML for $NOW_DEFUNCT_NEWMEDIA_COMPANY.
However, it's useless to call yourself a trailblazer when you haven't even picked up a brush and a bucket of paint. Hell, it's useless to even call yourself a trailblazer; you really ought to have someone else do it for you. Nevertheless, he brightly blazed on, trompling through whatever digital underbrush he felt happy trompling through. It made communicating with him difficult as hell, though, because with this bounding spirit came a sort of blind optimism and you don't cotton to no devil's advocates when it's the future you're creating, buster.
Things were encapsulated perfectly in his email signature, which was the following:
His signature changed, however, shortly after I added a quote to mine and used it every time we got into Polite Disagreements:
But you know, perhaps his choice of quote was apt. It really was a party in a bomb shelter, wasn't it? We were all having lots of fun, running around robbing banks all whacked out on Scooby Snacks, but we all knew in the back of our heads -- whether we wanted to admit it or not -- that at any point, the Reds could decide to push the button down and pop goes the bubble.
Anyhow, that's all I gots to say.
However, it's useless to call yourself a trailblazer when you haven't even picked up a brush and a bucket of paint. Hell, it's useless to even call yourself a trailblazer; you really ought to have someone else do it for you. Nevertheless, he brightly blazed on, trompling through whatever digital underbrush he felt happy trompling through. It made communicating with him difficult as hell, though, because with this bounding spirit came a sort of blind optimism and you don't cotton to no devil's advocates when it's the future you're creating, buster.
Things were encapsulated perfectly in his email signature, which was the following:
The keyword is survival on the New Frontier. - Donald FagenFor those of you who may not be familiar with this half of Steely Dan's solo work, the phrase he was quoting is in a song about a party in a backyard bomb shelter, pretending a nuclear holocaust has happened -- and of course this event calls for repopulation of the species and "lots of beer." (Remember that awful number in Grease 2 where one guy tries this very same angle on the girl he's got the hots for? Yeah.) However, our dynamo friend did not intend to make a statement on 50s nuclear hysteria becoming just another reason to get busy in a bomb shelter. No, he really wanted to make a statement on how he felt about the New Frontier -- the New Frontier of 1998 -- and how it really was all about survival, blah blah woof woof.
His signature changed, however, shortly after I added a quote to mine and used it every time we got into Polite Disagreements:
"The things that pass for knowledge I can't understand."Yeah, that's the punchline for today.
But you know, perhaps his choice of quote was apt. It really was a party in a bomb shelter, wasn't it? We were all having lots of fun, running around robbing banks all whacked out on Scooby Snacks, but we all knew in the back of our heads -- whether we wanted to admit it or not -- that at any point, the Reds could decide to push the button down and pop goes the bubble.
Anyhow, that's all I gots to say.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 04:55 pm (UTC)Stowing away the time?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 07:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 07:26 pm (UTC)even so:
apt apt apt apt apt apt apt apt apt apt apt apt
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 08:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 07:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 07:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 08:30 pm (UTC)Are you high?
Or just an ordinary guy?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-26 11:37 pm (UTC)Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-27 02:01 am (UTC)look out fellas, shredding time
Oh, wait. Wrong album.