VξѓŐŊĭćã đüמЪДя

William Gibson: Paradoxical Antagonist

 Roy will be shocked. Now, very nearly a year after I bought it. I've finally begun reading the latest William Gibson novel, called Zero History.

I have a love/hate relationship with William Gibson. Love, in that he is by far my favorite author of all time. Hate, because he is so bloody far from prolific. This is his ninth novel, and while that certainly borders on prolific in some literary circles, it's not nearly enough for me.

The best way to enjoy this man's novels without fear of the novel ending far too soon is to simply have the next William Gibson novel waiting for you, ready to be opened the moment the final page has been turned on the last.

I was spoiled like that, by way of introduction, many years ago when my dad gave me Neuromancer. The two sequels in William Gibson's first cyberpunk trilogy had already been written (Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive) and were waiting for me when I was done with Neuromancer.

While I was waiting for the next novel, there was Burning Chrome, the original short stories that introduced the term 'cyberspace' and characters like Johnny Mnemonic (the short story and the movie) and Molly Millions and the Sprawl, the single urban entity stretching from Boston to Atlanta that the Eastern Seaboard had become.

Next came Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties, the second trilogy by the man who seems irritated by the fact that everyone things he writes trilogies when he doesn't believe that's what he's doing. Suffice it to say that many of the same characters, like Molly Millions aka the Razor Girl in the first trilogy, continue on in these individual sets of three novels.

Zero History is the new third, following behind Pattern Recognition (the first of the three) and Spook Country (his best, I think, since the original trilogy.) And, knowing it might be some time before the next new and completely unrelated novel appears, as it certainly must, I tried to wait as long to begin this one as possible, much to Roy's endless fascination.

One of the recurring characters in this trilogy is Hubertus Bigend, described as resembling Tom Cruise, "on a diet of virgin's blood and truffled chocolates." Hubertus is  the antihero who is frightening and likeable at the same time.

"Started it yet?"

'No."

This Roy has asked at least once a week for the past several months since I giddily opened the package from Amazon Books that contained it, and then left it sitting, untouched, on the bookcase, for the next several months.

I intend to remain mysterious to the very end with my man, to hold his interest forever. May work, might not, but I'm not going to sweat it. One should never lose one's mystery in any event, never allow a sense that everything interesting about you is already known. That sort of thing, I think, leads invariably to complacency, which leads to being taken for granted, which leads to men doing very stupid thinking with their penises in their middle age, or even sooner.

So, I always love it when I see these expressions on his face, like he's realizing there is still so much more of me left to figure out. Hell, he hasn't even figured out how I read my favorite books yet, much less so many important things. Case in point, with Spook Country, when he saw me starting the book over again for the second time.

"Uh, weren't you already about half way through that one?"

"Yes."

"And...you're just starting it over?"

"Mmm hmm."

"Uh...why?"

Well, the real reason is that the book lasts 50% longer that way. The other reason is that our brains focus on different parts of the writing on the second read through; they focus on everything we missed the first time around. Then, when you get to the halfway point again, you've got both reads working in your brain at the same time.

This time, a few lines, some small bit of the amazing way he explains the most simple and apparently least significant things.

A taxicab in London: "Inchmale hailed a cab for her, the kind that had always been black, when she'd first known this city. Pearlescent silver, this one. Glyphed in Prussian blue, advertising something German, banking services or business software, a smoother simulacrum of its black ancestors, its faux-leather upholstery a shade of orthopedic fawn."

Oh and yes, Keenu Reeves, playing Johnny Mnemonic in the screen adaptation of the William Gibson short story, really did say he needed an iPhone...in 1995. Kind of makes you wonder if Steve Jobs was watching, doesn't it?

Help, I'm Alive

 First off...I took the job.

Agonized over it for days, until this song played two in the two cars I was riding in at different times of the same day: Take The Money And Run, by the Steve Miller Band.

I do believe in omens, dontcha know?

And who says God can't talk to you in rock music?

I mean, Lord help me, I've got a recovering vet in my home who had an NBD a couple of weeks ago. (Yeah, I mean, he was DUE for one, don't you think??). I've got a husband who thinks/knows he's got this brilliant novel in his head. I don't doubt it, but someone has to earn some serious do-re-mi while he chips it out of the stone.

Go on, take the money and run...

And my child, little Jules, in the midst of summer camp crazes. You don't go low budget on anything that involves your kid. So, of course, his basketball camp this summer has to be the Baron Davis basketball camp. Skateboard park camp, with real pros doing the teaching, and more. Oh, so much more.

Me, summers between school years I helped my dad and my uncle repair personal computers and mainframes, then just with my uncle after dad died. I ate drank and dreamed of nothing but motherboards and computer code.

Except for the summer I spent in Cleveland while attending Ohio State University. Worked in a bank vault, all summer, counting the Firestone family stock portfolios. Yeah, as in the old Firestone Tire and Rubber clan.

Didn't know what real wealth was until I spent my days thumbing through their old stock certificates. Grandchildren and even great grandchildren, unconceived and far from being born, with their wealth all laid out and ready for them. Wowzers. Gave my thumb a blister. No kidding.

Go one, take the money and run...

I did.

And the place I left awhile back is even larger than it was before I left. Activision, then Activision-Blizz and now, oh my gosh, Activision-Blizz-Bungie.

Just, please God, don't let them get big enough to buy Electronic Arts.

Unless I got to be in charge.

Wouldn't that be something. Wouldn't be me trembling, that's for sure.

This song, 'Help, I'm Alive' deserves a better visual than this. I'll find one later.

More later, but I've got to get this child off to church.

Bye.

P.S. I'm finally ready to write about the last chapter from that High Desert Meth Arrest thing. Unfortunately, that situation is very freaking far from resolved. Seems my stalker was not acting alone. That Mullet Brain couldn't have thought that whole scheme up. Someone else did...

Zero Degrees of Separation

Every now and then, life is just a little too goddam weird. It causes me to rethink the concept of fate or destiny, which I really do not believe in, because it assumes that certain things in your life will occur no matter what you choose.

Then things like this happen. A simple Google search I wish I hadn't paid so much attention to now, and then...

Well, it's easier to just let it play out the way it happened, rather than trying to explain something that is just a little too far fetched to be believed, even by me.

Not sure why, but my Google search function changed recently, first on my notebook computer and then on my gaming desktop. It wasn't anything I purposefully downloaded. It's not the Google task bar I refuse to download because it's just another line of unnecessary junk that reduces the display size on my monitor.

As I type in a search, a box pops up that gives me the most likely options for what I'm searching for. And when I typed in my own Typepad blog, this is the series of honest to God connections to my life that popped up on that list. Creeps me out. It really does.

V - verizon and verizon wireless (my hdtv, mobile phone, land line phone, fiber optic internet provider)

V - vodafone (roy's mobile telecom company for many years)

Ve - verizon fios (the fiber optic high speed connection we use) and vertigo (which my mom suffered from)

Ver - versace (my first real designer label, although I really don't have much at all by them anymore) and vermont, one of the two most likely areas roy and i and julian will move to.

Vero - Vero Beach, Fla., where I lived for nine months while studying video game design) and Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell, one of my favorite shows...ok so I DID watch it in part because she was named veronica, your point is??)

Veron - Veronica Lake - the actress my grandmother thought I should be named after, as In Veronica Lake White, after she learned my dad wanted to name me Veronica. Instead, my dad, who considered himself mostly Irish but acknowledged some Scottish ancestry, named me Veronica Dunbar White, after a town in Scotland where he said he had relatives; Also Veronica Webb (african american model, actress, writer and tv personality and the first celebrity i met when i moved back to los angeles...at a starbucks)

Veroni - Veronica Guerin - the Irish journalist, who was so brave to write about entrenched drug dealers and drug related violence. She was assassinated on June 26, 1996. My dad died on June 26, 1999.

Veronic - Veronica Maine, which links to Ann Veronica, based in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. I own three of her handbags.

Veronica - links to Veronicas lyrics, which refers to 'The Veronicas," an Aussie girl pop rock band formed by twin sisters Jessica and Lisa Origliasso. One month ago, when I found a mobile phone at the beach, it played a song as a ringtone when it rang. I asked a stranger, a very friendly lady walking three dogs, if it was hers. She said no and then she laughed because she said she knew the ringtone. It was a song, she said, by The Veronicas.

Veronica D - links to Diamond Way Buddhist Group of Orlando, links to a Veronica who is a member. Once, while lost driving out of Vero Beach toward Orlando, I stopped at a building to ask for directiors. It was a Diamond Way Buddhist office.

Veronica Du - Veronica Dunne, my dad's favorite Irish singer and, I suspect, the real reason why I came to be named Veronica.

Veronica Dun - my website, Veronica Dunbar.

Now tell me that isn't just enough to raise the little hairs on the back of your neck and make you shiver.

Live from Ocean Park

Hmm, you know that is really not bad for a blog sub title. And it would be a bit more honest as I can no longer even begin to claim that I maintain a legitimate gaming and gadget review blog anymore. Two reasons: you need to have time to game, and you need to have time to write about your gaming in the blog.

But my life has undergone permanent change since I adopted my eight year old brother. By the time I am done helping him with his homework, putting him to bed, reading him to sleep and then making his lunch for the next day, there is usually time for just one of three things: tearing off my fiancee's clothes when he isn't off in some remote place doing research (*deep red blush* --now THERE is a great name for a nail polish or lipstick), playing a game, or writing about playing a game on this blog.

As you note that my last blog entry was in early August, you can kinda see which category is coming in last across the finish line.

Confession time.

My blog subscrription had actually EXPIRED when I went online this morning. Wow...

New hobby, too. Dress design on my computer. Still a fricking geek at heart; seems like that part of me will never change. It will just find new ways to express itself.

On those nights when I'm so stressed about my abilities as a mom, killing virtual villains in a game seems less satisfying than it has been in the past.

Feels better to create something real instead on those nights. Feels much more fun to create something very goddam sexy, too. Ok, I have only finished one so far, and it is so 'blush me to deep red' sexy that I'm only going to show you the lowest bottom part of it.

I don't do any of the actual sewing. Horrible at that. I just design them, but I found this really cool young seamstress on Main Street who nearly died when I showed it to her and she has already made one, shown here, for me to model.

The top half is going to have to undergo some PG rated modifications for it to be anything than other than a Welcome Home Roy outfit.

Well, it's sexy to ME, anyway. I wanted to find a way to show off my legs while still leaving something to the imagination. So the dress stops slightly above one knee and slightly below the other knee, angled. This is about as far as I will ever go in public and even then only if Roy is there.

Above the knee is a thick kind of fringe that moves and shows, if you are looking at the right moment and if I am moving, well....more. The test for Roy was to see how long I got to wear it.

Mmm. Good test results so far.

But, back to more truly geeky things.

Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa is unfortunately looking very much like a  "Level 50 And Out" MMORPG. We've had a blast playing it, but it is NEVER a good sign when the top level gaming area, Howling Maw, is a ghost town. Virtually empty everytime we go there. Roy's top Tabula Rasa toon, the Spy Alex Stallworth (new Clan: Marine Force Recon), is 1/10th of the way through level 49. One serious day of grinding. Heck, a few hours of grinding, and he is there.

We have been having a blast with the Commando we named after Julian, but there is no way we're playing long enough to get him to 50, too, unless there is a serious population influx...of happier people...immediately.

One great thing about the Tabula Rasa game: it attracted a lot of adults. One bad thing: it attracted a lot of adults who like to gripe, about their lives, in game, during what looks to be a very goddam bad economic recession. We have found ourself turning off general chat more and more. Sorry, when we game, it's the Real Life that we seek to avoid.

City of Heroes and City of Villains, on the other hand, continues to be the ONLY MMORPG that keeps changing and growing enough to hold my interest. Also among the best things about it: it's just fun to PLAY. Haven't gotten much closer at all to my seventh level 50 in the game, but I'm just having a blast playing with friends I have known on that game since as early as 2005.

World of Warcraft would have been so level 50 and out, but they keep cheating by raising the level. I've realized that it is the only way it holds its nearly addicted player population. Level cap rise to 60. Level cap rise to 70. Level cap rise to 80. Well, we are joining the Level 70 And Out contingent.

My first, The Matrix Online, was definitely Level 50 and Out.

So, some night soon, it will be back to looking for The Next MMORPG. The fun thing about that is that there are a LOT of new possibilities. Stay Tuned, and I'll do my best to be back in less than a month...

Possession Obsession

There seems to be something even worse than the fear and the suspicion a man creates when he is obsessed with a woman, when he cannot seem to forget her or let her go, when he has to resurface time and time again, sometimes years later, to try again, to apologize, to somehow get back in her life.

That worse thing is the doubt, like the doubt I'm feeling now when I should be sleeping. Instead, I'm sitting here, fully awake, and wondering whether I should have been less kind to him, should have made myself less attractive to him, or whether I should have seen his obsession with me before he did, so that I could have done something about it before it became intolerably, irreparably bad.

And I know it's all nonsense. I did not dress provocatively around him. I did not tease him or flirt with him. I did not lead him on. I did not give him any indication, in my behavior, that there could be anything romantic or even just lust between us. I was just me. I was kind. I was friendly. I tried to help if he needed it. I came to his defense when I felt he was being threatened. I listened when he needed someone to listen. I never laughed at him or embarrassed him. I always took him seriously. I tried to cheer him when he was sad. I was his friend.

And yet, I sit here and think that it would be easier, somehow, to just be cold, to just be mean, distant, carrying myself with this distinct air of being unapproachable and inaccessible because it would be easier because then I couldn't really hurt anyone. Never wear makeup, never wear an even vaguely short skirt, never ever show even a hint of cleavage. Never hang out with them, go to movies with them, never take walks with them or have long conversations with them because they can misinterpret EVERY goddam thing I do. Then, I wouldn't be letting anyone fall in love with me, or become obsessed with me. How did that sound lyric go?

'Don't think cuz I understand...I care. Don't think cuz I'm talking, we're friends.'

Maintain a barrier, keep it up between me and him, ANY him...EVERY him except THE him. Never let him or any other man I'm not going to physically and emotionally commit to mistake my compassion, my caring for something else, and accomplish that by not being compassionate or caring in the first place. Isn't that sick? Isn't that just fricking awful, convincing myself that it would be better, safer, easier, to just be a bitch instead of what I am?

That's what fricking obsessive goddam men can do to you, make you doubt all the things about you that make you special, that make you good and kind.Goddam him. If he was here right now I'd beat on him until my hands ached.

I used to look at the gorgeous women who were always aloof, distant, and just barely civil to most of the men they met and I'd wonder why they were such bitches. I used to tell myself that I would never be that way, that I could just be free with my affection for people and make it work, because I could make it work.

After today, after a telephone call from one man and an email from another, both of whom I had hoped to never hear from again, two communications that let me know they were both functionally incapable of moving on with their lives and just letting me go, I know why those women were such bitches. It's just easier that way...

Where were you when you realized America was becoming a second rate country?

I was in line at Starbucks after a very difficult day at work, one in which I was called in to rewrite some NPC (non player character) game text for an MMORPG, right in front of the poor guy whose first effort they hadn't liked. Yes, I'm writing now, too. What the heck, I'll expose them. It was the Starbucks on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice, near Marine, with the drive-thru in back. Yes, California has drive thru coffee

I ordered my usual when Starbucks is all I can find: an iced grande mocha with an extra shot. The gruff salesperson comes back with an iced coffee, without even a bit of mocha.

'What is this? I'd like what I ordered please.'

He steps away and adds mocha to the iced coffee.

'Uh, what is this, iced coffee with chocolate poured in?'

'That's the way it's made.'

'Actually, this drink is made with expresso, two shots of it, hence the connection to ordering an iced mocha with an EXTRA shot, which would be a third shot added to the two that aren't in this drink you're handing me.'

'Would you like me to make a new one?'

'Oh, gee, take a wild guess.'

This is what slays me. Bad behavior, bad business practice, combined with stupidity, and it's the stupidity that aggravates me more than anything else. He takes the same iced coffee, doesn't even manage to hide it properly from me, and just stirs the mocha in, then he comes back and hands me the same iced coffee  with this barely concealed sly grin on his questionable IQ face.

'Can I see your manager please?'

Grin fading....fading...gone. "Uh, why?'

'I'd like him to see this photo I just snapped on my camera phone.'

Faded grin replaced by something finally approaching concern. The two brain cells inside his head must have just stumbled into each other.

'Photo?'

'Ya, the photo of you stirring the mocha into that iced coffee you keep trying to pass onto me. Is there a coffee shortage in Colombia? Is that it? Just can't afford to waste a single drop?'

Pale white skin has many drawbacks, not the least of which is sun sensitivity, something I have vast experience with. Another drawback, exhibited by this worst of all possible coffee salespersons, is turning a deep shade of red at the precise moment of complete embarrassment. Busted!

Something like a squeak of apology comes out. Hard to talk, I imagine, when you suddenly have no spit left. lmfao.

He returns to the workstation, makes a real iced mocha, adds TWO extra shots. Rawr. Comes back to see me chatting nicely with the manager, who has walked over to find out why the line for coffee has been stalled.

'So, is everything ok? Ma'am,' the manager asks.

I make a show of tasting the drink, then I give them both my biggest smile, which even after this awful day, is probably not a bad smile.

'Wow, that's a really excellent mocha. Thank you!'

The manager slaps the chastened coffee boy him on the back. He flinches. 'See what happens when you treat the customer right?'

Coffee boy croaked something as I left. I couldn't quite make it out. Still no spit, I guess.

Girls Can Be So Popular...

Just learned that it is never a good idea to take a child out who wants to ride his bike even though they have just gotten over an illness. This is because, at the furthest point from home--which is the karma of such things--they will suddenly no longer be able to ride. You will wind up walking your bike and theirs home. And it is unusually hot today.

The funny part was that five guys offered to help me on the mile and a half walk home. I turned them all down until I remembered something mom once said. 'It's ok to occasionally use the fact that people think you are attractive, Just don't make a habit out of it.'

So, I let the last guy who asked walk our bikes up the long hill toward our house, then thanked him profusely at the corner of our street, and no where near our actual house. Mom didn't raise a dummy.

Books I just finished: "Tree of Smoke," by Denis Johnson (This was an amazing read. Loved the fact that the female character was the only one who survived with her sanity intact. if guys like these were really in charge of the war, it's a miracle that South Vietnam didn't collapse a lot sooner), "The Audacity of Hope," by Barack Obama, (always a good idea to learn as much as possible about people who might actually wind up as your President)

Books I am reading now: "Altered Carbon," by Richard K. Morgan (early on it has the feel of William Gibson's 'Neuromancer,' which is to say I think it is excellent. Same kind of terribly flawed hero, same kind of burned out and jaded future world). "Spook Country," by William Gibson (I read everything he writes. So far, he's just teasing me, but's it's ok to tease as long as it doesn't last too long)

Book I would love to read, but does not appear to exist: "Instant Parenthood, When You Absolutely, Positively Have to Become One Overnight"

Mommy Dear

Everyone, including Julian's therapist, is strongly urging me to go slow with this parenting thing, and I guess that does make a lot of sense. They're all worried that I'm going to start off sprinting on what figures to be a...well he's eight in August, so that would be a 14 year race and suffer from early disillusionment and burnout. That gets him to 22 years of age and I was already on my own by then.

This is how I found out what a great extended family I have. There are some of my relatives from Florida flying up, and some more from Ohio. They all apparently got together on the phone lines, behind my back I might add, and agreed that I would take it on five days a week at first for perhaps a month. So they are staggering their visits and making sure I get two afternoons and nights a week to myself or just to me and Roy. Heh. Then once they decided this they also decided to ask Julian's therapist to tell me about the plan, figuring I'd find it more palatable coming from a professional.

But I already realized that they are right. I have been running on adrenalin since this time last week, and tonight is going to be especially awful because tonight at 11:38 p.m. makes it exactly one week after they stopped trying to revive Mom at the hospital and declared her...well, you get the picture.

For those of you I haven't been able to reach yet, mom died last weekend after what they at first thought was a heart attack. I've made the decision to adopt my little brother rather than simply become his guardian. Roy offered to marry me immediately and become his dad, but I  have warned him to wait and be sure. I asked him to give it six months. It's not just me that he would be marrying. I'm part of a package deal now.

Also great news: I've now lost both parents to heart conditions, which leaves me wondering whether I can expect the same thing to happen to me.

I am lucky about one other thing, which is the fact that school starts again tomorrow and there is that routine for little Julian to immerse himself in for some stability, getting to see the teachers he likes and the friends he has made there. That gives me more time to get ready for all of this.

I will work next week, and then take the following week off to get organized around his life. This is the most important thing I've ever done...

P.S. I was so hoping to hear something in the church sermon this morning that was remotely related to what I'm dealing with, but of course none of it had anything to do with my situation. He kept talking about chasing your dream and not letting fear hold you back. He used the example of Jesus coming upon the fishermen, who immediately threw down their nets to follow him and become his disciples. Then coming upon two more fishermen who left their dad to join Jesus.

Great, my solution ( and I know this ISN'T what he meant ) is to quit my job, leave all of my life responsibilities behind and follow the prophet. Just drop everything and go. The priest could have done a better job explaining that, especially if he had considered what the father of those two fishermen must have been thinking when he finally went home to his wife that night.

Wife: 'Why are you so late?' Husband: 'Oh, I had to do everything myself after our two sons just dumped the fishing nets and walked off with some nut wearing nothing but a white robe and sandals...'

Hard to not be a teensy bit cynical about cavalier sermons when sudden parenthood is thrust upon you.

A Rare Day to Myself

Want music? Click here. Adjust volume and minimize. AND if you like what you hear, SEND THEM A CHECK!! (SOMA-FM, broadcasting from my old 'hood, South of Market, in San Francisco)

OMG!

Empty house except for me. Mom and lil Jules off to grandmas for the day, not back until after dark.

Roy off on campus doublechcking the last of his research for his ships his part off to the writers.

Not back until...who knows?

Too cold and windy for jogging or biking at the beach. GAMING ALL DAY???

Uh, no, running the big bath tub.

All steamy and warm and as hot as I can stand it.

Grabbing my book, turning on those jets, and reading.

Serious cup of hot Jo next to me.

World War Z, by Max Brooks.

Son of Mel and Anne Bancroft.

Who would have believed it?

This guy can WRITE.

Also looks like the Mommy genes won out in the looks department. 

Very scary and entertaining.

So, all the doors have their dead bolts in use.. Ha ha.

I may even lock the bathroom door, too.

Time to immerse.

Luxuriate...if that isn't a word, it damn well ought to be.

Gaming can wait....

Veronica Dunbar Will Return on 2/12/08

She has been recovering from a bad case of the flu.