it begins

September 17, 2003 by Eric Richardson

It's paper writing time. Due tomorrow, only 3 - 4 pages, contrasting Benjamin Franklin's ideals of self-creation and control with the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. I have a vague idea what I'm going to say, but I'm not sure what of the Poe stories we've read I'm going to use for my support. I guess we'll find out by tomorrow. I was pretty tired a little earlier, but I discovered chocolate covered coffee beans waiting on my shelf. This paper might not make sense, or it might be brilliant. It's a coin toss right now.

(Update: 1:24AM) I hadn't noticed that the last post was directly at midnight. It's now close on an hour and a half later, and I'm still reading. I figure I'll have read all the materials by 2. Then I would hope to have the paper itself done in an hour and a half (including time for a shower).

there and back in the same day

September 16, 2003 by Eric Richardson

On Sunday Kathy and I drove up the coast a ways to attend a wedding in the Bay Area. It was at Mount Hermon, which is between San Jose and Santa Cruz. Taking the 5 up and back, it ended up being five and half hours there and a little under five hours back. Only on the 5 is the average speed of traffic 85 and will you get passed even when you're going 90. Despite the drive it was a fun trip. I got see Joy Williams (whose sister was getting married). When I was 5 or 6 Joy was my first "girlfriend," but I hadn't seen her since then.

following the trail of guitars

September 11, 2003 by Eric Richardson

Rodney Branigan is in town, and I've seen him play three times in the last two days. Tuesday night it was at the Hard Rock Cafe in the Beverly Center, where he played the open mic. Last night was a double-dip, starting off when Rodney played a short set at USC's Campus Crusade weekly meeting and then continuing at The Cat Club later in the night. In the course of things I even managed to catch another friend, Lee Beth Kilgore, who was earlier in the Cat Club line-up.

If you're in LA, he's playing the Hotel Cafe on Saturday. Definitely come out to this. I can't quite describe the look on people's faces when they see his doing unnatural things with a guitar (or two), but it's something you really have to witness for yourself.

Read on for more about the last two days... — Continue Reading...

Post #100 of 2003

September 10, 2003 by Eric Richardson

So my newly redesigned archive tells me that this is post #100 of this year. It also tells me that in both 1999 and 2000, I posted exactly 159 times. In 2002 I came close, with 156. Today is day 253 of the year, so we're 69% of the way to 2004. If this year's pace continues, I'll only reach 144 posts. That equals a post about every 2.53 days. Hmmmm.... I should write more.

the return of adventure?

September 09, 2003 by Eric Richardson

One of my classes this semester is "Intro to Communications Technology." I know, I know... It's not fair for me to take things like this, but it's required for my major, so I'm there.

I actually think the class is kind of cool, as it tackles technology more from a cultural perspective than from a hands-on angle. I think that will do people infinitely more good, so I'm glad to see it heading that direction. COMM isn't a technology major -- as evidenced by the people in the class -- but it most definitely is a major that's highly concerned with cultural interaction. Anyway...

Today in the discussion section we were set loose on LambdaMOO. Now, my discussion section is me, another guy who wasn't there today, and a little over a dozen girls, so what interested me was how these girls reacted to the whole MUD/MOO concept. They had no idea what they were doing, but they jumped in whole-heartedly. It made me wonder if maybe the proliferation of IM and renewed communication via typing has primed the Internet world for something like this to hit it big among a younger mainstream crowd.