nat friedman

2 January 20022 January 2002

Excellent movie. 6 January 20026 January 2002 It seems like seven out of ten of my friends have been sick this past week. I've been sucking lozenges, popping painkillers and dosing NyQuil (big n, little y, big fucking Q) for days, reeling about in an OTC-drug-induced haze and shedding pounds of body mass in mucus overproduction. For some reason this kind of prolonged physical malaise always make me curious about How The Body Works, and so I've spent most of tonight reading through medical articles on eb.com (best $50 I spent in 2001). These bouts of obsessive armchair research really make me think that I need a hobby, or at least a more pronounced and debilitating drinking problem.

The best part, though, has been the dreams. Every night for the past five days, I've been witness to some of the most intense, intricate and epic-length dreams I've ever had. Last night ("this afternoon," to you mundane diurnal people) was especially gripping. It all really makes me wish I could draw, so I could make some effort to recreate my dream imagery out here in the real world. The drawings would be dark but vibrant, with an abandoned, other-worldly atmosphere. They'd probably be done with charcoal and pastels, and you'd find yourself using words like "haunting," "extraordinary" and "majestic" to describe them. You know, like in that Jennifer Lopez movie, The Cell. Only cooler.

I blame the mysterious liquid. Cheaper than a movie, anyway.

Speaking of things haunting and majestic.

7 January 20027 January 2002

My laptop today.
(1024x768)

Cafepress is so much fun. Why not purchase your Miguel de Icaza Mug today? Or how about a stylish Jacob Berkman Taught Me To Love T Shirt? No? Well surely you'd love to own a Dan Winship Tote Bag.

It's so much more appealing to wear clothing that enhances the renown and allure of people you know, instead of wealthy strangers like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. Besides, by fighting Big Brand Homogeneity, you can sleep well knowing that you're contributing to the heat death of the universe.

(Our most sincere apologies to the physicists in the audience.)

. . .

Haha: "our solar system is in need of a serious public relations image upgrade." 8 January 20028 January 2002 It snowed last night.

Salters.

Henry Baker, in an exquisite rant about buffer overflows:

I have been told that one of the reasons for the longevity of the Roman bridges is that their designers had to stand under them when they were first used. It may be time to put a similar discipline into the software field.

10 January 200210 January 2002 CNN on Taliban detainees:

The sedated, hooded prisoners were chained to their seats after boarding the aircraft under heavy security. The C-17 will stop in an undisclosed location, at which point the detainees will be transferred to a C-141 transport plane and taken to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba.
...
The detainees themselves -- and that's of course a term the Pentagon prefers -- the detainees themselves will be kept in what are called outdoor cells. Others have suggested that they are really cages. They are small cubicles -- each individual will have one -- that has a wooden top and then nothing more than chain-link fence, exposing the person to the elements but of course also making him always available to be seen. There will be floodlights at all times.
...
At the moment, Guantanamo officials say they can accommodate about 100. Ultimately, they hope to be able to have a capacity of 2,000.
...
The detainees are being treated as though they were "prisoners of war" but they have not been declared as such formally under the Geneva Convention.
...

they are saying that they will be here for an indeterminate period of time.

Does this make anyone else feel ill? I wonder how these detainees were chosen. Have steps been taken to ensure that none of these people are the victims of the much-spoken-of Taliban enforced military service? And will someone please determine their fucking status? Are they POWs or not?

Sometimes humanity makes me feel sick to my stomach, on both sides of the fence. 13 January 200213 January 2002 We watched The Chamber today. Fox has outdone itself.

Sigh.

. . .

So I've been feeling shitty and unmotivated all weekend and it's winter in Boston and the wind is blowing hard and the streets are covered with ice and it's fucking frigid, none of which has really been helping with my mood. So I decided to go through my photos and dig out some pictures of beautiful skies from the summer. Here are a few: