jc blog - tales of a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer

Follow jcomeau_ictx on Twitter This is the weblog of Intrepid Wanderer. You never know what you might find here; graphic descriptions of bodily functions, computer programming secrets, proselytizing for the antichrist, miscellaneous ranting and kvetching, valuable information on living off the land... if you don't share my rather weird interests you may want to try slashdot instead.

You can consider my Del.icio.us links an extension to my blog, as are my LifeTango goals and my other to-do items. My to-buy list is also public, but only for sharing any useful ideas that might be there; I'm not requesting charity, neither do I offer it.

You can find me easily in google searches, as jcomeau, jcomeau_ictx, or jcomeauictx. There are lots of other jcomeaus, but AFAIK I'm the only jcomeau_ictx out there so far.

If you want to comment on anything you see here, try the new Facebook comments, reachable by clicking the "[comment]" link at the end of each post. If for some reason that isn't working, go ahead and email me, jc.unternet.net. You know what to do with the first dot. Make the 'subject' line something reasonably intelligent-looking or it goes plunk! into the spambasket unread.

This RSS feed may or may not work. Haven't fiddled with it in forever. RSS Feed


2005-09-27-0102Z

Found a new (to me) source of soft porn, check out the Warsaw channel ITV from the Poland listings of wwiTV.com. If you can put up with the endless yammering of the blonde bimbo Kamila, you'll see some nice strip clips and maybe even some hardcore. And so far it's not being content-filtered at a certain place where they do such things (being deliberately vague here).

Looks like my bike was stolen, unless by chance I left it back at my COS lot the other day... but I'm pretty sure I left it at the library, unlocked (dummy!) and it's not here now. That'll teach me. An expensive lesson, though, considering I'm just about to spend my last reserves on my lot. I did get it signed over by its previous owner, though, so it's all but mine at this point. It won't be official until the next membership meeting, though, in 3 weeks; but unlike the vote which determined whether or not I became a member, nobody really has any grounds to object my being granted this lot. It's got to be just a rubber stamp, as far as I can see. Unless I've made enemies of whom I'm not yet aware. I've been conjecturing that the four votes against me last week was older guys who didn't particularly care for any competition for the available women. [comment]

2005-09-26-2017Z

Had a dream last night in which a song was playing, and I was sure even on waking up that I'd heard the song before... an unflattering song about our beloved President in which the chorus was something like "Throw them sunzabitches over the edge..."; but I didn't write it down, and now after a web search I think I was given a possible blockbuster song and I threw it away. Should have recorded at least the snippet I remembered on awakening. Damn.

Another reminder of the self-correcting nature of Paleolithic diets... ate almost a quart of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream last night, and was dumping oil changes all morning. Nasty. Won't do that again for a while.

Well, if all goes well, by tonight I will have the lot with bunker-style house and greenhouse signed over to me, and will have paid the final $750 towards my City of the Sun membership. Got a deep-cycle battery for the 80-watt solar panel I donated towards the COS Unternet, and can finally get that project off the drawing board. Hellzapoppin'. [comment]

2005-09-25-1513Z

Took a break from Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow to re-read part of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which I had lent to an outspoken libertarian here who for some reason had never read it before and who recently returned it to me -- also last night watched The Shawshank Redemption, a gritty movie (though not as harsh as American Me) about life in a Maine prison and, more importantly, about freedom. Then this morning I read Gibran's The Prophet, amazingly enough, for the first time in my life, and found it fascinating. There's a lot of truth in that little book, at least, the words are very much in agreement with my current way of thinking. I especially liked the Prophet's thoughts on houses.

So this (Monday through Sunday) has been my Freedom Week. I'm celebrating that which I've already found and anticipating the wisdom that will help me break even more of my chains. My passion for riding the wind was stirred greatly by the windsurfing lesson early this month, and I'm tempted to try either the TrailSkate or LandRoller with a sail from Windskate Santa Monica. But neither of the skate companies have the products quite right for the desert; the former has sealed bearings but not puncture-proof wheels, and the latter has puncture-proof wheels but only shielded, not sealed, bearings. And when LandRoller comes out with wider wheels they will not be puncture-proof, and there is no guarantee that the new wheels will fit the current skate. I may still have to work on developing my idea of using a single bicycle tire on each foot, with an angle similar to that of the LandRoller so that the center of gravity is directly above where the rubber meets the road. [comment]

2005-09-23-2125Z

Sigh. Everything takes money. I plan to pay off the remaining $750 for my COS membership next week, but then I have zero reserves. To buy grass-fed beef, I'd probably need a freezer to store it. A SunDanzer freezer can run off a single 75-watt panel, but the former costs about $1200 to get here, and the latter another $500 or so. I'll need to find a good source of UV-resistant plastic to cover the greenhouse, which now is just a metal frame, and/or a huge tarp to cover it. I've been looking at parachute canopies on Ebay, but haven't found anything to cover something 40 feet square. Email me with any ideas. I want something that's going to last a few years while being beat up with the New Mexico sun and dust devils on a regular basis.

If I actually get my shebeen started, I may start making some money. But the customers have to be my friends, who will voluntarily pay. It can't be a "business" because I don't want to deal with licenses and paying off inspectors. A private party only, but one in which the guests are willing to cover the tab and a little more. Hmm, wonder how I'm gonna be able to get kegs of Guinness delivered to Columbus? Forget about keeping them cold, the Brits can drink warm beer, so the fuck can we. For that matter, maybe I can keep a rabbit stew always cooking in the kettle, and forget the expensive meats. Sooner or later it will all be too expensive to ship in, and I'm better off learning to live off the available local plants and animals. [comment]

2005-09-20-2138Z

I guess I'm getting healthier since my mid-April lung infection, but am still producing phlegm more than I'd like, and suspect a parasite infestation. I've got to slow down on the beer and take advantage of the abundant desert medicines, such as creosote tea. But that takes more will power than I've been demonstrating for a long time... we shall see. [comment]

2005-09-19-2323Z

Sitting here in the new Pancho Villa bar in Columbus, and trying to train my ocular muscles to focus my eyes. Covering up one eye, and attempting to bring the Sauza bottle about 12 feet away from me into focus, and beginning to get some results. It's not yet in sharp focus, but I'm able to change the degree of focus, which is tremendously encouraging. In fact, it's fucking amazing. This is going to work. [comment]

2005-09-19-2059Z

It's been weeks since I complained to AllofMP3.com about their broken payment processor's website (comes back with server-side java errors after entering credit card info) and no response, so I signed up with xrost.com instead, and got a $10 "card" using Paypal. Relatively painless. Finally downloading the Moody Blues album Long Distance Voyager for 87 cents. [comment]

2005-09-19-1529Z

I got voted in! I'm now a member of the City of the Sun. It was close, though. It requires a 2/3 majority vote, and it was 9 "yes", 4 "no", and 1 abstention. There was some discussion (I wasn't there to witness it, but I heard some of it from outside, and people filled in the blanks for me later) as to whether the abstention should count, in which case 9/14 was not enough, or if the 9/13 of the "yes" and "no" votes meant I was in. Anyway, the abstainer changed her vote to "yes" to resolve the controversy, and that was that. Whew!

Now, once I get the house issue resolved (the guy who offered me his lot, complete with bunker-style underground house, still needs to formally relinquish his claim on it), I can really start to make some progress on my longer-term goals. [comment]

2005-09-17-0515Z

Reminiscing a little about Cryptonomicon while kicking back with some beer and listening to music... Stephenson writes a lot about sex and masturbation in this book. For example, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse found that he was more productive in his crypto work if he ejaculated every few days, but a self-induced ejaculation (manual override) didn't last nearly as long as one assisted by a woman, even a prostitute. But later in the book, Avi tells Randy that he (Avi) doesn't masturbate at all, even if he's away from his wife for a month or more. Randy tries this, and finds that his system forces a nocturnal emission every two weeks or so, and the lack of sexual release between emissions keeps him "wound up" more... in short, his productivity doesn't suffer. I find I'm more like the elder Waterhouse, in that if I don't get sexual release I can't get my mind off sex. But there was a time in my life, about ages 14 through 17, in which I stopped masturbating, and in fact those were extremely productive years for me; I learned a lot about computer programming, for example, even without access to a computer. So I'm not sure what the best course is, but I'm still looking for more steady sexual partners so hopefully I won't ever have to find out. [comment]

2005-09-15-2029Z

Had a dream two nights ago or so... a friend from the San Diego area was flying me North in a small plane up a narrow isthmus, peninsula, or island that could have been Silver Strand or Padre Island but I've never seen that particular landscape in real life, only in several dreams. At one point I fell out of the plane and managed to grab the aerial or whatever was sticking, lance-like, out of the nose. I hollered to him (my friend, Y) to drop me out over the water... he banked right, IIRC, and dropped me out just 10 feet or so above water, then landed on pontoons just a short ways away. I can't remember what went on after that, but somehow it had changed to a dark enclosure, of course water-filled... weird. On the ocean-facing side of that same body of land is a beautiful bay with lots of sailboats; as I said, I've seen it many times in dreams.

My sex life hasn't been so overwhelming lately, but I'm managing to stay relatively sane nonetheless. Still meeting lots of interesting people... some guy at McD's in Deming saw me reading Cryptonomicon yesterday, and turns out he's an author himself, goes by the name of White Arrow and associates with a couple of Native American nations, though his eyes and skin color would condemn him as Caucasian. I lent him the City of the Sun's copy of Ishmael, which I happened to have with me... it wasn't really mine to lend, but I can't refuse a chance to proselytize for the antichrist.

Just 3 more days till I find out if I'm in or out... I'm not going to be too disappointed if I don't get voted in, I'll just divert my energies to my lot in Deming Ranchettes instead... too bad it's so goddamned far from civilization though. 12 miles is rough when you're dehydrated and hungry. COS is only 1 mile from downtown Columbus, which is a lot more convenient. Wish me luck, OK? [comment]

2005-09-12-2052Z

My customer's program was featured recently on the GolfWeek website. Finally things are starting to heat up... biggest problem so far is that people who haven't purchased downloadable software before are not clicking "Continue" after the Paypal transaction and are wondering where their download is. Luckily it's only about 10% of the customers having that problem.

Still having a lot of strange dreams. Last night one was about a good-looking redheaded hooker that decided to give me a freebie and I stuck it in without a rubber. I realized how stupid that was even within the dream, so I woke up right away.

Passed page 400 of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Excellent science fiction, and funny as hell. And the first time I'd ever seen a term for Bashful Bladder Syndrome (Neal calls it Bashful Kidney), though several authors mention it, including Asimov in The Robots of Dawn. My own theory is that the syndrome has genetic origins, from the times when we were most vulnerable to attack while urinating and we seek the most protective shelter when doing so. [comment]

2005-09-09-1942Z

My Free Wireless Initiative has another success story, namely the Columbus Village Library. Yes, it's right across the street from the first, the Patio Restaurant, but here there's no implied purchase necessary in order to use it, so it's even more "free", and there are power outlets to use as well. [comment]

2005-09-08-1925Z

Back in New Mexico since Tuesday afternoon, getting some work done on my customer's website and still getting laid regularly... one of these days the unprotected sex with multiple partners is going to catch up with me, but meanwhile, like sweet Loretta Martin, I'm gettin' it while I can...

Had a strange dream last night. A recurring theme in my dreams the last few years has been that I've continued to work as a technician at the USPS in Fort Lauderdale even after I quit; that somehow I'm on as a contractor, but I keep forgetting to sign in and out and I never get paid. And in the back, to the East of the maintenance offices, is a huge, dark room where the maintenance guys hang out and repair stuff. Weird. Anyway, last night I was back in that dreamscape, and was being taken, with television cameras all around, to a bank where I was about to receive a million dollars or more as an award for an innovative idea I had come up with: a way of grinding coffee with an electric drill. I remarked to a co-worker that all these years I had been denied awards for things that saved the service billions, and now I was going to get rich from something I did to goof off. But anyway, the money was never handed over, and the last I heard about it before I woke up was that the award was only going to be $1000. [comment]

2005-09-06-0247Z

I saw the Bongodogs at Wanna Wanna yesterday evening, they were excellent. Trombone, trumpet, sax, the works. And mostly original songs. Then we went to see the fireworks on the bay side... but no, the last show was the night before. However, we did see the Three Piano Players do their stuff, and it was also awesome. There were a lot of familiar faces there, including Max, whom I had met at the Coral Reef one of my first nights here, and the owner of the Coral Reef himself, whom I had never met in person before but whose pictures were all over the bar, usually with mostly-undressed adult entertainers.

Tonight, my last night in the South Padre Island area, I'm in Matamoros (Mexico) with two beautiful friends, eating the special at Garcia's 2: a bacon-wrapped steak and coconut shrimp dinner for less than US$10. I'm forgetting a lot that I wanted to blog, but maybe I'll remember at another time. My steak's getting cold. [comment]

2005-09-02-2255Z

Went for my windsurfing lesson yesterday. A guy named Jibber met us on the bayside, two miles past the South Padre Island convention center and over a very wet sand road. For $40 I got a one-hour lesson, first tethered and then free, back and forth over the bay. It was great but I kept falling off. Anyway I got the basics and can hopefully apply most of what I learned to windskating as well.

My customer's website is now launched, so I'm now in firefighting mode. I knew this was inevitable, but I was really hoping I'd never have to put myself under this kind of stress again. Hopefully my design works well enough so as to minimize the problems. [comment]

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