That is so stupid.

[tags]kathy sierra, robert scoble, head crash of the american way of life[/tags]

“You sure you’re on your way to Paraguay?” she asked.

“Paraguay,” he affirmed. “They’re very kind to robbers from the USA down that way. They like Americans.”

Though she had a reputation as quite a smart-mouth, Shelby Jean kept it zipped about everyone in this hemisphere being an American anyway. She didn’t know if Lenny was really up to doing any damage with that stubby gun of his, but why find out just now?

“Paraguay is pretty far from Las Cruces,” she said.

“About five thousand miles as the crow flies, but this crow will be flying low and slow,” Lenny smiled at the fanciful metaphor he himself had just drawn out of that fertile brain of his. “I made that up,” he said.

“So it ain’t five thousand miles?”

“No it’s five thousand miles alright… where do you keep the big bills?” Lenny had scooped out all the fives tens and singles and dumped the change in a canvas sack he swiped from under the register. He was looking a little frantic, wondering if a hundred forty-seven dollars and a bag of change was even going to get him of the country.

“Got a safe with a slot in the top. It’s in the office, but I don’t have the combination. And it’s bolted to the floor.”

“Shit!” What had started out as a simple stop-and-steal was turning into a major project, and Shelby Jean was no more impressed with him now than she was last winter on their ‘date.’ In fact, now that he had a little time to think it out, she’d probably phone the cops as soon as he got back on the road. Women: You can’t live with them, and you can’t get them to dress up in a skimpy little Nazi costume and beat you with a warm squash or something. Okay, that was pretty funny but it wasn’t original. He tried it out on Shelby Jean…

“Emo Philips,” she drawled laconically.

“Some mornings it just doesn’t seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps,” he said.

“Well, Lenny. You’ve got a sense of humor even if you ain’t too original.”
____
(Tune in tomorrow to find out if Shelby Jean will ditch the job at the convenience store, and her Las Cruces studio apartment above the all night laundromat and taco stand, and strike out for the wilds of Paraguay with Lenny. Tune in too, to find out if the map Lenny got from Neil Bush in the poker game in Juarez is real, or if it is some odd bit of Unification Church bait and switch strategy. Will Shelby Jean and Lenny get to Paraguay and find they’ve been lured into one of those soccer stadium weddings with about 4000 other couples, or will Lenny get a lucrative job on the trans-Brasil agua pipeline dumping the fresh and cool onto freighters bound for Dubai?)

[tags]true story ain’t it[/tags]

[tags]any similarity between life and death is purely coincidental, no tree frogs were injured during the production of this piece[/tags]

[tags]web 2 0, american pie, que sera[/tags]

[tags]kathy sierra, no hard feelings, defamation, deprivation of income, pain and suffering, steal your face, who’s your uncle[/tags]

As one can tell from one’s use of the indefinite pronoun if nothing else, one has not yet been thrown out of England where one is experiencing an enormous internal pressure to conform and to use proper, well… English.  But enough of that. One is off, actually two are off, to what the TimeOut guide to London calls an “exuberant monument to consumerism.“   It is a pilgrimage of sorts, here in the decenary of the death of Di, a pilgrimage to the once royally warranted but recently, indeed over the last decade since the death of the Princess of Wales, royally unpatronized department store.  Pictures perhaps will be taken.  By one.

Hope
For Appetite with an opinion of attaining, is called HOPE.

Despaire
The same, without such opinion, DESPAIRE.

Feare
Aversion, with opinion of Hurt from the object, FEARE.

Courage
The same, with hope of avoyding that Hurt by resistance, COURAGE.

Anger
Sudden Courage, ANGER.

Confidence
Constant Hope, CONFIDENCE of our selves.

Diffidence
Constant Despayre, DIFFIDENCE of our selves.

Indignation
Anger for great hurt done to another, when we conceive the same
to be done by Injury, INDIGNATION.
…
From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our Ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which neverthelesse they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their End, (which is principally their owne conservation, and sometimes their delectation only,) endeavour to destroy, or subdue one an other. And from hence it comes to passe, that where an Invader hath no more to feare, than an other mans single power; if one plant, sow, build, or possesse a convenient Seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united, to dispossesse, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour, but also of his life, or liberty. And the Invader again is in the like danger of another.

The above from The Leviathan found this morning at Antonia’s and then shortly thereafter, I happened on a post at Cruel to be Kind titled Aggressive men and women who just take it. While I wanted to leap into the comment thread with a triumphant “FIRST!”, I saw that Mary Hodder had beat me to it.

http://blogsecurity.net/wordpress/article-210607/
http://www.insidehighered.com/
http://www.bookforum.com/
http://aldaily.com/
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/08/google-pack-adds-staroffice.html
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_01/d_01_cr/d_01_cr_ana/d_01_cr_ana.html
http://www.annezelenka.com/2007/08/dealing-with-burnout-the-artists-date-and-the-i-ching
http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2007/08/no-end-in-sight.html
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/wired40_list.html
http://ufobreakfast.wordpress.com/
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.html?term=rico+suave
http://www.sanjosesemaphore.com/
http://www.benpaynter.net/
http://www.verasage.com//MainThreads/comments/burying_the_billable_hour
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_javascript_is_slowing_down_the_web.html
http://www.techmeme.com/070815/p23#a070815p23
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupal
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/
http://www.joomla.org/
http://www.nicklewis.org/node/845
http://defragcon.com/Blog/?p=107

…and thanks to Madame Lévy for the San Jose Semaphore link and the Feynman tapes. Thanks to everyone else who provided links to everything else from Fakebook or tweeter or wherever.