Personal

The first person who changed my life, I never met. He or she left some old SF paperbacks in a little villa on Green Turtle Cay, in the Bahamas — Perry Rhodans, as I recall — and I read them while I was ten or so and on vacation. They blew me away, far more so than the golf books. I haven’t stopped reading SF yet. That’s why my dad’s friend Peter Olotka said “Hey, your son likes SF — he can share our room at Boskone if you like.” Dad said sure, and that was my first SF con. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but I more or less stopped going when I hit college. ...

“I can’t refuse to read things because the author is an asshole. I hate people; I wouldn’t get to read anything.”

Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Etc.

Since it’s the 20th anniversary: 128K Mac (original; later upgraded to 512K Fat Mac) Mac SE/20 Mac SE/30 Performa 630 Performa 6400 (later ran linux on this) G3/450 (currently next to me running OpenBSD) G4/733 iBook tangerine clamshell iBook SE Firewire Powerbook 12” G4/1 GHz Loved ‘em all.

Tired. Synchronicity of the night: “Hey, what’s Leon Marr’s name doing on that mailbox?” “Oh, he’s in California.”

Nobody ever blogs about good customer support. So I sent my Powerbook into Apple to be fixed on Thursday. On Saturday, I checked the repair info page, and the issue was marked as closed. This was somewhat worrisome; I had visions of my poor little laptop lost in Apple’s vast cavernous shipping bays, never to be seen again. So I called customer service. Turned out they’d fixed it the same day it got there, and dropped it back into the mail. I got it back Monday. Three business day turnaround! Go, Apple.

You don’t care, but I do. Putting my packing list online worked so well for GenCon (I didn’t forget anything) that I’m gonna do it again. Nyah.

Mom’s getting out of the hospital on Saturday, much to her (and my) relief. She really appreciated the cards and best wishes — thanks to all. We now return to my usual veil of silence about my personal life.

Mom, who has informed me that she is not to be referred to as “a family member” anymore, is doing good. (“But Mom, it was for privacy… oh, OK, fine.”) The surgery went well and she’s recuperating as quick as she can, although it’ll still be a while. If anyone feels inspired to send a card, I’m sure she’d greatly appreciate it: Priscilla Durrell c/o Cape Cod Hospital 27 Park Street ...

O’Sullivan’s Pub in Somerville has burgers that are two inches thick, made of ground sirloin, and if you want they’ll put garlic on it. Or roll ‘em in pepper. Or whatever. Also, the french fries are slabs of potato. The beer selection isn’t great, but they have Bass on draft, so that’s OK. I’m feeling very content, food-wise, just now.