WEEKLY DISPATCH #13

6-25-04:

I have a love-hate relationship with computers. They can break your heart or they can... uh... who cares. Anyway, here's the official Dusty Books Computer History, because the dispatches have not been geeky enough so far.

The first computer I remember my family having was one that was to be used by my mother in her typesetting business. An early memory involves the two of us staring at the screen, which was scrolling random numbers at a rapid pace, my mom informing me that we had to hope with all our might that one particular number didn't show up. My childhood was so WARGAMES. Anyway, this was one of those old Tandys that looks really cool and could probably be manipulated to destroy the neighborhood, but in effect can't do a whole lot.

My parents were engulfed in genealogy for a while and we had a microfilm reader in the house; at that age I assumed it was another computer. So it almost counts.

Anyway, my mom left the print shop and we had to stay in the analogue age for a while. I did have an Atari 2600 and an Atari XL; you could type on the latter, but you couldn't save any information unless you recorded it on a VCR, which Bonnie turned into an art form. Then came -- gasp -- 1991. Computer #2 was one that did not even turn on; it was given to us, or rather me, by a teacher at school who had some idea planted in her head about me being a prodigy. At that school they could never make up their minds whether anybody was a genius or an ADD-addled "exceptional" child. She thought this computer would improve my something or other, but it never did work. The thing had a tape drive; it was an ancient piece of shit. I used to pretend it was the Batcomputer so I could be Batman. This grew tedious after a few months.

My dad sold that thing for scrap metal and, again, I didn't think about these gadgets again until 1993. Everyone was buying up their IBM compatibles. I thought PCs were cool but had no idea what function they might have. That summer my parents decided that we could either get a computer or go to Disneyworld. I chose Disneyworld.

At Disneyworld I rode the Haunted Mansion ride; it was awesome.

Then we got home and my mom and dad decided to buy a computer anyway, from Crutchfield. Yeah, Crutchfield, the ones who now just sell linens and outdated womens fashion. They did manufacture computers, and we got a 486. I didn't really plan to have much to do with it once I learned that the only two games it had were Solitaire and Minesweeper. I'd had a Game Boy and had been begging for an NES at the very least for years, but my dad always insisted that computers had better graphics, therefore better games, etc., going so far as to ask an eccentric working at a Radio Shack in Raleigh to prove it to me. This never did satisfy me. One year the NES was all I asked for at Christmas. I got a bunch of ROBOCOP toys; I've never even seen the movie ROBOCOP. I seem to have digressed.

Dad worked at this engineering firm in Wilmington at the time; I always liked going there because there were a couple of sharp hills on the road just beforehand. One of his coworkers was a slack hippie named Matt who spent most of his time at work playing videogames. He copied three of them for us. I have no memories of the first one, the second was a nice flight simulator called "Retaliator," and the third was... voila... "Wolfenstein 3D."

I still think "Wolfenstein 3D" is not only better than the same company's excellent "Doom" but one of the best videogames ever, maybe because it convinced me I might have a use for the computer after all. I played more games in the ensuing year than I have in my entire life since then, at least until last week when I had my attention on Atari during every waking hour... the things I do for you folks, my god. The 486 was the fastest processor you could get right that second, but within a few weeks the Pentium was rolled out. I had no idea what that even meant and I still don't entirely know what it means. The point is, like all computers, the Crutchfield started to feel a bit slow after a few months, especially as I loaded it down with shareware games.

We didn't have the Internet. We tried AOL for a few days and my conclusion was the Internet wasn't very interesting. It may have been because neither of my parents had any clue how to find anything on the web -- this was before every TV ad had a URL along the bottom -- and of course I didn't. There wasn't even a modem on that computer, anyway; we had to rent an external one, not quite as primitive as the one in WARGAMES but still pretty far out. A very hacker-type gadget (and upstairs in the abandoned computer room at my store there are quite a few of them). Those were the days.

I lived for computer games during this period, especially the ones released by Apogee. I really wouldn't shut up about them -- maybe that's why we stopped having dinner together as a family. Eventually it became noticable that my parents were not using the computer at all, and since they weren't, I was. So they moved it into my room, and I was a wee bit thrilled about that. Now I could browse all the porn I wanted, which amounted to me studying the Renaissance paintings on our Compton's Encyclopedia CD. It came with my Christmas present in 1995, a CD-ROM drive. Yes, this was back when not all computers had them and 650MB seemed like a shitload of space, more than you'd ever need. The computer was getting so slow it was hard to operate. I didn't complain.

A few months after the CDROM purchase, we moved eighteen blocks down the street to a bigger house on the water where I lived for almost six years (my dad sold it this week). You'd think this would be financially crippling, but come November, just after I started junior high school (on the eve of my entrance Dad and I had a lengthy argument over whether it should be called "middle school" or "junior high school," and my mom assured me that I would be used to the change by the following Tuesday), we had to go through Disneyworld Decision II. My parents asked once again for me to choose between a trip back to the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT and their ilk or a brand-new flawless pentium computer which would be fast and convenient and easy to use. I chose Disneyworld.

And again, after we got back -- we we there the week of November 19th, meaning that I missed the Beatles Anthology and the introduction of Homer's mother, but... I rode Spaceship Earth and DreamFlight! LIFE EXPERIENCE, people -- my dad arrived home one evening with a demo Packard Bell machine from Radio Shack he'd picked up unusually cheap because it was full of crap.

And it was only around this time that I started to use the computer more often for personal stuff... my dumb short stories and all that. It was still, admittedly, mostly games. I was never even "with the times" as far as the gaming went. I was still playing platform games like "Monster Bash." My Atari -- sniff -- was long gone.

Despite her somewhat rare use of the PC in our home, my mother was a warrior in the library for the addition of electronics, and there was a wonderful set of computers over there, one of which was blessed with an internet connection. That was where I first used the evil conglomerate of information, where I essentially first interacted with Stephanie (whatta fairytale), and where I began to turn into a major egotist because my grammar was better than everybody else's. The amount of information on the internet obsessed me even if its consistency didn't -- and still doesn't, although Google continually amazes me. I couldn't convince my dad that an internet connection at home would be a good idea. I seem to remember one of his reasons being the proliferation of child predators online and his worries about being "hacked." My dad was and remains the definition of paranoia. I believe he fully thought that President Clinton was out to get him over that antique gun collection and that the internet was what Slicky would use to finally do him in.

So I found other entertainment. My word processing experience (not to mention my MYST experience) began when my sister was living with us for a while. I convinced myself somehow that I was going to write a book about The Simpsons. It seems I was nearly as deluded then as I am now. Of course it came to nothing, after a hell of a lot of work, but I learned all about clipboards and macros at least.

When I was in the eighth grade, shortly after I'd lobbied successfully to bring the magic of cable television back into our home, my mom seemed close to convincing the Man of the House that the internet might be a good idea. I was having lots of arguments with them around this time, something I'm sure would have continued if they hadn't started disappearing from the house for six hours each night. My grades were somewhat controversial because I wasn't doing my "best" (I think getting kids to do "okay" in school is enough of an accomplishment that we shouldn't force them to obsess over something that they don't actually care about), but they both hit the roof over something they saw as "sarcasm." I was generally attacked for this when I wasn't even attempting to be critical or mean. Still, though. When I am sarcastic, it's cute. My dad also objected to my viewing of violent films such as SE7EN. He had no such objection to the bloody videogames I played or to the hundreds of guns and porn magazines I had access to in the house every day. He just didn't like grisly death scenes, I guess. The internet caused another argument like this.

My dad said that as long as I used the internet for schoolwork it would be fine, but if I was just going to use it for recreation, that was no good. It probably delayed my exposure, which I was really looking forward to, for a few months, but I couldn't tolerate that and I pointed out that the internet probably wouldn't help me a whole lot with schoolwork... and to be honest, it never really did. This infuriated both of them and my mom said I was creating an argument where there wasn't one. She was right, I shoulda given in, but I was such an edgy, out of control teenager, staying in all night, never taking a puff of weed or tobacco or a sip of alcohol, never doing anything dangerous with friends or having any kind of sex... I had to maintain my hardcore, rebellious image, if only for myself.

Finally, the night the last episode of Seinfeld aired, we got internet access. I spent the evening trying to get it to work because the instructions from Brunswick Computers, our provider, were all wrong. It didn't operate properly until the next day. The last episode of Seinfeld sucked. Anyway, I rejoiced at internet access even on a 14.4 modem (didn't know what that meant anyway), couldn't believe how cool it was to have a connection in our house, and my reaction to all this culture being fed through a wire into my bedroom in a far distant small town was to immediately search for pictures of Gillian Anderson nude. There weren't any to be found so I ripped the phone cord out of the wall in a rage and never got on the internet again.

That summer I built a website, which was crap, and made some online friends, a lot of whom eventually just creeped me out. One computer later, I have another website, I'm practically married to one of those online friends (not one of those who creeped me out), and I have a huge archive of Gillian Anderson fake nude pics. EMAIL 4 TRADEZZZ!! One thing I don't have is a high speed internet connection. Because if I get one of those I don't have an excuse for not picking up the phone. So DB&P will continue to be brought to you through dial-up for the time being. I still have the old Packard Bell... the keyboard, monitor, and mouse have all been replaced with more durable parts, two of which are actually older than the original devices. Longevity.

And now that you know all this... please, don't use computers. They're desensitizing, or some shit.

LINK OF THE WEEK. I Am Bored
Stuff like this really bothers me. No, not because it wastes bandwidth; that's everyone's right as a citizen. It's because it has to be so cutesy about its uselessness. I hate the plug for the rest of the site and I don't get how anybody would want to see more of this. BUT LOOKA WHAT OUR LITTLE GIRL DID MAW! SHE KNOWS TH' HTML!!!!!! Pretty colors, though.

VOCABULARY WORD OF THE WEEK.
sturdy (adj.) - resolute, unyielding
We'd better make sure the table is sturdy before we have sex on it.

I FOUND IT ON THE ROAD.

You know the economy is in trouble with Burger King has to send out mailings. My official Burger King verdict is "good, not great," and it's not something I would drool over, but they considered that a risk. Oh, well, anybody want some coupons? Let's get all up in SUPER SIZE ME's face and gorge ourselves on fast food. Come with me to Burger King, now!

FROM THE ARCHIVES.

I don't take the side of animals. I have no animal-rights ideals whatsoever; I don't care if somebody doesn't want to eat meat for some reason, but I'm sure as hell going to knaw at animal flesh however much I want to, which is a lot. I especially love imagining the sound of its screams of pain when I bite into it. HAW JUST KIDDIN'. People who eat meat are not necessarily sadistic, unless every other carnivorous animal is. Ted Nugent is probably sadistic. But I said "not necessarily."

Despite all this, I have to question lobster treatment. Not because of the cruelty of this -- these things are fucking evil -- but because it has to be damn boring. All they do is fight, look around, sometimes have sex, try to climb the side of the case, run around desperately if you put something on top of it, fight viciously, or die, in which case the others gather around to feast on the carcass. Booooooring. The poor little darlings.

ENEMIES LIST. Star Jones

I didn't believe in Satan until this woman began to appear on television. The View is a work of curious superficiality because of its lack of conviction for what it claims to do. It is not a lazy program; it is constantly working to alter perceptions, but Barbara Walters and company are not interested in shifting perspectives toward the interests of Womyn. They want you to become Bland.

But this isn't about The View. So I'll just get out of the way that I hate it, I hate every program like it, and I hate everything about all of them. No big shockers there.

This also isn't about her evil Christian streak, but I'm going to talk about that anyway because it bugged me at first. Star Jones' diatribe on her show on March 16, 2002 was along these lines: "Under no circumstances would I ever vote for an atheist because they are terrible [and have] no moral code." Fine, whatever, she can say whatever she wants. But people asked for an apology and she stood her ground, saying simply that her religion was important enough to her that it affected her choice of who would be elected to a political office. People care about different shit, so again, whatever.

I mean, I could raise the issue that the religious beliefs of a political candidate are none of Star's business or mine, or they shouldn't be anyway. I could raise the issue that if I went on ABC and told all the housewives what I think of god, I'd probably get fined or at least denounced by Tim Allen. The thing is, this doesn't matter; in a social situation, I do not volunteer my radical opinions unless someone asks for them, whether about Jesus or Incubus, but I can talk about them all I want in my own venue, which you're looking at. I think Star's thoughts on this subject are pretty dangerous, but she has the right and she always will. I know she thinks she "means well" and I do wish someone so influential to dullards didn't mistake the supposed evil of a belief for the evil of a person. I don't berate Christians or Jews or people who practice yoga or any of that silliness, regardless, but I berate their beliefs as much as I want. There is so much subtlety to fanatacism... I have to continue to remember that we can't help what's planted in our heads when we're young. But it's like they always say... Aren't you glad you use Dial? Don't you wish everybody did?

But no, no, no, that's not enemies-list material. Al Gore had significantly more dangerous views of lack of faith than this woman, if only because no one cares what she thinks anyway.

And she's not here because she's part of that Rosie-Oprah-Martha cult of feel-good monotony. Oprah I can forgive even though her show is pointless, and there's no point anymore to making fun of Martha Stewart, but Rosie O'Donnell is one of the most annoying people ever spewed forth by pop culture, and it's just her sort of PC touchy-feely soccer mom sensitivity that is slowly ruining America. Really. But Star Jones... she's just one of the chicks on The View, so... who cares?

No, I'll tell you why Star Jones is on my "enemies list." She's here because of StarAndAl.com, the official website of her wedding to... some other black guy. Anyway, read this damn thing. Just read it and tell me it's not the creepiest thing since MaryRomantic walked the earth.

Then read the guestbook and discover what the word "dirty" truly means. It's official -- I own an obsessively-maintained .com and yet I have at least a hundred times more of a life than these people. They actually are convinced that they somehow relate personally to this talk show host and that they have some reason to care that she's hooked up with some stud. If I believed in god I would lose my faith now.

Worse yet, by setting up a gigantic, super-corporate webpage about her relationship and the details of their engagement and everything about it, Star is feeding the attitude of sick celebrity voyeurism we've been trying to escape for decades. Supposedly this is all in keeping with the public appetite for "reality shows," but holy shit, a cheap Cinderella story is not reality. You can go downtown and wander around if you want a "reality show." Star Jones' life and the life of any rich celebrity like her... that's a fantasy world with no basis in the way the rest of us live.

There's just nothing more to say. You must visit this site; years from now people will be asking you when you knew you had to go live in the woods and avoid all civilization and you'll want to be able to pinpoint it. (Of course, if you're that isolated, I dunno who's gonna ask you, but still, just go. StarAndAl.com.)

God bless,
n.