This blog has moved.

Please continue to read it at my new domain.

Being a booster for mister rooster!

My Rooster has his moves down! He can kick, peck, jump and show off his tail feathers.

Looking for graphic design work in Boston area

I have 15 years digital prepress experience; I know Quark Xpress and Miles 33 and lots of other good stuff, and I can do good work for you like I did for those other guys for 15 years. Experience with newspaper pages and classified ads.

Inquiries welcome at
e n e l s o n i n p r i n t [at] g m a i l [dot] c o m

Ronin Phone-in

A ronin is a samurai without a master, looking for someone to serve.

So, in a way, am I, having been laid off from work. ( I am not a swordsman, but the pen is mightier than the sword, and I am good at writing, layout and computer stuff )

So people need to realize that I ARE AWESOMENESS, (as one other person put it) and use my services because I am good at a lot of stuff.

I can do a lot of stuff and I can do it for you.

A fool was made of the self that is mine by the person who can be called “myself” by me.

The passive voice is sometimes a clue that someone is dodging responsibility. For instance someone may say “mistakes were made” and that’s a symptom that he hopes we don’t notice who made the mistakes. However it is not possible to retranslate “I made a fool of myself” in such a way. I am the captain of my destiny, and I have only myself to blame if I don’t deal with things.

Ted Nelson is at it again!

His new book, Geeks Bearing Gifts is about “the computer world and how it got that way,” which is a more broad and miscellaneous topic than anything else I can think of. Buy it!

Sign of the times, electronics industry reposesses the culture

I was walking down the street and I saw this shop, which used to offer the service of duplicating DVD’s in quantity, is now selling cards that a musician can sell at a gig, entitling the buyer to download their music.

Somehow, this makes me sad.

I do not like the i-tunes paradigm that you can’t get music unless you’re registered as having it. The trouble with this is if there is a massive profiling-of-the-dissidents in the near future, they can figure out who the dissidents are by their tastes in music.

Tim Powers, in one book of his, had the concept of a magical card game where if you look at the cards, the cards can see you.  This principle, unfortunately, is true of web pages and downloads.

["I went down to the sacred store/where I'd heard the music years before/but the man there said the music wouldn't play'-- Don Maclean]

Stumbling bumblebee in traveling trolleycar

randomly buzzing around, as all bees attracted to things that are yellow so he gloms onto the electronic lighted sign that flashes the words NEXT STOP:

Will he ever find the door? He will never find the exit because he is focussed fixatedly on a reference to the exit.

I am at a loose end here…

but sometimes loose ends get turned into live wires.

An old poem of mine (circa 1992)

Spring, 1989

Under my toe, in front of the accelerator pedal
there’s a newspaper with an article about the fall of the Berlin Wall
and I’m taking my car to have its oil changed
at the quick oil change place which is next to the old shopping center, which is next to the new shopping center
at the edge of town.

I’m filling out the form, and I say it’s a 1970 Plymouth Valiant.
“That car is older than I am!” says the girl behind the counter.

I’m sitting in the waiting room, and next to the pot of free coffee that’s been on the burner too long, there’s a stack of books for sale, many copies of the same book, and it’s called “Chronicle of the 20th Century”, even though the 20th century isn’t over yet, and it’s marked down.

And I ask myself, how can there be a book called “Chronicle of the 20th Century” when the 20th century isn’t over yet. Then I remember, there was someone in the news recently who said this was the End of History. Maybe that’s the reason.

Finally the car is ready. I put my coffee cup into the free litter bag they hung on the knob of the radio that doesn’t work, and I put my credit card receipt in there too. I start the car with the broken key. It still works because the other half of the key is still in the lock.

And maybe history has ended, maybe they’re burying the century before it’s dead, discounting it. But a 1970 Plymouth Valiant keeps on going forever. Even though the odometer turned over a long time ago.

by Erik Nelson, 1992