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Friday, January 11, 2002 - 01:42 p.m. -
Opt out of lots of pop-up and pop-under ads. I couldn't bring myself to click on Avenue A, but gleefully told X10 to bite me.

Friday, January 11, 2002 - 01:33 p.m. -
Flash clock. Sounds dumb, but it's really really cool.

Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 05:27 p.m. -
Add this to the list of news stories that misunderstand the fourth dimension.

Wednesday, January 9, 2002 - 06:05 p.m. -
Wave Twisters will blow you down. It's a Q*Bert album made into an animated feature. Guh-guh-guh. I'm so happy I could die. Thanks to MK for pointing it out!

Tuesday, January 8, 2002 - 11:12 p.m. -
This quick CNN transcript is definitely worth reading. How will it be spun tomorrow?

Saturday, January 5, 2002 - 04:00 p.m. -
Last night I dreamed I was somewhere not too far from Seattle. There were occasional tremors that freaked out my companions but intrigued me. I was cautioned against going inside the house but crouched down behind a low outer wall anyway. When I looked up over the wall I saw a small point of intense white light and knew that Seattle had been nuked. I ducked down behind the wall and waited for a blast that didn't come. That point of light remained in my field of vision for the rest of the dream.

Flash-forward: It's several years later, and I'm returning to what's left of Seattle after a nebulous information-gathering mission on foot to California. I'm older, very tired, and urgently want to get back. I reach a sort of monorail assembly with hanging seats and slump into one for the rest of the journey - someone harasses me briefly but stops when another person tells him who I am. I find that there's been significant rebuilding and a sort of anarcho-libertarian community has grown out of the ruins.

Finally I reach the terminus of the monorail and go underground, where I find Tom working on some kind of technology project involving supercomputers and nuclear weapons with several women. I give him my report and before I move on, he tells me he's glad that three Lightners survived. I don't know which ones he means.

The rest of the dream involves me picking up a familiar-looking woman named Jean who tells me she just broke up with her boyfriend and going out for tea and turkey sandwiches. I feel awkward paying with US dollars, but they're accepted. Then I wake up.

Who's scripting my dreams?

Friday, January 4, 2002 - 02:01 p.m. -
I've been reading a lot of commentary these days, right, left, and center. I was going to write "political commentary," but it's all political these days, so there you go.

I was curious about why I liked some writers and didn't so much others - the assessment seemed to be independent of their beliefs, whether I agreed with them, or even their talent as writers. The only trait I could link to all of them is that they are People Who Can Be Wrong. Most of you know that nothing maddens me as much as certainty - and I'm well aware of the irony behind my drive to oppose it, ha ha. What is it that makes me roll my eyes at those who know they're right?

Well, obviously I'm not going to pretend that I have the answer. Is it scientific training? A childhood free from religious rigor? Postmodern malaise? The drugs? Comic books? It's not just me, of course - most of my friends seem to thrive on uncertainty as well. What's your excuse?

Thursday, January 3, 2002 - 08:34 p.m. -
My sister read 374 books last year. That's >1/day. I read 39, <1/week. Mine don't include review books, and I'm sure hers don't either. Cripes. I'm definitely breaking 50 again this year.

Wednesday, January 2, 2002 - 11:48 a.m. -
This might be better than the old "Kimo Bear." Check out this doll and tell me it didn't make you see things diagonally for a few minutes afterward.

Tuesday, January 1, 2002 - 11:45 a.m. -
So I spent a while last night on my knees in Chuck and Bethany's bathroom, but it wasn't much fun. Something I ate caused New Year's Nausea, moreso than usual. I still managed to have a good time basking in the presence of Rebecca from Portland, two very stoned geek pals, and a festival of interesting new humans. And Paul herding the lesbians was also sensational.

I vanished just after midnight. To ring in the new year I took a healthy swig of Pepto-Bismol, then ate popsicles while watching Space Ghost. It bodes well.

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Rob Lightner