This is a great relief since my old job expired when I quit school, and it was very necessary for me to begin making money again as soon as possible. My old job very sweetly allowed me to stay on a little while longer as a temporary (hourly) employee, and that was kind of them but not long-termy, so it was very important that I get right on that finding a new job thing.
In other news, I am tired of having everything ship from Memphis. Why Memphis? What’s so good about Memphis? Why does everybody have offices in Memphis? (By everybody I mean Amazon.com.) One of these days I’m going to live in Memphis, so when I check my packages for tracking, it will say, 6:08 AM, Left Memphis shipping office; 12:55 PM, Arrived at your house. I have two separate (alas! wouldn’t it have been cooler if I’d gotten all my books in one massive parcel?) parcels heading my way, and the big one is in Memphis. The little one is coming from Oregon, but still, out of fourteen books, only two are not coming from Memphis!
Also, after some arduous consideration, I have finally settled on my five desert island movies. I would take these five and accept no substitutes. Empire Records, Before Sunrise, Angels in America, King of Hearts, and the fifth season of Buffy. I choose the fifth even though it does not contain Angel, because the fifth does contain a lot of Anya and Tara, and I am very fond of Anya and Tara; moreover, the fifth is the season with Spike having dirty lusty love for Buffy, the Buffybot, a really excellent season finale, and (this is mean) Joyce’s death. I am glad when she is no longer around, and “The Body” is a really good episode.
I am pleased to have this settled. I have more or less chosen my desert island books – a recent change to the line-up substitutes The Ground Beneath Her Feet for The Color Purple, because although I don’t like The Ground Beneath Her Feet quite as much, it takes longer to read – but I have long struggled with the movies question.
Oh, yes, and also, today I found a website that explained how the internet works. I have long been struggling to understand how the internet works, and now I do, all because of Tim Berners-Lee. See, what happens is, there are all these computers that keep track of where web pages are stored. So I type in the address of a web page, like the library web address, for instance. Then my computer asks one of the clever computers for the number of the computer that hosts the web page for the library, right? When it gets that number, it asks the library computer to send me the library web page, and the library computer agrees to send it, and then, voila, I have it! (It comes in packets, a little bit at a time, until at last I have the whole thing, which is why a more complicated website takes longer – more packets to send!)
Lovely Tim Berners-Lee! I have always been so troubled that I use and use and use the internet without ever really understanding how the whole thing worked. I knew it was about sharing information, but I have never been clear on the process. Now I only don’t know how the clever computers manage to keep track of what websites are stored where; and also how it can be that one’s own computer knows who to ask for the number of the computer that has the webpage. And also how computers communicate in the first place.
You know what would be a good and improving project? If every time I went to the library, I got a children’s nonfiction book, in addition to my fun reading books. In this way I would learn a little bit of information about a bunch of different topics, and I would not get confused and feel stupid, and then I would have a broader network of knowledge in which to place new information about topics I have hitherto not understood (like the internet). Each time I go, I can get something from a different call number section.
Yes! Genius! I am in love with this idea! It is the best idea ever had by me in all the history of time! I will become a well-informed person only by reading children’s books! I will start with the 000s, which conveniently are computers, and after that I will go to the 100s, which are religion and philosophy, and I will work my way up. I will either go through each century exhaustively, or else alternate on successive library visits.
Soon I will know dozens and dozens of new and interesting facts. Updates as warranted.
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3 comments:
Those are very good five movies. I defy anyone to find any better than that. I'm thinking about mine now, because copying you would be lame.
Right. I'm guessing what's so good about Memphis is that it's where the nearest Amazon warehouse is.
The entire fifth season of Buffy counts as one movie?
I like your self-improvement plan. Let me know how it goes; maybe I'll adopt it too, once I find a conveniently situated public library.
I think the entire fifth season of Buffy counts as one, yes. Because Angels in America definitely counts as one, and it's a two-disc set. And if I'd taken, say, Fellowship of the Ring, it would have counted as one even though it's in a box that contains four discs. So I think it counts.
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