Periodically.org

That's where I've been all week, if any of you are at all interested in my personal life. Insofar as it contributes to some strugglingly funny anecdote or observation about life on this great spinning rock of molten iron with its wafer thin layer of biosphere. It was a nice a road trip. Down to a sleepy town on the coast in the States. A touristy town known for (predictably) its salt water taffy. Or it's plethora of video arcades, that have sadly declined over the years, and therefore have all the cutting age technology of 1998. I mean, my phone can play more advanced games. My rotary phone. Be that as it may, it was quite pretty. The ocean, miles of beach populated only by the locals, it seems, as we missed the Summer Crush of 2007 (school's still in session?). Our time at the town was marked by having greasy burgers with enough net calories to feed most of South America or the hungrier parts of Africa, and by walking down the boulevard. We also bought some cheap touri

It's a funny thing about anonymity, especially on the web, some people just don't care. I'm not talking about those cell phone carrying Paris Hilton wannabe tweens who wear too much makeup and have too little opinion on world issues; I'm talking about grown adults. People who supposedly pay taxes, get their oil changed every 5,000 kms and go to overpriced tourist hot-spots for their two week allotment a year. Now, folks who turn a blind eye to privacy issues are not new, I covered it briefly before , but in some respects, that was different, as it related to walled garden type stuff: only people you know (or think you know, or think might have known) have access to your info. The sort of lack of privacy I'm talking about are in the literary blogs I occasionally find myself at; folks there have no issue signing off their comment with their real, in-flesh, not aliased in any way, name. It's more than a little disconcerting, it's like finding out that some peop

So I'm in this blog chain started by a few folks over at the Absolute Write forums . I'm not entirely sure what it is. It brings to mind the chain gang, or possibly a log chain, or a chain letter. None of these are very encouraging, I'll grant. Except for the log chain, which I assume is some sort of forestry equipment. Come to think of it, if you're a staunch environmentalist, a log chain would probably put a fly in your totally-organic-100%-ethical-premium-grade-flaxseed-honey comb-wheat-grass-and-hemp oatmeal. But I digress. The idea is to write a blog post, then have the blog after you use an element from your post in their post, and so and so forth until, presumably, all topics of discourse and enlightenment have been spent, or until the chain gets to the last person. Whichever comes first. The seed of todays topic comes from tjwriter who wrote about comfort zones, encyclopedias, being the strange new person at work, and posting your fiction where anyone can read

So it's summer, and Mrs. Owl, the Owlet and I are staying at the parentals for a spell. We're so far from civilization that running water is a perk, and running water without lethal microbes is a luxury. Where you can be lulled to sleep by either the gentle chirping of crickets or the last strums of a banjo as the home made hooch takes hold. We're in the furthest suburb from the city; so naturally it has debilitating air quality, long parking lots that closely resemble roads (and are, when it's not rush hour) and subdivisions as far as the eye can see. Where strip malls and large car dealers scar the land; a 'compact' car is any truck under 350 horsepower; mesh hats with "Big Foot" emblazoned on the front have been worn since 1985, and always, non-ironically. And where yes, the hallmark of mullet culture, the mid-70's camaro, is found in the wild, and often.     Ah, hometowns. Can't live in them, can't reasonably deny you were ever there. B