Off the Cyber Shelf

I've been doing a bit of my own computer work lately. So I thought I'd go ahead and post the link to my web site, which has a new version of a blog I'm working on, as well as lots of other stuff to check out. It's still a work in progress, but hopefully it will be nice and polished soon.

CLICK HERE to go now to the new site.

Enjoy,

Tony

Last evening on John Stewart's The Daily Show, Bill Gates introduced Windows new operating system, Vista. The program was an excellent opportunity for Gates to reach his target audience of young professionals, who mainly make up The Daily Show's audience base, and tote his new product. Myself a Mac user, I hadn't even heard of the product being released anytime soon, just hearing wispers about its beta from last year. Though it wasn't the new operating system which caught my attention during the interview. Instead, it was the discussion the two men had on the future of technology.

Gates is still adamant that their technology will completely revolutionize the way people communicate in the next five years. The model he presented continues to fuse the cyber world with current forms of media distribution, invisioning a You Tube that will become more of a "You Couch Potato.com."

Since the Internet began to take off in the private sector, a little over ten years ago, I've been waiting for the world to be transformed into some hi-tech machine. Indeed, computers have revolutionized much of the way we communicate and discover information. But I would not say that it has completely changed the way the world looks. It maybe has changed how I spend my free time, and not always for the best--getting lost on Wikipedia when I use to sit back and read a book. But, other than the MacBook in the corner of the room, compared to the old Apple IIC I had in the mid 1980s, I can't say that my home has been completely transformed. I still prefer television to You Tube, and I'd take a movie on the big screen over one on my Ipod anyday.

I consider myself pretty tech savvy, and I'd say that beyond the novelty factor, there's very little that has completely blown me away the past twenty years, as far as hi-tech. True, Google and Wikipedia have made my life easier, and I know much more about how frank Zappa recorded his early records. But this information could have been transfered as text with simple images on computers more than twenty years ago. So I still can't see how Gate's prediction for the next five years can be so bold. Even Stewart argued that at the end of the day, he just likes to come home and veg, not be an active participant.

So, instead of clammering around web sites to learn about all the new Vista features, I'm just sitting back and looking at the clear blue sky over New York Harbor, thinking about how easy life probably was in the seventeenth century, when a crash would have meant that you had washed up on the shores of Long Island.

When I was a young boy, there was a restaurant on the north side of Atlanta, in Buckhead, called Farrell’s. It was paradise for a kid, the entrance of the restaurant consisting of a large room you had to walk through, kind of like a Cracker barrel. The only difference was that instead of nick-knacks you’d buy for your grandmother, Farrell’s had nothing but candy, and lots of it, a paradise for kids.

Large barrels, looking like they had just been taken off a pirate ship, sat in the center of the room, full of lollypops and lickerish. Some of the pops were the size of your head—a small kids head—and I would stand on my toes to look over the edge of a barrel at all the brightly colored candies, breathing in the smell of their wax wrappers.

The restaurant, itself, had a sort of ice cream parlor motif. And before the days of chucky-cheese, Farrell’s was a hot commodity for birthday celebrations. One of the earlier memories I have is of my third birthday, when my mother took my sister and I to Farrell’s with my grandmother. It’s not the earliest memory I have, but it’s definitely one of them. How could a child not forget the first time he walked into a room with nothing but barrel’s of candy and buckets of ice cream? Too, this was the first birthday party I can remember. I’m sure my parents did something for the first or second birthday, but that, obviously, predates my faculty of memory, and I’m kind of glad I don’t actually remember the day I was actually born.

Farrell’s had a way of letting everyone know it’s your birthday, by sounding the alarm. It was the real thing, from an old fashioned fire truck, all the bells and whistles attached. And as the siren exploded into life, firelights would flash all around the restaurant.

In those days, my parents had not yet known that I was legally blind. Everyone just thought that I was slow until I was four-years-old. And there’s nothing wrong with a kid being slow in the South, at least, not then. I thought everyone just saw the same stuff I did, or lack their of. Though Farrell’s became quite an eye opener.

So needless to say, I was a bit startled when the alarms started sounding and lights started flashing, and I had no clue what was going on around me. The surprise of the siren scared me so much that I jumped under the table and started screaming as I tried to push my way under the heavy wooden booth, scrambling for any safety I could find.

The party, to say the least, was a complete failure. It was also, as my mother recalled, the point at which I would no longer ask for birthday parties. Surprises were also frowned upon and not encouraged while I was present. The whole event changed the course of my life, as far as birthday parties. Sure, my grandparents would come by for dinner, but nothing really fancy after that. There was the time when I was living with the Franciscans in Chicago, and they made me a prime rib dinner for my birthday, forgetting that I had become a vegetarian.

Farrell’s is part of the reason why I never got into Candy that much, and soon after that, birthday cakes were replaced with sandwich deli trays. Have you ever tried to put a candle in a mound of pastrami?

Last night, that all changed; no, not the pastrami, but surprise parties. I had been hinting around for a while that it would be nice to have a surprise party. Yeah, I know; you’re not supposed to know about those things. But I figured I had a right since I never really had one. Farrell’s was a surprise of a different sort.

Now, not to brag, but I’m a pretty smart guy. And I had a hunch that maybe my wish would be granted. But, for the life of me, I’ve spent the past month driving myself crazy trying to think about the when and where my surprise party might take place. Surely, I thought, no one would travel all the way to Bay Ridge just to see me?

Well, I was wrong. And I was quite surprised to see those who ventured south, despite the wacky R-train this weekend. Lauren did an amazing job, and put in an extraordinary amount of work, serving home made chili (ala the Grit Cookbook, which is the catalyst for our first encounter on-line a year ago this month), grit corn bread, lots of wine, and a homemade ice cream cake. Although I’m not a cake person, I do love ice cream cakes. It’s a different breed of cakes, a dog and cat kind of thing.

The dinner was amazing, all of us gathered around the table with great conversation and wine flowing freely. Thanks again to H & J Queezy for the kind gift and cup cakes, and all the others who came out for the gathering.

Surprises really are fun.

It's finally beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Too bad it's a couple of weeks too late.

We had our first real snow here today, not that I'd call it a real snow. It was more of a good spritzing along the waterfront today. But it was much better than last week's snow, which lasted five minutes in the middle of a sunny afternoon when it was 40 degrees.

I was walking down toward the harbor to Ridge BLVD. in Bay Ridge when the heaviest of the snow was fallen. A group of kids were scurrying across the street, next to a large Co-Op that runs several blocks down from our own building. It had one of those New York moments to it, or maybe something out of a Charlie brown episode. Usually the kids in our neighborhood are more like something out of South Park meets "Everybody Loves Raymond." These kids were on good behavior, probably heading home for dinner. Bay Ridge is a heavy Italian neighborhood for New York City, making for lots of nice aromas come dinner time. LK and I were actually at an old Italian diner when it started to snow and I headed home while she made a detour to go shopping down the street.

The kids playing in the snow, the lights shoining out of apartment windows, carrying the sent of onions and garlic, the neon lights of the old diner, with the dancing snow over the awning, these all remind me of why I'm glad I live in the North. You curse the winters until it snows, and then you love them. Not just because the snow usually comes when it's not that cold. But because it just reminds you of where you were this time last year when it snowed, or the year before that, or the year before that. I don't know how people in Southern California have any sense of time, with it being all sunny year round. Life must be like one giant drawn out year.

The other year, I had the chance to lead a group of dpeace marchers down to Georgia from Detroit. While there, we stopped in my hometown, Atlanta, and visited the Martin Luther King Jr. center for Peace.

the link is HERE, and I would highly recommend it for those traveling down to Atlanta. The web site is an excellent site, also, for sewising to learn more about Dr. King, about hisdream, and the work the center does in his name.

Well, it’s started. The one addiction I struggle with has finally reared its angry head and pushed me into a sixteen-week stint of restless nights and eager anticipation for each Monday night. Yeah, that’s right. 24 has kicked off its new season, the likes of which have already settled into our living room, just as the Christmas ornaments came down.

To those who might not know, I am drawn to this show like a tic on a dog’s neck. I don’t know why it captures my attention so much. I’ve found that it tends to foster stereotypes by choosing bad guys who embellish ethnic identities (this season taking on the Islamic fundamentalists). I’d like to think that it’s going to show how everyone who practices Islam is not a person wishing ill harm to America. It has already built into its plot a line that might take us down this path with the President’s sister, who is a member of the IAA (an Islamic group who they haven’t yet totally explained).

Ok, I could go on for hours about the show. But I won’t, because I might miss the episode that is set for tonight. Two nights back to back! Wow! I’m such a tool.

Those who I've talked with the past week no just how good a year it has been. Finished one book, though I'm tweeking it a bit hear and there. Survived a whole year back in New York City. Reconnected with old friends, and made a few more. Been working on a few music projects on the side that are not too shabby. But, there's been one thing that out ways them all. And that's my thanks to the Grit Cook Book, from Athens, Georgia.

The Grit is a vegetarian joint on Prince Street, on a block surrounded more by old churches than hipster veggie eats. But it's power to comfort the soul transcends that small college town. And who would have thought that my stomach would have forced my brain to say, "Wow, she knows about the Grit? Maybe I should get to know this woman a little bit better. I mean, not everyone in Brooklyn knows about the Grit. Mmmmmm...Golden Bowl with tofu...Mmmmmmm."

That reason, with salivating comentary, stands clear in my mind from the first week of last year. It brought me out of 2005, which was halmarked by an aching loneliness. And 2006 ended with a feeling of joy, knowing that I have finally found true love. And we brought in this new year together with friends at a bar in SoHo. what a great year it was, and what a great way to ring in the New Year. And who knows, maybe, if I'm lucky, I can talk someone into having the Grit cater a very special feast in the coming year.

Happy New Year to all, that it holds the same excitement as it does for me, and that it brings you peace and joy.