:: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 ::

 

11:14 p.m. Still waiting for my books to come. Where, oh where are they? Amazon is usually so prompt, so quick, so dependable. They've sent me emails, confirming emails, but ... sigh. So I wait.

Trucks come and trucks slow down and stop and trucks race by, and I wait.

(Tying the photo into the entry, using a photo that was sort of spoiled when the truck crept into the frame, and now I see that there's even a handy UFO up there in the sky. We do what we can. This is entertainment, after all.)

In any event, I've been lucky enough to snag down another book to read in the long moments before the next Rudy Rucker books arrive: it's a nice bound galley of Jim Marr's new book, Rule by Secrecy, on all the conspiracies that ever were, every will be, and which still are.

I think the time right now is just perfect for conspiracy. We've had an election that didn't seem real, and yet no one knows what to do about it. Where would you go to protest? How can you spare the time off without putting your already fragile job in further jeopardy?

Here in California, we're captive to the electric company, and it can charge what it chooses to charge and it can turn off your electricity -- without any warning -- and you know what? There's nothing you can do about it.

Or is there? See the flat, flat roof on the building in the photo? Is there any reason why it isn't covered in solar panels? Or the roof of the truck -- and the flatbed itself -- why not solar? We're at the shore, so why not little windmills for those days when the sun isn't out?

I think it's going to happen. I'm going to inquire about it. There are people in New Mexico who are living off the grid. There is "It" to think about. Maybe it's going to be a whole new power source. It could happen. It's not too far-fetched to hope that It will solve all our problems.

As long as there are Them, there can be It. As long as They don't control It, or try to legislate It, or tax It, we should be ok. It all depends, of course.

I also wonder why my little data light on my modem is always blinking, even if there's no browser open and there's no email coming in. Might there be a strange virus or worm working its way through the back parts of my most distant, but connected hard drives? Has an employee at Amazon taken my books home to read and forgot to put them back into the mail?

Did we really land on the moon? And if there's no atmosphere on the moon, why is the flag flapping in one of the videos?

Just wondering ...

Are there really secret societies with secret agendas and secret handshakes? This new book will tell all. And then I will tell you. It will be our little secret.