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I managed to escape with my pet, 4 days worth of clothes, and an old G3 powerbook. But everthing else is gone. 30 years worth of memories, now literally floating in shit.
The motorcycle I bought last week. The house I just rented in July. My signed 1st edition copy of Stranger in a Strange Land. All lost under the waves that took New Orleans. Thanks Katrina, you bitch. You managed to do what the blizzards of Appalachia, the tornados of Oklahoma, and the quakes of San Fran couldn't do: you have reduced me to nothing. I'm still reeling from the loss.
It's just too big to get my mind around. But it's the little things. I keep thinking, "Oh, that book is gone" or "my favorite coffee cup is lost." It makes me sad. I can't grasp the whole thing, it's more like thousands of little losses that keep hitting me.
Well, at least I'm not in the Astrodome. Thanks Laura, for giving me a place to stay while I work this out. I owe you. Big time.

I had the worst time finding a wifi adapter for this old powerbook. Thanks to the guy at the little Mac store in Beaumont who dug around until he found an old box with an aerocard in it.

There is this song I would hear all the time when I was a little kid. My stepdad was a huge Frank Zappa fan, and he had a large collection of zappa on wax. He would play these records a lot, and tell me that some of these songs were frighteningly accurate social commentaries. When I was a little kid, I had no idea what he meant, nor did I really care. I just thought the quality of the music was pretty bad.
But every time I turn on MSNBC, CNN, or 24-hour news channel dujour, I remember his voice and this little bit of a Zappa song:

I'm the slime oozin' out
From your TV set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't go for help . . . no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold

And I have to wonder, did Zappa really foresee cable "news" channels selling military industrial complex propaganda 24 hours a day? In 1978?
Every time I read a YRO story here on slashdot, that song echos in my mind, and I simultaneously shudder at the truth of US society in 2003 ("Until the rights to you are sold") and smile at the idea that my dad tried to warn me 20 years ago. Thanks dad, for implanting in my 8 year old mind the idea that there is more to life than MTV. :)

I *like* the April 1st tradition around here. The only thing that spoils it is the people who insist on bitching in every frelling story about how unfunny it is. *sigh* You think I'd be accustomed to the jackass faction on /. by now.

Thanks Taco, I've been looking forward to /. April Fools all week!

Someone PLEASE bootleg the MC Frontalot show Thursday at the Voodoo Lounge. I can't make it because I'll be at the slashdot meetup, oh and I'm over 4000km away.

HOOK ME UP WITH SOME OGGS, YO!

That's it. Mandrake is being wiped from my powerbook. I'm downloading a debian netinst iso for ppc right now. By this time tomorrow, I'll be rolling around in a big pile of apt goodness.