The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms >>

I've mentioned this before, but I shall do so again - the best thing about this country is the sky. It's the biggest I've seen. Acres and acres of open, glorious, celestial spaces lending an suprising aura to a humdrum night in a stolid, middle-class suburb. Of course, starlight does have the wonderous ability to touch everything with the magic of far-off suns (a hallmarkish phrase I know, but you really have to see that damn thing).

There's been a Clint Eastwood special running on the classic movies channel. Mostly the spaghetti westerns done with Sergio Leone and from the Man with no name canon. No Pale Rider though, which is a terrible shame. For all its flaws, it was the movie that made me fall love with the Western.

And that type of persona; as captured in the face - the weary eyes, framed by lines and the squint of a man who's seen too much and now cares too little, it's one that appeals to me hugely. In my 'I wasn't made for this place and this time' moments (and if I'm listening to the waste land I must be right in the middle of such a spell), the mythic figure roaming the West is one I look at longingly. I think the attraction is that it doesn't offer the prospect of redemption but merely an endless wandering that provide some form of succor. That and the fact, to quote a lesser chronicler of the old west than Clint, "the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep". Something that is a contrasting, but not unattractive, alternative to the 'Angel' one.

On a more mundane note, I've been downloading software to help alleviate the boredom and to distract myself from Uni work. I tend to go overboard with such things though, so I'm trying to classify everything I get into one or more of these catagories. If they don't fit under any of these:

- manage information; by which I mean the vast quantity of BS i know about all manner of things;

- improve productivity; not so much at Uni. but when I get back to the real world;

- stimulate creativity and thought;

then I don't need it. Everything should be open source of course.

As of now, I've decided I need:

- KeyNote
- Free Mind
- MediaWiki
- and GnuPG, which is more to experiment and familiarize myself with the concepts behind it than due to any great practical use.

I'm looking for a PMI, and the only thing I can come up with is the unfortunately named Chandler. Lightning by the Mozilla lot is interesting though and I'll be keeping an eye on it. Meanwhile, I'm using calendar.

Wonderful isn't it? I'm either terminally boring or terminally depressed.

mail : bigreg at budweiser dot com