The pedestrian overpass at 78th Street was under reconstruction, which
looked more like recondestruction. Who knows if these public works
projects are really needed, but if the bridge works when it is rebuilt
then it can’t be bad.
IN front of the Cement Workers place is a family of three. A fidgety boy
and responsible, patient parents. They walk the walk, waiting for traffic
to clear before crossing 35th Avenue. I now hear the father ask “How are
you?” to who I do not know, and the boy says “Daddy” in a tone I can not
discern as question, answer, retort, complaint. The word, floated from the
boy’s mouth, into the somewhat damp night air.
The day’s walk was enervating in its way. Productive in a blood flow way,
but serene and buoyant in a nostalgic way. Way Way Way Way.
I cought a seemingly exciting photo of a guy catching a fish from the East
River. the catch was sudden and mildly thrilling, but what made the
incident memorable was when the man’s ~12 year old daughter rushed up on
her razor scooter, watching the wrangling and yelling “THAT’S MY DADDY!”
— although at first I thought she said “THAT’S FOR DINNER!”, referring
(I thought) to the fish her daddy was reeling in.
He was still wrestling with that thing 10 minutes later, as I walked on to
Wards Island. Damn, I hope he caught it. His daughter seemed so excited,
and I would hate to think that he let her down by letting the big one get
away.
I came dangerously close to spending about $1400 on Adobe software last
night. I still have time to make that mistake, but not much. See, I have
this notion that I am a web professional, and so I should entitle myself
to Flash and Illustrator and Photoshop Extended and other particles of
software matter shipped at under 3 ounces. And what happened after I
bought the Sony a55 a couple of months ago was that I qualified
for a $400 discount on the CS5 suites, which tempted me in strange and
consumerist ways. I imagined becoming a Flash virtuoso, a Photoshop miner,
and an Illustrator master.
But you know what? I am not in my 20s any more. New software is not
exciting or interesting to me. New software is mostly tiresome and
annoying, full of developer-centric bugs and fist-clenching frustrations
which cause me to grit my teeth and stamp my feet every single time I
confront a goddam computer.
Maybe that’s just Vista.
I maintain a belief that my frustrations with software are punctuated
by roars of laughter from the room full of software developers who
combined to produce this piece of shit. Gasps of incredulous giggles when
the lowly end user can not find the fucking menu, or can not point thne
fucking mouse at the perfect fucking icon. “Doesn’t he even know there’s
an alt-F10-shift-control-P-delete shortcut for that?” the programmers ask
in exhausted, put-upon exasperation, laughing, laughing.
I decided against the Adobe suite, even at the discount, because I see no
reason to bring more software into my ,life when software has caused me so
much aggravation. And if one wishes to inflict this mental and spiritual
damage onto his self why not give free software a try first. I want to
take another crack at Blender, which I think I trust, for at least as far
as I can throw it. I want to make 3d quivering blobs of text hanging like
cows from a meathook. Is that asking so much? Chains of text, dangling
from meat hooks, suspended like quakes in the air.
Must learn, and I reject an inundation of Adobe products in favor of a
single, mature product which happens to be open source and which I for
some reason trust.
So what to do with that lingering $1400? Aha, probably send it to the
taxman.
It has been too beautiful out of doors to waste these days on work. When
will I regroup? Circle back? Buzzword asunder? When will I get to work and
stop splaying these text matters into the cool air?
