c. scott andreas

On Thursday as I was preparing to fly from London to Chicago, the PowerBook G4 otherwise known as my right arm gave out.

While standing in line for security, I noticed the light on the front flashing wildly. When I attempted to turn it on, the speakers made a buzzing noise, the screen stayed black, and (alarmingly), a smoke smell started seeping out. You can imagine how much fun the hand-searching of my bag was.

While waiting to board, I made an appointment at the Chicago store’s Genius Bar. Upon arriving, the guy confirmed that the logic board was fried six months after my three-year AppleCare expired. The repair cost was about $700. Utterly saddened with the prospect of losing my laptop and having to buy a new one before MacWorld (heading back to the UK before new ones can/will be released) , I wasn’t sure what to do.

After a couple minutes, Ernest returned from “the back” with my PowerBook and made my 2007:

“Given the history of this machine, I’ve approved the repair at no cost to you. It should be ready in about a week and a half - we need to order some parts. We’ll ship it to you, wherever you’re at.”

Mega score for Apple, there. Until then, I’m gimping it with a PIII-900mhz Gateway that I bought 6 years ago. I can’t wait for Seraph to come back.

BUT, now they’re threatening Fake Steve Jobs and have forced ThinkSecret offline. There goes one of the few things that gives meaning to my mid-afternoon. Ugh.

You give and take away, Steve. You give and take away.

A friend lent me his copy of the DVD from Rob Bell’s Everything is Spiritual tour. I spent a third of today’s daylight watching it (slept ’til noon - oops!).

Really good, life-affirming, life-giving stuff - something that I haven’t had in awhile. The core idea is that we live in a universe that is drenched with the divine. Bell’s proposition is based in part on the idea that ancient Hebrew has no specific word for “spiritual,” which would suggest that there are things which are “not spiritual.” Anyhow, check it out if you’re into that. Packaging designed by the lovers-not-fighters at Flannel.

True to form, I spent the evening reading Ron Currie’s God is Dead. The premise is brilliant – God enters the world in the form of a woman from Darfur to experience the pain and suffering of the world firsthand. After a humorous incognito run-in with Colin Powell, he dies while fleeing the Janjawee. Once the world finds out, some things start to unravel pretty quickly, but others stay strangely the same.

Read Adam’s review if you want more. My verdict? Brilliant concept, but the execution is too implausible for me to believe it.

Last Christmas, Jordan Green from Burnside Writers pointed me to a Christmas carol that will be a part of my life for years and years to come.  

Now, I want to share it with you.  It’s a rendition of O Holy Night that’s so spectacular that, well…just listen.

 

 O Holy Night [3:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve been reading a little Baudrillard lately. Pardon this acid trip.

Some have suggested that we’re entering a moment in society in which “the map precedes the territory.” In other words, idealized models of place and space are displacing their physical character.

For an easy example, look at any subway map. Presented as a series of linear stops bearing no relation to the direction the train is headed, we’ve come to understand our cities (or better, unfamiliar ones) as networks connected by roads, transit lines, and bike paths.

We find a similar process at work on the web. The appropriation of spatial metaphors such as “Back,” “Forward,” and “Home” suggests that space and location remain useful categories for orientation, but are divorced from coordinate systems on the net and in networked society. Read the rest of this entry »