First please understand that "#!$@!*" is not self-censorship. It is not taking the place of some other word or phrase like "damn", "damn it", "God, damn it", "shit", "fuck", "crap", "motherfucker", "Jesus Fucking Christ", "mother fucking fuck", "the collected feces of all life one earth", "Oh, my fucking God, it HURTS", "Zoinks", or "God damn all this shit to fucking Hell!"
No, rather than being censorship in which a random string of symbols is used to protect your precious puritanical mind (fragile as it is) from a word or phrase in general English parlance, this usage of "#!$@!*" is aspirational. It aspires to capture a cry of anguish so profane that the English language is incapable of conveying it and the pseudo-Latin alphabet we use would be unable to communicate it even in the unlikely event that spoken English did one day develop a way of expressing such a thing.
Think of it like "Belgium"* but with infinitely more force and a great deal less tact.
So, yeah, that happened. On my way to get my my meds again. Like last time, though in a different place. I was , everything seemed normal, boom pain, #!$@!*, I'm on the ground. Didn't hit my head, no concussion. At least that much is good.
Also, I lucked out and this happened right next to one of those poles they put in foot paths so that any asshole attempting to drive a car down it will have to cope with said car being fucked up via collision. Made a nice place to lean my back against while I swore and made incoherent sounds of pain.
Then, eventually, I got up and continued in the direction of medication.
After I got my meds I had to go to a McDonald's. I have nothing against them in theory as they provide more calorie per dollar than most places and that is extremely useful when you have a limited food budget. Trying to squeeze 366-ish calories out of a dollar isn't always the easiest thing. But McDonald's is "prepared food" and so it can't be paid for in food money anyway.
I wasn't planning on going there, but there was no way I was going to make it home by lunch time on a sprained ankle.
I got a decent amount of calories at a decent price, I won't be starving soon, but that also had the side effect of burning through a fifth of my cash-like money.
(But a meal at McDonald's costs less than $10. Yes, yes it does.)
Which in turn brings thoughts back to the need to get a new primary computer.
The fact that secondary was doing the screen equivalent of spasming for an extended period to prevent me from even getting to the "So, that happened" paragraph also brings it around to that.
Also the fact that I saw the most amazing truck, in terms of decoration, in the world while limping home.
So, from ankle to computer.
Even though some people have given me donations (thank you so very, very much) the money I have just dropped by 20% because a sprained ankle prevented me from getting home for lunch.
I'd need ten times the money I have right now to pay for the warranty (and just that) on a new computer. But even if I had that I wouldn't have enough money to actually buy a new fucking computer to go with the damned warranty because apparently I got primary on some kind of sale and there's no sale of that magnitude going on right now.
I need anywhere from five to twelve hundred dollars. I have about forty dollars. Mind you there's some $400 in credit I could make use of that would shove my future even further down the drain.
And where does the truck come in? Remember back when I had a computer (this was back when I still could use a desktop) run a program for three days straight using so much of the on-board resources that I wondered if it might have simply frozen several times during those days because getting enough power to do anything else was difficult at best?
I don't blame you if you don't, I never did get around to showing the results so it ended up being little more than an offhand comment that Brin used as a jumping off point for a Doctor Who reference (weeping angels, if you're wondering) but that's the sort of thing I do.
Secondary computer would probably find a way to explode if I tried to use it like that. Primary computer, on the other hand, was able to do some of that kind of stuff.
Awesome truck cries out for that. Full on, take as long as it needs, have me get back into reading up on the scientific articles to find the latest developments calls for that.
And I'm not complete without a primary computer. And I have difficulty coping with the fact that I walked through the morning into the afternoon on a sprained ankle and the, on getting home, couldn't swear about it for a good long time because secondary computer gets exhausted running google chrome
And I probably need new shoes to cut down on ankle spraining and where the fuck will I find the money for that?
* From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Original Radio Show, Episode 10
No, rather than being censorship in which a random string of symbols is used to protect your precious puritanical mind (fragile as it is) from a word or phrase in general English parlance, this usage of "#!$@!*" is aspirational. It aspires to capture a cry of anguish so profane that the English language is incapable of conveying it and the pseudo-Latin alphabet we use would be unable to communicate it even in the unlikely event that spoken English did one day develop a way of expressing such a thing.
Think of it like "Belgium"* but with infinitely more force and a great deal less tact.
So, yeah, that happened. On my way to get my my meds again. Like last time, though in a different place. I was , everything seemed normal, boom pain, #!$@!*, I'm on the ground. Didn't hit my head, no concussion. At least that much is good.
Also, I lucked out and this happened right next to one of those poles they put in foot paths so that any asshole attempting to drive a car down it will have to cope with said car being fucked up via collision. Made a nice place to lean my back against while I swore and made incoherent sounds of pain.
Then, eventually, I got up and continued in the direction of medication.
After I got my meds I had to go to a McDonald's. I have nothing against them in theory as they provide more calorie per dollar than most places and that is extremely useful when you have a limited food budget. Trying to squeeze 366-ish calories out of a dollar isn't always the easiest thing. But McDonald's is "prepared food" and so it can't be paid for in food money anyway.
I wasn't planning on going there, but there was no way I was going to make it home by lunch time on a sprained ankle.
I got a decent amount of calories at a decent price, I won't be starving soon, but that also had the side effect of burning through a fifth of my cash-like money.
(But a meal at McDonald's costs less than $10. Yes, yes it does.)
Which in turn brings thoughts back to the need to get a new primary computer.
The fact that secondary was doing the screen equivalent of spasming for an extended period to prevent me from even getting to the "So, that happened" paragraph also brings it around to that.
Also the fact that I saw the most amazing truck, in terms of decoration, in the world while limping home.
So, from ankle to computer.
* * *
Even though some people have given me donations (thank you so very, very much) the money I have just dropped by 20% because a sprained ankle prevented me from getting home for lunch.
I'd need ten times the money I have right now to pay for the warranty (and just that) on a new computer. But even if I had that I wouldn't have enough money to actually buy a new fucking computer to go with the damned warranty because apparently I got primary on some kind of sale and there's no sale of that magnitude going on right now.
I need anywhere from five to twelve hundred dollars. I have about forty dollars. Mind you there's some $400 in credit I could make use of that would shove my future even further down the drain.
And where does the truck come in? Remember back when I had a computer (this was back when I still could use a desktop) run a program for three days straight using so much of the on-board resources that I wondered if it might have simply frozen several times during those days because getting enough power to do anything else was difficult at best?
I don't blame you if you don't, I never did get around to showing the results so it ended up being little more than an offhand comment that Brin used as a jumping off point for a Doctor Who reference (weeping angels, if you're wondering) but that's the sort of thing I do.
Secondary computer would probably find a way to explode if I tried to use it like that. Primary computer, on the other hand, was able to do some of that kind of stuff.
Awesome truck cries out for that. Full on, take as long as it needs, have me get back into reading up on the scientific articles to find the latest developments calls for that.
And I'm not complete without a primary computer. And I have difficulty coping with the fact that I walked through the morning into the afternoon on a sprained ankle and the, on getting home, couldn't swear about it for a good long time because secondary computer gets exhausted running google chrome
And I probably need new shoes to cut down on ankle spraining and where the fuck will I find the money for that?
* * *
* From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Original Radio Show, Episode 10
In today’s modern Galaxy there is, of course, very little still held to be unspeakable.
Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and, in extreme cases, shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech is seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed, and totally unf[bleep!]ked-up personality.
So, for instance, when in a recent national speech, the financial minister of the Royal World Estate of Qualvista actually dared to say that due to one thing and another, and the fact that no one had made any food for awhile and the king seemed to have died, and that most of the population had been on holiday now for over three years, the economy had now arrived at what he called, “One whole juju-flop situation,” everyone was so pleased he felt able to come out and say it, that they quite failed to notice that their five-thousand-year-old civilization had just collapsed overnight.
But though even words like “juju-flop,” “swut,” and “turlingdrome” are now perfectly acceptable in common usage, there is one word that is still beyond the pale. The concept it embodies is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the galaxy except one - where they don’t know what it means. That word is “Belgium” and it is only ever used by loose-tongued people like Zaphod Beeblebrox in situations of dire provocation.
Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and, in extreme cases, shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech is seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed, and totally unf[bleep!]ked-up personality.
So, for instance, when in a recent national speech, the financial minister of the Royal World Estate of Qualvista actually dared to say that due to one thing and another, and the fact that no one had made any food for awhile and the king seemed to have died, and that most of the population had been on holiday now for over three years, the economy had now arrived at what he called, “One whole juju-flop situation,” everyone was so pleased he felt able to come out and say it, that they quite failed to notice that their five-thousand-year-old civilization had just collapsed overnight.
But though even words like “juju-flop,” “swut,” and “turlingdrome” are now perfectly acceptable in common usage, there is one word that is still beyond the pale. The concept it embodies is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the galaxy except one - where they don’t know what it means. That word is “Belgium” and it is only ever used by loose-tongued people like Zaphod Beeblebrox in situations of dire provocation.
Remember back when I had a computer (this was back when I still could use a desktop) run a program for three days straight using so much of the on-board resources that I wondered if it might have simply frozen several times during those days because getting enough power to do anything else was difficult at best?
ReplyDeleteI don't blame you if you don't, I never did get around to showing the results so it ended up being little more than an offhand comment that Brin used as a jumping off point for a Doctor Who reference (weeping angels, if you're wondering) but that's the sort of thing I do.
I remember you mentioning it, but not my response. (I hate when that happens.)
Also, *hugs and ice packs*
Here's your response.
DeleteIt looks like:
1) I remembered wrong, I'd already switched over to laptop by that point
2) I first mentioned it only in the comments to a completely unrelated post where I had tried, and failed, to talk about the similarities between writer's block and depression (it ended up coming out like I was mistaking run of the mill writer's block for depression)
3) I didn't mention it in a main post until January of the next year.