Monday, September 03, 2007

returned, with tan lines worse than ever

I'm back, bitches! Did you miss me? Of course you did.

Now that I've taken a long hot bath with lemon-thyme bubbles, immediately followed by an even longer hot shower, it's time to say hello to my gentle readers.

I suffered surprisingly little electronic withdrawal this past week in the internet-free desert. In fact, I quite liked antiquated living! To wit, a few examples from desert life compared to my normal lifestyle:

1. Desert: Friends drop by unannounced every day for lovely impromptu visits.

Normal life: Friend emails invitation to hang out at an event. Forget to reply. Five days later, re-discover email in horror. Apologize profusely. Friend points out with irritation that the event has already passed.


2. Desert: As friend is talking, listen. Appreciate the interesting conversation.

Normal life: As friend is talking, discreetly check blackberry under the table. When friend gets angry, protest that the email you're reading is actually from them, so you're not truly ignoring them.


3. Desert: Email accumulates over the week. Return home to find lots of nice reading material in inbox.

Normal life: Due to blackberry, constantly check email. Reply to 50% of emails within thirty minutes, making senders think they're conversing with some kind of loser with no life. Realize this impression may be accurate. Consider checking email less often, then decide instead to petition Gmail team to implement "delayed send" feature.




Later I'll get my act together to post photos and journal excerpts and narratives of my Burning Man journey. For now, I'll leave you with a dialogue exchange that I found entertaining.

Mid-week, I'm talking to a male Googler and his girlfriend. She is wearing ropes tied in an elaborate bondage pattern, and no other clothing besides the ropes. He is holding one end of the rope. (I'm fully and normally clothed in this story -- don't get any wrong ideas.)

Me: [to the guy] These knots are really fancy. Did you find this pattern somewhere, or come up with it on your own?

Guy: I used the Google-branded search engine...

Me: What is that? Some kind of special Google-licensed search for bondage?

Guy: No, I mean that I used google.com. But as you know, if you say you "google" for something, it weakens our trademark. Thus, instead of saying "I googled it", you should say "I used the Google-branded search engine." And that's what I did, to find this rope bondage pattern, which I made slightly modifications to.

Me: That is the geekiest possible answer to a bondage question.

Bystanders: [chuckling]

Me: [thinking] So this is what Burning Man is like.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tan lines? I'm confused, I thought you went to Burning Man. Are you sure you were doing it right?

Unknown said...

Glad to hear you made it back alive.

Dean said...

Yes, we did miss you... but if you show us those tan lines, all will be forgivin

Anonymous said...

i heard to use "i googled this&that" if you refer to the Google Search Engine. But you should not use "i googled this&that" if you did a search at yahoo&co

Anonymous said...

A geek is a geek, even when he visits burning man.

RC, the Netherlands

Charlie Martin said...

(I'm fully and normally clothed in this story -- don't get any wrong ideas.)

Damn.

Minya said...

Glad to see another new post! Totally agree on the delayed sent feature.. I am always desperate for it when trying to email my bf at 5am. he hates to see me stay up..

Anonymous said...

"I am back, bitches!" Wow, a new in-your-face attitude to match with the tan lines? :-) Welcome back. You've missed much, except for the impending global financial meltdown.

Anonymous said...

Close up pics of tan lines, ploz.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, eharmony has a new commercial.
I hope you liked it. It showsd a picture of you with your perfect match. Ha ha ha