27 Feb 2006 C.E.
He who dies with the most toys is a pauper in the end.
Entered 09:34:36 AM Terra, Sol-III Mutter's Spiral
Last night, I lay awake in bed, restless, as happens to me from time to time when the insomnia comes. In the dark predawn hours, I cast my mind adrift to ponder. Lying there, I was struck by all the blinking lights on in my room cutting into the night. Lights from my DSL Router / hub. My bue LED studded computer case. My colour Laser Printer, glow in the dark keyboard, HD monitor. All the rewards of finally being able to work. As a geek, there was a time when this treasure was my sole aspiration, the height of my worldly desire, the things that I longed for, revered and worshipped. I had thought, in my childish simplicity, that having these things would make my life whole, complete. That I could sail through life unimpeded if, like one of Gibson's Hackers, I had the sweetest deck. But as I lay there studying the light patterns reflecting off the ceiling, trying to rest, I realized that now, even with all this, there is something else required without which it is all empty and meaningless.
(enigmatic smile here)
14 Feb 2006 C.E.
Blast and damn it all.
Entered 10:27:50 PM Terra, Sol-III Mutter's Spiral
Today was the first day I actively hated my job. Normally law is merely an annoyance, a thing I put up with to pay the bills and keep myself alive another day. But today, my job got in the way of something important. Something vital. It prevented me from fulfilling a promise I had made not only to a dear friend of mine, but to myself as well. It robbed me of something precious and vital that will never come again, a moment in history that deserved to be appreciated and enjoyed for what it was, when it was, not in some belated attempt to make up for a shattered moment. I know intellectually that circumstances were out of my control, that it wasn't my fault things were scheduled as they were, or that the boss would decide to keep me in the office until such time as all hope of even salvaging the day were lost. But I still feel sad, and hollow and empty. For myself, yes, but moreso for another. They did not deserve this, to have to be subject to the vagarities of a legal system that caused them to have another lousy day. They deserved so much more, to be treated so much better, and it is to my infinite regret that I wasn't able to make that happen. I tried my best not to make it happen. But I failed, and it hurts. Hurts me, hurts them. I have to remind myself at times like this that my work is an important means to an end; but what's the point of it all if that which is most important to me has to suffer in the process?
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"The matter of why Doctor Xadium's Time Capsule is fixed in the curious shape of a 'beverage vending machine' from late 20th-century Earth [Humanian Era 607934] is a subject never broached in polite conversation. Ever. Whilst some have scurrilously posited that Xadium cannot properly effect the repair of a simple Type 60 Chamelionic circuit, it is generally accepted that these disgraceful innuendo are slanderous and utterly unfounded." - Lord Sendrilmetavanskastaron, "The Gallifreyan Renegades", thirty-eleventh ed. D O C T O R 
"Doctor Xadium was an errant Time Lord whose overactive sense of humour at High Council meetings earned him a more or less permanent holiday from Gallifrey. Stuck on Earth trying to cobble together a new TARDIS-- but equipped with nothing more than the technological equivalent of bear-skins and stone knives (as well as some metal tape)-- he decided to use his time to follow the myriad trends in Terran society, studying their crude, primitive laws and laughable attempts to improve themselves scientifically. Aproximately 26 Earth-years into his exile, in order to offset his growing frustration with the 'self-involved, short-sighted, bombastic ape-monkeys with delusions of grandeur"', he took to irregularly recording his more sardonic-- or dare we say even cynical-- views on the ever-progressing devolution of 21st century human civilization (not to mention his own petty irritations) in his 900-year diary, excerpts of which we have extracted from the data core of his notoriously insecure Terran 'computing device' (which in terms of function is slightly less advanced then a Gallifreyan child's first number line). It is almost refreshing to note the ceaseless amazement he displays at the Terran propensity to supress any information, be it political, archaeological or scientific, that gets in the way of their pedestrian, self-absorbed world-view. It is for this reason that historians have labeled Doctor Xadium 'The Discoverer of Obvious Truth' - Lord Sendrilmetavanskastaron, "The Gallifreyan Renegades", thirty-eleventh ed., WHO IS GOING TO GET SUED ONCE I GET BACK TO GALLIFREY BECAUSE HE DOESN'T REALIZE MY SUB-ETHER NET CONNECTION STILL WORKS AND I CAN SEE THE ABSOLUTE RUBBISH HE'S SPEWING FORTH OVER THERE AT THE OPPOSITE END OF THE GALAXY T H E |