The Day I Saw Steve Jobs; Lost Respect for Self

It started out like most Sundays for me. Woke late, hobble over to the computer, over to the kitchen, plod through my weekend routine like a brontosaurus. I eventually convinced myself, through a series of disgusted glances in the mirror, to make a stab at exercise. My masochism of choice is running, so I dug up the beat-ass New Balances and ventured A/F/K.

I should backtrack, because it's an annoying tease, and because I am allowing for adequate narrative to show that as hard as it is to read this comma-storm of a sentence, I was out working much harder - wheezing and coughing my way through an hour's worth of running. By way of a set-up, I had recently recieved a call corroborating beyond doubt a rumor that had been bothering me for months. My friend let me know that she had firsthand evidence of hirings for a Santa Barbara Apple Store location. This is news to me because I have longed for an official local emissary since I first sipped the Kool-Aid. That sip, incidentally, transformed me from the occasional DOS-game-player of my early youth into a rabid raconteur of Mac minutia. A long line of Apple products, along with a burgeoning passion for tech engineering and design, conspired to make me a true believer. So, with the prospect of this beautiful, Zen temple of technology impinging on my thoughts, I was in some way primed for what came next.

I came around the corner of Emerson and Pedregosa, jogging painfully over the shitty brown, hard- packed excuse for a sidewalk and nearly tasting lung, when I chanced to look up the road. I saw, walking up the middle of the second-steepest street in the city, a vision in black mock turtleneck and blue jeans. "Guy could pass for Steve Jobs," my oxygen-deprived brain mused lazily, "guy could really pass for Steve... Oh my god. Oh my god? Guy is Steve?". As I squinted at him to be sure I wasn't just baked, I nearly tripped over something. Surely the Reality Distortion Field must have steadied me, for the fankid stays in the game. Goosebumps made themselves apparent on my neck, embarassing some tiny department in my brain that sees things more pragmatically. I ran up the street, chasing my god and fumbling with my poorly designed Blackberry. [There's one for White Whine.] As paused for a minute to steady the camera for a photo, the full weight of this man's influence on my life descended upon me. Or maybe it was that I had just sprinted 300 yards up a 20% grade. I caught my breath and collected my thoughts. Should I shout out something at him? Phrases like, "68040 was the SHIT" and "I hated Sculley, too!" clamored for release. Should I calmly approach him and ask for an autograph - on my person?

Here was the man I subjected myself to months of studying for, the entrepreneurial force to be reckoned with upon whose professional life I long to base my own. I continued to follow him and his walking companion around the neighborhood, as they proceeded to point out relatively unremarkable architectural and vegetative details. After a while, I decided the experience would be best left unmarred by walking away to reconnoiter. I did that, and reflected upon the many ways in which him and his company have intertwined with my life. As a tool to further my knowledge of computer science and design, I have deeply incorporated the Mac and its legacy in both areas into my life. As a personal hero, of which I have precious few, I have always admired Steve. Both his charisma as a person and (barf) spiritual being, and his entrepreneurial and aesthetic aptitude have been major sources of inspiration for me. I can only hope that one day, I can stroll leisurely through the streets of my hometown, feeling entitled to and proud of my own lofty achievements.

I'll be carrying mace though, because you never can trust those fanboys.

There's Hope for the Internets, Me Yet

Well, I'm back to floggin' the blog.

Let me begin by making clear my distaste for this general concept. Scads of laypeople, most belonging to my generation, happily making public their inane ramblings and mental masturbations.

It is into this triumphantly self-involved fold that I make my return. I say return because this is not exactly new to me. A little more history than you probably want, or need to know:

During my last year of high school, I went through some pretty big changes. Transitioning from coddled, introverted private schooler to emancipated, liberated gay drum-beater was rough, and yielded quite a bit of personality slag. By that I mean that I had a lot of really strong idealism that needed an outlet. My convictions, underdeveloped as they were, proved a bit too far beyond the age-appropriate scope of beer-pong banter.

So I turned to the internets.

First came Myspace. I remember the girls who talked me into it, circa 2003. You know the type, always a phone to their ear, AIM on the screen, sharing girly titters about the latest Japanese megatrend. They convinced me that Myspace was SO much better than Friendster... I would be doomed to a luddite's life of online obscurity if I didn't climb aboard. Shortly thereafter, I became accustomed to expressing the freakish leavings of my overwrought adolescence in all manner of emerging portals... I digress. The first 'blog' I remember creating was a Livejournal. While that site is now regarded circumspectly by most members of the technorati, it got many of today's post-slingers feet wet with the new medium.

I consider most of what I have blogged about in the past to be inconsequential at face value. Upon recently rediscovering ramblings posted to my old LJ more than four years ago, my immediate reaction was horror, thinking about how long those inane turds were floating unfettered in the giant web-bidet. As my finger hovered over the 'delete all' button, I came to a division in my mind. Do I delete all embarrassing traces of my blase voice-crack phase, or do I keep them as a reminder of where I've been, and how far I've come?

How far have I come?

This is where I am now. I am a bankable employee, embarking on a career I never really planned on. I am an abstract thinker and writer with no time to pursue either. Yet when I take stock of my expressions as an eighteen-year-old, I realize that there's a lot between those Livejournal lines that still defines me. I am occasionally an effusive, enthusiastic student of life. I often have misanthropic feelings, but genuine empathy shows through the cracks now and then. Maybe there's a little more balance in the dichotomy of me than I had thought.

And perhaps there is something to blogging, after all.

Parker, Stone Cause Me to Shit My Pants... Again

It's... BRITNEH WAUTCH!



Don't worry, this blog isn't beginning its descent into banal television clippage, I just happen to find the first two seconds of this clip wildly hilarious.