I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Monday, June 8, 2009

Councilman on the run

Busy day at work, and busy day on council (played stand-in water board liaison tonight for a packed house of people upset with some bills), so not much from me tonight.

So, anybody else out there listen to podcasts at work? If so, I have a question. Is it just my place but when I start playing a podcast, that's the time that everybody around me starts making noise. They talk, call out to each other, etc. But when I'm not playing podcasts they all keep quiet.

Now, I wait until things are quiet to play a podcast so I can listen to it. Once I start, then everybody starts talking to each other or talk loudly on the phone, the heating/air conditioning starts up, people get paged. When I'm not playing a podcast, things get very quiet.

So I'm starting to do experiments. I'm tried listening to the latest "Writing Excuses" on "Non-liner story telling" today. It's only 16 minutes long, and I've stopped and started it four times.

Tomorrow night looks about the same (as the same issue will spill over to there). Fun fun fun for me. Plus all the other stuff going on with the village.

5 comments:

Gabriel Novo said...

Seems the world conspires against us all from time to time. I've had similar things happen when sitting down to write or when picking up a book.

I'm assuming the headphones aren't blocking the noise out? If you can stand the oddness, in-ear canal headphones are the best for cutting out noise. Every flight I used them on was an absolute dream, even when sitting by the engines.

BTW "stand-in water board liaison" is hilarious

Rick said...

Hi Steve! I don't actually listen to podcasts because they remind me of those things in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Also, I am in fact still trying to figure out my cell phone.

Steve Buchheit said...

Gabriel, it was unintended humor I assure you. I'm running iTunes on the desktop machine for the podcast, and I have to move around a lot (including to the Windows PC behind me), so headphones wouldn't be a good thing (I've tried them with my iPod to so so results).

Rick, welcome back to the land of the living! My nephews know what a techie junkie I am, so when they finally found out I had a cell phone they we're all, "Let me see it!" They were highly disappointed that my cell phone, alas, is just a phone (no camera, no hidden keyboard, no custom ring tones). Which is the way I like it.

Rick said...

Hey, are you going to ConClave 2009? We have to get you as a speaker again! I told Jody I'd contact you and ask you to email him your ideas on what panels there should be for fiction. Are you up for that? It'd be great to see you again.

Steve Buchheit said...

Rick, I don't know at the moment. I'm going to get my application in for Viable Paradise this year (I've been thinking about it for six years, seriously for the past three, I really wanted to apply last year but I didn't have anything to submit, this year I do, and the instructor line up is the same which I take it as the universe giving me a second chance) which is the week before. It's also a lot of money (which would hamper any travel schedule).

If I'm accepted to VP, and I'm able to go, it'll be by the skin of my teeth financially. I just put Confluence (Pittsburgh) back on the schedule. And I've verbally committed to doing Confusion (Detroit) in January.

I'd like to try Conclave again. I think they had some issues with changing venues, so this year should see a better turnout. Plus, I had great fun with you all last year (and had time to hang out, unlike the past Confusion).