Waiting for...
No, I wasn't waiting for him - we know he never comes no matter how many times we see the play.
I was waiting for the re-immergence from cyberspace of the PureSmoker site.
I sat there, vulture-like, clicking refresh over and over...
I felt like Sidney Greenstreet, waiting for the Dingus that never came.
Or perhaps like the same man in another city, swatting flies and waiting for his next shipment of ... what? tobacco, hashish, a fresh flock of dancing girls out of the desert?
Of course, I am not that man, although he (as he was then) and I are of an age and present similar portly appearances.
I was seated before a device that neither the owner of the Blue Parrot or the urban Dingus hunter could have possible imagined. My computer room is the smallest of a Queens jr. four, heated partially by the bank of vacuum tube amplifiers that power my music system.
And in the glow of those vintage firebottles I pressed Refresh! again and again...to no avail. The music had no power to sooth, the wine I was imbibing could not salve my impatience.
WHERE WAS STEVE?
Surely he would not abandon us. Had his new server gone on the fritz? Had power failed in his new Tennessee home? Had aliens invaded the South?
Click and once more click. Pray, let me not see that message again, tormenting me with the promise of new and exciting products. Dii immortales, date mehi virtutem! I hunger, I lust, I drool!
And for what? Is it Steve's delicious Coke juice that has the best taste and strongest hit of any juice I have tried? No, I have a big bottle of that wonderful stuff.
What then, I say?
I WANNA BADA-BING!!!! I'm not even sure what the bloody thing is, but I want it and I want it NOW!!!!
Click. Click. Click. Sometimes an hour glass appears for a while and I hold my breath; but it's just the delay caused by the rest of you trying to pass the door that isn't there yet, mired one and all in the same existential mess.
Click. Click. Click. I cry out: "Open the pod bay door, Steve!"
No answer. Silencio.
Nearly an hour has passed. But wait...could I have been an hour early? I never did get the time zones right, and Daylight Stupid Time always confuses me. I watch the big hand slowly approach 12...
Click. Click. Click. and then...
I'm in! The site is up! I see the Bada_Bing: and I chicken out. I can have it, so naturally I don't want it. (I've been hanging out with my cat too much).
I order some batteries and atomizers and juice, juice, juice!
But although that cyber door has opened at last, I don't see myself finally shaking hands with the elusive Godot.
(Bogie's voice)
I see myself belted in to a seat on a DC-3 with a Trojan horse emblem on its side, winging off toward Lisbon beside the most beautiful woman who ever lived.
Here's looking at you, kid!
No, I wasn't waiting for him - we know he never comes no matter how many times we see the play.
I was waiting for the re-immergence from cyberspace of the PureSmoker site.
I sat there, vulture-like, clicking refresh over and over...
I felt like Sidney Greenstreet, waiting for the Dingus that never came.
Or perhaps like the same man in another city, swatting flies and waiting for his next shipment of ... what? tobacco, hashish, a fresh flock of dancing girls out of the desert?
Of course, I am not that man, although he (as he was then) and I are of an age and present similar portly appearances.
I was seated before a device that neither the owner of the Blue Parrot or the urban Dingus hunter could have possible imagined. My computer room is the smallest of a Queens jr. four, heated partially by the bank of vacuum tube amplifiers that power my music system.
And in the glow of those vintage firebottles I pressed Refresh! again and again...to no avail. The music had no power to sooth, the wine I was imbibing could not salve my impatience.
WHERE WAS STEVE?
Surely he would not abandon us. Had his new server gone on the fritz? Had power failed in his new Tennessee home? Had aliens invaded the South?
Click and once more click. Pray, let me not see that message again, tormenting me with the promise of new and exciting products. Dii immortales, date mehi virtutem! I hunger, I lust, I drool!
And for what? Is it Steve's delicious Coke juice that has the best taste and strongest hit of any juice I have tried? No, I have a big bottle of that wonderful stuff.
What then, I say?
I WANNA BADA-BING!!!! I'm not even sure what the bloody thing is, but I want it and I want it NOW!!!!
Click. Click. Click. Sometimes an hour glass appears for a while and I hold my breath; but it's just the delay caused by the rest of you trying to pass the door that isn't there yet, mired one and all in the same existential mess.
Click. Click. Click. I cry out: "Open the pod bay door, Steve!"
No answer. Silencio.
Nearly an hour has passed. But wait...could I have been an hour early? I never did get the time zones right, and Daylight Stupid Time always confuses me. I watch the big hand slowly approach 12...
Click. Click. Click. and then...
I'm in! The site is up! I see the Bada_Bing: and I chicken out. I can have it, so naturally I don't want it. (I've been hanging out with my cat too much).
I order some batteries and atomizers and juice, juice, juice!
But although that cyber door has opened at last, I don't see myself finally shaking hands with the elusive Godot.
(Bogie's voice)
I see myself belted in to a seat on a DC-3 with a Trojan horse emblem on its side, winging off toward Lisbon beside the most beautiful woman who ever lived.
Here's looking at you, kid!
