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I have been cheerfully keeping up with the Large Hadron Collider, step by step this morning (it's much more fun than working). So, I am absolutely the man to ask:
Has the LHC destroyed the earth yet?
Has the LHC destroyed the earth yet?
Sep. 10th, 2008
Mr Angry of Fenham View
Sep. 10th, 2008 04:21 pmHonestly, anyone would think I enjoyed complaining and making a fuss, they keep giving me so many opportunities to do it. (For any of you in doubt: actually not, no. Stuff like this eats my brain, and I have books to write; I really don't want to spend half the day composing acid e-mails.)
I may never buy over the internets again. Three times this month I ordered Stuff, and all three have been fucked up by idiots at the other end, and I am sick to death of chasing them. Best so far is Virgin Trains, who sent me two tickets out of the three I booked; I have chased them for a fortnight, and they finally said "ooh, you're right; we'll sort that out" - and this morning I find they have charged me again for all three, and still not sent me the outstanding ticket. Aurgggh!
And I was just in the middle of composing a message out of red-hot lava when the phone rang, and that was Dell asking if I was aware that my printer was about to run out of toner, and would I like to order some more...?
(And, all right, I said yes. I actually think it's quite clever, the way the printer tips them off when it's nearly empty. If I get anything other than what I ordered, though, I will go just incandescent. Hang around; I expect it...)
I may never buy over the internets again. Three times this month I ordered Stuff, and all three have been fucked up by idiots at the other end, and I am sick to death of chasing them. Best so far is Virgin Trains, who sent me two tickets out of the three I booked; I have chased them for a fortnight, and they finally said "ooh, you're right; we'll sort that out" - and this morning I find they have charged me again for all three, and still not sent me the outstanding ticket. Aurgggh!
And I was just in the middle of composing a message out of red-hot lava when the phone rang, and that was Dell asking if I was aware that my printer was about to run out of toner, and would I like to order some more...?
(And, all right, I said yes. I actually think it's quite clever, the way the printer tips them off when it's nearly empty. If I get anything other than what I ordered, though, I will go just incandescent. Hang around; I expect it...)
I honestly thought I wasn't going to write anything more tonight. Even apart from all the stupid distractions of stupid people being stupid, I finished a chapter earlier today and my head hurts, inconsolably; that ought to be enough. Also, I have homework to do: a book on climate change to read and digest, and several papers on geoengineering and why it might be a really bad idea. I thought I might just sit in my comfy chair for an hour and do reading, and that would absolutely count as working.
But. If I go to bed without at least starting the next chapter, I won't start it when I get up either, because that first leap is always harder first thing, I need to be oiled and warm and ready. So I have mixed myself the perfect Bloody Mary, which is comfort-drinking in this house and ideal for headaches, and I seem already to have flung a few words at chapter whatever, without any grief at all.
It's funny, I've been through years and years where it was sooo hard to get myself to write; this last couple of years, the hard thing seems to be stopping. What changed, 'zackly? I dunno, but it might actually be the internets. My prolixity coincides more or less exactly with my broadbandedness, and hence my discovery of LJ. Can it really be that the sudden awareness of community, this shared writing-space dimension, this constant conversation about the thing, has reawoken my earlier amateur pleasure in the job? Before it was my job, nobody could stop me writing; for the thirty-odd years that followed, it was really hard to get me started. And now - well. Here I am. Here I go. Again.
But. If I go to bed without at least starting the next chapter, I won't start it when I get up either, because that first leap is always harder first thing, I need to be oiled and warm and ready. So I have mixed myself the perfect Bloody Mary, which is comfort-drinking in this house and ideal for headaches, and I seem already to have flung a few words at chapter whatever, without any grief at all.
It's funny, I've been through years and years where it was sooo hard to get myself to write; this last couple of years, the hard thing seems to be stopping. What changed, 'zackly? I dunno, but it might actually be the internets. My prolixity coincides more or less exactly with my broadbandedness, and hence my discovery of LJ. Can it really be that the sudden awareness of community, this shared writing-space dimension, this constant conversation about the thing, has reawoken my earlier amateur pleasure in the job? Before it was my job, nobody could stop me writing; for the thirty-odd years that followed, it was really hard to get me started. And now - well. Here I am. Here I go. Again.