I'm not talking about hoverboards right now, either - though that was probably the only good part of Back to the Future III except for the turbo-logs in the train, which I thought was pretty ridiculous. What I'm talking about is another bit of older computing stuff, the IBM Model M keyboards. There's a reason for this - though maybe just the strangest reason. So, it all started with NPR, who played this radio piece about "The One True Keyboard," which was, of course, the Model M. Big old lunker, some five-and-a-half pounds of keyboard complete with 4mm plastic casing and a steel plate, but most importantly, some very loud buckling-spring keyswitches.

The technololgy is actually pretty simple: finger presses the key, coil spring inside bends until it buckles (hence the name) and activates the contact. All this is contained within a big plastic tube. So, what you get is a pretty invulnerable keyboard. They were made from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s by IBM and Lexmark, then a group of ex-IBM enthusiasts started producing them under the name Unicomp. People seriously love these things. So, I checked some videos on Youtube, and it seemed like a helluva lot of fun, but they also said that the tactile response was amazing. IBM claimed that it feels like a Selectric. So, of course, I went to Ebay, found one for ten bucks, and bought it. Yeah, frivolous spending. Nothing new for me.

So, yesterday I was coming back into town, and there's this real dive shop on the edge of Dekalb called Bargain Hunter, which is sort of like a pawn shop but with less guns and more religious fundamentalism. But I remembered, from the first time I went in there, and found out that it's as bad on the inside as it looks outside, that there were a bunch of great bloody huge bins of keyboards in the place. So, I summon my courage, go back in, and start digging through these huge bins of beige plastic. Bottom of the third bin, I find a Model M2, the M's smaller brother. Four bucks. Of course I buy it. The thing was from a mechanics - looked like it had had a whole quart of oil on it. But I took it home, cleaned it up, and now I'm typing this out on it.

So now I'm going to have two Model Ms. I suppose that's nice, in case one of them dies. In 2050 or something.

So, lessons learned. Does it feel like a Selectric? No, not really. The Selectrics had a very short, smooth keystroke. The M2 feels a bit longer, with increasing pressure until you get to the break point, where it goes smooth. Not that that's bad - in fact, it's better than any keyboard I've ever used before. And the sound is fun, too. Because the springs slow the momentum of your fingers graudally, it's not nearly as fatiguing to type for long periods.

Also, they've got dates of manufacture printed on the bottoms so you can celebrate their birthdays. My M2 will be 16 in February.

It's gonna be a big party.

^{All the typewriters will be in attendance.}

Okay, so I love Brie. It's really a great cheese... I wouldn't really be bothered if I had to snack on it all day - though I'm not really eager for a heart attack at 25. It's also responsible for making me violently flatulent, but this was after I'd come home, so it's not like anyone was suffering from it but me.

Also, while I'm thinking about food, I've got to mention that I'm not really certain where in Europe some of my ancestry is from. And this is recent, like 1 or 2 generations ago. The stock answer has always been "Poland", which makes sense, since my mom's side is from Berwyn, but then they also told me that I'm "Bohemian", which is sort of vague, and then I find out my grandfather speaks Czech. Which would explain all the hoska my entire life. My mom and sister know the recipe, and I'm planning on trying to make it myself a few times over the winter, partially because I wanna carry on in the old ways, et cetera, and then because I'd really like to make a bacon hoska.

Heard a friend say there's a typewriter shop around here, too. I'm gonna do a little HUMINT on that one, heh. This, more than anything, is good news for me, because the local Craigslists have jsut been yielding a bunch of shitty pre-war desktops and 90s word processors recently, and Ebay listings are also starting to slack. Dunno if it's the holidays or what.

So yeah, I keep going with my novel (just around 50K words now), but other than that nothing much has changed. Saw Demolition Man for the first time today and I thought it was hilarious and awesome, so I'm continuing on with some goodbad period music.

^{Playlist:
Van Halen - Jump
Todd Rundgren - Bang The Drum All Day
Duran Duran - Rio
Vanilla Ice - Rollin' In My 5.0}

All right, so when I woke up for work on the 31st, there was a distro upgrade available. At this point, I was about ready to throw my laptop out the window - 9.04 was buggy for me, with very unstable 3D acceleration, problems with sound output, the headphone jacks - there wasn't much that wasn't borked in some manner or another. Really not very fun to deal with - the CPU was working its ass off to keep things moving on the screen, so my battery life peaked at maybe 2 hours. Overall, it was piss-poor. So, I went for the upgrade without any research - fuck, if I lost everything, I wouldn't really give a damn. So, went for the upgrade, and went for work.

Came back home to find the boot screen on 9.10, Karmic Koala, and upon logging in, I found that all the problems had just evaporated. Proper video drivers, better sound, and with that there was the capacity for all sorts of eye-candy now that the machine was in proper order. Aside from that, there's some interesting new utilities - the Software Center replaces Add/Remove from later versions, which is actually pretty nice, despite skepticism. Additionally, there's an Art Manager for downloading appearance packs straight from art.gnome, which is really handy.

All in all I think it's a great upgrade, and I know lots of people with HP boxes were having big problems. I think that now would be the time to give Ubuntu a shot, if you're curious - this is definitely one of the better releases I've seen.

Although I do sort of reminisce about 6.06, way back in the day, when things were simple, and I was but a noob...

Okay, so my homie/friend and fellow typewriting enthusiast has been posting this series of journals for most of October about strange paranormal stuff to get everybody in the mood Halloween, or perhaps to upstage TAPS. Anyway, there's all these incidences detailed there, and as I read them, I started to wonder why I'd never seen anything so strange. Never even felt odd, you know?

Until last week, that was. I saw what might have possibly been the most bizarre and terrifying thing in my whole existence.

Okay, so I went to bed early in the morning, probably around 0130 or something like that. I make the bed, pull the covers over myself, and pass out. Pretty tired - I think I had been playing Timesplitters or something. Next morning, I wake up, get out of bed, and pull the blankets off to make the sheet again. I mean, the sheet that I have over the mattress isn't really tucked in very tight, and every morning it's a mess. This morning, I turn the lights on, and - get this - THE SHEET IS PERFECTLY SMOOTH AND MADE OUT. 100%.

So what is this? Clearly, it's flying straight in the face of the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics. It's never happened to me before, and I don't know what kind of circumstances would have to come together to get it to work out...

So yeah, beyond that, I sat down and finished Norwegian Wood. It was... well, not bad, but sort of average for Murakami, I thought. No crazy plot twists. Nobody who was particularly outrageous. Lots of people offing themselves. So, as far as concept goes, I enjoyed Wind-Up Bird and Hard-Boiled Wonderland much more, but it certainly wasn't bad. Reading his prose is really enjoyable for me, so I suppose that he could write a Ulysses sort of thing where absolutely fuckall happens and I'd still keep turning the pages.

Speaking of novels, my current work is pushing 45,000 words right now at about the 5/8ths mark... so maybe, allowing for a bit of slackening, some 60-75,000 words when completed? It's still in space, there's still SPACE CRIMES to be solved, but it's just longer. I couldn't exactly post it here, you see, mostly due to length and partially due to my intentions of publishing in the future, but take my word for it... it's pretty good.

So yeah, I'm gonna have to turn in the paperwork for another independent study at Northern Illinois, since the term's nearly up. Keeping on writing, though. The Olympia is still going strong, so there's no telling where I might stop.

^{As for this journal - well, it stops right here.}

So yeah, I finished off my Glenfiddich 12 last week, which left me without a scotch. Got paid, thought about it for a bit, and I had always wanted to try an Islay, so I figured that I'd get a good one. I got a bottle of 15-year Laphroaig, and I took it home after work, and after uncorking it, only then does it dawn on me that I've got a head cold, so it won't taste like much if I can't smell anything.

So, I kinda got all let down, but then I poured a little bit anyways - like half a finger. Still pretty damn good.

I think next weekend I'm gonna buy a big 1.75L of Black Label so I'll have something I can drink and not feel bad about.