1:30 pm After a quick shower, I decide to check in on Bamboo Gardens and leave Blade email about a few minor changes in the code for Scream 3. He breaks into chat; turns out he has a new project for me and he needs some help installing software. I wanna finish debugging the hypertext poetry anthology I'm building, so I agree to wander by around four. Fairly cool since he lives a whole seven blocks away.
Nothing much is happening on After Hours (the chat board), so I have to actually work. Just before leaving I load Minihost. Nothing like a modem answering machine to really confuse people.
4:20 Blade is, of course, on the phone when I get there. His room seems to be the place where zines go to die. I amuse myself while waiting by calculating how many dead trees are represented. Then I decide to name them all. Then... he does get off the phone, eventually.
Among the new projects he has for me is an interview with a guy who wrote a menstrual cycle tracking program. Something about paternity suit protection. Weird, but not unusual for Blade.
7:30 pm Frozen yogurt is on major sale at a grocery store that's kinda north, so I'm waiting for a bus. And waiting. And Waiting. If the driver's 20 minutes late, does it even matter anymore? i get the yogurt, then get to wait for a bus home. Apparently, I send out antibus pheromones; this one's late, too. And as I'm getting off to change buses, my shopping bag starts leaking frozen yogurt. The nutritional value of my pants has just increased, and my toes are sticky. I'm sure this is outweighed by the entertainment value of watching a woman struggle with a bus door while a thin white stream of fluid oozes from her green mesh bag. Too bad I'm not in the audience.
10:30 pm Home! I check my messages; a sysop friend wants me to check in on her place while she's out of town over the weekend and (oops) a guy I was sposed to go out with called and left a plaintive message about how hard I am to get hold of. I guess we'll have to reschedule. I log on to After Hours to see what's up. Someone's posted about a party, but it's way south and I don't feel like fighting the city bus system to get out there. I could prolly bum a ride in chat, but why bother? I'm too zenned out to move tonight anyway.
11:00 pm Checking on Bamboo Gardens again, I find out that I've fried Blade's hard drive. Or at least, he says I have. It's not like it hasn't been giving him problems lately anyway. He'll adapt. Or kill me. I promise to try to fix it.
12:30 am Some "clever" newbie, impatient with the system (you get two calls/day, 15 minutes/call until you're validated), keeps logging on new. First he was Max; two calls later he was Maxtwo... This is not A Good Way to get the sysop's attention. He turns out to be an abusive child anyway. I get elected to be in private chat with him, and relay our convo to the others: [private comments sent to me during]
4:45 am Things are winding down as maintenance shut-down time approaches.
5:10 am Sorry to interrupt, but After Hours will be shutting down in 10 minutes for the nightly "Auto-Cleanup" process. Please finish up quickly.
Six of us make it to the bitter end this night. As I stagger away from my machine and collapse into bed, I wonder if Bluedevil's dreaming of cat shit...