Eccentric Flower:199905/the bold and the free
From Eccentric Flower
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may eleventh the bold and the free Today, assuming I finish my work fast enough, I am going to go shopping. I am going to buy T-shirts if I can find good ones, and I am going to buy them in colors other than the narrow range I usually buy. I am going to take my film to the one-hour place to be developed. I am then going to go home and I am going to paint my fingernails pink. And no one will dare say anything about it at work tomorrow. I almost went to work today with one of those C-shaped hair things - you know, the kind that fits over your head that you use to hold your hair out of your face? I like having my hair out of my eyes and this may be attractive when my hair gets longer. Right now my hair is a little too short for that, so I decided not to. The question is, would anyone at work have said anything? I'm beginning to think not. The only comment I have yet gotten from my boss about the nail polish is "Nice nail polish." And he meant it sincerely. It's making me dangerously bold. Watch out. - - - I got a lot of emails about yesterday's rant. I haven't replied to them yet; sorry. But in brief, I am now convinced there are good reasons for Geocities et al ... even though I personally wouldn't want to use them. Several people noted that their only web access was from work and a provider of that type was the only kind of personal web space they could get to. Others noted the anonymity factor. Others noted the ease-of-use factor - people who aren't too confident in their net abilities. The money was mentioned a few times, but turned out to be less important than those three. Actually the money was an eye-opener. I've been really, really poor, yet I wouldn't have flinched at paying ten bucks a month for web services - or would I have? I don't know. Maybe so. My attitude is that I pay the bills first and then wonder how I'm going to eat, and I've never understood how people do it the other way 'round. I didn't have web hosting during my hand-to-mouth phase, not because of money but because Baton Rouge was very late to the web game. But if I'd had it, I would have just put it under "fixed costs," like my phone bill and other utilities, and paid it first every month before figuring out what money was left. I don't consider web hosting and internet access a luxury. I consider it a necessity. I'd tell you what I'm paying every month, but I suspect it would frighten some of you. Anyway ... Geocities and that ilk are annoying - even the people who spoke in favor of such services admitted that - but I suppose I concede their worth. I personally feel that I can achieve anonymity and ease of access with real ISPs, but again, that may be a case of knowing the right buttons to push. This site would be anonymous if I hadn't spilled the beans, for example (domain registration can be done via a proxy) ... and I hardly ever need telnet or FTP with Heliotrope around, just a web browser. So I have all those advantages, but I admit that they required a fair amount of legwork to set up in the first place. Oh, well. © columbine |
