self indugence and the written word

Here's a series of "teasers" with links to the rest of each piece. Feel free to let me know what you think...

"As a US citizen living overseas, I'm in an interesting position to watch my homeland from the perspective of a foreigner. Frankly, despite my love for the land of America and many of its people, I'm feeling nothing but contempt and frustration at the simplicity and/or deviousness of its government. That the people of the US have - perhaps not uniformly willingly, but without successful resistance - sacrificed in their own homeland the very freedom (that their forefathers struggled to propagate worldwide) in the name of "security" speaks volumes on a dying empire in its first stages of collapse..."    [read more]

"Many people flick emails with attached Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents to friends, colleagues, even whole mailing lists without a second thought. Most people think this is the most convenient approach - it succeeds in conveying perfectly formatted text that others can read, modify, and it's the industry standard. Right? Well, no, not really. Sending Microsoft Office files as email attachments, especially to people you don't know personally, as in the case of email lists, is very undesirable for both you and them for a number of reasons..."    [read more]

"On account of my being so far off the beaten track here in New Zealand, I've taken it upon myself to compose a record of my activities over the past year (AD 2002) for the benefit of those with whom I don't get to kibitz on a regular basis."

"Most of you who received emails from me over the past year in which I lower expectations for further correspondence by using the term "very busy" at least 3 times might wonder "what does he really mean by busy? Is it just a Dave-euphemism for lazy?" Well, frankly, that's a fair question, and one which I will address as follows. Not long ago, I returned to the Egressive offices on the heels of a fairly standard weekend to discover an email from a friend of mine saying something like "hi Dave, I had a good weekend, but the tramp I was supposed to go on got cancelled because of rain... What'd you get up to?" After a quick nap (on account of being all shagged out from the weekend), I responded something like this..."    [read more]

"What is faith? By most definitions, it involves having a conviction in something for which you have no evidence. People have, probably since the advent of sentient thought, created stories to explain how we got here, our purpose for being here, and what happens after we "depart" (which also assumes that we "go somewhere else"). The interesting thing about this litany of faiths is that they share many common concepts, providing fuel for thousands of comparative religion theses, but that they're all different. Moreover, since those stories are communicated by their originators to others via spoken and written word ambiguities are introduced..."    [read more]

"It was between Christmas and New Years, high summer in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Paul and I spent a slow hot day in the sun, hooking irrigation hoses and drips to their support wires in his family's fledgling vineyards. When we'd had enough, at about five in the evening, we headed back down the hill to our caravan in the paddock. As always, we had a cup of tea first. Then I remembered the 6 cans of Speights - the touchstone of the South Island kiwi identity, and a fine lager besides - that I'd left held down by a rock in the burbling race nearby. I went to the bridge over the race where I'd left them... and... they were gone..."    [read more]

"This is where I put thoughts, poems and micro-vignettes that don't fit neatly in any other category..."

"This is the first attempt to record some of these disparate scraps of written jumble that I have stockpiled over the years... Will it inspire or will it return home to haunt me? Time will tell. Either way, it's information, however chaotic, so it deserves to be accessible for possible discovery by someone emminently more qualified than I to see the reason in the rhyme."

"It might help to read some of these aloud (but, I recommend, quietly. Or with a look of righteous disdain so people can tell you're not taking any of it seriously...). A further note of caution: the following do contain the odd cuss word, so please stop now if you're easily offended or morally simplistic (sorry, redundant)..."    [read more]

"...rugged individuals have 4 wheel drive
they thrive in their jungles of steel,
but curbs are a might obstacle
for those who refuse to step up..."    [read more]