Echopraxia

Golly. I awake from a lengthy hibernation to discover I have been comprehensively served in the comment section, both in the sense of "being outclassed" and also in the sense of "here, have this gigantic nacho." You guys rule.

(But will my attendant sense of shame and inadequacy at having let this space fall into disrepair prompt me to update as regularly as I should? Almost certainly not. And yet, living as close to Cleveland as I do, I am also aware that one must never underestimate the power of shame and inadequacy...)

Posted by zerlesen at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Posted by zerlesen at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Still in administrative limbo, which I'm going to use as my excuse for never updating this damn thing. Picture me floating in a fuzzy grey space, a waiting room of the soul, typing this at the rate of one keypress every two hours. There's something like four separate levels of bureaucracy to pass through before I can get to the "buy plane ticket" stage, which means I'm probably going to be buying that plane ticket the day before my contract starts. Before that, assuming my bona fides check out back on the other side of the Pacific, I'm going to have to present myself at the US consulate and do God knows what to convince them that I should be let into the country in time for the start of fall semester. Novelty Yankee Doodle costume? Recitation of anti-Communist limericks? There's a twenty-three-day waiting list (and a $130 fee) to get past the front desk, so I'll have time to come up with something.

Meanwhile, though, I'm stuck in Sydney, which might be one of the best places in the world in which to be stuck.

To pass the time, I've become obsessed with sites like this. I've learned that, when it comes to moving to the US, there's a very fine line between being a unskilled immigrant who's going to laze around and be a burden on the state, and being a skilled immigrant who's going to steal jobs from red-blooded Americans. The trick is to have just the right amount of skills.

UPDATE: However, the folks behind H1-B Visa Sucks! should certainly be apprehensive about competition from foreign website designers. I mean, damn.

Posted by zerlesen at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

What was that? Disappear for a month? Yes, I suppose I did. For the last couple of years, May has been Mid-Life Crisis Month, as my lease on academic life always seems about to expire, and I become morose and given to sullen contemplation of the private sector. No posts, I pledged, until the situation resolves itself. And so you can tell that now it has.

More substantial news to come soon, as there's a line of people waiting to use this computer. In the meantime, though, here are three important positional truths:

I think I'm settled on the layout. Tried to import Blogger archives; everything went horribly wrong; decided that Blogger archives might not be worth preserving for future generations after all.

Pointless, maybe, but at least it was less exercise than clearing my desk, which now features a fairly impressive archipelago of unbalanced half-reams, some typed and some scribbled, together with a system of weights to prevent them flying everywhere when I turn the fan on. Pizza boxes, food detritus, empty bottles of Toohey's round out the scene. I was going to clean the place, but now I'm afraid of giving away too much about myself.

Posted by zerlesen at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I am not a goth. All the other default Movable Type designs I tried were worse. I quite like the white-type-against-dark-background-with-no-pictures-of-cherubs look in principle, but it's a) hard to read and b) makes me look like a goth. This must be fixed.

UPDATE: I'm not sure I like it, but it definitely looks less goth-like now.

Posted by zerlesen at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With thanks to my nominally anonymous host, here is the new place.

Everything is different now.

Posted by zerlesen at 4:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)