Phil’s Sweater
I hate to do this. I’ve shoved it out of my mind for about a week now and it keeps coming back (I should probably just unsubscribe in my RSS reader…): I’m tired of reading the illustrious Philip Greenspun’s weblog. I’m tired of entries, like today’s, that start out:
Over breakfast at a favorite little French cafe in Harvard Square today a friend who is getting a master’s in Public Health at Harvard mentioned that…
Or:
About 15 of us trundled over to Harvard’s Science Center last night for a talk by David Haig, a newly tenured biology professor.
Yes, you trundled. Charming. Hey, Phil! Maybe it’s just because I’m a dumb Georgia native, public school graduate, and resident, but lately I feel like I’m reading a parody of stereotypical liberal New Englanders in The New Yorker each time I click on your latest post. Who enjoys this sweater-wearing, Harvard Square Masters Degree-framing intellectualism? This is not a Your Mom joke, but really - who else would enjoy this but your proud mum?
While down in Chile, I read a biography of Che Guevara by Jon Lee Anderson, the New Yorker magazine writer.
(Emphasis in original) Of course you did - “when in Chile…” You also invented photo.net, perhaps the web’s most useful photography site, so I’ll cut you a break and admit that, had I had a blog last April, I probably would have started out a post like this:
While spending the afternoon on the veranda at the El Tovar Hotel (Grand Canyon, AZ), I read John McPhee’s “Encounters with the Archdruid,” which follows conservationist David Brower…
Right. Still. “Over breakfast at your favorite little French cafe”? Let me get out to the Tinder Box and pick up a pipe (you a corncob man, Phil?) and some Cavendish, then perhaps we’ll be able to connect a bit better.
February 17th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Here is how my fictional stereotypical Southern California day would go:
I woke up this morning and had to turn on the heater. It has gotten down to 65 degrees outside this December day. Although the temperature in the apartment is 70, I start to shiver at anything below 75………
……..A group of 20 of us headed over to Santa Monica beach. We all made sure to bring our bodyboards and surfboards. The waves were double overhead and were breaking close to shore. We had some excellent rides that my friend Charles caught on video for another one of our surf movies…..
……So around 11:30pm we decided to go out clubbing in Hollywood. We decided to leave immediately so that we would be arriving early, before the party rush. We went to Club Le Blue off Vine. The DJ was spinning up some remixed 80’s, techno style. My friend John started to freak out when he did not realize somebody had laced the E pills with PCP. We finally got him calmed down and to drink a bunch of water. We got home around 5am and decided to go to Norm’s for breakfast…….
If only my life was this cool.
February 17th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
How dare you ask another man if he’s a “corncob man”!? That’ll get you locked up in some states (Tennessee). Now, I reckon that it is time for me to trundle on over to the master suite into my smoking jacket, sip on a brandy, and dream about days of yore.
February 17th, 2005 at 9:04 pm
Q: “This is not a Your Mom joke, but really - who else would enjoy this but your proud mum?”
A: Other self-congratulatory, pat-themselves-on-the-back-in-public, “intellectual” liberal types.
But fo’ real: why read it? Just ’cause the guy invented a cool web service doesn’t mean he’s exempt from being self-absorbed. Free thyself, grasshoppa!