I love you, Norman Mailer!

Apparently I've been sitting on a (very) small fortune for awhile now.

While I was Denton last spring looking at UNT's grad program, I visited a small used books store near the campus. I'd been working at the Ransom Center that semester cataloguing the Mailer archive, but never read his stuff, so I thought I'd pick up a copy of his most famous novel, The Naked and the Dead. I bought a hard cover copy for I think $5, since they didn't have any in paperback, then promptly put it on my bookshelf and forgot about it.

Yesterday, as I was perusing the new Mailer exhibit at the HRC (y'all should check it out), I noticed that their first edition copy looked an awful lot like my copy. I went home and did some online research via my pal google. According to The Manhatten Rare Book Company, PBA Auctions, alibris.com, and a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign literature researcher, I have a gem on my hands: a first edition, first printing, and near-perfect condition copy. I don't think anyone ever actually read it; the spine isn't even cracked, and the dust jacket only has a tiny tear in one corner. All of the indications of a first printing copy are there though, including the Rinehart and Co. seal on the copyright page. Some of the prices seem ridiculous ($4,999?) but it seems to average at somewhere near $1,000, especially for this condition.

Even better, Norman Mailer himself is visiting the HRC in November, and since I work there (and will probably be sent to fetch him food), I'm going to ask him to sign it. How awesome is this?

Excited!,
Tiffany

Unicorns: more than just horses!

Well today has been fun. I'm afraid my view of the internet is extending more into the disutopian view, as I recently found out that (somehow) by shopping online, my credit card number was stolen, and someone charged about $4000 to it at various online jewelry stores. I was very happy to be woken up with this news at 8 o'clock this morning. I spent most of today deactivating my account, then going online with experian.com and checking my credit history. I'm not sure how or when it was stolen; I buy stuff online all the time, so it could have been just about anywhere. Perhaps this particular use for the internet will be downgraded for awhile.

I spent the other half of the day browsing through that mydeathspace.com site... morbid, but I always have been kinda morbid anyway. Makes me feel simultaneously sad, lucky, and sorry for all of those people who committed suicide over something as silly as a failed relationship. Kind of makes me wonder how teenagers manage to survive at all; so many of them either flip their cars over, OD, or kill themselves.

I went back over all of my Europe pictures today too, since I was in such a crappy mood, and they always make me feel better. I post them on facebook.com, where I'd imagine the most people would be able to see them (but I still don't think anyone bothers to look). If you are so inclined, check them out.
London
Paris
Amsterdam/Germany/Austria
Venice/Florence
Rome/Pompeii
Greece

I also like to play the videos from my Europe trip over and over again. Especially the Heidelberg one- it's an instant tranquilizer.

I also browsed foundmagazine.com some more- this is, quite possibly, the greatest thing I have ever layed eyes on:

















Sister, he's just not that into you. Let Charlene have him.

-T

On Things that I Enjoy, and Things that I do not Enjoy.

Hello loyal reader(-s), but probably only (-).

Today I am here to discuss how I feel about the role of SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY in my daily life, how I interact with it, and its impact upon me.

Honestly I don't feel any strong malice toward the increasingly intrusive amount of technology in my life; I do not particularly fear or distrust it. Neither do I feel that technology will save us all and create a totally egalitarian society like the damn Communists (robots to take out the trash and clean so that no one is lowered to do these menial tasks, ha, ha). Since I have now eliminated both the "disutopian" and the "utopian" views from my paradigm, I suppose you could classify me as holding a "secular" view (although I don't much approve of this diction, as it normally connotates thoughts of religion, or lack thereof, and the thought of mixing religion with technology raises my eyebrow a notch or two). I don't appreciate extremes with regard to any issue I can think of; extremists tend to disregard any sort of dissenting facts in favor of their fanatical idealism, and there are always dissenting facts. To torture a cliche, the truth lies somewhere in between.

Moving on. While I would not consider myself to be anything close to a "computer whiz" (do people even use that phrase anymore?), networked technologies play an increasingly important role in my day to day life. A typical day for me involves checking my email at least five times (bills, homework notifications, death threats), checking facebook.com at least 6 times (shame!), and checking my cellular telephone to see if anyone has called me at least once or twice (no one has). I check my online banking website (no old-fashioned balancing my checkbook for me!) to make sure deposits show up, waiters didn't "tip themselves," etc. I also have an extensive collection of "favorite" websites which I check frequently, including foundmagazine.com, fark.com, my friends' flickr.com photos, blogs, etc. I enjoy traveling, and I often compare airline ticket prices for future excursions on websites such as travelocity.com, expedia.com, cheaptickets.com, etc. I'm also looking into becoming a courier, so that I can fly for cheap, so I did a lot of google.com research on the subject. An increasing amount of my homework and readings are almost completely web- or blackboard-based, a very recent phenomenon which didn't really seem to exist even when I was a freshman in 2002.

On a final note, I've always enjoyed Star Trek, and never really liked the film "The Matrix," even though it had a good soundtrack.

Fin.

-T