Hippie Lifestyle Disclaimer

After spending the last two weeks in my new apartment without cable or internet, I have changed my opinion on anyone who wants to live like Henry David Thoreau.  Cutting one's self off from the world is a choice to live in ignorance.  All things must be done in moderation, including living On the Road.  I will no longer fight all technology because of my Pink Floyd-influenced paranoia.  I even burned all my flannel and shaved this morning to welcome myself back onto the internet, and I must say the view from this desktop is something to behold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific-- and all his men

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

                                               John Keats, "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer"

We live in a world now occupied by two spheres.  One sphere is our physical surroundings and the other is our imagination captured by wires, electrical pulses, and microchips; welcome to the machine....