johnny's Diaries
Print Story Johnny coming to UK in July
Diary
By johnny (Mon Jun 27, 2016 at 08:00:25 PM EST) (all tags)
Quick, before the UK evaporates!

I'll be in Edinburgh, but only for a few days. I'm to give a talk at the SynbioBeta synthetic biology conference on July 7th (or 7 July, as they say over there in Europe, while it still exists.):

http://synbiobeta.com/advice-novelist-prepare-biodigital-era/

Here's a little podcast containing the kind of bullshit you might expect to hear from me were you to attend the conference:

https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/25/novelist-john-sundman-talks-crispr-genetics-and-logic-bombs/

I've never been to the UK. Which means I've never been to Scotland. Although my mother, grandmother, and virtually all of my relatives on my mother's side are (or were) Scots who emigrated to the USA after WW2. Despite my Swede-Finn surname, my predominant ancestry is Scottish. So this will be a (very abbreviated) kind of "roots tour" thing for me.


(9 comments, 355 words in story) Full Story

Print Story Claims small and large
Diary
By johnny (Wed Jan 27, 2016 at 10:22:12 PM EST) (all tags)
Went to court today. Capital One was suing me for nearly $1,700.

Which reminds me of a joke I made up ten years ago:

Q: What's the difference between Capital One and the Mafia?
A: Nothing.

Also, Marvin Minsky, writer's jello, grandfatherhood, maybe more if I can make myself write more.


(17 comments, 993 words in story) Full Story

Print Story Volunteer Firefighter Superfecta! I Win!
Diary
By johnny (Fri May 01, 2015 at 12:30:40 AM EST) (all tags)
I’m a volunteer firefighter. Page came in this morning, report of a car rolled over with somebody trapped inside.

(8 comments, 441 words in story) Full Story

Print Story Cortez the Killer, Home from South Pole, Dusts Off His Collection of Enya CDs
Diary
By johnny (Wed Sep 24, 2014 at 10:10:09 PM EST) (all tags)
Cortez the Killer, gentle soul, wretched anachronism, 18-time expellee from Alcoholics Anonymous, COBOL Chess Grandmaster, CPA, Brooklyn foodie & urban homesteader, nut job, Myspace & Livejournal devotee, 16th century conquistador of the New Americas, lone survivor of an ill fated assault-zeppelin assault on the headquarters of the Scotland YES campaign, AND New Age guru, recently returned from a six-month stint as Sergeant-at-Arms of the BICEP 2 installation at the South Pole and declared via press release and YouTube video that the so-called Cosmic Microwave Background ("CMB") was "a goddamned bunch of bullshit nonsense," and that furthermore the alleged polarization of light in the CMB, which "scientists" claimed proved the Theory of Cosmic Inflation was in fact caused by Cortez himself, and was nothing more nor less than the interference pattern caused in the BICEP 2 instruments by his sword-dancing on the snow with his 18-pound cutlass, described elsewhere in these diaries. "It was all a prank thought up by them Chandra fellas," he said, slurring his words just a bit.

(5 comments, 351 words in story) Full Story

Print Story Please Pump Me Op
Help!
By johnny (Thu May 22, 2014 at 10:24:41 AM EST) (all tags)
I've been working on getting into shape. Would appreciate your advice on one or two things.

If you don't have any opinions about the best way for a 61 year old man to further his personal fitness goals, skip this diary or risk boredom of a potentially lethal level.  Even if you do theoretically care about such things you might want to skip reading this. It's boring. I'm mostly writing for an audience of me. (But I do seriously welcome advice.)


(16 comments, 1251 words in story) Full Story

Print Story Why I Suck
Diary
By johnny (Wed Feb 05, 2014 at 10:45:02 PM EST) (all tags)
I suck because I've been in a rut for a long time now, since, let's say, 2005, 2007, something in that neighborhood, and have done only two significant things to get me out of it, one of which worked for a while until I stopped, wherefore here I am again, somewhat, but trying to get out. [1]

As part of this funk, or rut, or whatever, I've neglected HuSi. Which is stupid and ungrateful of me, because HuSi & even the site from which it calved, and mainly all youze people have been such a great source of joy and un-loneliness in my life for ever-so-long, as I imagine Kate Middleton might say.

More on that at another time, but first let's watch "Why I suck" with Chris Farley as Tommy Boy. Since I've forgotten how to embed videos on HuSi here's a simple link.


(8 comments, 513 words in story) Full Story

Print Story A report from the New Rwanda
Diary
By johnny (Fri Aug 16, 2013 at 05:44:29 PM EST) (all tags)
A few years ago I introduced here documentary evidence, including photos and eye-witness accounts, that Dear Wife actually exists.

Now, behold, Younger Daughter:

http://mvgazette.com/news/2013/08/15/inspired-perseverance-humanity

She's en-route to Rwanda as I type this.

That is all.


(3 comments) Comments >>

Print Story Cannibals; Art Thief
Diary
By johnny (Sat Aug 10, 2013 at 08:14:06 AM EST) (all tags)
Read a really great long-form story in Vanity Fair magazine (printed on glossy stock) about a U.S. Army general, forget his name, from a patrician old family married to a woman who was from another wealthy blue-blood family.

The beginning of the article was about how in old times people from fancy families with scads of money used to serve in the Army, but it never happens anymore.

But the meat of the story was that both of 'em, husband & wife, were cannibals. They had started, mildly enough, eating tiny bits of each other! But then the habit just grew, you know, as it does, and eventually they were Dexter/Lecter class killers. Until they got caught. Alas,


(11 comments, 540 words in story) Full Story

Print Story Cortez the Killer Sends Word from the Heliosheath of His Plans to Return to Earth
Diary
By johnny (Sun Sep 09, 2012 at 12:41:25 PM EST) (all tags)
Cortez the Killer, navigator of the seven seas on Earth and uncounted others on the Planets and their satellites, broadswordsman, honest broker, jailbreak artist and alleged Ponzi-schemer ("Not true!" sez he. "What I want, I take. Cortez does not inveigle."), erstwhile Republican strategist, outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, holy grail of paparazzi everywhere, theologian in the Anschluss School ("God isn't dead, e's pining for the fjords"), fedora-wearing hipster foodie, Know-nothing, Erlang hacker, major stockholder in the Plague Mill Mall Corporation, owner of nine U.S. Patents for penis-enhancing concoctions, Official Chronicler of the Apostolic Succession and general badass-fo-hire, sends word from Voyager 1 on the edge of the solar system that he plans to return to Earth in time to throw his feathered cap into the ring and run for President of the United States of America as a "Third Party Candidate."

(8 comments, 414 words in story) Full Story

Print Story I'm still fucked up, sorry. But thanks for trying.
Diary
By johnny (Mon Jul 11, 2011 at 10:48:52 AM EST) (all tags)
In my dream last night I was the subject of an "intervention" organized by my wife & friends. The problem to be addressed wasn't drinking or drugs or anything of an explicit nature, rather my "psychological messed-uppedness", which, I was told in the most loving but firm way, was hurting me and my friends--who loved me but were going to be forced to abandon me "tough love" style if I didn't come to terms with the fact that I'm fucked up and need to "deal with my issues."

Turns out that they had all filled out long questionnaires supplied by the psychological consulting firm that had been hired to help me through my "straighten yourself out" process.


(14 comments, 1377 words in story) Full Story

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