You know you are addicted to coffee when……

It is nearly 2 am and you are PSYCHED to go to bed not because you are tired but because you will wake up in 8 hours and have coffee.

Pathetic.

So today at the MacLab, I ran into a friend, Bernard. Since I study hackers and Free Software I have become the resident computer expert (though if they only knew…) and thus get asked all these fanciful computer questions. I usually can’t answer and send them off to the help desk but today, I was asked about that UNIX function where you can “find out” when/where a person has last logged onto their email.

I was like “ooooooooohhhhhh, YESSSSSSSSS” finger. Of course it brought back a rush of memories from my undergraduate days when I could more or less pinpoint my b-friend’s location through this one command. A highly crude gps. So anyway, when I got home I prompted to run the command on myself and alas I was so amused by some of the terminology and categories

Login name: egcolema In real life: enid gabriella coleman

Well really in Real REAL life, I am Biella Coleman

and then there is this great section

No unread mail
No Plan.

No, No Plan…. Right, I wish I could live my life that way, No plan

So I have not been much of a diligent and faithfull writer these days in much any capacity.

My only excuse is that my age old friend, “Insomnia” has decided to pay me an extended visit. It is not so bad during the first week as you think, “well Insomnia will surely leave my life soon.” I just need to get done with this and then that will fall into place.

Next thing you know it is week 4 and 4 am, again, and you are not sure how you will handle yet another day of zombie-like existence. Every 4-5 days you crash into a heavenly state of deep sleep, but then you sleep so hard and so long that the cycle restarts yet again.

Under the guise of Insomnia what is a simple task is a chore; instead of connecting with those you love, you misconnect feeling the pangs of lonliness, and the world strikes you are a darker more dangerous place that it already is (and it also makes your blog writing more dramatic and petty than it already is..:-))

But anyways, I shed this story of long nights, early mornings, and torturous days onto my blog in the hopes that insomnia will pay me its respects and then get the hell out of town…….

I am in Texazzzzzzzzzzzzz at Rice University for a conference on ethics and politics in information technology organized by chris kelty and Hanna Landeker. I got here a day late (as did everyone else) due to atrocious storms that always leave the city flooded (I have been victim to such Houston floods once before in the past).

I am pretty torn and shred to pieces (from lack of sleep for a week) but this was a fascinating conference that sought to look at the enununciation of ethics in the everyday work of computer scientists as well as recalibrate the way that anthropologists collaborate (the short answer is they don’t). I will hopefully get some time later to post some of my thoughts and comments.

After the conference, I was able to visit the Menil which was outrageously serene. I loved it. I usually don’t like art museums. They overwhelm my soul, my mind, my eyes, yep my being. I feel ragged afterwards, not the way I like to feel after I see some art.

This though was a tiny dose, and really an exquisite range of surrealist and “tribal” art. There was this one room, called the “Witnesses” which was a little strange through stunning. Here is the description from their website:

Already deeply familiar with Cubism and Surrealism, the de Menils began to consider and acquire the art of primitive cultures. They delighted in its conceptual complexity and aesthetic elusiveness; the creative form and style as well as the incomprehensible mystery of these objects engaged them. The influence of tribal art on Surrealism in particular can be seen in

Yea you heard me, Slap Da Penguin in Da Water. So doctored but whatever, life is just one endless stream of deception anyway, we might as well enjoy it.