It's easy to take a lack of pain for granted.

T


oday was incredibly hot: 99 degrees Farenheit. The ceilings upstairs were radiating heat like a furnace, though the fans worked miracles.

I harvested some electronics from old equipment and tried to get an old monitor to work while watching an odd movie on videotape with Matthew Hart and Deya, Midnight Cowboy, which came out in 1969. It's about a naïve young Texan who tries to make money as a gigolo in New York City. It's also about his relationship with a con man played by Dustin Hoffman. The movie had a dated look to it, but the acting was thoroughly modern. I thought I wasn't going to watch it for more than a few minutes, but it somehow drew me in.

An extremely painful sore inside my upper lip is making life miserable today. If this condition persisted for more than a week, I'd start considering suicide. It's easy to take a lack of pain for granted.

Things lying around the house:

Stoltenberg's strong anti-pornography position seems to run counter to human nature, as do many of his ideas about sex acts and why exactly they are fun. He's not exactly a fan of free speech, either.

• a glossary of Cockney rhyming slang printed off the World Wide Web by Rory, the British C&O waiter. It's hilarious, though usage notes from Rory are essential. For example, the second word in most rhyming pairs are usually never said. Thus, instead of saying "Gary Glitter" for "shitter" (meaning asshole), one usually just says "Gary" as in "I'm gonna Bubble her up the Gary tonight!"
• Refusing to be a Man by John Stoltenberg, a radical book about what's wrong with gender roles. The book tells how the "fiction" of the male gender is used to subjugate and abuse women. Its unrelenting strident tone is irritating in an especially entertaining way. Nonetheless, it would be fair to say that the book does occasionally blunder into the odd useful point. Stoltenberg's strong anti-pornography position seems to run counter to human nature, as do many of his ideas about sex acts and why exactly they are fun. He's not exactly a fan of free speech, either.

I


  just experienced an overwhelming feeling of security as I realized how very well I am being protected by the law prohibiting the export of strong encryption to possible bad guys overseas. There can be no doubt that if the export restrictions are vigourously enforced, we will forever be safe from the prospect of evil foreigners speaking in code. The word "vigourous" is important here; if even one copy of a strong cryptography application should fall into enemy hands, we're toast! That's why the vigilance I just experienced at Netscape.com has me feeling VERY RELIEVED indeed.

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