I was promised candy

When I was kid, my dad got me a toy that was a medical bag filled with stuff like a stethoscope, and a needle that turned red when you pulled the plunger back, and would “shoot” it into your patient when you depressed the plunger, and eye charts and a hammer to test reflexes, and bottles and bottles of “pills” and “elixers” that were all candy.

I’ma be real honest here, I was the Dr. Feelgood of the kindergarten set. And to be fair, this was encouraged by adults continuously refilling my “pills” with more candy. (I guess after I melted the paint off my dad’s car with my chemistry set, they decided maybe I should be a pill mill instead of a chemist.)

My point being this: I was promised a medical future filled with instant cures and candy-like medicine. There is no reason on goddess’s green earth for prednisone to taste this awful. It’s a tiny little pill, how do they fit that much horrible into a teeny little pill?

Picture of a vintage children's doctor's bag complete with vials, stethoscope, microscope, eye chart, and loads of other goodies.  GenX was the last generation to see a kit like this with candy medicine and pretend needles.

Sigh, reflections of webs past

I’ll be honest, I don’t have time to maintain or repair what’s missing from this site. It’s not like anyone goes to personal websites anymore. The web has become one giant commercial honey pot. Back in the early 90s, when there was still discussion about how the internet was going to operate; dotcoms were the domains that nobody wanted, because the pioneers didn’t want capitalism ruining everything. Which, I mean, is what capitalism does.

The web used to be so quirky and weird. Kinda like Austin used to be quirky and weird, and now it’s just filled with entitled wealthy people who have pushed all the weird out, because nobody weird can afford to be there. Same with the web. Labors of love are just that, but it’s an invisible labor.

Unknown artists, unsigned bands, really weird geocities sites. Was it ugly? Oh heavens yes. Was it entertaining, without being another branch of curated media? Yep. Were there black-hat hackers and nazis and (gasp) music being shared? Yeah. We still have those, but the weirdness, that’s become much harder to find.