Thought #1:

I bought an iPhone yesterday. My much-loved RAZR v3xx up and died on me. I mean died. They told me it was going to take a warranty return to get a new one and that Motorola would mail me a new phone and I said to hell with it and got this. It is pretty ridiculously awesome.

Thought #2:

I am enjoying the Harry Dresden novels, which I’m currently reading, but Harry isn’t exactly the sharpest tack in the box. Still, it has the best description of magic that I’ve seen in pretty much any book. I dig.

Thought #3:

It occurs to me to wonder whether the relationship our society has with geeks, with people who really understand technology and are frequently called upon to correct or repair it, could be compared to the relationships of tribal societies to their shamans. I don’t know enough about traditional shamanism in various cultures to know if that’s a valid thought, though. I’ve read plenty of “modern shaman” books of theory but done nearly zero real scholarship of shamanism in the world. Still that angle of the geek being the outcast to be held in slight, continual suspicion as almost dangerously Other while being a vital healer and visionary and working to intercede to heal the rifts between the population at large and the world of almost-spirit which technology inhabits might be a useful angle to consider. If it’s true that society treats geeks in the way shamanistic societies have treated those healers then what does it say about our own culture’s latent animism and the human tendency to turn things into entities?

Thought #4:

I would really like to see a true-to-text film adaptation of The Long Goodbye with Vince Vaughn playing Marlowe.