DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Kudos to HP for launching a new computer recycling program. Read about it in the SF Chronicle’s article, “Recycling the HP Way.”

For all of you with short attention spans, the deal is basically this: every few years, everyone gets a new computer and discards the old one. Discarding computers is problematic because computers contain lead and other toxic chemicals. I’ll say that a different way because “toxic chemicals” appears in the news so often the phrase has lost its ability to shock.

The problem is that computers contain poison. When you put computers in a landfill, they poison the ground, and before too long your children begin sprouting extra fingers.

HP and a number of other organizations (listed in the Chronicle article) will instead refurbish your discarded machines, or grind them into scrap and reclaim all the toxic ingredients.

HP’s program sounds pricey to me so I’ll make a special mention of the CRC — California’s Computer Recycling Center, the recent recipient of most of my old Macintoshes. The CRC’s mission is similar to HP’s, but the CRC charges less (only $1 per CPU, and then only if it’s a very old machine).

Update — the CRC raised its prices today! The fee for old CPUs is now $2, and the fee for monitors is $10 (up from $6).

On the left: JWZ’s DNA Lounge, rebuilt for large sums of money from the skeleton of a club also called the DNA Lounge, and still being remodeled. On the right: the Sebastopol Cinemas, a small-town multiplex built for large sums of money from the skeleton of an apple brandy distillery, and still being remodeled.

It’s a sad day for online journal fans… two of my daily reads (dack, eod) have gone off the air.

The phone rings.

“Yes, hello?” I say, practicing my radio DJ voice, deep and mellifluous.

An accented and agitated female asks an odd question: “Who’s bacon?” It’s Agent Starling! But why is she asking for bacon? It’s not even breakfast time.

“Who’s bacon?” I say back to her. While there are no doubt hundreds of witty responses one might employ when a caller asks, “Who’s bacon,” exactly none of them came to mind. I did wonder if this was a Hannibal reference — maybe she’d stumbled across a serving of hickory smoked bias-cut while on the trail of Hannibal Lecter and wondered about the source. That is, maybe the question wasn’t “Who owns that bacon,” but “Who is that bacon?” But in the moment, as now, I was unable to distill that joke into a pithy 3-4 words.

“Who’s baking?” she said, somewhat more clearly. I marvel that I’m discussing breakfast foods with a Hollywood celebrity.

“Ahh, baking. I might be, later, but…” I can’t imagine how she would know that. Is there a camera crew shooting through my kitchen window? I imagine the operator zooming in on a jar of sourdough starter bubbling quietly on the sink while television viewers worldwide sit on the edges of their seats, listening to my baffled responses through a crackly satellite link to the broadcast station. “Can I ask who’s calling?”

Alas, she didn’t own up to being Clarice Starling, or even Jodie Foster. She muttered something about dialing the wrong number — a likely story! — and hung up on me.

I’ve had a dedicated net connection for over three years. The result: 95% of the books, CDs, computers, disk drives, RAM and CPU upgrades, printers, scanners, monitors, and pieces of furniture I’ve purchased in that time, and probably half of everything else I’ve bought other than food, has been mail-ordered via the Web.

Which means, among other things, that once or twice a week some uniformed truck-driver guy comes to my door with yet another box, to ask for a signature and chuckle at the enormous jumble of the carcasses of previous deliveries in my garage. Four times a year I spend a Saturday afternoon cutting down boxes to be recycled, in what I consider to be a modern analogue to traditional pantheistic seasonal celebrations.

Modern man is not particularly reliant on agricultural cycles and so has little reason to feel connected to traditional Spring and Fall celebrations — the only thing I “plant” is my ass in a chair, and the only things I “harvest” are the log files from my server. So, whereas ancient civilizations celebrated the Vernal Equinox as the start of the breeding and farming season, I celebrate the Vernal Equinox by cutting down cardboard boxes. And when ancient civilizations celebrated the Autumnal Equinox with the Fall harvest, my celebration is cutting down more cardboard boxes.

The pantheists also celebrated the longest and shortest days of the year, the Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice. I have modern analogues for these celebrations too, because as a benefit of modern civilization I am able to mail-order books and CDs and so on all year long. So every December 21 I dedicate some of the very few hours of sunlight and — you guessed it — cut down cardboard boxes. I do the same thing every June 22. If you’re wondering why I’m a month early this time out, it’s because I have so many damn cardboard boxes.