interactive media for dogs - Thursday October 1 1998    

Jumping energetically from place to place, reading messages saying who has been where, how long ago, (are they a boy or a girl?), what they're up to, what they had for dinner, how horny they are, and where they're heading. Responding to each message with their own, often with deliberate exaggeration and distortion. Occasional there's the excitement of encountering the authors in real time. It sounds like someone on the internet, wading into chat rooms, reading their email and interacting with newsgroups and, dare I say, online journals. But I'm really talking about the behaviour of Ziggy and Sophie the Schnauzers, both of whom I took for a walk this morning while Kim was off attending to her many responsibilities. The excitement the dogs had for the suburban sidewalk adventure reminded me of an internet junkie deprived for a weekend from checking his email. They dove at each palm tree, fire hydrant and length of fence, being patient only while actually reading the olfactory messages left for them. I have no idea how these messages are worded; to make sense of them requires whole brain lobes that are almost vestigial in us humans. But these fragrant postings are easily as interesting for them as my email is for me. Furthermore, dogs are much more interested in responding to these messages as I am in responding to my email. No matter how little urine they have in their bladders, they're sure to leave a few drops for whoever comes along next. They don't need an internet to serve as a place to post and read messages, a few blocks of suburbia is probably just as rich.

Then of course, there's the occasional real live dog to be encountered in this landscape. Oh the squealing and straining at leashes! We encountered one very friendly tawny brown pointy-eared dog to the west down Arthur. Aware of his own intimidating size relative to the Schnauzers, he stretched out along the ground and rolled on his back among his beef bones, hoping to encourage them to come closer. But they were nervous and mostly kept back at a fascinated but respectful distance. Of course, if roles had been reversed and this dog had come by the Schnauzers' house, their reaction would have been entirely different. They would have thrown up a head-splitting cacophony of barking, the kind that usually meet with loud demands for silence.

I rode my bike down into Mission Valley today for an HTML exam related to a job for which I am a prospective employee. The ride was almost entirely downhill, especially the part where I roared down the canyon on Texas Street, and it only took me 15 minutes.

The HTML exam was deceptively simple; I had to replicate a design on a screenshot (using a premade set of images) by creating an HTML text file. But it was kind of tricky. There are things I've done on occasion, like getting images flush against the edges of an embedded table, that are actually kind of hairy when you're put on the spot with a time limit. Anyway, it was a fairly harrowing experience, though it was one for which I was well prepared.

The bike ride home was a test of entirely different sort. Halfway up the canyon I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the top without a break. It wasn't just the strain of pedalling up that 15 percent grade, mind you, the air in that canyon is terrible from all the traffic and burnt-up brake pads. If I actually get this job and make this trip every day, I'm going to be, as they say in California, so totally buff, but I'll probably also die of lung cancer.

In the evening I pissed away considerable time installing Windows 98 on my "new" computer (a Pentium that came in the mail in exchange for my painting Spotted). I had so much luck I went on to install it on Kim's laptop, which screwed up her video drivers something horrendous. Have you ever seen a 640 by 480 image displayed on a LCD flat panel 800 by 600 pixel screen? It ain't pretty, darling. Lucky for me, I discovered that the makers of the CTX EZbook actually do have a website with downloadable drivers.

Also, lucky for me, I bought another half gallon of vodka this afternoon. Unfortunately, I used spearmint tea for my vodkatea and it tasted much like toothpaste. I only drank it for its alcohol content and because I hate to waste things.