Currently Playing: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Original Soundtrack

So today is my last day in this isolated place. I really didn’t do much at all today. I ended up buying a sweater because I just realized that I went up to Central and Northern California in January without a sweater or a jacket. Very stupid. So I ended up paying an arm and a leg, but at least now I have a souvenir of this silly trip.

I also drove around the residential areas of town just to have a look around, and walked along the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Nothing too exciting. Today was the day I was supposed to have some creative output, but that unsurprisingly didn’t happen, and I instead ended up surfing the web as usual. Sucky.

I at least ripped through a couple of books these past few days. All nerdy stuff, of course. I finally read Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan, which is set in a futuristic San Francisco. The McGuffin is that death has essentially been abolished, as people can simply upload their personalities into new bodies (for a price, of course) but in essence, it is a detective story. Very cyberpunk and Bladerunner-esque. I then read The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore, who happens to have once lived in Cambria. In fact, the setting he uses in this book is Cambria, except that he gives it the pseudonym of Pine Cove. It was very entertaining to be reading it while actually being here. It made me wonder about some of the locals I came across.

Finally, I zipped through Faster than Light which is a non-fiction book written by João Magueijo who is a Portuguese physicist who is intent on one-upping Albert Einstein himself. The guy’s sense of humor is over-the-top, and he not only discusses science in layman terms, but also lashes out at the academic establishment using quite colorful language. I found myself laughing my ass off. The book also made me regret the fact that I never learned calculus—if I had, I might have become a physicist, but then again, I don’t think I have the temperament for the cutthroat world of academia.

All in all, it’s been quite a relaxing stay. I’ve done as close to nothing as I think is humanly possible. I really don’t think I’m ready to return to civilization quite yet. Ah well.