19 November 1999
HAL

Todd and I were knee deep in one of our surreal group meetings a few months ago, audience to yet another useless presentation. While Todd fought off the knee squeezing advances of the flirting presenter, I was bent over my copy of the agenda with a pencil, sketching and shading in the margins. When I sat back, Todd glanced over at the page, rolled his eyes, and laughed his best "I'm-humoring-you" laugh.

I had drawn a picture of a PC and underneath it, I wrote, "I love HAL."

I can get slightly obsessive that way.

2001. Keir Dullea. And that gentle voice that always fills me with a conflict between comfort and fear: "Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song."

I made a HAL screen-saver that flashes his random mnemonics on my monitor when I ignore him for long stretches of time: "VEH... ATM... LIF... NAV..." It entertains Eric while he waits for his project to compile, eyes wondering toward my side of the room. It's my way of breathing life into this trusty machine... he's the frog for this princess to kiss.

So imagine my surprise today when my PC began to emote... randomly... in the early morning hours while I sat in the semi-darkness watching the beginning of a reflected sunrise.

You see, this morning I was ::patiently:: trying to FTP all the files from the whirlygirl server to my little HAL, when suddenly amid the crashing and the transfer failures, message 221 appeared in the log.

And I stared.

And I smiled.

HAL was emoting. He was connecting to me and explaining how he felt. He wants me to understand. And I do. I understand the humor and randomness and romanticism of edgy programmers... and at this moment I feel I could fall in love with the mind that dreamed this up.

What surprised you today?

biggest kiss...

...kristen