Tom lets the phone ring for a while before picking it up.
"Robots give up after four rings," he explained. "If my friends really want to get me, they'll let it ring ten or eleven times."
The phone rings. Twice. Three times. Four times. Five times.
"What about robots who are your friends?" I ask.
For just a moment, Tom's look gets dark. Angry.
"I have no robot friends," he says.
Maybe today, but it wasn't always the case.
Somewhere, deep in a lab under New Mexico, a mainframe caked with dust and spiderwebs.
Memory banks silent, filled with sadness.
Christiana Ellis ended her Shallow Thoughts daily podcast recently.
On the other hand, 100 Word Stories will be hitting the 4 year mark on May 31, 2009.
Sure, there's "daily" podcasts that have been around longer, but those are "weekdaily."
And "Daily Source Code" by Adam Curry isn't even weekdaily. It's just when he comes up for air after kissing Ron Paul's crazy ass for far too long.
When I say "I will write a new story every day until the day I die." I didn't say "I will write a new story every weekday until the day I die." And I certainly didn't say "Hey, Ron, can you drop your pants and hold them up to the camera so I can kiss this screen and pretend I'm kissing your ass?"
Nope. I said "I will write a new story every day until the day I die."
(Nor did I say "I will write and record a new story every day until the day I die." Sometimes, I don't feel up to recording a story I've written, so I do them in batches. But it's still written, and that's what matters.)
Whatever your faith, God Speed, Christiana, and it's too bad that you couldn't chase my impressive unbroken chain of daily episode awesomeness forever.
NEXT!
