I'm having one of the best conversations I've had in ages, with swordsaintzero. It's one of those conversations you can only have with someone you've known for years and years. It's peppered with references we know about each other and people we mutually know. It's about how he was published in slashdot and I was published in 2600. It's about our takes on transhumanism. It's about becoming foglets. It's about gentoo. It's about being rich and being poor. Its about robots. It's about the Matrix.

Then we got to talking about how we are getting old. He tells me about his granpa's and gramma's passing, his little sister getting married.

"A lot's changed," he said.

"No kidding. We're growing up, buddy," I replied.

"I dont want to. It's like the whole 21 to 23 thing -- I'm 25 now." He sighed. "Fucking old man, my body hurts all the time, I think about things like insurance, I have a kid."

"I'm only a year behind you," I said. "I found a grey patch in my beard the other day."

"I am fucking salt and pepper. My whole head." I imagine he shakes his head in disbelief. "I feel silly when i go in hottopic! I feel like th old creepy guy. How fucked up is that?"

"I know!" I exclaim. Because I do. "Lord.. what happenned?"

"Our cron jobs are fscked up. I swear to god I want to change to a slower distro -- 70+ years and a permanent reboot are not cool, man."

You know that strange nostalgic feeling you get sometimes? Maybe? Do you get that? Or is that just me? Anyways, I'm permeated by it right now. I miss a lot of my friends from Texas, and right now, I am missing the days that swordsaintzero and I used to share. What's sad is that now we're both in places that'll never lead back to that time. We'll always be friends, and I presume that evn if he or I strike it big, we'll never be too big for our britches to talk to each other. But it'll never be like it was back in the day, sitting on the steps outside the apt on University. It won't be like us just wandering aimlessly in downtown Dallas half-assed looking for trouble, but really there to talk about geeky things.

I'm sure the future holds bigger and better things. Much bigger and better things. And some of those include things that ssz and I will share together, I'm sure. And when those come along, I might think they are better than back in the day.

But right now I'm enjoying the feeling of missing being in the constant company of an old dear friend.

/rizzn

[Listening to: (hackers)_04_(open_up)_leftfield - - (06:53)]