Oh look, it's more Booth news....

Some German site honored our quest on their netradio broadcast recently ... although "honored" probably isn't the word. Following is the text from their website, translated via Altavista's Babelfish:

The telephone box in the desert

To hardly believe, but this web page occupies it: in the middle in the Mojave desert in the west of the USA there is a callingable telephone box, 40km far away from the next water hole. Now there also still another few Computer Geeks is, it not only cool finds to call there, but also still hundreds of miles by the desert drive, in order to hang up the listener again, if over several days should be filled there. The more disappointing surely is it, if one arrives there, and the listener not depended, but the line was defective...

All together now: "Whaaaaat?" Hey, I'm sure it makes perfect sense in German ... or at least TO Germans.

I'm not sure I like being called a Computer Geek. I especially don't think I like it when "Computer Geek" is pronounced "Computer Geek" in German.

By the way, there's another Booth expedition in the offing. Steve and I are headed back that way July 1 to meet Godfrey (who found it first), my pal Tim, Andria from Noo Yawk, and anyone else who shows up. Care to join us?

Wednesday -- June 16, 1999
Duty Calls

Well, hell. Duty calls. It's been nearly a week since my last entry, so I guess I should put something up even though I'm not really in the mood.

I'm a giver. Remember that.

So where did we leave off? Ah yes, the BBC interview. How'd it go? I think my e-mail to Steve immediately following said it best: "Well, that was...something."

It was kind of awkward and mostly weird. Those Scots talk funny and really fast and seem to have an predilection for losing entire estates behind overgrown foliage. Or something like that.

It all went by in a blur. I heard the guy introduce us, then I just sat there not realizing I was on the air. When I finally did say something it was one of those moments where you levitate above yourself, watch in horror, and scream in the back of your mind "What the hell are you saying???" Steve was his usual urbane self; I did not do the Amurrican pipple proud. And then it was all over before I even knew it.

Deep down I suspect the host cut it short because they found they were paying transAtlantic phone rates to listen to a feeb wax profound about the mysteries of a phone booth in the desert. That's why I'm a writer: extemporaneous banter works best on paper, where you can edit the living hell out of it.

(P.S. I'm not as grumpy as I sound. I'm just not feeling very entertaining tonight. I'll probably be screamingly witty next time.)