R.I.P. FORRY

Forrest J. Ackerman, father of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine (and widely credited with coining the term "sci-fi"), has passed away. His influence in the world of sci-fi & fantasy is legendary, and for many years he welcomed fans into his home (the "Ackermansion") for tours of his astounding collection.

I went for a tour in the mid-1990s and will never, ever forget meeting him -- he was kind and welcoming and sweet, and absolutley loved showing off his amazing life and career. Forry was the pied piper of sci-fi fandom, a wonderfully eccentric inspiration to young nerdlings the world over.

Thankfully, someone has posted some great videos of the Ackermansion for everyone to enjoy.

From his MySpace bio:

"It would be nice to look forward to going to a Great Sci-Fi Convention in the Sky when I expire ... I am vaguely contemplating opting for a cryogenic comeback but in case I don't become a human people-cicle, I, like Isaac Asimov and other thinkers I admire, don't expect to wake up in some spirit realm of an afterlife. I've been a secular humanist since I was 15, long before the term was invented, and nothing since has changed my mind. I regard myself as a sci-fi sponge that should be squeezed for information and anecdotes as long as I'm here."

Thanks, Forrest. You'll be missed.

CARDS

I just had a weird experience cleaning my office.

I came across three separate folders that contained literally dozens (hundreds, in total) of business and personal cards I'd kept over the years. Next to them: a three-ring binder with dozens of pages of plastic buisness-card holders, all empty. It's one of those long-simmering projects I'd always told myself I'd do, organize my card collection and keep it up-to-date.

Two reasons this was always a dumb idea for me. First, I never stay organized like that, with anything. I have a weird way of staying organized via neat piles on my desk at work, all in plain view; if it goes into a folder for "later", then forget about it, it'll stay in that folder for years, untouched (as witnessed by the cards).

Secondly, I've kept a digital address book for over two decades. I ditched my hand-written DayRunner and started carrying a Casio B.O.S.S. around 1992 (complete with early DOS-based backup & sync capabilities!), and have never looked back. That progressed through various Windows 3.11/98/XP address book programs, not to mention a Rex, a weird Panasonic handheld electronic organizer & check printer, four or five Newtons, a Nino, some crappy early attempts at PDA phones by Sprint/Sanyo, a few Palms and Treos, and now my Mac and iPhone. The cards and contacts that I needed to keep, I always added to my digital address book, and it's always been synced/transferred/updated with every new desktop/laptop/gadget I've owned. I'm sure there's a percentage of my current address book's digtial DNA that can be directly traced back more than twenty years.

So why on earth would I keep all those cards? What's even more telling, is that they all seem to stop around 2003. That's the year I started LJ -- and in subsequent years, started using Plaxo, Facebook, LinkedIn, et cetera. My online life has made the need to keep people's cards sort of irrelevant, because I can always log on and see what people are up to.

That, of course, depends on them keeping up their end of the deal, too -- so there are a few people in the last four or five years who've dropped off my radar. But for the most part, the intarwebs have been pretty consistent in allowing me to casually keep up with people. With things like Facebook and PlaxoPulse and LinkedIn, it's nice to see what your friends are up to, even if you're not directly interacting all the time -- it makes the times that you do interact a little more interesting, because can already be up to speed with each other.

I'll still use cards at work, of course. And I'll still make personal cards for myself (I favor the lovely, tiny ones from Moo). But from now on, just know that if you give me one, I'm probably going to scan it and then trash it. ;)