Throb

Winded twists

If you were an operating system, and you were due for a major update, your designers might choose to start over from the ground up to add functionality and glom on an emulation layer to maintain compatibility with all the old things that you're connected to. For people, this is kind of like moving out of the country, or getting a new career. You keep answering emails, you tweak your profiles. Your APIs remain compatible. But now you're speaking a new language, or whatever. Maybe it's more like those people that wake up without any memories in the movies and start over. But they remember something.

I have a fish who, regardless of his intended purpose (as a slow moving warm weather circler), is apparently immune to any ill effects that might be caused by leaving the window open in the fall. This is interesting. He is also pretty good at meandering toward food sprinkles. Bettas would slowly take over the world if the males weren't so keen on ripping each other to threads.

Google bought YouTube. Everybody knew this was going to happen because there was a leak, just like at HP. This is scary: I don't imagine that information gets lost very easily at Google, so I blame one of the 60 or so YouTube employees (probably very drunk right now). Anyway. 1.6 BILLION dollars. BILLION. Amazing. Incidentally, YouTube has become one of my favorite sources of information/entertainment. Crazy. I don't even like video blogs. Who has time? Text scans better. But YouTube trumps TV, except it's not on one.

I found myself watching a bit of Lost Boys last night. The cool thing about vampires is they don't age. You might be seven hundred years old, but the maiden through the window is always like 19. Super creepy. When you're a vampire you keep getting older, but the chicks stay the same age.

Please strike that last from the record.

Dreck

I believe you are more dynamic than the laws of listening
I encourage you to allow yourself to decay
I wonder

I think everything is more than
death and sex

I have this memory of being a boy on a tube in a river

this funny sound with so much music

Temples

blistered fists in twisted coral temples
swarm food
a hell-bound's valhalla
a hemorrage

razor burn template-tracer vivisection
sculpt it by phone
while continents
survive-focus

sky mall sign in up sell
target market

we regret to inform you
we're sorry you're having trouble
please try again
sorry you are a winner

Spring has sprung

Just for the record, tomorrow arrived a day or two ahead of schedule. Don't you think?

Signs

There are two billboards that are visible from my window. One of them says "Bring Back the Troops" and exhibits a strange emotionless melange of Iraq-related faces glommed together in a little scene, as if an American high school student spent a summer studying pre-renaissance perspective and emotion-free mannequin caricature. A soldier glares out with meaningless enlarged-pencil-sketch eyes next to an equally bland orphan-like shape. You get the point. The other billboard has always been commercial, and seems to be sending messages all the way through my tin-foil blockers directly to my pathetically impressionable subconscious. For the first three or four months I lived in my apartment it presented me with a big bottle of Maker's Mark. I would get home and open my shade to a dull black-and-white reminder of the war I despise contrasted with a vivid, luscious rendering of one of my favorite poisons. Son of a bitch.

Then the Maker's board was replaced with an advertisement for V-Cast. It seems Verizon is spending a mint on the ads for their mobile video service, regardless of the fact that they probably have about a dozen customers. I'm building the competition. I hope I'm not in the wrong business.

I have to watch V-Cast ads to view clips from The Daily Show in halting Windows Media on my lunch break too, the bastards.

In any case, the signs I have to look at when I wake seem to be sending me messages.

Now the second billboard has been changed to advertise DANGERDOOM, which might be the coolest thing ever. A mouse in a mask with crossbones.

I need to figure out how to strategically cover the parts of my view that are trying to sell me stuff. Until then I think I'll spend more time at Manita's.

Evolution and the brain

Science catches up with common sense once again: After years of thinking that the human brain (somehow) stopped evolving, we find some proof that we are in fact changing, and at a rapid pace.

Memo - Everything is evolving, all the time. We are not at a plateau, quite the contrary. Human beings have been extraordinarily successful because we have been able to create and manage change more effectively than any competition we might have had, largely through our evolved ability to visualize situations without having to literally enact them. We are now the direct instigators and products of our changing environments in a uniquely complete way. Much of the genetic and epigenetic programming which controls our morphology contains "legacy code" which evolved in response to the environments our ancestors developed in, but we are also selecting internally and externally based on successes and failures in the worlds we find our selves, our communities, and our compositional genes and parts living in now, at this moment and in the moments which led up to it. We are, each of us, unique, and each of us inhabits and directly influences a unique environment. The degree of our success in reproducing, spreading ideas via memes, and influencing the worlds around us has a profound impact on the worlds 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5000 and 5 million years from now. Our children will be better suited to deal with the worlds we are creating than we ourselves will be. This is a good thing and has always been true.

It has been proven that subtle brain structure differences exist between native speakers of different languages. Doesn't it necessarily follow that as cultures gain and lose dominance so too do potentially hard wired portions of our alleles (gene expressions)? Lords yes we are evolving. My only fear is that the rest of the world may not be able to keep up with us.

Flying Spaghetti Monster Playa Terrorizer

It occurs to me that Jason and I could make only slight modifications to our Burning Man bike hammock project to make it look like the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

1. Create hammock bike
2. Decorate it to look like FSM
3. Dress like pirates
4. ???
5. Profit!

On being social

A friend asked me in an email how I managed to keep up such a complicated social life, when she is so shy... Personally think I'm rather socially inept compared to some folks I know, but for whatever reason I managed to come up with the following sickening hippie self-help tirade/philosophical self-expression:

I think the only trick I know is to be interested and interesting. Most people have something interesting to say for themselves, believe it or not, but sometimes it takes some doing to get it out of them. I tend to lean toward being carefully assumptive. People like to talk about themselves, but I think when they're doing this they're really trying to express their individuality by relating personal success to the implied incompetence or poor choices of others. In other words, you can make fairly powerful connections with other people by 1) being the first to express lust/admiration/respect for them, then 2) listening carefully to them spin their own tales, 3) demonstrating that you understand by wittily engaging them while they're doing this, then 4) bringing something to the table that they can use. I have no idea if this works, but I think I'm homing in on a system. Really all I want to do is have fun and be a badass, both which goals still require some goodly amount of striving. As does the tertiary goal of being able to write a comprehensible sentence. If you need someone to remember you, do something memorable, even if it involves some reasonable personal embarrassment. Most people you will ever really get a chance to talk to are kind of lonely at the moment: so be nice to them, ask them insightful questions about what they're doing or what they are that makes you want to talk to them in the first place. Flirt, subtly, with everyone you meet. Realize that you only have one life and that the people you connect with in it are inexorably tied to your power, self-image, understanding of what's important in the world and opportunities for joy and realization. Don't forget who you were when you were at your best if that isn't right now, you owe that person. Fuck with other peoples' minds a little bit, most folks find it kind of entertaining and challenging. Convince the people you know to pose for pictures, everyone loves this. Touch people, hug people, smile at people, talk to strangers too much rather than too little. Be nice, be cool. Speak expressively and use your hands and eyes and smile to great effect. Effuse your conversation and interactions with other people with your personality, or the personality of the person you feel like being. Visualize the relationship you wish to occur, and play your part. Express yourself, even if you are communicating love for something the person you are talking to has discarded, or expressing distain for something the other person enjoys... at least you are being honest and worthy of their attention. Think about the strengths and interests of the person you are talking to and play to them. Focusing on weaknesses, cracks, holes and other forms of shit directs your precious attention to them and will cause them to grow - if you don't correct them while you're paying attention to them. Sparing an eye for the goal and the big picture will save you much grief. Most of the time it is more useful to focus interactions with other human beings on positive things and growth and goals and dreams. Weeds cannot compete effectively because they have poor strategy. However: don't hesitate to be surreal, be dada. Connections between things are interesting to everyone, even if they exist merely to challenge the imagination. Communicate effectively by balancing the need to connect with others and relate information with them with their relentless need for proof of self-worth, power and the information they need to succeed at their own goals. Disregard small problems which may act as facades for bigger issues. Take confidences seriously, people tell you secrets because they need to tell someone and because they are trusting you and testing you. Respect change in the people around you. Nobody is the same-body twice. Have sex with all your being. I bet that Jimi Hendrix was one hell of a lover. And left handed!

The Future

I spend almost all day dreaming about, analyzing possibilities for, and building sometimes small and sometimes sort of not so small aspects of the future. To be or not to be? To be, resoundingly!

That said, here's what mine's looking like, in no particular order:

1. Burningman. My good friend/reputed but not really hot gay lover Jason just bought a ticket.
   
   I got mine about a month ago. OH SNAP!
   
   But seriously, I'm looking forward to this like... well, like something you're really looking forward to. Just want to dip my fingers in honey, rub it all over my nipples and have it licked off by some anonymous person in a humorous costume. Beats the grind, considerably
2. Elaine is awesome.
3. Mobile stuff is taking off big time. I'm loving being a part of a completely wild set of unknowns. Makes me feel like I'm part of The Bubble, which I basically missed because I was in college. This should be more than a bullet point. Deserves own post, blog. Whatever. Buy cool phones, 'cause they are coming and v cool stuff can happen on them.

I have lots more, but am distracted. Will try to continue later...

Etiquette Tips

• It is important to be polite and shake hands with people when you meet them, regardless of their overbites or unpleasant fragrances. Run to the bathroom to wash your hands after you do this. People are gross and carry diseases.
• Sex in public should be carried out discreetly and as quietly as possible, especially if there are children or people you know present.
• If you have friends with amusing or profane ringtones, call them when you know they're at the movies. It is rude to pass up on opportunities like this and it will encourage them to remember to pay more attention to their phones.
• Executives appreciate clear communication. They also want to feel like they are one of the gang. When writing emails to executives that require their action, make it clear to them by writing the whole thing with capslock on and using lots of profanities, carets, inside jokes, and winky emoticons.
• Avert your eyes if you accidentally catch a colleague reading porn at work. Never mention it. I mean this.
• Don't read your employees' blogs. Don't put them on your blogroll. Don't talk to them or hang out with them unless you are in a meeting. It will just lead to trouble. Cock your head at them sometimes for no reason. Speak in obscure acronyms whenever possible. Laugh very loud.
• Don't bum smokes from chicks. Steal them when she's taking a leak and blame the creepy bald guy at the end of the bar.
• Complement your friends on the odd things about them that they are probably insecure about, and rub them a lot. The puppy dog look is your friend.
• Don't put up posters or bumperstickers or signs about Jesus. Nobody cares about you.
• When approaching a professional sex worker it is nice to make polite small talk about politics and the weather before getting to the good stuff.
• Update your damn blog! The alternative is just impolite.