"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Joining Up

Apropops of what I wrote before about work, one of my favorite Snarkbloggers is joining a campaign. Fuckin' a, man. Just come on back sometime and make fun of the bastards again.

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Road Notes

The place I feel most in it so far is still Westhaven. It feels like the revolution up there. I really do want to build an outhouse that drains into an algae pool I use to make biodesil I trade to my neighbors for fresh produce which I excrete in the outhouse which drains into an algae pool...

Dead Tower? What is that, like Whiskey Dick or something?

Aside from our neo-survivalist tendencies, we also talk real crackpot schemes. One good one we had was a rehash of the Corpulent Populism concept, combined with our idea of a turnkey Porntrapraneur service. The two ideas are 1) a publication aimed at converting middle class straight white males to the left -- a Progressive Maxim of sorts -- and 2) an answer to the revelation to outfits like Suicide Girls may not, in fact, be all that empowering to all that many women, since the girls in the photos don't get a real cut of the revenue, nor even the copyright to their images. We invision a system which would allow people to join a network of porntraprneneurs, with 80%+ of proceeds going back to the actual producers and the image subjects retaining full copyright over their photos. We also envision a magazine of inquiry, taste and opinion which would enjoy a collegial relationship with these content producers, publishing some racy pin-up images with every issue. Seems like quite a combination.

So there was that, and then I was out. I think the way I'll get back there is if the biz gets over the hump and I have time and inclination to write and Mark finally gets the fucking internet. I could occupy the Siesta and crank out many lines code and many pages of book. It would be good. Maybe.

San Francisco was fun though. Once the party got going everyone was stoned and it was loopy and loud. I think I was only entertaining for the first half of things. Joe and I played some word games. "Crack torch" became "freebase combustor" became "narcotic immolation system," which is a good name for a band we thought. Dumm is on his way to Amsterdam for a conference. Zack dresses really nice, or let's Jamie dress him really nice which amounts to the same thing and is a good idea in either case. I told the bird-picture phone joke, and only realized right then that the punch line -- "wing, wing wing... herwow?" -- could have kind of prejudicial overtones. Or maybe it was a flash of social paranoia. Who knows.

Anyway, I woke up and drove to Vegas, and met Mike of Trellon in real life. I like this guy. I've liked him since he told me in one of our first IM conversations that he has two rules for the company: No scumbags, no liars. Those are rules I can get behind. Plus he's a legitimately eccentric workaholic single-father (his 9-y/o daughter is awesome; charges me and everyone else $1 for every time we cuss) and a practicing Catholic to boot. I can get behind that.

Also met colleague Dan Moger, who I thought was two years older than me but turned out to be two years younger. He was a frat-houser in his day at Wesleyan, which means he knows how to tuck his pink collared shirt in, but isn't much of a back-slappin' keg-tappin' personal friend to the Quayles. Actually in previous days, he helped monitor the first free elections in Georgia. That's the former Soviet republic, where, unlike the member of our United States, there is no Poll Tax. Ho ho ho.

Anyway, it's been interesting. We're on some ambitious paths here, following the twin lures of being devistatingly effective in taking control of the government away from assholes and making the kind of money that qualifies you as "successful" in 21st-Century America. These are both things I'd love to do in the next year, but I've still got to get used to the idea in some ways. I need to find my own logic and through-line for it, my own terms for the deal.

Reading the second volume of HST's corrispondence, wishing I could get that as a motherfucking podcast. 747 miles tomorrow. G.D. it.

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Quickie

I'm in Vegas. Craps is fun.

I inadvertantly deleted a couple of "real" comments just now trying to manage my massive comment-spam problem. I'm going to try a few new things, and if that doesn't work I'll do the deal that forces you to type in the random letters before you can post, a CAPTCHA test.

Anyway, thanks for the comments. I'll be reaching out soon to folks once I get a sense of what time I'll be arriving the next few places. Yesterday I did 570 miles and it wasn't event all that hard, so I'm hopefuly about tomorrow's 747 mile haul through the Rockies. As I recall from before, I-70 is mostly deserted until you get into Denver, so I'm hoping to beat Google's 15-hour estimate for timing.

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Westhaven

I killed a deer on the way down. Never done that before. It was foggy, nothing I could really do about it. But it provoked an inetersting round of thought. I didn't stop. At fist it was just schock and the cars behond me that kept me driving, but quickly the rationalization engine kicked in: it was dark, there was a narrow shoulder, nowhere to safely pull off; the deer was most certainly going to die if not already dead, and there was not way for me to help that along. I've heard tell of friends pulling off to drag a wounded doe off the road and slit its throat to speed it's passing and clear the highway, but I was without a knife and there were four vehicles right behind me, and I would have had to drive ahead several miles to fined a good place to turn around and go back... I didn't see any realitic options.

So I arrived in time to catch the tail end of dinner in Weshaven, a good time for sure. Costume photos. Dance party. Beautiful people. I like the whole scene. Kelly's the master instigator, channeling the spirit of michael jackson and bringing it all together...

Everything swirls for a while in that great bohemian way, and by and by Mark and I end up talking it out around the fire. Recent history, current situations, future plans. We talk about serious possibilities; making biodiesel, making our own moonshine (Sustainable Booze), making our own piece of life that works.

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Now leaving Drumm's in SF, my old neighborhood, the Bay Area scene. We had a little party, though i was on the phone helping Alonovo get off the ground for the first couple hours. It was a good time though; lots of comic moments and me being extra loud for people. I slept in the basement and now I'm good to go; hit the coffeeshop and then the road for Vegas.

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Westhaven

I killed a deer on the way down. Never done that before. It was foggy, nothing I could really do about it. But it provoked an inetersting round of thought. I didn't stop. At fist it was just schock and the cars behond me that kept me driving, but quickly the rationalization engine kicked in: it was dark, there was a narrow shoulder, nowhere to safely pull off; the deer was most certainly going to die if not already dead, and there was not way for me to help that along. I've heard tell of friends pulling off to drag a wounded doe off the road and slit its throat to speed it's passing and clear the highway, but I was without a knife and there were four vehicles right behind me, and I would have had to drive ahead several miles to fined a good place to turn around and go back... I didn't see any realitic options.

So I arrived in time to catch the tail end of dinner in Weshaven, a good time for sure. Costume photos. Dance party. Beautiful people. I like the whole scene. Kelly's the master instigator, channeling the spirit of michael jackson and bringing it all together...

Everything swirls for a while in that great bohemian way, and by and by Mark and I end up talking it out around the fire. Recent history, current situations, future plans. We talk about serious possibilities; making biodiesel, making our own moonshine (Sustainable Booze), making our own piece of life that works.

---

Now leaving Drumm's in SF, my old neighborhood, the Bay Area scene. We had a little party, though i was on the phone helping Alonovo get off the ground for the first couple hours. It was a good time though; lots of comic moments and me being extra loud for people. I slept in the basement and now I'm good to go; hit the coffeeshop and then the road for Vegas.

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Hit The Road

I'm about out. The travel plan is thus:

  • Tonight: Westhaven w/Mark
  • Friday: San Francisco; get-together at Drummy's at 10pm
  • Saturday/Sunday: Vegas summit for Trellon
  • Monday: Round about Denver, prolly Motel seis
  • Tusday: Iowa Farmhouse
  • Wednesday: Chi-town, Dave and Jessica
  • Thursday: NYC -- probably very late

This is a savage and greuling marathon schedule, with multiple 700-mile legs. However, with the exception of the final push to NYC, the long legs include vast stretches of mostly empty country where high speed driving is the rule. I figure if I can average 75 on those stretches, 10-hours of driving isn't out of this world. I can break it up with catnaps or whatever too.

I picked up a 400W DC inverter from GI Joes that will run off the cigarette lighter. This is a better deal than all those specialized converters: it'll run anything I have a power plug for and it's got clips to hook direct to a battery, so it can be used for all sorts of other things too. This'll keep my laptop and cellphone alive while I drive, so I'll be rocking out to tunes, audiobooks and podcasts.

I'll post when I can, but no promises there. See you New Yorkers soon though, and all you in-between peeps sooner.

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Nerds and their Political Ignorance

Slashdot | Campaign Financing Cyber Loophole

Read the summary and then the discussion and marvel at the ability of a highly intelligent community to remain politically marginalized through procedural ignorance.

Not that I blame them.

There's a level of basic education about how our election process works that's pretty fundimental to understanding politics today. This is never something that was covered in a civics class (if those are still taught anywhere anymore) but it's just as vital if you want to be a meaningful participant.

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Nerds and their Political Ignorance

Slashdot | Campaign Financing Cyber Loophole

Read the summary and then the discussion and marvel at the ability of a highly intelligent community to remain politically marginalized through procedural ignorance.

Not that I blame them.

There's a level of basic education about how our election process works that's pretty fundimental to understanding politics today. This is never something that was covered in a civics class (if those are still taught anywhere anymore) but it's just as vital if you want to be a meaningful participant.

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Daily Kos Embraces Folksonomy

Markos, always on the edge.

FWIW, I'm planning to do the same for most of my projects ongoing. While taxonomy (top-down categorization through hierarchy) is still really useful for putting some structure around your data, in terms of allowing people to find relevant content quickly and/or to effectively contextualize information, folksonomy (bottom up categorization through tagging) offers a great deal more performance.

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Recommend Me Things!

I'm going to be driving across the country in a few days. It should take a week. What should I be listening to? I'm particularly interested in getting some good audiobooks and/or podcasts.

Anyone actually listening to any of this crap? Tips?

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