FYI: our Dear Leader is visiting the UK for the next few days. They're spending about $20million on police, shutting down the underground and having rolling cellphone blackouts in the name of protecting the Prez from "terrorists." Some theorize that it also might be to dampen demonstrations. Y'all know that Bush doesn't read the news, has never come face to face with his detrators, and in all likelyhood has no idea that he is loathed by roughly half the world's english speaking population.

This website is keeping track of everything that goes on during his British Vacation.

Had an engaging and inspiring visit from the Zacker, my cohort from the DeanSpace project. Also got fun random contact from some attractive girl in New York because she ran into two people who knew me, one through the Dean campaign and one through shakespeare. I'm working on something to send to my NYC crew for Axiom. My buddy Tom is down from Portland this weekend. And Dan and I managed to work out again. These trends are good.

Thanks to an invite from Buddy Brit and $45 disposable income, I got to rub elbows with some of the digerati last night, supping at Joi Ito's dinner at LuLu's in SoMa. I sat across from the Director of Business Development for Red Herring (which I thought was defunct but has been given new life), and between one of the directors of the EFF and the guy behind Tribe.net, a kind of next-gen Friendster. It was an interesting experience.

I was young and poor for the crowd, uneasy with the aristocratic air that occasionally wafted through. I'm still not free of classism. Not that these people are stuffy or victorian or even looked down their nose at me and my black hoodie. In fact, I got an email fishing for extra dollars; the booze went over budget. But there is a kind of insiderism that rears its head from time to time, something to do with ready capital, tastes and a specific strain of education I think. A few glasses of wine helped dull that sensation, and I spieled about my organization a little; listened to people talk about their Tivo habbits, attending film festivals, social software, and the like.

The most valuable connection I made was with Steven Clift, who's an old hand at e-politics in Minnesota, next week's research focus for MfA). The person I most wanted to talk to and didn't was Howard Rheingold, who's "paint your shoes!" meme-card I carry in my wallet. The most fun moment was having a jet-lagged and boozy Ito physically inquire as to why I was massaging the bridge of my nose. The most interesting thing was hearing Doc Searls talk: he sounds younger than most of the 30-somethings there, and gives off the enthusiastic energy of a big-wave surfer dude. Not what I expected.

Namedrop namedrop blah blah blah. The real lession I picked up is that people are planning on making tons of money off of social software. I don't know how I feel about that.

Pedaling down the mission on my way home it occurred to me that having 100,000 unique visitors to your blog every month must be as potentially corrupting as any other form of celebrity. At the very least it presents a distancing information asymmetry; people read your site and they feel like they've had an interaction with you, which is true from their perspective, but you haven't learned anything about them. I get that from my friends, so I imagine it must be a strange land indeed for these curve-busting trend-surfers. I'm happy to do my own thing in my own time; but I want MfA to be wildly successful. There's an angle here somewhere.

We got a weight set, and I took a zig-zag bicicle sojourn up to Twin Peaks. It was a good thing; pumping a little iron and then tearassing up those car chase worthy San Francisco hills. I was aiming for that giant radio tower that reminds me of the Burning Man -- Sutro Tower -- but I missed the access road by a couple miles. Got some altitude though, sweat and burn and then all those good free moments coming down as a payoff... passing a yuppie chick in an Acura coupe on her way to some hilly organinc market, blowing a stop sign with no hands, perfect unity with my headphones and then a roller-coaster lurch over the edge of the next downhill. Almost lost it there, and it was a real moment of zen frenzy excitement, the precious present.

Feeling righteously sore, wondering when, if ever, I'll have time to pursue the finer things in life. Lying down for a bit, just contemplating, wondering how long it will be until I stop missing things that are miles and months away. It occurs to me that I'm violating three out of four of my axioms of living with my current lifestyle. I'm struggling; I'm keeping a lot of things to myself; and I'm not being present. Don't really know what to do about it. Time and exercise and experience and work -- and possibly drinking -- are the only things I can think of in my bag of available tricks that might help.

Getting laid would probably be good, but that doesn't seem terribly likely given my schedule, unless I can meet some political prospects or something. Actually this should be possible, but there's still my attitude in general to be dealt with, matters of self-esteem and those pesky pesky standards. Maybe I could ask Molly for advice on trolling through Friendster. Something's got to give pretty soon here.