Ebony and Irony

Ebony and Irony live together in pure dis-harmony
Side by side in the Senate main floor, oh lord, why dont we?

Neo's know: that people aren't the same where ever they go.
There is good and bad ...in other folks,
But nothing wrong, with any song
they choose to sing, until they get nailed ... and then they get jailed.

Ebony and Irony live together in pure dis-harmony
Side by side in the Congress main floor, oh lord, why dont we?

Ebony, Irony living in perfect harmony
Ebony, Irony, nooooo

Dems all know that people are the same where ever they go
There is good and bad in evryone,
They've learned to hide, they've learned to slide
Each other the slack need to survive 'till Gingrich arrives.

Ebony and Irony live together in pure dis-harmony
Side by side in the chambers Supreme, oh lord, why dont we?

Ebony, Irony living in political harmony (repeat and fade)

Eco Gym

I am releasing this idea to the world. For I am lazy and unwilling to see it through to it's end. So use it if you wish and think good thoughts of me if you do.

Since the Yuppies still insist on climbing fake stairs, walking treadmills, and riding fake bikes, all instead of just doing the real thing, I suggest we put them to work. Instead of pugging this equipment in to give them digital readouts, why not plug generators in and let them provide power? Heck, at least enough power could be generated to run the bloody machine. A few bikes in a spin class could power a pretty nice sound system. A whole gym that runs on the power of the people pushing generators instead of friction wheels would be a beautiful thing.

So, come on Bowflex, Weider, Nautilus, and Golds, let's see some training devices that are also power devices. Then, people can not only get buff and built, but they can get green as well....

Go Hulk!

MILK COUNCIL SCANDAL!

Shocking pictures released indicate that the cows chosen for the California Milk and Cheese ads have been regularly subjected to casting couch auditions. These "casting cows" rarely ever even see a camera, let alone make it on screen. But they are subjected to the lowest form of humiliation nevertheless.

"These charges are patently ridiculous", claims David Bilkson, chief treasury director of the Milk Council. "Anyone could have taken those photos. You can't even see faces, I mean, how do we know they even auditioned?"

The state prosecutor, Dirk Benson, vows to unveil the entire scandal and bring the entire ring to justice. "Thank God this came out after people got their Milk for Santa," he ruefully admits.

DJ Grumpy Bear

I learned a lot tonight.

1) you CAN pull together a choreographed piece in two days.
2) NEVER listen to a promoter who says he "just wants xmas music"
3) NEVER listen to 'the drunk girl' when she says a music change is in order.
4) never let her friend select the music.
5) never trust strangers with your sound system.
6) A second change in music type is NOT the answer.
7) Never judge a celebrity by the cover.
8) even female body builders/ wrestlers can be effeminate, fragile, or out of their element. (Yeah, I met Chyna tonight)
9) it's never THAT bad, even when half the floor clears (from the drunk chick's music)

So, for my first, paid DJ gig, it could have been worse. I should have stuck to my guns and told the drunk chick to piss off, but after being told to switch from xmas music to "anything" else, I was caught off guard. Psytrance was keeping the party going and was neutral enough to allow people to chat and carouse. Once I got rid of "that retro shit" and played Gloria Estefan, it completely killed my vibe. Plus, after a song or two the drunk chick was back bugging me to play "something danceable". I think it would have been a much better party if I had pushed her in the pool.

Knott's Inferno Mix 2009

Red Swan Entertainment has provided the Inferno Stage at Knott's Scary Farms Halloween Haunt for the last two years. In addition to wrangling 20 performers and a dozen spotters, we provide our own music for the show. Since they won't let us have live music, and we must provide a cd, we went with a friend who created two stunning mixes for us.
Check 'em out:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7817978401066367605&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7179575558474923286&hl=en

For 2009, we decided to take a lesson from the performers and accept "auditions" for this year's mix. Any DJ who would like to do so may submit a mix for consideration for the Inferno Stage mix.

Because this is a public venue and a park with a lot of things going on, there are some restrictions to what we may accept. Submitted mixes should have the following attributes:
- 15 minutes long
- preferably music without copyright entanglements
- All tracks must be appropriate for 13 year old + (ie "clean" ratings)
- All tracks, Ambient to Goa, Breaks to TechStep, should be danceable.
- limit radical changes in style and speed to 1-5 times total, please.
- Knotts likes the mix to have a definitive end (like big Hollywood spectaculars). Drum build and a gong, or, in the case of our second year, the dragon's roar; etc.
- We prefer the last 5 minutes or so to have a lot of energy and an epic build
- we prefer the opening sequence to have a seriously strong hook to gather the crowd

You're encouraged build whatever mix you like, without regard to previous versions or preconceptions of what would "fit" at Knotts.

Since we like to have the mix ready for performer auditions, and we'll need some time to decide, all submissions should be with us by Mach 1st, 2009.

Winning mix will be awarded $100 and [if available] 2 guest passes to the Haunt.

Please send links to online mixes or Audio CDs to
http://redswanfire.com/contact.html

On the woes and ways

Okay, so, by now, you should know I run a few websites. But the one that's my bread and butter is Bearclaw Manufacturing.
http://www.bearclawmfg.com/
I make and sell fire performance equipment (big shocker, no?), and do so primarily through the website.

Well, back in April 2007, I installed the current version of the site. It's got a lot of cool things about it and, quite frankly a few things missing. Fortunately it's ope source, so there's a plethora of contributions to fix the issues I might have with it. Why a few of these are not in the basic install is completely beyond me. More on that later.

So, Over the last few months I've been looking over my earnings sheet and noticed a disturbing downward trend. Naturally, this bothered me a bit. I took a look at a wide variety of indicators and correctly foresaw the crash of the housing market and the current depression we are suffering.

Unfortunately, I've also noticed that my ONLY customers of late have been either returning customers or ones that I contacted directly. Add that with the convenient timing of the downturn compared to the installation of the new website and you get one big, embarrassing oversight. It seems my new website is not optimized for web searches.

Yup, generic title, no meta tags, and the information that I transferred over was pathetic. So, I looked on the contributions page and found a plethora of ways to help. Again, I don't know why a couple of these are installed standardly in the basic package. But, Okay.... we might just want a sales page that can't be found. *sigh*. So for a year and a half, my sales have been declining, mostly because google doesn't know what to do with my site.

It's all fixed now, and maybe a little better for the trouble. So, now we just wait for a few spiders to crawl the site and we should be done. Here's hoping. I hate being on page 36 of a google search for fire poi. *shudder*

Red Swan Recruitment

Red Swan Wants YOU!

If you haven't heard, Red Swan Entertainment is a fire performance talent management company. Our job is to connect fire performers up with jobs. And not just the same old jobs, but good ones. We started with running the Inferno Stage at Knott's Berry Farm during their Halloween Haunt in 2007. Then, we did special spots for new ABC shows, a piece for the History channel, charity gigs, music videos, another run at Knott's, and more.

Now, just because people signed up doesn't mean they were forced to do gigs. All we do is notify you when work is available. Either we post general jobs to the gig list, or we contact you directly if you meet specific needs. Then, you decide if you want the gig. More business, no stress, What more could you want?

"How about my fire troupe?" Oh, so you're in a troupe, are ya? No problem. If the troupe doesn't mind it's members doing occasional solo gigs, we'll take them all. We don't always get asked for "dark-haired female fire eaters", sometimes they specifically want a troupe, or a mixed group of people. In those cases, being in a troupe can be a benefit.

Okay, yeah, sounds too good to be true? Fine, yes, we take a small cut, but only on the gigs We get you. If you get a gig on your own, you get the whole gig. And, if get a gig you can't handle, you can have us manage it for you, no stress. And you can even take a finder's fee if you like.

If you're on our gig, we ask that you represent. Follow NAFAA regs, pass out Red Swan cards when requested, and be professional. You're welcome to keep a pack of Red Swan cards to pass out when you're not at our gigs; but, no pressure.

So, you see, for just a little bit of your time, you get a lot of benefits, and no stress. We get another performer, another set of skills, another unique person that may be just what someone is looking for.

So why not sign up with Red Swan today?
http://redswanfire.com/performers_sign-up.html
Or feel free to write or call with questions.

I told you so...

For those who didn't believe back then, I can [unfortunately] say: "I told you so".

I was going through all my old blogs, transferring them to blogspot, when I cam across this
http://people.tribe.net/tedward/blog/296c45bd-04cc-441c-929f-242ba86176d3

It seems that more than 2 years ago, I called the current financial crisis. So, for all those unbelievers, I say :P nyah nyah.
...
Of course, I'd rather not have been right on this one, but you take the victories you can.
Here's another prediciton: Assuming he survives to swear in, Obama will the new JFK yet get almost as much accomplished as Clinton. After two terms, Biden will run and win, but his priorities are elsewhere and he won't get much accomplished.

Welcome

It took me a long time to get used to blogging.  I just couldn't imagine the arrogance of it.  What on earth could be so important that you need to inflict it upon the rest of the world.  

Well, I guess I'm more arrogant now.  :)

I started blogging some time back.  I'll see if I can get my Tribe blogs up here.  Based on those, you can expect a complete mixed bag of nuts.  Sometimes theoretical physics, sometimes politics, sometimes toe jam.  But I will say that I don't like pulling my punches, so if you can't take the heat, get out of my kitchen.

Time to testify

Last year, I performed on Halloween with Tangee and completed our little fire sword grudge match. Here ya go...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-hgrf9fHto

Let me tell you, that's an intense minute, and far more strenuous that most people imagine. At the end you see me put my hands on my knees. That's because the chest pains were starting to kick in. A few seconds more of fighting and it felt like I was beginning a full coronary. Since my dad had 7 of them before he noticed it, I can well imagine that this was, indeed, my first heart attack.

After that gig, and after paying off a bunch of bills, I had some money left over. And for many other reasons, I lusted over the iPod Touch. So i put money and desire together with the standard Catholic-guilt conditional: I must use it 3 times a week for exercise. Not having a music player was the final excuse I was clinging to.

Okay, quick tangent. Excedrin came out with a catastrophically unsuccessful commercial. Based on research that showed most people did not fully trust doctors, combined with it's third place ranking in headache elimination, they had their spokesman say " did I listen to 'research'? NO. That's for doctors." Well, it turns our people do respect clinical research. I write this testimonial not because I don't think people believe the research, but because re-inforcing testimonials DO work.

So, if you look back at my blogs you will see some of the progress I made over the last year. My resting heart rate went from 100+ down below 90. My heart rate recovery time after exercise dropped from 45 minutes to about 10 minutes. And my blood pressure dropped from "hypertension" level to "normal" levels pretty quickly. In short, I was back to being "healthy like ox" by the beginning of the summer. I would have liked to see some changes in my physique, but I did, at least, maintain the measurements I had dropped to during the first Knotts gig.

So, when this year came around, I was still a little shy about performing regularly. Partially the physique, partially because I didn't want to suffer those chest pains again. So, I avoided getting scheduled more than one day in a row. But I allowed Michelle to put me on more than once a week. I ended up performing the same number of days, but worked almost twice as many all told. Plus, that last week, I was onstage quite a bit.

But, instead of falling apart like last year, I felt pretty good. I managed 14 performances in a week with some almost as intense as the combat. But instead of chest pains, I muddled through. And instead of three days of pain and sickness at the end of the run, I actually had a little energy afterwards. In short, I feel pretty good.

For this, I salute my iPod. Of course, I've picked up the 2nd Generation Touch, so now I have access to Nike+, a whole system for walking and running management. Plus, I have twice as much room on this thing, so lots of choices in music. But, really, it comes down to getting off my ass and taking a little stroll. Then a couple more. Then a slightly longer stroll when the view got boring. Then a little hike. Until, eventually, I would walk all day.

I may still look like a bear, but, 'I strong like ox' and a lot healthier too. So, based on this, I encourage you to find a way to get yourself moving. An ipod shuffle is super cheap, and can hold about 8 hours of music. You don't need a gym membership to walk around the block. And the more you do, the safer your neighborhood becomes (criminals don't like people watching them). And, hey, you might get a bit healthier too.

BOOYAH!

President Elect Barack Obama.

Sounds so sweet.

Now, we just got to keep him alive until January... :oP

No on prop 8

Sorry for all the non-California residents reading this, but we have a hot-topic issue coming up on Nov 4th.

A little while back, we had a court case go through that allowed gay marriages to happen here. The gist of the ruling is that although our legal concept of marriage comes from the religious base, it has been tied up with legal ramifications (visiting rights, health insurance coverage, next-of-kin, etc) and many people do not get religious marriages anymore, but rather seek legal entities (judges) to perform the ceremonies. So, with this as a given, the constitution has no ruling in it about who may become married, and thus, the state should not discriminate based on the races or sexes of the humans involved.

So, this year, a group called "protect marriage" is pushing prop 8 through which repeals this decision and attempts to amend the state constitution to forever prohibit gay marriage. Their primary method so far has been to quote incidents from Massachusetts where a book "King & King" was read to second graders. They sued to get the book banned, but the judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying "Diversity is a hallmark of our nation"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_King

So, after that scare tactic failing to work, they've picked up a new campaign, one without commercials. They're actually threatening to build a list of all companies who donate to 'no on 8' without an equal or greater sum going to 'protect marriage'. That list will be publicly posted as "marriage haters." My favorite computer company has responded:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/24/182745/66/429/641316

Just a little back story on marriage.
When we wandered the lands as nomadic peoples. Everyone's survival tasks were pretty clear. Women gathered local plants, found water, and protected the children. Elders formed long range scouts and often filled in the time gaps where others hated to be awake. Men, all of them of hunting age, would leave together and return together for hunting. There were no real assets to pass down other than genial leadership. And since any pair bonding that happened was pretty much public knowledge, the males could easily track their progeny. Women, of course, have been able to assuredly track their progeny up until only a couple of decades ago (in-vitro fertilization).

When we settled into farm life, two big things happened. First, assets, particularly land ownership, stated gathering fast. Second, occupational specialty made a rise. You see, when all the males of breeding age hunt together, there's no one left behind (other than elders) to muddy up the family lines. But when you have farmers, blacksmiths, milkmen, shop keeps, etc, the opportunity for discrete infidelity arises. For the women, this means they get the best genetic mixes, so it's advantageous to them. For the adulterous men, they have an opportunity to pass progeny without giving up assets to attract a mate or tend to her or their offspring. Only the faithful male loses out on the deal; his property passes to someone else's child and he puts in all the work of support with no genetic benefit.

These faithful, but cuckold, men often became disgruntled and problematic for the community. So, they turned to the highest order of power they could: the priests and the leaders. Slowly, but almost universally, the promise of fidelity got woven into the fabrics of major religions, and into the laws of the land. Frequently the punishments were very harsh ('stoning' in the times of the bible), and carried the additional incentive of being a "sin".

Nowadays, anyone with tickets to Jerry Springer can get a paternity test done and proof-positive identify a child's genealogical decent. The specific need for "sin" and "promises" to track progeny and inheritance lines is OVER. Frankly, if we don't need gay marriage, I say we don't need any marriage. Certainly not from a legal stand point. Married couples get so many legal benefits from our government that other pair bonded couples, and singles, do not get. So I say let's give to Caesar what is Caesar's and God to God, If you want to have marriage between a man and a woman only, fine, but you lose all government supported benefits: tax breaks, health care coverage, next of kin rights, Special 5th amendment powers (cannot be forced to testify against spouse), etc.

Or you could give a few "perverts" a break and let them help reduce the divorce rate. :)
No on 8. Separation of church and state.

Columbus Daze

Okay, so, Columbus Day is coming up a week from Monday. And since I always forget to do this on time, I'm doing it early. (kinda like those stores that are schlepping out the Xmas stuff already).

Back in 5th grade, we got fed the propaganda about this most beloved of early US figures: the man who "discovered" America...

Yeah, right. If that were true, there wouldn't be North American Natives with Viking Blood in them. Also, the Inca wouldn't have had anything made of jade. You see, Jade is found only one place in the world: China. And let's not forget the "Indians" he found... somebody had to cross the land bridge...

**AARRGH**

Okay, so, for the record, here we go.
1) People -knew- the world was round long before Columbus. In fact, the size of the earth was known in ancient Greece, accurate to within a couple hundred miles. Columbus wasn't out to "prove" the world was round, and even if he was, he did not succeed, Magellan did.
2) He wasn't looking for a new land. Ancient Ottoman maps, that he may have seen, depict South America and a snow-free Antarctica. Plus viking lore of new lands were well known at that time.
3) He WAS looking for a shorter ocean route to Asia. Going around African and India to get to China was a real drag. And despite the ancient greek figures showing a direct sea route from england to China being four times as long, with no place to land, he thought he'd try anyway.
4) He WAS looking for drugs. The primary import from China, even more valuable than silk, was opium.
5) The THOUGHT he'd landed at India. That's why they call the natives here, "Indians". Dots, not feathers. Columbus didn't know the difference.
6) This meant that he actually sailed on an expedition to a land he knew almost nothing about. If he actually had someone who knew anything about India on board, he would not have made the mistake. But since no one on board spoke either the language of the natives, nor the primary languages of the orient, he could not distinguish the two. And if he actually wanted to reach China, why didn't he sail north from the Caribbean's?
7) Nevertheless, he pressed the new "friends" into slavery. Okay, so, he thought he had sailed 'round the other way to Asia, landed in India, and since he couldn't speak the language, he brought a whip.
8) The rest of his "friends" died of polio and other diseases. Not really his fault, but one of those diseases was syphilis. Some folks got no respect.
9) Since he couldn't secure opium, he brought back what drugs they had: tobacco.

So, celebrate "columbus day" the way it should be done:
Get lost, looking for drugs
Make new friends wherever you end up
Kill and enslave them.
Steal their stuff (don't forget the medicine cabinet)
Claim their land as your own
Kill anyone who disagrees.


... it's the American Way.

The 10% fallacy

Hollywood is very fond of dragging out one of the oldest fallacies in biological research: the 10% brain thing. The oldest fallacy is, of course, that EACH drink you take kills 50,00 brain cells. That's just not true, they came up with that number by estimating the number of dead cells in chronic drinker's brains and dividing by the estimated number of drinks a chronic drinker has in a lifetime. Turns out that you can swill a LOT of alcohol before you deplete your B6 levels down enough to take brain damage. THEN that one drink starts killing off millions of brain cells.

A similar amount of scientific fortitude went into the 10% fallacy. Here's how it went. Take a rat or a mouse, run it through a maze and clock it's time. Then take out a small portion of the brain and run it again. Keep doing this until you get a noticeable drop in time. Repeat. Average the results. And they were: 90% of a rats brain needed to be removed to get a noticeable drop in time. Conclusion: we only use 10% of our brains.

Let's put this in different terms, we're gonna take parts off your car until we get a noticeable drop in SPEED. We'll start with the steering wheel, radio, gauges, body panels, interior, air filter, power steering, radiator, THEN engine... in that order. We only see a marginal drop in speed when the radiator goes. And in fact we see a small increase in speed as various parts come off. But if we stop before the engine, is it still a car?

The answer is NO. About 15 seconds after the 10% paper was released, someone else shook off the old idea that the brain wasn't just a big mass of smart jello, but a multi-layered mass of compartmentalized processes. We now know there's a visual center, a cognitive center, the reptilian brain, etc. Only about half of our brain mass is even used for "thinking", the rest goes to maintain the body, and support the senses. So, anyone who's ever jogged or took a walk, with their eyes open, listening to a walkman has, at some point, used at least 50% of their brain... without the "thinking" part.

But some of the new-ish technology out there (MRIs PET scans, etc) show, by tracking blood flow, that the average person uses approximately 100% of their brains, EVERY SINGLE DAY. See it turns out that different tasks use different part of your brain. Listening to music, uses part A of the "thinking" area, but singing uses part B (both use the sensory areas, too, and singing requires activity in the reptilian brain). Playing an instrument uses part C of the brain, dancing part D. So if you happen to be singing along with the music, playing air-guitar or dashboard-drum while shaking your booty, it turns our you're using about 80% of your brain all at once.

They've even gone so far as to develop technology that helps you to make use of all the various parts of your brain as much as possible and to coordinate the efforts to create interesting internal effects. If you've ever seen a "relaxation" machine with sunglasses and earphones that flash red lights at your closed eyes, that's the one. They're trying to make use of the brains natural pleasure response from activating as many parts as possible all at once. Primitive tribes did this by drumming and dancing around a fire. Modern tribes do it with glow sticks and speakers. Oh, and sitting there, reading all of this?
... about 20-30 percent, assuming the room is dead quiet and there's nothing but the screen to look at.

You may have heard that Einstein used 30% of His brain... That's an estimation based on his IQ (in excess of 200), using the 10% fallacy to illustrate the point. Einstein never took and IQ test, so we don't really know. Naturally, because we don't know, we have no idea how much of his brain he actually used. But I'm willing to bet that it's pretty close to 100%, just like everyone else.

On a more Platonic wave. Think about the rest of your body. Is there ANY part of your body where there's 10 times more of anything than what's needed? Even large amounts of stored fat are a survival remnant that help a lot of people in cold climates (I grew up in Michigan, so I still carry a lot of "Detroit"). But really, think .... hair? nope, keeps the sun off you while running. Nails? nope, good for digging and self defense. Sweat? nope keeps you cool. Appendix? Nope, recent studies show that important digestive bacteria grow there. Why on earth would we develop ... and maintain... a huge chunk of Very Expensive tissue that served no purpose at all? It's ridiculous...
It's asinine.

It's Hollywood...

Tribe "final days" news...

All you chicken-little's out there crying about how tribe is going down because of this that or another thing. Please take some of the following into account:
1) Yes, the lead programmer has left. However, he's the guy that was keeping it running these last few months of crashes, problems, and outages. Maybe losing him was a good thing. Not saying he was a bad guy, but he can be replaced, and maybe fresh eyes will get things running smoother.
2) The Tribe blog has had nothing but good to say about the Premium membership program. This has netted much needed funds that have allowed new equipment purchases and such. Now, one nay-sayer claims that the early sept colocation change was a fraud and that Tribe isn't allowed to move because of colo debts. Ummm, first, colos hold the light switch. If you get behind, they have no problem limiting your bandwidth, or just shutting you down... but an extended debt? I doubt it. But lets entertain the idea. If Tribes owner is siphoning money out then there's little to do and most likely, the attempted colo move would have brought tribe down permanently. I'm gonna call shenanigans on that nay-sayer.
3) Tribe is currently running smoother than ever. This could be from rats jumping ship, and it could be that the promised changes on the Tribe blog have happened and the site is now more bullet-proof.

I'm not against finding alternate resources and such, but posting your email address on a public server is a fast way to GB of spam mail a day. I'm down below 1300 a week, and I think I'll keep it that way. In the mean time, I hate Facebook, I won't use a Fox News owned service (My Space), so right now, if I gotta go, I'll probably revert to the first, the oldest and still the best bbs out there... arbornet
http://www.arbornet.org/

Post Burn Blah Blah

Post Burn Report:
Shelter (Pictured):
/ Double length monkey hut worked famously. It was so stable that it helped form part of a larger structure.
/ Dome designed to fit inside Monkey Hut ... fit. The combination of the two make for a formidably cool shelter. The zippered cover kept out the dust nicely.
/ Shower Curtain suspended from one end of Monkey hut worked quite well, and placement near the dome meant there was a convenient shelf to put stuff.
/ Battery powered shower gave up the ghost (despite new batteries). Fuck it. I grabbed a cup and poured water over myself. It was entirely sufficient, greener, leaner, and it made me happy. That's my new shower.... no disappointments, no batteries.
/ Covered evaporator needed more room to work. Once I put a couple of boards to support the lid, it worked great. Still thinking of a kiddie pool next time.
/ Rope bed for dome was larger than expected but worked incredibly well. It needed several tightenings, but was the most comfortable sleep I've had on the Playa.

Camp (InCompeCare):
/ Set up took longer than I'd hoped. We didn't have actual shade and stuff until Tuesday.
/ The sign for our camp was a complete success. We're totally doing something like it in the future.
/ The function of having everyone pull office hours was weak. I would have liked to see a little more participation from the residents.
/ The fact that we were closed most of the time was not lost on outsiders. That played nicely.
/ The M&Ms, toys costumes and such were quite the hit.
/ However, far too many of our visitors saw the red cross and assumed we were a legitimate first aide station.
/ A couple of camps left a lot of detritus behind. Clean up was kind of aggravating.

Plans
Keep in mind this was a particularly dusty year. And i don't mean "wear a face mask" dusty, or "get some goggles" dusty, but I mean foot high mounds of dust in piles all over the playa. Hit one with a bike and you come to a gentle but abrupt stop. Made bikes useless at night, and everyone's lungs got filled up reducing energy levels across the board.
/ Ocean of fire - like 6 people showed up. The weather was beautiful, the sound system was faltering the dust was tame. No records broken this year, but we had fun with the brass balls competition anyway. Disheartening, though.
/ Temple of Community - I was supposed to run the show before the burn, but while trying to gather more performers, Crimson stepped on my announcement and gave bad information. No one showed.
/ Burn Night - High winds and lots of all-day dust meant that the pyro team had to find a "window" for which they could burn the man (with fireworks). However, because of the critical timing, they decided to cancel the rest of the burn night ritual, including the Fire conclave. Funny, not once did I ever hear anyone tinker with the idea of not having fireworks.... grr.
/ Temple Basura - The main temple burn was delayed for some time because they realized that they had nothing to light it with. This is the position I always filled with the main temple crew, but unfortunately, the Basura crew decided that the Temple crew's help would not be needed. *smirk*

People
I saw a lot of old friends this year. None of the ones I expected, all the ones I needed, I guess. My playa love this year ended up being another shin. We email to each other but I don't think either of us are ready for an LD thang. *sigh*

Tech
/ My iPod Touch has now fully completed it's original mission. First it gave me a music player to walk with. Then a sales tool for Red Swan and Bearclaw. And finally, on the playa, the WiFi access allowed me to do enough work to be certain that I'd have enough money to make it home. This is the first year I've come back from the playa with no new debts. Happy.
/ battery powered shower - dead. Replaced. Happy
/ Genny - Both camp generators failed to emit a single volt this year. And not for lack of trying. First, I have to fix the starter cord, then I think I have to get mine un-flooded. Finally, I want to buy a muffler for it. Now if I can just remember all that when I have both time and money.
/ Pocket Fisherman. Yup, the original Ron Popeil gadget. This turned out to be the most gratifying part of the burn for me. since New moon was thursday, it was a very dark year. I went Raver Fishin and gave away blinky lights to whomever I caught. This was the single most gratifying part of the year for me. I even bought a couple of lures so that I could do some stream fishing if I get the call. This thing lives in my car from now on.

In the end, this was a particularly hard year. One of those years that make it very hard to say, confidently, that I'll be back next year. I burned the bed, but I can always make another one cheaply. I still have the dome and Hut and the rest of my camp. Time will tell on the rest. The biggest worry I have is if I'll have a conclave next year. A LOT of my folks are pissed off about burn night, and taking crap from people who perform all year round isn't helping their mood.

Pale-In

Everybody is up in arms about Sarah Palin. She's not the first woman on an executive ticket. Geraldine Ferraro had that honor. She's not the dumbest or least experienced VP, that one goes to Dan Quayle.

She's a clear attempt at locking in the Hillary vote that threatened to go to McCain after the primaries. That's all. Simple pandering. Nothing else. Please stop calling it "historic". It's not.

...unless she gets elected.

Back from the burn

Dust, sweat, dust, tears, dust, shelter, dust, ice, dust, dust, dust, dust......

No conclave this year...
6 people at Ocean of fire...
Temple of community confusion...
AAARRRGH....

On the other hand, I was swept off my feet by the Shin of the Santa Cruz fire conclave. A new face, sweet, talented and a good hugger. She gave me sweet affirmations when I think I needed them most.

It was a strange year. I feel empty. Usually, I'm tired but brimming with creativity. But the Burn night debacle has left me utterly spent.

Best... Birthday... Ever!

Granted, there's not a whole lot of competition in this field. And most of the high points are fairly recent: cakes at Burn Club, etc. But I've had some serious low points.
10th - Parents tried to surprise me. I nearly get attacked by a pet Crow, then get sick during the surprise party.
18th - in the army. Letter arrives from the girlfriend with a note to "sarge" on the back. 100s of pushups that day. Then, we went through gas mask training and spend the afternoon in the gas chamber
22nd - finalize my divorce
You get the idea.
It took about 10 years of messy divorce nonsense for me to get ready to get serious again, but by then I'd kinda lost the knack. So, I started a habit of taking out the most beautiful, desirable and available woman I knew for my birthday. That way, I at least get in one date a year.

But this year, THIS year, a hot, blonde, ex-model, current stage performer asked ME out. So what if she's engaged. It was awesome. Plus, I have a new favorite restaurant. It's called Le petit Greek, in this cute little cluster on Larchmont. It's a little pricey, but sooo worth it. And no harm being seen with a cutie like Starburst. :)

Anyway, it was fun getting out of the house, and out of the scene, acting like a normal person and not dealing with fire for a few hours.

On Death and Choices

I want to thank everyone for their kind words regarding my mother's recent death. As i said to many of you, it was sudden but not unexpected.

My family seems to have a slightly different view on death than most. We do not fear it. We feel it's a choice. The only time we see it as a tragedy is when there is no choice. Like the victims of Hiroshima, the ones at point blank range had no choice in the matter, their bodies were dissembled at the atomic level.

Short of that, though, pretty much anything you've ever heard of happening to someone and killing them has been survived by someone else. Be it shot, run over by a car, electrocuted, frozen, fried, drowned or by disease, someone somewhere has survived it. As it happens, *I* have survived all of those. Guess I only have two lives left... :o)

Any way, consider James Brady. He was Reagan's body guard that got half his head shot off. People have survived jumping out of a plane, walking through lava, eaten by sharks, etc. Really, Seriously, almost anything at all has been survived by someone.

We believe that every time you go through trauma, any trauma, you get a choice. Sometimes you recognize it, sometimes you don't. When I was electrocuted as a child, I was thrown 30 feet by the juice and was down for about 5 minutes. Then, suddenly, I restarted. No choice, no tunnels, no angels, just a moment of black and I was shaking uncontrollably on the ground.

The first time I knew about the choice, I was in my teens. My "arthritis" was so bad that I was walking with a cane. I was told I'd be in a wheelchair by 18. I bent down to pick something up and my joints popped (think of the size difference between you hand knuckles and your knees... it was LOUD). A friend asked if that hurt and the choice hit me. On the one hand, I could go for the sympathy, say "yeah, it hurts" and get them to help me up. But that way lead to the chair. On the other hand, I could dig deep inside, figure out the truth and let sympathy be damned. I did, and answered 'no, it feels kinda cool actually". And my life started to turn around.

Since then, I've had one or two more choice moments, and of course, I started recognizing the choices when deep trauma stopped my heart and breathing. I know every day I spend on this planet is because I've chosen to be here.

Same for my mother. She's had a pacemaker made by Microsoft for years. At this point, she's about 20-30% artificial parts: heart valves, hips, leg bones, eyebrows, etc. Bits and pieces she was less and less .... her. It bugged her. She hated being a burden. And most importantly, she wanted to go out like her mother did.

My grandmother made the choice to go and gave herself two weeks to say goodbye. One day, I was taking her to the phone company and watching her one-arm a counter rep in an argument about her bill. A week later I get a call that she's in the hospital and going fast. Everyone got the same speech: "she's not very lucid, don't be surprised if she doesn't recognize you." Well, she recognized me... from across the room and through the door. We shared a few moments that were too personal to blog and then, Poof, she was out like a light; completely unfocused and non lucid. Two days later, she wrote a little note saying, "thank you for the wonderful service" and went to sleep for the last time.

I know my mother fussed around for almost a year getting things straight. Made sure everyone was all good. Then tried to go out with the same grace as Her mother. I guess she was hanging on to hold that red-headed grandchild or something. Whatever it was, she decided she'd had enough. I've never known her mind well enough to even begin to guess her motives. But I do know that she chose to go.

Watch for those choices. They happen to everyone. I have a friend who recovered from Lupus because she caught a choice and was ready for it. And the next time you run into something you fear, stop and think. Is this fear based in the fear of Death? Knowing that you have a choice over the moment of your death can unravel all your other fears.

Matriarch RIP

My mother died last night in her sleep. She was 86 years old (oh, the irony of that), birthed 7 children and held over a dozen grand children. She is survived by all her children and her husband of nearly 70 years. Her mother was the undisputed matriarch of our family, and upon her death, she tried to maintain order by stepping into that role. But like so many nuclear families these days, her progeny cast themselves to the 4 winds .... uprooted and unlinked from their past. Like her mother, her two daughters stayed close by and kept watch on her. And like her mother she fought death to the end, but eventually gave in with grace, in her sleep.

It is her wish to be cremated, and I might have to perform the cremation.. ;o)

If you read this, eat a warm, chocolate chip cookie and call someone you love.

Lets get Excited!!!

I have my reasons. They're solid. You know I was a Clinton supporter. This crap about switching to McCain is unwarranted and unfounded. Here's to VP Clinton, and a nice enthusiastic presidential race.

My perfect car Stereo

Fifty watts per channel, an auxiliary jack, and a volume knob. That's all I want. No AM, FM, Cassette, or CD. I don't need "iPod Compatibility" or a "satellite ready' unit. I just want to plug in my damn iPod and play music crisp and loud. Is that so wrong?

Why do I have to get bells and flashing lights, and removable faceplates, and cd changers, and gawd knows what else just to get a damn auxiliary jack? And when I do find something minimal (am, fm, cassette, aux), it only has 2 watts per channel.

Why can't I get power and simplicity? Fine... AM, FM Aux, and two channels of at least 40 watts per. That's my final offer...

Anyone know where I could get something like this?

Phones, Phones on the range....

Okay, so as of today, California has a "no handset' policy while driving. Mind you, you can still TEXT while driving, but you can't use the handset for talking. ARRGH! Oh well, it's a start.

But I have other phone stuff for you. If you have the right kind of home phone, you can turn it into a speakerphone on the cheap. Here's how. First, you need a cheapie cordless phone from, say, Radio shack. The crucial component is that the handset needs to have a headset jack. Your basic cell-phones could work this way too. Next, you need one of these:
http://shop.crackberry.com/seidio-audio-adaptor-wbuilt-in-mic-and-answer-button/12A45A1557A.htm
It's a headset jack adaptor designed to allow you to use real headphones instead of the crappy headset phones that come with the mic. So, you plug this in, but instead of adding headphones, you add a small speaker setup like anything designed for the ipod. I used one of these:
http://www.shopping.com/xPO-JVC-CD-Case-with-Built-in-Speakers
Total price, not including the basic phone, about $30 with tax and shipping. Compare that to a bottom of the line speaker phone, that starts at $100, and you got yourself a deal.

and finally, the coolest phone ever is about to become about 1000 times cooler (assuming you don't get into "Jail breaking") The iphone (and iPod Touch) are about to get downloadable apps. Soon I hope. They promised that the App Store would be open for business "late June" in a speech at the beginning of the year. But it seams that we may have to wait until the new iPhone 3G gets released on the 11th for this to become a reality. *sigh* I hate waiting.

OOF 08

Okay folks, back at Shiva Vista this year. And we have three events planned... dust storm or not.

1) Flame pass. We're gonna try another flame pass. The first half of this video displays the five skills that breathers should practice for flame passing: Breath, sustain without torch, hit torch (with someone else waving the source torch), two torch (carry the flame from one lit torch to another soaked one about a meter away), hit-two torch (someone waves the source and you light a soaked torch)/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7895407968074807928&hl=en

2) Breather's box. The second half of that video shows the skills needed for the breather's box, a scary idea I came up with that's never been successfully done.

3) Best stunt. As determined by the fire breathers entering the contest, best breathing stunt wins the coveted Brass Balls award.

And if we get more than 100 people, we still need to Crush the dutch.
http://www.geocities.com/burningbreathers/

7 words George Carlin can't say on television...

Mister Conductor is still fucking alive bitches.
Sigh, the angriest comedian and one of the smartest verbal comedians EVER died after 71 years of snarky sarcasm.

Poo

So, one last time
"rat shit, bat shit, dirty old twat!
69 assholes tied in a knot
Yaay, lizardshit, FUCK!"

G'by George. We loved ya. We'll miss ya.

I'm sold

So, after much debate and thought, I think I'm finally sold on a sustainable technology: Hydrogen.

After seeing the various types of hydrogen vehicles, I'm impressed. There's one that is just a modification of a standard Internal Combustion, petrol burner. Plus, there's a new "solid H" way of storing hydrogen without pressure, that can even be used as crash resistant padding. These solid cells could be charged up anywhere (like Kramer Junction) and transported anywhere where a H genny happens to be. But there's more. Through small electrolysis combined with solid-H tech, small, home solar units could be used for long-term fuel creation and storage. No more battery waste or short lifespan issues. ANY electric source can be used for electrolysis (byproduct: breathable oxygen), with the electricity stored onsite in the form of Hydrogen, nearly permanently, and now, safely with the solid H tech.

On the flip side of the coin, I have an enemy, too.

First and foremost pollution problem seems to be [drumroll please]
Single serving plastic containers. Not just bottled water, but plastic iced coffee, shakes, drink boxes, cigarette wrappers, bottles, disposable lighters, jars, toilet paper wrappers, tissue box seams, magazine wrappers, and so much more. My favorite quote on the subject is:
"We've created a substance that will last almost forever and instead of using it for things we want to last, we use it in things we throw away after a single use."
This goes WAY beyond the "paper or plastic" issue, but digs into nearly everything you do. All of this stuff is ending up in landfills and in the oceans. They block light, kill animals, dampen sound, etc.

I've kicked the daily petroleum habit. Though I go through shoes faster because of it. My office is nearly paperless and both businesses produce less waste than my home. My home produces about 1/3rd the average american home, and I'm working ion taking that down to 1/4. SS plastic is next. No more plastic cups for shakes. No more disposable lighters, canvas shopping bags (already there), etc.

That's not very knife....

So, a few of you may know about Angry Guy. He's the fellow that lives downstairs and sounds like he has tourettes syndrome. He throws things, screams obscenities; a real piece of work. But despite all this, we've managed to stay civil ... until recently. He's been much worse the last few days.

The other day, I was coming back from a walk and he was coming out of his apartment. I gave him a nod, and he shouted something back that i didn't hear through the headphones. I pulled them off and said "sorry, didn't catch that.."
"I called you a Bitch!" he snapped.
So I casually replied, "well, you're a loud-mouth off his meds, Whatcha gonna do?"
"I'm gonna fuggin KILL you, Bitch"
Fortunately, I have a couple of inches on him, so I'm able to do the moove where you move in real fast, tall and wide; then stare down at him menacingly. I did so and added something like "you don't wanna try that with me"

This was pretty novel to me. Later I'd realize that move was the very first time I'd done it. Normally on a death threat, even with someone I wasn't too worried about, I'd try to be getting out of it as fast as possible. I'd have butterflies and the shakes pretty bad. But this time I was completely in control. Essentially, for the first time, I was the Alpha, not a big talking Beta, but fully Alpha.

Instead of keeping the shakes under control, I watched time stretch out and examined the situation and my options. He oh so slowly reached into his pocket (from my perspective) and fumbled for his knife. I knew what was coming based on other neighbor's reports. I knew I could trap his arm in his pocket and disable him, but I didn't want to make the first strike. I knew I could dodge this guys best strike, or even use a little judo to redirect him if need be.

So he finally gets the knife out (probably took a whole second, but it was clumsy, even from a normal time perspective), then he had to fumble some more to get it open. While he was at this, the manager popped out of the apartment across the hallway (still putting on his shirt, too... busted!) and got between us. Well it was pretty much over at that point.

Not really a fight. Not really a problem. But definitely a change in me. I can't explain it. I mean, part of it is the 5htp, I'm sure. If I had had this happen before I adjusted my serotonin, I would have been in a dark spiral for a month. But none of that either. I can't believe that serotonin is linked to Alpha/Beta behaviors. Weird...

I'm sooo in trouble

So, my all-time favorite cookie has always been the nestle tollhouse. I've never been able to get enough of them.

Recently, I discovered that they have pre-made tollhouse dough in a tube. Yeah, I know, 'bout time. Give me a break, my mom always made them from scratch. My only way to keep from gorging on them all the time was the fuss it took to make them.

Well, now I've managed to figure out how to make them (well) in my toaster oven (4 at a time). And I can just roll up the tube and keep some in the fridge. I can have my favorite warm melty cookies any time I want.

So much for losing weight... :o/

Handsfree is the way to be.

Okay, so it's one thing to be on the cell and distracted enough that your driving gets impaired. I've even seen people trying to jot things down while on the phone in heavy traffic. But, TEXTING???!?!?

I got on the 101 the other day, got to the bottom of the ramp and had to slam on the brakes. Why? Two cars ahead, a blinged-out SUV had failed to merge and panic-stopped. Needless to say, I made sure to get up next to them (or at least get a good view of their plate) to give them a serious scowling. It didn't work. When I got up next to the craft, I saw the driver fully engaged in an SMS transaction as pictured above. She was even leaning in to get a better view of the device.

Chilling.

So, you nearly miss an accident, anger several people behind you (evidence by horn honking), drive above the speed limit, WHILE texting, on a device that you can't even see properly (can you see well enough to drive??), and are too busy to notice other vehicles around you???? AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHH!!!!!!

Thank goodness for the new laws coming in July 1st.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/09/15/BAG75L6BJC1.DTL
But $20/$50 is not enough for these violations. sure that might be enough for cell phone use, but Texting should have it's own special fee schedule. Something in the reckless driving range.

I think I figured...

think I figured it out.

I got laid so much as a kid because I was too stupid to realize I wasn't going to get any.

I'm smarter now....


dammit

NAFAA 2008 membership drive

NAFAA 2008 membership drive
As an information society, NAFAA only occasionally makes any kind of major change. Typically any activity is involved in updating the regional codes sections. However, on occasion, updates to our codes are needed. And when this happens, we need to first insure that we represent the largest cross section of the North American fire artists as possible. So, we need to start up a membership drive.

In anticipation of this, we have added a new page to the NAFAA site. http://www.nafaa.org/join.html

The join page explains the two current levels of membership with NAFAA. (regular member, and supporting members with links in the regional pages) It also includes a number of buttons that members can add to their website. This will give new prospects easy access to NAFAA site, the regs page, and the join page. Please take a few minutes and drop the cut-and-paste codes into your performance website(s) and encourage members in your community to join.

We'll monitor new memberships carefully and begin the process of the codes update (3.0) shortly after the membership plateaus. We think that fall 2008 is a fairly reasonable estimate for this to happen.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Please forward this to anyone even vaguely related to fire.

Check that one off...

So, after the 6 million dollar man went off the air, there wasn't a lot of good, kid-friendly action going on. Not until Lee returned in "The Fall Guy" did we see the good stuff. For those not in the know, TFG was a story about a hollywood stuntman who doubled as Bounty hunter working for a bail bondsman. The Title of the show was a double entendre for both jobs. Anyway, that show represented my first peek into the inner workings of the movie industry. And, as a fully functioning teen male, I was /sure/ that I could make it as a stuntman. It was the "Jackass" of my time: inciting many a stupid kid to attempt dangerous stunts like drag racing by the local police department. *sigh* Those were the days.

Well, Today, I picked up the footage from our shoot in Feb, and it so happens that the staff jackets came out today. And they gave a pair to Michelle and I. The picture above is me in mine. :) I guess I can check "become Hollywood stuntman" of my Things To Do list... :)

I got my DTV

Woo Hoo!!!!
It's everything promised. I got my DTV converter box in the mail today, plugged it in and Bang, it's like having basic cable. I get all the analog channels plus another dozen or two more. And their all crystal clear, widescreen, etc. if you watch Tv, DO NOT DRAG YOUR FEET ON THIS! Get a converter box NOW!. If you go to https://www.dtv2009.gov you can get information on getting your coupons (yes, get two) and how to redeem them for a box.

I got the RCA from http://dtv.BSAT.net which has a couple more features for $8, but they have models for $4 ... delivered!

And, as I thought, all v-chipped and such. So, come next Feb, I predict we'll start seeing more baudy programming on broadcast TV, since there will be no excuse for not having a Vchip.

NAFAA new stuff

Okay, so, active readers of my blog will remember this
http://people.tribe.net/tedward/blog/59fe27d4-edef-47ff-8dd8-d18445a45ae3
where I mentioned that the original purpose of NAFAA has been accomplished. We raised safety awareness amongst the community. If you have spun with a spotter, duvetyn, extinguishers, etc.; the odds are good that NAFAA has influenced you in some way.

Our only insurance carrier has cited the NAFAA codes as the preferred code of conduct in their safety page:
http://www.specialtyinsuranceagency.com/docs/performer/safety/Safety%20Requirements%20for%20Fire%20Performers.pdf

Several cities have adopted our codes as law, many more use them as the defacto code, and so many people have taken some part of them to heart, incorporating them into their own safety regime.

But now, I think it may be time to update NAFAA and it's codes entirely. Many cities are developing local groups to address concerns of performers in that area. If a bit of that energy could be applied to a national conference regarding the NAFAA regs, all groups would benefit. NAFAA could use a resurgence in it's internal energy, but also, local groups would have the backing of a nationally agreed upon set of standards.

To accomplish this, i'd like to start with a membership drive. We have many performers on the main list, but so many new groups have popped up. After a little while, we'll start to poll members for ideas regarding the current regs and what to do with them. Personally, I'd like to put to the floor a split in the codes: one set for proximal fire in front of an audience, and a second, minimal set of codes to cover rehearsals and such. If possible, the minimal set of codes could be put on a handy card that could be distributed by NAFAA members.

Once I get a chance, I'll work up a button page for NAFAA to assist in the awareness drive.

DTV Update

Okie dokie. So, this is an update of the first DTV post:
http://people.tribe.net/tedward/blog/66a9babe-ee71-43d6-a108-1df4280cfff9
I FINALLY got my converter box coupons ($40 off governmentally approved digital boxes)
And after looking around, I've decided that this is being used to make some sweeping reforms in broadcast TV. It sure looks like all the boxes on the coupon program have the V-chip installed, and the FCC is actually killing analog broadcasting as of next Feb. SO. What that means is that after Feb '09, no one will have an excuse for not having a V-chip. The older, non-digital TVs simply will not work without a converter box, and the newer stuff all have one installed. But, if you manage to find a digital converter box without the v-chip, you won't get $40 off from the government, PLUS, you will likely spend more than the $50-$90 range we're seeing right now.

What does this mean to you? How about uncut movies to your TV? No more funny sounds when people dare to utter the 7 words you can't say on TV. Maybe even uncut cable shows like Sex and the City, Weeds, or South Park. Heck, we might even see something like PBS porn (and no more money-raising efforts).

V Day!

Thursday the 27th of March 2008 marks the 10th anniversary of the FDA approval of Viagra as an impotence pill. Since it's introduction, men over 40 now have hope of getting it up after doing too much Coke in the 80s. It's given us Saddam Hussein, who was reportedly addicted to the little blue pill. It gave us a 60 year old mother (hey Someone had hit that, and my guess is it wasn't the paperboy). And it's radically reduced spending on mid-life crisis sports cars.

So, this Thursday, get a nice woodie going, stick it out the window and yell "It's my cock and I want it Hard!" Or better yet, stick it somewhere where it can do some good... :o)

More Power!

Okay, so I've been doing some thinking.

Kramer Junction is the largest solar power plant in the nation. Instead of inefficient solar panels, it uses reflectors to heat up synthetic oil which is then pumped to a closed water container, causing it to boil, and the steam pressure turns a turbine. The "waste" product is steam. The only down side is the resources and energy loss in transmission to where it's needed.

This got me thinking. We could use this technology in the city. Hear me out....

First, place the reflectors over any sunken highway, like the 10 in Santa Monica. Put the plant near the reflectors. Pump in Sea Water for boiling.

Okay, So, now, instead of sending the waste steam to the air, use it to pre-heat the incoming seawater, making steam production more efficient, AND condensing the waste steam into.... Distilled WATER!!!! At night, the plant continues to pump ocean water through the system to desalinate the reaction chambers. The pumps can be powered by battery reserves at the plants.

So, we get Power... lots of it, right where we need it; it can be plugged right into the existing grid. We partially eliminate a driving hazard during certain parts of the year: specifically morning and sunset sun glare on East-west roads. We gain a source of distilled water that can be used to bolster fresh water supplies.

I'm just not seeing a down side beyond the initial cost.

My other Blog

I have a second passion. I hate TV commercials. Some more than others. So much so that I made a whole tribe for this passion....
http://tribes.tribe.net/headon

An Homage to the Great Gax

Gary Gygax died this week at age 69. So what? Well, you might only know him from D&D fame, but his reach was far and broad.
Pull up a chair, lemme tells ya a story.
Gygax was first involved in the creation of 3 games: Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Eldritch Wizardry. These were modifications to the first game he helped build called Chainmail.

Chainmail was a series of rules for large scale battle simulation. It became the default set of rules for all combat recreations, including live civil war reenactments, Risk, Starfleet battles, Warcraft, Diablo, and a hundred classified military simulations. Yes, even the movie Wargames had a toe in Chainmail. Though the simulations were all calculated by a group of scientists, they used a derivative of the Chainmail rules to insure their accuracy. So basically, if you're playing any kind of game or simulation with 20 or more possible troups, you're probably playing a child of Chainmail.

Greayhaw, Blackmoor and Eldritch wizardy got combined and refined into Dungeons and Dragons. And while it's true that much of the fantasy was "borrowed" from existing sources, The game system itself led in many directions. First, D&D was the origin root of all role playing games: Champions, Cyberpunk, Traveler, etc. So, if you've ever rolled dice with anything but 6 sides, that's probably due to the Gax.

Second, D&D was such a fast and dirty system that it was stripped of it's fantasy and utilized in clinical Psychiatric environments. Later, I would write a variation of D&D called Blaster Sword and Shield (never released publicly), specifically intended for utilization in these environs. With the fine tuning of later Role playing environs, clinical psychologists could achieve never before dreamed-of manipulations of a patient's psyche.

Third, D&D jumped to computers as an early unix game called Dungeon! which lead to Zork which lead to Castle Wolfenstein. CW was the first animated first-person shooter. It gave birth to Doom, Marathon, Halo, and abut a third of all video games on the market. Most recently World of Warcraft, Everquest, etc.

Fourth, D&D was purchased (briefly) by Wizards of the Coast, the company responsible for Magic - The Gathering. Most collectible card games are based on that system which was based on D&D in the first place.

On a social level, D&D has served to keep social rejects out of social situations where they could possibly thin the chances of mate selection for those people not smart enough to fully engage their brain. :P

And oddly enough, it was the popularity of D&D, not Tolkein that lead to the decision to green light the Lord of the Rings again. The Rank and Bass version very nearly killed the series for Hollywood, but the surge of D&D children, like Everquest, WoW, Magic, etc was the intended targeted market.

In a strange way, D&D is partially responsible for Ren Fairs and SCA. SCA being the medieval recreation society that started as a live action D&D guild, Ren Fair being the renaissance variant of SCA (for those people who wanted to go beyond 1500).

Still not impressed? The fraternity built by Gamers is so far reaching that D&D is like a low hum in every high-tech environment: NASA, IT, Physics (Carl Saga, Steve Hawking and Asimov were all gamers), Sci Fi of all kinds. The Geeks that rolled dice in their basements and watched Star Trek as kids make direct connections to: IPhone, Quick Time, VTOL, Ion Drive engines, The Space shuttle, many comouter programs, CDs/DVDs, and so much more.

The hippies may have had the 60s (thanks, by the way). But the Geeks had the 70s. While all the pretty, hairy people were wearing polyester and gold chains, the geeks were building a fraternity that changed the world. BTW, when they weren't rolling dice they were building the technology to make it possible for you to read this. Tip a d4 to Gary the next time you shoot, stab, blow up, heal, or connect with anyone in any way other than FTF. :)

SOFB2 update

So, as part of the footage for this project, i wanted to film all the steps needed to get to the Box, plus the four basic box skills.
here's the raw footage:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7895407968074807928&hl=en
1) Pop
2) Sustain without torch
3) Hit-Torch
4) Two Torch
5) Hit two-torch

And the four box skills:
Sweep left to right
Sweep right to left
Kneel vertical to standing horizontal
standing horizontal to kneeling vertical.

For those who have forgotten their box training, or would like to try, you should be able to do all 5 basic skills cleanly and at least one of the four box skills cleanly.

State of Fire Breathing

Okay, so, I made a little video (with a controversial name) 'The State of Fire Breathing #1'
I intend these to be an ongoing series that keeps breathers up to date with trends and such in fire breathing.

I'd like to do a second video now featuring the Breather's box and the various skills needed to perform it.
What this means is that I'll need 9 box-trained breathers to commit to a single day (wednesday at the park?) where we can take about an hour out to catch this all on a camera.

I've selected March 19th as the first tentative date, 9pm at the Burn Club park. Please let me know if you can join us....

LA Fire Guild / SAFFE

Okay, so the quarterly SAFFE meeting has come around (I missed the last one). And we have a whole lot of new stuff to report.

First, I've been looking back over the last couple of years. I've seen show after show with fire extinguishers and spotters. I've been asked "Where's your spotter?" at Burning Man rather than "What's a spotter?". And, in general, I think that there is at least a base level of safety pervasive through the fire arts community, and fewer superstitions. These changes are the very heart of what we really wanted to accomplish with NAFAA back in 2002. So, for a mere 5 years of dedication and cooperation, I think we've done well.

This makes me wonder. Is it time for NAFAA to take a new direction now? Or should we stay that first, best place for info, geared mostly at the new and uniformed. One option to taking a new direction is our second report.

For those who don't know, or don't remember, there is a new guild forming in LA. As far as I know, they haven't officiated a name, but are going by the LA Fire Performer Safety Council. This group formed in response to the request we filled last year for a bullet point list for the SAFFE council. They're new and they're eager.

Most importantly, they've been working with the CA State Fire Marshall and an LA county inspector to develop their own set of codes for local insertion. The county fire marshal has endorsed these documents for broad spectrum community review. I mention this to everyone as these codes could receive statewide or even national attention, particularly wherever filming is done.

The first is an extension of the effort NAFAA made for it's bullet point list. This safety checklist is a DRAFT for peer review. Please send me any comments you have regarding them and I will put them in digest form (anonymously if you like) and forward them to the review members (state, county and guild). You can download them from:
www.nafaa.org/checklist.v1.0a.pdf

The second is a proposed, standardized, fire performance permit application. In short, this is what the fire marshal would give to us in order to get the information they need to write a permit. It might be worth the effort to buzz this by the local fire department.
www.nafaa.org/permit.app.v1.0a.pdf

And finally, this guild has come up with their own NFPA plug-in set of safety standards. I don't thing the FMs care as much about this, but I'll forward comments to the appropriate council as offered.
www.nafaa.org/standards.v1.0a.pdf

As our final point, I have been approached to open a new research project. It seems as though it's time to start digging into the proximate audience issue. Many permits are written with specific audience separations, but the reasons for them are widely varied. One possible source of this separation may be the radiant heat separation rules from the NFPA. So, we're going to take a serious look into audience separation. But we could use any useful ideas regarding hypothesese or approaches. So let me know.

That's all for now. Please send your comments soon.

Hacking billboards

So, I finally saw my first digital billboard. this is something a little different than the plasma screens on top of the MGM Grand in Vegas, or whatever. This is an actual, Remote, billboard location that's receiving city power to not only illuminate the board, but to run the controller, AND the radio receiver.

So, we know it's child's play to mess with a DTV dish, it can't be much worse to mess with these signs. But, once you've disconnected it from home, wouldn't it be interesting to provide a custom signal of your own? You could build the signal and transmitter into the size of an ipod, get a pool cleaning pole (the kind that expands), use it to knock the dish out of alignment, then tape the transmitter to it. Broadcast your custom signal and you've just hijacked a billboard.

15 minutes to upload a new signal from park to drive. The board keeps blasting the message until they realize it's off the grid AND get someone out there to fix it. Could be quite fun.... especially once these catch on. Imagine a Burma Shave effect of digital signs blasting grafitti, political rhetoric, or erotic art. Plus, I'm not sure of the capabilities of the controllers, but they might be able to play movies as well as switch scenes. I like the idea of turning ugly advertisements into trip toys... :)

Bearclaw Valentines Sale

Has it been a long.... hard.... winter? Looking to give that someone special something hot and stiff?
:)
Well look no further. Bearclaw has all of its long, hard, hot, and stiff items on sale. Staves and torches are all 20% off for Valentine's week. Slide on over and get great pricing on basic staves, torches, multi-part staves, countach torches, and tethered models.

While you're there, check out some new items for February;
Demonia shoes - a whole new line of industrial/gothic sneakers, some with hard toes.
Parasols - as promised, they're finally for sale. Perfect for Singeing in the Rain.
Dip and Drain - smallest dip and spin-out system yet, works with mot poi and torches.
Collapsible hoops - you can now replace the basic hoop connectors with quick connects and have a hoop that packs into a backpack.

So, please check us out...
www.bearclawfire.com/catalog/
and don't get the shaft anywhere else....

Quite a hike

Okay, so, I've been taking little walks. It all started in October when I was running around like crazy at Knotts making sure everything ran smoothly and safely for the 25 out of 27 shows I made. By the end of it, my libido was through the roof, I was 2 inches smaller around and generally feeling pretty good about life.

So, when I managed to manifest a new ipod, I promised myself that I'd use it not just as a marketing tool, but also to eliminate the last excuse I had for not exercising: boredom. Let's face it, treadmills are boring. And I feel there's also something unwholesome about a bicycle that doesn't go anywhere.

So, I started walking. No monthly fees, the ipod charges off the computer that's always up to something. I download DJ mixes from the internet for fresh music. I try to take a different route each time I walk so I always get a new view. It works.

Lately, though, as my distance increases, I've found that I can incorporate minor errands into the daily (ish) walk. Today was my biggest one, yet. A confirmed 4.6 miles. But that's not all, I stopped to get soda so I had 16 lbs on my back for the entire 1.5 mile final leg. *sigh* I'm bushed.

Much Ado About Nothing...

If you watch any TV at all, you're probably inundated with advertisements about the prop 94, 95, 96, and 97 expansions of indian gaming.

But, here's the real deal. These agreements have already been ratified by the federal gaming commission. Plus, the state of CA has no fiscal powers over the happenings on sovereign tribal lands. Once CA allows gaming to happen within state boarders, if gives up much of the rest of it's rights. Only as a courtesy is the governor of that state included in further negotiations.

So, vote yes, vote no. It really does not matter. The 17,000 machines will be installed, CA will get more money, and only the Supreme court can stop it now.

XM complete setup for sale

Roady XM radio in very good condition for sale. New price around $60-$100.

Includes
Roady XT radio for XM (and soon Sirius) reception
Portable boom box by Belkin (very scuffed but in good working order and reliable)
- Belkin comes with AC household and DC car adaptors
Home unit stand and antenna
Car adaptor
Extra antenna.

Often seen providing the music for Burn Club on a weekly basis.
Picks up 100s of stations by satellite, includes Black Rock City and intervening areas.

Total package (retail value about $200), used, for $50.

Hacking notification

Two of my sites, both with a PHBB installations on them, have been hacked. We just got everything back in working order, but I thought I should spread the news: there's a pretty serious looking wave of attacks that depend of the PHPBB setup to disguise the PHP files necessary to do things like spoof a paypal site. If you have a website with a lot of PHP in it, please check for complete function and maybe change the passwords, just in case.