Tis the Season

I think I just spoke to my father for the last time.

Years from now, I'll look back at this as a present, the likes of which I may never get again, but right now it feels like a dark pall on my Xmas day. Lemme 'splain.

First, my father has been sick. Really sick. He's over 90, so this is hardly a shock. He smoked for 40 years, worked in a factory and generally lead a sinful, meat-eating, stripper watching life. But my mother died a couple months back and apparently, that's all that was holding him together.

Though we don't talk about it much, most of the members of both my bloodlines have selected the time of their deaths. My mother's mother left a little note the night she died. My mother called and talked to everyone before she kicked. My father's father was particularly cruel by telling the boys to stand against the wall in punishment until he came back down stairs, then laid down to die. The examples go on and on.

Before my nana died, we had a Very intense talk amidst a sea of aberrant behavior for her. She hadn't been lucid for days but managed to speak her peace to me before drifting off again. Most folks made the same remark.

Well, I just had about the same conversation with my dad. He's cleaning out, speaking his peace, and looking for solace in his last days. Even if I talk to him again, I doubt I'll get my dad, but rather a rapidly deteriorating shell.

Merry Xmas to me.

*sigh*

What's Microsoft really saying?

Okay, so, this image to the left is from the amusingly wonderful folks at Photoshop Disasters. It shows two Microsoft ads, One for the US, and the other for Poland. MS is doing backflips to explain why the black man's head is [badly] replaced with a white man. Notice the hands aren't different.

But here's where it gets really good. What ELSE is this image telling us? First take a good long look at the monitor in front of the woman. It's not plugged into anything. Also, notice the white laptop in front of the edited man.... It's a Mac Book Pro with the apple logo carefully removed. So, apparently, the IT tools YOU need are to unplug your MS machine and get a Mac. :)

Oh, and if you happen to be black and heading to Poland, wear a white mask. ;P

An open letter to Coors

Thank you so much for providing your "Cold Activated Can". Long have I hoped that nature could have provided me with some sort of sensory mechanism, say, on my hand, that was just as capable of responding to temperature as my mouth. But, bereft of a naturally calibrated system like that, we have to resort to vision and your new packaging.

I know what a monumental task it must have been to develop this bleeding edge technology in this economy. Thermographic imaging has come a LONG way since the recent invention of candles and lemon juice. Even the little known technology of "mood rings" could not have advanced the industry as much as YOUR product. Clearly a Nobel prize is in your future.

Thank you so much for spending your company's profits on this immensely helpful technology. Thank you for not spending those profits in a temporary price reduction, pay increases for your workers, or re-opening plants to put more people to work in these trying times. Thank you for pushing millions of dollars into the advertising industry instead. The 3-4 people in your commercials clearly needed the money more than the people who faithfully made and consumed the one American beer that can be sometimes successfully argued not to be cold urine.

Now, I will take my leave. You see, a few of my buddies have taken our cues from your workers in the deep south. We'll be donning white (and black) apparel, covering our heads with white (facepaint) and marching on the local McDonalds. Imagine their faces when they see 100 Mimes burning a Fleur-De-Lis on their front lawn. Nothing says "stop it" like the burning symbol of France!

Heelarious

No...
I roll my eyes at "safety third", I get tiffed when someone blows up buildings in new york, I even get a little queasy when some shmuck commits genocide in the name of racial purity. But this... this... Baby's first High Heels?!?!?!?!?! BLAAAAARRRRGGH.....
I can't stop vomiting. Will somebody please crash their server?

Seriously.... the 'fashion' world must be stopped. I felt weird when someone started telling people what to wear. And I can't imagine letting someone else decorate my home. But imposing adult fashion on Babies?!?! really? How about Baby's first mascara? AAA cup training bras? Baby's first Botox? Fetal breast implants? It's bad enough LA is infested with women who have every curve sucked out of them until they look like little boys, then inject their lips, breasts, and gawd knows what else with the fat they sucked out of somewhere else. But do we have to start them on this track before they can develop a normal adult psychosis about their looks? GAAA!

You cannot deny a man a stick, who lives in the woods.

Newspapers have been sighing this dying gasp: "But, where will you get your investigative journalism?" To which I've always cynically replied, same place we've gotten it since watergate... no where. Part of the point of investigative journalism is secrecy and the incapability of information to get out. Now with photo cell phones, everyone with $100 and a 7-11 can become part of the information flow. If watergate were to happen nowadays, it'd be some maid snapping pictures rather than a journalist who couldn't sleep.

Well, here we go. All the US and canadian journalists were thrown out of Iran before the election (probably because they knew they would have to steal the election) but the information network we built (ie the Internet) simply cannot be stopped. This tremendous access to information delivery systems has made the old investigatory measures less necessary, and in many ways less effective. Everything is becoming more transparent. Modern bloggers can see through walls and hear through doors that no flatfooted ink monkey could have ever dreamed of achieving. And as technology gets better, so will this effect.

Print is dying because it's already been replaced... in every way... by better stuff. Instead of paying a few people with limited connections to investigate, we've made the entire world our reporting team. The news media outlets get it. half the time they're citing the net. Print needs to catch up or die. And then where will we get information that's 1-100 days old?

On elevation

There's been a quiet debate over the choice to put elevators or escalators into a building. Elevators are safe, they take people in wheelchairs, large loads, strollers, etc with the same aplomb. The down side is that they don't work without power.

Escalators, on the other hand, turn into a set of stairs when the power is turned off. Their down side is that they use power constantly, even when they're not in use, until they're turned off completely.

Okay, so, here's an idea for some entrepreneur, for what it's worth:
Create a wide-step escalator that has a button at the entrance point. A wheelchair can enter the stationary step, hit the button and be taken exactly to the exit point (and no further). Add a 20 second delay to insure that someone else doesn't activate the thing while the chair disembarks. Then, people who don't need it, can "take the stairs", and those who do, get escalated at whim.

Someone really creative might make that button a "stop/start request" button. The stairs would have weight or laser sensors to let them know if someone is on, and they keep rolling, only while needed, then automatically shut down when not in use. The button at the entrance would then either stop the escalator while running or start it up while not running. If it's used to start running, it runs through the above, single trip cycle before starting it's auto-roll again.

To Whom it may concern....

While on my evening stroll I came across an interesting site: a white car parked in front of the El Pollo Loco at 912 N Vermont. I checked the time, it was 6:15, and since that area is part of the 4-7 anti gridlock zone, it was the ONLY car parked on Vermont. Naturally, it was causing traffic backups as people dodged out of that lane to go around.

As I approached the car, I noticed it was an LA City college campus security vehicle (funded by the Sheriff's department). Well, now, as a cab driver, I heard my share of "you're supposed to set an example" speeches, so I decided to wait and see if this was the right time to deliver one of my own.

So I leaned up against car #67 with license plate CA exempt 1051619 for a few minutes until someone appeared. An officer in white with 2 bags of chicken did appear around 6:40. In that time waiting, another vehicle (civilian), inspired by the police car, had parked behind him, in full view of the 'anti-gridlock' and 'no parking 4-7 pm' signs.

I asked if the officer had the time. He did. I pointed out that quarter to 7 was in fact well between 4pm and 7pm. But he brushed past me. I checked his badge number #77 and tried to point out that the El pollo loco had it's own off-street parking lot but he rolled away.

So, I went to LACC campus security to report him, where I found the car AGAIN.... parked in a Red Zone. And, of course, the officer in question was the post commander. So naturally, reporting him would do no good.

After 2 years of putting up with the construction of that ridiculous parking lot, and the avarice in which parking tickets are issued on my street, I think it's time that someone tell this clown that he's not king of his private hill.

Earth Day

I know You're probably getting inundated with Earth-this green-that. And If you've read this blog, you know how I feel about plastic. So, here's a little Earth Friendly tip that will save you money, and save the planet:

Get a safety razor. They're still pretty cheap, the only thing you throw out is Metal, and the blade refills are cheap in 100 packs. I just got this one, and I couldn't be happier. And If you REALLY want to get jiggy, you can always get a straight razor and strop and throw out nothing. Works for anyone who shaves.

The Zen of Dow

For a very long time, the Dow industrials hovered around 1000. Then because of Reganomics, or Voodoo Economics, the Dow tripled in one term, leaving us with the first major bubble. If popped, leaving Bush Sr with the mess to clean up. His term ended with an even higher mark than when he came in.

Then there was Clinton. Because of Y2K, the clinton years were blessed with a bubble that was known to have a fixed end date, plus a couple of financial wizards making for unbridled prosperity for precisely his term. Once the threat of the y2k bug was over, the computer market deflated (much the way a blister does when the burn is gone) and the market should have returned to about 4000. But it didn't, because Dubya wanted to keep things moving upwards. And they did everything to prevent what is happening right now.

Okay, without the artificial, and temporary need for 100s or 1000s of geeks, and without a housing market that was clearly cheating someone, the market needs to return to the pre-inflationary levels. Wall street will have to take it's belt in a bit, and the cold war will have to finally end. Does this mean socialism for all? No, but another "new deal" is already on the table (look it up). I'm predicting that the current price of stocks at 6600 will drop another 2500 points before this all ends, then at about 4000, we'll begin a reasonably stable rebound.

But under Obama, it will NOT be like it has since the 80s, buy low and sell high will be for the people who actually do the investigations not just any scammer that can get a trading ticket. Getting rich in the market won't be just a matter of getting as much money in as possible, it will be a very hard and difficult journey. That said, I think this will also end a lot of our globalization as people will start to invest in the things they can see: local businesses and brands, and not on vague speculations like the last 30 years.

Fatwa against Ethanol!!

Okay, a couple days ago, a company called "cleantech" created a storm with the announcement pasted below stating that Islamists should avoid the use of biofuels. Okay, I won't go into the fact that I can't find a single source about this and that the entire storm seems to be based on this article alone. But I do have a couple things to say.

First Ethanol is ethyl alcohol. Just like Methanol is methyl alcohol, and isopropanol is isopropyl alcohol. They're not "derived" from the other, any more than moisture is "derived" from water. How a major news figure in the biofuel industry could screw that up is beyond me.

But lets get to the second, and much more important part, the sources of ethanol. The Muslim cleric is opening up a can of worms here that could plummet muslim countries back into the stone age. Let's ignore the fact, for a moment, that hundreds of everyday chemicals are technically "alcohols" including a little something or other in pretty much every food we eat. Let's ignore, also that ethanol is a common cleaning ingredient, and therefore is found in trace amounts on almost every surface of every product sold.

What we cannot ignore is that one source of industrial ethanol comes from deep inside the ground. Crude oil. That's right crude oil is a mix of hundreds of chemicals. To be useful for anything but a lubricant, these chemicals must be separated. The easiest way is to use their different boiling points in a process called fractional distillation.

Distillation works a bit like boiling the water off a pan of rice, the rice stays and the water goes elsewhere. FD does the same thing but on a much more complicated scale. None of the chemicals are changed, they're just separated so that you can get to a more pure version of one or more, easily. But like the rice where you can't really get rid of all the water, you can't get an absolutely pure version of a chemical through distillation.

Since one of the chemicals in all crude oil is ethanol, and nothing can be completely removed through distillation, ALL petrol distillates have some tiny percentage of ethanol in them. Therefore, this declaration does the reverse of what it was clearly intended to do. It also removes Muslims from the Petrol industry and everything to do with crude or distilled oil.

So, ban ethanol if you must, but it won't save the OPEC nations, it will devastate them. This also assumes that anyone takes the proclamation seriously. Remember a Fatwa only applies to that particular cleric's followers. Various clerics have been tossing fatwas around like monopoly money for years now and I doubt anyone is paying attention. Here's a list of some famous ones.

Muslim cleric decries biofuels as sinful
February 20, 2009
Islamic scholar calls for further study as he notes that any use of alcohol is prohibited, even as fuel.
Adaptation of biofuels could be limited in Muslim communities after an Islamic scholar yesterday called for religious groups to study whether biofuels violate the ban on alcohol in the religion.

Sheik Mohamed al-Najimi of the Saudi Islamic Jurisprudence Academy told the the Saudi newspaper Shams that the prophet Mohammed prohibited all dealings with alcohol—which would include buying, selling, transporting, drinking, serving and manufacturing.

Ethanol is derived from ethyl alcohol, which al-Najimi said would fall into the prohibited category. In the process to make ethanol, sugar or starch from plants is converted into ethyl alcohol through yeast fermentation (see Tweaking corn genes to boost biofuel yields).

Biofuel "is basically made up of alcohol," he said.

Al-Najimi said his opinion on biofuels should not be considered a fatwa, or a legal pronouncement in Islam, but should prompt Islamic leaders to study the issue.

Al-Najimi said he thinks a ban on biofuels should extend beyond predominately Muslim countries to include Saudi and Muslim youth studying abroad who ride in vehicles using biofuel. Many Western and Eastern governments have established mandates for biofuel to be blended in petroleum based fuel in increasing percentages (see India, EU affirm new biofuels and Ethanol blend increases while oil reaches new low).

Fire Breathing Survey

A couple months ago, a boston area man entered the hospital with burns from learning fire breathing. Unfortunate for him, but the accident may lead to some good. An attending surgeon has taken an interest in fire breathers and has been working with NAFAA to produce some clear information regarding fire breathing and the various fire arts. We ask that you support this effort in any way you can, so that we can benefit from the results of actual, scientific research in our area. The first step is a survey for fire breathers. If you have breathed fire in any capacity, you are encouraged to fill it out. If you have not, please forward to any fire breathers you may know. Here's the survey.

All data will go directly to research, it is voluntary, and completely anonymous.

Steampunk bike project: the beginning.

Okay, so upon checking with Kings, All of the bikes they sell, turn-key, are cruisers with coaster brakes. So the project has been accelerated a little. I don't have to save up the money for disk brakes, but I am going to make sure the coasters are in tip-top shape. I asked my bike guy while I was there and he suggested that I strip and paint first then worry about getting the brakes solid. So, Currently the cruiser is in pieces on the floor.

While researching accessories, I came across the very first motorcycle, the "Reitwagen" ("riding car") - built by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. You can see it in the picture there. It's a lovely thing and Oh So steampunk. But I'm sure it's a little out of my price range. ;) There was a steam version made in the early 1800s, but much less is known about it. Anyway, since the Reitwagen was built and retired in 1885, there's not only a precedent for my vehicle, but I'm free to go any direction I like as the next one didn't come around until Harley Davidson in 1903.

Fortunately there are no "period police" in steampunk, so screw 'em anyway. Still I like the name Reitwagen (right wagon), and that's what I'm going with for now. It's about the romance, not about historical accuracy. Plus the steam machine (another good name) didn't have a catchy name like Reitwagen.

Okay, so i got in the can of brass paint. I'm very happy with the initial results. So I'm getting primer and a clearcoat. Get this, the clearcoat is reflective: it turns the whole bike into a reflector (like street signs). Which means I can do away with all the standard reflectors to gain visibility. heheeeee

I've put in a bid on eBay for a genuine, 1890s miner's lantern, the kind frequently used on bikes. You know that's so because in addition to the front reflector, there's also two gems on either side for port and starboard running lights. Totally geting geeked about this. Next I have to find a rear light.


I found the kind of kickstand I want. This one flips up to the rear of the machine and forms a tripod with the front wheel. It works better on heavier bikes because the frame is kept upright and not leaning over on a spike. The bike that currently hosts the engine could so use something like this.

Oh, and as for the fenders, I think I want to try making my own. The ones available for purchase are gonna need a little tweaking anyway to get rid of the chrome. Plus, in the same week, I saw a show on PBS on making curved wood pieces, and found a website where someone else had made his own. So, I figure "screw it, I'll give it a whack." Not like I haven't worked with wood before.

My bike shop, Orange 20 bikes, tells me that I have options on white tires. So we're a go on that end. But that can also wait. I'm sure they can help me with other projects like wood pedals, brass chain, leather grips, and a big "Ah OOOH ga" horn.

Genetic tampering

I watch a lot of PBS. Something I caught was a show on the genetic occurrences of weight gain. This interested me in that I'm a big fella.
Okay, so here we go.

• There's a substance that clamps onto certain parts of our genetic makeup that can be passed along with the gene itself. This substance can prevent a gene from activating and is transmissible.


• There has been documented evidence that crop failures, droughts, and seasonal excess can affect people's statistical health for up to two generations. That is to say a drought this year might cause heat disease to rise in all the progeny of children who are 12-14 when the drought occurs.


• We know that certain phenotypic variations are not genetic as previously imagined (homosexuality, weight, color, etc). But it is possible that these chemicals are causing traits to pass generations by cutting off or over stimulating genes.

So here's the golden goose in all this. Since about the 1960s (yes, I'm blaming Twiggy), women have been hitting fad diets to meet progressively smaller ideal body types.

Let me take a moment to be clear, I do not agree with these "ideals". All these women in LA running around looking like little boys from the back with oversized breasts make me question the sexuality of anyone who finds them attractive. Given my druthers, the ideal body type would be a lot closer to the Khardasians than the Hiltons.

But I digress. I'm beginning to wonder if the current trend towards obesity in the US isn't being CAUSED by the diet industry.

Follow this logic.

1. Women in the 60s and 70s start dieting. Most of those diets were some variant or another on starvation.


2. Starvation triggers a response that alters the genetic traits to hold onto any weight that can be gained


3. It also causes the hunger system to amp up.


4. Women have children during this time (thin women are usually attracting a mate)


5. the genetic markers to hold on to weight and for increased hunger are passed on to their progeny


6. What's worse, since this generation tends towards the rubenesque, all their members favor dieting.


7. This increases the probability that the same genetic traits get passed on to the next generation.


8. Unless this new generation embraces acceptance of body type, and stops dieting, the third generation will experience a genetic structure of profane obesity.

I hope i'm wrong about this, but... wow, it's too ... solid.

From the ACLU

This is some good stuff from the ACLU, and finally in video form.

Steampunk Bike project: concept

Okay, So i've decided what I'm doing with my two bikes. First, I have a motorized 10 speed using a motor from Kings motor bikes. Despite tweaking a lot we keep having back axle problems with it. The mechanics tell me that it's a function of the 10 speed rear hub and how the wheel connects to the axle (one one side, and the middle).

So, they tell me that a single speed bike, like a cruiser is the answer. Single speed bikes have a wheel that connect to the axle on either side, as close to the supports as possible (none of this middle stuff). The bike above was gifted to me for burning man a couple of years ago. But, because I was planning on returning each year to the Burn, I didn't want to really go crazy with my playa bike. Well, now that the fuss with LAFC is over and I'm not going this year, I think I'll make this bike my spring project.

First, it needs to be de-palyafied, and taken apart down to the frame. Then, I'm going to re-paint everything from the ground up with a metallic brass paint. Also, I learned that black rubber tires didn't pop up until the early 1900s. Previous to that, all rubber was white. They found that adding carbon black to the rubber gave it better grip which was necessary to make early cars work properly. So, I'm thinking about all white tires, or at least very wide white-walled knobbies.


Next, I want to replace the fenders and chain guard with wood covers. It's not all that authentic, but these absolutely scream "steampunk". I spotted these in my local bike shop and they may be the inspiration for this project. But when I found the mother-load at Woody's, I knew this was gonna look amazing.

Then, transfer the motor over to the new cruiser and add an olde thyme bike seat made of all leather with a gooseneck spring. I want to see if I can get one of the old carbide miner's lights for the front (updated to california night riding standards). I think the hard part will be getting leather grips and reducing the plastic content of the other fittings.


The final addition will be a "snoopy" airplane leather helmet and a pair of these brass RAF goggles and maybe a silk scarf. Add a bomber jacket and maybe those explorer pants with the flaps at the thighs and the look will be complete. Heheheeee...

Keep checking back for updates on this project.

Rain Rain come and stay

I haven't been so happy to see it rain since I had a girlfriend that got extra frisky during every downpour. My allergies have been getting the best of me for near a week. I don't ming blowing my nose every 5 minutes, but I lose sleep. I mean I don't get ANY major REM sleep because I have to get up every hour to blow my nose. So, this break from allergies is a total blessing. I'm loving it.

Rain away.

Email etiquette

Okay, I've been on the internet since, well, since before there WAS and internet. But we still had mail back then and there has been an etiquette about mail since at least the early 80s. Some of the information gets updated as new technology springs up. So, here's the early '09 edition of Digital Heloise.

CONTENT

First of all, you must realize that anything you put in email should be handled in exactly the same way as regular mail. Many of the same laws apply, but more importantly, the same social dynamics apply, only faster. For instance, if you think your boyfriend isn't going to share that scented letter on pink parchment with a room full of frat boyz, you're delusional. But similarly, if you write a sufficiently hot letter in email, you can be sure someone is reading over his shoulder, or will get the first round of forwarding.

So, watch your content. Don't put anything in there you wouldn't mind other people seeing, and certainly don't put in stuff you wouldn't want to end up in court. [Emails are now admissible, from the right source] There's a program called Carnivour that's in most major providers now (Earthink was the first to roll over like a good puppy). It sniffs emails for certain keywords. So you can be sure that every crack you ever made about shooting George Bush in the face has ended up in some FBI file or another.

Same with pictures. If you don't want nude pictures of yourself ending up on the internet... DON'T TAKE ANY! Like that girl from High school musical, we may never know if she actually, naively took some secret shots intended for her boyfriend alone; or if her PR manager suggested she do it so that she'd get more attention just when she was ready to break out. But the point is clear: no one can be trusted forever. Eventually they'll get mad at you and send them out, or get stupid and let someone unscrupulous get ahold of them, and BAM, you're a porn star.


Audio-Visual cues. You might be smiling when you type something, or it may sound sarcastic in your head. But what we hear on the other side is "whirrr- Click", and what we see is a bunch of 12pt. black lines. It doesn't matter what, exactly, you do to rectify this, just as long as you do SOMETHING. Emoticons were custom made for this. You know the little sideways smiley faces like this > ;o) <. Some people use the Manga Eyes version =o.O= where the little Kilroy set of eyes should tell you all you need to know. And some people get a little funny with html tags. Which is best? None of them. The only wrong one to use is "nothing". Worse, to start using one of them, then forget sometimes.... then they're never sure what's up.

Oh, almost forgot. ALL CAPITAL LETTERS MEANS, PRETTY UNIVERSALLY, THAT YOUR VOICE IS RAISED. MORE THAN A COUPLE OF WORDS AND IT'S CONSIDERED "YELLING". USE THIS _ONLY_ WHEN YOU'RE actually yelling. ;o/

APPLICATION

Your mail application should have the basic set of features. There's good ways to use them, and bad ways. For most individual letters, you're gonna use the "To:" field for the address and be done with it. This is totally fine. It's when multiple people get mailed that many folks start getting fuzzy.

First, you need to know your audience. If you're sending to a bunch of people who all know each other well (say, 'the coffee club"), and you're SURE they all have each other's mail addresses, then it's generally OK to put all the addresses in the To: field and send away. HOWEVER, many folks have announcement lists, joke lists, etc with people from all parts of their life (family, friends, co-workers, mistress, etc) where the To: and even the CC: field wouldn't be appropriate.

Why? You ask... well, let's start with what each field is for:
To: sends a copy of the letter to every address in the to field, and posts those names in the quick view of people's email applications.
CC: sends a copy of the letter to every address in the to field, and does NOT post those names in the quick view but they can be seen once the letter is opened.
BCC; sends a copy of the letter to every address in the to field, and hides the addresses in this field from all other recipients.

The original ideal behind these goes something like this. You feel like your boss is sexually harassing you. So, you send a letter TO him saying how you feel and that he should stop immediately. You CC his boss so that he knows it's not just between the two of you and this has other folks involved. Also, his boss notes that the letter is addressed to his subordinate and doesn't call you with a confused apology. You BCC your lawyer so that an exact copy gets out at the same time just in case you're fired on the spot, then you have a paper trail to work with. Worst case scenario, but I think it brings the point home.

Now, in modern emailing, let's get back to that joke list. First, you don't just put people on lists, you ASK them first. (This is called Opt-In mailing, ie, they know about it before they start getting mail). It's polite. Also, there's been attempts at legislation to make Opt-Out mailing illegal (ie when they start sending the mail and give you a way to get off the list). But more important is to protect their address. Put the ENTIRE joke list addresses in the BCC field instead of the other two, then put YOURSELF in the To column. Many mailers will not let you have an empty To, Subject, or Body area. This way, your co-workers don't end up on one of your friends' sports lists, or the monday night bridge roundtable.

SPAM

First of all, you should never buy anything that arrives in your email. EVER! There's enough spam and identity theft scams out there that anyone who actually has something to sell will find a better way. Even if you do luck out and find that one, honest email offer, you're only promoting the spam experience for other companies who see that it's working. Spam is potentially more damaging than viruses. Many companies and individual pay for mail (and internet) service by the bandwidth used. Spam dramatically increases the traffic through almost every machine, and causes lost emails due to over-filtering. It's the digital equivalent of all those Starbucks cups and water bottles gathering in the Pacific.


Now, here's some important tips to reduce spam in our lifetimes:

1) Set your mail app to "do not download images" If something slips through the spam filter and you have one of those split screen mail browsers, just clicking it to get rid of it could pull a request for the images and verify that your address is real, and read. By not downloading images, you may not get off the spam list, but you don't move up the ladder either into the "preferred sucker" list.

2) Never opt-out. If you didn't opt in, then don't opt out. Again. many of these opt-out scams are just a way to track active addresses.

3) never,ever, NEVER-EVER open files you didn't request. You might know so many people that you might not know who's sending you .doc files, but for crying out loud, get a company list and check against it when you get something.

4) Report to Spam Cop. If you have the time, reporting spammers can mean faster turn-around for eliminating their schemes. Generally, they take over a server (happened twice in the same week to me) and have their spam go to a fake site that they install in the server. Spam cop will figure this all out and notify the appropriate people. As soon as the cracked server is shut down or repaired, then none of that wave of spam will work if other people hit the links.

5) Your penis cannot be enlarged, there's no foreign wad of money waiting for you, and russian brides know WAY more about our legal system than you do. Think about it. If "it" was actually true (whatever it is), then you wouldn't need a spammer to get the word out. If they ever invent a pill to make penises bigger, it'll be on EVERY news and blog in the world.

6) That joke isn't funny, the kid isn't sick, Microsoft will NOT pay you for forwarding this letter. Chain letters turn YOU into a voluntary spammer. There's a great site called Snopes that allows you to check and see if the claims on most emails are true. Poke around and see a few of the scams that have been perpetrated.

Finally, learn all you can about your anti-spam software. Look for feature like "whitelists": a place where you can say that NOTHING from these addresses should ever be considered spam. Check the spam folder frequently. Remember spam is designed to look like real mail. A LOT of real mail gets caught in the spam filter. And sometimes you can dil it down so that no real mail gets caught, but the stuff that gets sent to multiple addresses does.


Email is one of the most important methods of communication today. By allowing spammers to take hold and control it, you give up a big part of our culture, and one of the best methods of global communications yet. Treat it nice.

No mo' Gitmo

Okay, so it was a day late, but Gitmo will be closed in a year, giving enough time to transfer out the detainees, close up the prison, re-assign the officers and fire the nuke.

Waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation tactics are outlawed.

And Microsoft is laying off people.

It's a good day.

No more LAFC

When people here the news that there's no more LAFC, they ask "WHY? what happened?" And I wish I had a really good answer.

Last year, we discovered that the Pyro, no matter how unsafe, was a more important part of "The Burn" than the fire performers. I called out Crimson in an open letter, but the response did not answer the core questions. We had no communication until this month.

So finally, I sent her a letter at the end of last year:

"So, it's looking like enough previous members are gonna be returning to make LAFC happen for 2009.

The question on my mind is: did I piss you off too much? You've never gone silent on me and I don't know if I should hand off the torch to someone else to give the lafc a fair shot at the great circle."

Not exactly groveling, not snarky or mean. Just a straight question. But, certainly an open door. I think, subconsciously, I wanted her to step through. She did.

She came back stating that the list was shut down, LAFC would not return, and that I could not function as a Shin, co-shin or helsman. She listed two reasons why, neither of which I believe.

"You continue to complain year after year after year and one of those complaints is about having to create choreography."

For the record, LAFC voluntarily started group choreography long before it was a requirement. This is one of the reasons she came to us in 2004 to build her fiasco "the Pulse". I've never had a problem building group choreography. I HAVE had a problem with the inequity about choreographic judging and the level of work different groups are expected to do. In 2006 both Amber and I were read the riot act about our choreographies looking too similar to the previous years (for different reasons. That was the second year in a row that LAFC had combat choreography). While, that year, other groups literally did the same, exact choreography.
No, I don't have a problem doing choreography, I have a problem being expected to produce while others phone it in.

"Your leadership is being questioned by members of the community and former members of LAFC will not be returning if your are in any kind of a leadership role."

This is EXACTLY why there are more than four groups in conclave. Back in 2000, crimson called 4 people to help her run the conclave. I was one. But after that year, most of the SFFC would not return if Crimson was at the helm. So she opened it up to any group. And yes, Mutaytor split off LAFC immediately, and in progressive years Phoenix split off from them, Pois in the hood split off from LA, Garnish split off early, And the more geographically convenient groups, San Diego and Santa Barbera pealed off too. People have had MANY options for spinning in LA, One person is not an excuse not to spin.

So. You can see why I don't believe her answer. But it's not like she could say "I didn't like that you called me out on the pyro thing last year". Nor could she say, "I'd rather have people that kiss my ass, and you're more trouble than you're worth." Whatever. I think it's politics, or fate, or whatever. It really doesn't matter to me. And here's why.

Back around 2002, I was known as "the safety Nazi." And when we started NAFAA, some people joined just to make sure we didn't "regulate them out of a job". It was a weird time, but I learned a lesson in duplicity. I had to leave my fire troupe because of a member who was a chronic drinker. And I don't mean a regular social drinker, I mean I didn't feel safe until she had a couple of drinks in her. Those people who joined to keep an eye on things started remarking about how I was performing with someone who broke the very first rule of the NAFAA guides. I couldn't live with the hypocrisy, so I left the troupe to keep NAFFAA clean.

About 2 years ago, we started Red Swan. And though it's not delineated in the mission statement, it was our goal to elevate fire performance into a respected art form. To place people in corporate events that have been previously inaccessible. And we wanted to get performers out of gigs where they are disrespected, underpaid, or mistreated. But again, I run into the duplicity.

Burning man expects people to pay to be in conclave, yes, they get a great party, but they're formally expected to work for months on their choreography, provide video proof of their work, compete for the position AFTER putting in all the work, show up days early to check in, show up 2 hours early for the gig, no dressing room, no bathroom, bad communication, bad organization. Frequently, their well-planned choreography gets cut significantly by upwards of 15 minutes. THEN, they have to protect themselves as 40,000+ people turn into a frenzied mob, often trampling equipment or performers. You can't really say they get the same party as everyone else, because they're expected to be sober for the performance.

Yeah. Now, frost that cake with the fact that I've gone a little deeper into debt each year I've gone to the Burn, while my business(es) suffer from my absence. You can see that I have plenty of reasons not to go. I'll miss my friends, but I dare say I won't miss putting up with Crimson's shit any more.