Attn: Slayer Addicts
Don't miss this party! Thatz rite - as of last nite, Buffy the Vampire Slayer began its last season. There are three more episodes now until the series Finale on May 20th... Dammit, Xander! So grab ur stakes, set ur Tivos, werk ur VHSz, and head on over to the Hellmouth.
The following linx are provided to promote the enrichment of your slayage viewing:
- Scooby Scorecard: Required background reading to catch up with where the new season started...
- Buff-O-meter: Which Buffy character are you most like in personality? Use this test to find out! (mine = Buffy.. as if there were ANY doubt!)*
- Slayage Central: Phat Buffy News Portal... dude, you simply can't any better source of up 2 the minute information on Hellmouth Central!
- Buffy Search: Search Portal to the Buffy & Angel community..
- BBC's Buffy Homepage: Because the UK is riddled with Hellmouths!
- Buffy Guide: The complete guide to all Buffy episodes...
- Much Ado About Buffy: Rad phansite!
And and extra special addendum for Uber Geek Slayers:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer Collectible Card Game: for the seriously initiated.
- Buffy Role Playing Game: like, you even had to ask?!?
- Acme Buffy: what happens when Perl programmers have to werk late and miss Buffy episodes.
*Special 4 Welly, who is Xander incarnate!
CFP#8 Update
Currently Cyberfunkapuss#8 is about 8820 miles away from me, according to the handy "Great Circle Distance from You to Tim" calculator he built. His time in New Zealand is almost up, and soon he will move on to China (if all goes well). All of the journal entries from NZ are great, but I especially like this last one from Whitianga... Sounds like his journey is shaping up to be a proper chatauqua...
The show started with dancing and a challenge to the "visiting chief" , who in our case was me , since I was the only male who spoke good english, The german guys were to scared to get up and talk. Basically the Maori chief , comes at you with this big stick and then lays down a peace offering and you respond by picking it up and saying some stuff. I was not the most eloquent but I got the point accross. After that we asked questions and they gave us some more demonstrations of instruments and dances. I asked what was done in Maori culture when someone dies.
... godspeed and faire travels, timeteo...
Memes and Viruses
Probably should start reading up on this now... robust collection of research about and linx related to SARS (thnx to Tim Bishop).
All these years I have been reading up on epidemiology and phreaking about filoviruses... and to think itz a silly little swine/avian flu thing thatz gonna get the big headlines. On the surface, SARS just doesn't compare to ebola - no hemorraging from the eyes, no violent convulsions, no 90%+ mortality rates (SARS is currently around 6%, i think)... Don't get me wrong, tho - coronaviruses aren't anything to play with lightly either...
Call 4 Entries!! Design Competition!!
For those of you who don't kno me - my momma lives in a vintage (late 1960s?) trailer in the woods in Central Texas that is truly decomposing and melting into the erth. Despite the quaintness of the trailer (real wood finishes!), after my last visit (when we went w/o using the bathroom lite switch 4 fear of fire) i have decided that my mom needs a new home.
Of course, she wants something erth friendly, so a 'modern' trailer (altho affordable) is a no-go... Mom has always had a Buckminster Fuller fetish, and I have heard her mention many times about how she would love to have a Geodesic Dome of her own. Pre-fab dome-homes are available, but still sorta costly. I am sure we could do it ourselves cheaper. So I have decided to build her one!
Unfortunately, I can't design anything fer shit if it involves the necessity of an accurate dimensional scale, computed weight loads and structural support columns... So I am asking any of our more CAD minded and/or creative readers out there to submit their design ideas!!
Announcing: Dry, Inc.'s "Build Bobbi Cats a Bucky Abode" Design Contest Call for entries! Design my mom's Geodesic Dome-Home!
Dome-Home Requirements:
- Should comfortably accomodate a 54 year old artist/sculptress, three cats, one dog, and a parrot
- Extra Points for including a studio that can house potter's wheel, kiln, werkbench and materials
- Should be at least 20% 'green' - use of solar, wind, pyramid or whatever power.
- Should consider the Central Texas climate.
- (In contrast to current home) Should do itz best to exclude presence of scorpions, fire ants, and the gawdfersaken 98 degree plus heat of a Texas July.
- Cost as LITTLE as possible to implement.
Winners will get the pure pleasure of knowing they contributed to sheltering my momma! :)
If I Had Only Known...
... about my Magic Power three weeks ago when i bought plane ticketz 2 A-town... I coulda saved myself a lotta moolah... b/c
I Have the Power of Teleportation! And I wouldn't have had to put up with frikkin Delta selectively considering a rather classy but small lady's purse as one of the "two carry on items" bullsh*t limit, either...
What's Your Magic Power?
brought to you by Quizilla
But after finding out what my religion is/should be, it makes sense, really
(Via Anger Is A Gift)
Phirewall Phun
Shaun0 hookt me up with this phree phirewall... (of course you can upgrade, as with everything). And to think all this time i didn't realize there were so many phreax out there copping a feel from my ports!! So who's that cybersniffin around my backdoor?!?
Thnx to ARIN WHOIS, i can finger the IPz of those doity leetle lurkers...
Oh Baby..
Enhancing Titanium Powerbook Wifi performance...
... he told me to firmly press the side wall of the powerbook against the frame, just slowly and firmly pressing along its length several times for about 10 seconds. Next, he told me to replace the battery and start her back up...
I can't believe it, but my Airport's range is now like my iBook's!! I never could have done this from out here by the pool before, but here I am.
Umm... massaging hardware... that alone makes me wanna switch to a Powerbook. (Via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing)
Personal Domestic Policies
For the record, I just need to state that despite the sound of it, the majority of my interactions with other individuals in my time-space continuum are very, very deep and meaningful. I consider every single encounter on this plane both a teaching and learning experience...
All life is by its nature transient.. a misleadingly continuous string of discrete, irrepeatable moments that are essentially ineffable, undefinable. When I try to describe it, or assign objective correlatives, I inadvertantly create mere one dimensional slices - artifacts of the truth.
Seeking Answers
With the twists and turns of the last two years, I challenge anyone to deny that they haven't at least once tried various means to divine future happenings... From the stock trader on the floor trying to time the wily market who idly considers Kabbalist or Chaotic algorithms, the accounting execs who chant mantras while the shredder hums, the spouse of the reservist chanting hail marys to count down days until the assignment ends, or the consultant planting herbs on the New Moon for more gigs... people in general resort to some serious superstitions when there is turbulence in the atmosphere.
I sought help from the Oracl3... and got lucky - he was online. I caught him in the inital phase of a tequila binder, mixing and splicing video. Thankfully, he had time for me:
jmguru: sorry im abusing this bottle of vallarta...i have to get rid of it. down the gullet
pwyllz: chug! chug! chug!
jmguru: next time you're in austin, you will face your demons with me and one bottle ...you me, and a bottle of blanco.
pwyllz: as long as i am supervised
pwyllz: i guess itz ok
pwyllz: but you've been warned
jmguru: you must, yes, i'll personally call mr. ridge from homeland security
pwyllz: tommy
jmguru: we'll raise the fuckin level to orange if need be
pwyllz: get out the duct tape babeeee
jmguru: and the breathing masks, cuz sars is taking us all out, fuck osama, its nature gonna do us in
jmguru: naturalistic terrorism
pwyllz: yeah... sometimes when the government seems to be just doing weird ass things.. i think... therez an asteroid heading towards us, T minus 3 days or so, and they aren't telling us, just biding time
jmguru: who do ya fight!? god? mother nature? lil kim?
pwyllz: hellyah fuck lil kim, dat beyotch
jmguru: man she's got pretty eyes though. not lenses, did some BET watchin the other night
pwyllz: i beat god arm wrestling last week, but that mofo is still not paying up
pwyllz: but i would never take on mother nature. she always wins
jmguru: absolutely, earth brought us humans here just for styrophoam
pwyllz: we are fill3r
pwyllz: polysterene
jmguru: exactly. we're just by products
pwyllz: out of control eukaryotes
jmguru: woh! holy college years!
pwyllz: had to dig a little for that bio reference, did ya?
pwyllz: just dont go all tachyon on me in retaliation
He was specious, non-sequitur and essentially non-committal... damn oracles. But I need to know something. The Phunkmeister is sauced and the tarot is not working. And it's important - there's money involved! So I turned to simulation... Thatz rite - i consulted "The Unofficial Official Simulator". And my Rumsfeld simulator says "Maybe! Try Again Later". Keep ur fingerz x'ed, spit twice and make Runes in the air with ur big toe... but he's been known to change his mind, that Rummy.
Dry, Inc. would like to announce the debut of Shaun-O's blog Phenobarbie Doll. I have my own white trash roots, but Shaun-O's make fer fine reading... Highly recommended!!
Oracl3
jmgtivvy: ok, i fucked up the link. the server is down. the server is down. actually, its not , but something funny is happening. let me look.
paulajdry: cooolio
paulajdry: you at risk geek, you
jmgtivvy: we're all geeks , in our own waaaaay!!!! hooray !
paulajdry: i am a documentary geek
jmgtivvy: woooh! ok, the server is up and visible to the outside , must be a http response code of 404 ...page is incorrect, but dns is resolvable
jmgtivvy: cool
paulajdry: resolvable
paulajdry: nice
jmgtivvy: sorry im abusing this bottle of vallarta...i have to get rid of it. down the gullet
paulajdry: chug chug chug
jmgtivvy: next time you're in austin, you will face your demons with me and one bottle ...you me, and a bottle of blanco.
paulajdry: as long as i am supervised
paulajdry: i guess itz ok
paulajdry: but you've been warned
jmgtivvy: you must, yes, i'll personally call mr. ridge from homeland security
paulajdry: tommy
jmgtivvy: we'll raise the fuckin level to orange if need be
paulajdry: get out the duct tape babeeee
jmgtivvy: and the breathing masks, cuz sars is taking us all out, fuck osama, its nature gonna do us in
jmgtivvy: naturalistic terrorism
paulajdry: yeah... sometimes when the government seems to be just doing weird ass things.. i think... therez an asteroid heading towards us, T minus 3 days or so, and they aren't telling us, just biding time
jmgtivvy: who do ya fight!? god? mother nature? lil kim?
paulajdry: hellyah fuck lil kim, dat beyotch
jmgtivvy: man she's got pretty eyes though. not lenses, did some bet watchin the other night
paulajdry: i beat god arm wrestling last week, but that mofo is still not paying up
paulajdry: but i would never take on mother nature. she always wins
jmgtivvy: absolutely, earth brought us humans here just for styrophoam
paulajdry: we are fill3r
paulajdry: polysterene
jmgtivvy: exactly. we're just by products
paulajdry: out of control eukaryotes
jmgtivvy: woh! holy college years!
paulajdry: had to dig a little for that bio reference, did ya?
paulajdry: just dont go all tachyon on me in retaliation
paulajdry: hey i am still get the apache brush off on juno dog... are we not resolved?
jmgtivvy: oh yeah back to business
jmgtivvy: give me a sec....
jmgtivvy: yes....
jmgtivvy: odd...hmmm...
jmgtivvy: hmmm. rebooting. fuck it.
The Guru Speaks
Let me introduce my oracle: JMG the PHunkMeister... Bio: master of physics, manipulator of noise gates/filterz, Phat man/wah-wah sound f/x and programmer of looped bongoed percussive lumps.. not unlike "Wintermute" or HAL 9000, JMG has been on the vid/aud tip since it & his inception - i mean, hez Old School Amiga-core!!! He is also known as El ChaNgO LoCo, John Meditation Guru, The Red Manz Minion, Phunky Mescan Groove, El Jefe... and more.
Sometimes, when he finds me worthy, he leaves me important messages on my IM/Messenger accounts... I do not always understand them at the time, but lo, such is the case with oracles..
jmgtivvy (1/25/2003 1:39:03 AM): can i get a witness? can i have a witness? can i have a whole fuckin jury and throw the fuckin judge in too? fuck it. fuck IT and fuck the future. one day we'll find simon hanging in his loft by his skins exposed all bloody silent lamb style with an ugly fat out-of-tune under-24 dude cackling in the darkest corner. like a mcfarlane shadow tale, but reality show-esque. humiliation is the key today. we all cackle like hyenas in the privacy of our couch watching brides get fucked and kids get fronted like toofless whores. my god, what is society coming too. which reminds me, i got the knew steve-o (from jackass) dvd in the mail . got to go watch it now !
Change Management
Change Management is a primary aspect of my job description and one of the many value added services I offer. No, noone else knows what 'Change Management' means either, and that includes many people who practice it... In general, CM amounts to project, team and client management strategies that facilitate the adoption and successful implementation of 'change' within an organization. 'Change' can include anything from a new software release to corporate mergers.
Axiomatically, though, I think of CM as simply keeping everyone involved or impacted by change from phreaking out.
Another axiom - individuals who are thought of as "Change Mgrs" (i.e., urs truly) are usually the most easily phreaked out by change. This axiom can be proven via a complex behavioral based argument involving transference and projective psychological strategies, but in short, itz simply because we are control phreaks.
That said, I really am digging the changes over at The Tard Blog... i will miss Riti Sped, but her replacement Sarah Hammon definitely has my vote... her first slew of entries are not to be missed, most especially "Tard Likes Stretchy Things".. oh, and "Tard Likes Fire"... i am on Angelo's side, here - "must be bad paper"...
Notes And Pics
Last day in austin... there are just not enuf happy hourz to go around... :( Phun with digital camera from the other nite:
- Aubs (unofficial Lusties Roadie) with Patriotically Correct Hair at Cucaracha
- Diazipam & Queenie Def a la casa fajita fest
- Kerstin's Beer (no, really!! Was not meant to be a shot of her chest)
- Glam Shot of the RRPF (this is the only shot i got, as he sucessfully avoided the camera for most of the evening)
- Verge of Stardom - The Lusties at Cucaracha
- Moi et Mike (Lusties groupie and lead guitarist for Brewtality)
- Me, Edie, Mike
- Queenie Def and Me (sliver of Diazapam in backgrnd)
- Diazipam & Shaun-O
- Diazipam, Bob & Queenie
- Shaun, Kerstin, Queenie, Me (and my chins)
- Phlp in natural environment
- This is what I look like after two bottles of Smoking Loon
- Wieder Queenie
- Shaun-O y Kerstin
- Queenie, Moi et Mike
- At Risk (Post)Youth, Self-portrait
- Welly Hog (Keeping the werld safe from Diazipamz 8 minute chicken)
- Guest of Honor: Sweet Potato Cake courtesy of Queenie Def
- Need Beer
- Breasts 4 Beer Program Queenie
- Breasts 4 Beer Program Pwyllz
Finally a Bit Like a Vacation -
This is the A-town i remember... fajitaz at diazipam and wellyhogs, dessert by queenie, homebrew by phlp and a late nite punk rock show by my best friendz band... proud to see my friends continue to do their part to keep austin weird. happy passover, and happy dead walking jesus day to all. xoxoxox, pwyllz
If U Can't Beat Them...
try to make money off of them... I bet my friend Sam-i 500 bux that by the end of summer the administration would be pushing on towards Syria. This is a big deal, since Sam-i has tried to get me to bet on basketball or boxing repeatedly, all to no avail... according to Bill Connolly's nice consolidated brief (second bullet point) on TOTEOTA, I might be getting an early pay off.
Which is good, cuz 500 bux will go a long ways towards financing some of the wonderful life-saving care momz recieved this last week at Seton ICU, much of which is not HMO friendly... c'est la vie... but at least it's la vie, and not la morte.
Well Dammit
As if there hasn't been ENUF unsettling change in my life lately...
Progress...
Out of ICU now. Still the tremors, the wheezing, the conversation reiteration, but itz improved. From: No, there are not people in the corner of the room. And they do not want any of your low sodium meal... To finally: I don't see them, Mom, but that doesn't mean they're not there, because you have clearly proven that the construction site out the hospital window is, indeed a movie set with giant paper maiche pig heads and two eared, three-eyed rabbits.
However, even if the people you are seeing in the corner are there, I am sure they are fine - and if they wanted any of your low sodium no taste meal, they would say so.
My mom - this is who she is - persists in being hospitable towards her delusions. But i, personally, wish they would go away.
April, A Year Ago
(2002, Pwylla J. Dry, Avenue A, NYC)
In the autumn
after the towers fell,
we wandered the city
from happy hours
until closings
quietly shocked.
We were in between,
we were displaced.
You left for the desert,
and I loitered in the east village
collecting take out menus.
But, even now, the sirens still echo
down
their frantic endurance
resounding.
From my window at night
I saw the pillars of light
the city sent up in homage
disappear into the clouds.
With spring, I became
preoccupied with sex,
the desire for touch
in the sudden absence
of so many
unknown souls.
In Tompkins park,
leaf buds on spindly trees
over the heads of
homeless and junkies.
I was beyond it.
I vaulted right past despair,
began my tactile
inquisition
of various men,
not knowing necessarily
in the seeking.
Better, in fact,
to not know too much,
not remember names,
but rather, count bodies.
In the spring,
and you left drunken
messages on my cell phone,
while the middle east unhinged,
and i gently explored
your discarded lover
on the chaise lounge…
The moment,
so vacuous in its
immediacy and during
its happening,
gains inertia.
The numbers add up
to totals,
running on
the months of
obituaries in the Times.
U know, he could have been anyone
our age and down there.
He could have been me.
He could have been you.
OpEd – I Gotcher Patriotism Hanging
Pwylla J. Dry, Editor
NYC, 08Apr2K3
These colors don't run. But what is all the fighting for? Who has the remote control? Change the frikkin channel, already…
Mr. Hussein told his commanders: "When the enemy starts a large-scale battle, he must realize that the battle between us will be open wherever there is sky, land and water in the entire world."
The Iraqi leader also denied
"There are no weapons of mass destruction in
Via Globe and Mail, Intl, 16Mar2K3
Seems therez always something to be worried about – because, what you don't know can kill you… that story, and more, after a commercial break..
Reformatting…
I am still sidetracked with the highest rated national preoccupation - 'Escapism:Denial:Fantasy'.. Late Nite Infomercial running a loop in my head. Teach me to go to bed with MSNBC left on.
Madam Cleo Sosotris says "serious nuff the
(Voiceover Narrator).. It may look like a vacation these next two weeks, as ostensibly it's time off from work/labor… but in truth your motherz in a bad way and it doesn't matter if this is something that you shouldn't have to deal with at the ripe young age of 33, that's just too bad – because, it appears that at the very least all is not kosher...
(Voice Inside My Head).. Not your Gardnerian variety wiccan. Strictly left-hand magick type of shit. Watch my pure animism manifest itz pneuma all up in this Jungian psychosexual mélange. This is the state of my hypothalamus…
The Order of Events has been more or less revised via strategic selective strikes of smart self-munitions.. uh, medications. Still, to preface –
These last two years for me full on in the grip of psychic level survival mode. Guarding my solar plexus over on Avenue A. Furtive, furtive, stealthy sub-lease life, living on the dole (and a healthy severance package) for a few months. Then intermittent work solid enuf to manage almost more what I made before the fallout.
Drank myself increasingly conscious over the course of a season devoted entirely to illicit trysts with various partners, dangerous reading Hunter S. Thompson w/Baudrillard-Kristeva chasers, and hypno-gogic private performance art involving moon phases, Hebraic talismans, intricate mp3 remixes implicating everything from techno euro-trance to classic rock, sigils, chants and paintings... my own 23 degreez of initiation. By degreez, rounding out the edges of the daily discombobulate.
"Coppola makes his film like the Americans made war – in this sense, it is the best testimonial – with the same immoderation, the same excess of means, the same monstrous candor… and the same success. The war as entrenchment, as technological and psychedelic fantasy, the war as a succession of special effects, the war become film even before being filmed. The war abolishes itself in its technological test, and for Americans it was primarily that: a test site, a gigantic territory in which to test their arms, their methods, their power."
APOCALYPSE NOW (from Simulacra and Simulation)
Jean Baudrillard, 1981
But I kno at least, it began well before September 11th. Already before that I'd had my introduction to mourning. First daddy, then grandma. Mom's Hep C and remitting remissions. I had already reached a comfortable level of numbness, and by the time we lost Sarah, ground zero was to me just a crater, chasm, already a year cold and incontrovertible. I validated that "It was ok to look but not go there". Somehow managing to stay well above
Flashback to Now: And here we are now waking up over on Ave C. No longer living 30-Something Sex in the City That Girl kinda shit despite my phat flat in Peter's remaux bldg. Note that Itza Kick Ass situation. We got an Elvis on a vintage motorbike litho framed in our little slate floored lobby.
Sure, itz a gentrified 1700 buck a month bit of downtown, but I will dig my heels in and gentrify my young urban professional ass as much as it takes. Cuz itz that kinda shameless cool.
And I feel safe here, despite the lack of duct tape and gradual dampening of my desires. So, after I do the dishes and clean up the piles of post-taxes paper on the desk, the first item of business is admitting that:
Life is inextricably intertwined with Death.
Note that both Life and Death are states of Being. True, one is decidedly less physically active than the other… but aside from that, you only have very unreliable data, so get over it.
You know Paula, she's always taken things a bit hard.
As evidenced by call from aunt Jo to give me a head's up on mom's dementia before I come down to Austin. Yes, they do kno me. They let me pretend my poetic affectations. Flower it up with werdz and the occasional humor.
I play at self-involved Manhattancentric repartee. ("Oh, but, whatever shall I wear!?!" I will pack immediately following my afternoon manicure and facial.)
For two going on three years I have stayed mostly away from home. Tried to wait it out. That doesn't seem to be happening. Can't hit snooze anymore.
So, am headed back to A-town now to get the metaphysical houses in order.
No promises, mijo… like I told Tim (in my mind) last fall. Don't mistake my distance for unlove. I love so much. So much more healthily from here.
I think it came out as, "I got yer back".
But still…
I am sure he understood.
Headed Uptown
Just before dusk saturday evening in a cab turning
to cross the 96th street transept.
That moment when East Side turns from structure,
steel and city to suddenly exactly
what it was that Olmsted was trying to tell you.
Framed there
unbelievable Nature in your face
like, "I meant that"
rays from the sun setting halo,
halo around,
glance up and see:
falcon...
whoa.
Phamily Phun!!
Excellent and relevant online board game - Homeland Insecurity! Don't wanna play? Too Bad! You already are! Each square on the board provides a link to the source material...
(game courtesy of the Metro Times Detroit, link via Lisa English at Ruminate This)
Note 2 Self
Read this when u have time. (via rbt wsdm). Interesting, another political standing test. I came out libertarian.
Also of interest. This too.
UPDATE: Nice... and useful sub(di)version. (link via American Samizdat)
Project Control Reporting
Dashboard reports are cute and effective ways to manage a project. I dig this one - the Iraq-O-Meter. Now it has a newly added "Green/Yellow/Red" Leadership Status section.. quite nice. Note Qusay's status is in 'red'... but what about Uday? (Saddam's Cyber-self informs us).
It Was... The Salmon Mousse!
 |
Argh. Wrapping up another project now, and as often is the case, am playing polite tug-o-war with client to ensure that all results in a win/win situation. Thus, I will be preoccupied for the next day, or so. Suggested readings from the LGP archives are here, and here.. (and here is one of my all-time favs)...
Comment thread fodder: What would you like your epitaph to say?
Pox Americana
... Mickey Kaus gets to thinking... (note especially his "P.P.P.S" link - itz one of my early favs)... and again, for source mats, check it.
hard not to see the inklings of the next moves...
meanwhile, at home, my libertarian self is more and more offended... the "just trust us" argument, coming most especially from the government, is one we can never abide by. I only trust public congressional oversight, and then only as far as i can throw it. AND most especially, where a US citizen is concerned.
If they can treat someone's citizenship like this, what is anyone's worth?