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Ferrets Frolic Freely

Some of you know of my plan to take over the world.  As I have explained to those in the know, I am personally only interested in the planning and initial implementation of said initiative, and would rather delegate the operational aspects of actually 'running' the world to my minions, once I take it over .  Although I still feel that way, I can't pass up a good simultation.

Feel free to visit my nationstate, where our national animal, the ferret, frolics freely in our many lush forests.  It's all about freedom here in The Disputed Territories of Erisian Chaotica.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/30/2003 11:14:20 PM , 8 comments

HoaX0rs

Pwylla: heh... you were always more acutely analytically skilled than I... you, Plan II Honors wiz, you... i am mere Plan I poseur
BioPhysicist Friend: that's not true. I was a good enough faker to make it into Plan II, but I always felt out of place in any literature-related course. I should have had you write my English papers for me.
Pwylla:  thnx, but i think it would have looked suspicious - i was continually preoccupied with post-modern theory... to the point where the Eng Profs called me "that deconstruction girl".. usually in a disparaging way.. esp that one Victorian lit prof.. grrrr
BioPhysicist Friend: lol… I didn't know that
Pwylla: oh - that or 'the TS Eliot freak', which is actually much werse
BioPhysicist Friend: have you heard about the Alan Sokal hoax?
Pwylla: not off the top of my head.. doesnt have anythign to do with the Sapir-Whorfe hypothesis does it?
BioPhysicist Friend: no. Alan Sokal is a physics professor at NYU who about seven years ago took it upon himself to write a post-modernist article about General Relativity and quantum gravity and stuff like that, and got it published in Social Text, revealing immediately afterward that the article was a sham concocted to display how intellecually bankrupt modern English departments are… he even wrote a tedious book about why he did it and what he thinks it means to general society about a year later.
Pwylla: LOL revenge of the nerds alright
BioPhysicist Friend: I've read the book, but the original article is impenetrable -- best read in the excerpts where Sokal explains the inspiration and meaning for the juiciest passages.
Pwylla: damn i have to look that up - it sounds great
BioPhysicist Friend: yeah, except that Physics has recently suffered a similar prank in which a couple of French dudes published string theory papers in refereed journals and later admitted that they were complete rubbish... part of the point of the Sokal hoax was to show the necessity of peer review (Social Text) is not refereed, and when the physicists published rubbish that had supposedly passed some sort of scrutiny, it was a big embarrassment… the excuses were similar to the ones offered for how Sokal's paper got published: well, I didn't understand it, but I thought that was because I was dumb. Turned out they weren't dumb in quite the same way as they thought
Pwylla: hehe.. you kno.. from another perspective - the perpetuation of these pranks btwn different channels of academia can be seen as a indicator of the collapse of authorial discourse... tres post-moderne

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/28/2003 8:02:54 PM , 0 comments

Free Beer & Easy Money

Sleep/Work Update:  Still buried under work - client review resulted in redesign nightmares that will keep me up most of tonite too... but, in the interim, cuz my client is not my life:

The title of this entry has been cleverly crafted (along with the sneaky keyword set below*) to drag fellow Gen X'rs** to this page.  Itz been a recurring admonition pointed at our generation of 20 to 30 somethings that we aren't politically involved.  Yeah, well, whatever.  As Copeland said:  "Don't mistake withdrawing in disgust for apathy."

Organizing us into anything has never been easy, and not something that I ever would actually sign on to do.  But itz become clear in the last couple years that letting the US political system motor along on Autopilot isn't a good thing.  Dry, Inc. is hereby pledging itz half-assed support and intermittent efforts towards doing something about it, or trying anyway.  But only as long as it remains:  phun, cheap, free, and easy.

To that end, I would like to call your attention to some nascent Mimetic Engineering campaigns brought to you via LGP and the Proprietress of CasaChristy.  What we are doing and how is all pretty much up for grabs - and I don't have time to recap so you will have to read all the different comments and links and figger it out yourself.  We just wanted to let you know in case you cared to participate.  Or not.  Itz your life, and I am not the boss of you.

But I am the boss of me, and my ass needs to get back to werk now...

*Sneaky Inappropriate Keywords to Snag the Search Bots:  Harry Potter, The Matrix, X Box, Generation X, free, live, pics, amateur, Hulk, Water Pipe, hemp, sex, rock and roll

**The term and concept of "Generation X" is in no way endorsed by Dry, Inc.  We hate it, you hate it - labels suck.  But it works better in this context than "Hey You - fellow late 20-something to early 30-something disenfranchised, disaffected, person who is working too hard and getting frick-all for it"

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/26/2003 7:14:39 PM , 0 comments

Ambient Control

RRPF: i have to play catch-up at the end of each day w/our internal database making sure everything gets entered w.r.t. incidents, tasks, inventory - i have an mp3 folder that i only listen to for this
Pwylla: sweeeet - i do the same thing w.r.t. music for specific tasks
RRPF:  itz about 80 min of music
RRPF: and i know if i get to hear the later tracks,that means that i need to flip into high gear… so some tracks i hear every time
Pwylla: when i am doing hardcore design stuff,i have a couple specific techno mixes i use… the reiterative loops really work for long design sessions
RRPF: like chanting
Pwylla: yes … itz mostly a lot of sasha & digweed - so itz sorta trancey - and is perfect for the "design>bust a move>reflect>design process"
RRPF: haha… you should patent that
Pwylla: heh… then for housecleaning, i have been down with QOTSA for this, for a few months
RRPF: yeah..that's good stuff
Pwylla: sunday mornings - reading and breakfast - i hit that DJ Shadow album at least once
RRPF: i still listen to that almost weekly
Pwylla: yeppers
Pwylla: do you think itz cuz we are children of the 80z that we have soundtrax for the things we do?
RRPF: it's weird how what you listen to affects your surroundings in an almost predictive way
Pwylla: yep just like drugs… i mean i use it all like that - 'ambient control' is how i like to think of it…  i mean i kno i cant control everything… but if i set up the rite ambience… then things are more likely to flow the way i like
RRPF: right - set and setting
RRPF: to be honest, i suck at it but when i make an effort, i am always incredibly pleased
RRPF: and think "wow, i should make an effort more often", but it's such an
RRPF: effor …

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/24/2003 8:04:04 PM , 0 comments

Brain Status: Inter-lobe Unrest

Whooo-hooo!!  If any of you missed it a week or so ago - never fear:  Welcome to another round of work all-niterz!!  This time, it hopefully won't be as bad.  And before you start feeling any kind of sorry for me, lemme just point out that this seems to be the way I have always worked...

I had my first bouts of insomnia when I was 17, during which I would just drive or read all night.  Later in college, I would occasionally work two jobs or take on 3rd shifts, learning to utilize my ability to go a couple days without rest to my advantage...  In short - I refuse to take the M-F, 8a-5p schedule as any sort of baseline in my life, mostly because my normal rhythms seem very different. 

I have this theory about sleep that I formulated when I was 17:  I think that you only have so many sleep hours allotted you in your lifetime, and that through my insomnia, I was 'banking' hours for later, kinda like vacation hours and sick time at work.

Of course, my friend the RRPF argued that the sleep hours allotted to one had to be used up before a certain point (i.e., death) - and that in fact you could be forced  to use them (just like sick and vacation time at some companies). 

If so, I will be forced to sleep for a couple months straight right before I die.  Unless - I am given the option to convert them to more hours of consciousness/non-sleep time...  In which case, I will use those extra waking hours to travel the werld, do dangerous death-wish type activities*, run up my debts, and in general leave a lasting impression...

Anyhoo, back to banking that sleep time....

 

*I mean after all - if I gotta use them all up before I am allowed to die, I would have an assurance of living thru risky activities.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/24/2003 12:38:35 AM , 5 comments

Acronym Quiz

What does NGO stand for?

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/23/2003 4:30:45 PM , 5 comments

Conversation w/ISP Tech Support

TechSupport:  Whatever happened to 'Bananas in Pajamas'?
Pwylla:  ...Uh... I dunno.  I guess it never really did catch on...
TechSupport:  Yeah, you're right.  It never really took off...
Pwylla:  .. But I wasn't the target market, or anything..
TechSupport:  Oh no - me either... but, you know - it was a catchy song.
Pwylla: ...Yeah....

[Pwylla & TechSupport in unison]:  Ba-nan-nas in pajamas!  Ba-nan-nas in pajamas! ...

Pwylla: ... Uh... Should I reboot, now?
TechSupport: Yeah...  After that - maybe we BOTH should.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/22/2003 8:53:52 PM , 7 comments

Hed Food

 

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/22/2003 2:41:49 AM , 0 comments

LGP is NC-17

FYI - The top three search terms that lead surfers to LGP are:

    1. Diazipam
    2. Breasts
    3. Whores

I am actually kinda proud of this :)  So, insert all the customary warnings and caveats, yourselves, wherever you feel most appropriate. Thank you,

The Editor (Pwylla)

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/20/2003 4:43:05 PM , 4 comments

Parting Ways...

Sorry I have not blogged today.. But I am in the process of ending a 13 year relationship... I am just a little sad and weary..  And I don't know how things got to be the way they are between us, now.  I mean, once we really worked well together, and served each other's needs so wonderfully... We met at work, back in 1989.  You were my first, actually!  And it was so easy - so convenient - you had direct deposit, were in the first wave of online banking, offered school loans... Those early years were truly idyllic.

I guess the problems started when I moved to back east - and we entered the "long distance" phase of our relationship.. I didn't care what my friends said - your POS Debit card and the online bill pay were all I needed!  And NO ONE could beat your rates back then.  But lately, you have just gotten to be too much trouble - you don't have branches here, you are based in a completely different time zone.  And since you went 'public'... well, I just don't feel the same level of love and service I used to have.  And after your last f/u (I won't go into it here, but it just wasnt cool), and your slow response to rectify it... well, I just can't go on with you..

In retrospect, I think it was mostly laziness that kept me with you.  *Sorry* - but it's time for brutal honesty.  And I will admit it... I have been flirting with other financial institutions for a while now.  And tomorrow, I am going to meet up with one.  And just see what happens.  I will let you know where to wire those effects of mine you still have in your possession.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/19/2003 4:45:48 PM , 1 comments

Perception Becomes Reality

Too many of us 'mericans don't understand how the 'American-O-Meter' werks.  It's easy not to think it through, anyway, from over here in the states.  If you haven't read it yet, Salaam's latest blog is great - and ominous in implication. 

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/18/2003 3:21:50 PM , 0 comments

Perception vs. Reality

Happy Birthday Maurits.

He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.
M. C. Escher (1898 - 1972)

 Wonder.  Discover.  Share.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/17/2003 4:25:37 PM , 0 comments

Ides of June

I have been following all the wartime news here, even though I have surreptitiously neglected to blog about it lately.  Of the many fronts available to keep an eye on, this one most captures my attention - the Bloggus Caesari.  Most compelling in this latest update from Gaul is Caesar's description of events back in Rome:

Milo was tried and banished, as were many others associated with the old days of street violence in Rome ... Milo's trial, I'm sure, is a model of those to come, especially my own, if I take no measures to protect myself.

What's that you say?  The Gallic Wars ended centuries ago?!?  Well, sweetie, that's what they say about Operation Enduring Freedom, too, if you ask.  And Iraq?  Mission Accomplished!  (last link via The Bk of Fsck)

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/16/2003 5:20:11 PM , 0 comments

Adapt or Die

I dined with some of my former big5 colleagues last night.  It is somewhat easier not to talk shop constantly now that some of us are independent (ie, urs truly).  Topics of interest included: 

Fortune.com puts a couple numbers (as well as a decent analysis) behind some of what my former big5 colleagues and I were discussing at dinner last night.  It is an interesting read, no matter where you fall in the accepted collar-color-coding schema:

Of the nine million Americans out of a job, 17.4% are managers or specialty workers, according to a study of Labor Department data by Hofstra University economist Irwin Kellner. During the 1990-91 recession only 10% of that group was unemployed. Even after the much deeper recession of the early 1980s, just under 8% of unemployed workers were white collar. Sure, there are more white-collar workers today, but joblessness among them has risen faster than their share of the overall job market.

Interestingly, my big5 buddies and I have been able to keep floating, and in some cases even get ahead, in the last couple years despite the downturn (and within NYC, and the Financial Services Industry, no less).  At ACN, we had a performance model called "up or out" that was intended to create a 'meritocracy'.  Basically - you either exceeded 'acceptable' performance standards and got promoted within an expected period, or you left.  Of course, this both delighted and pissed off any of us caught in the middle of the churn and burn employee lifecyle - especially if you were in that long Project Manager stretch (5 to 7 years of Mgr before you could buy into the partnership - IF you were invited to buy in, of course).  In retrospect, I think it is this exact model of performance that has enabled myself and my colleagues to keep on our feet. 

Now, here is where our last topic bullet.. er.. um.. 'evolved':  After 200K years, homo neanderthal was still using the same stick and stone tools.  Whereas, in just the last three decades we homo sapiens have created not only new tools, but new and ever more abstract realms for those tools (i.e., the internet).

Like we told (and tell) our clients - change is constant - adapt or die.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/16/2003 10:02:40 AM , 2 comments

Do It Yerself DSM-IV

Understandably, I have a serious work hangover today.  Well, we are trying the 'hair of the dog that bit ya' approach to dealing with it - still gotz lotz of shite to move from IN to OUT boxes on this desk.  This time, tho, we're gonna try to pace ourselves...  And now for a System Check (Via Kia at Taking Over The World):

Disorder Rating
Paranoid: High
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: High
Antisocial: Moderate
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Very High
Narcissistic: High
Avoidant: High
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: High

-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! --

Additional reference:  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Ed.  (DSM - IV)

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/14/2003 12:27:04 PM , 4 comments

Sleep Deprivation Experiments

No - we haven't died, but thanks for asking!  Your Editor has been averaging about 4 hours downtime within each 24 hour period since Monday.  I have actually grown sick at the very thought of espresso - something I never thought would happen, and desparately hope will go away. 

Well, we're in the home stretch now...

Also, since you asked - no, they don't pay me enough for this.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/12/2003 11:04:07 PM , 2 comments

Zeno-phobia

Project Crunch time:  welcome to my second all-niter in a row!  I shouldn't even be blogging, but in my current condition (5 hrs sleep over last 2.5 days and approximately 23 more hrs of design/development to complete before Thursday 5pm EST) I can't stop thinking about time paradoxes.

Email btwn myself and The Guru, from 1997:

JMG:  ... Scully said once that time was a universal invariant.  Oh, how wrong she was.  You would think that a PhD like her would come across Einsteinian passages of his special relativity somewhere along the line.  Any MONKEY could figure out that time is indeed the most fluctuant variable there is.  Most of us measure time in units of seconds in which the gap between them is uniform.  Humffff.  Yeah, whatever.  Hmmm, I swear the clock just read 9:03pm, now it says 9:12pm... and my [expletive deleted] hurts.  Damn it!  Not another mark on my neck!  Those little sh*ts...

Pwyllz:  ... You kno, this whole aspect of the universe being comprised of holes where all points instaneously conjunct ain't anything new, like even the buddhists know that, and i think somewhere down inside our very atoms we all secrectly suspect... i mean, therez no time inbetween two points, really - we've messed ourselves up with this paradigm of unit-like linear time.  And it all came about with the Atomists:  Aristotle and Zeno refuting Parmenides' idea that real entities should be immune to puzzles surrounding time and change since time is pure duration and quantitatively immeasurable...  Dammit.  Itz all Aristotle's fault - his preoccupation with 'Process' - and now we all imagine 'beginnings' and 'endings', which require steps inbetween and some sort of processional fixation.  The whole idea of measuring duration with respect to something like the universe, which is always already (the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) itz entire material quantity in one way or another - I mean, time really has to be seen as the illusory metric that it is... and on top of that, processes rarely proceed in any linear fashion (a process like life especially), and so any time-ratio constructs are ALWAYZ an idea of the average 'change' over an average 'unit' of an imaginary line of time... Itz ALL happening - and everywhere - at once, brutha...

So you can see how Scully can be rite, on an infinite level, anyway... monkey or not.

Well.. Philosophy never paid the bills.  Back, now to the grindstone.  You, meanwhile, can monkey around with this.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/11/2003 2:38:21 AM , 11 comments

Ways of Knowing

There are those people we meet who are truly shamanic.  They live on the edges of this world, interpreting it for us.  Carla McAuley, the mother of one of my best friends, was such a person.  From my teenage years on, she taught me so many things - most importantly, how to examine myself and live my own life fully.

Thank you, Carla, for fully participating in your life, for the work you have done, and for the wonderful family you leave behind. 

And bless you, for being one of the many special guides in my life who have taught me how to truly be free, and love unconditionally.  Shine on, Carla.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/10/2003 9:40:30 AM , 0 comments

Hang 10

Man can grab his stick and ride,
but Woman

_is_

the Wave.

 

Time stands still when you're in the tube.

Surf…

 

Small Sampling of Some Wikkid Wahine Bloggers (courtesy of Cowboy Kahlil)

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/8/2003 1:51:52 AM , 5 comments

One Hand Clapping

Cyber-Chatauqua Insights:

cfp8: yo whassup!
pwylla23: i was just thinking about you.. musta felt it in your cranium deepest reptilian braine receptors
cfp8: well at least your today is now mainly my today to , current local time 2229 ( or 10:29 pm )
pwylla23: true welcome to concurrent days!!!  you have nearly circumnavigated!
cfp8: welcome the hemi-from-which-I-started
pwylla23: are you in greece still?

cfp8: yes -  Ioannina
pwylla23: sounds frikkin cool, greece does
cfp8: and I had a baklava today that was as big as my fist
pwylla23: PHATlava
cfp8: x-actly!
pwylla23: sweeeeet! so glad you are outa china
cfp8: me too, no fever yet, 5 more days and I will be certifiably SARS free
pwylla23: did you see anyone you thought might have had SARS?
cfp8: nah, I mean everybody was spitting and hawking , not much coughing. But I did walk by a few hospitals. I walked away very quickly
pwylla23: man... phreaky still...
cfp8: yeah. but it's good to be out of there, yes, for many reasons.
cfp8: what is home? I don't have a home. it's kind of a weird thought
pwylla23: I believe that 'home' is more of a time/identity-dependent concept than a spatial or locative thing.
cfp8: yeah, but I feel home-sick. and I know time wise what that is, but I can't go back in time , yet
pwylla23: ... yet... looking for a wormhole?
cfp8: u ever see that star trek?  the one with the guy who wants to catch that string, and be with his wife again, in this dream world, where you live with all of your dreams
cfp8: its where kirk meets picard
pwylla23: yes, I remember it now.  yeah i was thinking today that i like my alternate universe much better than the one where i am forced to spend most of my time
cfp8: turns out there are alot of stories about that, sci-fi stories that is. I suppose the most recent movie was solaris, with Clooney
pwylla23: isn't there a zen principle about reality and consciousness - how what you think manifests or exists simply b/c u think of it?
cfp8: possibly
pwylla23: heh... EXACTLY...

China pics are up now on Pilgrimage.  More phun coming - the cyberfunkapuss should be on the island of Corfu rite about now - either busting a move at a dance club or sleeping it off... and certainly, in one of the many possible realities extant in this universe, all of that and more is true.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/7/2003 2:20:52 PM , 0 comments

Epiphany Thingy

I was in Battery Park with a friend, recently...  It was late at nite, and drizzling/raining… We weren't looking for drugs, prostitutes or the ferry (although that is likely what someone usually means when they suggest heading to Battery Park in the wee hours…).  No – it was a spontaneous trip – the only stated objective I can remember was "to get pics of memorials"…

 

But I had an epiphany that nite in Battery Park… and by epiphany I mean a sudden internal psycho-emotional shift that causes me to rethink things I didn’t even realize I was thinking in the first place… for we all unconsciously utilize an infinitude of necessary but careless little assumptions just to get through each day.

 

Now, it's important to realize that my epiphanies tend start out ill-defined, and if they are of any real substance, they pretty much stay that way.  So you shouldn't expect this blog to make any real sense, or even move you emotionally…  I don't believe these things are truly transferable or transitive.  For your current purposes, I suggest viewing this whole 'epiphany thingy' as a rhetorical trope. 

 

Appropriately, epiphanies have foregrounds and prefaces – elements that may or may not actually catalyze the epiphany, but at the very least provide the 'ambience' for it.

 

So, first: I want you to see it before that night in Battery Park… as I first saw it, all those weekday mornings walking half a mall outa my way to check it, and just say 'hey – hello world – good frikkin morning',  my Venti Americano and Krispy Kreme glazed original in my hand… see it even as I saw it sometimes on the way home at nite, cruising the free courtyard concerts, waiting out the bridge & tunnel crush to jersey…. (pic courtesy of Newyorkled.com)

 

It tied everything together then, a fulcrum for so many different symmetries.  Towers, worlds, ideas, my commute – the beginnings and endings of my workdays.

 

Next:  see it as of last September… rescued, resurrected in Battery Park, reshaped by circumstance and proximity to tons of falling steel. (pic courtesy of Libraryman.com and the Libraryman Blog)

On that recent night in Battery Park… the flame flickers in the wind and drizzle, but keeps up the 'eternal' part of its job, at least for the moment.  My friend experiments with different flash settings and perspectives trying to get a reasonable digital representation.  Naturally, the conversation drifts into sphere related realms…

 

And I don’t remember what it was that I said.  Something blithe, naïve and simple, I am sure:  that's been my standard practice with respect to the sphere type stuff for some time now.  I have so been seeking shallow since September 11th,  very selectively constructing my reality.  But my friend, well, he wouldn’t agree, but he's somewhat of an expert on profiling what drives mankind to warp realities in negative ways...  it's his job to think about these things.

 

Friend [pointing towards the sphere]:  Look at that and tell me that there aren't people in this world who intend evil...

 

And suddenly it became impossible for me not to reflect on my relationship with the sphere, meeting it again like that.  A strange survivor from my world of two years ago…  reproaching now, and standoffish… Like an old friend you forgot to call.  A date you stood up or flaked out on.  Excuses… stammering… explaining.

 

How could I explain, though?  'Sorry I ditched you – I was trying just to keep my shit wired together you know – everyone was – still is…  I meant to come by, but you know.. time got away from me…'  And like it would matter to you now, anyway.  I can't change the gashes, slashes, scrapes and structural twists, now permanently a part of your experience and presentation.

 

And how could I ever possibly explain, sphere, just how fundamentally you scared me at that moment?  Sitting there, oblivious to the way the same energy that came crushing down on you has rippled, and spread a repercussive cacophony of continuing crashes, fires and deaths out across the globe…  Do you realize, sphere, just how dangerous you are?  In fact, how dangerous you have always been?

 

I do... now.

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/5/2003 8:09:33 PM , 4 comments

The Crying of Lot 49

When does data become information?  When does information coalesce into knowledge?  Well, I honestly can't say, but any data you might be trying to keep away from me will get an extra special focus...  File this for safekeeping...  (courtesy of The Memory Hole)

(Also:  Special Potsmaster's Addendum 4 Pynchonites)

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/3/2003 11:50:09 PM , 0 comments

Sit and Spin

Despite whatever else you may read, the FCC would like the reading/listening/viewing/closed caption audience to please note that:

"...its new limits on broadcast ownership are carefully balanced to protect diversity, localism, and competition in the American media system. The FCC concluded that these new broadcast ownership limits will foster a vibrant marketplace of ideas, promote vigorous competition, and ensure that broadcasters continue to serve the needs and interests of their local communities."

Isn't it cute the way they use the word "limit" here (for instance... in the headline)...  And now, for a quiz: 

Which definition of 'limit' presented below accurately reflects the semantic sense of the referenced FCC document? 

 

1. To confine or restrict within a boundary or bounds.
2. To fix definitely; to specify.

Then, which definition of 'limit' would you most likely use were you changing national ownership allowance from 35% to 45%?

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/2/2003 11:07:14 PM , 0 comments

Where in the World is CFP#8?

Timeteo, our intrepid world traveler, is now moving on to Europe!!  His latest email from the airport in Amsterdam describes his experience in China:

China was difficult. But I made it... and we shall see after a ten day incubation period if I am SARS-free :).  I did get to see the great wall, the forbidden city, and eat some great food. I also finally met some nice english speaking folk that were not trying to get my money in some fashion.

Also - the Pilgrimage journal has been updated with Beijing and Shanghai entries... Travel advice - if you're going to China and don't speak any one of the umpteen odd dialects you're gonna run into:  find some nice english speaking Germans!

And speaking of nice, english speaking Germans:  Shout-out to Jonas who I got to meet last week.  Uber-cool & talented guy - everyone should regularly read his blog (as well as check out The Blawgregator - his law blog aggregator), IMHO...  I have been reading it/them for the last 6 months and think it has actually made me smarter!  (Disclaimer:  latter assertion regarding your editor's mental capacity has not been validated by an independent outside party, and is in no way a guarantee of increased blog quality here at LGP)

Posted by: The Mgt on 6/1/2003 2:17:18 PM , 0 comments