Now living in the equivalent of a McDonald's habitrail. Or planning on it, anyway. See, the general idea for Burning Man was to build a bar of some kind for 2007 or 2008. And now...I'm thinking...I want a playland ball pit with a bar at the center, two tall (stable) poles, dancing platforms, and a small stage for live shows. But if you're in the bar, you're in the ball pit. You wanna dance? You're in the ball pit. You want to karaoke? You're in the ball pit.

So now I'm playing with various lighting schema for what I'm thinking of, and it's a HELL of a lot of fun.

Also. A side note. Brokeback Mountain. Bad author. Not a terribly bad film. But not one that needs eight Oscars for validation of a political group. Get over it already. Hollywood is political? Shit, next you'll tell me Florida elections are rigged.

So, I came to the realization that I have this insanely large collection of music that's primarily based around the idea that I find it in some way:

Funny
Clever
Intelligent
or intellectually complex.

Carbon Leaf is right in the center of that, as is Metallica - done by four cellos.
I've come to the conclusion that I'm one of the few people out there who love melodic rock that doesn't run amuck naked like a retarded kid on happy drugs (*COUGH COUGH FLAMING LIPS*) There's a side to that I like and a double-fizz, but man, if you're trying to get something done or hammer through, I'd rather throw down music that I can run on a subconscious level while processing something else. But...I still come BACK to the retard kid happy drug music.

There was a study done not too long ago that directly linked pleasure regions in the brain to singing. After I figured that out, I plugged a huge selection of belt-'em-out tunes for the car and drive the forty or so minutes to work hollering at the top of my lungs. It's SO entertaining watching someone in a redneck truck see you sail past screaming "JOY TO THE WORLD, ALL THE BOYS AND GIRLS!" and catching their "What...the unholy...fuck???" expression.

But somehow it's been this bizarre thing I've been doing. Watching documentaries on physics and reading biographies of Kepler while Sesame Street plays an endless loop in the periphery. Listening to Mozart and Strauss while perusing the Chronicles of Narnia.

Either my inner child is an idiot savant or my inner intellectual has a fetish for bright colors and happy noise.

My sudden penchant for Mondrain design and color schema isn't helping me with this, either. I'm going to wind up living in the equivalent of a McDonald's habitrail, at this rate.

Dance till you fall
Love till you die
Shut your mouth
Raise the roof.

Annnnd, possibly tomorrow I'll be hurling shirt designs up on my CafePress. Non-profit. More or less just straight-on Illustrator designs.

...except...

...I don't suppose anyone knows someone who can write "Eat Pork Or Die" in Arabic? If I'm going to make people cringe, I need to do it properly.

You know, I know Cheney shot someone.
I know there's a brouhaha about it.
But for fucks's sake, people, can't we focus on the fact that he and his cronies have been two-waying the American taxpayer rather than the fact that he sprayed his buddy with buckshot on Saturday?

Please? Possibly? If you're going to demonize someone politically, demonize them for sodomizing the US Treasury for fun and profit.

Agga da gagga da!

Translation: I'm bartending again at one of the more kickass events in Seattle on Saturday. What is it? I don't know. I do know it's at the Pacific Science Center; I know it's going to be kick elf, I know I'll be pouring stiff drinks in an orange furry vest sewn by the luscious Kat (god I love this woman) and probably tossing back a few myself.

I'm actually really looking forward to this; the PSC is one of the few geeky venues in Seattle I'm enthralled when it comes to places to throw a party. How cool is it to be rocking out to some good beats at the same time you're reading placards on dinosaurs and butterflies?

In other news...I began gathering materials to once again bleach the hair from the standard light red-brown Irish boy to the white-blonde from the Burn. But if I get really brave I'll throw in Wildfire Manic Panic.

Now, to convince my work that orange hair is actually an expression of creativity that the diverse workplace needs to encourage to maintain a healthy and invigorating atmosphere (I shit not, this is the way these aerospace nerds actually think. Geek-nerds would be okay, the general population of geek-nerd knows that some stuff is pretty cool. These are the nerds who believe that white socks and black shoes still go together. Why I still work there is a mystery known only to my bank account).

Happiness is pondering this amazing idea that the history of the universe, the random occurrences that have culminated in this point in my life to sit here, with a cup of hot, sweet coffee, against infinitely improbable odds, resting in my hands.

And I think, sometimes good things just happen.
So I get an infinitely improbable cookie, too.

Great Googly Moogly...people finally figured out Google is a business, not the underdog darling of the American Internet age. And like a business, it makes business decisions. Not surprisingly, Google followed Microsoft and Yahoo! and kowtowed to the Chinese government's demands that it prevent "inappropriate" materials from flowing to the population of China. Even less surprising is the reaction - Google's own corporate motto is the less than aptly turned phrase, "Don't be evil".

The politics of using the most popular search engine has suddenly turned around for millions of people. Driving along I-5 this morning, I veered out of the way of a Subaru Forester that had a "free Tibet" sticker on the back. No surprise there - after all, I live down the street from three guys who wear saffron to work. But what was surprising was the Google logo with a red hash mark across it sitting right next to it.

After all, it was only twelve hours after I read on Google News that Google had decided to self-censor its China portal. Three hours after I'd found that links to companies like Budweiser and Bacardi and information sites on sex education and teen pregnancy were blocked by the Google China search engine, and one hour after I read five blogposts swearing to never use the search engine again - three of which came from politicos whose livelihoods revolve around treating China as the big bad red state of the world.

Oh what fun it is to find kneejerk politics on your way to work tonight. Or something.

Google's decision to censor its China portal. Controversial? Or just another portal doing what it's gotta do to gain market share in a country desperate for more content?

After all, Microsoft and Yahoo! recently ate a plateload of judgemental vitrol from lefties, righties, and independent…ies for their decisions to censor themselves in China. Microsoft's second decision to shut down an anti-Chinese government blogger on its China servers was the news of the week come Monday morning.

Some of the censorship looked to be more blanket coverage than actual refined censoring. For example, the University of Pennsylvania's engineering school server was blocked because it hosted a Falung Gong site. And like anything else going through a shakeout, the service drew flacks of all kinds gleefully kicking the search engine powerhouse.

But China has been the preferred trading partner of the United States for well over a decade, and as any Wal-Mart shopper can tell you, China is THE place to get your gear if you're an American. I built a computer over the Christmas holiday using components from all over the world…well, okay, everything was made in China. Every component, from the motherboard to the DVD-ROM drive - even the cables and the case and the plastic fans - made in China.

So…why wouldn't Google hit that? And an even better question is - why is Google suddenly the poster child for cooperation with a regime that tends to play fast and loose with the definition of "enemy of the state"? (We're talking about China, people. CHINA. Not the current Bush adminstration.)

The hyprocrisy of the situation makes me laugh - pick up anything off of your desk, from the computer monitor to your CD-ROM drive to the stainless steel coffee mug to your picture frames. If seventy-five percent of your consumer goods don't have "Made in China" stamped somewhere on it, you win a prize - a trip to your local Target or Wal-Mart for more cheaply-made Asian goods.

Haier refridgerators, New Balance sneakers, Nike bags, Starbucks coffee mugs, metal climbing caribiners, your socks, your shoes, your cowboy boots, your keyboard and your mouse? Made in China. And suddenly we're going to scream bloody murder over Google doing business with the Chinese government? The involvement of US high-tech and software companies, high-end consumer manufacturing, and even entertainment industries has been heading West - far more West than California - for years now.

Even last month, India's animation industry signed a multimillion dollar deal with that all-American animation institution, Disney, to produce animation features. Labor's cheaper, the art's as good, and the only thing that the cartoons are really going to need are the voices of popular American actors to throw their voices behind the images.

The question isn't whether or not Google is supporting a dictatorial regime with blood on its hands. Nobody, least of all the people who are beating their brows over the fact that China tends to aggressively quell dissent, should be shocked over this. The Dalai Lama has the right to scream bloody murder over it (and being the Dalai Lama, won't), but the rest of the world that's out throwing stones at Google over this needs to step off for a minute and quit waving that little plastic American flag of intellectual freedom (made in China).

Mickey Spiegel, senior researcher in the Asia division of Human Rights Watch (blocked by Google.cn and Yahoo.cn but not Microsoft.cn), said Google.cn was "a step backwards in terms of freedom of expression issues."

"It will leave the Chinese populace with less and less ability to, in a sense, think for themselves about some of the issues facing them today," Spiegel said. "They are going to have a restricted diet of info and that is going to color how they view the world. It's a big story, and it's a stain on their (Google's) image."

But frankly, if you want boogeymen to hound over supporting the Chinese government, Wal-Mart, Target, and Nike are good places to start. Financially, the Chinese government has been subsidized by the major American retailers for years, and the material support given in terms of dollars far exceeds what is essentially a content provider's decision to tap the Chinese market.
I suppose the cultural acceptance that THOSE American companies do business on a grander scale with a cultural despotism is perfectly okay, since it means we don't pay too much for our cheap DVD players and athletic shoes. Google, however, being a web portal site, founded by two guys and staffed by an intellectual elite ought to hold itself to a higher standard of ethics, right? I mean, we expect to see daily and weekly moral compromises out of companies like Nike, Wal-Mart, and Target, but Google? Surely, you jest.

The idea that a company should be the spearhead of a cultural revolution for the Western standard is laughable at best, but that's the current expectation of the media and every single person that's come out, full guns ablazing in self-righteous anger over the fact that Google has decided to play by China's rules.

And I also find it somewhat disturbing that an entire host of people blissfully sail their way into hyperbolic invective against a corporate entity because it's the easy thing to do. Blame a policy of a company with cash. Turn them into a focal point. Hammer on their stock price. Use them as the straw man of the day against the greater questions that people aren't going to ask until it's too late to extricate ourselves.

Google is a search engine and tool. It can provide content, but currently only to the people that can afford Internet access in China. And in a country where the median income for professionals is approximately $3,500 US, the Internet is a luxury most cannot afford. And for the average Chinese surfer looking through the eyes of Google at the rest of the world, the simple fact that they CAN run a search might be miracle enough for now.

From the boys down in PolyParadise, I got the Trailer for Top Gun II - Brokeback Squadron.

...now I know why my gay friends in high school loved military movies so much.

The observation from my desk for the day.

A package of microwave popcorn that's 94% fat free still consists of 6% fat. Get over it already. I mean, peanuts are what, 60% fat? Butter is 100% fat? And yet somehow I'm supposed to believe that highly-processed microwave popcorn is healthy for me? Bugger that for a game of soldiers. Give me full-fat creme brulee with a chunk of dark cacao rammed right through the center and a glass of port, give me my hookah filled with apple tobacco and a pint of tea with six spoonfuls of sugar in it. Don't package this crap and tell me it's good for me, or somehow give me the idea that popping this microwave popcorn and eating it is going to bring my ass down to subplanetoid size. Give me some of that shortbread from Kuan Yin in Seattle's Wallingford district.

When I hit Kuan Yin on Sunday with (aunt) Linda and (uncle) Richard, it was a reminder of the little collegiate coffeehouses back home that I miss so very much. I always loved the dive bars and the espresso bars. It's been a dream for me to own or buy into a coffeehouse where I could set up a small shop in the back for writers, with a polished marble counter and a focus not on the hard core espresso drinks, but on the leisurely afternoon tea, with the varietals and a place where you could leave good books you'd finished with. I mean, hell, throw five or six big overstuffed leather armchairs, banish wi-fi to a small corner of the pad, and set it up for a running tab. Would it make money? Probably not, but it's a nice fantasy.

Kuan Yin reminded me more of the ex-hippie-made-good shop than anything else - the bins of tea were scattered, plastic packages of tea and a haphazard bus-it-yourself system made me laugh. It was just the one guy and the heat was out, so here he was, bundled up in a Nepalese-style woolen cap and jacket. I nearly wanted to ask if he had any yak butter for the tea. I wouldn't have been surprised if he did. Still, it reminded me of those shops back home where the "back in five minutes" meant the owner had a friend come over for a smoke break that extended twenty minutes. Somehow the attitude that says, "Chill your butt out, I'll be back when I'm back" makes me more likely to return somewhere. The fact that Linda and Richard seem to share this mentality made it more fun.

I did find that Beehive teapots make excellent workplace serving size consumable things. The only problem is finding the right kind of milk for it. I just cannot drink coffee in the morning any more - because the charge from it makes me hit the wall around three in the afternoon, with three hours left in the day for me to complete things. I could sure use an electric teakettle, though. It'd be a nice shift from my current methodology, which involves hot water nuked in the microwave, then poured into a Nalgene bottle carrying two teabags and left to steep until I remember it.

Tonight, I'm headed to PNW Ignition Thingy at ConWerks. Now to see whether or not I get to play or I get to work for Critical Massive. Gonna ROCK.

There's one thing that I remember EXCEEDINGLY well about my lust monkeys. Tattoos? Hot, but not when the tattoos become the person. Am I fanatical about creamy white skin? Oh very much yes.

But the REAL thing is - if the girl I'm seeing in on the Reubenesque side of the physical spectrum, I'm all over her like maple syrup on a McDonald's sausage biscuit. Why is that? I know it's not all about the mammaries, but it's probably more rooted in the biological knowledge that I, as a close relative to the Bigfoot tribe (and the Crow, and the Scot-Irish) not only have a predilection for the boozies, but I also prefer a girl who could LIVE through a nuclear winter if need be. I mean, hell, look at my ass in the tutu there to the left. I'm not and never will be a small boy, even when I'm pudging out in drag. Shit, I can lift my boy Sammy six feet up and give him enough stability to fix a fuse if need be (fortunately for my back we've never tested this out). Anyway. Each time I hear a friend or a lovely new darling in my life say, "I've got jiggly butt and I need to not" I want to give the girl a sammich.

Oh, how I likes the whole-milk lattes.