OK, I just turned on my camera for the first time in who knows how long and found this on it:

"To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction
he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this
size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion."

—Douglas Adams, 1952 – 2001
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Well then.
I have Burning Man tix.
All my closest friends are going.
Gonna be a parrrrtaayyyyy!


In other news, I'm absurdly caffinated.
Sitting here twitching waiting to run a teleconference.
I'm off the coffee wagon bigtime.
My boss gave me a $50 gift card to Starbucks.
He's evil.
He also understands the will of Valdez and uses it to his advantage.
You, koan... YOU can BE that donkey.

Woke up frustrated.
I was dreaming that I was having extreme difficulty withdrawing the payment for my latest assassination from an ATM in an amusement park somewhere near Lake Tahoe. I had a map, complete with embedded coded instructions that had led me here, I had the PIN, but I kept fat fingering it and punching in the wrong numbers. A grossly fat white trash woman was looking over my shoulder and shouting advice at me from inches away. Her ice cream cone was dripping on me and she was making me more and more nervous and agitated, which was not helping me with the extremely difficult process of typing a few digits into a keypad. I was sweating, in my dream, and happy to get out of bed. Earlier bits of the dream included some guy swiping my keys from my backpack right in front of me, although he denied it, and me barging in on several people who lived in an apartment that I thought was empty, where I'd stashed my spare keys some days earlier.
I'm guessing I have some personal space issues.
I should probably work on those before Burning Man. ;p

The rain has stopped for the time being, but the river is incredibly swollen.
I can see logs and debris sailing on down towards the Bay.
Soon the beaches will be covered in flotsam and driftwood, and hippies will use it to build "art" and "teepees".
I think then they lay their eggs inside it.
The circle of life continues.

Current Music: The National - Start a War

Today is Opening Day for us political junkies. All the pregame maneuvering and smack talking is over, and it comes down to what really matters: a couple thousand Midwesterners deciding who's getting out of the gates fastest. Honestly though, this is going to be a very interesting race. Both sides are in a statistical three way tie, and it really could be anybody's game. The media establishment has failed to create a foregone conclusion of Clinton vs Guiliani, thank fucking GOD. The Dems have three excellent top tier candidates, and frankly, the Republicans are fucked. Which is something they truly deserve after the last 7 years. Their candidates are swine and completely unfit to run The Free World... although this didn't keep Bush from being elected. But the Reagan coalition is fracturing, and each head of that hydra is pulling a different way, ripping the body to shreds. The corporate types are pushing for Romney, the religious nuts for Huckabee, the fascists for Guiliani. Bush is an albatross of abject failure hanging around their necks, and no one dares speak his name. But make no mistake, if any of them won, they'd hire on all the same jackals who've been running the Republican machine since Nixon. Well, those who haven't gone to jail, or who are back out again. All we can do is cross our fingers and hope that their voter base is too fragmented, too disgusted, to really unite behind any of them. And that because of this the margin will be too great for them to bother trying to steal the election.

I haven't made a choice on the Democratic side. I'm waiting to see how it plays out. Obama, Edwards, and Clinton would all do just fine. Admittedly Clinton is my lowest choice of the three, because she's the most conservative, and the most divisive. None of the GOP candidates may be able to unite the Republican party, but she could. She's their only chance to win, and that's a major point against her. She also represents the old guard of politics that I think it's time we get away from. Obama is fresh, but maybe too fresh. I guess it will depend on who he surrounds himself with in his administration. I don't think Oprah has a solid foreign policy background, but I'm sure he'll find somebody. I like him a lot, but he'll need some heavy hitters on board for some people to take him seriously. Edwards has made a concerted effort in the last year or two to separate himself from the establishment and focus on progressive ideals. We'll see how that works out for him. Populism is powerful, but still all the media can talk about is how much his haircuts cost. It's going to come down to who gets a jump in the horserace over the next couple weeks, who swings their support to who, and in the end, who can make people care enough to get out there and vote. And sweet Jesus, we need to care enough to get out there and vote. The country can't take another GOP president right now.

"...the massive, frustrated energies of a mainly young, disillusioned electorate that has long since abandoned the idea that we all have a duty to vote. This is like being told you have a duty to buy a new car, but you have to choose immediately between a Ford and a Chevy." - HST 1973

2007 was a pretty good year for music really. Lots of good stuff popped up in a wide array of genres. Most of the stuff I end up acquiring is not actually new, but here's a rundown of my favorite new stuff from the last year, in no particular player order.

Grand Ole Party - Humanimals
Tight blues-based rock with a female singer/drummer who sounds like a cross between Jack White and Janis Joplin. These kids are going to be huge. And they went to UCSC!
Sample: Look Out Young Son

!!! - Myth Takes
Pronounce it any way you want, they still rip it up. 8-piece band playing heavy Fela Kuti/Talking Heads influenced funk grooves. Punk grooves? Something like that.
Sample: All My Heroes Are Weirdos

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
It came out in the US in 2007 so I'm counting it. I'm not posting a sample because you've already heard it. Yeah she's fucked up and will probably die this year. But this is still an incredible album.

Fink - Distance and Time
Fink is a trip. He's on Ninja Tune, and his first couple albums were very typical of that label, downtempo trip-hop with dnb/breakbeat elements, sounding a lot like Thunderball. Then he vanished for about 5 years and when he started releasing albums they were mostly haunting acoustic guitar and vocal ballads. While I probably wouldn't normally support a change like that, his recent albums have been absolutely gorgeous. Also the guy from Lamb helps out on the extra layers of production.
Sample: Trouble's What You're In
and because I had trouble choosing, the pulsating Get Your Share

Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain Release
Great dance electronic. I ended up liking it better than Justice or Danger.
Not particularly safe for work:



Honorable mentions because I'm running out of time and have to go to work:
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra - Security (Yeah I like Fela Kuti)
Air - Pocket Symphony (Just the best downtempo band ever)
Roisin Murphy - Overpowered (Roison is a pop-electro goddess. From Moloko to Madonna in 10 years)
Justice - Cross (Daft Punk, party of two)
The Good, The Bad, and the Queen (Damian Albarn is the man)
Jose Gonzalez - In Our Nature (Excellent acoustic guitar, occasionally drops covers of The Knife or Massive Attack)
NIN - Year Zero (Best album in a while, and the Alternate Reality Game made it a lot more interesting)

Ugh. The little 'lock your office' flier they distribute before vacations should really include 'wash your coffee cup out before you go'.