As Far As I Can Tell

The Republicans are in NYC this week for their convention. I’ve already expressed my distaste for their week long exploitation of September 11th, so I won’t even get into that. I’m stuck in Kalamazoo following along, but I wish I was there on the streets. I don’t think my individual participation in the protests would make much of a difference, but I’m dying for a more physical way to show my anger and frustration about the policies and actions of our government. With events like the Great American Shout Out happening I don’t think I’m alone is reaching more than an intellectual breaking point.

I’m happy to see such creative protests happening. I think that Billionaires For Bush are hilarious. Check our their vision for America with key points such as “Allow corporations to run for office”. You can get a feel for the pageantry of their protests in this video (QuickTime, 31MB).

I also like the idea of The Unemployment Line, a single file line of 5,000 people holding pink slips to represent the 1.2 million jobs lost since March 2001. I think it will be a powerful visual statement and by staying in a line and not blocking the sidewalk they apparently avoid needing a permit.

Inside Madison Square Gardens is the expected exaltation of George W., but I was surprised to see that USA Today has given Michael Moore a press pass to the event. Check out his views on RINOs in his article The GOP doesn’t reflect America.

For random photo goodness see all the photos tagged with RNC on Flickr. I’ve only recently signed up for a Flickr account, but it seems like a cool online photo organizer with some good community features.

The Ars Electronica 2004 festival starts next week in Linz, Austria. This is one of the many conferences I’d love to attend but am foiled by either price or location. The theme this year is TIMESHIFT—The World in 25 Years, in reaction to this being the 25th year of the festival.

I�m not sure if it�s new or not, but I�ve recently discovered their festival catalog archive with nearly complete full text versions of their 23 catalogs. This is an amazing resource to offer on the internet and one that many institutions would sell only in printed form. With this archive Ars Electronica extends the purpose of their gatherings by continuing the discussion, and doing it in the digital form. It�s exactly what you’d expect from their mission statement, but still a happy surprise.

It’s that time of year again when every other pickup truck you see has a mattress and a box spring in the back. When you update over half the entries in your address book and the occasion for parties is house warming. People are moving like crazy. Tens of thousands will be new to the city, replacing an equal amount leaving town forever with their newly minted degrees. August is a clean reboot for Kalamazoo, which makes it exciting even if your not changing anything yourself.

Things are changing around here though. Tomorrow Meredith comes back from her month long vacation in L.A. and a month after that she’ll be moving too. The K kids are always on the one month later schedule; still studying in June, still relaxing all September. She’ll be living with friends on Douglas St. and I’ll be holding down the firehouse by my lonesome. One room, one person — it might make more sense but it’ll be strange to get used to.

I dubbed this time that Meredith’s been gone as “The Most Productive Month Ever”, though I’m skeptical if it deserves that term. I have in fact been incredible busy, spending every spare moment working on projects and using my time to it’s fullest. It’s just that I haven’t gotten everything on my list done. Things always take longer than you estimate and I haven’t yet learned the rule about doubling the estimate for accuracy.

Nevertheless my main project, the Rocket Star website, is nearly complete. I expect a beta period this month still and a launch in early September. It’s one of those projects where I’ve taken so long to complete it that I feel nervous. I try to downplay expectations, if only to counteract those that the anticipation has built. This is the problem with building things for friends without a set timeline. It allows me to obsess over details that likely only I care about. Either way, it’s coming soon.

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On a completely different note: I’ve been seriously overestimating the amount of anti-Semitism in rap music due to mistakenly hearing the word jewels as Jews. My bad.