Godammit, i fucking HATE it when i have to listen to somebody sitting in a cafe talking on their damn mobile at elevated volumes, and even worse is what happened just now, when 2 of the jackasses where doing it. It would be hilarious if it weren't so annoying, 2 people sitting together at table, both talking on their cellphones, yelling into their phones, actually. I mean, it wouldn't be that bad if they would at least talk in a normal tone of voice, but so many people have this "HI!! YOU PROBABLY CAN'T HEAR ME CUZ YOU'RE ON THE PHONE WITH ME! SO I'LL TALK LOUDER" way of speaking.

The other day, walking into this same cafe and seeing all the wireless laptop wankers, I felt slightly annoyed, in that "and I'm one of them" kind of way. And I wondered if cafe laptops were the new mobile phones, in terms of people being annoyed and having contempt for them as a symbol of yuppie affluent lifestyle, now that mobile phones are used by everyone of all classes everywhere. But laptops will never, ever be as annoying as mobile phones. you don't yell into your fucking laptop, even if you're an asshole. grrrr....

I've been keeping a journal since I was 17 (basically my entire adult life!). So this blogging thing seems redundant sometimes. Often, though, it seems like trying to keep 2 journals, because I obviously can write some things in my private little notebook that I wouldn't want to put here on the web. I value being transparent and open but there are limits. hah.

Also, the fact that this is syndicated on indyblogs has made me happy but also put a different feel on writing stuff. I feel like there is a definite audience of which I need to be conscious, and a larger audience. For example, there are a lot of uncomfortable, controversial things about Indymedia, both locally and globally, that I have been thinking about and discussing with others, but that I can't really voice here.

Meanwhile I keep losing my pens, my really good pens that make it a pleasure to write in my journal....

What am I doing, I guess I'm just providing excuses for why entries both here and in my journal have been few and far between...

sigh.

I've been and will be super busy this week, not only because i've finally found some paying work but also i've been rushing to finish some videos about Bolivia in time for a an evening of talks and videos on Saturday called Bolivia In Crisis. One video is brand new and based on footage I shot when I was there in December. Another is from last February, made by Bolivia IMC which I was given a copy of by Libertino of Uruguay IMC, to which we are adding a voiceover translation. Then there's one from Argentina IMC, and another by a trio of gringos who I don't know much about - I got their film, called "No Se Vende El Gas" from a Colorado State University student who I met in Cochabamba.

All of this is to raise money for our project to send computers to Bolivia. So I hope lots of people show up... ok, gotta run... busybusybusy...

My show at the KNOW the other night about my trip to south america went really well. There was a good turnout and we earned a lot of money for the Computers for Bolivia Project. Well, not a lot compared with how much we need, but it was something. Read more>>>

ok i'm mostly just posting this because i said if i didn't post for a few days i would have been apprehended by government security forces. Nothing of the kind, I've just been crazy busy (or maybe they just want you to think that).

All the busy is a good busy, but I can't help thinking it was avoidable. I'm giving a presentation about my trip to south america tommorrow, but I procrastinated on preparing for it - capturing the video and audio, etc. So I've been scrambling to do that. I think I procrastinated because, I think, I felt uncomfortable about looking at all that footage, for some reason. I found it difficult to do. Perhaps because those electronic representations are so far from the real experience. I don't know.

This morning I'm at the house of my brother and his wife, in Colorado Springs, having just flown in last night from Portland. I'm in town for the semiannual national meeting of the National Coordinating Committee for War Tax Resistance, which starts tommorrow. It was easy to decide to come to this meeting, since my brother lives right here (the meetings are in different cities every time).

This post is about other easiness. The ease of mobile networked computing, I guess. This is totally nothing new, and if you think I'm writing this as some earth-shattering news, you're wrong. This is just a personal observation of the first time this phenomenon has really happened to me. Read more>>>

I went to "alternative" Critical Mass on Friday. I plan to write something for portland IMC site later, but I want to get some thoughts down here now. It was the first time I even tried to ride a Critical Mass for almost a year, I think. I used to go every month but then after the war started the tremendous police backlash/crackdown just made it not fun anymore. People were just being herded around downtown by the cops every month. Read more>>>

A good friend sent me to this Personality test based on Jung - Myers-Briggs typology. She has taken it before, talked about it a lot before and is really into the whole idea of dividing people into various personality categories.

I always find them lacking, for the same reason I find astrology lacking. They are just too general. People are more complicated than these tests imply, and they vary over time and with situation.
Any survey about myself that consists of only yes/no questions is not going to be something I trust very much. A lot of the questions I really felt up in the air about and pretty much just flipped a mental coin to decide whether to check 'yes' or 'no'.

I won't tell you what it rated me as, but I was pretty suprised. It didn't seem to fit very well. But then I have to admit that when i read the detailed descriptions of the type I was, it sort of made sense. Sort of. However, I can often also say this about my horoscope.

Here's something entertaining: I supposedly am of the same type as Thomas Jefferson, JFK, Hannibal Lecter, Professor Moriarity, Dan Akroyd, and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern. Wow.

"Its ads may evoke rugged outdoorsmanship, but Levi hasn't promoted any particular life style to sell other products" - Naomi Klein, No Logo

Here's what the meme suggests you do:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

Now that I'm back to a place where I can walk into a bookstore and actually be able to read the books there, it's all I can do to stop myself from buying a bunch. I'm a book junkie. Luckily, I can't afford to indulge in this vice right now, and I just keep reminding myself of the shelf of books that I've bought in the last couple of years and still haven't read. I just looked over there and yikes! - There's about 25 of them!

Anyway, I have a list of new ones I want to read. Read more>>>