I was going to go to New York this week. Then I realized there is really no reason to have to go to another city to "prove my worth." I think conferences are just a weird capitalist cross between vacation and self-promotional commercial. I want no part in it. Especially since my professor made it quite clear that it is acceptable to set up your friends in the audience with the questions about your work. That way you will know th answers ahead of time.

Why even bother with a question section then. Why not just present for 30 minutes instead of 15 minutes of speaking and 15 minutes of questions. The whole higher Academia thing is really starting to get on my nerves. I am so tired of talking about socially irrelevant stuff. I want to start working only on causes that make some sort of difference and not my lame-ass VR presentation of avatars.

I actually think VR is an expensive prriveleged white people playground. I want out before I even get in. If VR at all then at least on the web where it is accessible by all to explore the world and not in these limited envirnmets located in 10 cubes around the world.

At least Jessica is coming home this weekend. I havent seen her in a while and am started to miss the ho snuggle. Well I'm off to homeowrk land.

I spent the day working on some behind the scene stuff for the BCPM site. I guess I should switch back to homework at some point soon.

While working on it I figured out a coouple way to due some new stuff for elmwood.

So while all of my friends chillaxed this evening, I spent my time grading DMA 201 papers. I look back fondly on last year when the students were not required to write such papers. Check out what time it is right now on this posting. This is why I have 90 hour work weeks and my 9-5 friends do not. So much for the free time associated with being a lifetime academic.

I went to the meeting to bring Democracy Now to Buffalo. I would really like to help out by building a web presence for them. I also volunteered (e:falling4autumn) to make the broschure for the Amy Goodman event. I know he will do the most excellent job. Thankfully, I also correctly guessed his political alignment.

Jessica,
This one is for you. I ts a picture from the boat the my granparents took on the way in, hahaha. I thought you would like it and we can use it to celebrate your arival back on elmwood.

I wish you were in NY while I am there.

I made a USB kaeidoscope.



You will all see it live soon via the kaleidocam.

So, I have been trying to convert my entire life to digital format. i would really like to do away with my analog body but I guess the world is still not ready for a cyborg. So I decied to augment my reality via a web cam and a voice recorder.

The web cam allows me to see what my computer is seeing out my window at all times. Its like a quick trip home via my special TCP/IP port.

I wanted to get rid of paper for so long. First off, I cannot write for mor ethan five minutes without getting tired. Secondly, my handwriting sucks. I don't mean, "Oh its bad for people to read." I mean I cannot read it myself when I revisit my writing. So I needed a voice recorder. I trained my computer to type out what I say using dragon Naturally Speaking. I works so well. Not like via voice where I had to talk liek a robot. I can actually speak at regular pace and it keeps up. The downfall, I need to wear a dorky headset and I need to be near the computer. Not that i am ever really more than 5 feet froma computer tanks to dell's corporate discount.

So I decided a voice recorder.




It has so many purposes. First I can record to it anywhere. It weighs about an ounze and it so easy to hide away. Plus it is a great way to secretly record stuff that I witness and nobody ever believes. No examples here!

Last, it just happens to be an MP3 player, has a built in mic and speaker, a headphone port, a USB port, and a microphone port. Did I mention it comes in a gold box and acts as a USB keychain drive. I love it.

Well, it arrived and I was so excited. I quickly tore open the gold foil the arrived so quickly from British Olumbia. And guess what. I got a fucking dud one. It doe snot ork at all. So now I have to send it back to BC. I should just never trust Canadians as i am learning more and more each day.

So I wrote my journal entry on 5 peices of paper until I got home and could type it. I cannot wait for the new voice recorder. It will be the first step in the audio culture database here at elmwoodstrip. Eventually, I want to get hundred of audio recording devices and distribute them to people all around elmwood who in turn collect sounds that we can store in a database of what Elmwood sounds like.

The party was pretty rad but none of my pictures came out except the one of Holly on the main page. It was so blurry, I had to mess with it. So much for the Canon digital Cam, I guess it is as weak as the Kodaks were.

If any of you reading this were at the party and have pictures you could start a journal and upload them. Remember 400PX in width. Otherwise you could email them to me and I could get them up, even larger.

Tonight we are going to soundlab. I am really excited about the possibilty of maybe dancing for once. I hope that its an option because I have been quite stationary, except the party.

I wish I had had flyers for the site. I think most people were to spirited to remember the name of the site. A flyer would have helped.

I am thinking about throwing a much larger party in the spring for the elmwoodstrip grand opening. We will have to see.

I was busy trying to make Jessica a hello kitty journal and so I visisted the Sanrio Site. They have lots of new characters but the most fucked up is DokiDoki YummiChums. It is a hamburger/Frenchfry combo.

Check it out . . .

I am thinking about applying for Italian citizenship to get back to my euroroots. Anyways, I was told by the ocnsolate I would need proof of my grandparent and parental hertitage. While at nonna's I foudn ton's of stuff. Even lists of relatives dating back to the 1700s.

Here are their passports from the first trip over. Next I need to find my moms and my other grandmother's. Soon I will leave America. . .