It's been awhile (e:strip), but I'm once again making a new year's resolution I find myself making nearly every year alongside taking off a few pounds and taking the dog for more walks: I'm trying to renew my posting habits on da Strip. Rest assured, I still rock the orange magnet bumper sticker promoting estrip.org in NoVA.



Yesterday was the big DC demonstration in protest of the escalation and to put pressure on the Dems to be hard on the President & Co. I'm not going to get into a political debate here -- the numbers are finally on my side and I'm calling it like this:

If you can't see that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld & various of their peers are guilty of nefarious, dangerous and idiotic activities then you are a complete moron.

These activities are illegal for a number of reasons, but primarily because they involved clear mis-representations to a variety of groups and have resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives (American and foreign).

Thus, these people need to be investigated and charged accordingly. Impeach Bush, then Cheney, and continue down the line. Anything less is an injustice to the American people.



The rally began well before I got there around 11am, and there were thousands and thousands of people. The Metro trains were packed coming in from every direction. Sarah and I went with our friend, Kevin, not affiliated with any group, but sympathetic to many of the folks at the demonstration. There were plenty of people on he train talking about protesting the Vietnam war, as well as the 2004 winter protest just before the Iraq war began.

There were a lot of children all over the protest. It was clear that many of the parents in the crowd were motivated by a desire to save their children from dying in the desert. And many of those children seemed to have an idea of why they were there: Killing is wrong. Stop killing people.



There were thousands and thousands of people. The march was moving so slow that we got out of liine and walked across the capitol to see the front of the march, with Jesse Jackson, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, and Sean Penn. There were plenty of non-Hollywood important people there, but I don't remember all of their names... I am an American, after all. By the time those people returned to the starting point of the parade there were still thousands of people waiting to march. There was a ring of people at least 100 deep surrounding the entire capitol. It was pretty damn awe-inspiring.

The sheer diversity of groups: Military people, unions, parents, anarchists, feminists, quakers, and tons more. There was some great protest baroque including giant paper-mache Bush Regime figureheads, lots of people on stilts, and even a marching band and a few drum cores. It was like the Macy's day parade, except everyone was chanting about impeaching the president.



It proved a few things to me. First of all, fuck all those right-wing dickwads who call the protestors dour and weak. These people were energetic, hopeful and strong. There is certainly a vibe of outrage fatigue in my day to day life, but at this demonstration people were vibrant. They were psyched to be exercising their rights and fulfilling their duties as Americans. They were having FUN making their voices heard. It was NOT a "sorry retreat" kind of vibe. This is about re-taking control of our government and steering us away from ignorance and greed, towards peaceful prosperity.

That's not to say there weren't somber moments. Speaches from soldiers and war widows choke me up right away. The display of shoes representing the number of Iraqi dead was pretty heavy. The protestors took up the estimation of 600 thousand Iraqi dead from Johns Hopkins University's study. Bush says 30 thousand -- but he also said there were weapons of mass destruction.

The whole thing was really moving in a lot of ways, mundane and sublime. Early reports indicate it will get some decent news coverage -- I hope it does. I hope the protest is remembered as being a part of the impetus for the tide to finally turn on ruthless George W and his cohort. I'm proud to have been there, and it was a sight to behold.

I've been there a dozen times since I've moved to DC, but I don't think I ever felt so proud to be an American as I did yesterday afternoon in front of the Capitol watching all those people for as far as the eye could see.

²°ž

I got a bike today. It was kind of exasperating searching, but once we bit the bullet and went into an actual bike shop, things got a lot better. It really makes a difference on something like a bike or a computer to get some good first-hand advice. I was afraid of getting upsold, but I actually got down-sold after I explained what I wanted.

Here's my issue: I have a 5-10 minute window to catch one of two buses to the metro each morning. If I miss that window, then I must wait another 20-30 minutes to catch the next bus. That happens regularly because I am consistently running just a little bit late.

I only live a mile from the metro, so it is easy enough to walk. But walking takes me 20 minutes or so. So it's not really that advantageous. Plus, it's frustrating because it's not a super nice walk along a busy road and multiple buses I could have caught will almost always pass me.

Because, of course, catching a bus isn't quite as straightforward as it sounds. It's not like you can ever really know whether the bus is running 5 minutes early or 5 minutes late, and it's not unusual to find the bus is 10 or 15 minutes late. Rain seems to really disrupt service. I can only imagine what will happen when it finally snows.

And the ride home is even more capricious. The bus is sometimes 5 minutes early and often as much as 30 minutes late. It's as if they randomly skip the 6:28 stop entirely and wait until 6:58. That happened to me and Sarah last week when it was raining.

And, of couse, taking the bus isn't free. It costs $1.35 per day.

So today I bought a bike. This one:



It's a Schwinn Frontier (http://www.schwinnbike.com/products/bikes_detail.php?id=620). They said that it was pretty much bullet-proof and has no complicated parts. It's almost impossible to get a bike without shocks these days... Am I the only one paranoid about having complicated bikes?

I was stoked to see that the Schwinn website shows they havve brought back several classic style Schwinns. How cool would it be to have a Sting Ray? Or a cruiser? Maybe if the bike riding thing works out Sarah will let me trade up to a nicer bike. But for now I have pretty much the cheapest bike you can buy and not feel like you're totally riding a deathtrap...

Wow, I can't believe how awesome these Japanese signs are. I also can't believe there are FIVE PAGES of these things. I learned so much about Japanese Smoking Etiquette: 1) Don't smoke around other people. 2) Always carry a portable ashtray. 3) Cowboys lived in old movies. 4) Don't abuse children or snow (or snowmen). 5) Always check behind you before you fart.

As far as I know, these are real signs. I got to them through a post on the old Boing Boing.

Here's an example of what I love about Wikipedia (and I found this linked from Digg, which I also love):

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically valid sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs.
...
If a comma is allowed between subject and predicate, and the optional "that" is included, the sentence becomes:

Buffalo buffalo that Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Substituting the alternative plural produces:

Buffalo buffaloes that Buffalo buffaloes buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffaloes.

If the homophones were then replaced with other words, it would look like:

Buffalo bisons that Buffalo bisons intimidate, intimidate Buffalo bisons.

Finally, using common articles produces:

The Buffalo bisons that Buffalo bisons intimidate, intimidate Buffalo bisons.

It may help to consider the following sentence, which has the same grammatical structure as the original.

Many things many people say confuse many people.

Hello (e:strip)pers! It's been awhile, but after spending a weekend in Idaho, I felt like I should update you on what we've been up to. It's been six weeks since we moved away from Buffalo. In some ways, it feels like forever, and in other ways it feels like just yesterday we were eating Indian food with (e:PMT). (We still haven't found a very good Indian food restaurant, but we're back on the Mexican stuff. o//)

So last weekend I went out to Idaho to hang out with my old friends and speak at an event in the Power of Play series. It was a great day of speakers (if I do say so myself), and I think everyone really had a good time. The lineup began with me, and I delivered an overview of games and game studies to try to provide some foundation for the mixed audience. Laurie Taylor (http://www.laurientaylor.com) followed up with an excellent discussion of gender in games. Rick Fehrenbacher gave a talk about medievalism in videogames. And then Julian Dibbell (http://www.juliandibbell.com) spoke about his new book, Play Money, which I had to break down and get signed. It was an irrepressible moment of fanboyness. But I don't think it hurt my cred... hehe Maybe I should have brought my copy of My Tiny Life? That might have actually increased my cred. Oh well, too little, too late.

Anyway, I have some photos from the event.



Here's me and Julian Dibbell talking about some really smart stuff.


This is all of us on the closing panel. From left to right, it's Rick, me, Julian, and Laurie.


And here is me, Rick and Laurie.

I have no idea who took these photos, but I was alerted to them by my good friend, Mike Wilchek. Woot for Mike!

It was especially great because not only did I get to see all of my old friends at University of Idaho, but I also got to have the kind of experience I remember so fondly seeing really inspiring folks talk about really interesting things. I remember all the cool people I met at UI who came by to tell us about interesting stuff: Scott McCloud, Ray Federman, Samuel R. Delany, Michael Joyce, Bruce Sterling, Ray Kurzweil, on and on and on. It might be way up there in the middle of nowhere, but it's got something funky going on.

I returned to work today at PBS. It's the end of week 6, although I've been gone for most of it. I'm still really enjoying my job, so it's not hard to go back.

Also, Sarah has gotten not one, but TWO jobs! She'll be teaching some courses at the Art Institute of Washington DC, and she'll be doing some children's workshops at the Corcoran Art Gallery. Both are really cool gigs that will lead to even cooler stuff. Sarah is already lined up to teach some adult education art courses next Spring at the Corcoran, which is a really great gallery.

And the winner is...

(e:Ladycroft) !

Of couse. How could this entry NOT win? (Plus, it was pretty much the only one... But that should not detract from how awesome Ladycroft's photo-choppin' is.



This is what it might look like for Ladycroft when she is at the J5 show, totally for free and with a friend, on August 24. In fact, I believe it will look VERY similar, since this is a shot I took last night at the Jurassic 5 show here in DC. Yeah, that's right: We discovered that J5 was playing the 9:30 club last night, so we bought new tickets. It's not like we could trade them or anything. Our friend Kevin came with us, and it was FUCKING AWESOME.

The new album is great, the X-Clan were fun for an opener, and J5 was 100% exactly what you would expect. Which is so, so good. Unfortunately, Cut Chemist is no longer with the band, but DJ Numark held it down nicely and did some really fun DJ tricks.

Sarah and I are very happy to award the tickets to (e:Ladycroft) -- CONGRATULATIONS! You're going to love it. Message me your address so we can get these in the mail ASAP!

(PS -- I have a good video clip from the show -- the others were fuXXored -- but the good one is too big for estrip right now -- I'll post it on my own site later and link to it here.)

Well, it was a big deal, but we made it. We're officially in VA. We've got internet. We've got driver's licenses, and we've got all of our stuff inside and gradually getting organized. I wanted to say hello to all of estrip and encourage everyone to enter the contest for the J5 tickets. So far (e:Ladycroft) has set the bar high, but we'd love to see more entries!

More later, including photos!

This is just a reminder of my previous post ( this one ) about giving away our tickets to the August 24 Jurassic 5 concert in Buffalo. It's easy to enter -- just reply in a comment or email to one of these posts and we'll consider your entry. Any plea will be duly considered: Artistic or emotional arguments for why you should win will be especially valued, but who knows -- anything could win. We just want to give the tickets to the person who wants them the most, so we only ask you to display your love of J5 and/or desire to go to the show.