So once again, I find myself on a Friday in a position I'm growing to like more and more this year -- high, on my way to some arts event, walking there and entertaining myself along the way with a mix tape of electronica music downloaded for free earlier that day. I know I've said this before, but a specific part of the enjoyment is the global synchronization of the experience: I love thinking of some DJ in Scotland or wherever, dancing around their apartment in their underwear while putting this mix together; and then of me walking through Lakeview on a Friday evening, listening to it myself; and then of people around the planet over the next 24 hours, listening to the mix on an early Friday evening whenever it happens to be early Friday evening in their part of the world.
It's one of the things in my life that makes me feel very...global these days, like more a citizen of the world than of the US. It's a little goofy, a little silly, I grant you that, but definitely one of those things that makes me feel like we've actually achieved that squeaky-clean science-fiction one-world future they've been promising us for so long. A very solid reminder that I am a citizen of 2008, and that 2008 is a great time indeed to be alive.
"Jesus Christ is not a weapon."
I'm out running my last errands of the day, listening to one of my regular guilty pleasures -- the "Drum N Bass Arena" podcast, featuring with each episode another hour of fresh beat-mix work from this darkest, fastest and scariest subgenre of electronic dance music, even produced by a group of UK DJs, thus making it sound more exotic to this American's ears. Ahhh. Anyway, one of the things I love about the podcast is that it's full of traditional radio elements, including this cheesy ten-second intro that ends with some West Indies guy yelling out in a booming voice, "Drum N Bass ARRRREEEENNNNNAAAA!!!!!" It makes me laugh whenever I hear it, and I'm always yelling out the phrase myself at home whenever no one else is around.
Okay, almost my destination -- the Target at California and Addison, to pick up a new two-button scrollwheel mouse, so that I can finally start porting into Second Life regularly again, and finally get my prefabricated housing company open for business. See you later, you filthy prevert. "What? Ya mon! Drum N Bass ARRRREEEENNNNAAAA!!!!"
And speaking of delayed projects....After blowing things off in Second Life for the last month, I'm finally ready again to get serious with Fabb, the prefabricated housing company for that virtual world that I've been talking forever about starting up. I finally got serious for the first time a couple of months ago, because of one of my neighbors finally selling land adjacent to mine for the first time since I bought my beginner plot in 2006; this, though, now has me paying $8 a month in virtual property tax to Linden Lab, so I figured it's time to finally get something going there that could make me real money.
Anyway, I need to go out and get another two-button mouse for my home computer before I can get serious again; I'm hoping, though, to finally have my first two or three houses for sale by the beginning of June (US$5, 10, and 15 respectively), so that I can finally see if there is any actual money to be made in virtual homes or not. Hmm! In the meantime, though, I finally spruced up Fabb's Blogspot page into a customized template I'm halfway happy with; it now contains a lot better information, and has a cool little top banner and everything. Definitely subscribe to the RSS feed there if you're interested, because in the next couple of weeks I'm about to start up daily updates there again.
Yeah, I know, every couple of weeks I throw a new entry up here about how I'm going to start posting regularly soon, just to disappear again for another couple of weeks. What can I say? The weather continues to be terrible here in Chicago, which means I haven't gotten into the habit yet of bicycling and getting out each day, which means I haven't gotten into the habit yet of updating this moblog regularly. In the meanwhile, though, I wanted to mention that my new book of photos is now out, Cellphone Photos 2007; it's a reprinting of my favorite 200 or so Palm Treo photos of 2007, of the 900 or so I featured both here and at my Flickr account last year, laid out in convenient PDF form (both American and European versions) for sending quickly to a laserprinter at work when your no-good boss isn't looking. Anyway, feel free to click over to the book page to download a copy for free if you want. And I promise, regular updates here starting soon! I swear to fuckin' God!!!
