new Hoppers @ clusterstruck

I spent the last couple of days manually moving all the entries over to the new software.

Tone tired.

Now to arrange a few link exchanges and such.

After you watch the video you can go to the Wikipedia page to make sure you get all the references.

[via ]

And people want this!?!

via spike

The morning after

I felt fine, well rested. Then I tried to say ‘good morning’ to someone. While the logic and motor sections of my brain were working fine, the language center was still stoned off it’s ass.

Until noon I had to listen to the embarrassing gobbledygook that came out of my mouth. I tried to run and hide by getting out of the camp and getting around, but for some reason people thought that I knew where I was and where I was going.

So instead of being rude I provided a number of people with useless, incoherent directions. On their faces I could see them decide to discount everything I said and get their directions from someone else.

The rest of Tuesday-

-I spent walking around and taking pictures (the same pictures I posted last week). I really liked some of the art installations, there was a series of 5 gallon water bottles mounted on poles with slits cut in them. In the wind the bottles would make a strange atonal kind of music. And there were the wire hands that were rigged up like an electric guitar for the wind to play.

And the Belgian Waffle House was impressive, it took a long time to get out there but it was worth the walk.

I spent the afternoon in the shade because it was too hot for anything else.

Wednesday, just like Tuesday

That evening I spent walking around again. The camps were starting to come together, lights and screen appeared. The art cars started to roll. But I wasn’t overwhelmed with what I saw. 60% of the camps were just discos even the art cars were just steroes on wheels. This was disappointing. If I liked discos I’d spend more time in clubs.

After walking around for a few hours it occurred to me that Burningman as just not my thing. In the middle of 30,000 people and I’d never felt so alone. So I hitched a ride back to the Reno airport the next day and haven’t regretted it since.

I tried Final Fantasy X-2 last night.

It didn’t feel like I was playing a game. It felt like I was watching a game developer masturbate to a Britney Spears album.

Sunday
The trip went off without a hitch. I took a cab from the Reno airport to the Rideshare Point and within fifteen minutes I had a ride. Her name was Heather and we (me and another guy, Cameron) tossed our stuff in her rental can and drove the three hours to Black Rock.

The whole goal of taking the plane was to avoid the thirteen hour drive up. But the three hour flight ultimately took eight hours. In hindsight I should have put more effort into getting a ride, but then I wouldn’t have been able to leave early.

So we get there and, hey what do you know, regular attendees weren’t allowed through the gates until Monday. I was looking at an nine hour wait at the gate and a two mile schlep of seventy five pounds of gear except that Heather’s boyfriend was working the gate and I convinced him that I’d be helping set up our camp (or any camp, just let me in!).

By 10pm that night our camp had been already busted twice for pot (not me). The rangers said that if it happened one more time they’d search the whole camp. Wait, I thought this was Burningman. Rather than spend their time catching real criminals our government is more interested in persecuting victimless crimes.

Monday
In the early days of the week Burningman isn’t much to look at. The camps all have similar themes; Field of Tents, Parking Lot, Abandoned, Not Ready Yet and Can’t get our Shit Together were all popular choices.

The Night of the Marijuana Brownie
I spent most of the days either reading Salem’s Lot or sitting in the shade with the Idaho contingent; Andy, Brett and his wife Kathiy.

I’d never had a Marijuana Brownie before and I figured, “Sure, how strong can they be?” That was about 7pm. Within a few minutes I’d decided to gear up and take a walk around the playa. Seemed like a good idea. The wind was pretty strong and I couldn’t find my night-time goggles so I figured my day-time goggles would do, sure they’re tinted yellow and the curve of the lens distorts what I’m seeing but not that much, whatever.

Over the next two hours the brownie I’d so casually eaten had became a larger part of my life. Between the THC, the goggles and the goings on of Burningman I had one of the most surreal walks of my life.

About 9pm I realized that my legs were having trouble doing the kind of things I depended on them for. Now normally when this happens I just have a seat and stop doing the activity that is interfering with my motor control. But I couldn’t stop having eaten the brownie, so the little sit down became a clutch-desperately-to-a-bench-while-this-runs-its-course moment that became a slide-slowly-back-onto-the-bench-and-out-of-consciousness-for-three-hours moment followed by an exercise in staggering-back-to-camp.

[pics @ flickr]

http://clusterstruck.com/

-mostly. Any plugins that I couldn’t get to work, or lost interest in (the advertising) got cut.

At Exuvian we are going to develop our own open source content management system using php, ajax, mono, xml and a bunch of other buzzwords. When that starts to mature I’ll move clusterstruck over to that.

Don’t expect to hear from me for a couple of days.

…mistakes were made:

More than I could chew
Seven days was a long time to be camping. I haven’t camped in years and I can’t say I ever cared for it, especially after my time in the Marine Corps. The playa was too much, especially since:

No tent, no shelter, no fun
I left San Diego expecting Andy to have brought an extra tent with him. So I ended up sleeping next to the trailer, under the lean-to that covered the coolers, exposed to all three elements (dust, wind and sunlight) and the house music that kept me up until the sun took over.

I was across the playa when the winds first kicked up, and by the time I got back, my bags (sleeping and otherwise) were loaded with a handfuls of the fine, tenacious playa dust.

I moved my stuff into the cab of the trailer but the damage was done. I’d be sleeping in a bag of dust.

Lacking a place that was my area contributed to my sense of misplacement:

The Guy on the Couch
I only knew one person in the camp. From what I’d heard this wouldn’t be a problem, Burningman is supposed to be a friendly, open environment… right? Yeah well, not if you’re me.

I’m not as shy as I used to be, but I can only take in one or two new people at a time. 15-20 new people at once is overwhelming. Worse; they all know each other from previous years and are busy catching up and reminiscing. Worse still; they’re all coupled up. I might have been the only single person there, everyone else was married or in a relationship.

[At this point there are those of you who might be experiencing that smug feeling that you get when single people complain about being single. But I don't dislike being surrounded by couples out of jealousy. I dislike being surrounded by couples because you people are fucking boring. Boooring! It's worse when you get married, and when you have kids... it's over.
OK, some of you aren't boring, but you definitely lost your edge.]

All I heard was, “blah…blah…blah… new fence… blah…blah…blah… We just bought a new crock pot from Bed Bath and Beyond blah…blah…blah… When I go to work I take Main to the highway instead of Broadway and I save fifteen minutes… blah…blah…blah…” I got a toaster, a ten year old microwave and nothing else to contribute to this conversation.

Even the camp’s gimmick was a turn off. From 5pm to whenever they had “Happy Hour”.
Actual Happy Hours; aren’t. Actual Happy Hours are where people who hate there jobs and hate their lives go to get blitzed so they can forget both.

On Wednesday the patch of dirt that was my bed was turned into a puddle of mud by a leaking water tank (Oh, there’s that forth element). “Screw it! I’m going home.”

Funny, how when I decided to leave people got concerned, like I’d announced that I was leaving the church. A half-dozen times I got The Questions; “You’re not having a good time? What’s wrong? What can we do to help? Would you be happier in another camp?” Yeah, maybe. But I figure the odds are that I’d be in the same situation with another twenty names that I can’t learn.

Buddy, can you spare a good and/or service?

A gift economy is an economic system in which the prevalent mode of exchange is for goods and services to be given without explicit agreement upon a quid pro quo, or the concept of “a favor for a favor” in the Latin language.

Yeah, well there’s a big difference between being given, and having to ask.

I hate asking for things. While I’m usually willing to help any stranger who asks for a favor (unless I smell a con) I’ll only ask a favor from someone I consider a friend, the magnitude of the favor scales with the magnitude of the friendship. Say what you will about commerce (I’m sure it’s all bad, everyone who has ever posted on LJ is a communist), but when money is involved what you can have is made clear.

My independence, my reluctance to bother people, prevented me from accepting one of the basic, essential tenants of Burningman.

So I’m back early. Probably the only person to pay $20 to miss the last four days of Burningman. I have more to talk about but this post has gone on too long. I’ll recap Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday’s experiences on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.