:: how jedi are you? ::

but it’s MIT! why aren’t you proud?

time and time again, i’m reminded that people think the world of the ridiculous institution at which i am currently residing. no one seems to get why i refuse to attend graduation or why i’m embarrassed by our stupidity and our cultural imperialism.

more and more, i realize how much my undergraduate institution was just outright me.

aside from my initial wearables and geeky reaction, i have to admit that i would not be so very surprised to see dynamically colored optical fabric as a up-and-coming raver fashion. and i’m quite curious how related this type of stuff is to rehmi and maggie’s work

i actually went offline for the most part this week (gasp!) to get the art installation up . it looks great, so if you are down there, go check it out.

i finally got around to taking a look at a graphical search engine and i’m not too thrilled with it. it looks really cool, but the links are meaningless and the search results are really inaccurate. of course, i always test all search engines with ‘ani difranco’ because i know the results in all other search engines.

this morning, i also got a transcript of a chomsky vs. bill bennett debate with paula zahn on CNN. problem is that i don’t know how to read these things anymore. i know my government is lying to me (with help from the media) but i can’t say that i automatically trust the uber-left either, cause it’s so easy to be a paranoid in this current culture. how do you fight misinformation when all you have is misinformation?

i was psyched to see fake banner ads (#1, #2, #3) in my inbox – i love sarcastic cuts at corporations…

Doreen Kimura has a new article on Sex & The Brain… it’s nothing new, but it’s always nice to see it published, particulary when hilighted by metafilter.

Always good to know that all of my meds are on the Top 200 Rx List

I’m super psyched to see that the Dems & Reps are teaming up to call for a full independent investigation into 9/11… you can support this move, even.

Go out and get a piece, son is a nice reminder of how boys and girls are treated differently when it comes to sex and violence. Interesting descriptions that raise ideas about what is a portrait of someone.

Of course, you can be a male model & wear a real face. Female models are supposed to be random; men are supposed to embody power. My friend’s favorite passage: “For women who support themselves walking down runways, vulnerability to changing economic realities is never quite as pronounced. Despite four decades of feminist influence, women are still easily seduced by images of preternatural female beauty. But if women fantasize about what it would be like to possess nothing more than ethereal good looks, the daydreams of men generally follow different plotlines”

[cypherpunk login for nytimes: c1ph3rpunk/c1ph3rpunk]

It seems to take a bunch of archaeology research to believe that some men in ancienct rome spent their days dressed as women. And even then, it took the archaeologists 20 years to figure out that a male adorned with female jewelry might be a trans person. Do people really think that trans is a new phenomenon?

Thanks to Raffi, i’m now aware of a fun play going on in New York, where there are two different plays being run simultaneously with the same cast. The audience stays put and gets to see only half of the play.

[cypherpunk login for nytimes: c1ph3rpunk/c1ph3rpunk]

This makes me smile to no end. Aside from my love of Neil Simon‘s Rumors, i can’t help but be reminded of the crazy improv murder mysteries that i used to do back in PA with Troy & Erik and gang. There was a troupe of us; i was the young one. Troy would develop a plot line and the rough sketch of a play. We would get hired to perform at a particular venue (say a church), so we’d go to the church for a day, figure out which parts of the plot should happen in which rooms and layout the general timing of the play. When the audience arrived, they were told that they could either stay in one room or follow characters around the building (or a combination). As a result, no one ever saw more than 25% of the play. In the end, the audience would try to figure out whodunnit. They were fun hypertextual plays, with crazy twists and all too much fun. Of course, somehow, Troy always wrote my character as a seductress…

I have to admit, i’m psyched that Vanilla Coke is coming out… I’m a sucker for MNC soda – all that sugar and carbonation… now that they are adding Vanilla, i don’t have to restrict my Vanilla Cokes to homemade or TGIFriday’s versions… (Yes, i’m quite a sucker for modern culture, complete with its stripmalls.)

On a related note and since we are in sequel movie mode, i’m quite psyched to see the next Matrix preview. I remember when the first one came out… I was in Amsterdam and when i came back, one of my friends (who has horrible taste) told me that i must see The Matrix, so i ignored him. Well, for once, he was 100% right and when i finally got around to seeing the movie, i was utterly stunned, because i was expecting so little. Unfortunately, this time around, i’m expecting a bit more.

Although i grew up embedded in advertising culture, i am sooo not thrilled with the various advertising tactics these days – on school buses, in the movies, everywhere…. I am a big fan of Pop-up Stopper but the silly advertisers are developing so many new mechanisms for forcing me to think about their product. Aside from being irritating, it’s offensive – constant interupts and crap. I really liked what George Ellenburg posted to politech (more inside)

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