Even if I haven’t purchased any of her albums post-2003, I’m beginning to appreciate Ani again. This is not only because my pal Ry will be opening for her in October — which I will miss, sadly, because the shows will be in the midwest, and I will be in Italy.

The last few days, I’ve learned more about comics, anime, gaming, sci-fi and “fan fic” than I have in, oh, the past 30 years. Tonight I passed a bunch of undergrad gamers (dudes) with long hair and dirty t-shirts in the hallway of their dorm, talking about hacking… Some other things I’ve learned:

• For every women’s restroom on campus, there are four men’s restrooms. No exaggeration.
• MIT women (ages 17+) seem much more well adjusted and socially adept than MIT men. This does not really apply to my department, where we’re all completely “normal”, kinda.
• There is a freaky genius 14-year-old GRAD student presently at MIT. Yes, he went to college at the age of 10.
• The guy who started Linux was in a dance video with my fellow 2nd year grad students.
• I have a dedicated workspace for my research assistantship!
• But it has no windows.
• But it’s three floors down from Google!
• I’m pretty sure 98% of MIT students have the iphone.
• Which is disappointing, since I hoped they’d be building their own mphones.
• No one is ever in the Student Art Association office when they say they will be. Which means my beautiful mugs, cups and bowls are locked away in the pottery studio, fully glazed, ready to hold ice cream and coffee, but utterly inaccessible.
• We have to solve a RIDDLE in order to access the code for computer labs. So unless the riddle has something to do with Marlon Brando, I will not be using the computer labs ever.
• There are lots of empty chemical containers (do those things have a name? Like the things that hold hydrogen?) randomly hanging out in hallways. I saw five or six huge blue containers the other day with a yellow stick-it note attached: “EMPTY”
• The potential to make an amazing(ly) (geeky) dance video here is unbelievable. I am hoping the workload will dissuade me from filming people.

That’s all for now.

The grad program I am entering requires first years to give a 10-minute multimedia presentation about our lives and what brought us to the Comparative Media Studies program. I had shockingly little archival footage to work with, but I came up with this. What a strange kid I was!

Click to play

My two week hiatus between the end of work and the beginning of school is slowly coming to a close…I have yet to make my long autobiographical multimedia presentation, due in a week. I had grand plans for this presentation, incorporating 20 years of audio/video/photos/text, but slowly those plans have given way to afternoons at Walden Pond and lunches with pals and evening Olympics and happy inertia. Maybe I will just play Jawbreaker for the entire CMS department and dance around for 10 minutes like a maniac.

:: you’re not punk, and i’m telling everyone/ save your breath, i never was one. ::

For over a year now, I’ve been negotiating my way around the new content management system/site designer, Squarespace. It’s where all the cool kids hang out when they get tired of Dreamweaver.

So far I’ve built three sites — two for work (pcavoice.org and fairunionelections.org) — and one in the works for another organization. This last one has been fun to work on, as it utilizes multiple member accounts, varying levels of permission, duplicate pages, etc. They recently released version 5 (V5), just as I completed design in V4 (what can you do?), which warranted many support emails on my part reporting all sorts of small bugs. But customer support techs always responded promptly and helpfully. Phew.

On the whole, I like Squarespace. It’s appropriate for the novice, but functional enough to accommodate tweaks from a skilled designer. Also relatively affordable for both individuals and organizations. Just thought I’d share. If you have experience with it, let me know what you opinion is.

I know I said I would be boycotting the Olympics this year because of China’s support of Burma’s murderous regime, but Dave has kept it on TV in the hope of catching some gold medalist throw down a Tibetan flag and cause a huge disruption. That hasn’t happened yet, but MAN, I have joined the rest of the country in being awed by Michael Phelps. Besides being an incredible swimmer, he just looks like a really nice guy. Just now, winning the gold with his team in the men’s relay, he was the only one to get down and go shake the French guys’ hands. Admirable. Plus, he loves his mom. You can’t get better than that.

D. and I are trying to decide which sport we’d like to compete in in 2012; they’re allowing women’s boxing at the next Olympics, but I’d rather opt for archery (I was archery champion in 11th and 12th grade), badminton (I was badminton champion in 11th and 12th grade), cycling or handball. Dave wants to compete in canoeing. Well, we have four years to figure it out.

< geekout >
Meanwhile, in the ongoing geek games, I am agonizing between getting the Asus Eee PC 1000H (40GB SSD) or the MSI Wind. Part of the problem is their release dates; the 1000H just came out, the price is slowly dropping, but it’s next to impossible to get my hands on the one with Linux OS. Which is ridiculous. Because I loathe Windows and refuse to use it; I will be at MIT! I need everything open source, for heaven’s sake! I bet you I could just hire a freshman “Mech-E” or “Comp-Sci” major to build me an even better 10-inch shockproof SSD machine my first week on campus. I also don’t want to make the mistake of getting a potentially flawed, overheating, high-priced, first generation mini-laptop what with all those other first-gen sharks swimming around (Dell E; Acer Aspire One).

Don’t buy it til September, Bon! It’s smarter to wait!! Anyone have advice on the matter? Needs to be 10″, needs to be Linux; needs to be shockproof (I will be biking daily).

Meanwhile, I need to sell my Sony PD-170 immediately (anyone need a great 3-CCD SD video camera with incredibly low run time?) and use the cash to upgrade the space on this first-gen MBP.
< /geekout >

That is all for now. Unemployment starts tomorrow!

Today is many things: it’s the anniversary of the Burmese junta’s ruthless murder of 3,000 civilians and monks in 1988, creating the “88 Generation Student Leaders”, some of whom are still alive and leading the democracy movement in secret.

It’s the opening of the Olympics in China, which, if you support the peace movements in Burma and Darfur, you should boycott, since China is one of the closest allies and funders of both horrible regimes.

It’s also my last day at work; I am now, officially, a student — and unofficially, a potential contractor. I gotta say, it’s going to be very strange not going to work anymore…but with the three organizations I’m volunteering for right now, I still have my hands full. Next week should be busy, and yet I can’t shake the odd feeling of standing at the edge of some terrifyingly high precipice…

It’s also two days after BB and Nica left the country and a few weeks after Shiva’s departure, leaving me with three less friends. Fortunately for all of us there’s Skype, so at least we can communicate over the airwaves of cyberspace. Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Spain/Portugal/Iran, please treat my pals well.