So far it's 10pm Saturday night and I'm still at home, beating the crap out of my powerbook (localhosted mysql server hanging...) to get some rather complex data migration stuff worked out for mfa. I want to move from the custom hacktackular spaghetti code that I've conjured over the past year to civicspace before Labor Day Weekend breaks and the real campaign season begins.

Civicspace will be fun. The functionality is all there (and more, thanks to all the promises Zack made <g>) but since Neil and the other coders actually, like, engineered the thing, it works a little different on the inside, and stores its data in a much more abstractly structured way. It will also make my life as Technical Director easier as I'll have a wide pool of developers to pull on in the future.

But I'm sitting home alone at 1opm on a Saturday. Damn. They're getting ready to Burn the Man right about now. There's a lot of player-hating around Burning Man, which isn't really new or surprising, but I still think it's a fabulous thing to have happen every year. I'll be headed back to the Playa come 2005, taking anyone who wants to come along with me. Wanna participate? I'll start talking about it seriously this winter. Seriously seriously, 'cause we're going to have to rent a flatbed truck and borrow some welding gear I think.

I've been contemplating with some relish what returning to a more normal social life will be like. You don't go off and do what I've been doing for the past year -- working on the .org boom -- and just pop back into post-student bohemia mode; it's going to be a new chapter. Exciting.

The other thing I want to do this weekend is get through a big pile of personal writing. I want to report on my summer vacation, trips to political conventions, and other assorted things. I also want to switch this site around to re-integrate all the old life-content into things better. I'm thinking about moving the whole works over to drupal, which would let me do that, and also give other people their own voices if they wanted them. We'll see what happens.

Got a little contact today which was fun. Someone trying to track down a long-lost love:

Well, I loved a Josh Koenig once. Actually, I still do, but you're not him. Of course, I love you too, but only in that earthy I-wanna-love-everyone kinda way which looks real good on paper and comes out with a big soup stain on its shirt. Oh well.

I coulda saved us both the trouble by reading a bit first, but now at least you know that there exists another Josh Koenig who is possibly the greatest poet the universe has ever known. Josh Koenig must be a special name.

I'll take that karmic association. Thanks!

They were talking about Wednesday night at the RNC on Hardball , the episode everyone's excited about because Zell Miller sorta c hallenged Chris Matthews to a duel. But this bit lept out of the transcript at me:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: And is this the agenda now for the fall? Joe?

JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST, SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY: I find it remarkable.

We are three days into this convention, and we have been talking all year about how this election is going to be about George W. Bush. The Republicans, with their ad campaigns, the third-party attacks, this convention, three nights into this convention, this convention remains about John Kerry.

I can't remember a major presidential election where you have an incumbent that makes the central focus of their convention about the other guy, about the challenger. It is a radical departure from politics as usual. And what does it say about what they think George Bush has done over the past four years, and, more importantly, what the American people think of George Bush?

Good question, Joe!

President Bush, Because He Says So

This is good stuff. Not everything is funny, though. We just crossed over 1000 US dead in Iraq.

Why? Because he said so.

Votergasm

My kind of politics, yo.

Still banging it out in NYC. Tonight is Dubya's showcase, so we'll see what happens. I'll probably be hanging out at grassroots with people for a while, not watching.

If life were a game of Civilization, the guy running New York would want to create some entertainers or raise the luxury rates or build a colloseum (providing it's a democracy), or in a less open kind of government quarter a few more garrisons.

It's heavy out there today, choppers in the skies and police vans in the streets. Things are apparently getting pretty hairy. I don't know what will be accomplished by all this, but the full accounting tomorrow will be interesting to see. I'm at The Tank where Air America has been broadcasting. Things are getting strange, man. They just threw on PBS's convention coverage and Ahnold's saying that Nixon is a breath of fresh air.

I've been struggling with my role as a pro in all this lately, but the going has certainly gotten weird, and as the Doctor would say, thus the weird must turn pro. My health is coming back and while things could be better, but the way forward is maybe becoming clearer.

The most important thing is to stop struggling. When you feel that tight knot getting tighter in your shoulders and your guts twisting up and your teeth beginning to grind; when you can't stop thinking of how wrong or bad or ugly something is; when you can't seem to get the weight off your chest in spite of a lifetime of squirming, this is my advice to you. I'm advising myself here, but I use the second-person to make it more engaging as a blog. Bear with me. This is how I do.

Anyway, when this thing just won't stop pressing on you, and you've writhed and bucked to the best of your ability, the most important thing is to stop struggling. This is the universe telling you to take a deep breath, look around calmly, catlike, and try a new way of doing things. Turn over a new leaf, strike out in a new direction, drop down and tap the inner source again.

This can be frightening. We become wedded to our struggles over time, some kind of king-hell parasitic thing, starts out as you and your enemy and ends up your identity is hard to separate. Maybe you can't get free without losing some skin, unless that is you take some time and soak it, tease it out. It takes time and will to extract yourself from habitual chaos, from ritualized struggle.

Tough as it may be, failing this will only lead to being ground down and rendered hopelessly boring via repitition. Break free from struggle; walk through the goddamn walls.

Hundreds of thousands in Manhattan today, enough that it took five hours to march 20 blocks, and no violence. The only thing remotely hary was the black block setting fire to their little paper mache dragon, an almost plaful gesture (considering it was in the middle of the street and posed no real danger) which gave everyone else the chance to applaud and cheer for the FDNY.

It couldn't have gone down better. Rest of the week we're doing trainings and concerts; we'll see what else happens. By all accounts today was a major success.

Peep it at Greater Democracy, like right now.

Also, Frank tells me that tonight's critical mass had about 2,000 riders, was under helecopter survelence, few people got arrested. All kinds of fun gonna happen here in New York town.

The New York Times: More Americans Are Living in Poverty, Census Bureau Says

1.3 million more people living in poverty. 1.4 million more without health care. Third straight year of increases for these numbers. Third straight year of Bush.

Connect the fucking dots, people. John Kerry's far from perfect, but he a shit-ton better than the worthless brat we've got in office now.