goddesscafe

Friday, June 14, 2002 :::

So there will be at least 3 bloggers in B'ton this weekend, eh? Weird. I'm headed to the midwest myself...the Indianapolis of California, my friends tell me -- Fresno. Must meet with a friend's accountant father to deal with my IRS nightmare. NOT looking forward to it.

Nothing to do in class today. This makes me irritated with Those in Charge. So Jacquie and I spent 3 hrs in Starbucks talking about weird stuff. I had a free psychic reading today at Berkeley Psychic Institute (hey, I was running errands and they had up a sign, how could I resist?) and the girl told me, among other accurate things, that I was just beginning a new creative phase of my life, on a new path, and loosening up blocked creative energy in my 5th chakra (throat), the one where you communicate with yourself and the outside world. So I was telling Jacquie this, and she said that two psychics have told her she is a vortex of horrible black energy. And then I told her something else the psychic had said, that I had immediately discounted as making no sense -- that there was some female energy in my space that was really negative and bad for me, and that the person didn't have bad intentions, but that I needed to get rid of it because it was dark. Jacquie was all, "Do you think it's ME?" I have no clue, other than that I can see her being a black hole of sorts, sucking things from other people. Huh. In other news, she got laid off today because her boss doesn't like her leaving early for class, so add another one to the pile.

Going to go read the latest Transmet now and wait for class to be over. Computers make my eyeballs hurt. Sorry for the lack of links lately...when I'm not bored in front of a computer 8 hrs a day, I get a hell of a lot less reading done.

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 7:42 PM

Thursday, June 13, 2002 :::

I'll make this quick as I am off to grab a flight to IU. My friend Chris got a job in Minnesota, so this is her b-day and farewell party.

I haven't had a chance to read Wolfram's book yet, but I think I agree with Kurzweil and the majority of the posters on his site. As I mentioned myself, its all very well to lay some of this out in theory, but you need to then start showing what new things you can do and predict to start claiming "A new kind of science". The reviews seem to indicate he doesn't do any of that. All he does is explain cellular automata (doesn't even get into the more complicated stuff about emergence) and then claim that ultimately you could model anything using it.

So what? Is it possible to do any of this modeling on a scale that is useful? (i.e. If modeling the universe requires running a new universe from scratch at the same speed, there isn't much it is going to help us with.) He doesn't even really address any of that apparently. I have the feeling this is like the Star Wars films -- a pet project by someone who is insulated from anyone who will challenge or criticise him.

::: posted by Laurent Castellucci at 11:30 AM

Wednesday, June 12, 2002 :::

hey all -- especially l.c. -- what's your take on stephen wolfram*? i now remember laurent talking about cellular automata (the archives are broken, eh?), but i'd been pretty much in the dark until curran told me about the book today -- it's blowing curran's mind, according to unconfirmed reports.

the inventor of the kurzweil keyboard, ray kurzweil, has weighed in on the debate in less-lay, more-science-type terms.

::: posted by kevin seal at 2:39 PM

Had my drunken unemployment celebration (part one) last night. Whoo-hoo! Me and Karen pulled a few bellydancing moves on the dance floor, titillating our friends (het boys and lesbians, oh my!) to no end...we even came up with a new style, "freak bellydancing"...ha ha! Tacky. Anyway, here's pics from her graduation party (taken before the whole boob problem happened): front and back views.

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 12:58 PM

Monday, June 10, 2002 :::

I was going to make a Lucky Charms reference, but then I figured that it was inappropriate. I'm quite sure that if my tits made rainbows, I'd be obsessed with them. Mind you, if I suddenly had tits at all, I'd probably be obsessed with them.

I find your opinion on male dancing ability a slight upon my gender. Between that and the vienna sausage reference (which took me about this long to get) I almost think I'm offended. I would link, but it appears your archives have vanished.

So.. since there's a fairly good chance I, too, will be leaving the ranks of the gainfully employed in the not-too-distant future, do you think I can be in your movie?
I'm highly un camera shy (despite my genrally retiring and bashfully quiet nature) and generally helpful. Besides, it's been years since I've been in a documentary.

I am full of moons and rainbows!!!

I'm so excited. The partial solar eclipse was going on all through dinner in the BAVC lounge, and we had paper with pinholes in it to see the little crescent shadows on the wall, and I noticed if I stood facing the sun, my Chesterfield's shirt, which is covered in rhinestones, reflected both rainbows and eclipse crescents onto the wall. WOW! I am a goddess!!! Our insane bisexual Brazilian TA now thinks I'm obsessed with my tits. Yeah, but wouldn't you be if you could make moons and rainbows with yours?!?

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 6:50 PM

I can't even beyeev it, as I used to say when I was little. I have no job today! Friday leaving work was kinda sad...my immediate boss gave me some CDs from Paris that she'd burned for me, that was pretty cool...one was called Cafe de Champs-Elysees – "the finest electro tunes from Paris." One was called Indochine and featured songs with lines like "I like the way you shake your booty uh-huh, uh-huh." (not as good as the inimitable Ass-n-Titties, but oh well)

Sat night I went to the Cheb i Sabbah CD release party and danced for over two hours, it was fabulous. They had this Indian drummer (K, he looked like a dark-skinned sexy version of Noah M...~drool~) who just pounded out beats while Cheb spun tunes, and they had a tabla player and vocalist who did the same thing over the music (improv?), and a woman dancer, and an adorable little girl...it was all just wonderful. I was drunk enough to ignore my male associates (a prerequisite, seeing as men generally dance like frogs in a blender, as a recent chain e-mail put it) but they gave up dancing well before I did anyway. Thurs night I didn't dance, but me and video classmate Jacquie filmed two of my bellydancing teacher's troupemates performing to techno at the DNA Lounge, it was awesome. Erica was on hand with her digital camera, and friends like Tad and Tim showed up. At my request, Jacquie filmed some with a slow shutter speed, which looked sexy and cool as hell upon playback. This is the beginning of my planned mini-documentary side project on tribal style bellydancing.

Yesterday I went to dinner in the Castro with my friend Chris and his friend Lele. Lele is a total stud half-Indian guy, who showed up wearing a black tank top and hip yellow glasses, and then complained that all the men were looking at him. He's a little homophobic. It was absolutely hilarious. At any rate, Chris was babbling about how he'd met this guy the previous day at this Berkeley cafe (K, you know the place, where all the beat poets used to hang out?) who was this 60-yo ex-prof and economist, who supports himself writing technical manuals for smog checkers. He wrote this book called My Wife in Bangkok that apparently caused a ruckus at the time, about the economics of prostitution in Thailand. I guess it's also about his personal experiences having prostitute girlfriends there, and the more Chris talked about him, the more grossed out I got. He wants this guy to be his writing mentor! So finally Lele is like, you know who this sounds like? Tom Robbins based a character on this Berkeley guy who was into young Thai prostitutes. Did he wear a straw hat? Did he have bad teeth? Did he talk about Joyce? and Chris was nodding so I cried out in disgust, "Your guy is SWITTERS?!?" and Lele looked at me in amazement and Chris howled hysterically. I had no idea. I am NOT lending him my autographed copy, though. It'll just make him like the guy that much more.

OK. Time to try to get my life together on my first day of summer. I was thinking this weekend that I should write a screenplay, and have all my unemployed friends star in it. I have an entire freaking cast at my fingertips, with nothing better to do! Jennifer, Rodrigo, Tim, David, James, Chris, Lele, Joel, Nathan, Karen (well, she's working part-time at her dad's auto shop while looking for work) (K, dare I include practically all of your former and current bandmates?)...or should I just do a documentary on the fact that a bunch of highly-educated and skilled people can't get work in the Bay Area? (Elissa* and Will, you can come visit for a weekend of filming too)

::: posted by alura allumeuse at 10:55 AM