heathervescent

Free Music From Napster

Yeah, it's the secret - or not so secret - launch - or re-launch - of Napster's free music program. Check it out! Unfortunately for me, it seems that they think I'm not in the US and will only let me listen to 30 second clips, which is a total bummer, because I'm sitting her waiting out traffic in Hollywood... but what can you do?

Well, you can listen to this classic favorite song of mine, for free. And they have lots of other cool music I would actually listen to. Now, about Hollywood being a different country...

Lips Like Sugar (Album Version)

on breaking news or cool things

Argh... so this morning I want to scream. I've been scoping out the integratron in Joshua Tree for months, planning to go check it out and write about it for Daily Mantra. So I mention it on b.la and blech, I find out the boingboing covered it early last week (I've stopped reading that site as it depresses me) and it was in the LAT not that long ago and shit - I f*n hate it when I've been thinking about something for a while and then, blam - it explodes onto the scene. So much for being tapped into the collective consciousness.

Then again, I could use that as a way to birth trends into the mainstream or not so mainstream. Or maybe I should use this as the impetus to NOT wait on any idea I have and EXECUTE it immediately. Damn that distraction for the past few months!

I want to be the one writing about the cool stuff and the scoops. I want to be the rock hunter.

But then, there are times I find out about cool stuff and specifically DON'T write about it. Because it's so neat that I DON'T want anyone to find out about it... yet.

Argh. Maybe this is just the motivation I need to write about the next big thing...

Blech.

Updated: AOL in Mountain View is hosting women's entrepreneur unconference. WTF? I'm so glad I spent freaking years in Silicon Valley running the Menttium break out sessions. Maybe I just suck, or maybe I'm just freaky years ahead of my time, I was evangelizing DHTML (what is now known as Web 2.0) in 2000 at AOL, thanks to my iamazing engineering team.

But really world, I'm about 6 years ahead of the trend here. Where's the money in that? Oh, right, I'm not in it for the money... I'm in it to ride the edge of the wave. Still...

OK, this is it. I'm intending an opportunity where I can execute on these innovative forward thinking ideas and actually EXECUTE! Grr.

Feeling the flow

Today was the first time in a while that I felt in Flow state. I was driving my convertible, top down on the 101. I was listening to the radio and driving for myself. I've been driving for other people (the screwed up CD player, the dog in the backseat or a passenger) for months and finally I had some solo time in my car. I was listening to Indie 103 and the La's "There she goes" came on. I loved this song when I was in high school. It reminded me of driving the open roads in Iowa, windows open, music on the stereo, the moist air full of bugs in front of me and nothing but dust (these were gravel roads) behind me.

I used to race the train, especially if I was trying to go to my boyfriend's house (who lived outside of town, on the other side of town from me). If I didn't catch the lights, I'd sit and wait for the train to cross the road. Sometimes I'd get impatient and race it further down the track, attempting to make the crossing.

Anyway, I'm getting on the 101 southbound at Highland and on comes the La's and there I they go, those memories racing through my brain. I smell the air and feel my wet hair drying in the wind, and boy do I finally feel like myself. I didn't realize how oppressed I felt the past few months. I was living someone else's life - but, who was that? and how did I get conned into it being my life?

When I mapped out my plan for 2006 last December, I left open a huge gap. A huge gap for something to come into. I was waiting in March, getting more and more impatient in April and here we are almost entering May. In retrospect, my life was too busy in March and most of April. I'm finally at the point where I'm not really juggling anything. I've got confident understand of all the stuff in my life - including the house insurance issue and dealing with my car hit and run. But beyond that, everything is copacetic.

And that feels good. I finally have moments to read the books I want to read, and seriously think about things and plan where I'm going to be putting a big chunk of my energy for the rest of 2006.

Silent Hill

I saw Silent Hill a few nights ago. I'm not a fan of the horror genre - at least not the slash and mutilate "boo" style. Still the boyfriend wanted to see it so I went along. I had very little idea of the movie, but expected complete trash. The first half of the movie indeed delivered on the trash, but about half-way through, the movie added a plot, some more characters and took a very Neil Gaiman sandman-esque turn. That's also when I started to make the Diablo references. Once I realized I was watching a video game, the movie became a lot more enjoyable.

At least the blood, guts and spook-jump factors got burned out early in the movie and I was able to get to sleep without being freaked out.

I love Roger Ebert's review of the movie and this snipped in particular.

The people who live in Silent Hill are dead, I guess. Some of them glow like old embers on a fire, which is not a sign of life. They live in abandoned buildings and in the mines and in a Smoke and Flame Factory, which you will recall from my Little Movie Glossary is a factory-like location of uncertain purpose which generates a lot of smoke and flames. Also sharing their space are rat-like little CGI insects, who scurry around thinking they look a lot scarier than they do.

- Ebert's review

I especially liked the sexy nurses starting to do the Michael Jackson Thriller dance, but instead they just end up slashing each other.

And in the technology world...

Earlier this week, I coordinated the geek dinner follow-up to LA Barcamp. I was pretty happy as 30 people RSVPed and I think everyone actually showed up and on time! Lots of familiar faces and about 30% women.

I had some interesting conversations about Tivo and contextual ads, some yummy Indian food and we ended the evening with a discussion about cultivating innovation in large companies. The full write up is here. And this is definately just the beginning.

And in other tech news, I'm speaking at Blogher. I'm on the day one schedule and will be doing a basics blog course along with Miss Zoot and Melinda Casino. It's going to be all basics, so if you don't know where to start - come to our session.

I'm looking forward to the day 2 sessions, especially the room of your own bofs.

Fresh Air Gorgeous Morning

Even though I can barely see the San Gabriel's in the distance, the air is clean and fresh. It smells like California. I feel relaxed, so many projects open and available - especially after a stimulating BarCamp dinner follow-up (which I will write about a little later).

I picked weeds in the front garden yesterday and pruned the lemon tree. I feel so bad for this tree, because it was planted in a very bad location. It's hidden away behind some cypress trees and others that pretty much block out the light. And it was sprouting every-which-way like crazy. It just made me feel sad every time I saw it.

I watered the new ferns and shade loving flower. I planted some impatiens and calla lillies. They are doing extremely well. And the roses are blooming in the front yard in full sun. The jasmine off my patio is going crazy and winding itself up and around the fence, covered with fragrant pink flowers. It makes me so happy to see the plants in the correct locations.

The window is open and the sweet smell of the flowers drifts in. And although I can still see the blue tarp, smell the mildew everytime I go downstairs and the roofer hasn't called me back, I am feeling fine.

I'm in tune with who I am, what I want and following my heart. Everything will be, exactly as it is supposed to be.

New friend, new perspective

Today fellow blogging.la-er Colleen Wainwright and I finally met - after several attempts and water gun wet threats. Sometimes you don't meet someone until it's the right time, and I think that's why it took us so long to meet in person. It was well worth the wait. We had a great time learning about each other and found a lot of common ground.

Before heading over to meet her, I skipped over to her blog to catch up. In my skimming, these paragraphs jumped out at me. She's talking about one of her acting teachers.

One day, having hit his limit with some slacker inanity or another—actors showing up without the props they needed for their scenes, actors not showing up at all—he launched into us about hard work and commitment. About how we didn’t have any, and about how we were kidding ourselves if we thought we were going to slack our way to any kind of real acting talent or real acting career without Doing The Work. And then, lighting on my trembling face, he said: “Of course, those of you who need to hear this won’t…and those of you who are already doing all this are beating yourselves up for not doing enough.”

My shrink had to give me a refresher course in this yesterday. For some reason, my response to being unable to perform at my usual level of energy and competence (i.e., being sick) is to beat myself up for being unable to perform at my usual level of energy and competence. I was gently reminded that when I am not feeling my pretty best, calling myself “loser” is probably not the thing for getting me back on track.

This really resonated with me in light of the current dog crisis. I was kicking myself saying I should be able to handle all this, especially since G was dealing with a lot more, when it was really too much for me. So I kept drowning doing damage control on my end until it was a crisis. It was only when the situation reached crisis mode that G paid attention to it. That's because G was dealing with her own series of crisis and mine didn't register on her radar until it became a major one for her.

Seeing it like this, makes me understand her perspective more, and I still wonder how the situation could have been played out so that it didn't reach a crisis. I wonder if that would have been possible? Could I have been clearer in my emails earlier the demand it took on me and the impact it had on my life? I didn't think I had to explicitly spell things out.

But maybe so. Because miscommunication happens when assumptions are made and communication is not clear. And when emotions are in flux, the situation unknown and a different language spoken, it makes clear communication all the harder.

Anyway, this is the last I'm going to write of this situation. The analyization and recapitulation is over.

A word to the Trolls

Yo Trolls and trouble-makers, this is not Live Journal. You are well on your way to 50 years old (if you think I don't know who you are, you are mistaken). So any comments personally attacking me with no merit on their own will be promptly removed.

I am all for open discussion, but when you go to the level of name calling in my house for no other reason to attack and make yourself or the person you are defending feel better, I'm going to kick you out.

That is all.

relief and limitations

I was going to keep quiet on this topic, because it's had heated discussion on and off the blog, but here goes. There are always at least two sides to the story and I'm not about to launch into the specifics of my side, because it doesn't really matter.

What does matter, is the very real relief I now feel, now that I no longer have the responsibility of Moki. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice dog and I have fun with him - for optional short periods of time. But doing what I did, had me drowning and when I started asking for help, people started throwing rocks, and ok, I threw a few rocks myself, but they were rocks tied to my feet. That doesn't make it right, but it does take two to fight. And I’m still human, or else I wouldn’t be here on this earth. And my life is no less important than anyone else’s.

The big learning lesson from this is about Limitations, one of the 2006 daggers. Knowing my limitations and standing by them. But when the whole Moki thing started out, no end date was in sight, no limitation. I was too nice, accepting a burden I was not really comfortable with, and then I thought I was doing the right thing and not raise the my issues. (If you were any of my friends that I see on a regular basis, you would have known my real feelings on the matter back in January.) Wrong, wrong, wrong. I should have raised my concerns back in January, when this all started. But here, I get to be taken to task for trying to be helpful and failing. (Oh I'm sure you negative observers will be able to make this out to whatever horrible idea you can come up with, but I'm being honest and telling you directly what was going through my mind - and my (wrong) choice to put someone else, in front of me.)

Anyway, even one night, I feel so much more relaxed and rested. It's like I have been under this huge burden the past almost 3 months, the dog GTD item popping up in my head constantly. Never never done. Constantly adding more and more to my workload. I'm back to being only responsible for me, myself and the life I want. I was stuck in quagmire.

Now, I can finally pick up some of the pieces that have fallen in the meantime. It feels so good and refreshing.

Fiddleheads!

I just found my friend Kathryn's blog and was delighted to open it up and find a great post on fiddlehead ferns! I love fiddleheads (although not to eat, just to look at). Last year I worked on a welding project for Burning Man where I was able to pick a design to laser cut into a fire cauldron. The design I picked was a fiddlehead.

If you share my delight check out her post with more pictures.

Geek Dinner next week

I'm coordinating the Geek Dinner, the follow-up to the LA Barcamp.

If you interested in meeting fellow technologists in Los Angeles - or just passing through - get on this google group. Here are the specific details...

Logistics
When: Tuesday evening, April 18th at 8:00 pm
Where: The Electric Lotus, 4656 Franklin (entrance on Vermont) in Los Feliz
http://www.electriclotus.com/

RSVP: the sooner the better, but you MUST RSVP by Monday, April 17th at Noon
to attend. Please RSVP to geek (at) heathervescent (dot) com.

Electric Lotus is Indian and they can do vegan and veggie dishes. Come
prepared to pay for yourself as we don't have a sponsor.

What to expect:
This is an open forum to continue discussions from BarCamp. We're here to
share ideas and meet like minded geeks in Los Angeles. We're working on
getting a speaker to talk for 15-20 minutes. If you have a topic request or
would like to volunteer, let me know. Remember to bring biz cards or contact
info.

Please pass this invite to anyone you think would be interested and contact
me if you have any questions.

3 hours to seder or how to kick ass

I was going to write a long post on how my passover went, but my creative juices aren't flowing - plus it's a few days old. Needless to say, with about 3 hours notice I whipped up a seder dinner, including amazing from scratch brownies that rival my non-kosher ones. I must admit, I was pretty proud of myself. This entry, is just a reminder, to myself, of yet another way, I've kicked ass in 2006.

I feel like this.

  There Was Once A Fire At the Top of this Mountain 
  Originally uploaded by hexod.us.

A beautiful photo from Hexodus

V for Vendetta review

Sam and I saw V for Vendetta the first weekend it opened and I've been meaning to write about it. I loved loved loved the movie and luckily for me, today I read Amanda's review of it and instead of writing my own, I can copy her words:

[W]hen I see a masked man in a movie whose appearance seems to come straight out of my imagination, who embodies things I loved as a girl, and fights for ideas I hold very close as an adult, I feel like dancing.

She also has some great still images. Read the rest of her review here. The part of the movie I mostly respected, was that they never took his mask off - even when there was the chance. This was a great movie and I highly highly recommend it to everyone.

wikki wikki wikki

On time, in your mind you see
You gotta boogie to your best ability
You gotta funk it up until it knocks you down
And when you're funkin' up, be sure to pass it around
...
Jam on it
Jam on and on, on and on it
And if you're feelin' like you wanna dance all night
They go on ahead and flaunt it

- Newcleus, "Jam on it"

I've loved this song for over 20 years. When the breakdancing fad hit in the 80's my brother got a tape of classic breakdancing music and "Jam on it" was included. I wasn't interested in breakdancing, but I loved the wikki, wikki, wikki. I forgot about it for a decade and then found it again in DJ Z-trip's Uneasy Listening bootleg mash-up album on track 6. I heard it over the weekend at the Long Beach Grand Prix and this morning, I finally found it.

It's great to hear one of my childhood favorites in its entirety.

Heather, a SuperViva original

Heather, a SuperViva original
Originally uploaded by superviva.

Yo, it's me, SuperVivified and ready to take on the world (or at least set off on a trip.)

The past month

I've been participating in this game called Streetwars. I've been a secret agent of the Shadow Government. I know, I haven't mentioned a peep on this site... that's because I'm sly and all that. But now, I come clean, and also this weekend is sudden death and the end of the first game in LA.

Here's a fun photo to enjoy - it was a rogue assassin massacre.

Panamint Magic

A friend and I went to Panamint Valley last weekend and had an adventure - beyond the truck breakdown adventure. We went with a specific intent to make contact with one of the apprentices of Carlos Castanda: Nuri Alexander. I had never met Nuri, although my colleague had. I didn't have a connection with her, nor do I practice guru/teacher adulation. I've come to realize that we're all human beings here.

So we were not searching for a guru or a disciple of a guru. We decided to do this mission because we wanted to see what would happen, what we would find. _If_ we _could_ contact her. _If_ we could find the place she jumped from. And _if_ we succeeded, ask her some questions. We had focused intent, we did not want to fail, yet we understood the difficulty of our task at hand.

I was completely willing to accept not finding anything - just another adventure in Death Valley. But what we did end up experiencing is what anyone would expect when they throw themselves into an adventure with abandon, passion, energy and intention.

You can read about it in this post on Daily Mantra - which is where I try to do my metaphysical writing these days.

Snapped

Happy now? That's it. Reached the end of the rope. Or rather, the end of the rope was a while back... I was just pretending I was hanging on.

About to give up?

I was about to give up.

A few days in the desert with a friend on a mission. We were successful. And then, another "drama". S and I have just come down a treacherous 4 wheel only steep mountain path. We've spent a freezing night in the truck, alternating wind rocking the suspension and absolute calm. Not only did we survive, but our campfire, which we built on the edge of a precipice overlooking the Panamint Valley, kept hot coals hidden under ash until the morning.

We're on a dirt road, about 4 miles from the pavement and the truck stops - silent. Everything dead. No battery lights, no starter, nothing. Silence from the truck and the desert. We spend about an hour trying to swap out the battery, thinking it's the alternator/battery gone bad again. We practice patience and work the nuts that are cemented onto the old battery off and replace them on the new battery. Nothing. Still silence.

It's time to fill up the camelbacks with water, stuff as many energy bars as we have into our pockets and start to hike. Until we meet someone, or get cell service or hitchhike a ride. The clock in our first rides car reads 9:30am. We've had an early start. The second ride, we sit in the open bed of a pickup watching the air force jets above us do maneuvers. I'm not anxious. I'm not happy about the situation, but I know my immediate next steps. We get to the only phone in, I don't know, 40 miles or so, and make some phone calls. Wait. Wait. Wait for the next 5 hours.

The amazing boyfriend (who is most definately hands down, the best boyfriend in the universe) shows up, with gas and battery at 3:30pm and we head back out into the desert. We meet our off road friends on the way, and between the 8 of us, find a small wire that has been dislodged. When fixed, the vehicle still doesn't start. Everyone lines up behind the truck and starts to push, I engage the clutch and press down on the gas and the engine kicks on. I gas it harder and drive like the wind to the road. And eventually all the way back to Los Angeles just as it turns into Sunday.

Where I arrive to more water on the floor. The ceiling still in shambles. My car still smashed with no progress on confirming who hit it or when it can be fixed. And a time change that knocks me out of whack.

I'm stretched beyond my limits. I'm holding down, not only my anchor, but another’s. And it's definitely wearing on me. What do I do? I'm about to snap. I practice flexibility and fluidity constantly.

I was about to snap. But then I went and got the truck towed to the mechanic's, where it will get fixed eventually. Eventually the rain will stop and stop raining in my bedroom. Eventually I won't have to commute to see my boyfriend or give the dog three walks a day. Eventually I won't have to project manage my two insurance claims. Eventually I'll feel good about my writing and get to reviewing all these cool products I've found. Eventually, eventually, eventually. That's what I tell myself, because I'm about to give up, but there's really no reason to.

It’s like this road S and I drove up. If someone told us, we couldn’t have gone up there, we wouldn’t have been able to. It’s true, the road disappeared and we were literally driving up (and down) a mountain. You've seen it. That big one with lots of Strata, you can see it from Panamint Springs Resort. But no one told us what we could do, and we did it anyway.