The two sides of BM 2003
Oh no.
But here is something that'll cheer us up: A picture of a hooper, featured in the Yahoo Burning Man slide show.
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.: posted by Vera 
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Missing the burn
It's the night of the burn at Burning Man, and what am I doing? Sitting at home, by myself, geeking out and listening to Nubreaks.com. I sure hope that all of my burner friends, Aimee, Ariel, Donovan, Justin, Lura, Philo, and Seth, are having the time of their lives!
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.: posted by Vera
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Yellow bellflowers
 During the summer, these beautiful yellow bell-shaped flowers grow in the Bay Area. I had never seen them until I discovered them shortly after moving here last year. The other day, I noticed a whole bush of them in my neighborhood. Today I went back and took some pictures. I didn't remember where exactly I had seen them; all I knew was that it was within about an eight block radius of my house. I spent a good fifteen minutes or so driving around before I finally found them again. I made up for this waste of time by taking way too many pictures of the bells.
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.: posted by Vera
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Bums just wanna have fun
I just saw a small group of homeless people with a boombox in front of Payless Shoes. They were all dancing to 50 Cent. It was awesome.
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.: posted by Vera
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Aaron and the Pizza
I hung out with Aaron last night. For those of you just tuning in: Aaron is my ex-boyfriend. We like it that way.
First we had some drinks at Luna Lounge. Then we went to 1015. Madame Mercury was going to play, and I wasn't going to miss THAT. But most importantly, inbetween Luna Lounge and 1015, Aaron felt a little hungry. So we went to Extreme Pizza. I had already eaten, so I passed. But Aaron didn't. He ordered the grossest, most obnoxious slice he possibly could. I took pictures while he ate. Now watch Aaron eat.
Editor's Note: If you notice that any of the pictures are slightly blurred, that's because I was laughing so hard while I was taking them.
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.: posted by Vera
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Uber Joe
 I found out last night that my roommate Joe has a website. His friends gave it to him as a birthday present. Yup, that's him in the picture. That's also him in the headlamp to the left. Joe loves his headlamp. So do I. I wanted him to get his act together and join Friendster already, so I took this picture for his profile. He still hasn't joined though.
Joe and his friends also own another website: FUH2 - Fuck you and your H2. It's dedicated to flipping off oversized sports utility vehicles and taking pictures of that. Joe thinks it's going to be the Next Big Thing.
I also found out that Joe used to keep a website for the apartment we live in. Joe has been here the longest; I think it will be three years in October. Our street address is 343, and the website was the343.com. How cool is that? Unfortunately he let it expire a few months ago. But I'm working on getting it reinstated. Maybe.
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.: posted by Vera
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Ecosystem
My friend Starrie just did her first international DJ gig at a big party in Brazil, and she posted pictures. Looks like she had a great time. Way to go, Stjarna!
Editor's Note: The jacket in that picture was my Christmas present for Starrie last year. I found it at a thrift store in San Francisco.
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.: posted by Vera
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A lot has happened in Macromedialand over the last 24 hours. First, my Flash blog got added to the Macromedia News XML Aggregator. Then, Macromedia made the BIG announcement about its new product line, MX 2004. I sure am glad I redesigned my site just in time for all of this to go down.
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.: posted by Vera
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The History of Breakbeat Part I
I just finished translating Part I of Dr. Schmidt's History of Breakbeat, just like I said I was going to. Admittedly it's not the most elegant translation, but it will have to do. Part II coming soon.
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.: posted by Vera
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I just got back from the second and final day of the FlashKit conference. I had SUCH a blast. I really didn't expect this conference to be any more fun than Flash Forward but it totally was. I got to meet a slew of fabulous people some of which I really bonded with on a professional as well as personal level. Going to conferences makes me happy to be an adult. It makes me feel like I am part of a community that matters, that helps shape the future the way we want it to be. I left San Jose today having made three new best friends: Scott Manning, Jon Williams and Steve Ogden of Electric Rain.*
More detailed reports over here:
Day 1
Day 2
*If either of you found this page through your referral stats or through ego-gooling, I should tell you that this is my personal blog, separate from my Flash blog over here. Shhhh, don't tell anyone.
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.: posted by Vera
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Bianca kommt!
My sister is coming to visit me next month. She has never been to the United States. Not once. Not even to visit me. But now she is coming. I'm so happy I could cry. I can't wait to take her to all the good places and show her all the reasons I like living here. She will be here from September 18th to October 6th.
To find out more about Bianca, read the birthday post. Since then, she has returned from Sevilla, Spain and now lives in Cologne.
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.: posted by Vera
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Today I find myself at work at this ungodly hour. But I'm not staying here long. I'm just going to grab a few business cards and then head over to the FlashKit conference in San Jose. Yey! Conferences rule.
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.: posted by Vera
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Dr. Schmidt
It's time again for some musical product placement. A month ago I downloaded a mix from Electro Alliance and burnt it on CD, and it has made my day ever since. The mix is by Dr. Schmidt aka Andreas Schmehl. It's titled Electro Mix. You gotta love a title that gets right to the point. If you're at all inclined to enjoy Electro, you should check it out. It starts off sort of mellow and at times pretty, but then it soon becomes very unpretty, which works for me because really, Electro is not in the business of being pretty. My favorite parts are the one that starts at about 30:40 and the one at about 59 minutes that drops you off rather abruptly at the end of the mix. Don't be afraid. It has begun. Tracklist here. Thanks for a euphonic adventure, Dr. Schmidt.
Dr. Schmidt himself is an interesting character. He was involved with the first (and only?) German Breaks magazine Der Breakser, which is currently out of print. For this magazine he wrote a great two-part essay on the history of Breakbeat, which is also available on his site. Did you know, for instance, where the term Break came from? According to Dr. Schmidt, a Break in jazz was a break in the sense of a pause - a pause in all other instruments, leaving audible only the drumbeat. Wow. I had no idea. I thought that the "breakee" was the beat itself, that the drumbeat was being broken, cut, interrupted. History rules. I feel really bad for all of you who don't understand German because you won't be able to read Dr. Schmidt's History of BreakBeat. But! I am going to translate it. And I will put a link right here on this page when I'm done.
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.: posted by Vera
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Aprons
I love aprons. I just bought about a thousand of them on Ebay. Cognitive dissonance much? Not really. Expect me to be wearing an apron next time you see me.
Editor's Note: Here is a picture of the apron that started it all.
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.: posted by Vera
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Ten year exchange student anniversary
Ten years ago today something happened that would change my life forever. I got on an airplane, my first airplane ever no less, that took me to the United States. I was going to live with a host family and be an exchange student at a high school in California. For one year. Little did I know that the strange, big foreign country I was about to visit for the first time would eventually be my home and host my life. I thought that I was just going there to get a taste of the American culture and people, cultivate my English, make some friends and after one year, go back to Germany and pick up where I left off. But after a couple of months of being in California I said to myself "Hey, I could see myself living here. Wouldn't that be swell?" I liked the big streets, the big cities, the diversity of the people, the friendliness of the people, the openness to foreigners, the American slang, the street culture, the sun, the heat, the palm trees, the star sightings. The first time I rode by downtown LA, I had to fight tears of happiness. I'm not sure why. I think it had something to do with 90210.
But I knew that I had to go to college eventually. And I knew that college in the U.S. was expensive, especially for foreigners. So I didn't think it was possible for me to live in California until I had completed college somewhere cheaper, like Germany. After my year as an exchange student, the one year in which I learned something new - a word, an expression, a piece of culture, a piece of history - EVERY SINGLE DAY, I returned to Germany and still kind of expected to ease back into my old life. But one evening a few months later, my dad showed me a newspaper article that talked about the visa lottery. All I had to do is send in a piece of paper with my name, address, date of birth, and nationality. So I did. Six months later I received a notice in the mail saying that I had won. I won a greencard in the lottery. I had a decision to make. So did my parents. Since a greencard would allow me to work in the U.S., going to college there wouldn't be quite as insurmountable financially. So my parents were super cool and said "It's cool." They were willing to help support me spiritually and financially if I wanted to move back to California. I did. Two days after my German graduation ball, I returned to California and have not regretted it since.*
So let's all say it together: Happy Exchange Student Ten Year Anniversary, Vera!
*Except for one brief period of doubts in the summer of '97 while visiting Germany. As soon as I got back to California though, all the doubts were forgotten.
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.: posted by Vera
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My friend Lyzz visited me from LA this weekend. We ate and talked and danced and went to a house party. And today she came hooping with me. She was good! The hoop was up to her neck and to her hand in no time.
About four years ago, Lyzz and I had these matching teletubby backpacks. Hers was yellow, and mine was green. At the time we were still poor college students, and we fantasized about one day owning VW beetles. We thought that Lyzz should get a yellow one and I should get a green one, to match our backpacks. Well, we finally both have beetles now, though the colors are slightly off. Today, our two beetles went on their first joyride together!
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.: posted by Vera
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I am officially in the business of hoop making now. This week I made (and sold) three hoops: One for Cheyenne, one for Heather and one for Min Jung. Below is a picture of all three of them.
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.: posted by Vera
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When I have a crush on someone and I find a picture of them on the Internet, I right-click and save it for later. Is this normal behavior?
Speaking of crush: For a while when I was an exchange student in '93, I wasn't sure if the word was crush or crack. I must have announced several times that I have a crack on Patrick before the Danish exchange student Dina, who clearly was a little more down with it than I was, carefully corrected me.
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.: posted by Vera
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On Sunday afternoon we had a double feature BAH (Bay Area Hoopers) gathering in Golden Gate Park. Yes, there are two BAH's but they will be siamese twins from now on, if not more than that. An old BAH favorite, Jason, just moved out to the Bay Area and finally joined us again. It was a gorgeous day. Lots of people were in the park. There was a drum circle right next to where we were hooping, and people were going AT IT. This was the biggest BAH gathering to date. There were at least nine BAH members, and at least ten additional passers-by throughout the day who stopped and picked up a hoop or two. We had about twenty hoops total, plenty to share with other park dwellers. It was a great day to be alive and kicking and hooping in San Francisco, and I forgot my camera, but luckily, Amy posted pictures.
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.: posted by Vera
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All day today I had this distracting feeling of deja vu. I was at work, but it didn't feel like it was TODAY. It felt more like a few months earlier, right after I started this job, a la the days of Flash Forward. I drank my tea out of my rainbow mug, and I felt like I was that girl drinking her tea back in March. I looked at the green walls of the office. I saw my coworkers' faces and heard my coworkers' voices, and suddenly today didn't seem like the continuation of yesterday anymore. Today seemed like the continuation of some day in March when I barely knew these people. What was going on? Had enough time passed for the present that is "my life" to stand on its own, distinct from the time period I was getting deja vu's of? Was I finally realizing that things were very different for me now than they were then? What was different today?
Eventually I figured out what it was. I was wearing a different perfume today. The same perfume I used to wear back then, you know, in March. For the past month or so I had been wearing Angel a lot. But today I wore Rush for the first time in a while, and that's what was transplanting me back to March.
It's amazing how much a scent can affect your mental space.
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.: posted by Vera
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Colin just left. We had a great weekend. Friday night we did a lot of walking, which resulted in a lot of sleeping on Saturday. First we walked from my place all the way up to North Beach. We didn't plan to do this. We were going to walk to the nearest bus stop or get a cab. But we just kept walking, and we walked right past Market Street and right through Chinatown, and next thing we knew we were in North Beach. It took about two hours, I think, but it felt more like 45 minutes. I'm not sure what happened with space and time there. We ate yummy Gnocchi at Bocce Cafe. Afterwards we were going to get a cab, but just started walking again, and next thing we knew we were at 444 Jessie Street. We went to the Mezzanine to celebrate the ten year anniversary of XLR8R magazine. It kind of sucked though. The music wasn't great, and not many people were dancing. We left at about 2, and we were going to take a cab back to my place. But, you guessed it, we walked again instead.
Saturday morning we left my place around 11:30, by car this time, went to the Mission to have hangover burritos at Pancho Villa. Then we went up to the top of Twin Peaks and took in the view for a while, then went to Golden Gate Park. We were checking out the buffalos when we realized how tired we were. So we drove to a shady spot in the park and took a nap. It was great lying there, hearing the wind rustle through the trees, getting a whiff of a nearby barbecue every once in a while, and just letting the fatigue take over. After about an hour we headed over to Haight Street. Colin bought some Asian Underground at Amoeba, and I, as usual, didn't buy anything. In the car afterwards we listened to Future Breaks FM. We were tired again. We went back to my place and took another three hour nap (yes, of course in separate beds, stop asking those questions). We woke up hungry and had tapas at Picaro in the Mission. Then it was time for Kevin's 30th birthday party in Cole Valley. Happy Birthday, Kevin, and congrats on the book deal! Philo, Amy, Wendy and I had been invited to this party because we are the "hoop troupe," and what gets the party started better than hooping to Ozzy Osbourne? So we hooped for a while with Amy, Tantek, Chris, Jish, and Min Jung, blew into plastic birthday trumpets a few times, and at about 1 or so, Colin and I left to go to a warehouse party which also functioned as a Burning Man fundraiser. It was a great party but inconsistently so. The music kept stopping when the cops showed up. The fourth time the cops showed up, the music stopped for good, and we were asked to leave. But it was fun while it lasted. I ran into several people I know, including somebody from work. At one point, this goateed ponytailed DJ was playing some really filthy breaks, and I was having the time of my life, but then the cops came, and after the cops left, the breaks were replaced by house. Fuck! On the way home, Colin told me about all the "undergrounds" he used to go to in high school - think '92 and earlier - and that I enjoyed endlessly. When are we going to have parties again that you can only get to by sliding down a slide? I think it's about time.
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.: posted by Vera
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My friend Colin from LA is coming to visit this weekend. He should be on his way right now. I'm very excited. We haven't hung out since before I moved to Virginia in 2000. We were supposed to hang out last summer when I was down in LA for the boy's bar exam, but somehow it never happened. So now he is coming up, and we are going to have a fun-packed weekend.
Let me give you a little bit of history: Colin and I met during our junior years of college. I think the class was Distribution of Income or something like that, the first of a string of Economics classes we would have together. It all started when we were at a bar in Pasadena, celebrating another classmate's birthday. That's when I first noticed his contagious chuckle. From then on, I tried to be near him as much as I could in hopes of exercising my laugh lines. Shortly thereafter, we started writing emails to each other after class. I still have all of them. During that time I could often be seen rolling in circles around my desk laughing, or bursting into giggles in the middle of class because I suddenly started thinking about one of Colin's emails. We talked for hours on the phone. And Colin played cupid in my steamy love affair with Jungle: He took me to the long discontinued Jungle weekly Science in Santa Monica for the first time.
So yay, Colin is coming to town! He actually used to live in San Francisco for a while before we met, so this will be a memory trip for him in more ways than one.
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.: posted by Vera
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Hallo, Person von dimdi.de. Ich sehe, daß Du ziemlich viel Zeit hier auf meinem Schilfblatt verbringst. Kennen wir uns vielleicht? Falls ja, sag doch hallo!
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.: posted by Vera
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Yesterday my friend Edwin at work sent me an email which ended like this:
yay,
Edwin
I think from now on I want to sign all of my emails this way. You couldn't possibly exit a better way.
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.: posted by Vera
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 The campout/danceout/hoopout this weekend was one of the best things I have done in a while. Amber and Tantek were there. Aimee and Donovan were there. I met beautiful people named Richard, Derek, Benji, Kiran, Ranya, Justin, David, Dave and Karen the cutest naked couple, Alice in Wonderland, and many more. I got deep into Lura's heart and soul. Lura, much like me, thinks that if it's not bright green or bright tourquoise or bright pink or any combination thereof, it's not worth putting it on your body. Aimee and I got it glowin' on with our glowsticked hoops. I was not the only girl with a parasol. I lounged around on blankets and mattresses with strangers who budded into buddies.
 One of the cooler things of the weekend was that I talked to a girl I had met briefly over fours years ago, who had made quite an impact on my impressionable, easily infatuated self. Her name was Araya, and we met at a barbecue in Pasadena in May of 1999. She was about to move to San Francisco. She was 25 and had a five-year-old daughter. She told me about Moontribe, which was the first time I heard about it. I was smitten. I was happy to meet somebody that was 25, a mom, and still going to raves. Now I know of course that there are many parents (or non-parents) in their 30's or older who still rave but back then, at 23, I felt old at most of the raves I went to. I liked Araya when I first met her and was sad to see her leave Southern California. This weekend, I hung out with and near her for over 24 hours before it finally dawned on me that this might be the "Moontribe girl from the barbecue." I'm not sure what it was that finally made it click in my head. I did not remember that her name was Araya. But I did remember that she had curly hair, elfin features and a daughter, Jasmine, 9, who was at the campout as well. I was actually talking to Jasmine when the epiphany came. I raced over to Araya and asked her if she remembers being at a barbecue shortly before moving to San Francisco. She did. She only vaguely remembered talking to me, which makes sense given that the kind of impact she had on me is usually one-sided. I hope I run into her at more moontribish events from now on.
I'm tired. Emotionally enriched and tired. I had a motherfucking BLAST.
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.: posted by Vera
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I went out on a date last night. And today I got a very amusing email. Names changed for privacy protection.
Subject: feedback (via a 3rd party)
< moe[10:01] > i'm really looking forward to joe getting back from breakfast so we can discuss whether that was a date that i saw him on last night or not.
..< snip >...
< joe[11:13] > moe: yes, was date. Didn't go well because I talked too much.
< moe[11:20] > where did you meet her?
< joe[11:20] > dna
< moe[11:22] > do you usually talk to much?
< moe[11:22] > or was she not talking enough?
< joe[11:23] > I go through phases of talking too much. Currently at a high point. Takes a smart girl to evoke it, though (which in this case is unfortunate). *sigh*
< moe[11:23] > you are your own enemy
< joe[11:23] > yes.
< moe[11:23] > maybe she will give you another chance
< moe[11:24] > to keep your mouth shut
< joe[11:24] > perhaps. Still thinking about that.
< moe[11:25] > but you liked her
< joe[11:25] > yes
< moe[11:25] > invite her out on another date.
< joe[11:27] > I may do so. She's supposed to email me something... I'm gonna wait 'til I get that before choosing a course of further action.
I think this email gets him definite plus points for
1. courage
2. cleverness
3. making me giggle
4. calling me smart. Never mind that I was sitting there through the entire conversation thinking "I'm so stupid."
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.: posted by Vera
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I'm going camping this weekend with my brandnew friend Lura. We will be dancing all night and hooping all night and be generally merry and silly. See you all Monday!
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.: posted by Vera
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