If I don't die by Thursday, I'll be roaring Friday night.

What's everyone looking at?



LUNCH!



That is NOT our bedroom!

Mess? What mess? I don't see no stinkin' mess!



Wardrobe call..



WTF is happening around here (Taffy has escaped 3 times so far...)

does it take to get it just right? LOTS!

Never a dull moment around here!

Crew Call 6:00 a.m.



What kitchen table?



Nope, not enough lights - lets blow a circuit!

For the next three days my house will be transformed into a movie set. UCSB film students will start descending at noon today and won't be gone until late Saturday night. It should be interesting to say the least...

And no, I'm not giving away the plot... that wouldn't be fair, but there will be a rather racy bedroom scene; I'll leave that to your imagination.

My first programming course was in 1978 and yes, we used punch cards and a dot matrix printer - I hated it. I tried again in 1980 with a dumb terminal hooked up to a mainframe but still hated it. Went to Japan in 1984 and learned to use a Japanese word processor in Japanese - really hated that. Came back to the US and started using ATs and XTs and portables you pushed around on a coffee cart... no hard drive but hey, I had a 1200 baud modem now, so it wasn't that bad. Moved back to Japan and things started to change just about the time Windows 3.1 and the Internet started to get on mere mortals' radars.

Then many moons ago, half a planet away I got interested in computers again. But it wasn't so much the computer than the computer had become a communications device. I was intrigued by Gopher and BBSs; Netscape hadn't been invented yet, but it was clear the direction things were going.

Spring forward a few years and I was in San Fransisco drinking the dot com kool-aid, and that, of course, led to a trip to nowhere... so there I was, a veteran BBS sys-op, owner of a personal vanity web site, author of on-line textbooks, a burned out shell of a poster from Eminds, Utne and Brainstorms. Where to go next?

Mindsay

That was many years ago, and I'm still posting here. That should speak volumes.

Well, fancy that. Good to see old friends drop by on occasion.

I know the allure of those big-city social networking sites... all glitz, bright lights, glittering eye candy and games to play. Then there's the newest electronic leash that only Data could love but enslaves the masses of thumb sore texters... that's not Mindsay.

Years ago, when this site started, there was a great deal of discussion about what made a 'virtual community' vibrant and thrive. Conversation, respect, tolerance, rules of conduct and yes, controlled conflict. For a while that was happening, but nothing ever stays the same. Technology marches on, new toys are delivered under the tree... people move on.

But as you cyber-walk through amorphous threads of electronic existence, remember the garden where the seeds were sown. And return when you can.

Which one is me?

This was 2 blocks from our house.

Quite the party!

More than 300 arrests were made over the weekend during Isla Vista’s annual Halloween Bacchanalia, Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Drew Sugars said Sunday. Another 700 citations were issued.

Yep, saw a lot of that!

Whoa, last night was wild! I'll post pics later but the streets were transformed into rivers of college-aged, costumed, sexed-up, wild things...

The cops were definitely out to take down anyone who couldn't stand up, but for the most part everyone was really well behaved. I'm sure stories will emerge throughout the day.

We have SEVEN cars in the driveway, three revelers sleeping on the living room floor, one on the couch, and who knows how many behind closed doors. It'll be hours before they start waking up.

How do you cure a hangover?

It's the calm before the storm. The "kids" are showering, getting costumes ready, doing what "kids" do and waiting for the sun to go down.

There are flashing signs at every entrance to Isla Vista: "All Laws Strictly Enforced." Two story tall Halogen lights are in place to light up the party streets. The police have warned every resident and guest (to the best of their ability) that they will be out in force with DUI checks and will patrol I.V. on foot, bicycle, horseback and squad cars. Of course that won't stop the kids from getting completely smashed.

Almost every year someone falls off one of the area cliffs too blind drunk to see the danger. Often they are sent home in a coffin. That's the really scary part about Halloween at the University of California Santa Barbara.

Last night I drifted off to sleep to the sounds of revelry and fire trucks, ambulances and police cars. Tonight will be 120% worse, or so I'm told. This is my first I.V. Halloween...

I'm bad... so very naughty... but those Butterfingers are just lying there... no one will notice if I have just one ... or maybe two ... or .... oh, what the heck, I'm going to Hell anyway.. grab a couple of Kit Kats while nobody's looking!

After several trips to the supermarket, post office, etc. we're about to go into lockdown mode. We have enough food, beer, and so on to last a few days. What we don't have we can always bike a couple of miles to get ... why?

Well, Isla Vista is about to get locked down, too. The cops are already starting to shut down roads, tow trucks are waiting nearby, and the police are warning people to move their cars now or you won't drive them for a couple of days. I even put a sign on our gate saying, "If you block this driveway without permission, you will be towed"... that's how bad parking is. (You can get out, but you can't come in.)

House guests are arriving... one couple already ventured down to the beach and came back with oil stains. Yes, Virginia, oil does naturally seep out of the sea bed around here, and if you get it on you, soap and water will get you nowhere. (think turpintine or vegetable oil)

More to come.

An estimated 50,000 people are expected to arrive here in the next day or so. We'll have an extra 10+ people staying just in this house....

LET THE WILD HALLOWEEN RUMPUS START!

Maybe you've seen this, but I think it's pretty cool.

Go to youtube.com click on any random video; now in the URL replace watch with warp.swf and see what happens when you hit enter. What are they up to?