it's time to relax. we leave for china tomorrow and i am so ready. don't get me wrong, i will totally miss avery and sydney puppy, of course, but this is a break that i need. we spend 10 days there. shopping, sightseeing, hanging out, going out for coffee, just absorbing the culture. i'm psyched. it's going to be an interesting experience, that's for sure. we have no idea what to expect, so we really have litle expectations. only expecting to relax with no schedule, no responsibilities and no deadlines. i'm loving the sound of it. i will get to see my good friend karl, who was one of my great friends from germany. our groups sort of adopted hiim into our program. he's a lovely chap. he's got a beautiful wife named bing and i'm super looking forward to spending time with them.

well- this is going to be short. i have to get back to avery and spend some time with him before we leave. he's staying in new mexico while we make the journey. not exactly on the way, but well worth it!

signing out -- - i'll write when we return (or if you're lucky maybe a nice little chinese entry)

L-plane out

[np: Haujobb - Solutions for a Small Planet]

Well, getting derailed is so often the way things go... The last few weeks have been an insane distraction from all things Endless Blue. Day job plus planning for a trip for China... Whew. There was a day there that I thought I was going to have to hop in a car, drive to Chicago, and have a cup of tea with the Chinese consulate. Yow.

I've also been pretty caught up in politics lately. I read a lot of blogs, trying to distill what is going on in America today. Pretty grim stuff, I might add. And although I am not normally one to wax political publicly, this just makes me sick. To summarize, "Abu" Alberto "Fredo" Gonzales is proposing a bunch of new, extremely draconian intellectual property rights laws. Here's a few lovely things the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 will do:

• Criminalize "attempting" to infringe copyright


• Create a new crime of life imprisonment for using pirated software


• Permit more wiretaps for piracy investigations


• Allow computers to be seized more readily


• Increase penalties for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention regulations


• Add penalties for "intended" copyright crimes


• Require Homeland Security to alert the Recording Industry Association of America

Once again, we see Big Media franticly attempting to lock down every single piece of property they own by buying out our political leaders. They continue to believe that with just the right laws, they can make all the honest consumer drones out of all the amoral thievies that are currently their customer base.

This kind of disconnect from reality is just amazing. Music culture itself is based on a certain amount of counter-culture and pushing the lines of the law. As a young music consumer, there is no way I would have been exposed to as much music as I was without a little good intentioned piracy. A friend would make me a tape of a tape that he thought was good. Now, as a copyright holder for the music for Endless Blue, I realize there will be a little of this kind of piracy for our stuff as well, and I'm okay with that. The *real* use of copyright law is to protect us from getting our music ripped off by a large advertising agency or record label -- protecting the little guy from the big guy. Not vice versa.