CIPA ruled unconstitutional. “At the heart of the decision was one key point: Buggy software. The panel concluded that not only was current [internet filtering] technology far too problematic, but its tendency to both overblock and underblock verboten sites won’t go away.”CDA, COPA, CIPA: three strikes, boys. Now would you please take your balls and get the fuck off my internet.

A few of us in the Free2Be contingent made the front page of the Pride site. (Direct link.) That’s Dan on the right in the blue parka, and me directly to his left looking angular, red, and evil. I’m glad this picture made it up, though. I’ve finally decided to let my hair grow out.

I am most assuredly not dead. I am, however, not feeling very interesting right now. I’m sure that I will return to sharing tidbits of my tedious existence in short order. In the meantime, if you wish to share in the joys and miseries of the last month of my life, might I suggest a reasonable facsimile:

1. Construct a hamster wheel approximately seven feet in diameter.
2. Run until you pass out from exhaustion or are dead.

We’re here, We’re queer, We’re soaking wet: Pride 2002. So yeah, it rained. A lot. From 9 am to 3 pm, it did not stop. And it was cold. And it was fun anyway. Despite my fears, very little commercialism was to be found. Likewise, very little bible-thumping was present, though what little existed was more than was necessary.

I did come away from the event with a few tiny philosophical issues, though. In fact, I noticed that everyone’s response to the haters who did show up offended me more than their actual presence did. Ignore them, yes; taunt them, by all means; but attempt to draw them into the discourse? No! I heard the capital-G word more times from the podium than I did from behind the barricades, and it frankly irritated me. Not because I have any problem with religious gay folks — I realize that their internal & external struggles are that much harder, and that they need that much more community support, though I do not believe that was the appropriate forum. It’s just that that was the only part of the rally that made me feel we were all playing to the cameras — to straight folks, to Betty and Joe Sixpack — instead of to our fellow queers. I realize that we need to reach those people, but not as much as we need to reach queer folk, present and not.

So yes, I believe community self-validation should be the focus of an event like this. But I also think we may have gone a bit over the top with that. “2, 4, 6, 8, gay is just as straight!” Well, duh. My personal philosophy is more along the lines of “We’re here, We’re queer, leave us the hell alone.”

So now that the requisite bitching is out of the way, I have to say that the whole thing was an absolute blast. Very rarely have I had an opportunity to be around so many gay people and so few fake people all at the same time. It was a working example of taking community out of the clubs, and it was wonderful. Once a year is not often enough to experience such a thing. I plan to look around for other gay groups locally who are trying to do something similar, even if it means having to play softball or something like that.

In the news:The State (inaccurate attendance figures)
WIS-TV (with video)

I’ll be marching in the parade tomorrow. When I agreed to do so, I had forgotten that we are now closer to June than to March. I had also apparently forgotten that Columbia, while being comparatively cosmopolitan, is still actually in South Carolina. Not that I’m worried about that sort of thing. Much.

Local newsweekly feature with more information on the march, and the general state of the ‘Gay Agenda’ (hint: not good) in SC. It includes a rundown of all the bills, more than a few, introduced in the state House over the last six months specifically tailored to prevent GLBT folks from achieving equality.

Anyway, here’s hoping I actually feel like I’m doing something tomorrow, other than proudly proclaiming my affiliation with a marketing demographic. I can’t decide if that’s too cynical a view, not cynical enough, or just right.

I had several consultations throughout both middle and high school with this one particular guidance councilor who never really understood why I, despite making no secret that I genuinely liked her as a person, would not let her do her job. That is, get inside my head and help me figure out why I was so fucked up. I always got the feeling, as we sat making small talk about nothing at all of any relevance whatsoever, that she regarded me as a personal and professional challenge, a conundrum.

Lately I’ve noticed a parallel with one of my current relationships. Namely, the one between myself and the weblog software I’ve been trying to set up for the last three days. Everything will be going along smashingly, and then boom, total brick wall. Over and over again. And the most frustrating part is that this is something I’m supposed to be good at, something I plan to do at least semi-professionally at some point.

Despite the fact that I’m beginning to understand the frustration I put that poor woman through, there really is no reason why one would put me in mind of the other. I think Karma has tipped its hand in my direction.

PS2 cut to $199 — effective immediately. I finished the last Final Fantasy game available for the original playstation just yesterday. It must be a sign. Or at least, that’s what I’m telling the husband.

They also cut the cute little PSOne to $49. Add one of the custom car kits, and suddenly the entire rich back catalogue of PS games goes portable. (And from what I’ve heard, PSOnes play CD-R’s without a hitch, quite unlike the original PS. Ahem.)

Ursula K. Le Guin: On Despising Genres.“Only somebody who really reads in that field, really knows that field, can do [segregated shelving]. An expert. The reputation of the publisher means little any more: all big publishers are intensely commercial, most are subsidiaries of corporations that have no interest whatever in literature; their lists are controlled by Barnes and Noble and Borders; their books are principally chosen not by editors but by the accounting department.”Have I mentioned lately just how much I love this woman?

By the way, sorry about last week. It’s not you, it’s me. Or rather, my lack of time, patience, merely adequate hosting, and non-brain-dead weblog maintenance software.

I’m investigating options.

The first sign that a business (like, say, an apartment complex) isn’t exactly customer-service oriented may be that simply finding out who their corporate parent is defeats all of the detectiving skills that four more or less modern, wired, connected people can muster. Or it might be when the assistant manager insults your sexuality to your face, I dunno. Safe to say, though, that the cluetrain skipped more stops than just the e-business world. It’s also fairly safe to say, at this point, that someone’s world is going to be destroyed, even if my weapons are limited simply to my rapier wit.

How do you deal with something like this?

Yes, yet again. I can’t help it, I’m a tinkerer. Mostly typographical changes this time, but there is one radical change: after more than a year and a half, timestamps are gone, and permalinks migrate to the end of posts.

I think I’ve finally refined this particular design as far as it can go, so you’ll probably be looking at this for a while. Make any complaints now.

IESpell: spellcheck for IE. Does exactly what you think it should. (Where was this while I was on Blogger?)

SonicBlue ordered by court to spy on thousands of PVR users, report every click to studios. “Basically, under the guise of copyright laws, courts are going to be put in a position of telling technology companies how to build their products,” said Fred von Lohmann, an IP expert for the EFF.Yeah, Freddie boy, that about sums it up. For an example of the sort of mindset behind this, see this article at lawmeme, which quite effectively hangs Turner Broadcasting CEO Jamie Kellner with his own wagging tongue.

Paint-on LCDs. One tiny step closer to rollable, foldable portable computing? “Current LCDs sandwich the crystal between heavy glass plates. The complicated production process is time-consuming, expensive and restricts the size of screens to just 1 metre square. […] Broer and his colleagues have devised a technique that instead deposits a layer of liquid crystal onto a single underlying sheet.”