The Slashdot and Groklaw communities were so helpful in preparing for the deposition of the RIAA's "expert" witness, Dr. Doug Jacobson, we thought we'd come back and ask for your thoughts on what documents and/or data to request from the RIAA's 'investigator', MediaSentry, Inc. The documents we have so far are just printouts, which were used at Dr. Jacobson's deposition, specifically exhibits 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. Of course we have some ideas of our own about what to demand, but we want to leave no stone unturned. For the technical minded among you, this is your chance to be a part of bringing the RIAA's litigation campaign down.

The Interscope v. Rodriguez decision dismissing the RIAA's boilerplate complaint, and the $9250-per-song-file verdict in Capitol v. Thomas, have inspired some new dismissal motions in RIAA cases. In Charleston, South Carolina, Catherine Njuguna has moved to dismiss on the basis of the legal insufficiency of the RIAA's complaint and on constitutional grounds due to the excessive damages sought by the RIAA, while in Brooklyn, New York, MS victim Rae J Schwartz has moved to dismiss based solely on the complaint's failure to state a claim under Rodriguez and the Supreme Court decision, Bell Atlantic v. Twombly.

Jammie Thomas has filed a motion to set aside the $222,000 verdict obtained against her by the RIAA, based on allegations she infringed $23.76 worth of song files. Her motion papers (pdf) argue that the verdict is excessive and in violation of the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution, and should be reduced to $150 or less, or a new trial ordered. (See, e.g. UMG v. Lindor). It has been reported that the RIAA issued a statement that "Thomas [is] not taking responsibility for her actions, and .... they want to resolve the case in a "fair and reasonable" fashion. It is unfortunate that the defendant continues to avoid responsibility for her actions....". In my experience that is RIAA-speak for "after the verdict we have tried to make a settlement with her, but she wouldn't meet our terms".

A federal judge in Tampa, Florida, has ruled that an RIAA defendant's counterclaim against the record companies for conspiracy to use unlicensed investigators, access private computer records without permission, and commit extortion, may move forward. The Court also sustained claims for violations of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as well as a claim under Florida law for deceptive and unfair trade practices. The decision (pdf) by Judge Richard A. Lazzara in UMG v. DelCid rejected, in its entirety, the RIAA's assertion of "Noerr Pennington" immunity, since that defense does not apply to "sham litigations", and Ms. Del Cid alleges that the RIAA's cases are "sham".

Several weeks ago it was discovered that a California federal judge, in rejecting an RIAA application for default judgment, had dismissed the RIAA's standard complaint for failure to state a claim, calling it "conclusory" "boilerplate" "speculation" in Interscope v. Rodriguez. In the wake of that decision, a Queens, New York, woman being sued in Brooklyn federal court, Rae J Schwartz, has told the Court that she is making a motion to dismiss the complaint in her case, Elektra v. Schwartz. This is the first post-Interscope challenge to the RIAA's boilerplate, of which we are aware. This is the same case in which the RIAA had sent a letter to the Judge falsely indicating that AOL had "confirmed that defendant owned an internet access account through which copyrighted sound recordings were downloaded and distributed". Ms. Schwartz suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and has never engaged in file sharing, but the RIAA has pressed the case against her.

A few days ago it was reported that, in view of the RIAA's one-month delay in paying the $68,685.00 attorneys fee award in Capitol v. Foster, and its lawyers' failure to respond to Ms. Foster's lawyer's email, Ms. Foster filed a motion for entry of judgment so that she could go ahead with judgment enforcement proceedings. In response to that motion the RIAA submitted a statement that it had no objection to entry of judgment, and intimated that it thought there would be an automatic stay on enforcement of the judgment, and that it would ultimately file an appeal. After seeing that, Ms. Foster's lawyer has filed a motion for the Court to require the RIAA to post $210,000 in security to cover the past and future attorneys fees and costs which are expected to be incurred.

Can it be that the RIAA, or the "Big 4" record companies it represents, are short on funds? It turns out that despite the Judge's order, entered a month ago, telling them to pay Debbie Foster $68,685.23 in attorneys fees, in Capitol v. Foster, they have failed to make payment, and Ms. Foster has now had to ask the Court to enter Judgment, so that she can commence "post judgment collection proceedings". According to Ms. Foster's motion papers (pdf), her attorneys received no response to their email inquiry about payment. Perhaps the RIAA should ask their lawyers for a loan.

UMG Recordings, part of the Universal music group, one of the "Big 4" record companies, has brought suit against an eBay reseller of Promo CD's (pdf), in UMB v. Augusto, in California. The defendant, whose legal team includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is fighting back (pdf), claiming that his sales of the CD's are lawful under the "first sale" doctrine under Section 109 of the Copyright Act (17 USC 109), and counterclaiming against UMG for sending out false notices under the DMCA (Copyright Act Section 512).

Okay, if I don't mention the whole polyamory thing, just assume it's going well. I've got a ton of other stuff I've been wanting to write here, so enough about all that for now.

Jenny's sister is getting in to town tonight. She's going to be living with us for a while. She just graduated college with a double major in Journalism and Political Science. Now Albuquerque may not be a hotbed of journalistic action, but it's better than Bloomington, Indiana.

I doubt she's going to get a very good journalism job here, but that's not the point. The point is she needs to get the hell out of Indiana and see some of the rest of the country. Jenny and I have been thinking about moving to Seattle in a year or two, and Rachel could actually do pretty well there, journalism-wise. For now, she's got some web design skills that can pay the bills, and she can do some freelance work.

It will be nice having another smart, free thinking, well educated person to talk to. Rachel used to be a bit of an annoying know-it-all, but she's calmed down a bit after graduating and having to live in the real world for a while.

I've said she should start blogging, but she's very old-school. I've tried to tell her that traditional journalism is dead, but of course being young, she thinks she'll be the one to single handedly rescue the field from ignominy. The problem is that there are no real outlets for investigative journalism these days. News is entertainment, a way to sell eyeballs to advertisers. It doesn't matter how good a journalist you are if the owners and editors are all bent on ladling out pablum to the masses.

Poor kid, I wish her luck.

What a great weekend! Mr. Y. and Jenny and I spent the entire weekend together. We hung out Friday night, just talking well into the next morning. It started out with some political discussion, and we are all very much on the same page politically. Then it got into some very deep philosophical discussion. I kinda blew his mind a little. But the best part is when the conversation turned to personal matters. Jenny and I started discussing some of the work I want to do on myself, anger issues, my family and things like that. My opening up like that, and talking about myself in such a non defensive way encouraged him to as well. Jenny said (with only a tinge of jealousy) that he had said things about himself that he'd never even shared with her. Funny thing, Mr. Y. and I have some very similar childhood experiences.

The more I connect with him, the more I like him. This feels so much more balanced. Even Jenny opened up and shared stories I'd never heard in seven years together. We really bonded emotionally. We'd only planned to hang out Friday night, as we had some chores to do Saturday, but we all had such a great time, we ended up just hanging out all weekend.

We fooled around some. This was the second time all three of us have been sexual together. The first time we were hanging out on the couch last weekend and somehow Jenny's skirt and panties disappeared and he was fingering her while I was kissing her, until she got off, and that was that. This time, we all went to the bedroom and it went quite a bit further.

I'd always wondered how he would react, if it would be scary or embarrassing for him because of his ED issues and the fact that he's never before been sexual with another man present. Well, earlier it had all come out that, yes, we all knew each others dirty little secrets, and we were really all okay with that. But in situations like these, ask if you aren't sure. Negotiation is key. So I asked him, "Mr. Y., I really want to have sex with her now, is that okay?" and he said yes, and it was very good.

Both Mr. Y. and I like being dominant during sex, and Jenny loves being submissive. One of the reasons that I've wanted this is that sharing a woman like that is very dominant. Saying what you're going to do to her, or telling the other guy what to do, that's very very hot. BDSM is all about control and power. Specifically, playing at loss of control and taking of someone else's power, when it is really sharing of control and power.

Well, I don't want to get into too many details here, suffice it to say that Saturday was a lot of fun on a different level than Friday night. Sunday we all just hung out and watched movies and didn't really talk much or fool around. It felt like being with old friends, just very comfortable and safe.

Mr. Y. said I was one of the most amazing person he'd ever met. He said he really liked me, and that he felt more connected to me than to his own family. Jenny was amazed, and I almost think I detected a hint of jealousy that he opened up to me like that when he was so closed and defensive with her.

I need a close platonic male friend, and he needs one even more. There's still plenty of opportunity for this all to go horribly, horribly wrong, but it is looking more and more like my initial assessment is right on the money. Things are going how I wanted them to in the beginning.

Jenny put my ring back on my finger today. It's her thirty second birthday today. She begged me not to get her anything so I got her a card that plays a clip from "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)." She loved it. Her real present, and the reason for the title of this JE: she and Mr. Y. are giving it a go as friends with privileges.

He's redeemed himself quite a bit, and restored my faith in my ability to asses character. He admitted that he'd sabotaged things with Jenny out of hurt and fear. He admitted to projecting about the alcoholism issue. He apologized for treating her poorly and acknowledged that he was not ready for a partnership. He agreed that it would be better if we all could be friends and hang out, and said he would try. He said he was comfortable with the fact that I would come first, and he and Jenny would see each other a couple times a week.

Now that's what I wanted from the get go. And he lives in the same apartment complex, but all the way over at the other side. In a much better apartment. With air conditioning. And he hasn't had time to bachelorize the place yet. So it's a place Jenny feels comfortable being and she can get there and back on her own, an issue as she doesn't drive. We could all hang out there and not have to shift piles of bachelor crap to sit.

He got some side work and can in theory almost double his income, which would put him in my income bracket. I do not mention this out of crass materialism, but because of the self esteem issue. And it helps Jenny too, again, not because she is a gold digger, but because she wants the people in her life to live up to their potential.

We paid for the moving, renting a truck and paying Malcolm's brothers $90 to help. We ate the cost of the first two weeks' rent on this apartment. We ate the deposit on his apartment. We gave him $200 for the inconvenience of luring him out of his rat hole, upturning his life, and then dumping him.

So, he gets a better apartment and better, more fulfilling work to pay for it, he makes out like a bandit, and gets a fuck buddy with no strings attached. Hell, she's pulling for him to get an actual girlfriend and won't be too sad if the sex has to stop. In fact, he's on a bit of thin ice in that department anyway. He may have redeemed himself, but he still has some work to do if he wants to stay in our lives as more than just a friend.

Really all he has to do is be the guy he fronted as in the first month of this whole cartoon train wreck. You know the train wreck where the train careens off of a broken track, barrel rolls, and ends up right back on the tracks again? That's the one I mean.

The Beatles "Because" just came up on my Winamp random shuffle. The line "love is old, love is new" played right as I wrote that last bit. I love my life. I just need to learn to trust a little more, and have a little, teeny-tiny bit more patience.

Now, lest you, dear reader, think we are deranged, moronic, or merely naive, I should explain that Jenny and I have a plan. We got a hotel room Wednesday night, I took Thursday off, and we hashed shit out. And had a lot of sex, but that's beside the point. We really analyzed where our relationship had gone off track. We apologized for old crap we really had never come completely clean about. We stated shit clearly, and listened without defensiveness.

We're going into couple's and individual therapy. Well, Jenny already is in therapy, though she hasn't been since we broke up as she didn't have the money to pay for it herself, and wouldn't put that onto Mr. Y. We both know our issues, both individually and what we have to work on together, and we both can open up to a paid therapist easily, so therapy should be very productive. We're basically going in with the attitude, this is what we think we have to work on, what do you think? And what are some concrete, productive behavior modification techniques we can use here?

She needs to work on forgiving and letting go. We both have some family issues to deal with, nothing horrendous, but neither of our families were the Cleavers. Hell, I haven't talked to my dad in several years. Neither of us can be bothered to try any more, I guess. I've got anger issues. It's something I was just starting to work on in re-evaluation counseling and with Meg when she broke up with me. Then Mark swept me off my feet and carried me off just to dump me in LA five moths later, and I never got back into RC. It's a bit cultish for my tastes, despite it's potent techniques and old school class war slant.

You know? I think four years without Rainbow Gatherings had something to do with my retreat from my self. A contributory influence, anyway. I still feel so good, so clear, focused, and in touch with myself. Looking back, I contributed a lot to the final jumping of the track. I became needy and demanding. Bitchy, even. It was harder for me than I let on. I knew better! I've been through infatuations. We talked about "New Relationship Energy" at Poly Paths in Hawaii all the time. I didn't give them enough space. Not that I blame myself completely.

Blame is a lame game, anyway. Four Agreements theory, developed millenia ago in the Americas by Smoky Mirror: a three part mental virus has invaded our minds through our childhood belief acceptance mechanisms. The Judge piece places judgment on every moment based on the Book of Law piece, and the Victim is punished whenever the universe, including the self (and vice versa, it's semantically equivalent anyway) fails to live up to the belief system encoded in the Book. The part of the Book that is the same across most viral belief systems is that blame is good. That's how most of them spread.

Judge not lest ye be judged, but we're all guilty of original sin, WTF? Bad virus. Bad, naughty virus. But I digress.

Anyone reading this far, I apologize, but that's just how my mind works: I go off on tangents all the frickin' time. I'm not writing this for you anyhow. What are you doing reading my journal anyway? Perverts. You know, I do try to rein it in a bit and not go all stream of consciousness on your asses, because I have a special fondness for perverts.

One problem in our relationship has been our sex life. And I'm a lot to blame. I never spent a lot of time around any positive male role models growing up. Moving around a lot as a kid, I picked up a kind of natural mimicry, taking on the vocal mannerisms and body language of the people around me. And the person I spent the most time around was my mom, soooo.....

I come across as gay. I just learned this, can you imagine? Now, I've tried it. Given it a fair go. I don't particularly like cock. I mean, it's nice for the kink factor, but it gets old for me. I especially don't like men's bodies. I like curves. But when I'm "being myself" I fall back on mannerisms I picked up from my mother, not my father, and I come across as gay. I wondered why gay men were always hitting on me. I guess no one's really had the courage to tell me up till now.

But the beauty part is that I'm not attached to any particular marker of self. Well, a few of the so-called better self judgments still, to my shame. Judging yourself as better is judging something in the universe as worse, and the only one you have to punish for that egregious fucking error on the universe's part is yourself. Oh fuck, let down by reality again, what a bummer. Why does that keep happening?

I'm a natural mimic and Jenny is a genius acting coach. We went over a few things in specifics in the hotel. I'm far too expressive, men are macho and stoic. I walk like a girl, I should walk without bouncing so much. I cuddle up to her, rather than grabbing her and pulling her to me. I'm too tentative in seducing her and too hurt by rejection. So I've got a few pointers now, and it seems to be working.

It was a nice thing, getting my self confidence and self direction back before getting that call from Jenny. The call was nice, too, what with the abject apology and all. She has been especially nice to me. I've been especially nice to her, in ways she likes. Communication has always been our strong suit. When we put our minds to it, and we don't let our hurt get in the way, we can really communicate openly and honestly about anything. Now we've talked about the things we'd never had the courage or presence of mind to talk about before, things built up over years, and we have a commitment to work on them with professional assistance. I'm cautiously optimistic. But then, I'm nearly always cautiously optimistic. Unless I get attached to outcomes, that's a big no-no.

It's Jenny's thirty-second birthday. We hooked up a little over seven years ago, right after the Rainbow Gathering in Montana. She is with Mr. Y tonight. They both had to ask many times if that was all right. The three of us appear to be communicating better. Well, baby steps in the right direction are still steps in the right direction.

It's the least I can do, I have been very lazy in recent years. I've put a lot on Jenny, made her my entire emotional support structure, which isn't very healthy. I need to branch out a bit. Breaking up with her and going to the Rainbow Gathering has done a lot to remind me of the man I used to be, but I'll still have to be vigilant of backsliding and actively seek out new behaviors and situations where I can get my needs met outside of my marriage.

It's not like I need a lot. I need to be involved in a group effort that motivates me, that I can feel good about. I need to connect with people on a heart to heart level. And I need a certain amount of physical affection. Not necessarily sex, quite frankly numerous hugs are enough to at least comfort and silence the adorable little animal part of my nature. At Rainbow, all these things are just right there, within easy reach.

But I've had that in Babylon, as we call the outside world at Gatherings. Almost always in a joking manner but, you know, it is a diverse group and for some people it is their entire life. It's not hard to find if you seek it out instead of obsessing over the problems in your relationship, many of which are directly caused by said obsessing.

Ah, who am I kidding with the cautiously optimistic. This is a high water mark in our relationship. We needed the break. She needed to remember what she was actually giving up, and what she was potentially getting. She's never ridden that roller-coaster before, all her crushes have been unrequited disasters with men of, how to put this? indecisive sexuality. Then me. Then Mr. Y., who does not only talk a good talk but can pull something remarkable out of a rather distressing set of life experiences now and then. She was a little naive, relationship-wise. Now she's much less so.

I needed to remember who I am. I don't blame myself for collapsing into her after the fucking unstoppable whirlwind roller-coaster of a life I've had. Security is for suckers, though. And so is believing any of your own ramblings.

Because it all has to mean something, doesn't it? Because if it doesn't mean anything at all outside of what it is and what we've arbitrarily made it in our minds, then what the hell is self for anyway? And then we'd have to just look at what it is and not what we think it means. That scares the hell out of most people. Not knowing means death to the ego self. It thinks it bears full responsibility for creating order out of the raw chaos of reality and thus ensuring the survival of the meatware. That is actually a dangerous vanity.

Well cheers! Here's to staring into the void. Amusing, entertaining, endlessly thrilling, where there is no definition, division or partition and therefore, there are all of those things because not-this is a definition too. In that raw undifferentiated state that is the root and the resting place of all conscious moments, all concerns of the self are as one with all else. Subject and object are one and all that nonsense. It's a fun place to visit but I still can't live there, what with the draftiness and all.

Okay, sorry for the cliffhanger! Jenny and I are giving it another shot. The last few days with her have been like old times: easy, fun and comfortable. Now, we aren't making any grand predictions on whether it will work or not, but we have a plan. Couples and individual therapy for both of us. We've mapped out specific issues that we need to work on. Our little break has also helped defuse some pent up crap we've both been holding on to. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.

So what happened? Why the about face? Mr. Y. showed his true colors. He had come across as someone who had been through hell but come out the other side stronger and wiser. Truth is, he'd never come out the other side. He has absolutely no capacity for introspection, all he knows how to do is hide. As soon as he thought he had Jenny, all the hurt and neediness came pouring out. Plus, he has absolutely nothing to bring to the table. He makes about half what I make. He can't cook, he doesn't know how to clean, and he isn't handy. He's physically much weaker than I am. He oscillates between two modes, pent-up stoic and crying, raving loon. He won't consider therapy. Then there's the illness, turns out he's also bulimic. Plus the ED issues. And he won't do anything about any of it except take klonopin.

Now Jenny has been brutally honest about herself from the get go. She told him she gets emotional. She explained exactly what she wants from a partnership, and what she can bring to the table. He presented himself as someone who could meet her needs, and he simply can't. Jenny has never been through a requited infatuation before. I tried to warn her. Well, now she knows: when infatuated, don't trust what your heart is saying, and don't trust what the other person is saying. Give it time and the truth will come out.

The truth, in Mr. Y.'s case, is that he is a freaking mess. And prone to abuse. He told her that she liked getting in fights and being humiliated. He wouldn't let her set a safe word when they played rough, for fuck's sake. That's a deal breaker right there, in my book. He drinks like a fish and does stupid things while drunk. Jenny does not need to be around someone who drinks that much, she has enough trouble staying in control while drinking as it is, she doesn't need anyone egging her on. The funny part? He yells at her about being an alcoholic. He called her, drunk off his ass, and told her she had to stop drinking. How out of touch can you get?

He has extreme difficulty apologizing or admitting he is wrong. He claimed to be comfortable with her emotions, and he simply isn't. He has no drive, being essentially stuck in the same life situation for the last ten years. He has no friends. He doesn't know how to negotiate fairly. He can't honestly look at what he's feeling, what he's capable of giving, or what his real motivations are. In short, he's about as far away from partner material as it's possible to get and still function in the world.

Jenny admits to being too much of a princess. She's learned a lot about deescalating arguments, because she had vowed not to make the mistakes with him that she made with me. Even when I was furious with her during the break up, she stayed calm. She's vowed to make it a habit.

Jenny has also let go of her attachment to her emotions. She's identified with them all her life. Being an actress, she felt that being true to her feelings was crucial. Now she has figured out that being true to her feeling does not mean letting them control her. Feelings are like puppies. They need discipline to be secure, or they will run amok. We can acknowledge and respect our feelings while controlling them and letting them out in appropriate ways, in appropriate settings.

As for me, well, I need to let things go. I need to be more forthright and not bottle my feelings up trying to be the strong one. I need to assert myself more. Trying too hard to make this relationship work had turned me kind of girly, and that is a big turn off for Jenny. The same thing happened with Mr. Y. only much more quickly. Jenny realized that she needs certain things in order to be turned on.

We've talked about this a lot, and it's mostly subtle stuff. She'd like it if I wore cologne and deodorant. My 'sexy faces' aren't, at all. For her, sexy means stoic, manly. Not girly goo-goo eyes. I shouldn't snuggle up to her, I should pull her to me. During seduction, I need to touch her deliberately and slowly. I've been too grabby and unfocused. I also, and this is a very common complaint with women, need to spend more time on the build up and not go straight for the erogenous zones. In bed, my technique is top notch, but my seduction and foreplay techniques need work. No problem.

My mom is ecstatic about us giving it another shot. Her mom is happy if we're happy. Her dad is still mad at her. Her friends will probably secretly think she's an idiot. My friends will probably tell me I'm an idiot to my face. But at least I've always presented a balanced picture. I've asked her, and she's admitted she has a tendency to vent with her friends without putting things in perspective. Damn. I'd always wondered why they all were a bit stand-offish towards me. I told her, if they think you're an idiot, it's because you've never told them about the good side of our relationship.

Mr. Y. did not take the news well. He went on a two day bender and didn't go in to work. Actually, she broke up with him before she had any kind of confirmation from me that I would take her back. But in his mind, she's weak and cowardly and went back to me because of the money issue. Hah. She never wanted him to make more money, she just didn't want him coming home every night and crying like a baby because his job sucks so much.

We re-switched our leases yesterday. He couldn't even talk to us while we were signing papers. He wouldn't even take off his sun glasses. I feel sorry for him. The whole thing makes me so sad. I did not want things to go down this way. He tried to break Jenny and I up, telling her he couldn't take the polyamory thing. Not that he ever told ME that, of course. After I had made my peace with the situation, I tried to keep the two of them together, telling Jenny to go easy on him, to give him a chance. But in his mind, I'm an angry violent jerk and she's an idiot for going back to me. Sad.

People who have never been really don't understand the Rainbow Gathering. That's okay, plenty of people who have been don't understand it either. Folks think it's just hippies, it's not. For instance, there are two Jesus camps that come every year, the 'purity' Jesus camp, and the camp Jesus would actually want to hang out in if he came back. The Jews pack their strict and lax sects into one camp. The Baha'i only have one camp as well, while the Hare Krishnas have had up to three different camps some years. There's a twelve step camp, fer cryin' out loud. And Fairy Camp is not a bunch of happy hetero hippies with fairy wings on. So, you know, Rainbow is not all one thing.

There are two major types that come, though. Hippies and Crusty Punks. How to tell them apart? Hippies like The Dead (still!), String Cheese Incident, & Phish. Crusty Punks like The Misfits, The Dead Kennedy's, and Crass. Hippies have dreads. Crusties have shaved heads. Hippies have tattoos of Buddha. Crusties have tattoos of Rat Fink. Hippies say "We love you, brother!" Crusties reply, "We tolerate you."

Then there are the people like me, or Rob Savoy, or Hawker, or Calamity Jane, who don't really fit any category. Actually, we're in the "hardcore" category, people who go to Rainbow primarily as a form of service, who work our asses off, who don't have a big ego or an agenda to push. You can tell the hardcore kids because we don't have an official outfit, but we all have a ton of gear strapped all over, we generally look tired but happy, and we are often found discussing the finer points of duct taping people to trees.

There is one last type. The Rainbow Elders. There is no heirarchy at Rainbow, it's Anarchy. Only, there is a heirarchy at Rainbow, and everyone knows it. People who have been doing it for 35 years are in a class of their own. They generally don't do much of anything except sit around, smoke pot, tell us all what to do, bitch about the fact that we never do what they tell us to, and complain about "kids these days." They can often be found in our consensus decision making circles because they actually have the patience for it, and would rather sit around and make decisions that someone else will have to carry out than just getting off their asses and doing it. But we love them anyway.

The LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers: covers rangers, wildlife officers, sheriffs, ATF agents, and various other authority figures) were pretty bad this year. They were ticketing women for going topless on main trail. I'm sorry, but I think most everyone in that damn forest was in agreement that we like seeing topless hippie chicks. We really don't need to be protected from boobies. I don't believe I have ever felt in any kind of danger from a breast. They were also towing cars that weren't ALL the way off the road, and ticketing people for drug possession. It wasn't the worst I've seen, but it was pretty bad.

Now, I'm going to hand out a little TMI. I had the opposite problem that I usually do this year. I was constipated. Normally at Rainbow, what with the constant bleach water disinfection, the beans and rice diet, and the questionable water, I get a bit... loose. I think my bowels remembered Rainbow, and preemptively clenched up. So I didn't have to use the trench shitters as often as some years, thankfully.

It's not exactly fun. We dig them close, but not too close to kitchens, off in the woods with some privacy, but you will still find yourself squatting over an 8 inch wide trench with some crusty chick on one side and some hippie guy on the other. No privacy. So, you go, sprinkle on some ash or preferably lime to keep the flies out, a little dirt, then use the bleach hand wash hanging from a nearby tree. If you're squeamish, you may be able to find one or two shitters with tarp covers and seats, but you'll be waiting in line for half an hour with all the other squeamish types.

So where was I in my little narrative? The 3rd, the night we did the gong show. I headed over to G-Funk, even more intent on plugging in there now that my friends Jason and Jessica were there. Everyone was still pretty freaked about the meningitis. I'd gotten some more info from my contacts at CALM. That's when we learned it was bacterial, not viral, and thus a lot more transmissible, although easier to cure. But no one from either CALM camp had seen anyone with either of the major symptoms. And the incubation period is 4-72 hours, and the woman who had it had been out of the gathering for over 48 hours, so we were really almost past the crisis point.

Aaron presented a volunteer project he and the G-Funk crew had been coordinating, and I was impressed. You see, at Rainbow we've got the skills to go into a situation with no infrastructure, not knowing what kind of equipment or food is going to show up, or when, or even which people, and we make food happen in large quantities. We can handle complete chaos and lack of coordination without batting an eye. Now, there is another situation where those kind of skills are invaluable: disasters.

Aaron has been taking Rainbow know-how to disaster sites like New Orleans and Wavelands for several years now, and this last year he has been networking like crazy with local, State and Federal agencies. They know us now, and they know that we know how to get things done. He is trying to expand and looking for volunteers. Well, I've been looking to volunteer for something I believe in, so this could be a good fit for me.

After, we prepared for the next show: the Gong Show. That's our anti-talent show. You go on stage, you will be gonged whether you've got talent or not. So if you actually have talent, best to wait for the Fourth, when we do the real talent show. Aaron and the other regulars were still a little freaked about the meningitis, so they asked if anyone else wanted to MC the show, and I volunteered. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and I turned out to be very good at MCing a Gong Show and making snarky comments about the performances. The audience laughed a lot, anyhow. Whenever we'd run short on suckers^Wperformers I would whip out my worst cow and elephant jokes to torment the audience with until someone volunteered. "Ha HA! You can't gong me, I'm the MC! And I WILL keep telling bad jokes until someone gets down here and makes a fool of themselves."

On the Fourth, the way things are supposed to work anyway, we have silence in the morning. People assemble at main meadow around the peace pole and silently pray for peace. Around noon, the kids from Kiddie Village parade in, dressed in cute costumes they all made that morning. The kids give a shout, we do our om, then it's a wild crazy party with lots of drums.

Only, it never actually works that way. In all my years, I have only once seen the kids make it all the way into main meadow and give a shout before the om. This year we didn't even have a meadow, we a had a rocky peninsula in the middle of the overflowing creek. People were circled up in the water. The kids made it almost to the bridge before the om. The one nice thing was the fact that, after dancing up a storm, one could go jump in the creek to cool off.

I ate some, um, porcini mushrooms? Well, some kind of mushrooms anyhow, I'm trying to maintain a little deniability here. J & J stuffed them into my mouth after the om. They were on some 2CT7 someone had given them. We all headed off to set up a base camp near G-Funk. I ended up running down to dance several times, they were kind of a hippie puddle in their hammock, 2CT7 being a little more, ah, intense than the amount of fungi I ate, anyhow.

The castle had been trashed by a pack of miniature hippies and crusties who bore a resemblance to something out of "Lord of the Flies," so Aaron and I set about fixing it up. While we were busy working, a hot hippie chick showed up and demanded attention. Aaron and I kind of ignored her, and she said, "Well, if no one is going to talk to me, I'm leaving!" I said, "Hey, nothing personal but as you can see, we're actally working hard here trying to get this place ready for tonight." She stormed off anyway. You know? The majority of really hot people suck.

I had been fighting off the sniffles, I'd jammed my knee carrying a sixty pound pack down a 15% slope, my feet hurt, and the fungi was wearing off. I stayed and helped coordinate acts for an hour or so, then begged off for the night. The next day, J & J woke me up saying goodbye, so I was sad, then it started to rain in torrents again, and I basically said, "Fuck it. I've got water and power bars and a book to read. My knee still hurts and I still have the sniffles. I am not coming out of my tent today." And I didn't, but I finished Vernor Vinge's newest book, "Rainbows End."

Friday, I was feeling much better, it looked like the rain had let up again, and I had two tiny pieces of paper to munch, courtesy of J & J. I did so, and waited for the usual effects. An hour went by. Nothing. Then another, still nothing, and it started to rain like crazy. I went a little "Milton from Office Space" and started muttering, "That's the last straw, I told them. Burn it down!" I packed up my gear, this road punk asked if I needed my tent and I was so intent on getting out, I said "Take it!"

I wasn't angry or that bummed out: just really, really ready to be dry again. I found a pack of crusty punks on the trail out, trying to get to Santa Fe, so I said, "If you can be ready in half an hour, you've got a ride." I had to get a pack of hippies to help push my car out of the mud it had sunk into during all the rains, and it took the kids a while to get ready (I say kids because they were, I think, all under 21.) so I gave rides up and down the hill to folks packing stuff out.

Finally, as we hit the main road out, the damn little pieces of paper took effect, though three hours late and much weaker than advertised, probably from all the dampness diluting things. In the end, it turned out to be just enough to keep me awake and alert through the night, without actually making the road jump and swirl.

It was nice having company for the ride home. They were nice kids, but I felt a bit melancholy. I remember being a kid, on the road, no commitments, no security, perfect freedom. I miss it, and yet I don't. I felt the draw of that freedom, but at the same time, you know, one of them had a hernia and no medical insurance, and that's no fun. The 18 year old girl had lost her only pair of shoes at the gathering. They all had only what they could carry.

All that is fun and adventurous when you're 18, but it's kind of sad and pathetic if you're 36. We left around 9 at night, stopped at the "Ozone Burger Barn," which has the most delicious burgers and the most stereotypical back-woods cousin-lovin' Arkansas family I have ever seen running the place. None of the kids had a license so I ended up driving all night. We pulled into my mom's in Albuquerque around 9 the next morning, because I had to wait until the 14th to move into my new place. They got cleaned up, I drove them up to Santa Fe and dropped them off in a parking lot, seeing as they don't really have homes. I drove back home.

I was just about to fall asleep when I thought to plug in my phone and see if I had any messages. There was one. From Jenny. Saying, "I made a horrible, horrible mistake. I thought the problem was our relationship, but now I have the same issues with Mr. Y. The problem has been me all along! I'm so sorry, and I know you probably don't want me anymore, but I can't stay with him, and I want to give it a second try with you. I miss you so much. I'm going to work on my issues. Call me."

More on that later.

Wow. How I let myself go four years without going to a National Rainbow Gathering, I don't know. This was just what I needed. I feel centered again, like my old self. I lost at least five pounds of fat and put on quite a bit of muscle. My endurance and stamina are much better. I worked my ass off, literally. Working that hard is never that much fun outside of Rainbow.

I left early last Friday. One of my riders had canceled. Well, simply not called me is more like it. The other two called and canceled at the very last minute. So I made the twelve hour drive alone, getting into the Ozarks after dark. Luckily, there was a full moon, so the four mile hike into the gathering was not too bad. My first pack load consisted of clothes, tent, sleeping bag, and pad. Just enough stuff to throw down beside the trail and fall asleep.

The next day, I scouted out the site. It was about three miles from one end to the other. It was pretty linear, like most eastern gatherings that follow a watercourse. Western gatherings tend to be more circular, spreading out from a central meadow. I stopped in at CALM (the Center for Alternative Living Medicine, our med tent.) where I have volunteered many times and was disappointed to find out that one of my exes and two of my best friends wouldn't be there this year.

The site was full of mud and poison ivy. It wasn't as bad as the Pennsylvania gathering, which was also muddy, but had sharper rocks, but CALM still had plenty of foot wounds to deal with. I hiked back out to my car and brought in what I thought was my bag of med supplies, but turned out to be the bag of trade goods. I may have been a little unfocused due to the, um, herbal tincture I took that morning.

I decided that, as my two best friends at CALM were not showing up that year, I would volunteer somewhere else. I had always wanted to volunteer at the Granola Funk theater, because they always seem to have a lot of fun, there are always tons of cute hippie chicks there, and they have their shit together. There are definitely different levels of competency going on at the various kitchens and other groups, with CALM and Shanti Sena (the peace keeping group) at the top and various first time kitchens at the bottom.

CALM and Shanti Sena volunteers often put in 12 to 16 hour days. Me, I try to put in 6 to 8 hour days most of the time, with a few days off. G-Funk doesn't work super hard, aside from putting the stage together the work is mostly at night, performing or facilitating same. I may have been a first-timer at G-Funk, but I still got to produce a skit the first night I was there.

We did our version of The Dating Game on the 1st, with skits in between the rounds. My skit was "Rainbow Rangers," about a new force for peace and wellness, only they are really, really bad at it, offering such advice as a salt and dog poop poultice for deep wounds and vigorous scratching for poison ivy. Then I come out with a snake bite, and the Rangers offer the good advice of sucking the poison out. Only, I got the snake bite in a delicate place, while peeing, so the Rangers say, "You're on your own!" and flee. A cute 30 second skit, and it took me all of a minute to think it up. I rounded up three cute Rainbow sisters (we call everyone 'brother' and 'sister' at the gathering)and we not only pulled it off, it went over very well. Not that it takes any kind of genius to entertain stoned hippies in the woods.

The next day I hiked out for that pack of med supplies I had mistakenly left up the day before. I managed to catch a shuttle, thankfully. Giving lots of donations of, ah, herbal tinctures to the various groups actually doing work has its advantages. I get up to the top of the hill, and run into my two best friends in the whole world. Okay, I have an actual crush on both of them and have for years. Jessica and Jason, you know I love you.

So, my gathering just got ten times better. We hiked back in and I dropped off the med supplies. Seven Song, who runs an herbalism school and brings his students to Rainbow every year as a final exam, roped me into helping him set up a satellite CALM on the far side of the gathering, near the mud-pit we called the loop trail. I helped bring all the supplies over, and then went to G-Funk, which was a few hundred yards from the site of the satellite CALM.

That was when I learned the really scary scary bad thing. We had a case of meningitis at the gathering, and we didn't yet know if it was viral or bacterial. And it came in with a G-Funk sister. All of G-Funk had been traveling, eating and sleeping with this girl. They were pretty scared. Then we found out it was bacterial, the most transmissible. Fortunately, no one else at the gathering ended up catching it, though the CDC showed up to track and oversee.

More about overzealous forest service and sheriffs, the joys of trench shitters, more performances, rainbow crazies, hot naked hippie chicks, and rainbow cuisine in my next JE. I do actually have some catching up to do here at work...

I've always wanted to write a rogue-like. I've been thinking about it recently, and I want to try something new. My idea? A rouge-sim. It would have elements of city building, resource management, and large scale combat as well as traditional rogue-like elements.

I have a whole back story that puts you into the situation. Basically, you were close to the king, screwed up somehow, and got sent along with your trusty sidekick to a remote mountain valley outpost. You can choose your background, which would be one of Soldier, Courtier, Spy, Merchant, or Court Wizard. I want to design a skill based system, something like a stripped down GURPS or D20, but I want people to choose from a set of backgrounds which would have put them in the situation rather than just designing characters willy-nilly.

The outpost starts with a small wooden fort, a construction office, a trade post, a warehouse, and a few farms. The king wants you to settle and develop the valley to secure the kingdom's claims to the strategically important area. The valley is randomly generated every game, and the resources, potential allies, and enemies will always be different.

Some things would be the same. There will always be a 'caves of chaos' main dungeon. There will always be an orc cave, from which random raids are launched. Other things would be random. The presence and location of resources will be random. I'm trying to come up with a list, so far for gatherables I'm thinking wood, stone, iron, copper, tin, gold, silver, platinum, gems, mythril, adamantium, clay, sand, pitch & herbs. For farmables wheat, vegetables, sheep, cows, flax, hops, and grapes. I may pare down these lists.

The outpost would function like a typical resource management sim, except that orders are given by actually walking to a place with your character and placing a building or housing zone. When buildings are placed, construction workers need to take wood or stone from a warehouse and actually build it. I'm envisioning buildings as 2x2-5x5 blocks with doors leading to a function menu, rather than nethack style walled enclosures with stuff on the floor.

The presence of other groups in the valley will be random as well. In each large area of plains, forest, hills, mountains and swamp there may be centaurs, elves, gnomes, dwarves, or goblins, respectively. These could start hostile or friendly, and their attitudes can be swayed through various actions.

Victory conditions I'm considering: time, the weakest win, just survive for X years; Culture, win by creating a large community with lots of culture, ensuring the kingdom's claims to the valley are recognized; Military, remove all relevant threats from the valley; Favor, regain the favor of the king by sending gifts of precious artifacts and fulfilling every request; Fame, become famous enough for your exploits; and finally, the ultra ending, ascend to demi-godhood by completing difficult quests.

The city building and dungeon delving sides play into each other. You need to have trained up enough defenders to meet any threats while you are gone. You can take trained troops into the dungeons with you. More importantly, training your skills requires you to attract experts to the town. You can also attract skilled craftsmen and enchanters and set them to making you custom weapons, armor, and magical items. Some magical items and artifacts found while delving will help or harm the town, rather than you.

All, of course, done with character graphics & turn based, like a normal rogue-like.