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Take a Bite of Me:
09.18.2002. I love coincidences like this. 09.17.2002. My Burning Man photos are finally all up. All 156 of 'em. 09.13.2002. We launched, and people are writing about it. 09.11.2002. Here's what I wrote when it happened last year. As usual, we were all trying to locate my brother. A year later, and he's really gone, and some of us are still trying to find him. I've changed a lot in the past year. (Haven't you?) I now understand it is important to see the body of someone who was perfectly healthy the last time you saw them. I also understand that it is possible to recover and re-build from almost anything. I think I learned that from Burning Man. We create an entire city that is dismantled and put back together again every year, where almost 30,000 people survive wind storms, rain, and intense heat and cold. Sure, it's not nearly as harsh living in Bangladesh, on a permantent basis. It is only for one week, but it helps to find out what you and your friends are capable of doing. (I tried to upload all my Burning Man 2002 photos last night, but my server got full halfway through. I need to delete some other stuff, and they'll all be there soon.) Burning Man and 2Pac helped me through it. 09.05.2002. I'm suffering from some serious post-burn depression, and I'm working 12-hour days. I do have some really excellent photos to put up. Soon, I promise. I returned to work to see that my boss got me a webcam, which Gareth says is so that they can make sure I stay at my desk. I think it's really to test the Yahoo Messenger webcam functionality. You can check it out too. Just login to Messenger. My username is popvulture. Watch me make faces of angst and frustration. 08.20.2002. "Not only have I hooked-up with Brett Easton Ellis, but my latest claim to fame is that I slept with the boy who's taking down Martha Stewart!" one of my friends told me over the phone the other night. This is true, not only did I go to college with Ethan who won Survivor, but Doug Faneuil, the "rookie brokerage assistant" who's saying that he gave Martha the insider trading tip, also attended Vassar with me. And one of my close friends got busy with him. (I'm not naming any names, but this friend of mine should have his own reality TV show.) So much has been happening. Where do I begin? I took a red-eye flight on a bankrupt airline to Boston to visit my parents. The morning I stepped off the plane my mom and I visited a spirit medium who can communicate with my brother. It was pretty crazy. I promise to tell more details soon. My dad took us sailing in Hyannis, and then we started scanning his Vietnam slides for my project for Justin. Only 6 more days until Burning Man 2002. I'll be camping with a bunch of nomadic nutria hunters. The theme this year is "the floating world," and nutria are giant aquatic rodents with nipples on their sides so that they can feed their babies while swimming, so you see how it fits perfectly. Right? Plus Jeff will be coming with us... It's his first Burning Man. Yippee! Other stuff -- next month I'm curating a gallery on The Mirror Project. Also, JP posted to Ugly Kids. 07.30.2002. This weekend was just packed with silly fun. On Saturday, we watched this guy Hugh (who I met 3 years ago at Burning Man '99) take 8th place in a Red Bull-sponsored street luge competition in our neighborhood on De Haro St. These guys lie on their backs on skateboards and fly down this huge hill lined with bales of hay so they won't die if they crash. It's insane. Saturday night, as a celebration of Allyson's birthday, we went to the Red Devil Lounge to see an '80s cover band called *Poprocks*. They have a lot of energy and a great sense of humor; the singer would say, "Here's a little song we wrote," before playing J. Geils Band's "Centerfold." They have poprocks.net, and between songs Allyson told the singer how I have the dot.com, and he brought us up onstage for a Bon Jovi tune. See Allyson for more details. (I think I have a crush on the bassist.) 07.25.2002. As Mary J. Blige sez, "We don't need no haters." And who the hell keeps obsessively Google-ing me? 07.23.2002. This is very nice, but I'm not British (yet). My fiance has Welsh citzenship, since his dad was born in Wales. So, when we tie the knot, I can live and work across the pond legally. Does that count? I promise to cultivate a pretentious hybrid accent like my idol and fellow-Brit-wannabe Maddy. Right now, however, I'm completely Californian with the weird annual holidays to prove it. Speaking of which, there are only 32 more days before we head out to Black Rock City. I never told you, but The Phoneix Festival was kinda like if Burning Man was held in the mountains, instead of the desert, and if it only had about 3,000 people instead of 23,000. We all had a blast, especially the dawgs. It was Bocce's first time camping! Here are the photos. 07.22.2002. Last Friday night a bunch of us went to see Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious" at Oakland's Paramount Theatre. It's absolutely gorgeous, one of the nicest art deco theatres in the country. But we weren't totally prepared for the magic of deco-win. All this for $5. Need to see more? Allyson has comments and more pics. 07.14.2002. Gareth's sister Emily and her friend Nadine are visiting us from Denver this weekend. San Francisco summer weather shocks them. I brought up that famous Mark Twain quote, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." I take pride in the fact that we're one of the nation's least sweatiest cities. We took them shopping on Haight Street, and then for a delicious dinner at Andalu. I think today we are going to wine country. These are the photos we've taken so far. I want to take them to the places we took Ellen two weeks ago. I really need to find a way to expand time. 07.11.2002. Finally I've joined a company at the right time. After spending the past five years working for four different start-ups and then the #1 software company in the world, I haven't seen any of my stock options amount to anything. Even after a year-and-a-half working at MSFT, my vested options are $10 under water. Maybe this time, my stock options will be worth something... Here's to hoping. 07.09.2002. The Phoenix Festival was phat. We drove over 1500 miles and slept about 6 hours total in three days. But it was worth it! We saw the sunrise every day, witnessed some herb planting, and contemplated adopting the values of Tonya Harding. 07.02.2002. Two years ago I spent 4th of Julyin Mexico City celebrating Vicente Fox's victory with Selena and John. For the 4th of July last year, we took a road-trip from SF to Denver to visit Gareth's family. This 4th of July, we're drivin' up to Klickitat, Washington to go to the Phoenix Festival. 07.01.2002. My high school chum and former Cambridge housemate, Ellen, visited us in SF this weekend from Denver. It was her first time in our fair city. She brought her boyfriend Jarrod. In just two days, we took them everywhere (to SF MOMA for the Yoko Ono exhibit, to the top of Twin Peaks, to Ocean Beach and the Musee Mechanique, to Andrew and Cliff's tight party on Saturday night, to the Pacific Heights house that was used as the setting for "Party of Five"). The digital photos will be posted very soon. 06.28.2002. Did I mention that Allyson and Bryan got engaged last month after ten years of dating each other? Also, Ms. Thang and I reprise our posting to She Said, She Said. 06.27.2002. "Don't reflect, project." Today, a photo on Heather Champ's fabulous Mirror Project. We at poprocks.com are fans of Heathers (actual girls named Heather, as well as the fabulous 1989 'Nonie Ryder dark comedy.) 06.26.2002. What? Guess who wrote the top story on Wired.com today? Me, me, me! And I wrote it about on of my favorite topics -- girls'n'porn. 06.18.2002. So how's Yahoo so far? 06.16.2002. Tomorrow I start my new job at Yahoo! (I've never worked anywhere with an exclamation point in the name before...) Also, on Friday Gareth and I moved into a new loft. It's our second lease together, and it has a catwalk and a balcony with a view of the Bay. When I sent a card to my dad for Father's Day, I signed it "love always, Jessica & Jimmy." I did the same thing for my mom on Mother's Day back in May. When we were little kids, I always spoke for my brother (until he got old enough to be annoyed and started speaking for himself). And now that he's dead, I am his spokesperson again. I scanned some of my dad's photos from the Vietnam War as a beginning to the project I'm doing for Justin. Here is one of him with on the beach in Nha Trang. And here is one of some Vietnamese kids. I'm reading "Slaughterhouse 5" right now, and finding it very relevant in light of this project. 06.13.2002. On Monday I dragged Owen Otto out to Ocean Beach to see the eclipse. In typical me fashion, I almost burned my eyes taking pictures of the sun. I posed the question to Esther, "Why are nutria and trancers both so reviled by the media?" 06.07.2002. Yesterday I gushed about my neighborhood drycleaning lady, and today I'm showing the love for my hairstylist, Rosette. A few weeks back, she asked me to be her hair model for some portfolio photos, and gave me a free haircut. Last night I went to visit her, and she gave me some of the photos. Now she is giving me a free haircut and color in exchange for my help in formatting and editing her resume. This barter economy stuff rocks. 06.06.2002. Esther and Jason sent me a care package covered in full-color pictures of nutria, and it broke my spell of bad luck. I got a job offer from Yahoo, and then our building manager called to say that the rent on our loft was going down by $350. As if these two things aren't incredible enough, I pitched a story to Wired, and they said they want it. Also, I found a law firm to take on my legal case about poprocks.com. A few weeks ago, I was inspired to make a purse with my Nana and Grampy on it. It brings me luck too. On an unrelated note, the lady at the dry cleaners thinks I'm insane. 06.05.2002. Oceana emailed me a picture she took at the party of a batik that looks like a big flourescent punani. 06.03.2002. There were still prickers in all my clothes from the Lotus Omega party in May, but we packed up the car and headed down to Mercey Hot Springs again to see Goa Gil spin for 18 hours. The owls were watching and the safety features in Jeff's Volvo were put to the test. We talked about Tron and the space program and the secrets of the universe and played in the pool with Oceana while Davin strung together paradisiacal ambient sounds by the chlorinated crystalline turquoise jewel. Oh yeah, Gareth likes the smell of my armpits. 05.29.2002. I was in LA visiting Jeff last week when I received a FedEx letter informing me to cease and desist from using poprocks.com, my personal domain for the past five years. This is not good. What other news haven't I told you from the week I was away? Andrew's friend Damian visited SF last weekend and Omid posted a text'n'photos extravaganza, including a fun pic of he, Gareth and me out clubbing. 05.14.2002. Gwen has put up some in-depth commentary and photos from our adventures last Friday. Last night I felt my first earthquake since moving to California almost three years ago. It was just after 10 PM, and I was lying on the futon watching "Charlie's Angels." It felt like being on a boat rocked by waves or like hotel-bed magic fingers gone seriously wrong. 05.13.2002. We stayed up all night Saturday and when morning came I found myself in Mercey Hot Springs with a naked Esther. I had said some weird things that night, about how I wanted to become a nomadic nutria hunter, and about how the convergence of Jonathan and Owen created a classic flavor sensation. Up on the hill I got an ass full of prickers, and everything below seemed like my own colorful little undulating music box. The boys danced the psytrance dance, Esther and I became goddesses and I could read her mind. (I knew she was going to proclaim "There's gold in them thar hills," in a southern drawl a full five seconds before she said it.)

She certainly has some crazy mixed-up: