alex keller - after six

This creeped me out. In a meeting at the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates talked about why China's new form of capitalism is so sucessful

'He characterised the Chinese model in terms of "willingness to work hard and not having quite the same medical overhead or legal overhead".'
-That implies that the sort of worker's rights and benefits that most of the civilized world has accepted as essential, are what prevents Western capitalism from succeeding.


'Gates continued by heaping praise on the current generation of Chinese leaders.
"They're smart," he said with emphasis.
"They have this mericratic way of picking people for these government posts where you rotate into the university and really think about state allocation of resources and the welfare of the country and then you rotate back into some bureaucratic position."'
-Is meritocratic a new euphemism for party-run dictatorship?

Am I oversensitive about this, or is Bill Gates implying that, for the US to compete in the new global economy, we need to drop all these prissy regulations about safe workplaces and limited work weeks?

I'm going to participate in this event, which is the culmination of ten years of work by Josh Ronsen - come check it out. It will be happening on Monday, February 28, at Church of the Friendly Ghost, 209 Pedernales, 7pm, $5 suggested donation. It's a benefit for the Austin Public Library. Don't miss it.

French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez once wrote in a very famous Statement that "all art of the past must be destroyed." Although Mr. Boulez has since established a lucrative and famous career in conducting art of the past, his own as well as pieces by Ravel, Handel, Stravinsky and others, and although he has unsuccessfully tried to qualify his Statement (in a 1972 article saying "All I meant was just to urge the public to grow up and once for all to cut the umbilical cord attaching it to the past"), we take great interest in his Statement and propose a project to fully align the Statement with Mr. Boulez. Henceforth, we are accepting donations of Mr. Boulez's work, recordings, books, scores, for a future performance in which we will destroy them. Destruction will not be limited to smashing, ripping, burning, crushing, kicking, in literal, physical and spiritual senses.

My favorite GI Joe PSAs are back online. You must check them out.

Thanks to Pete and Meri! Apparently too many candles in close proximity to a server is a bad thing.

As of right now, singularaudio.com and thatdarnmac.com are both down. There are no MP3s on my site either. All this should be resolved by the end of the week.

I hope the image links work but I suspect they won't.

We gave my son an awesome Fender Telecaster (he picked the sunburst - good taste is genetic, I guess)


I received:

The awesome Global G16 chef's knife


The awesome Emile Berliner Gramophone Turntable model


The awesome Skillcraft Human Ear model


The awesome Havahart Humane Trap (to assist with our awesome raccoon invasion


A Playstation 2 (for my son and myself) with which we have been playing the insane Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.


(actually for a wedding anniversary) A gorgeous new wedding ring, since I had to cut mine off when I jammed my finger. It was the finger or the ring...

Most awesome of all was the chance to spend extended time with immediate and extended family, especially my maternal grandmother, aunt and uncle.

The Chinese Christmas dinner was pretty fly too.

Some sort of massive problem on the server run by my friends Meri and Pete has made my regular web site inaccessible. I'm sure it will be back up soon... in the meantime alexkeller.net should resolve here.

And I haven't posted for a while. Lots going on. Am facing my last semester of school at St. Ed's and, as usual, looking for a job.

I should post photos of all our groovy Christmas presents soon.