birthday, burningman, blogs

i just realized that last "blog" entry was a bit of a cop out and said very little about my life or the world around me.

the birthday party at Shine two weeks ago was a blast!  so many friends under one roof. it's very rare to have old college classmates, former coworkers, wushu friends, current college classmates and raver buddies partying together. there were friends i've known for nearly 13 years and others i've only known a few months.  Eunice, the queen of homemade custom birthday cakes, made a bento box sushi-cake made from twinkies, fruit roll-ups, jelly beans and dried mango.  it looked awesome!  (can't say it tasted awesome as i hate twinkies...but i did try to eat one)

here are some photos from the Shine photobooth.  despite what these photos show, there were non-Asians attending this event.

my shining accomplishment this year was that i stayed on my feet throughout the night and remember the majority of conversations i had. 

this is a huge improvement over last year when i celebrated my birthday at a DJ gig at 1015.  i blacked out after the third song in my set, but somehow continued to play another 30 minutes...until i was unable to operate the equipment and was carried out of the club.

this past weekend, i travelled to Reno, Nevada to DJ and party at a post-Burningman event.  though i didn't go to Burningman this year (last year was my first time attending), it was a blast seeing so many familiar faces fresh from the playa.  throughout the day and night, lots of dusty, suntanned soulswalked into the hotel.  i'm sure the regular tourists in the hotel were wondering what the hell all of those tattooed, pierced, strangely clothed freaks were doing there.

the pool party during the day was fantastic.  the club at night was lightly attended, but i enjoyed the music.  i'd never heard J. Phlip before and her set was filled with some very refreshing sounding beats.  blippy and odd, but still very fun and danceable.  Justin Martin and Claude von Stroke were good, as usual.

in other news, i've been watching the Democratic and Republican national conventions.  American politics = ugh.