This morning I was walking into work, and I saw a city towtruck hauling away a car, license plate T58 6810, I believe. It was parked in a metered spot, and the meter had 11 minutes remaining on it. It made me curious, and I tried to fight the cynicism that told me he was just making a quota. Maybe this car had some outstanding tickets or something? There were none under the wipers, but maybe he has some kind of a record. In any event, it causes me to hate driving all the more, though I need to do so in order to drop off my daughter at daycare each morning. It is definitely causing me to consider a hybrid.

Last night I was invited to see a great play, called “In Times of War.” Here’s the Chicago Reader listing. It wasn’t the heavy handed treatment of current events that the title suggests. It was an intriguing and rich examination of society: our roles in power, ethnic, gender, nationalistic and economic relations. Well worth seeing. Congratulations to David Alan Moore, the writer, and Ann Filmer, the director.

It made me wonder what the hell I was doing, going to work. Short of frogs raining or a plague of locusts, it was enough signs for me, pun intended. I was tracking through Max Design’s weekly reading list and came across Dave Pollard’s article on collaborative tools and their lack of adoption. The collaborative tools article was great, and Pollard is right. There is little adoption of them, despite their huge promise. This concerns me for two reasons: 1 selfish and 1 pragmatic. The selfish one: I am trying to develop a collaborative tool now, called revizit. The pragmatic: though corporations are probably the biggest beneficiaries, anything that improves human communication is desirable, especially if it improves human understanding or our ability to survive in harmony with our planet.

And on that note, it was with surprise that I found a ton of great environmental links on Pollard’s site, including his article “The Truth About Nature: How to Save the World.” At the same time I was reading this article, and pondering whether Christians or Moslems would ever be able to accept the idea that humans are not the preeminent form of life without relationship to nature, a great 30 minute PBS series entitled “design e2” was on TV. It talked about China, and how rapidly they are adopting environmental solutions (though they still have many issues, make no mistake about it). It ended on an interesting note… A nation believing in the Tao, of life in balance and backed by totalitarian will… does it have a chance to make a difference?

It makes me hopeful, because I think this land of rabid individualism, though fun, may not survive past its adolesence to mature and realize the need for such solutions. I am always hopeful this is not the case, but I live in Chicago, a city with fairly progressive environmental policies. Does the rest of the country have this will? Do our politicians? Maybe it’s time to get with Plato and the Republic, and use music to change it? Obviously, I’m beat, and tilting at windmills. G’night!

Why ‘yay!’ you may ask? Because I’m designing and teaching several of the courses for the digital design curriculum, of course!

He says something about my picture being in something. I’m reading a book, I don’t quite get what he says. I’m in a blog? A weekly? The Chicago RedEye. I’ll be on the cover of the Chicago RedEye tomorrow.

The story: seat hogs, people who sit in the outside seat and don’t let people in. It’d be a great story, if I wasn’t sitting sideways, having just let out the person next to me. It would be an even better story if there weren’t only 6-8 people in the train car, all seated. I really wish I’d been thinking enough to snap a pic with my camera, to post here. This was our conversation.

I said, “Do you think I have denied anyone a seat by sitting where I am?”

Either now, or in a bit he says something to the effect that I am the kind of person that would do this, deliberately jabbing at me. He told me to look for myself in the paper, etc.

I asked him if he wanted to print my name with it, if that was the case. He said everyone would know me, anyway, and I should read the paper myself. I told him I did not read the RedEye, that it was a rag. He told me again that I was the type of person who would do this, or something to that effect. I didn’t need it.

I said, “You have no right to judge me.”

He said, “I just did.”

“Wrongly.”

And I stepped off the train. As I said, did not need it. Buddy, who ever you are, I don’t use these words lightly. Stay the fuck away from me, you creepy bastard.