http://katiespeechofobamy-sea6alice.co.cc/d5r8r2

http://holiday4cali4shoping6passion.co.cc/c5r6i4

High Stakes High Speed

Sitting at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and just saw that Google has teamed with Boingo to provide jet setters at this airport free Wi-Fi for the holidays. Now that's progress.

Finding a Wi-Fi network is harder than you think these days. I travel for work, and that work involves throwing events for a technology company. Internet access is a necessity for this - demos, dowloads, cloud computing, community forums, etc. And my choices for hotel accomodation and venue selection are now completely driven by these two criteria:

1) Wi-Fi network (free or not)
2) Personality/fit for the concept of the event

In that order. So in terms of events, hotels are out of the picture for me. All a hotel event does is prompt a passive agressive nerd fit in front of an audience for 6 hours straight. And I say that with love.

Anyone interested in making a load of dough in telecommunications will revolutionize the hospitality industry with reliable high speed network access for their event centers or whatever they call those areas in the basement or former garage of Hyatt's, Sheraton's and Marriott's with ugly carpet, a plethora of podiums and hideous gelee art - for a sensible fee. Amid the guise of corporate security, these areas are usually lacking internet of any kind unless you pay $1000 for a single hard wire with one user allowed, but your guests will hate you as your keynote speaker or his/her technical minion taunts them with the cursor on some demo server projected onto a large screen scrolling down the wall.

And these hotels do not have the personality to make up for the absurdity of their technological irrelevance. See above reference to gelee art.

Now, as a guest, you may get a wireless connection in your room or in the lobby, but it won't last long. Before the next Replay of the piped in orchestral Sound of Music soundtrack, the network will get crowded and drop you. Kinda like the cheerleader clique in high school.

SO here's the call to arms: hotels need to speed up and true up. No more $1000 DSL cable that creates resentment and hostility among guests at events. $1000 should open up a private network for eveyone at my event instead. It's a tiny investment with foreseeably large return.
I'm done with hotels personally, I'm just trying to salvage what little potential they still may have for other corporate events.

Join the I'm Serenity Thompson Club

Ever do a vanity check? You know, the one where you search on your own name and see how you're ranking?

At Miss A. Goggins' Scratchy Record Dance Party last Saturday night, amid kitchen banter with entrpreneurs in front of the refigerator, I realized my check was due. Guess what I found? Two new Serenity Thompson's! The one in Chicago is loads of fun, from what her Tweets reveal. The other is a real estate agent in Houston.

Is your name Serenity Thompson? Let's start a club! Comment below and let me know you are out there.

Subversion trumps fear

My fear is all about not wanting to offend anyone's moral code. I'm not questioning or denouncing any culture, belief system or religion here.

The thing about fear is that it stifles all senses, it's limiting, it creates intellectual regression. A point of view is something to be grateful for - whether in agreement or not. Hell, I know this is obvious to many of us and perhaps I speak from a sheltered California bubble. Theo van Gogh was not only shot dead for his film, deemed "offensive," but his throat was slashed to near decapitation and he was stabbed several times, with two knives. That's the kind of anger a point of view, expressed through the mild art of Dutch filmmaking, can stir up, for example.

I don't want to make this into a linguistic exploration. Sure, Theo van Gogh's murderer was subversive and overcame fear in his act of overthrowing. But he overthrew a person in place of an idea or institution, and with violence rather than debate or other intellectual discourse for resolution. I don't have much respect for that.

Theo van Gogh's film was clearly subversive. Did Theo van Gogh know the consequences he would experience? Probably had some idea. Ballsy subject matter, explicit cinematography, absence of fear and disregard for extreme consequence, expressed through art. I can respect that one hundred times over. With glitter.

The Great Suppression

Suppression, subversion, submission. These were key words for me this weekend, and, all told, are creating circular references in my world.

It all started with the word Suppression on a late, late Saturday PM/early Sunday AM. Thought I'd post/blather about the unemployment rate, the percentage of unemployed MBA's I know, and relate both to U.S. monetary policy, the Stimulus Package (*whistle*), chief econonmic indicators and the like. In my interweb lurkings around "Suppression" to support whatever hypothesis I came up with, I stumbled across this photo from an Iranian fashion show. What do you think?

The word Suppression in this context along with the visual reminded me of the word Subversion, which was related to a few other tasks on my to-do list. These other tasks result in the ability to pay my bills.

Sunday afternoon brainstorming on a theme. Sitting down at my desk with Subversion on my mind, thoughts quickly turned to Subversive people, artists, musicians. Johnnie Rotten, Sid Vicious. Made me think of Submission, on the B side to my red vinyl Sex Pistols import from junior high (Anarchy in the UK on the A side, natch). I decided to listen to every single version on YouTube. That's when I came upon this short film by Theo Van Gogh, also called Submission (WARNING: CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECT MATTER, NUDITY, SOME VIOLENCE). This film brings us back to the fashion show referenced a couple paragraphs ago.

Submission, Subversion, Suppression. Arrived in a completely different place than intended, and hesitant and somewhat frightened to formulate a hypothesis. To be continued: Subversion trumps fear

Happy Valentine's Day from Jail

Valentine's Day is very romantic. I should know - I am an expert after contemplating every single one of them alone. Oh wait. There is one exception: the year my boyfriend at the time picked the lock on my front door at 2:30AM to surprise me by sneaking up on me, asleep, and dropping a big pile of hardcandy on my face. Yes, that was a memorable one, and I certainly was not alone. In fact, it was kind of like a late night coffee klatch once the cops showed up to answer the home invasion call.

Ah, so many musings from February 14ths gone by, such as the year my best friend and I had a gig doing the Valentine's Day window display for a certain NYC retailer. That was a stressful window - it involved alot of glass, satin, and an ornery mannequin with a slippery wig. Yea, it was the last time we spoke. R.I.P. 10 year friendship.

Thank goodness for sex toys. That's really what Valentine's Day comes down to for most people. Doesn't matter if you're single, coupled, estranged, celibate, etc. Almost everyone feels a little touchy-touchy on Valentine's Day.

So, all alone? Feeling too much pressure? Boyfriend in Alaska? Buck up Lovey! CES doesn't have the monopoly on all the latest gizmos. Here are a couple gadgets I suggest you gift to yourself for a high tech Valentine's Day that really can be spent at home in front of a pizza and Craigslist.

Vibrating to the beat is Sex 3.0. The OhMiBod music vibrator works with your iPod and/or your iPhone. Hello? Yea this is Serenity. Uh huh, uh huuuuuuuuuuuuuh, yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa okaaaaaaaaaay um um um um um UM UM UM keep talking...

SaSi by JeJoue - how tech-savvy is this!?!? Keep it by your laptop and everyone will think it's a state of the art mouse.

I love you all. Happy Valentine's Day my darlins. xxxoooxxx