dancing fool

Last Friday I went to an awesome showcase at Metronome Ballroom. Recent gold medalists at the Gay Games in Sydney performed first a five-dance Latin, then a five-dance Standard showcase. Two other Latin couples did a tag-team five-dance showcase while the first couple was changing. Here's a pic of the Standard showcase:

The guys were great dancers, and they would nonchalantly switch lead and follow throughout the dances. It was brilliant! I liked their Paso Doble, where at times they were both the bullfighter, cape, or bull.

The show was in part sponsored by Sacramento DanceSport, which I haven't heard of before. I'll have to make sure that they know same-sex couples are welcome at Berkeley's competition, which I've been furiously pulling together in the last few weeks. I don't think ballroom should be so conservative in its definition of leaders and followers. Even at the Gay Games, male-male and female-female couples competed separately, and both USABDA and NDCA only allow male leaders with female followers. I rather like to lead, though I can't lead at the level I can follow. Apparently there's a big same-sex ballroom scene in Europe, though.

Speaking of ballroom, last Monday I had a tryout with a new ballroom partner. It looks like I'll finally be dancing again! In non-dancing news, my databases project group and I got the last (hopefully) bug ironed out and our project running 10 minutes before the midnight deadline. I've consumed so much sugar and caffeine the last few days working on it that it'll take a while to get myself back in balance. I'll start with sleep. :~)

closed-source concept car

Volvo has developed a concept car "for women, by women." The most ridiculous thing about it, beyond even the seat covers that you can change to match your outfit, is that the hood can only be opened by a Volvo mechanic. Even if the designers never looked under the hood of their own cars, I don't understand why they would take such an important piece of functionality away. What if I want to check my fluids, or give or receive a jump start? As jacobiwan put, it would have been much better for them to make simple maintenance more user-friendly, perhaps by minimizing the tools needed for an oil change or laying everything out in a clear way. At least they make the windshield washer fluid accessible.

I hope this doesn't set a precedent. I shudder to think of a world where cars are "closed-source" and getting your car repaired or even opened ("cracked") at any place but a certified (=overpriced) repair shop is an infringement on the car manufacturer's intellectual property rights. It's bad enough in software. :~)

drawing class

I haven't updated my progress in drawing in a while either. We've moved past perspective and into tone drawing. I decided I don't like charcoal - too hard to control. I've included a few charcoal drawings anyway.
( drawings )