My friend Matt Lewis has spent the last two weeks in the hospital and was recently diagnosed with PNH. It’s a very rare blood disease (1-2 cases annually per million) and has necessitated him receiving regular blood transfusions. He will be placed on the world’s most expensive drug to managed the condition but will eventually need a bone marrow transplant.

What you can do to help:

• Donate blood You can give an offset blood donation at a facility local to you. Just tell them it’s for Matt Lewis 11/4/1979 Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Los Angeles.
• Be the match A bone marrow transplant is the only way to cure PNH and it can be very difficult to find a match—a sibling has a 30% chance of being a match. By signing up for the National Marrow Donor Program, you have the chance of helping Matt or saving the life of someone in a similar situation. Once signed up, they send you a cheek swab kit to complete your registration. The more people we register, the greater the odds for everyone.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you consider giving.

You can watch the web series Video Game Reunion that Matt created/directed on Atom.

Aside: The photo above was taken by Erin right before Matt and I completed a SRS BZNS deal at Ninja Penguin 4.

Update: Regular updates on barkode’s condition are being posted here.

Update: Now with soundtrack!

Konnichiwa Everyone,

Apologies for the silence on this end; it is difficult to gauge the true status of things, and I am not particularly interested in unnecessarily filling heads–my own included–with worrying remarks.

On early Friday afternoon (your laaaate Thursday night/wee hours Friday), I was at a conference in Nagoya (250km from home, 550km from earthquake epicenter) and rode out the earthquake in the lecture hall of a very modern building. Basically ALL trains stopped on Honshu and I was unable to return home, but able to contact a former frisbee teammate and stay with her. Luckily, I had planned to go straight from the conference to a frisbee tournament, so had toiletries and changes of clothes with me. 

Since I was just an hour’s trip from my old home even further west, I dropped in on friends there and spent Saturday and Sunday with them, returning in the evening to Tokyo. Our first planned black-out was to happen for 4 hours Monday morning, the second in the afternoon. They did not happen, but the schedule has been revised, and my town will be black from 3 pm until 10 pm today. I’ve already got dinner ready, toilet and drinking water set aside, charged cell-phone with Twitter feed, head-lamp & batteries and plenty of warm stuff. While it is a nice idea that Narita and Haneda airports are operational, with the rolling black-outs, stopped train lines, stopped traffic & fuel shortage, the thought of getting to these places which are on a good day 1.5 hours away is nothing less than a fantasy.

Even though it has been 4 days since the main event, the ground continues to jitter constantly. Sleep is difficult. Most of the time it is obvious and more than once I have dashed to the doorway (which together with the pre-fab concrete & steel stairwell seems to form the most structurally sound part of this place). Sometimes, however, the movements are so faint that this newly-minted 30 year old wonders if she is just experiencing inner-ear problems due to ‘old-age’. I have a backpack with clothes, ID, snacks, etc. ready at the door. At times like these I believe it ok to say ‘to hell with tradition’ and have been guiltily wearing my tennis-shoes indoors. I am not ballsy enough to completely write-off what the neighbors think, though, so do tend to tip-toe.

Early Monday morning, I took care to buy what groceries I could and was surprised to see how bare all the store shelves were. Bare. It’s enough to make a person libertarian. Am glad to not have a family to support. I was able to find rice at the third store I visited, and got the last bag.

Somewhat ironically, attempted delivery of the tent and sleeping bag I’d ordered as ‘back-up’ for the ‘rustic’ home I am moving to in 8 days in Shiga Prefecture was made the day after the earthquake. Given the state of things, I figured it not inappropriate to practice setting it up in my apartment. Quick and easy, but probably a poor defense from radioactive particulates.
I currently live about 235 km from the beleaguered power plants.

I am curious to hear the state of things in the homes of Japanese acquaintances; it has been hard (read: impossible) for me to gauge the level of their own worries.

I’ve found that Twitter has been a helpful way to stay up-to-date. If you search #jishin_e or follow journalist @DanielKahl, you can keep on top of things…or rather, slightly behind them, I guess. While my morale is rather low and stress rather high, there is no doubt that I am comparatively well-off.

Love always,
Adele

We celebrated my 30th birthday at Hacker Drinkup on Wednesday. Today is the 6th anniversary of RobotSkirts.com. Current life status: Working as a producer at Tecca.com on the beach in Venice, CA.

Happy Father’s day, dad!

Last night was the 100th Hacker Drinkup. We’ve been meeting almost every Wednesday in Santa Monica for the last two years. For the centennial, Chris and Pinguino decided to build a fun demo: augmented reality mustaches. We had all seen Mike Clare’s AR Cookies last week so we started by making fiducial cookies. Chris wrote a processing app that would identify the image of the marker and then place an image of a mustache over it in the live video feed. Right before you took a bite of the cookie, one of the mustaches Pinguino had drawn would appear. I’m actually holding an onigiri (rice ball) in the photo above. Pinguino carved the fiduciary marker into a piece of nori (seaweed) on its face. It was a neat toy and it captured photos in the background which you can find here.

No, it’s not a real holiday; just a fun excuse to grow a stupid mustache once a year. Here are photos of years passed:

2009

2008

2007

I, and I’m sure many people under 30, received a letter from the AARP today encouraging membership. I’ve received many of these letters telling me to “get the most out of life over 50″. The AARP is apparently so opposed to ageism that they encourage young people to join their 50+ organization. In 2007, at the age of 26, I joined.

I filled out the form with my real birthdate and sent in my dues. The letter I got in return welcomed me to their “organization of mature people”. It also stated that “When you turn 50 … you’ll be entitled to all benefits and privileges of membership.” WHAT?! I have to wait till I’m 50? I am yet another young person fallen victim to a scam perpetrated by old-people. Like Ovaltine; that shit doesn’t taste like chocolate!

All was not lost though. Headlines were reporting that Jamie Lee Curtis would appear topless on AARP magazine. Woo! Now there’s a benefit to membership!

DAMNIT! I was expecting Demi Moore on Vanity Fair sort of nudity. Nope. Just more disappointment. It turns out this is just a photochop of her in a strapless dress, and she’s not too happy about it.

For some final lols, here’s a cover I annotated back in the day.

Last night we celebrated my birthday at Hacker Drinkup. It was a massive turnout with a lot of fun surprises. I quipped on Twitter, “Things that should be denim: jeans. Things that shouldn’t: everything else. #denimbustiersrsly?!” Pictured above is the denim hat Pinguino made me in response (my mannequin is wearing it now). You may remember that this isn’t the first time a tweet has generated an unexpected gift. Erin and Pinguino decorated cupcakes with fondant so they looked like our crew (they’ve made hacker cookies before). The final treat was a pair of functional frosted laser boobs inspired by my flyer. In addition, I got a new tshirt, some ALF trading cards, and some sweet socks.

Like last year, I recorded a short podcast for my birthday. I’ve been sick lately so there’s a lot of weird breathyness from me trying not to cough.