Statement

Compelled by the conviction that every player deserves Drive, I hereby announce my candidacy for the curia of SF0.org. In an age of decline and lassitude, I promise to stand forth for every player [work really hard and listen], representing their innumerable rights (including several arcane and unspeakable which must never see the light of day) and fundamental truths of our community.

Furthermore, I commit to work for a stable financial future for SF0.org through the organ of a Drive to Drive the Drive Committee, which will promote and seek financial means to maintain the solvency of SF0.org above and beyond the tradition of donations, but beneath and against the eldritch powers of corporations and advertising. I also lead the search for hard answers to the bee question. I stand for election to usher in the future: a future worth singing about.

Please review our materials, including our draft platform, first statement about my unseen opponent(s), poster for download and printing, and cut-out sheet deployable in any forms you see fit such as a bumper sticker or culture jamming collateral. Additional materials will be forthcoming as necessity demands.

I welcome your support in our glorious effort.

It is acknowledged by the candidate that this proof is provisional. In view of the requirements, additional proof materials will build up during the campaign period.

Campaign Diary

Day one First steps, a tentative outreach to the current members of my group, hoping our shared connection will result in some early successes. To wit, a brief missive, noting one plank of our platform and inviting their support.

Subject: Greetings citiZen! Platform plank of the day "7. The Machines must not be allowed to control our air traffic." For more information please visit: http://sf0.org/burnunit/Campaign-Trail/Come, let us build a better future for the UofA, a future worth singing about. Unpaid for by burnunit for senate

I'm appalled by my temerity. Or is it naked ambition? To seize these reigns requires stealth and alacrity and we're after first mover advantage, entering the race before anyone else can catch their bearings, indeed, before some key players have even reacquired their footing in a group. Accepting the presence of this predatory creature inside of myself is not without cost: at 630 a.m. I'm awake again, looking for messages, reviewing the night's activity, and yawning. What have I done? I don't want to speak to this delirious and manic person who inhabits my brain, concocting his plans.

Day one comments response to question if Eleanor is running:

She and I spoke about it and she's contemplating it. I warn you, that child is a TYRANT. Speak of her election to some post of power at your Peril.

As indicated, these represent first steps down the trail. We are waging a campaign here, not an...instantiation. If you ask out of some wish to "bide your time" awaiting further proofs, I cannot fault you and can promise you ongoing procedures and manifestations.

Know this as you deliberate: we are seeking to effectuate the reinvention of the ambit of our shared parahistory. In such efforts, momentum has a way of proceeding logarithmically.

Day two What am I thinking? 25 votes isn't a hill to climb, it is a mountain. A Mountain! It's a 140 point task masquerading as a 15 point task. To get them, this task would have to be epic, on votes alone it would move into the pantheon with Employee Forgery or even Bus Stop Seating Conversion. Good heavens I know this is going to be a lot of work. I need to schedule some meetings with various Players Union representatives and key leaders, stat. Well, in a stroke of good fortune, I'm going to Web 2.0 in San Francisco this month. I'll be flying in on April 14 and leaving early a.m. April 19. Contemplating the enormous pile of votes required here, and being realistic, I'm going to have to make this a campaign tour as well, though how cool would it be to make it a victory party?

Look at it. It's disgusting. The Creature leapt right out and nudged me to write that last. And I liked it. In politics there are no winners, only Devourers of Votes, cosmic maws open to draw in all souls who illuminate us however briefly with their eyes.

Today, I will have to respond to both supporters and serious critiques. Who will respond? The Maw or the Man? Then I also better get working on other outreach letters too.

Oh, here is a sample note I sent to thank some of the early voters yesterday:

Hello Citizen! Thank you for your vote. Please know that yours is the first pebble in an avalanche, the lead drops of a vigorous downpour, and the first hints of blossoms in the muddy spring air. You are the cool firm foundation stones of a vast and terrible edifice that will rise and smite the snake charmers and influence peddlers who twist and dominate us. You are the hand that turns one wheel of fate, you are the dervish that bears sweet blood forth from the desert of the real! Please spread the word, invite others to Join our struggle and grind the bones of capital to multiply our bread until there are 12 baskets full. O giant few! O cleansing plasma! Excocet, klaxon, vermiculture, Sing! burnunit. for senate.

For the other voters, I sent a similar message, but I first rant the text through a cutup machine, which resulted in some beautiful language that I hope communicated my intentions as clearly.

, to make it uniquely yours. Yours and William Burroughs' I suppose. But yours, with my thanks.-------for your vote. Please the first pebble in drops of a vigorous hints of blossoms in You are the cool a vast and terrible and smite the snake who twist and dominate hand that turns one are the dervish that from the desert of the word, invite others struggle and grind the multiply our bread until full. O giant few! klaxon, vermiculture, Sing!

Day two comments responses

Ian, thank you for the encouragement and the compliments. It is important for any candidate to maintain a well conceived photogenic and telegenic image. Also, cornfields and corn mazes are awesome. Doubly so when you're walking those paths with The Future.

I also love points #5 and #6 of your platform. I can tell that while you are now a member of the University of Aesthematics, you haven't forgotten your Crisis roots.

Ian is correct, in fact, and has intuitively leapt upon a facet of my long term plans. The ~six month cycling of scores and identities has performed an alchemical transformation of the game, liquefying certain components which were once thought immutable. Perhaps the potentials of this liquefactive process haven't been entirely thought out by everyone, myself included. However, one implication became clear very quickly: in working through all the groups, experiencing each, players have the opportunity to bear the mission of each into each.

So I have that in mind as I consider the profound concern of Jason

your platform is being built from a position within the very team that dominated most if not all of our last era in terms of both membership and Score... one that now, so very briefly into our next era, has more than twice as many players than any other team

The leap from Humanitarian Crisis to University of Aesthematics is a transgressive leap in terms of the beliefs and expectations of groups.

It is hoped that in this transgression, some centralizing themes and hierarchies of value and/or meaning may be disrupted, relocated into less stable forms. Further, the switch, and to an extent this candidacy, tests a hypothesis that this destabilizing process presents an opening, a door, a breach through which the aims of Humanitarian Crisis may be more fully realized, even as much as--or insofar as!--those of the University of Aesthematics are. The proposition is that in such an admixture of these energies, each one reaches toward realization of their beliefs or devotions. We greatly advance the cause of Humanitarian Crisis by mindfully and artfully realizing the techniques of UofA. Likewise we produce meaning more fully as we more fully relieve the victims of the Crisis. The only true test of these is to move through each group iteratively. Put in completely other appropriate terms: to derive through the groups, propelled by Drive, to model each group precisely and seamlessly within the living city.

As much as I enjoy complicated phraseology for it's own sake, I come to realize that we are not joking about reinventing ambits.

Jason, did I say I'd stand for "every player?" Shoot I did! That's awfully vapid to the point of meaninglessness. We must excise such language to be taken seriously. Indeed, if I interpret the concept of a senate correctly, ideally the senators (recall, thank you wiki, that's from senex, the old men!) represent a broader constituency.

Realistically I'm sure the senators of SF0, like those of other senates, will most of the time stand for their own groups and in particular the people who actually voted for them. I believe I would represent the whole. But this critique prompts me to open the door to publicly promise that as my powers of broad focus become tested, I will deal honestly with all players who challenge me to live up to earlier flights of rhetoric. I challenge all potential voters or opponents to make my faults and shortcomings public and to hold my words up to me when I begin to slide.

In a very crude way, as one of the earliest adopters of team switching, I witnessed many more changes from UofA to something else right at first and I backed that horse accordingly. I also noted that there were no UofA-only tasks in the first wave of Glasnost--which will presumably change with the first release of player-created tasks. But with the previous eras best players slowing or halting play and jumping groups or opting out of groups entirely, a part of me gambled on a switch to UofA being as "unattended to" (?? "uncool?" "unsought-after??") in the new era as it was notable in the last. This is one prediction I can see is quickly being proved wrong.

Finally, there is no song: the bees are disappearing! What the hell?

Day Three Another person enters their campaign. The Burn Unit campaign elects a day of rest.

 

Day Four First a response to rumors: It is true. I am practically unable to grow anything but angry little blond hairs. I'm not ashamed, I am proud of my photoshop skills, however poorly they are on display in this image. Furthermore, it was felt that in the moment of Reset, a commemoration of the occasion was in order. It was also felt that this iterative gesture set the appropriate tone for the Aesthematic phase. The image predates the candidacy, also. The mustache is exactly as much of a moral issue

Humanitarian Crisis-fulfilled-in-with-and-through-Aesthematics is a moral issue.

If expected, I can attempt to grow a mustache, however it is difficult and prevents kisses from key beautiful women in my life.

Finally, during the course of a conversation with Ink Tea, I realized that with the voting rules of SFZero, players may vote for multiple candidates. In this way, candidates are not each other's rivals or opponents at all. Indeed the next player to also launch a campaign has gone so far as to vote for me, for which I am publicly grateful. Candidates only become opponents when specific voters commit to voting only for one candidate and not another. Candidates only become opponents in the minds of one voter at a time, not directly to each other. Unless that happens--Ink Tea, for example keeps threatening that it will happen, and I have plenty of mud to fling at her draftee choice if and when it does--a candidate's only opponent is the absence of enough votes to become a senator.

A candidate's only opponent are the voters who have not voted for him or her yet.

A candidate's only opponents are the voters.

The next article in my series on the opposition and its myriad faults will be drafted over the weekend.

April 9 sample letter sent to multiple pages of relatively new players:

Hey there. If I read this right, you are one of the newest people to sign up and play. Welcome! If you're looking for fun and collaborations, don't hesitate to message me.

I really want to reach out to newcomers. The Drive has been higher than ever, and I think the score reset has me and some other schwarmerei in a blaze of spiritual ecstasy. New players are super important and I want you to know that. Know that like the contours of a well fitted frock. You are new, don't be afraid of the amoebas.

I'm not even going to lie, I'm totally shaking my tail feathers , and it'd be stupidly outrageous to deny that the pressures of the campaign being run by my secret Maw don't somehow factor into it. I am not a proud oyster, I simply submit to the Drive. Read the platform, think about it and vote today. Remember: the only opponents are the Voters!

Pax et bonum!

burnunit.

Days 5-20 The players of SF0 must move boldly! If they cannot move boldly we shall move them! We shall rain tasks upon their cities! We shall surge with points upon their beaches and streets! Drive drive drive drive drive!

Day 21 Today I foed Rubin. This should be seen as the pure gesture it is, a fiery spur of lust to the tawny hide and hairy flank of power! Foe! Foe! Foe! This alone should be reason to cast your vote! Fwned!

May 1 letter to players

Hi! I'm Burn Unit. Based on this, you signed up pretty recently. Welcome! If you want new friends, fun and collaborations, don't hesitate to message me. If you want a different kind of fun, foe me and we'll just see what happens!

I think we need to be welcoming and I want you to feel welcome and invited to play. Newcomers are super important, and I really hope older players will be welcoming as well as challenging. New players will help us increase, in a blaze of spiritual ecstasy. You are new. You are the fishhook inside the clouds. You are the police of the police.

No joke, I'm also filled to the brim with desperation. I am not a proud trilobite, I simply submit to the Drive. Read the platform, think about it and vote today. Remember: the only opponents are the Voters!

Please, have fun, play lots, and show us what you got! Bring it electric and radiant.

Pax et bonum!

burnunit.

Responses after May 1 letter results in at least 1 vote:

posted by K. Hughes on May 1st, 2007 7:37 AM Way to reach out to the new, inexperienced person, who doesn't know any better but to vote for you. :P

From me: Ahhh, thank you so much!

I will always reach outward, most especially to the "new person!"

You "knowing better" or not is simply no kind of excuse at all, for remember: your character is able to do things that you may be unable or unwilling to do yourself...your character never misses a connection...!

 

Response to questions/statements from Mouse, Ink Tea and r0ck c4ndy on May 3

The voters, man. They're out to get me too! The only opponents are the voters. Mouse, man, you know it ain't anything like that, man. Man, you know I'm out there hustling on the wild frontier, workin the angles, strugglin to lead by example, and not duckin any criticisms, no matter how debased.

 

I have shaved my moustache, the real one I mean. It was going no where. It's hard like the stiff scent of whiskey to get this right but you'll see. I'll show em, man.

Yes. Yes. But who will you debate against? The other candidates? Why? We're on your side. We want it too and we understand intuitively that the trough is exactly as big as we make it for ourselves and who will stop us? Not to even hint at mentioning the hounds of hell they unleash when you launch your campaign, where they'll tell you to your face your innocent, hopeful face that they wish someone else would do it, how they're waiting, trailing their fingers through the lukewarm sea wishing idly about the good features of your supposed betters, your own flesh in fact, you 2.0 or beyond. They'll gnaw at you, the whole great flock of them. Yes, I'll welcome you, my wings are wide and covered with the sweetest down, please there is plenty of room in the back alleys and secret corridors of power but by all means grab those reigns yourself and lash the flanks of the voters! They're the horses here, we are just the humble jockeys, the polo players, the hopeful, longing, pigtailed little children who just want a pony for god's sake just a pony!

Downshift: as the voters require blood like a clutch of slavering vampires, the campaign requires infusions of overt gestures, to "make it real." To wit, this diary has been liposuctioned, its historical parts transported into the luminiferous aether. To further wit: archived. Go to the archive if you want long text.

May 4, 2007

Press Release: Candidate Responds to Critics A heartfelt message from the candidate.

Press Release: Candidate Outreach Bears Fruit Votes are increasing as new players back Burn Unit.

May 8, 2007

Peak Candidacy?: Today Burn Unit acquired vote number thirteen, moving him over the halfway point of the election. A critical moment has arrived. Will the candidate simply coast, hoping to ride "downhill in neutral" to the end of the election? Or will he see the high point as a new vista of challenge, an opening for new Drive? I want to assure potential voters that this campaign remains in full effect, and no coasting will be permitted.

 

Recently: Campaign Theme Song released May 7. Today Burn Unit released his official campaign theme song, a folksy yet epic ode to the Drive in every player. Do not relent! Keep going forward in your tasks! May this inspire you to keep going. May it give you a smile.

And if you think of it, or have a little free time, or something, you know, may it induce you to vote, geez, what are you waiting for?

note to people who had voted for me at that stage titled "Halfway Home":

phase iV: the outbreak

hello dearest friends

I just wanted to reach out to you with a very strong word of thanks. Thank you. We are half way through the election, just over one month into the campaign. There's still a lot of ground to cover before the end. Please know that I value your votes.

I took a little survey of my task so far, and I see that basically the number of "bits of content" contributed by me to this task roughly equates to the number of votes. I believe that may be what's required, for us to take this last long journey to the big two-five. I am committed to the ongoing creation of new content and objets d'art for the further acquisition of votes, as many as are needed to climb that hill.

However, I would like to also ask you to help me with a more traditional approach. Think about why you voted. Was it a lark? Was it you felt inspired? Were you angling for favors? I don't care, your reasons are your own and the results are the same. But maybe your reasons are good ones to others. If you know a player who has not voted, but who shares your values, please take a second to reach out to that player. So what if you were, like Jason 7au, just sayin' "screw it" and punching the vote button. Jason, I bet you know at least one other guy or gal who is likewise capable of sayin, "aww screw it" and who knows how to use a mouse. Maybe you were moved by our campaign theme song and you have a friend who likewise enjoys music. Perhaps you should serenade that person with our song, and urge them to vote (the chord changes are really simple just GDA & E, and the chorus is pretty much just DAE and AD. if you do, please document, and email a copy to burnunit@waste.org). Perhaps you like posters. Print out our poster and hang it in the neighborhood of a friend you know who hasn't voted, take a picture. In any case, we'd like to invite you to help with this campaign by doing something in the real world, for other players to see. If we have some of these things documented, we can put them on the campaign and communicate the momentum this campaign has. Strike fear into the hearts of our opponents!

If every one of you reached out to one friend, and that friend joined you in voting, the election of Burn Unit would be over, and our next phase of work could begin.

Regardless, thank you so much for the work you have contributed so far. Watch for our next campaign event, taking Minneapolis by storm in early June.

Pax,

Burn Unit

Excerpts from message to my good friend Ink Tea, because at this stage I started feeling very serious and was a little scared of myself and embarrassed to admit how I was feeling

A little heads up: I have been wrestling with some operator errors, but the Eleanorest candidacy declaration video is pretty close to posting. Let me state first that I have no trepidation whatsoever about doing this (...) I have occasionally been frustrated the way some of this has gone down. Ugh, it's never easy to admit that, but heavens! I know, better than anyone can anticipate, what an explosive personality my dearest daughter possesses. Her charisma is electrifying. If there's one thing I can predict on which I'm willing to place money it is nearly-instant, near-total acclimation of that child to her rightful place. The votes will come like slippery hordes of eelpouts in February. Mine should be among the first! Being reminded of this sometimes wounds me. Not to the point of deep disruption, I promise you I'm not holding her back. But gracious I am not made of stone, people! (...) If nothing else, consider my child's campaign to be itself a signal of the seriousness of my own commitment to give the people what they want, on which any politician must cut his teeth. I'm not especially impressed with or proud of myself, either generally or specifically as it relates to this thing. I'm just sayin is all! Just sayin.

May 14, 2007

Press release: First lawn sign spotted the first player-made sign advertising Burn Unit for Senate has made an appearance in the virtual sf0 neighborhood. Many thanks to for her bold initiative! Other variations will be sure to follow as the momentum builds.

Press release: In keeping with traditions of the trail, the candidate released financial data. According to this measure, Burn Unit's personal value is $1,087. Figures are current for 2007.

Recently: Burn Unit acquires vote number thirteen, more than halfway to election.

Recently: Campaign Theme Song released May 7. For the Drive in You.

Taken from comments thread replying to question by Darkaardvark:

help restore individual group spirit, with particular respect to the University of Aesthematics? foe system...underutilized tool...broader and more creative use of this and other tools? ...would heterological be heterological?

Darkaardvark, yes. You have great sway. All players should believe in and begin to flex the power of their sway. And not a moment too soon. To your point. One key way: perhaps the election of a UofA player to the Senate before any others will get the ball rolling to instill our group pride in particular. I look to be that senator. Another: begin a deliberate effort to collaborate with and raise the profile of UofA players. We need to develop in-group collaborative task completions which are themselves high profile and of such quality as to instantly transform their immediate surroundings into a faerie wonderland as well as to render voting for them inevitable. This effort has begun slowly, and must of necessity utilize...shall we say...the thurn und taxis. I welcome any UofA player to exchange ideas and to begin the process of deliberate Aesthematic task completions, and I pledge to reach out specifically and intentionally to our group.

As a senator for All of SF0, I wonder if one possible solution is to deliberately provoke and alienate other groups, in order to instill in them the bittersweet milk of motivating resentment. I believe some other groups have considered this campaign itself a deliberate provocation. It was not, initially, but perhaps it should be. I am on the record as an advocate of creating new groups and I intend to use my influence (and peddle it if necessary) as a senator, in order to study and promote the concept of enforced group choice at the change of eras. If that requires the creation of groups that exist in the real world so that careless unchoosing players shall be cast into them, so be it. Enough of this dillydallying.

If that further means bullying, grandstanding and rhetoric against non-group tasks, I might have to consider those tactics. But not if it costs me votes in the long term. Do I contradict myself?* I contradict myself!

I think our top priority for foes is to create tasks which require foes to complete them. What are you, any of you, doing to promote this? I will work to create such tasks, and I will work to create a stable prosperous environment--see platform-- in which such tasks are likely.

As for other tools, I would like to publicly and vaingloriously take credit for the idea of the recently updated page. This is a new and exciting tool for players to keep on top of the activities and possibilities of living proofs, to push players to keep "tending the gardens they plant." I urge other players to consider the implications of this display option on the praxis page, and the possibilities for tasks that grow with time. I didn't code it of course, but I pushed for its creation and I'm proud of those negotiating efforts. Please let us see this as a good beginning of a fruitful outpouring of ideas.

Yes. Consider: "Heterological" means or signifies itself, but does not enact itself or become itself in the act of its utilization. Heterological qua heterological is not. In action, heterological becomes heterological only to its meaning. No.

(* Coming full circle here, Yes I contradict myself. Consider too: the word abecedarian, its received meaning to include the idea of being in alphabetical order, is thus a heterological one, being itself abecedarian only phonetically. )

note to JackieH:

You are totally awesome, that must have taken a long time. Did you get a screenshot of it? It looked awfully impressive flooding the recent updates. We need to figure out what good deeds we're going to do after the election...

Let me know when you submit for "personal promotion campaign" because I want to be the first to vote for it. Unless you're doing this out of pure awesomeness, in which case you've moved me.

Hell, you've moved me deeply anyway.

May 17, 2007

Trail Shakeups Whilst some might notice only in passing, it must be pointed out that Burn Unit has voted for two other candidates. This should be interpreted as the show of strength it is; a fearless demonstration of sheer power and grit, and an endorsement of the ahem, presently solitary plank of another's platform: the rehabilitation of former power player Rubin Starset. The other vote, the one for p00n, happened while I was drunk.

I thank all my voters, from first to most recent, and I'm excited that I have been able to sway luminaries like Ms. Penn, Darkaardvark, Ziggy C. and so on. So for those of you who are motivated by "influence," "dignitaries," or "fame," just note that Yoko Ono, one of the most important and influential conceptual artists of all time, has endorsed this candidacy.

Recently: Wave of lawn signs spotted. The first player-made sign advertising Burn Unit for Senate has made an appearance in the virtual sf0 neighborhood, followed hard on its heels by others. Many thanks to JackieH for her bold initiative! And as for the others, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Hail pioneer Jackie!

Sample note to about a page and a half's worth of newer players

Your user name reminds me... anyway, Hi! I'm Burn Unit. Don't stop now, at least upload a picture soon! Welcome!

I'm reaching out to UofA members most especially, as our group has been too beset by external critics lately--they call us shallow, they call us too popular, and some of the other graybeards are calling our noobs uncreative. I don't believe them. Newcomers are super important, and I really hope you know that.

This game really matters to me. New players increase us, in a downpour of luminous jubilation. You are glittery and sensational. You are the calm upon Mycenaean sails. You are the police of the police.

If you want new friends, fun and collaborations, message me. If you want a different kind of fun, foe me and we'll just see what happens!

No joke, I'm also working the campaign trail. I am not a proud cuttlefish, I simply submit to the Drive. Read the platform, check out the campaign song, think about it and vote today. I can think of nothing that would make me more proud than to look at that list of votes and see a solid block of black UofA players putting our campaign over the top. Think about that display of unity and sheer momentum for a moment. Think about how we'd show 'em, a single moment of group unity, of perfect beauty....

Please, have fun, play lots, and show us what you got!

Keep watching the skies!

burnunit.

for senate.

Players Union

Lacking any idea about the players union, I contacted Ian:

Ian, I need to contact the players union. Sam and Sean both coyly described Campaign Trail as "your baby" this era. So, if you don't have a players union in mind, I'm going to make one up. JonO

I heard nothing so decided to do as promised and emailed reps from each group and one rep from the "no group"

May 21 outreach to "players union"

Sent to: Lizard Boy (JoeFredBob), Orion Kellogg (Orion), Zip37 (Zip37), rongo rongo (nuclearpolymer), Koyâh (BlueberryMascarpone), r0ck c4ndy (r0ckc4ndy), Ian Kizu-Blair (ikb),

Greetings members of the Players Union Multilocal #0!

I want to tell you how much I've admired your work over the days and weeks, and how I wish each of you to feel welcomed and relevant in these trying times. Glasnost has been and can be expected to be a unique and invigorating era.

I want to address you as leaders of the Players Union in order to give you your due. As you know there is a fierce senate campaign raging in SF0 and I wanted to reassure you in the Union that I respect and will uphold the strictures of the task. I call your attention to this for two reasons:

Today marks a crucial turning point in my own campaign, a multimedia effort to clarify several positions and to note the real life desires I have come to admit I hold.

Further I wish to invite your input as the persons of stature that you are, and as powerful entities in your own right. What might a Burn Unit administration and senatorial staff do to further your interests? Have you asked yourself that question? Perhaps it is time you did. Please, let me know as we enter the last days of the campaign, how I might be of service to your unique and significant agendas, as individuals and as the Union.

Please drop in, see how we're doing, and let your voice be heard.

Sincerely,

Burn Unit

May 23, 2007 diary entry

A new candidate has entered the race. Voters, beware! She is a TYRANT. She will use her powers to the utmost and BEYOND! Beware!. I have evidence the candidate has a history of participation in a number of compromising activities. She also wets the bed!

Reached out last week to newer players, also this week made the first overture to representatives of The Players Union. I have thus far been met with stony silence on that front, but will report back soon.

May 21, 2007

Turnover As an exploration module reaches its critical rollover or turnover point, so has this campaign. I have heretofore treated this as an amusing lark, an exercise in the arch half-seriousness to which I am so accustomed. This is no longer the case. I embrace this as a product of my desire, its appearance beautified in the sharpening of technique.

A short statement about my candidacy:

Today I'm making a change. Recent events and self-discovery have led me to this conclusion: I want to be elected. I mean, I actually want to have that little badge and to try out new "powers." I got into this partly because I thought it would be fun, partly because I think finding a way to lift a 15 point task to a 140 point task would be a good challenge, mostly because I knew it'd be fun. But I was always sort of half serious about it--you know, I mean running for a fake office in a non-existent political organization inside an online game. Feh.

But as I work this campaign trail, it's changing my attitude. I actually want to do it. I know, it's "just a game." But come on! If I was running for an office like The President of the World of Warcraft? Yeah, that'd be pretty stupid. But this is the Senate of SFZero!

It's okay to take these things seriously. Sort of. No. It's okay. I have come to believe that the only way for me to make this little 15 point task plus twenty-five 5 point tasks into the proper vote earner I want it to be is to take it exactly as seriously and life-changing as everything else.

SO: I want you to know that I'm completing this task because I want to. If you give me those remaining votes I'm working for, you should just know that you're giving them to someone who admits he actively desires them. I'm not joking around, I intend to be a senator and do senatorial things. I want it. I want it bad enough to admit that I want it and to keep actively trying to do something about getting it. If you don't want that to happen, you shouldn't vote. If you get that I'm serious about it, and you're okay with that, then you should. Right now.

At that point I revised my platform to tighten its focus, but kept the original draft as well. I also released a lengthy commentary on "the Rubin issue" which I think basically went completely unnoticed, especially the next week when "all Rubin broke out" and SF0 was plunged into chaos and hysteria for a day. It was like that scene from Being John Malkovich or something.

Note from Mouse, May 24:

Dear Mr Unit

I bring you news that may be of great importance towards your candidacy.

I have in the past urged you to take a strong stance on the furthering of sf0 towards an international basis. Now as a member of the newly formed UK0 union i come with an offer.

We currently are a growing union of players, right now standing at 5 people strong, who are passionate about drive and are currently large scale collaborating on several tasks with an aim to establish our small island as a strong supportive base to the community in its current time of glasnost.

If you agree to publically come out in support of our international union in your position as First Senator of SF0, we will be able to provide your campaign with the support and vote of our union members. This will of course provide you with your target of 25 votes and a succesful election as Senator.

I look forward to your response and I am more than willing to further discuss any queries you would have about our union and its members.
Mr Mouse

I immediately knew what to do, setting up an Aesthematic response in the form of an SF0-themed revision of the British flag, in the colors of the five groups. I posted that to my player photograph as soon as I could and sent this:

I believe you have your answer.

to which Mouse responded later the next day

I believe you now have your answer too.
Congratulations Senator Unit.

And the votes came in as promised, together with a couple from a get out the vote leter, it was more than enough. But the awesomeness of actually cutting a backroom deal like that, while also doing something in alignment with my principles, plus the drama of making my little uk0-honorary flag, posting it and just nailbiting wait for the time difference and the wheeler-dealer sense of it all was so cool. Mouse made it cool, like a dry crisp political intrigue movie or something! Pitch perfect! It's easy to see that on TV or in a movie and treat it kind of like melodramatic self-seriousness. But when you're a part of it, when it's happening to you, and it's something that kinda matters, it feels really cool. I don't know what their long term plans are, but I assume the UK0 crew is up to something good. So I still need to record a song for the union guys, one I think they'll appreciate.

May 25: Victory

The 25th vote arrived this morning/afternoon (London time) fresh and hot. More updates to follow after victory lap, drinking, etc.

I got a phone call from Ian who congratulated me and then I gotta go through the swearing in process, etc.

End of diary, all remaining updates are in The Proof.

Blaze Trajectories of Desire!