Get a ticket. Basically at the playa no one (except maybe the undercover cops) gives a damn if you want to have sex or drugs or no, and no one gives a damn if you are flamboyant or no. If you do/are, fine, if you don't/aren't, fine. The great thing about the place is not that it is all flamboyant se...

Every volunteer event I have been involved with seems to have these people whose idea of fun is to walk or drive around in uniforms and serious expressions, wearing a headset and looking important. I admit that they are a slightly amusing kind of people, but I have learnt that they are also a very i...

We actually bring out the fact that we're Finnish quite a lot in BM. No, we do not have a flag, but we like telling people where we come from and bring Finnish specialties to taste, and if alcoholically enticed to do so, I will also sing a little in Finnish. Sometimes I feel a bit uncomfortable abou...

We had a tensegrity type thing built according to the 'net instructions of Camp Elsewhere (here: http://www.bweebweebwee.com/tensegrity/), and were very happy with it. For us the reason of building our own instead of buying a carport is that we need to fly it over from Europe in our luggage. If we b...

Objectively, I think this year and last were kinda equivalent. Subjectively... well, it felt more relaxed this year, in a way. I am not certain if it was, or if it was just me - last year was my first and it was pretty intense. Relaxed here is neither negative or positive, just different (well, diff...

Yay, home at last. It was great putting some names on faces at the meet&greet, and everyone looked so different from what I expected. Chai Guy, your avatar picture does not do you justice at all, have a cuter one taken. :P Kinetic, so we did not meet after all... We had to leave when it started to g...

My 2 cents: if it is not man-powered, it should be decorated. And 2 ribbons trailing a golf cart or a couple of light-sticks on a scooter do not count as decoration enough to make your bloody motorized vehicle an art car, thank you very much. If you are not willing to put the effort into your motori...

If you behave, you will more likely be pitied than actually looked down, I'd say. Unfortunately you really do miss out a lot if you are not there to see the setup, and I'd guess that the loss is even greater for a first-timer. :( It is unlikely you will find camp space anywhere very close to the esp...

Plane leaves in less than 12 hours! Yay!

When I read that survey, I assumed the researcher was doing not a quantitative "survey", but gathering data of which kinds of different things people bring up when they are asked open-ended questions about BM. Such questions would serve the purpose - though a better way to do that would be to get yo...

In my opinion, writing and research can be your way of participating and sharing, provided the writer/researcher approaches it from a beneficial and inclusive point of view of the whole community. Research and art, or science and art, or participating and research, are not the polar opposites many p...

Nially, there is a separate part on this board for ticket sales, called 2005 Tickets. You can find it by cliking the big "eplaya" text in the top of the page, then look for "2005 tickets" under "2005 Burning Man event". On the ticket forum, you can find many people looking for tickets, to whom you c...

Bitterman, if it makes you less bitter, there are also newbies for whom the self-reliance point is a huge issue and who share your attitude to those who have not prepared. I have always heard that things just manifest when it comes to going to Burning Man - for example, despite poor planning things ...

Whatever mattress you're most comfortable with sleeping on the ground is the best for you. :) Since most people come in cars, space is not necessarily a limiting factor, you could even bring an actual mattress. I personally used an inflatable camping mattress and a (good) sleeping bag and liked it a...

Uh, I think I am having a culture shock. I also feel the need to clarify what I said earlier. 1) I think kids should come, if they do not object and they come with a responsible guardian who knows what they are doing. 2) If someone is not comfortable doing something around kids, that's their problem...

This and other tent discussions make me so, so, so happy that we have our good hiking tent made for crossing mountains and stuff like that. Sometimes it feels like overkill to most situations we use it these days, but then again, sometimes not. Question, though: the inner (closed) tent has a water-p...

In my opinion re-gifting is cool. It's a kind of a gift to the original owner, too, that you find someone who enjoys things she made/brought - even if she never knows that she received that gift. :) And definitely better to give again than to throw away (and letting it lie in your house, never used ...

Just wanted to add: dust is an issue. I'd recommend if at all possible to have a sleeping space you try to keep relatively dust free, even if this means some hassle with always dressing down and washing your feet before entering (we managed that last year and it was great). I'd also join in with the...

Just as an aside, what puzzles me (me going to my second burn this year) is that I hear a lot of people complaining about the absence of drums and chanting, and yet I see no, or very few, people doing drums and chanting. Why is it not there, if so many people want it? Or is it there, but somewhere i...

if you aint naked at least part of you time at the burning man then you didnt totally get into it... Bullshit. For some of us nakedness is so irrelevant to "the point" that you cannot really get farther. In fact, for some of us it is so irrelevant that I am almost tempted to say that if you think n...

Phil, "I thought" and "anyhow" were there exactly because I don't remember where the reference was. I seem to remember reading it from somewhere last year. ;) I might well remember wrong.

Nobody complains about people taking a leak on the playa, right? I thought you weren't supposed to, anyhow. Thanks for the cloth evaporation info. Based on that, I think I need to do some experiments this year, for a longer-term project. I suppose the trick is that the cloth must be thick enough so...

What puzzles me about these "wet a cloth and let it dry" evaporation methods is this. As I understand it, the reasoning about not pouring your grey water in the playa is not the water, but all the dirt and chemicals in the water. Now, if you drop a piece of cloth in the water, and then let it dry in...

Believe me, you don't want my telemark turns. They are definitely not of value. :D

Yes, that's what they are referring to. As far as I understand it, you can basically do four things: 1) camp alone or with one or two tent-mates, in which case you camp wherever you please that is not registered for theme camps (see below), and stay that way 2) try to do 1), but get absorbed to a ca...

I tried to think what I would call a Thing of Value with capitals. Money, food, shelter, no. Anyone who can buy a ticket to BM can manage the camping side in a couple of weeks, I am certain. They could be valuable things, but they are not Things of Value. I do not presume to call any art I make a Th...

Stryder, eloquently put, thank you! I think you made me see something. Have a good burn! :)

We'll have our Camp Candyland somewhere in the "suburbs", likely aiming to somewhere between 4 and 8 rather than towards the noisier sides. We have not set the exact target location yet. (In fact, we have not even contacted everyone close to whom we hope to migrate - if anyone of the Steves-with-boo...

Oh, and I always worry about showing an Obvious Physical Reaction to beautiful naked women (and they're all beautiful) and embarassing everybody. As a tangent, I am not sure why we (ok, most of us anyway) seem to consider that embarrassing. Of course, if you try to act on it and are rude about it, ...

Funny thing... for me part of the challenge/fun of BM is the whole "pack in, pack out" self-reliance ideology. If I could not bring all my water myself (or, our water by ourselves), I would probably not look for ways to buy it on-playa, but for ways to pack differently so that we could make it. But ...