Alright, let's hear the best and worst from 2012

[Milayna]

The art car on Sunday night at midnight by 5:00 and D that drove around in circles thru the neighborhood blasting the loudest shittiest worst gangsta rap I have ever heard. It was extremely disturbing. It was as loud as the loudest sound camp. Grodie to the max

TOTALLY!! I couldn't believe how f****ing LOUD that thing was, and yeah, horrible music too. I was camping at 5 and D, planning on getting up before sunrise to pack up and that stupid car kept me up even with my super earplugs that had drowned out all other noise throughout the week.

So yeah, that's on my WORST list also. That and whoever "borrowed" my bike while I was in the potty burn night. However, riding around Sunday morning (on a campmate's bike) I rode by my bike!!!! So since I got it back I'm not too upset about the borrower, hopefully they really needed it and/or brought some extra happiness to someone's night because of it.

BEST:
Everything!!! It's very hard, I had an amazing first burn. Definitely the wonderful people of Hushville, especially Camp Althing who adopted me right away (I was a virgin who didn't know anyone). Hushville was such an amazing, kind, diverse group of people. I also LOVED being next to Kidsville! Before I got there I thought I wouldn't want to see kids out there, but I totally changed my mind. I met so many kids that were so happy and excited about being there.

The two little girls (maybe 5 years old) who had turned their power wheels jeep into an art car and drove all over in it. So amazing.

The "forest" out past the temple within the white wall, so cool.

Hammock Camp, which saved my life the day I stayed up all night to watch the sunrise, a nap was so helpful.

My awesome rideshare who made the trip up and back so much nicer.

The foot wash/massage I got at center camp from a super nice 15 year burner.

Volunteering at Arctica- so fun and cold!!

Too much to list really, it was all really great, very very few negatives, I will definitely be back next year!!

[grenadine]

Best-
Getting married at first camp, meeting all the wonderful people from eplaya, having 3 great camp mates, the pier 2, meeting the cthulhu of my dreams.

Bad-
Heat, foot blister and not enough time there .

Oh man, sorry I missed the wedding! Hope you have pics!

[lucky420]

BEst part- all of you

Worst part- some of you


um my brain is still a little spinny so I shall return to this thread later when I have more to say

[VultureChow]

Best:
Three amazing DPW interactions
Meet&Greet
Char Wash
Carrying Jesus's cross
Etc.

Worst:
Entry kinda sucked, but once I managed to piss in a Starbucks cup, I felt much better.

[tattoogoddess]

Best-
Getting married at first camp, meeting all the wonderful people from eplaya, having 3 great camp mates, the pier 2, meeting the cthulhu of my dreams.

Bad-
Heat, foot blister and not enough time there .

Oh man, sorry I missed the wedding! Hope you have pics!

We do, but they are on tinkermom's camera so have to wait until she gets home. Jax was our "pastor". We had only a few moments and we couldn't find the one who was going to do it. But it was beautiful none the less. Zip tie wedding bands,aluminum foil flower bouquet and my vale wad made from jax's lace shirt lol. We were going to do it on the ship but that did not work but Tom pulled some magic and we did it at first camp with Larry as a witness. It was pretty darn special. I'm about in years cause over all the burn was magical and the playa provided me with just what I needed.

[grenadine]

Now I'm not so sad I missed the wedding because reading about it now has brought the playa back into my little default world and I'm smiling and teary all over again. But, hot damn, Boogie Bug would have made a great ring bearer.

Congratulations! Witnessing the two of you coming together was one of my bests for 2012 for sure. Hope that I can raise a glass to you on playa next year

[Latch]

Oh yeah forgot the two other worsts- The staff truck BLAIRING free bird at the temple burn.

Holy crap -- was that actually a staff truck? Can anyone confirm? That was so tacky.

[TomServo]

Oh yeah forgot the two other worsts- The staff truck BLAIRING free bird at the temple burn.

Holy crap -- was that actually a staff truck? Can anyone confirm? That was so tacky.

Without the tag number it would be hard to verify 100%. But, it was not a LEO, and I don't recall us approving any utility trucks for a disabled license. It was a beige truck with boxes on the side, if anyone with access to the DMV database wanted to look. Didn't see any department stickers.

AND!!! Pier 2 was downright AMAZING! Heads still on cloud 9 from the magic of this year. I will never look at tables the same way.

[tattoogoddess]

Tee hehehe tables.
I wish you could have been there to! Maybe next year we can do something that is not so late in the week so we can have all our friends around?

[Bob]

DPW would have its own booklet of stickers. Entitlement has its privileges.

[VultureChow]

Three of my best experiences were with DPW, and it changed any preconceived notions I had of them.

My first real wandering around night, I found myself alone on a lonely dark street. I saw what appeared to be a huge and brightly lit bar and went in. The person behind the bar gave me a plate, and a fork, and offered me some warm food. Sauteed broccoli, rice, grilled chicken and some teriyaki seitan, which I was shocked to actually enjoy. They gave me a drink and as I was about to enjoy my food, they said, "Welcome to DPW" I must have looked ready to bolt because the four people there laughed, "We're the kinder, gentler DPW. Relax." I enjoyed my food, drink and conversation. In hindsight, I should have realized that a well lit, stocked and huge bar had some strings attached.

My second was sitting on top of a truck in the Friday dust storm after they canceled the wall street burn. We hung out for a half hour or so, then he offered me a ride back to the city.

Then my last day there. As I was hastily cutting down my trash fence, a pair drove up in a car, asked me if I was the artist and gave me a hug. She said they got a kick out of seeing the trash fence there every time they drove by. Made my burn.

[AntiM]

Best: mostly people. Mostly eplayans. Golden Cafe. MOOP scores. Art. RHPS. The Home for Wayward Art. Always a pleasure even if I bitch about it.
Very best: stuck in whiteout, crawling across the open playa on our rhoadescar. The dust cleared and there before us was a hot dog cart, big bun length dogs with all the fixin's. And we handed out beer, because what is a dog with a brew?

Worst: other people. (cough * Idaho blisspony * cough). Overly loud artcars in the neighborhoods. Save it for the open playa.

Dust, yes, nice quantities.

Very worst: surprising my housesitter a day early. Drama drama drama

[strike-anywhere]

BEST:...where do I start? It was a completely fantastic year.
Pillow Punch aka Pillow fight arena is our perennial favorite -- Such a great group and so welcoming.
Anton of Telluride's latest human-cranked spinning fireplace is one of my personal favorites every year. That man is a friggin' genius.
Duane Flatmo and friends' El Pulpo Mechanico is the greatest art car ever with the Neverwas Haul a solid second -- I felt very lucky to see them both rolling again, may they never die.
Had a great hillarious day around Spanky's. They wouldn't spank our kids, but did lock the kids in the Bad Goat cage for a good kicking. We all laughed till it hurt. Must've been socially inappropriate parenting day. Teetertotter of Death, merry-go-round, roller disco, the big wheel race track and riding bull thingy at Zoom. Fantastic area.
The dodge ball camp was fantastic! I don't think they were particularly thrilled about kids joining in at first but they radically included us anyway and I think we all had a great time.
The black rock bike course was great and I hope it grows -- a lot of potential there.
The Cosmic Recess playground and Tribal Thunder were a blast too.
Every otter pop angel who appeared out of nowhere with frozen gifts has my love.
A huge shout out must go to the gruff exteriors and big hearts of the Death Guild Gang who took the time to visit us once again down in kidsville for our annual mini-thunderdome.
A great job was done by Dawn our new kidsville mayor!
In fact, Kidsville was just great in general--fantastic responsible people with a good sense of humor and lots of love in their hearts.
We got very lucky with all our neighbors, especially Beth and Tracy who had a new trick up her sleeve every day to teach and entertain the young and old as well as engaging in her silent saintly gift of aromatherapizing select portapottys throughout the city. My favorite was Fertility. mmmm.

WORST:
pretty short list. lets see... Um I wasn't too impressed by the Temple Burn "Freebird" thing. Funny in a burner kind of way because it was so inappropriate but felt like it crossed the line as a gift that didn't "respect the rights and liberties of the recipients" who were just trying to have one quiet moment in a long week of cacophony. Not so cool...please do better in the future.
That about it for the bad.

Thank you all who give so much and ask so little. This is an amazing thing we've got going here.

[factoid]

Good:
- Watching the Wall Street pyro go off for the Anubis burn after the Powers that Be stripped it from Burn Wall Street for mysterious reasons
- Building and living in Swing City, among aerialists and aesthetes with the bodies of gods and the souls of humble artists grateful to share and experience all that life has to offer
- Meeting starry-eyed virgins who Totally Get It and vow to return in '13 with something even bigger
- Working 5 shifts in my first volunteer stint in 9 burns (3 dust-eater shifts on Gate including opening night and 2 on Perimeter) alongside the hardest-working, funniest, most kickass people you'd ever hope to meet
- The sweets and delicacies of the French Quarter bakery
- More live music and less dubstep

Bad:
- Massive rise in the number of virgins (double last year's 15%, say my friends in the Borg) who needed to be handheld on cleaning up after themselves and putting some damn lights on at night
- Resultant massive rise in the number of darkwads I almost ran over (paging Dr. Darwin!!!)
- Eating dust on 3 Gate shifts because you can't welcome people to the city, tear tickets & search vehicles with damn respirators on
- Ticket Lotto Rhumba knocked a lot of great mutant vehicles off the playa
- I lacked the time/money to get our own MV back out there

Ugly:
- The horrendous quantities of MOOP that idiots left every single evening like clockwork outside the potties at 9/D
- The unannounced, unmanaged, nonfunctioning recycling centers for aluminum cans and glass bottles that said idiots set up in said potties
- My first-ever case of playa-throat
- The $1,400 tow bill to Reno, $400 repair bill, $65-a-head shuttle fee and $50 we had to eat when XyloVan's battery shorted and blew up the starter and solenoid during Exodus on Sunday evening. Don't break down on the playa, kids. And if you do, don't even think about relying on the punk-ass 7-mile towing plan that AAA gave you after refusing to upgrade you to the 100-mile plan simply because your other car was towed once during the past year. Sryusly. Fuck AAA. Full stop.

[Tanzremix]

Best (from a first year in a large art-car camp):

Aphrodite's Tuesday night set at OT... best DJ set of my life, fucking amazing!

Friday's Whiteout... really needed it. Helped guide the car back behind Wall St. so we could have a windbreak. Amazing camaraderie, sensory deprivation, the whole shebang. Was looking for something out on the playa, didn't know what, still don't know what, but I found it in the dust.

Meeting Trilobyte... we've interfaced positively on here, but what a cool dude!

Dj EVA!

Dirtybird sunrise set at Nexus (on the Funktion one!) and the ride home after from the Movement of Jah People.

Tuna Guys and the Organic Produce market.

Watching the guys with the Lightsaber game whip the lightup discs at participants, poor Darth Maul always got owned.

Worst:

3:00 was seriously unrideable from A to the end. Didn't see a single water truck until Sunday.

Waking up Sunday to my car's quarter panel having been kicked in (with a boot print to match) sometime on Saturday night.

Finding a big name (for the Playa) DJ peeing on the car before his set. I don't care how popular you are, you can fuck right off.

Losing my voice from Wed-Friday, but then I shouldn't smoke so much.

[Eric]

I've merged the two "best & worst/ good bad & ugly" threads

[Xavier]

Best:
6 Am sunrise set on Saturday morning by Emancipator at Fractal Nation
Pier 2
Darwin, the little 2 year old laughing maniacally as he misted everyone coming down the street with a spray mister
"Ah just can't quit yew, Burning Man."
Miso Horny
Grilled Cheese Camp
The Char Wash
Getting my chakra adjusted at Sweaty Betties
The Appreciation Chair
"Surprise! is the new sorry."

Worst
The most useless Ice Run ever. (running an ice run on foot for 33 bags only to realize it all fit on my helper's bikes.)
The girl who almost won a darwin award by sitting down on the tow bridge between the two halves of the Disco Fish in the middle of it navigating a corner. Then giving me dirty looks when I told her she had to move and I didn't want her to fall off and get run over.

[dontflipmejack]

Worst:


Waking up Sunday to my car's quarter panel having been kicked in (with a boot print to match) sometime on Saturday night.

Finding a big name (for the Playa) DJ peeing on the car before his set. I don't care how popular you are, you can fuck right off.

Just when I thought i had it bad.........................that sounds like some serious damage to your car, I hope you find out who did it and they get cited.


My best: Meeting new people and just enjoying the experience and living for the moment, not having to think about work, driving, traffic, and everyday retards.

The bad: Being woken up at 4am by the "goon squad" some idiots in my camp who were upset b/c I asked a few questions about our budget (like if I could see it). One retard stuck his bare @ss in my tent and said if I had any complaints now would be a good time to file them. All joking aside some people just go too far.

[mudpuppy000]

The bad: Being woken up at 4am by the "goon squad" some idiots in my camp who were upset b/c I asked a few questions about our budget (like if I could see it). One retard stuck his bare @ss in my tent and said if I had any complaints now would be a good time to file them. All joking aside some people just go too far.

hahahaha

[CarrieSnarf]

Best:
The fire tornado that happened right after the man burned. It was like nature didn't want to be one upped. "Oh, you have a million fireworks and a gas bomb? Well look at this motherfuckers".
Being able to sneak up on people with my cart and make them a grilled cheese sandwich. That moment of wonder when I offered them a chair and a sandwich- watching the glee that filled their faces as they ran to hug me. Best. Thing. Ever.
Reconnecting with friends from far away places.
Seeing my camp plans- my food plan, my shade structures, etc etc- come together perfectly

The Bad:
Being injured on the playa so much that I wasn't supposed to bike, couldn't dance and couldn't play too much. Stupid shoulder surgery.
Going so hard that I burned out and had to spend the majority of Wednesday and Thursday in a dark place resetting my neurons.
The traffic through fucking Tahoe on Monday.
My HOA being stupid- charging me to clean up sand on the public street, bitchy emails about "storing" some boxes on my porch for two days as I unpack.

The Ugly:
Falling and reinjuring my shoulder as I was walking to camp from temple burn to pack up and leave. Fucking stone cold sober and wearing very reasonable footwear and I had to fall in a hole on 4:30.
If I had just survived 45 more minutes I could have told my doctor "See, I told you I would be careful and wouldn't hurt myself at burning man". Now, not so much.

[darius]

BEST

- My new campmates at Tough Love: Such a fabulous, eclectic and inviting group of people. Thanks for having me along for the ride this year. Ya'll made my burn.

- The Music: RIP DUBSTEP! woooot. Yay for the he playa dj collective unconscious. Somehow most dj's decided to play much more interesting, random, familiar music than I've ever heard out there.

- The Fur: People were rocking some amazing furry creations out there. The magical fur fashion show that would emerge around 3AM was stunning. People looked so damn good. I noticed a new style/trend developing too. Not just technicolor neon muppet pimp coats anymore. There was a fascinating variety of cuts, furs and patterns. It's really interesting to see a cohesive, yet ephemeral world of fashion appear out of no where. I applaud my fellow furries!

- Various Art Cars: There was an animatronic, firebreathing, super-bright-led dinosaur with the most life-like movement in its head. Simply stunning, stole my heart! Not sure of it's name unfortunately. Disco Fish also made quite an impression on me. God damn, the led array on that thing was awe inspiring.

- Rampart: My nose was dripping down to my knees one cold, and solo evening when suddenly I stumbled upon the Rampart. Thanks so much for the tissues, made my nite!

- Walk-Ins: Bless those brave soles out there in the nether regions of the playa with nothing more than a wonky tent and a prayer. Those solo outfits were a wonderful contrast to all of the sensory overload and eye candy. I marveled at their simplicity and courage as I watched the sunrise one morning.

- The Gherkin (Automatic Subconscious @ 2:30/Esp): Nicknamed this camp the Gherkin and discovered one nite that they had also been calling their own camp the Gherkin. Was one of those ZOMG I love u guys kinda moments. Great parties too! Made for a fun masthead for the neighborhood.

- Everything else awesome: This list could go on forever...


WORST

- Forgetting my ticket: Discovered that I forgot my ticket after driving for 4 hours. F MY LIFE!

- Greeters: I was so excited to finally arrive and the ticketing/greeting situation was lack luster. Got some yucky attitude from the ticket collecting person. Oh well..

- The Heat: Yeah I know...if you can't stand the heat, hide in your hexayurt. I just didn't have the patience for the daytime this year. Definitely made up for it at nite tho

- Holding my piss: I feel like my bladder is constantly full at BM. I need to mark the portas with gps or something.

- The exodus labyrinth: Seemed like the infinite exodus. Fortunately there was nearly zero wait, so I can't really complain.

- Neighboring Law Enforcement: The heat inside the playa seemed respectful, however the LE circling outside of BRC was vicious. Burners = Fish in a barrel. Shame that this event manifests such greed. Thank god for cruise control. Tried my damnedest to not give LE any excuse to pull me over.

SUMMARY

The good dramatically outweighed any little, negative hiccups experienced during this year's burn. So glad that I made it out this year. I swore off burning in 2011, and now I'm back with a vengeance! Thank you captain for setting me straight. Wouldn't have made it out there without ya!

BIG HUGGZ,

d.

[soupman]

Fucking Freebird. Just... horrible.

Everything else was just lovely though

[lucky.bastard]

The Best:
art: the pier 2, the bull, the forest, the egg, the temple
music: david starfire @ fractal nation, crystal method @ root society, live music from empire of dirt
people: every last one of my camp mates, simon, the CO, the crew from movement of jah people

Best in Show: the storm on Friday night

The Worst:
getting bitched at about two ice cubes i took ( thought it was my friends cooler )

[shykat]

Best - Meeting new people

Worst - This year saying goodbye was really hard..

[ZaphodBurner]

Good:
- Watching the Wall Street pyro go off for the Anubis burn after the Powers that Be stripped it from Burn Wall Street for mysterious reasons

Word is that it had something to do with the fact that people were still crawling around in it and BWS didn't have their shit together in time. The pyro people have their own shit to do and it sounds like the idea was, they were hired to blow shit up at a certain place, time, and so they just shifted the place a bit to an art piece that was ready to go.

- The horrendous quantities of MOOP that idiots left every single evening like clockwork outside the potties at 9/D

No kidding. Totally fucking ridiculous. Not as bad as the spare ribs and garbage in 2004, but, I would seriously like to find some of those people and show them that you CAN give somebody an outhouse-swirly if you cause them to drown and they start to thrash. We should call it "shitboarding" and tell people it's what happens to you if you get caught walking into a shitter with a beer can and leaving without one. It really only started happening on Thursday (of course.)

We caught somebody dumping his drink in our cooler barrel so we could serve him root beer, which might have been forgivable until he threw his cigarette out in it. Somebody else stuck their gum on our cloth barfront. This sort of stupidity was certainly no greater than previous experiences, however, and traffic was pretty heavy on 9 this year.

[Savannah]

I just got back in town two hours ago, and have never been this tired or Burned so well. MAN OH MAN. Great @#$% Burn. Like a ruthless Russian judge, I shall give it a 9.8, only because I want to leave room for other competitors (and because I am a bastard!)

. . . I love this thread and all the things we've seen! I've been reading it on the train home.

A ping when we recognize a shared moment . . . a moment of glee and ruefulness when we missed something kickass but craved the story of, the second after we actually knew it existed . . . the collective horror when we recognize a shared disgust . . . the fights we might get into later, when there turn out to be three sides to every story, or when we disagree on whether something was actually 1) the Best Thing Ever, or 2) a Deplorable Fucking Shit-Show.

Darius in particular, on this page. Heartfelt! It's like I saw everything you saw. CarrieSnarf, love hearing about your amazing gift in action. Grilled cheese already may be evidence of God, but a CHAIR, too? Jesus.

We have almost no option but to express these crazy things that happened to us, but . . . I'm still just really grateful it's here. All is fulla stars. W00t!

[RedHeaven]

I am disappointed that I am hearing more complaints about Freebird at the Temple Burn than I am hearing praise about the LIVE 20+ person chorus, piano player and conductor doing Ava Maria. That overshadowed everything to me. I could care less about Freebird or the bitch yelling Orgasm after hearing the stunning most gratifying heart wrenching sounds of the gift this group put together for us all. Just beautiful. THANK YOU. It really made that temple burn special for me.

[Bob]

I detest everything about the fucking Temple, but not enough to go out of my way to jack everybody up at the burn. That's just stinkin' thinkin'.

[BBadger]

I am disappointed that I am hearing more complaints about Freebird at the Temple Burn than I am hearing praise about the LIVE 20+ person chorus, piano player and conductor doing Ava Maria. That overshadowed everything to me. I could care less about Freebird or the bitch yelling Orgasm after hearing the stunning most gratifying heart wrenching sounds of the gift this group put together for us all. Just beautiful. THANK YOU. It really made that temple burn special for me.

That was a live performance? I couldn't see anything to that side from where I was sitting, so I thought it was a tape playing from an art car.

Crazy!

[CornMan]

Best: the opera singing leading to the opening of Thunderdome.