The Plan

[flamingsword]

Now that I've snuggled myself out, caught up with reading the friendslist (@ skip=140, geez you people write a fuckton), made that LOLrockstar, and cooked the boy Molly's Mom's Meatballs, it is time to hammer out the Plan.

The Plan: Make Dallas Cool.

It's a multi-step process, so bear with me.

I. Start group activities that appeal to the neat people we already have, and add fun and value to our network. Give up resource-depleting Starbucks habit to fund initial stages of The Plan.

II. Develop better networking skills to foster connections among the people here and more closely tie them to one another. Give up time-consuming projects like internet addiction to make time for this.

III. Start a campaign of luring cool people away from Houston, Austin, and eventually the rest of the world. Give up on idle plans of moving to a cooler city in favor of making a cooler city.

IV. Get a higher paying job to fund the neat culture that brings people in. This plan requires it. Take fewer day at current job, and explain The Plan to any cranky customers. IT'S FOR A GOOD CAUSE!

V. Become politically active to mitigate and prevent the negative legal impact of local government ordinances. Ban the suck!

VI. Find others who have similar plans and coordinate with them. Articulate and further develop goals and intermediate steps. Give up habit of either doing everything myself or letting plans drift into other people's hands and then languish.

VII. Have fun and share it around. Make Dallas a better place to be for creative expression, mainstream involvement in counterculture, and personal acceptance.

Future blog posts on this subject to include:
Behavioral modelling of Jenn, Tommy, and other social hubs.
Sharing daydreams of what Dallas could be if we invest in it.
Illustrating the attitude that most creative metropolitans have where they wish they lived in Austin.
Cost/benefit ratios of each decision process within the plan.

Comments

[tanniynim.livejournal.com]

Bah. We're too busy down here trying to Make Austin Weirder.

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

Dallas has a lot of weird, but it's isolated, insular weird. We have to chill out the mainstream and possibly put the Southern Baptist Convention on prozac, but we have the building blocks for an awesome city, assuming the right configuration can be put in place.

[sushi-slave.livejournal.com]

"and possibly put the Southern Baptist Convention on prozac"
The only way I see this working is if you decide to baptize them in it as "holy water", because I'm not sure if many of them take communion.
Sounds like a fun plan though, count me in ;0

[doragoon.livejournal.com]

Just come to Seattle, we are the coolest weirdest place in america. Plus we have LOTS of VERY GOOD coffee.

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

But it's expensive to work ther, and my accreditation wouldn't transfer. And neither would my social network or Knowledge: Local. You're the only person I'd know up there, and you can't get along with my SO; that would make me grrsome and crazy.

[doragoon.livejournal.com]

But why put all that effort into making dallas into what seattle already is? in the long term it would take less effort, time, and money to just move here. interesting people are all over the place here. _I_ have been finding new social networks of cool people hanging out in coffee shops and such. And you know how bad i am at social stuff. You'd be a kid in a candy store.

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

I like having hobbies wherein I interact with other people. You're thinking that this will be a chore rather than a source of fun.

And while I am sure that I would love it (coffee, freaks, overcast) I am also sure that Seattle doesn't need any more maintainance from me, whereas Dallas needs to be rescued from the mire of middle class morality and lukewarm social scenes. And you know how I love to fix things. :)

[doragoon.livejournal.com]

but but but... those are all the things i want to move back to dallas FOR!

[sushi-slave.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what Doug's LJ is anymore, so you can tell him for me:
Just saw an all pink motorcycle with a few stars on it with big bold letter's that said "Pink Ranger" on it.
The girl riding it had the pink ranger outfit and helmet to go with it.
It made me think of him fondly ;)

[sushi-slave.livejournal.com]

LOLrockstar = *snerk*

[rens-sanctuary.livejournal.com]

Yay plan! Except for the luring part, that will suck for me, assuming I'm the right sort of cool to be lured, or jigged :P, away. :P

My sister said it best, "I know you like to live like a hermit, but your secret is out, people do know you exist. Our neighbor didn't know we had a sister for 3 years."

Me: "That's pretty awesome!"

I support this plan! Yay!

[bardkris.livejournal.com]

I'm better located for this plan. I'm between two hours and three hours from Houston, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio. And... I run three hotels (if only at night), so I have large meeting rooms (with wall projectors for movies and video games) and places for people to sleep that I can 'comp'.

Sadly, my activist days have subsided for the nonce. Perhaps I will be inspired by your actions at some point.

[pretty-pyrate.livejournal.com]

If Dallas was cooler, I'd probably move back there. Chicago is pretty cool and I loved it there. One day I'll make it to Seattle, if only to visit my dad. Detroit could be a better place...no one has bothered to reinvest in the dying city. In the fall I'm off to CA...

When you post, I miss Dallas... A lot...*le sigh* There are so many things I miss, and yet, I have found that I can survive without those things.

[jslorentz.livejournal.com]

Sign me up, especially if we can throw a little love to Fort Worth, too! Arlington is becoming a hopeless chasm, and it would suck if the economics that make D and FW so interactive were so cleaved just when they were starting to get over their bitter rivalry...