Insignifica

I'm glad Chris is getting

I'm glad Chris is getting into the kind of entries I like writing - "what if" observations on the everyday. For those who hadn't noticed, I (Michael Doss) am the owner, operator and chief poster here at insignifica. Chris Clark used to post here, but now has chrisaclark.com. Chris Stankevitz has been posting in the main blog for a few months now, his entries have his name next to them. Simple enough.

I signed up for a livejournal (thanks Garote) today, and put down "santa cruz" as an interest. When I clicked my interest to see others with the same, LiveJournal informed me that there are now 420 users with that interest. I think that's very funny, especially for me to be the 420th.

I'm glad it's fall. I'm not glad it's getting darker earlier. I'm happiest, however, knowing that I don't get bored/annoyed with a season until it's almost over, and I have something I look forward to in each and every "season" we have here in California.

New songs and groups and musicans I've recently heard and enjoyed:

Neve - "Drift"
SugarBomb - "Posterchild for Tragedy"
Travis
Andy Stochansky

Thank you.

I'm working in Washington DC

I'm working in Washington DC this week, which is pretty cool... it's weird to just drive by the Jefferson Memorial, the Pentagon and the Capitol on your way to work. Unfortunately, my hotel is in the ghetto and I'm afraid to go out at night. Allow me to get emotional here and share my innermost feelings like Mike does every so often on the site. Driving around here makes me very jealous -- I wish so much I could just wander into all these cool buildings -- like CIA headquarters -- and get 'briefed' on all the cool stuff that our government is involved in. The NRO is one particularly interesting place (they do satellite stuff) -- its existance was declassified almost 10 years ago after 30 years of secrecy -- imagine an entire building and all its contents classified. I could be eating lunch next to a russian spy or top scientist on some super secret weapon.

Cold breeze, twilight, candles burning,

Cold breeze, twilight, candles burning, new good music, and some incense burning. Welcome to Ideal Fall Evening™.

My 1.3 gigahertz computer now

My 1.3 gigahertz computer now has 1.3 gigabytes of memory.

Why did Fry's limit me to two 512MB memory chips? I can understand limiting the amount someone can buy to prevent reselling by local retailers -- but why not make the limit three (which is how many I wanted)?

Last minute pot luck dinner

Last minute pot luck dinner tonight. If you know me, and would like to hang out, eat, drink, and be merry, message or email me.

This is my junior high

This is my junior high school PE teacher's daughter.

The Angels are going to

The Angels are going to New York!

Congrats to the Angels, who clinched a playoff spot for the first time in 16 years with a 10-5 win over the Texas Rangers today. It's been a long time coming for the fans...it's nice to finally be there for the first time in my adult life.

Hey everyone, it's time for

Hey everyone, it's time for more idiotic school rules that have nothing to do with education:

Hairstyle keeps girl out of Whitefish High School

The basics: girl gets dreadlocks, school tells girl to cut them (as they're against the rules), girl doesn't, school kicks her out. They're her natural hair color, they're clean (at least from the picture), and they certainly don't look like they'd be a distraction. The school's going back to the old "can't allow anything that's a disruption" rule - unfortunatey, that's been used to stop just about every new style for the last 50 years or so, and can allow an administrator to decide things based on their preferences.

Another point made by the article is that girl's grades aren't so good. Neither were mine. I also had a problem with authority. You'd think, however, that the school would want to help someone, not kick them out saying:

"She was asked to go home and change her hair on opening day of school this year. She is welcome back any time when she changes her hair. She's chosen not to come back. We say, as a student she left campus, went home and chose not to return."

Asshat administrators. If I could do something about this (hire a lawyer, talk to someone, etc) I would, in a minute.

This is very funny, but

This is very funny, but this is not me.

Want to come to a

Want to come to a Halloween party?

Making some changes around here

Making some changes around here - font sizes, little layout things, etc. Let me know if something's not working correctly in your browser.

First, check out this picture.

First, check out this picture. Now, if you have 10-15 minutes to spare, read this story about a guy scamming a con artist.

If a tree falls in

If a tree falls in a forest with nothing/nobody around observe it, does it still make a noise? I think it does. Apparently I'm willing to believe in things that cannot be observed.

Wikipedia kicks ass.

Wikipedia kicks ass.

I just got some porn

I just got some porn spam for "Cindi's Web Cam Page". It wasn't well put together, as it had broken javascript and picture links. Funniest, though, is their broken counter:

PEOPLE VIEWING: var num = 0; num=Math.floor(20*Math.random()+7); document.write(num);

Heh. Cheaters.

Last month, I skipped a

Last month, I skipped a trip to Vegas to make a major purchase - that of my laptop. Last night, I made a considerably larger purchase, that of a white 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid:

Click for larger image

I don't have a driver's license (yet), and I've never bought a car, much less a new one, but I have exceptional credit, so I'm the official owner of the car while my girlfriend is the cosigner. She'll be driving this car, though, as she's making the payments, needs it for work (she has to drive a good deal), and actually is legally allowed to. It does mean, however, that I get her old car (a 1990 Ford Taurus), and I'll be getting my license soon so I'll actually be able to drive it.

It's a very cool car - from the outside (and inside) it looks like a standard Civic - lots of room, fairly standard displays, automatic transmission. It is, however, a hybrid; it has both a standard gasoline engine as well as an electric one. This means radically better gas mileage (48 city, I believe). One of the neater features is that the action of braking actually charges the electric battery. It's also very quiet, since the gas engine isn't even on much of the time. In addition, we got Lojack, which makes me feel all high tech, reduces insurance rates, and just seems cool.

I used to have the

I used to have the Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy text adventure game for my old Apple ][gs. It lives on here.

Disturbing? You want disturbing? I'll

Disturbing? You want disturbing? I'll give you disturbing!

I'm no celebrity. I'm not

I'm no celebrity. I'm not famous, and only a few times in my life have I ever had any notoriety, and those times were fleeting. Just about everybody talks about hearing a recording of themselves, and how "weird" it sounds. That's generally true; your in-head resonance affects how you sound to yourself, so a recording doesn't have all the characteristics of just-spoken voice. But I'm experiencing something far stranger, stemming back to my days as a radio DJ for KZSC 88.1 in Santa Cruz, California:

I'm listening to myself say things I don't remember saying.

I've recently acquired (from Garote) a recording of a radio show I did back in April of 2000. It's of my weekly show "The Absurdist Edge", which I did for a year. The episode in particular was a tribute to Rocky Horror, because we were performing RHPS the next day. I remember that I did this show, and I remember parts of the evening. But I'm listening to myself having conversations I don't remember having, and I was perfectly sober that evening. Typically when I read something I've written years back, or hear myself speak, it all comes back to me as a re-expirience it; I remember doing it again, even if I haven't thought about it in ages. But this, for whatever reason, I don't remember. It's weird enough hearing yourself, it's worse hearing yourself you don't remember saying.

(For those interested, The Absurdist Edge ran from April 1999 until June 2000, and was my entry to the Santa Cruz radio scene. It aired somewhere between midnight and 9 am (depending on the schedule of the time) on KZSC 88.1 at 1500 watts, which broadcast to a potential audience of 3 million listeners. I miss being on the radio dearly. If you'd like a copy of one of the few existing episodes, email me.)

Part of a conversation I'm

Part of a conversation I'm having with Chris Clark right now:

MikeBDoss: yo
Chris: yo
MikeBDoss: I'm at the B&N in HB.
MikeBDoss: heh
Chris: that rules.
MikeBDoss: yeah it does

Chris: you drinking coffee?
MikeBDoss: yep.
Chris: reading a book that you don't plan
on buying?
MikeBDoss: yep.
Chris: you rule.

Because I was looking for

Because I was looking for it, and have now found it, here's a good explaination of "perfect" numbers (6, 28, etc., where all the positive divisors of the integer (n) is equal to 2n).

Enjoy.

The Earth has a second

The Earth has a second moon called Cruithne.

I didn't know this until today.

The following are the lyrics

The following are the lyrics to Star64's "Overnight Drive (What Might Have Been)". They were amazingly difficult to find online, and with the regularity of Google's indexing, I thought I'd do the world a favor.

...

...

Guess which website comes up

Guess which website comes up on top with a google search for beef burglar! Unfortunately we don't do so well with the un-quoted version.

I had Neil Diamond's America

I had Neil Diamond's America stuck in my head today. While it did not make me want to dance and fly, I did realize that a popular patriotic song begins "my country tis of thee." What the hell does that mean?

Damn my beautiful brain and

Damn my beautiful brain and the fantastic stories it comes up with at midnight when I need to get up by 6am. At least I got an outline down.

I love sleep, and know I need it, but it's so damned inconvenient sometimes.

Arrr! September 19th is Talk

Arrr! September 19th is Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Avast. Arrr.

Please buy Chris' camper shell.

Please buy Chris' camper shell. He's selling it on Ebay. It will make him very happy.

Chris and I just got

Chris and I just got home from a little wardriving - using my new network card and laptop to cruise the neighborhood searching for 802.11b (Wi-Fi/wireless internet) access points.

No malicious intent - just wanted to see what was out there, how many people have totally open networks, how many businesses were sharing their connections (on purpose or not). We found a considerable amount of wirelessness out there, driving primarily city streets and a few neighborhoods. We found about 25 signals in 2 hours, and were easily able to connect to 5 of those. We likely would have found and connected to considerably more if we had slowly driven through residential neighborhoods instead of driving down most main streets at 45mph+.

Overall, a good time, and I hope I didn't break any laws (I don't think we did). Most interesting fact: Both Starbucks coffee locations we went to had T-mobile wireless access. This is, apparently, a pay service, but we had no problem logging on and enjoying the network. Doing a little research on T-Mobile's site reveals all sorts of neat information. I'm wondering how I got on at there (you're supposed to have to sign up and pay, plus it's not supposed to be available here yet) at all. I should probably use it while it's still there and free.

I'm outta here for most

I'm outta here for most of the weekend...off to Bunny's for a get-together with a bunch of Santa Cruz folks. I probably won't have internet access, but you'll survive without me.

I'm looking for people to go see Neil Gaiman with me at Book Soup. Come with!

I'm listening to Flickerstick's "Lift

W00p! Neil Gaiman is going

W00p! Neil Gaiman is going to be at the new Book Soup location at South Coast Plaza (10 minutes from my home) signing copies of Coraline on Sunday the 15th of September. You have the pre-order the book to get a ticket, but Neil's signings are awesome and well worth it.

So what are you waiting for? Call up Book Soup, buy your book, get your ticket, and meet me there!

Bush By The Numbers -

Bush By The Numbers - A very interesting article about Mark Knoller, a 50-year-old CBS News radio correspondent, who has been covering the White House on-and-off since the Ford administration and every day for the past 11 years. He keeps track of the minutia and insignifica of the daily life of the president, things like vacation days he's taken (250 to date, 42% of his days in office), states and countries he's visited, money he's raised, etc. Very telling stuff - I'd love to see the numbers compared between presidents.

As in common with people

As in common with people who have their own web pages, I'm getting ancy to do something new. I'm not sure what, though. Chris just redid his site, and it's damned good looking (among other things, Chris does graphic design by trade). I know the styles I like, and what's popular now, but internally I have to wonder if I want a site like that because people visiting will think "Oh, that guy really knows what's popular".

I don't want to necessarily follow the crowd, but I don't want a shitty looking site, either. Something simple. With a small font, clean layout, crisp colors. Plenty of room for links, but the text (this part) being central. Then I realize that I can have multiple sites, by making each element (blog body, left and right menus, etc.) dynamic, and called by each of the different layouts. I should do that anyway; it allows for a low/no graphics version, a version for the disabled, and versions for my moods.

Wow, sometimes writing out your ideas is just what's needed. That's what I'll work on - various versions, depending on my mood, and people can pick and choose between them as they see fit.

In other news, Google's been indexing my site like mad - I noticed a post from the day before in Google's cache. That's quick. Though I'm no expert on their code/algorithms, my years doing search engine optimization taught me that oft updated sites pique Google's interest, as do sites with a variety of different kinds of words (like mine, and blogs in general). My hits have been way up lately also - 725 in the last 45 hours. Most of these are people looking for celebrity porn (heh), but Google's doing it's job - it's found the words on the site and are delivering visitors. Almost none of those are direct links from other pages, or direct visits...they're just about all Google hits. Hopefully some of these people are staying and reading. It does make me wonder, however, how many are thumbing through my pictures section because it's the place they'd think first to find what they're looking for. Horny 15 year olds everywhere looking for Sarah Michele Geller will find this.

Nothing like the last hours

Nothing like the last hours before a weekend ends to remind you how much you'd love to just stay up, write/read/code/veg instead of going to bed and getting up early the next day.

Alas, because of the holiday it's a short week, and when combined with my short day on Friday, it's a pretty light week of work. Then next week is the full 40 hours, then the following week I'm off Monday for Yom Kippur. I can handle that.

I'm looking to get an 802.11 (wi-fi) card for my laptop. Any suggestions? I want to go digging in the air for open networks that let happy people like me ride their information coat tails and take a ride on the internet for free.

Oh, and please leave a note and tell me who you are. I want to get some sort of idea about who's reading insignifica. Thanks!