Weekend, Chocolate Jesus, Stankevitz.com, Cold, Busy, Picture, Friday

Happy Friday, friends! Another beautiful day!

Picture of the day!

Mommy and Baby read a book. This picture had some considerable Red Eye coming off the camera last night. But now it's gone. I don't think Flickr messed with it, so now I'm wondering if Microsoft's photo import wizard waved his magic wand. Weird.

I'm pretty sure this is the last weekend for a while where we don't have plans - April 8 is Easter, the Weekend of the 14th is my birthday and Easter with the in-laws, the 21st is poker, and the 28th is likely Ren Faire. Busy!

I'm also pretty sure I'm getting a cold. Bastards.

Chris Stankevitz needs to update his website.

Ah man! "My Sweet Lord" Chocolate Jesus exhibit canceled. That would have been awesome. Isn't art SUPPOSED to evoke emotions? Couldn't the people against it just stay home? I've never understood arguments like a piece of art or literature being "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever". These people believe in an all powerful God - Don't they believe that He'll get done what He wants to get done? Shouldn't Christians just feel pity for the artist, not be offended? Weird.

I hope y'all have a fantastic Friday and weekend. Try not to believe everything you hear on Sunday. Peace!

Primm, Tustin Brewery, Office, Thursday

Happy Thursday!

Picture of the day!

Myself and Neil Gaiman. This wasn't marked "picture of the day", but it's possible I already posted it. A thousand apologies if so.

I'm going to be working at a different office today. That's exciting!

As a vegetarian, you'd think finding a vegetarian salad at a restaurant would be easy - it's salad, after all. But when you take the step up from your basic dinner salad, just about all fancy greens have chicken on them. Don't believe me? Take a look next time you're in any sorts of restaurant that serves salads you couldn't possibly finish - they're almost always topped with chicken. I can ask for the salad without, of course - but rarely do I pay less for it, even though the most expensive element has been removed. That said, last night at the Tustin Brewing Company, I had one of the best BBQ Chicken Salads I've ever had - Gouda cheese, blue cheese/bbq dressing, corn, tomatoes and black beans. They even substituted avocado for the chicken. Class act, that place. Class act.

I keep getting all these great "stay free" offers from Primm casinos - but I really don't have the time to make the trip. I could pretty much stay there 6-8 times a month if I wanted.

Ok, that's it. Have a great one!

Area Codes, Labels, Mariah, Beautiful Wednesday

Happy Wednesday! It's a very beautiful day out - sunny and clear, clean air, and great detail in the long views. Post rain days rule.

Picture of the day!

Another from the Jacaranda set. Click the photo for more detail (and remind me to upload the high-res pics - I uploaded this before I started uploading the detailed pics).

Mariah's in town, and she'll be coming by today to take pictures of our baby. It's nice to know a professional photographer, and it's been great to see so many friends this week!

There are rumors about that the FDA will soon require food labels to note if something has meat in it - that'd be fantastic. I hate having to read through food labels, and be expected to know that gelatin comes from horse hooves, bone and skin, or that carmine or cochineal extract are a red food coloring that comes from crushed bugs. I'm also hoping restaurants will soon be required to inform customers about the nutritional content and ingredients in their foods. Is it too much to ask to want to know what I'm eating?

When I was little, 213 was all of Los Angeles, 714 was Orange County (and Corona), and 619 was San Diego. It came up today that 208, Idaho, is still the entire state, while 213 is now only downtown Los Angeles, 714 is now only half of Orange County, and 619 is just the southernmost part of San Diego. Weird. There's a map of current CA Area Codes here and a history here.

That's that for today, friends. What's new with you?

Comments, April Fools, Birthday, Invocations, Dry

Happy Day, friends! We didn't get much rain last night, and I have a suspicion that our already dry rainy season is probably now over. I'll have to look to make sure, but I believe in the last 6 years, we've had two record wet seasons, and two record dry seasons. That's global warming for ya...

Picture of the day!

My daughter is often this happy.

I feel like I've been slacking off on my Invocations project - I just haven't had much time for letter writing or meeting attending. But it's still something I really want to do, so expect more news soon.

It's very nearly my birthday, and while I noted last week that birthday planning was in the works, I was pretty much just saying that to convince myself. Per the girlfriend's good idea, I think we'll be doing Mexican food, perhaps with a potluck angle. No solid plans, other than the party being on Saturday, April 14.

I've never been a big proponent of April Fool's Day - I prefer my pranks to be victimless (not punk'd style), and I think fake blog posts and news releases are only funny in very small doses. Any thoughts on the topic? I like the kind of stuff Rob Cockerham does, but I'm currently uninspired. Please advise.

What happened to all my comments? I know y'all are reading. I missed "mandatory comment day" this year, but I'm willing to observe the holiday...is it too much just to say "yo buddy"? Yo!

Dawkins, Baskin-Robbins, Pretzels, Clapping, 3200, Faire, Weekend, Monday

Happy Monday, friends!

Picture of the day!

Another cute one from St. Patty's Pi Day.

Very busy but great weekend - Went out to dinner Friday with Colleen and Chad, who were in town. Saturday I hung around with both my baby's grandmothers for the day, and Sunday we went out to Beaumont to see my girlfriend's uncle's beautiful new house. While there, I took a few hours to gamble at Morongo, where I lost at poker but won at Three Card. Then we enjoyed some tasty Dragon House on the way home. Great stuff!

We're thinking April 29 for Ren Faire, if y'all are interested in going. There are all sorts of other things happening between now and then, but we're flexible if a large amount of you can't make it.

The next comment is number 3,200!

Kind of out of nowhere yesterday, Katie started clapping. We'd be encouraging her to for a long time, but she never really got it. But while walking around yesterday, she just began to clap and smile, especially when we encouraged her. Interesting, she also picked up that it's called "clapping", and knows to clap when I say the word. It's only been in the last 2 weeks that she associates things we say with actions (the other being "where's Katie" or "peek-a-boo" for the game, and she'll start playing it). Kids learn fast!

Man, I love pretzels.

While cleaning out a desk at work last week, a co-worker found some $0.50 gift certificates from Baskin-Robbins. They're from the mid 80s, based on the text, but there's no expiration date. Any wagers on whether or not they'll be accepted?

Happy Birthday Richard Dawkins! That dude's done more for Atheists than anyone else lately.

What's new, friends?

Busy Weekend, Stylish Clerisy, Foie Gras, Birthday

Already Friday! Seeing a good friend tonight who's in town, spending the day with the baby's grandmothers tomorrow, and going out Sunday deep into the Inland Empire for Hot Poker Action. Nice.

Picture of the day!

Ken and The Girlfriend at Birthday 2005.

Birthday planning is now underway. I'm again having a charity event, with proceeds going to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County. I have NO idea what to do for dinner - I'd like something different than Italian this year (chosen in the past for deliciousness and inexpensiveness), but I'm not sure what. Ideas?

Very cool: Wolfgang Puck bans foie gras from his restaurants. You can have deliciousness without animal torture.

"Stylish clerisy", another key word combination for my buddy Steve, isn't making it into Google as quickly as Hypnagogic moonlight did for me, which is kinda strange. We'll see what happens after today's post. If you need one of these for some sort dating/profile site (like Steve did), or just because you'd like a strange phrase to point to your site (like I did), let me know.

I've got a busy weekend planned with a lot of driving, but should be a good time. What's up with you this weekend?

Cingular, Hungry, Morongo, Sunny

Happy Thursday! I hadn't noticed how cloudy and drab it'd been out the last few days until I remarked at how bright and sunny everything was this morning. Hello Springtime!

Picture of the day!

All sorts of youngins on the couch from the St. Patty's party, in a very traditional pseudo-candid. With one exception, those children don't belong to those people.

Going to the Morongo Casino Sunday! Yay!

I weighed in at 211 yesterday, but I've been running hungry all day today. Such cycles happen. I don't know if I'll get down to 200 before April 16 (since I have no time for good aerobic exercise or good weight trianing that isn't hauling a baby around), but we'll see.

I found out yesterday that Cingular has been billing me on TWO plans since I got my phone upgrade in December. I hadn't noticed because I have auto-payments set up. While they were very nice and got me a refund in just a couple minutes, this is the second time I've been overcharged by them for their error. I don't care for that. On that note: I pay $80/month for the two lines we have. This includes the minimum amount of minutes, which is still hundreds more than I ever use. I want to maintain the same phone number, but I'm not married to "The New AT&T" - are there are plans that are significantly cheaper for two lines?

So what's new with you, friends?

Bad Foods, Blimps, Words, Hypnagogic Moonlight, Wednesday

Happy Wednesday! I'm feelin' fine here.

Picture of the day!

Our little ham. There are almost too many adorable pictures of my daugther in the Katherine Winter 2007 photo set.

If you haven't read it, check out my post below about Hypnagogic moonlight. Google still has me on top, but even though I'm the only page in the Yahoo! database with the exact phrase, I still come in down near 100 if I don't search for it in quotes. What's up, Yahoo!?

Also on that topic, I've had a couple requests from people to have their own keywords/phrases on my site, because I get such good treatment and placing from Google. If you'd like the same, let me know...I'm not opposed to a small text box with weird words on this page. It's good for everyone.

I decided today there aren't nearly enough blimps. Cause blimps rule.

I'm working on a "bad foods" kick - I'm eating processed and fatty foods simply because I don't want them to go to waste. Unfortunately, I've been good for so long that they're causing me all sorts of grief. Let that be a lesson to you - if you're eat well, going back to not-as-good-for-you foods is harsher than if you stay on the crap. That said, this ramen smells delicious...

What's new, friends?

Behold the power of Insignifica!

Behold the power of Insignifica!

Google likes me. They really like me. Inspired by this, I set out to see if I could put a nonsense phrase on insignifica and have it picked up in search engines quickly and effortlessly.

Perhaps because I'm a regularly updated blog, perhaps because I'm well linked (in and out), and perhaps because Google's a sucker for geeks, I have a pagerank of 4 and more importantly, I'm reindexed at least once a day, likely more. This means that if I update in the morning, my new entry will be in Google's database by that afternoon. Any Google insiders are welcome to better explain or correct my assumptions here.

The web's so large that it's hard to find any simple word combinations that don't already exist somewhere, though it's trivial to find exact quotes of two words that don't. I wanted interesting, real words for a test, so after searching various "word of the day" lists, I came up with "Hypnagogic moonlight" - nonsensical, but dictionary words nonetheless. A google search last night turned up 664 results, and no phrase matches (meaning you get results for searching without quotes, but none if you search with them). This was a good test - enough sites to see how insignifica would stack up, but not so many that results would be constantly changing.

So last night, I put the phrase "Hypnagogic moonlight" on the bottom of the page, and linked it to a "contact info" page for people searching. This was about 12:30am. By this afternoon, the same google search turned up insignifica as the top result - for both a quoted and unquoted search! In less than 12 hours I brought my site to the top of the Google results for a search with nothing more than one update and one text occurrence.

What good is this? For me, it was just a test. But as Rob Cockerham points out, this can be used on any site that requires someone to pay for contacting you - dating sites, reunion sites, etc. Someone reading your profile will notice a strange phrase and Google it to find its meaning, and if you're lucky/popular like me (or Rob), your site will come up first, and neither you nor the person searching for you will have to pay up, and the site won't be any wiser (unless they're doing the same search for every phrase in every profile - good luck with that, classmates.com!) If you're interested in such things, I can hook you up - insignifica is pretty darn well linked lately.

Update! Google has updated its index to include this post within two hours. Let this be a lesson to you: The more you update, the more quickly (and often) Google will index your page.

How's Life, Alcohol Laws, Happy Spring, Brownies, St. Patty's, Gray

Hello friends, it's Tuesday! Kinda gray today. Cool. But not bad.

Picture of the day!

Jenn and me this weekend for St. Patty's Pi Day. Notice my "party" expression. It's common.

If you were at the party this weekend and have pictures on your camera, send them to me. I like to put them up all in one set.

I'm sitting next to some brownies, and man, they smell good.

Happy Spring to everyone! If my calculations are correct, it starts at 4:07pm here on the west coast.

This story makes me glad I live in a state without totally absurd alcohol laws. See a full list of craziness at wikipedia.

What's new, friends? How's life with you?

Internets, Hangover, Party, Springtime!

Happy Monday! I can't believe it's mid-march - it's almost Springtime! Baseball and more hours of sunlight and warmer evenings. Yay Springtime!

Picture of the day!

Baby attacks her mother.

We had an awesome party - about 20 people showed up, there was the right amount of green beer, and the baby, even though she stayed up too late, slept soundly while we continued talking downstairs. Oh, and there were far too many delicious desserts. Good times!

That said, I'm either working off my hard work/lots of beer/too many sweets hangover, or I'm getting sick. I'll see what I can do about that. Friggin eye is red, though. Makes me feel like a leper.

The internet is a very cool thing. People who do a lot of hanging out online (either in games, or in chat, or on message boards/blogs) are developing an amazing variety of subcultures and sublanguages that offline folks just don't get. Good example that's hard to explain: Places like Fark take delight in mocking people who try to use internet savvy language, but fail. The colloquialism "internets" is a great example - Bush, who I believe really has no idea about the internet, its technology, or its influence - used the terms in presidential debates in 2000 and 2004. usage spread among people who were purposely using the term as an exaggeration of others who didn't know what they were talking about - so much so that pluralizing a word when you're looking to exaggerate has become commonplace in both online and offline conversation (I just used the phrase "I also have a colds" in an email).

Another good example is using the numeral "1" or the word "one" in a string of exclamation points - originally used by accident by people typing too fast and removing their finger from the shift key too soon, but later used to show mock excitement or knowing overexuberance..."one" replacing the typo "1" as an absurd extension. This trend (and other similar ones ) are very difficult to explain to someone who's never online, or someone who just reads static web pages. Believe me.

Whew. So how's it going readers? What's new? Please enlighten me. Thanks!

Be Safe, OC Court Records, Stereotypical St. Patty's Day, Good Time!

Happy Friday, and an early Happy St. Patrick's Day! I don't care why you celebrate it (beer, parades, Irishness, etc.), have a good time this weekend!

Picture of the day!

A bunch of $2 bills. They're green!

I have a green obnoxious felt hat, beer, clear plastic cups, and green food coloring. Oh yeah. I'm ready.

I posted this to the OC Metblog too, but I wanted to share with my insignifica readers: It took them years, but as of this week, the Orange County Superior Court finally has case information online. Now you can look up your friends, family and yourself to see what they've had civil, criminal or traffic cases for. It's always been public record, but OC's late to the party in getting it online. Enjoy!

Be safe and sane out there this weekend, friends. St. Patty's day is one of those "drinking holidays" where non-professional drunks are on the roads with all the people who do it regularly. Have a good time, but be safe!

Happy Thursday, Early Primary, March Madness, Pie, Ides

Beware today, if you're a roman leader!

Picture of the day!

The girlfriend, feeding Lorikeets at the SD Wild Animal Park.

We had a tasty pie day evening last night at Polly's Pies in HB, which is like stepping into the past - a diner with lots of meaty choices and lots of delicious pies. Looking forward to Saturday!

Am I the only person who doesn't give a rat's ass about college basketball in March? I mean, I'm a gambler and I think it's silly. Not to mention we're betting on kids in school. They need to just call it a basketball minor league and be done with it.

Interesting! California Moves Up Presidential Primary to February. Not that I'm a huge fan of the primary process, but it'll be nice to be included again - in the past, our June primary meant that many in the running had already dropped out after losses in smaller states. Very rarely did our primary votes matter. Now, to fix the rest of the presidential election system...

Happy Thursday and be well, my friends!

Tomatoes and Garlic, Cockerham, Pi Day

Happy Pi day, friends! Today is March 14 (3/14), a day to think about math and math teachers, remember Albert Einstein's birthday, and to eat delicious pie! Today's Dinosaur Comics is about pi day, wikipedia has a great page, and MSN's Cosmic Log has a well-linked page. It seems like geek holidays are getting more play lately (TLAPD, for example). Celebrate! We've got pie tonight and a party on Saturday. Good times!

Picture of the day!

Chris at pi day last year. This picture is similar to, but not the same as a previous picture of the day.

Rob Cockerham shows his super-craftiness again with Email Address Concealer Codes. It also gave me a new favorite phrase (it's in the rotating quotes up in the top banner) - "restriction invites subversion".

My "cut out tomatoes and garlic" diet (for improving my skin allergies) doesn't seem to be working as well or as quickly as I hoped. I'm not sure what the deal is, but I'm really tired of this. And I'm coming to realize that tomatoes feature prominently in a good deal of the foods I eat.

I hope y'all have a fantastic pi day - feel free to share your stories!

Haps, The Military Hates Gays, OC Atheists, Weird Al, Fire

Happy Tuesday! The fire near me is "technically contained", and should be mostly out today. Good work, everyone!

Picture of the day!

Marek, in profile.

How is it that until about 20 minutes ago, I totally spaced on getting Weird Al tickets? The day before I was super excited, and then it TOTALLY left my mind for almost a week. I need more sleep...

Orange County Atheists

The next meeting of the Orange County Atheists will be held Tuesday, March 13 at 7:30PM at the International House of Pancakes at 18542 MacArthur Blvd in Irvine. If you consider yourself an atheist, an agnostic, a freethinker, a humanist, or are just curious, check out this month's event. If you're planning on attending please RSVP at our website forums. Hope to see you there!

PS - Stickers are here!

Why does the military have to be hatin'? For an organization where they feel like they have to browbeat you into submission to serve at all, you'd think they could get people to behave, but still do what they want in private. While I think "Don't ask, don't tell" is bad policy, it's a nice way out for anyone who needs any way possible to get out of serving. Plus, can you imagine what would happen if all the gays currently serving decided to come out at once? They might have to start drafting.

That's all for today, my friends. What are the haps?

Yahoo's weird results

Superweird! Yahoo!'s results for Michael Doss list this site (www.insignifica.org) as the 20th (or 21st) result. On its own, not too strange, though it is the site with the most relevant results for the search. Other interesting stuff in the top 50:

#3: http://insignifica.buzznet.com. This was my phonecam blog before I stopped updating it. I haven't logged in or made any changes since 2005. Update: This site is now gone from the top 100, and I don't know why. Even going back to my original results didn't work. Superweird again! Another Update: Sometimes it comes back...for more. The result is there sometimes, and not others, with identical searches in the same browser window. If this results is present, the rest are moved down. WTF, Yahoo?

#5: http://www.friendster.com. The friendster page I almost never visit, and haven't updated in months.

#20: http://profile.typekey.com/MikeBDoss. My Typepad profile. I have no idea why this would be ranked above Insignifica.

#21: Insignifica.

#23: http://www.meetup.com. My wee meetup.com profile, again, not updated in many, many months.

#37: oc.metblogs.com. My "All My Posts" page.

#38: Meetup, again. But this page is so awesome I needed a screencap. You might meet Michael Doss!

So yeah, Yahoo!'s got crackmonkeys indexing the site. That's all.

Monday, DST, 5,000, Non-Theist Congressman, Busy Week, OC Fire

Gah. The air in Orange County today is not fit for human consumption. Yesterday's large plume is now a thick blanket of smoke, at least on this side of things. I'm about 6 miles from the fire, but when the wind's blowing down through the hills, it's a direct path. Hopefully they'll have the fire contained today, but unfortunately there's no rain on the horizon, so it's gonna be ugly out there for a while.

Picture of the day!

Another weird, wacky picture from the birthday 2003 set. Every picture in there makes it look like we were insane.

Today starts Busy Week - we've got the Orange County Atheists meeting tomorrow, Pi day on Wednesday (we'll be going out for pie), the Ides of March Thursday (I have no plans), and the St. Patty's Pi(e) Day party on Saturday. Should be rockin'.

Some neat news from the non-theist community today: Rep. Pete Stark (D-California) revealed that he's a non-theist (they don't use the term "atheist" - if they did, it probably would have been bigger news). Rep. Stark is the first open non-theist in the history of the Congress, according to the Secular Coalition for America. There's more information at the OC Atheists site. Thank you, Rep. Stark!

Before this post (I went and ruined it), if you added up this blog's posts (1810) and its comments (3190), it totaled a cool 5,000. Also, the odometer in my car on Saturday was exactly 10x my generally unused (but running) trip counter - 32,223 and and 3,222.3, respectively. I love stuff like that.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Daylight Saving Time sucks. My baby doesn't really care what time the clock says, and in all honesty, with so many people on so many schedules, I don't think the energy savings the government claims really exist. Not to mention my phone and ReplayTV, which are supposed to have their clocks set by external servers, haven't updated as of this morning. There's also the fact that there's now less "Standard" time than daylight saving time. How exactly is that standard?

Oh well, enough complaining. I hope y'all had a great weekend and stayed smoke free (unless you're into that). Happy Monday!

Weekend, LinkedIn, Atheist Money, Garlic and Tomatoes, Pissy, Friday

Wow. Like I've said before, I can't believe it's already Friday. Time flies when you've got an 8 1/2 month old.

Picture of the day!

Said 8 1/2 month old, involved in some sort of duck ritual.

Boy, that Tom from Myspace sure can get pissy sometimes. All I wanted to do was look at a bulletin...

I'm coming to the very sad realization that I'm allergic to both tomatoes and garlic. I can still eat them, of course, but they make me break out in hives, but only on my hands. Further proof of the non-existence of God.

Up to #6 out of 1,480,000 for "atheist money". Yay pagerank!

I'm trying to like LinkedIn, but it's just not the friendliest site out there. And seeing as I'm not looking for new work, it's not super important to me. But I always like connects, so if you're there, come find me.

What's up for this weekend, my friends? What's exciting?

More on Atheist Money

Wow. Yesterday I posted about the dollar coins on my site and used the term "atheist money". Today if you Google "atheist money" (without quotes), my site comes up #14 out of 1,480,000. Having a good pagerank rules!

Oh, and Wells Fargo: What the hell is up with being out of both dollar coins and quarters at your 17th street branch? You're also out of $2 almost every time I go in. Aren't you a bank?

Shorter, Pi Day, Myspace, Stickers, Coins, Nice Day

It's Thursday! It's a beautiful, sunny, mild day here in Southern California. It's looking more and more like this'll be another record dry year, which is weird, because in the last 6 years we've had some record dry and some record wet. Global climate change, eh?

Picture of the day!

A super cute picture of the girlfriend I found in some old folders last night. It's likely from late 1999 or early 2000. She's standing against the pantry doors at my Kresge East apartment - I remember that much.

I have a plan! I'm going to buy several hundred dollars in the new dollar coins from the bank. If they're the error "godless" dollars, I can keep a bunch and sell the rest. If they're not, I can just bring the money back for bills, or spend it slowly. There's no risk! Genius!

Rumor has it that my new "Freedom From Religion" stickers, branded with the Orange County Atheists name and website, have arrived. Yay! If you'd like one, let me know.

Help me. I'm addicted to Myspace. Just wanted to share. I think that's an important first step.

6 days until Pi Day! Join us for pi(e)! More details to come.

This sentence is shorter than the last.

Bye for now.

Atheist Money, Gas Prices, Zombie Jesus Day, Weird Al

Good day and happy Wednesday!

Picture of the day!

Tolga and Katherine show their Canadian Pride (Katherine is at least 1/8th Canadian).

Weird Al presale tix for the OC shows go on sale tomorrow! I'm going to at least two of the shows - likely Tuesday July 17th and Saturday, July 21. Join us!

Man, I've been invited to a sweet "Zombie Jesus Day" event for Easter, but it's in Santa Cruz, and I probably have family stuff to do. It's hard to say no to a party like that.

Is it just me, or has this round of price increases for gas not garnered the media attention of past price increases? Sucks having to pay $3/gallon, but it's nice living a mile and a half from work.

Atheist money! U.S. Mint goof creates 'Godless dollars'. I want one!

How's it going, friends?

All is well, Politics, Gospel Brunch Pic, Amputees, Ballerinas, March

Tuesday! How's March treatin' ya?

Picture of the day!

Jenn and Chris, smilin' too much at last year's St. Patty's Pi Day. I'm very much looking forward to this year's event!

There's this new Burger King commercial with some sexy ballerinas who serve as "rut breakers" by dancing to the nutcracker suite, kicking away your boring breakfast, and taking you to Burger King. Then they put their hands in your pockets for a few moments too long, and steal your money to pay for it. That's pretty awesome, right there.

I recently rediscovered "Why Does God Hate Amputees?" (also known as "Why won't God heal amputees?") - it's a fantastic read, told in plain but well-worded language, laying out exactly why God doesn't answer prayers, and why he doesn't exist. I like how it goes into stories we all know to be false (like the story of Santa), and why most people don't apply the same standards to stuff they DO believe. Take a look.

That picture of Chris at Gospel Brunch I blogged about yesterday only got a couple more hits yesterday, probably from here. Now, the mystery becomes "where was the photo link posted that it was clicked or rabidly for a few days, then not at all?". I doubt I'll solve this one any time soon.

More politics are likely coming soon to the blog, at least links to political style entries elsewhere. There are secrets I have that can't yet be told!

I hope all is well, readers. Enjoy your day!

Chipotle, Vegemite, Prayer, Popular Picture, Monday

Happy Monday!

Picture of the day!

Sequoia. Too nice a picture to have 0 views.

Speaking of pictures, I posted this picture of Chris at Gospel Brunch on February 22 as the picture of the day - and since then it's gotten more than 2,700 clicks - that's almost 2k more than my next most popular photo, which is more than a year old and featured a very pregnant girlfriend. Did some reader of mine link to it from somewhere else? For all the cool features Flickr has, it doesn't give you any info on referring URLS. But something is surely amiss with this!

We've gotten to the point in American society where public/state sponsored prayers are generally a thing of the past (except for city council invocations and government chaplains), but it's hard to come off as anything but a dick trying to protest when someone asks for a prayer for some sort of victims. I guess that's how the other side wants things. But to be a dick (and repeat something I've repeated here before): if you believe in an all powerful God and one that has a plan for you, why would you pray to him for anything - don't you think the God you believe to be all loving and all powerful probably knows better than you?

On a not-unrelated topic, the Fark headline of the day: "Evangelical preacher urges followers to be more like him and become "smart investors." Owning a business that takes 10 percent of every customer's income while exploiting their insecurities is a good start." Comments thread here.

Have any of you ever had Vegemite? I get to try it very soon. I'm a little scared.

The new Chipotle restaurant has finally opened on Newport and 1st in Tustin - a mere mile from my house and two from work (compared to the other two closest locations, each 6 miles away). They make a mean burrito.

That's it for today, friends. How's it going?

Rockin', Group Activities, Raffle, Life's Good

Friday! It's March, we're having Breakfast for Dinner, and the sun is shining. Could life get any better?

Picture of the day!

The girlfriend, Labor Day 2005.

I'm typically in the "The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math", but for some reason I like the idea of their raffle. Can someone mathier than me run the numbers and tell me what my expected results and odds are, compared to well played blackjack? Thanks!

In the distant past of 2000 and 2001, we went out - a lot. The Group went to dinner one or two times every weekend, and often included a film or game night in the festivities. That kinda died down after a while, and now it's rare that we get together with more than a couple friends more than a couple times a month. But there are still so many trips/things/projects I want to do! Consider:

- A caravan of cars to a location 2-3 hours away, just to go, picnic, and come back.

- Potlucks where people do more than bring a bag of chips or pre-made dessert - most of us cook, but we rarely get together to share!

- Overnight trips to fairly local destinations (Los Angeles, Indian Casinos, and San Diego come to mind), where we can all share dinner, breakfast, and some (or none) fun activities.

- Regular weekend breakfasts/brunches, at a home or at a restaurant.

Any of these would be awesome. Who's in?

I hope y'all have a great weekend - should be a beautiful one here in Southern California. Never stop rockin'!

Meat, Weird Al, Talking, Chocolate, March

Happy March! It's the month of Pi Day and St. Patrick's Day, and in that same week I've got an OC Atheists meeting and the Ides of March (not that there's much celebrating, but just sayin'). Spring arrives as well. Go March!

Picture of the day!

Camel.

A while ago I decided it'd be great to try "good" chocolate, since many of the foodie blogs I read and food network programs I watch talk about how stale/boring/cheap the Hershey/Mars/M&M stuff is. The few things I've had have typically been very good, but I'm not sure they're worth the price. Also, a question: I love M&Ms because they're a quick, small piece of what I consider tasty chocolate. Do any of the "good" chocolate makers have something similar? Or is it all bars and truffles?

My daughter has not yet begun talking. She is, however, making noises that sound like she's talking, and it's very funny.

Weird Al's gonna be at the OC Fair July 17-21. I'll be there. Oh yes.

Dear people, especially Catholic people:

I know it's tradition to say "you can't eat meat during Lent/Fridays during Lent", and mean "you can't eat non-fish animal meat" - but every time you say that, I have to further explain to a waitress what I can't have in my meal, and no, I don't, in fact, eat chicken, instead of just being able to ask "is that meal vegetarian?" Could we all agree to mean "all animal flesh you eat" when you say "meat"? Thanks!

With that, I'm off. Have a fine day, friends! Thanks for all the comments yesterday!