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For some reason, one embarassing moment of my life keeps popping up in my head from time to time. It happened when I was in 5th grade, but I can’t seem to get past it. I guess I might as well share it with everyone.

Here’s the story: I was in school and the teacher asked a question something like, “What are the people who ride race horses called?” It probably wasn’t just like that, but that’s the idea. I raised my hand and when called on I said the answer was ‘disc jockey’. Everyone in the class proceeded to laugh and I was awfully embarassed. I was one of the smart kids in school so the laughter was probably intensified as a result.

More details: Earlier that week, I had been reading an Archie or Richie Rich comic and one of the mini one-page comics involved a play on the term ‘disc jockey’. In the final frame, it showed a jockey all geared up riding on a giant record album. There were reins and everything. It was pretty funny for a little comic, but it went completely over my otherwise fairly quick 5th grade head. I didn’t know what a disc jockey was, I guess, and I assumed that the joke was showing how funny it was that people who ride horses were called ‘disc jockeys’. It seemed odd at the time, but Archie and Richie Rich had never let me down before and I took it at face value. I did realize my mistake later, after I had already embarrassed myself thoroughly.

I never really wanted to raise my hand and answer any questions for pretty much the rest of my school life. That situation continued clear through college, though I didn’t actually know the answers most of the time in college so it might not really count. I guess I was an unusually sensitive child and I think that moment really affected me. I was already shy and it sealed that into me even further. Up until now, I hadn’t made this connection, but I had noticed that this disc jockey situation had stayed in my mind for whatever reason.

Maybe my mind will be able to let this go now that I’ve revealed the fact that once in 5th grade I didn’t know the difference between a jockey and a disc jockey. Wish me luck!

New technology will allow music to be carried wirelessly over a bluetooth connection. Wireless speakers and headphones exist now, but they are not high enough quality for discerning listeners. This technology transfers the audio digitally and future digital music players will probably include the transmitter, so the sound quality issues may be resolved once and for all. Nice!

Hawaii was lots of fun, but now I’m back in smokey california doing my best to avoid doing too much work.

According to this article, Universal Music plans to drop its wholesale price for CD’s by about 3 bucks and is asking record stores to chip in another 3 bucks for a total price drop of about $6.

This sounds like a step in the right direction to me.

Vida and I returned from our week or so at Burning Man this past Monday evening. I’m starting to acclimate back into the normal swing of things again. I have some observations about my experiences, but I’m not quite ready to share them yet.

Maybe later.

this wired.com article tells the story of a high school student who has been charged with a felony for writing a short fiction story.

These days, people are so scared of what might happen that they’re willing to supress art and creative thinking to protect themselves from the future. It’s exactly this kind of reasoning and thinking that creates the kind of environment that fosters terroristic behavior. When we get to a point when merely thinking about violence can land us in jail, who among us would be safe from the law?

We can only hope to reduce the amount of violence in the world by practicing non-violence in our own lives.

I used to stream along. I think I secretly, or maybe not secretly, wanted other people to stream with me. I thought about how cool that would be if other people would catch my vibe and want it enough to seek it out.

I think now I probably have lost that wild naive edge I used to have. I probably have moved along to some other not quite so wild and not quite so naive and not quite so edgey egde. Haha, I wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Well… not most of the time, anyway.

I’m leaving for 8 days in Hawaii tomorrow morning. I suspect the lure of my website will be weakened by the force of the tropical paradise so don’t expect much in the way of updates.

Is this the beginning of the end for humans? Haha, well maybe or maybe not. Scientists have managed to hook a couple of monkey’s brains up to a computer hooked up to a robotic arm. The monkeys are able to move the robotic arm entirely with their brain, performing simple tasks like picking up objects and moving them around. The scientists seem to assume that this means humans will be able to do the same thing. Wouldn’t it be quite the disappointment if monkeys can do it and we can’t?

Jean Luc Picard is apparently a popular result, but I ended up as Galadriel, the Elf Witch from the Lord of the Rings, in this geek personality test.