I'm a dork

One of my cost-cutting measures of late has been using my phone line as something almost unheard of in this modern day and age — as a phone. Nothing else. No call waiting, no caller ID, no voice mail, no fancy goodies of any sort. Just a phone. If someone calls when I’m home, I pick it up and answer it. If they call when I’m out, then they’ll just have to call back later. To my mind, it works well.

When I lost my job and had to go back into job hunting, though, I knew that that wouldn’t be the best approach, so I went ahead and signed back up for voice mail. It worked fine while I was job searching. I’d get home, pick up the phone to see if it beeped at me to tell me I had messages, and I’d call back the few that weren’t telemarketers anxious to make a sale.

Once I became gainfully employed, though…well, voice mail just isn’t for me. Due to the combination of an evening schedule that has me operating at hours quite different from a lot of people I know, a very small group of friends local to me in Seattle that I’d want to call anyway, and my own general semi-hermit lifestyle, I almost never pick up the phone to make a call. One of the few times I’ll call out is when I’m in a mood to order pizza, and then I’m dialing almost as soon as the phone leaves the cradle, and long before the handset reaches my ear. Hence, I never know if I have messages or not.

So this morning I actually checked my messages. There were two on there — one a telemarketer that had tried to get ahold of me Dec. 4th, and one from Rick, who wanted me to call him as soon as I got the message so we could clubbing that Friday night. Friday, Dec. 5th, that is. Well, he wanted me to call him as soon as I got the message, so I did (and just got his voicemail), but I think the verdict is pretty clear.

I’m a dork. :)

And I should probably pick up an answering machine and turn that fool voice mail off again.

3-Way Capitalism?

Stop Capitalism

Mom and Dad just got back to Anchorage after a trip to Florida and Indiana to visit Mom’s parents and Dad’s family, respectively, and Dad just posted his pictures with commentary. The picture of the stop sign made me laugh, and for the same reason that it amused Dad — yet another indication of just how alike we can be at times.

A picture of Dad’s brother Doug, who I haven’t seen in about three years, also caught my eye when I noticed just how much he and Dad resembled each other — something that I’ve also been noticing about my brother and I more and more as we age. Apparently the Hanscom genes run strong in our family!

It is sad to hear that, as tends to happen over the years, age is starting to catch up with some of our family. Mom’s parents will soon be moving into an assisted living facility, as Grandma is essentially blind, and Grandpa has, quite unfortunately, started to find his mental faculties declining. On Dad’s side of the family, “Uncle” Bud (my Dad’s uncle, my great-uncle) is battling liver cancer, and there are fears that the treatment may be as difficult to get through as the disease itself. However, all three of them are still getting along, and as no-one on either side of the family could deny being described as “strong willed”, I expect all three of them will continue on as best they can for as long as they can.

My cousins appear to be doing quite well, too. Eric has just graduated high school, and both Hannah and Kayt (“Katie”) are as gorgeous as ever (and I do mean gorgeous — Kayt is becoming one heck of a knockout, and she’s only thirteen…the boys don’t stand a chance).

All in all, it looks like a good trip, and while I’m not always in touch with my extended family very often, it’s always good to be able to catch up vicariously through Mom and Dad.

MiddleEarth mania, week one: The Fellowship of the Ring

Saturday Prairie and I started our three-week string of Lord of the Rings movie watching with the Cinerama‘s showing of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition.

We started by wandering down to Westlake Center to get lunch at the Indian shop in the food court, then spent some time window shopping and trying to avoid the holiday shopping crowds. We wandered up to the Cinerama to see if there was a line a little over an hour before the show, and (no big surprise, really) one was already forming, so we hopped in and spent the next hour or so chatting and watching people line up. Thankfully it was a sunny day without too much wind — I doubt I can expect that for the next two weekends, but the wait wasn’t all that bad this weekend, and we ended up fairly close to the front of the line. After about an hour, we made it in, found great seats (dead center, about six rows back), and waited for the movie to start.

One of the things I really appreciated about this was that they didn’t waste any time. The Cinerama is already a nicer experience than many other theaters, in that they don’t have the obnoxious advertising slides projected on the screen before the show. Not only was that the case this time, but when the movie started, it started right in — no “pre-show entertainment” (commercials), not even any trailers — just a short AMC Theaters splash reel, and then we went right into the movie.

The film itself was, of course, excellent. I hadn’t watched it in about a year, since Prairie and I watched it on DVD just before going out to see The Two Towers in the theatre. Just being able to see this version of the film in the theater is such a treat. The entire audience was great, too. One of the things I noticed and liked a lot was how many families showed up for this, some with kids who couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9, and how involved they all were. Well-behaved, no fussing or whining (pretty impressive for a 3+ hour event), and even when things on screen were scary (the cave troll and the Balrog, for instance), they were obviously fun-scared, not nightmare-scared.

I do have to admit, though — while I was originally a little disappointed that I couldn’t get tickets for the full LotR marathon, after sitting in the theater through one film, I think I’m glad. I’m not sure my butt could handle 9-10 hours in a theater seat!

Is it that obvious?

During a discussion of iTunes music sharing, which allows you to see what other people on your network are listening to, I mentioned that that didn’t do me much good, as I just have my little two-machine network in my apartment. Phil came back with this…

You ought to turn on your G3 and launch iTunes and give it a totally different name and pretend you have a friend.

Ouch. ;)

For sale: Pioneer CMX-5000 Twin CD Player

Note: This was originally posted Apr. 29th. It’s still up for grabs, so I’m moving the post to today’s date for more visibility.

Pioneer CMX-5000

Asking price: \$300.00 SOLD.

Lightly used, but in excellent condition, this unit was purchased new for \$1300 three years ago, but has sat nearly untouched in the two years since I’ve moved to Seattle and stopped DJing. I can’t say anything but good things about this piece of equipment — it’s one of the best DJ units I’ve had the pleasure to work with.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, as as I’ve hardly touched it in the two years since I’ve been in Seattle, it’s time to see if someone who can get a little more use out of it is interested. I’d prefer if someone in or around Seattle who can swing by and pick it up from me bought it (I’m in the lower First Hill area, close to Downtown), as I don’t have a car and shipping would be a major pain. I can accept cash, checks, or PayPal.

Keep reading for technical details from Pioneer’s site (I’d link directly, but they’ve gone Flash…):

Features:

[![Pioneer CMX-5000]]Auto Mix Play** Armed with an original search system, the CMX-5000 measures a track’s BPM and beat timing and then automatically changes the speed to the designated BPM, thereby realizing smooth mixing even for tracks on a single disc that have different tempos.

Three Playback Methods are Available:

  • Track Mode: Performs mixed playback alternating between tracks from discs in both decks.
  • Disc Mode: Performs mixed playback of track on a single disc in numerical order.
  • Program Mode: Performs mixed playback of tracks in any designated order.

Track Playback Time is Adjustable:

  • Short Time Change: Switches the track at a shorter time.
  • Instant Change: Switches the track at the DJ’s preferred time.

The Auto mix function is very effective in the following situations:

  • At times when there no DJ is present in stores, malls, etc., such as an weekdays nonstop background music can be played in DJ style using the establishment’s favorite selections to help creative a more active atmosphere.
  • In bars, restaurants or pubs where the staff work as DJs, the Auto Mix function results in considerable labor saving allowing the staff to devote more of their time to customer service.
  • When DJs playing at clubs, etc., need to take a short break to deal with urgent business or emergencies they can use the Auto Mix function to keep the music rolling.

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– In case of no beat music, smooth mixing cannot be performed because the BPM or beat timing of certain songs can’t be measured correctly.

**In the case of tracks on the same disc, cross fading cannot be performed.

***The CMX-5000, while revolutionary with Auto Beat Mixing capability, does have its limitations just like any electronic device. There are certain variables, that if present, will cause the Auto Beat Mixing function to not function properly. A few things must be in order for it to Auto Mix:

  • Music must be within a +/-16% ratio. If it is not within this range, not only will it not mix, but the beats will not match as well. The BPM’s will stay the same (even with the BPM sync pressed).
  • There must be a steady consistent beat in the beginning of the song. A song that starts with just vocals or off beats rhythms will not mix.
  • Any +/-16% range BPM should mix if it is has a CONSISTENT beat.
  • You must wait a few seconds for the next song to cue up, before hitting “Instant Change”. The player does have to calculate the beats of the next song. It needs just a few seconds to cue up. You will be know that it ready to go when:
    • If the next song programmed is on the other side, an orange colored “dash” going in a semicircle around the display appears.
    • If the next song programmed is on the SAME player, the autocue button quits blinking.

    The “Instant Change” button must be pressed IN TIME. If you decide to use the “instant change”, it must be done in time for it to automix.

DJ Operating Functions The CMX-5000 incorporates and upgrades the functions of Pioneer’s world-renowned DJ-use CD player — the CDJ 700S/500-II — and also boasts a number of brand new functions.

Clear Jog Dial Although the player is a rack mount component, this design results in a larger jog dial and display which together realize higher operability and easy visual confirmation of the current playback status.

Quick Start This feature permits virtually instantaneous playback with a time lag of less than 0.01 seconds from the pause condition.

Cue Functions (Cue Point/Back Cue/Auto Cue/Cue Paint Sampler) Set your own favorite playback points using the above functions. For example, with Auto Cue, you can set the start point of each track automatically.

Tempo Control The playback speed can be adjusted within three kinds of range. +/- 6/10/16%.

Master Tempo With this feature, you can change the playback speed without altering the music’s pitch.

Loop Functions (Seamless Loop/Realtime Loop/Loop-Out Adjust/Re loop) Uninterrupted sound loops can be easily arranged, and with the Re loop function you can return at any time to a previously set loop.

Playing Address The playing address allows you to check the current track’s playback situation visually in paragraph units.

BPM Counter This counter measures and visually displays the current song’s BPM (Beats Per Minute).

Legato Link Conversion for High Quality Sound Equipped with Pioneer’s original wide-range technology Legato Link Conversion the CMX-5000 is capable of reproducing sound frequencies above 20kHz which are lost during normal CD format playback.

Vibration-Proof Memory and Construction The CMX-5000 boasts excellent vibration-resistant characteristics and prevents sound jumps with the double protection afforded by a maximum 8-second vibration proof memory and a special vibration proof construction.

Slot In Thanks to this system, swapping discs is smooth and rapid, and you can say good-bye to worries about damaging the disc tray.

Mix Out The CMX-5000 incorporates a Mix Out terminal that allows use even in cases where there is only one input system, the setup is restricted to a single amplifier, or there is no mixer input margin.

Multi-Read This function plays back not only CD’s and CD-R’s but also CD-RW discs that are impossible to play on a conventional CD player.

Headphone Monitor This handy monitor function enables versatile sound monitoring.

Digital Output The CMX-5000 is equipped with a digital output terminal.

Fader Start Play/Back Cue Play Using the CMX-5000 together with a Pioneer DJ mixer, you can use the mixer’s fade, to control playback operations such as track start and return to cue point.

[Pioneer CMX-5000]: https://michaelhans.com/eclecticism/2003/04/graphics/cmx5000-2-thumb.jpg {width=”150″ height=”107″}

People sleep…cigarettes don't

Fire! Fire! ...cat?

Wow — scary stuff. Apparently there was a fire at James and Stacy’s apartment complex in Anchorage yesterday afternoon. Marc was kind enough to let me know about it in a comment here.

Thankfully, according to Stacy, everyone is okay, including the cat.

Anyways, aside from being just another exciting day in Anchorage, Alaska, we’re doing okay. […] The fire marshal called us and was pleased to tell us that our apartment was not the source of the fire. He couldn’t talk any further about it, but I suspect my neighbors are going to get sued because they left a burning cigarette on their back porch that happened to catch a cardboard box that was holding their ashtray. There was also a propane canister explosion. […] It was the explosion that woke James up, but the fire was already filling our apartment with smoke and the fireman ordered him out before he could get the cat. But THE CAT SURVIVED!

I’m just glad that everyone is fine. You all know that if you ever need a floor to crash on, my place is always open! Oh, sure, there’s that little matter of me being 3,000 miles away and all…but the offer stands anyway. :)

Also, a PayPal donation account has been set up courtesy of ShyWickedPixie. As James and Stacy may have just lost everything in their apartment, I’m sure they’d appreciate the odd buck or two tossed their way! I only had \$3 in my account to send off, unfortunately, but it’s something. :)

(Thanks to OccipitalDruid for pointing out the PayPal link!)

You're an ex-DJ?

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ:

OGRE: A doorman.
MICHAEL, a.k.a. WOODY or DJWUDI: A clubgoer.
JOHN: Another clubgoer.
DAN: Another clubgoer (Actually, I have no idea what his name was…just go with it.)

SCENE: Outside of THE VOGUE, a goth/industrial dance club, during a Sunday night “Fetish night“. OGRE and MICHAEL are talking outside the front door of the club. Pounding industrial music can be heard in the background.

Enter JOHN, stage left.

OGRE: Oh, hey John. John, this is Woody.

MICHAEL and JOHN shake hands.

JOHN: Good to meet you.

MICHAEL: You too.

OGRE: He’s ‘DJ Wooooodi…’

MICHAEL (laughing): Ex-DJ.

OGRE laughs.

OGRE: I meant ‘djwudi’ on LiveJournal, but yeah. Ex.

JOHN (bemused): Ex?

MICHAEL: Yup.

Enter DAN through the front door of THE VOGUE.

JOHN: I don’t think I’ve ever met an ex-DJ. They’re always just “between clubs” or something.

ALL laugh.

MICHAEL: Well, glad to be the first!

DAN: Hey, I’m an ex-DJ! I used to be one of the top three DJs in Cincinatti. Now I’m working coat check at the Mercury. How sad is that? I started out doing coat check twelve years ago.

MICHAEL: I could say I used to be one of the top DJs in Anchorage, but I’m not quite sure how much that really means…

ALL laugh.

OGRE: No kidding — ‘Dude, I’m the top DJ in Albequerque!’

JOHN: I’m the top DJ in my apartment!

OGRE: Yeah, boy — ‘party over here!’

JOHN: I rock the house. Hell, I rock the passenger seat!

DAN: As long as the passenger isn’t there —

JOHN: No shit — ‘Hey, get your hands off my stereo!’

ALL laugh.

EXIT all through the front door of THE VOGUE.

END SCENE.

Three Years

Today marks my three-year anniversary of weblogging. Technically, I’ve actually been at this for a bit longer than that — since sometime in 1998 or 1999 — but at that point I was just updating a static HTML page by hand, and much to my dismay, I lost my archives of those pages some time ago. So, for all practical purposes, I’m just dating back to my first archived post, from Nov. 25 2000.

I’ve been slowly working on moving all of my old archives over into my TypePad account for the past couple months, with a goal of having them all online by today. Thankfully, that happened, and I now have all three years of archives — 1,949 individual posts (an average of 1.78 posts per day) — online and available for perusing.

As I’ve worked my way through them all, I’ve highlighted a few at the top of my archives page as “Greatest Hits”. These aren’t necessarily the most-visited posts on the site. Rather, they’re posts that I find notable or especially worth visiting for one reason or another. Here’s a rundown of what I consider the highlights of the past three years:

1/9/2001: Words of Wisdom
One of the few pieces of forwarded e-mail that I’ve ever liked enough not just to keep, but to post. Just a good list of advice and observations worth keeping in mind.
1/17/2001: Things to remember while e-mailing
Another forward that I found worth saving. A good list of things that everyone should keep solidly in mind before passing on the latest virus warning, plea for help, or urban legend that lands in their e-mail inbox.
4/20/2001: About my tattoo
Some fairly bad pictures of me, but decent pictures of my tattoo. I’ve never been much of one for body modification — no piercings, and this is my only tattoo — but after finding the design years ago and giving it roughly five years of consideration, I decided that I’d found something worth permanently adding to my body.
5/24/2001: Mars needs a facelift!
Pure, unadulterated silliness. After finding some new pictures of the famous “face” on Mars, I decided to go all-out and see how well I could do at coming across as a flaming loony conspiracy theory nut. Apparently I did fairly well, as when I originally posted this on another discussion board, a few people commented that until the end of the post when I admitted that I was just fooling around, they actually believed that I was frightfully serious about what I was writing. There’s not much higher praise than that.
2/28/2002: Where were you?
A list of important historical dates, and my recollections of where I was when they happened and how they affected me. Some dates weren’t overly clearly remembered, most of the ones that really stuck with me range from the Challenger explosion to the Sept. 11 attacks.
3/2/2002: Hippies on Mars!
Another bout of Mars-inspired silliness. A false-color image of the Martian poles that reminded me of tye-dyed clothing patterns inspired this “press release” about Grateful Dead fans traveling across the plains of Mars. As far as I know it’s purely coincidental that I had two Mars-inspired bits of creative writing.
7/20/2002: Best of times, worst of times
Looking back at my experiences with people who went from being friends of mine to being roommates from hell. It’s always an odd time of my past to look back on, as it’s a strong combination of fond memories and things that at times I’d rather be able to forget.
10/28/2002: George
Much as I love cats, my brother’s cat George is the only cat I’ve ever met that I just couldn’t get along with. Completely and utterly psychotic. This is one of George’s more amusing moments in life.
3/2/2003: Sleep — from the painting by Salvadore Dali
A piece I wrote during my junior year of high school, inspired by a Salvadore Dali painting. As can be expected from something written around thirteen years ago, there are definitely things that I would do differently were I writing it now, but I’ve always liked what I came up with enough to leave it unaltered since its original inception.
3/3/2003: Just hang up
I’m not a fan of cell phones at all. I’ll only have one if required and paid for by my job, which has only happened once. One of the things that drives me up the wall is how incredibly rude many people can be when it comes to cell phones, and this rant was born from that frustration.
5/6/2003: Cynicism reigns supreme\
5/8/2003: Darwin has left the building
A pair of posts exploring one of my more cynical beliefs — that the human race is essentially throwing evolution out the window and breeding itself into oblivion. Some very interesting discussion arose out of these posts.
5/29/2003: Glitch
So far, my first foray into ‘fanfic’. Initially inspired by a dream I had after watching “Matrix: Reloaded”, it explores what might happen if someone accidentally tapped into a debugging routine in the Matrix without really realizing what was going on.
6/1/2003: Newly Digital (Back in the Day Redux)
My contribution to Adam Kalsey’s ‘Newly Digital’ project, looking back on my early experiences with computers, technology, and the internet, and some of the wierd and wonderful things I’ve seen over the years since these glowing screens first caught my attention.
7/9/2003: The Purity Test
I first discovered the Purity Tests on a BBS while I was in High School, and have always found them to be quite entertaining. Download the test (100, 500, 1000, and 2000 question versions) and find out just how morally, ethically, and sexually pure you are.
7/31/2003: Blogstop
Wordgame fun. Construct a post from the letters of the last word in the immediately preceeding post. It’s easier just to take a look and figure it out as you go.
10/29/2003: Fifteen Minutes of Fame
I look back on the first day or two of notoriety after news of my brush with Microsoft exploded across the ‘net.

I’m sure there are more goodies buried in my archives that are also worth dredging up from time to time. Some may be of more interest than these, most will be of less. These are just the ones that I find to be most worthy of calling attention to. If you’ve read any of them before, feel free to either just move along or take another look. If any of these are new to you, I just hope you like what you find.

Here’s hoping I’ve got another three years of this — or more — left in me.

Just when things were starting to settle down

Earlier this week, I started noticing something odd. It had finally been long enough since my fifteen minutes of fame that traffic was starting to come back down to a more normal level. Oddly, though, for the past few days I’d been getting a lot of hits from the article in the Seattle P-I about my situation. Obviously, it had been linked somewhere with a decent amount of traffic — but where?

Today, the mystery was solved, thanks to an e-mail from Mike: It turns out that Blogger has posted a new tech support article entitled “How Not to Get Fired Because of Your Blog” which links to the Seattle P-I article.

Do you blog at work? Do you check your referrer logs and surf the blogosphere all day from your office? Do you think it might be funny to mock your co-workers publicly, or that it could be a good idea to post photos of sensitive corporate information on your blog? If only Blogger Support could have reached this unfortunate Blogger sooner. Folks, this doesn’t have to happen to you.

These days, many companies are blog-friendly because they recognize a valuable tool for communication and the sharing of ideas when they see it. However, as with any public medium, care should be exercised from time to time. Here at Blogger, we want you to keep your job and as always, ending your blog should be a last resort reserved only for woeful situations. Fret not gentle blogger, we’ve put together this document to help you keep those paychecks rolling in.

So, apparently I’ve been immortalized by Blogger’s tech support crew, which is resulting in a fair amount of traffic moving from Blogger to the Seattle P-I, and then from their article back to me. Well, hey, any traffic is good traffic, right? ;)

Additionally, I got this in my e-mail today:

From: sinta
Subject: Your blog on CNN
Date: November 22, 2003 11:53:20 PST
To: Michael Hanscom

Hiya Michael

Just want to point out to you that your blog was shown on CNN Global Business just today at 7:30 Swiss time :) It just finished a few minutes ago. They talked about that Microsoft incident you had a while back :)

Just thought you’d like to know ^_^

Bestest regards from Switzerland,
Sinta~

http://www.lockload.com
The one and only He Says, She says double blog.

Apparently, my story is (for the moment) the Energizer Bunny of blogging stories — it just keeps going, and going, and going, and going…

Update: Many thanks to Sudheer from in Beijing for sending me a link to the online version of the CNN piece: The Budding Blogs of Business! Here’s the relevant bit:

Microsoft has taken a benevolent attitude to blogging. But it balked when an employee revealed on his blog how the company had taken delivery of a shipment of Apple computers. He was quickly relieved of his duties.