Fake Magic Part II - The Mystery Spot.

As most of you know i'm a fan of anything weird and unexplained. So, I was juiced when my friend told me she had been to the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz. I'd seen the bumper stickers all over the place and was always curious as to what the hell was so mysterious about it. Most of what she told me is explained on their website.

(Wiki)The operators of the small site (which is about 150 feet in diameter) claim that it is a place where the laws of physics and gravity do not apply and provide a number of interesting demonstrations in support of these claims.

Several of the phenomena demonstrated by the tour guides (and by visitors using levels) could be construed as rather difficult to explain. Two people standing on opposite sides of a level surface appear to change height, and a ball will roll to one direction on the same surface.

Some tour guides joke that extraterrestrials had once crashed at the site or buried unearthly metals beneath the Spot, or that carbon dioxide seeps out of the earth.

Now, if any of this is true that would be rad but being the skeptic i am I looked into it. The reason I'm skeptical about this is because its a road side tourist attraction. I found that there are a bunch of sites that basically explain most of the phenomena at the Mystery spot to be result from the effects of forced perspective, optical adaptation, and certain optical illusions in combination with the steep gradient of the site.

So, ok debunked. but still kind of interesting. But what pisses me off is that they have this elaborate history going back to the 40's which is pretty much fake that helps the claims they make. They also do this experiment proving the strange gravity anomalies that occur by having a ball roll up a level board. But its a total lie because the board has a groove in it that makes the ball roll back. seen here. watch the guy flip the board to show theres no groove. he flips it end to end, not top to bottom. fucking liars!!




its total bullshit. why cant they just let it be an interesting perceptual illusion and leave the props gimmicks and lies out of it.

who wants to go to Santa Cruz and check it out?

I'll bring the level.

here's some more links on it and debunking it.
http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/p_myster.htm

http://jcgreen60.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_archive.html
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-59687.html

Weird Al R-Kelly parody

kinda bummed its animation but stoked that theres a video for this finally. the funniest shit ever. also if you've been in a cave and dont know the R-kelly Epic poly-ilogy ( i made up that word, figure it out ) "Trapped In the Closet part 1-eleventeen" this wont be as funny.



if you don't like Weird Al stab yourself in the inner thigh with a butter knife as hard as you can right now.

shedding the winter coat

so i did it. i cut off the frodah and the grizzly adams. It was part of megs birthday present. i was looking a little bumtastic.

So i went to the happy cuts place by my house and as soon as the Vietnamese lady started chopping off the locks i felt better. i told her "wow i can feel a difference already" she replied in a heavy Vietnamese-American accent "yeea i can feeel da heeet coming aaff yo haiaah when i caat eet"

then she went ballistic with the clippers as she tried to make small talk.

Air Pilot UFO sightings

i stumbled upon this by accident but i love this shit tho. pretty cool air traffic recordings of commercial pilots UFO sightings.

You like what you see?

Today was an employee of my works last day here so we had a lunch pizza party send off for her. But since i had a 12:00 dentist appointment I was afraid i might miss it. I emailed the office manager to tell her i might miss it, and half jokingly, because there is always pizza left over i asked her to save me a slice.

I get to the dentist office and expect to be in and out because its just a check up and cleaning. I get called in and settle into the futuristic dental chairs they have. usually i hear my dentist finishing up another patient and then come over and say "how you doing Kirk?" but this time the buzz in the other room lasted longer than usual. In one room they had some kind of comedian patient cracking jokes with my dentist. My dentists tone was pretty much saying that he wanted to be done with this guy but he wouldn't shut up. Then while this was happening there was an odd mood emanating from the other dentists chair. It was far enough away i couldn't make out the exact conversation under the boisterous bawl of the jokester next door.

There was some hustle and bustle with my dentist and the Jokester and the female dentist for a while then finally, my homeboy Dr. Candito Celestino, who looks weird now that he shaved off his mustache shows up. "how ya doing kirk?" bla bla bla.. and he gets started. While he and my hygienist Nicole with the 3 pounds of eyeliner and mascara start bantering about what had happened in the other room. From what i could gather over the sound of scraping, high pitched buzz of dental tools and suction sounds was that an older man was caught oogling the female dentist. She played it off and tried to just let a dirty old man be but then he made a comment or something and she reacted. At one point she gave him a mirror to look at his new smile and he kept angling it to look at her boobs. she said "you like what you see?". Candito and Nicole were discussing whether she was being too provocative since thats all they had heard. While i waited for Nicole to come back I overheard Candito continued kind of accusing the female dentist about being too flirty, then she explained what the old man was doing and that she'd never be like that.

So due to a potential sexual harassment situation my 1/2 hour dentist trip turned into an hour. I rushed back to work, skipping the usual dentist/lunch break hoping to get some left over pizza and give Crystalin a casual i-don't-know-you-that-well-but-we're-getting-pizza farewell. when i got back to work i could smell the lingering fume of pizza in the air. I followed it like a cartoon mouse follows the visible yellow whiff of cheese to the lunch room. and to my dismay, no crowd of awkward employee interaction, and more importantly a trash full of orange grease stained paper plates and a vacant table with nothing but crumbs and unused packets of Parmesan and crushed pepper.

bust! no pizza. I guess the only good news is that i didn't have any cavities, my wisdom tooth holes are healing nicely and that gingivitis is reversible with more regular flossing.

fiy, this image was titled "meth teeth". gnar!

Ray, when someone asks you if you're a *God*, you say "YES"!

worst photo blog ever! with more pictures of me than anyone needs.



















worst photo blog ever! with more pictures of me than anyone needs.

area codes update

thanks Jimbo for making me look dumb..

You got it all wrong turd banger! Oregon has 2 area codes. 503 for North Oregon, and 541 for Southern Oregon. The state made it mandatory that no matter what area code you reside in you must dial the area code (ex: I live in Portland and have a 503 area code, and if I want to call Guitar Center in Portland I must dial 503 and then their number.). I guess this was to help eliminate the confusion that Oregon residence had after the area code split some years ago. I don't see what's so hard about understanding that you have a new area code. Then again I come from the Bay Area and have gone through 3 area code splits.

but what's so great about this is that I'm still kinda right in saying Oregon is stupid. Opposite to Atlanta, Oregon, the entire state, has only two area codes (75% of it is one of them) and Oregonians are too stupid to figure that out they have to still dial 10 digit numbers? OH MY GOD! how retarded do you have to be? people in Oregon suck. damn and i liked Oregon too.

wow so according to this, its not northern and southern.. its the portland metro area and THE REST OF THE STATE.

all the bumpkins in the Forrest were like "why aint mah phone workin when i call portlin'?"
after the pamphlets explaining the concept of Area Codes didnt work they finally had to just ruin it for everyone and make it 10 digits mandatory.

area codes

Ludacris' got ho's in different area codes,. whats funny about that is that Luda, if i'm not mistaken is from the ATL, or Atlanta area. Just like my friend Rita. When Rita saw this...

... in my photo blog a few blogs ago she said, "how do they know what area code to dial?" The LOST FERRET poster doesnt have an area code listed because, well, everyone in the "ferret being lost range" would have the same area code. Since here the entire contra costa county area shares the same area code. 925. Alameda County is mostly 510 and 925, San Francisco is 415. its logical and defines areas.



She, being from bassackwards Georgia couldnt grasp the concept of 7 digit phone numbers because there they have random area codes for the whole city. Your neighbor could have a different area code than you. which is retarded and defies all logic in calling it an "AREA code" at all. what area? Now Jimbo just informed me that in Portland OR. they have to dial 10 digits for every local call they make. because like Atlanta, they just adopted the rolling random area code idea.

so, when Ludacris says he has ho's in different area codes, since he's from the ATL, he could just be talking about the 20 area codes on his street. But when and when Samuel L Jackson says in Pulp Fiction, ".. i aint got no mo' friends in 818" people who've spent time in the Los Angeles area know that 818 is the area code for the more suburban San Fernando Valley.

Area codes in California actually mean something.

pre-ripped crotch

i've been wearing the same 3 pairs of Levi 569's for like 2 years and needless to say they are pretty "to' up"

i went to the Levi's store and found a whole pile of my jeans picked out my size and before i went to the register i decided to check out the "wash" on them.. every one of them had pre-faded legs and/or asses, pre-busted out knees and freyed cuffs. ???

thats the very reason i'm buying NEW jeans. wtf man? i thought we sent all our used Levis to Japan in the early 90's... now theyre back!


of course this isnt a new thing. i'll never forget the Who's the Boss ep back in the 80's when Samantha begs her dad for these expensive designer jeans and then as soon as she gets them home cuts them to shit with scissors. Tony FREAKED out. it was rad.

anyway, if you want to puke, click the picture. if you've recently purchased pre-worn jeans, punch yourself in your pre-ripped crotch right now. as hard as you can.

tech talk with a guy who knows more than me.

my online friend Jeremy runs Dailyplacebo.com. a blog about stuff. kinda like this one but more focused, better written and more informative. he's my go-to for tech questions since he seems to be up on the latest shit. he posted on his site about a DVD he bought that wouldnt work in his DVD player and sparked this little convo this morning. His brain vs. my dumb ass.

Kirk: did you try to get another copy of the DVD?
maybe it was a bum batch. anyway, dvd players are weird. whenever i'd have a new CD i burned of new music i wanted to show my dad his DVD player/CD player wouldnt ever play it. i burned him a pirated episode of LOST on DVD and to my dismay his POS dvd player started it fine.

Jeremy: no i didn't get a new DVD
it worked fine once i pressed menu

Kirk: i was at best buy yesterday and they have a whole section of "new or better or enhanced or something" DVD's. i dont know what thats about every new technology i take with a grain of salt because i still remember Laser disks. like, you mentioned minidisks too. we used the shit out of our minidisk recorder thingy in my old band. i get the same feeling when i see PSP movies at the video store

Jeremy: there is no way that UMD is going anywhere

Kirk: its such a niche prorpietary market... UMD? is that the shit i saw at Best Buy?

Jeremy: yeah
that's thepsp format "universal meda disc"

Kirk: and whats BluRay?

Jeremy: but there's like nothing that uses it. blueray is the next gen dvd. that and HDDVD
the PS3 uses blueray

Kirk: its like come one guys, VHS or BetaMax,
whats it gonna be so i can buy a damn VCR already.

Jeremy: well its tricky cause the porn industry decided on vhs and that's why it took off

Kirk: i thought it was a government contract ? same difference... dude betamax was sony? another sony proprietary peice of shit...no wonder

Jeremy: lol, but pretty much no one wants porn in HD

Kirk: i read a thing on that. i think i blogged it

Jeremy: how can you film in hd and slather Vaseline on the lense?

Kirk: Local News folk hate HD too

Jeremy: people just aren't pretty enough for HD that's why you'll see a bunch of nature films in hd

Kirk: and football games

Jeremy: sure. so anyway, if sony really wants to get umd going somewhere

Kirk: whats funny is that the news is HD now but a lot of their footage is from eyewitness
home vid or phone cams.

Jeremy: they'll let the porn industry start releasing movies for psp

Kirk: is PSP big enough to support a whole format change?

Jeremy: its not HD, no
its less than standard def. its not the next DVD, its the mobile option

Kirk: i know but will sony allow other companies to make PSP format movie players?

Jeremy: they're up against smaller and higher capacity harddrives and flash memory
if they're smart

Kirk: thats what i always thought the problem with minidisk was.. it was ONLY Sony

Jeremy: right now they're keeping it pretty locked down so that the games don't get ripped off
but they can't keep it like that

Kirk: just seems like youre shooting yourself in the foot if you the only one making the device
that plays what you hopes to be a new standard format.

Jeremy: i dunno
maybe the naming guys just didn't talk to the standards guys
and its not rally intended to be a universal media format

Kirk: its like if Phillips TV's were the only ones HD capable.. no one would give a shit about HD
maybe this is all going over my head
i'm just a layman trying to understand all this tech shit

Jeremy: no, its very much like minidisc

Kirk: as are most people who walk into Best buy

Jeremy: except that they've got a different ganre of users
and they're producing prepublished content instead of blank discs

Kirk: what does PSP, BluRay, and HDDVD and the crap i saw at best buy have incommon?

Jeremy: Bluray and hddvd are the same thing(think vhs and betabax)

Kirk: blue ray being VHS and HD being beta?

Jeremy: they're big screen and large data storage. well, we're not sure which one will come out on top yet

Kirk: but they do the same thing.

Jeremy: that's why you'll see hybrid players that do both

Kirk: makes sense. so you can get hi def on a 90 x 90" flatscreen

Jeremy: basically there were a bunch of companies that jumped on the two bandwagons and don't want to have invested in thewrong format

Kirk: which i guess is the dillema i'm seeing

Jeremy: UMD is completely different

Kirk: and all eyes are on the porn industry

Jeremy: its low quality for tiny screens

Kirk: UMD?..

Jeremy: the PSP discs

Kirk: ok...whats PSP's UMD counterpart? if there is one
what else would you play a UMD on? or is it soley proprietary to SONY PSP players

Jeremy: you might be able to find a umd drive for your computer
for an old development machine

Kirk: basically there isnt any PSP alternatives at this point
just like Minidisk

Jeremy: well
there's the nintendo DS
but its not the same format, no

Kirk: so.. what VCR do i buy?
Jeremy: PAl
that way you can watch all kind of old videos from eurpoe

Kirk: or i can move to japan and have everything, every format and an ass squirter all in one device.

Jeremy: But I'm not buying any HD disc system
I've got a 37 inch tv and regular DVD is fine. when i get my 90 incher I may need hd, but I don't see that happening any time soon

Kirk: i still have never seen HD and cant imagine how it could be any better than real people in color, moving on my screen.. I'll wait for Smell-O-Vision

Jeremy: plus I've got like 300 DVD's that I'm not anxious to make obsolete

Kirk: i said that about cassettes. i still have a box of them in storage
anyway, isnt, video on demand going to make and kind of DVDs obsolete

Jeremy: depends on the libraries they give us access to
and bandwith restrictions and cost and quality and what market competition there is

Kirk: i guess so.. just sorta seems thats how things are going. with itunes and all. no one buys cds anymore.

Jeremy: but I would rather have a physical copy of these anyway
I don't need to to data backups, I don't need to updrage my harddrives

Kirk: me too, which is why i've never payed for a download and why its so surprising that itunes and stuff like that has taken off like it has... i guess i was one of the spoiled ones with napster.
it was free, i took it for granted.

Jeremy: if you think a dvd can hold up to 17 gigs click here
(we'll take half that as an average) and multiply times 300

Kirk: i dont get it

Jeremy: I'd need to 2550 GB of memory to hold my DVD collection
I've got about 70 GIGs right now on my computer

Kirk: thats a lot of gigs

Jeremy: anyway, its very similar to the music debate

Kirk: arent they inventing a 2908734958143206891
539681984197130987095 gig processor that is the size of a gnat's ass

Jeremy: I subscribe to emusic which lets you download a certain number of mp3s per month
so I store my own media. my friend subscribes to rahpsody which streams the music to him when he requests it

Kirk: or you could just put it on gmail.

Jeremy: the difference being that he has access to all the music he wants (as long as its in their catalogue) but after we stop subscribing I'll still have all my music and he'll have nothing

Kirk: ahh.... i dont even like enough music to justify something like that

Jeremy: So that's the down side of on-demand video to me. I don't want to be beholden to a service to keep my investment

Kirk: if you like weird shit you'll only be able to find it on shitty formats too anyway
i like snuff films on 8mm reels.. thats how i roll

Jeremy: haha

Kirk: midget donkey porn on blood stained VHS from mexico

Jeremy: try downloading that shit

Kirk: no way man i dont want the FBI on my ass...the NSA is listening!
donkey porn might be classified as "terrorist activiy"

if you are listening.. that last bit was a joke.. all jokes

Jeremy: I don't even know this guy

Kirk: lol

Jeremy: in fact, what's a computer?
ok, lunch time
later

Kirk: see you in prison