the Mosquito Alarm, aka Teen Buzz: an “ultra-high sound can be heard only by youths but not by most people over 20“. that’s what some kids are using as their cellphone ring to avoid it being heard by their teachers in school.

this fascinates me, especially given the essential slap-back to the technology’s original intent, to “drive teenage gangs away from shopping centers”. imagine if some enterprising youth found a way to develop a speech synthesizer that used this same frequency. they could broadcast messages with it through, say, a megaphone in a crowded place, and only fellow “young ones” could hear and respond to it. the opportunities here for mass covert behavior, “silent” civil disobedience or just plain hilarity are endless.

more Salon of Shame news; here’s the online version of the write-up it received in this week’s print edition of the Stranger. we’re not going to stay underground for very long at this rate; could a self-deprecating “mockumentary” be next? stay tuned…

if there were naked photos of me on the internet, what if anything would be different?

nurse julie asked me about Salon of Shame, a bi-monthly gathering of sweet wretchedness who’s latest installment took place last night. check ariel’s entry for the details, but needless to say it was a hoot. i read the 2nd poem i’ve ever written, called ‘house number ten’, first put to paper in 1982 at the tender age of thirteen. essentially it’s about a man, an ant, and the consequences of solitude. or something like that. i don’t really remember what sort of dark early-teen muse was responsible for this particular bit of inspiration, but to my utter amazement it went over rather well. last night was excellent overall; i’m hoping this particular ‘entertainment via excorcism’ has a long life ahead of it.

some rather late news: meeting the vegan goddess. i totally meant to blog about this before. as in, seven months ago. i finally ran across the entry in question tonight, and couldn’t resist. if you’re interested in going vegan, but are stuck on the whole ‘but there’s nothing to eat!’ nonsense, let this lady set you straight with any one of her three cookbooks.