I think I have found the Bizarro World version of myself. I set up a Google Alerts feed for “Kip Robinson” some time back, curious to see if I’m being mentioned anywhere. To no one’s surprise, I’m not.1 Most of the new hits are either 1) this blog, 2) random business meeting minutes that somehow involved a “Kip Robinson”, or 3) a blog from a Mormon couple in California. It is the latter, sarahnkip.blogspot.com, where you will find Bizarro Kip Robinson:

If you read the blurb on the sidebar, you will see that I share essentially nothing in common with Bizarro Kip, other than the name:

Anybody that knows Kip knows that he is adventurous. He is into anything outdoorsey and anything that get’s your heart racing. He is currently in the process of applying for many different fire departments. He is also working full time for his dad’s construction company as a project manager. Kip still finds time to hit the gym, ride his dirt bike and spend time with his wife. He is working hard to ensure a comfortable and happy future for our family.

A week ago, when I tried to connect to the wireless internet at our resort in Williamsburg, I was told I needed to pay for it.  I found the second purchasing option to be very strangely worded:

I have a way of remembering to do things that might be idiosyncratic, or it may be completely normal.  So I thought I would reach out to the dozen or so people who read this little blog to see if you do the same thing.  So here’s the scenario:

Let’s say I want to remember to take a CD to the office with me tomorrow morning.  I will pick out some very specific action that I know I will take tomorrow—like picking up my keys off the bedside table—and I’ll visualize myself doing that while thinking to myself “don’t forget that CD.”  I only need to spend a minute or two concentrating very hard on picturing myself picking up the keys while thinking “don’t forget that CD.”  Then in the morning, when I’m picking up my keys, the thought “don’t forget that CD” will magically appear in my head.

I believe this is technically a form of self-hypnosis, or something like it.  It works most of the time, but only recently did I start to wonder if other people use this little trick.  When the thought comes popping into your head, it feels very much like deja vu.  In fact, I think I figured it out when I was curious about the feeling of deja vu when I was little (this was before I learned there was even a term for it).  I reasoned that surely I didn’t have some buried “memory” of a future event, so I tried to induce deja vu like this.  Eventually, I got it to work.

So does anyone else do this?  If not, you should try it, it really works.

When you put your resume on Monster and Career Builder, you get some strange and sometimes sketchy e-mails about jobs that have absolutely nothing to do with the skills shown on your resume.  Case in point, the following e-mail that I received today (with my own commentary added in italics):

Hello Kip,

Hi!  Do we know each other?

Are you looking for an opportunity to apply your expertise and help expand manufacturing capabilities with a company that desires to change the way the world produces glass?

Am I ever!!  I am so sick of the way glass is produced these days!

Do you desire to work with a world leader that is planning for future success and is committed to industry leadership through innovation and technology?

That was a mouthful!  But I think my answer is “yes.”  I would assume it beats working for an unknown company planning for failure and committed to industry bottom-feeding through stagnation and tradition.

[Redacted], a Fortune 500 company and the world’s leading producer of glass packaging products, is currently looking for a Combustion Engineer to join our team at our glass manufacturing facility in Winston Salem, NC.

Combustion Engineer, what is that??  Is it anything like a Software Engineer?  Because I’m really good at software engineering.

As a Combustion Engineer, your objective will be to deliver efficient & improved combustion glass conditioning systems as well as increased furnace life through proper control of fuel consumption, heating, & melting temperatures.  In addition, you will assist in the development of effective preventative maintenance programs and be an active participant in the facility safety program.

Oh OK, so it’s nothing like software engineering or anything else that is listed on my resume.  Go on.

It has been brought to our attention that you may be just the right person we are looking for!

OK, let me just stop you right here because I can see you’re wasting our time.  Two things.  One: What fool told you that?!?  Two: I don’t think you understand just how unqualified I am to hold the title of “Combustion Engineer.”  When I have to stick a match into the little hole to light a propane grill, I turn my head away and say a prayer that I will survive it.  When it lights without an explosion, I experience the thrill of life in a way that most people have to bungee jump or skydive to experience.  I am nervous anytime I am standing near the water heater in my garage.  I will move to a different pump at a gas station, or leave altogether, if I see someone talking on a cell phone while pumping.  So unless you need me to engineer combustions by writing some software which I can use from across town, I’m not the right guy.

The rest of this e-mail was not included because it got boring.

I just watched a TV show (Chuck) which featured a sepia-toned flashback to the summer of 1990.  Although I was only eight years old at the time, I distinctly remember the world consisting of more colors than brown.

While scanning through my junk mail folder in Gmail, I noticed a new spam tactic: directly insulting the reader.

I’m curious if this is effective.  I find it hard to believe that anyone would ever read mail that is obviously spam nowadays, but these people must be making money somehow or they’d stop sending this stuff.  My guess is that anything which stands out is likely to be effective in piquing readers’ curiosity, much like the “I love you” e-mail virus from several years ago.  But only if other spammers don’t copy the tactic.

While authorizing a third party to conduct a criminal background check (for my application to grad school), I noticed this:

I clicked the “FAQ” link, expecting “why do you only need to know the ethnicity of Michiganis?” to be the most frequently asked question.  But it was nowhere to be found.

Maybe it’s like how they ask you if you have had gay sex with a man from the Congo since 1976 before you can give blood.  If you answer “yes”, they just assume you have AIDS and throw your blood away without testing it.  Similarly, if you are from Michigan and select the wrong race1, you must be a sociopath.

I noticed something interesting on Google Maps today.  I had followed a link giving driving directions between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil.  I changed the “from” address to Charlotte, NC.  I was expecting either a “no routes found” message or a path taking me along the Pan-American Highway (although that is apparently not complete).  Instead what I got was a joke from the Google Maps developers:

Very clever, guys. :)

Interestingly, I couldn’t reproduce this behavior with any other destinations.  I tried London, Paris, Honolulu, Tokyo, Sydney, Havana, and San Juan.  All said they could not calculate driving directions.  Must be the work of a Brazilian programmer.

Something weird I do:  when I cook something in the microwave I input the time as an improper fraction whenever possible.  For example, instead of punching in 1:30, I’ll punch in :90 [obviously, the colons are just here for readability].  I could pretend I’m doing that to save the exhaustive effort required to push a third button, but then that argument is shot when I cook something for 1:60.  I think the first time I just did it to “hack” the microwave, to see if it would make it explode (since, you know, that’s what they do when they malfunction).  So far I’ve never found a microwave that can’t handle it.  Now it’s just a way of reminding the microwave that I am the sentient being that makes the decisions, and it is the dumb machine that follows instructions blindly.  Of course, this is just making the machines more and more angry, so when there is a robot uprising, I think my microwave will go after me first.  I am willing to take that risk.