As blogs go, this one is hardly controversial. Our adulation for sports and general geekery doesn't ruffle too many feathers, and the most eyebrow-raising we'll get might be in response to a rant against our current political situations. But don't let that fool you - there are people on the Web who have found louisgray.com when looking for a lot more than the latest insight into Apple or Google or how the Oakland A's are planning their off-season.

For instance, around noon today, I was startled to find a visitor from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia had stumbled upon the site in a quest for "live sex webcam sites saudi arabia". (See here for that site visit) I don't generally associate the religiously strict country to be one that panders to live, streaming, fornication, but it appears there is a market after all.

So why louisgray.com for live sex webcam sites from Saudi Arabia? My thoughts exactly. Well, if you do a search on Alta Vista (and when was the last time anybody used that instead of Google?), louisgray.com is the 7th highest response. (See here)

It turns out that Alta Vista still relies too heavily on words in the page, rather than their logical strings. On that page, from May 2006, I managed to mention the word "sex" twice - once in a song title from iTunes, and once in a joke, the term "Saudi Arabia" once in a note on Jeb Bush, the term "Webcam" in relation to an Apple store opening where a geek proposed to his fiancee, and the words "live" and "site" appear several times.

Did the words "live sex" or "sex webcam" show up paired anywhere? No. That would have given you a better search result... and those search engines that use better rules don't inaccurately say that my site is the place to get your porn fix. In fact, searching for the same string, "live sex webcam sites saudi arabia", doesn't put louisgray.com in the top ten pages (100 results) in Google at all. There just might be something to this need for accuracy in search results.

Listening to ''Assorted Progression Volume 4'', by Nyman (Play Count: 2)

Sometimes, you want to root for the underdog. When everybody else jumped to WordPress or TypePad for their online blogging, I tried out a desktop application that would enable a great deal of customization, and the ability to host the site at my pre-existing domain name. Yet, now that I've used RapidWeaver for the better part of ten months, the time it takes for the application to recognize changes and publish new entries has become a serious limitation - sometimes ranging up to 10-20 minutes, dragging the entire computer to a halt, as it grabs every available megabyte of RAM in a violent attempt to get the upload right.

When I first got RapidWeaver, it was very simple to use - type directly into the application, select a category for the post, and hit Submit. The piece would be on the site in a minute or two. But as I continued being active, I noticed that the cursor would be typing letters that I had long since stopped - as the application slowed to catch up. By March, I was typing my entries in Apple's Mail application, much more quickly, and that's how I've done every single post since. The "write in Mail, copy and paste to RapidWeaver" scenario has almost become second nature.

But starting last month, RapidWeaver's need to check every single post for possible edits, to hog memory and cease my desktop from being functional has quite simply gotten out of control. We've posted more than 500 entries to Louisgray.com since the beginning of the year, and don't intend to stop. The benefits of having my own domain name and backed up files aren't exactly winning me over right now, and I've given serious consideration to rebuilding this site again from scratch in TypePad, from first post to last - to enable the near real-time post flexibility I've seen from that Six Apart blogging engine. I'm tired of having to post a timestamp on my stories in the future, to anticipate when the machine will unlock, and through Apple's Dashboard widgets, watch the available RAM trickle down from more than 500 MB to 200 MB and eventually 10 MB, where it stalls, forcing the laptop fan whirring to life.

This isn't meant to be an indictment of RealMacSoftware or their product. For the large part, I've been happy with the application, and not needing to be a MySQL junkie on the back-end as many engines need. But RapidWeaver just isn't scaling for what I need it to. I can't post 3 times a day and have the machine completely useless for the better part of an hour. Something needs to change, and I don't think my solution is to get a new laptop. A full gigabyte of RAM (which this has) should be well enough for any application.

Listening to ''Rabbit in the Moon'', by Sasha (Play Count: 6)

More in an irregularly occurring series...

This morning, Apple quietly upgraded their new MacBook Pro laptops, claiming the machines are up to forty percent faster than the previous version. While in previous years, the mere mention of a potential product release would have had the Macosphere abuzz, this is taken in stride. My PowerBook G4 is doing great at home, and I haven't pushed for an upgrade at the office yet...

As expected, the greater amount of buzz around Apple is instead around their digital devices. Wired has a great, in depth look at the iPod's birth and how it was initially perceived, including a first-person look at how Bill Gates took in the device the day after its debut. Forbes also chimes in on "Why Apple Won". Meanwhile, MacNN is looking forward to how the much-anticipated iPhone and iTV are going to further accelerate Mac growth.

But Apple's resurgence isn't the only concern Microsoft has to face right now. As applications become more Web browser-centric, led by Web 2.0 pioneers and Google, the Redmond monolith is losing its grip on the consumer. On Malik, contributing to Business 2.0, despite going independent, says that while you've heard this story before, it's really happening.

Speaking of online apps, the one making the most buzz this morning, is of course, Google. Google released a new custom search engine through Google Coop, where webmasters can host Google search engine code on their own sites, and drive search results internally, without buying expensive custom hosted software. We're definitely going to give it a look here and at the office, to see if it can save us a few grand a year.

Near our offices, you have a handful of available lunch spots in walking distance, and wider variety the further you drive. One of those reliable stops is Carl's Jr. Nothing fancy, but the fast food joint offers enough variety to make it interesting, and it's worth stopping ever couple weeks or so. Given that the Cal Bears football team has a "buy one, get one free" offer on every game ticket, we're finding our trips to Carl's Jr. are coming with a fair regularity - following Saturday football.

But while we have been to the restaurant a fair number of times in the five-plus years at the company, and I can recognize some of the staffers by face, there are clearly others who have made Carl's Jr. an every day experience. One gentleman, quite heavy by any standards, can be counted on to have his lunch there every single day we show up. His routine, without fail, is to get his lunch at Carl's Jr, and then retreat to a corner table with his back to the front entrance. While in previous years, he tended to bring reading material from home, he's been reading the newspaper every time I've seen him in 2006.

His being at the restaurant is as much of interest as any of the menu items. Our first glance upon entering the restaurant is over our shoulder to see if he's there, in his regular spot. Today, arriving a bit earlier than usual, we were surprised to not see him there. Instead, two men (not regulars that I know of) were eating their own meals, likely not knowing the spot "belonged" to someone else. Yet, halfway through our meal, my colleague pointed out that the regular was back, and I looked back to see him wedging behind the table - in the one directly adjacent next to his usual spot, even though there were many more convenient open tables in the restaurant. That he even had to make the adjustment over from one table to that next to it seemed to pain him, as he looked uncomfortable in his new surroundings.

While having a routine is not uncommon, we've all heard about those with Tourette's Syndrome or Asperger's Syndrome who have to have things a certain way, often to the point of exactness, before they are comfortable. As I've never sat with Carl's Jr.'s favorite patron, I've never learned what makes him the way he is. I've never seen anybody sit with him, and I've never studied what he orders, to see if he eats the same meal every day. It wouldn't surprise me if he did, even as his weight has ballooned, even in the time I've seen him.

Other than the obsession with Carl's Jr., and the preoccupation with sitting in the same seat, day after day, there's nothing overly odd about this man. His clothes are tidy, his demeanor quiet, and his hygiene is clean. As far as I know, this could be his only vice, or his only escape from whatever other pressures move him to and fro. But he certainly makes me wonder. All I know is that the next time we go back to Carl's Jr., I'm sure he'll be there, furthering the mystery.

Listening to ''Trilogy'', by ATB (Play Count: 36)