Kurumi.com is a non-profit site. Content is © Kurumi unless noted.
Page updated:
Apr 7, 2002
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So what's this site about?
It's just a hobby; despite the dot-com domain, it's not set up to make money.
The site serves several purposes for me:
- Share information on highways, which for some reason push big buttons in my brain
- Share cool games that people like (SignMaker and Who Wants to be a Millionaire, for example)
- Try out new stuff: web design, info design, graphics, CGI, Java
- Rant, praise, condemn, or try to be sagacious; keep up my editorial and writing chops
- Puff up my ego by getting mentioned in newspapers, postings, and other web sites
How long has this site been around?
The first pages went up in December 1996. Three-digit interstates, Connecticut Roads,
and the James Bond stories have been around since then. Music came later, and games are
the newest addition.
How come some areas of the site seem to get a lot more attention than others?
Differing and varying levels of interest. I'm quite happy to start things (Trippy Drive '71,
Music Power) that I won't have the time to finish, and to ignore certain things
that would help complete a project, but are not interesting enough for me to devote time
to.
Laboriously pixel-monkeying dozens of new route markers for SignMaker is a good
example of this. I'd rather work on new technology.
What's the deal with your copyright statements? Can I cite your material in my paper?
By all means, go ahead and cite what you need, as you would from any book or periodical.
The copyright statement says basically "please do not present my work as your own"; especially
copy-and-pasting into your own website. (This hasn't happened so far, though :-)
Why do you present your email address as a GIF image? Haven't you heard of the "mailto" tag?
I have; and so have "spambots," automated "robot" programs that crawl websites looking for
email addresses. Clearing out spam was taking too much of my scarce "free" time. I needed
a solution that people could read, but spambots could not decipher.
I apologize for shifting some effort onto my visitors (who have to type
in the email address by hand) and regret having shut out Lynx users entirely.
Why the fascination with Connecticut roads if you live in California?
For one, California roads are quite well covered by Dan Faigin
among others. It makes little sense to compete with or duplicate their work.
The main reason: Connecticut is where I grew up and got into roadgeeking. As I uncover
more info about the Nutmeg State (which my remote location makes difficult), I'm still
surprised at how much road history is woven into one of America's smallest states.
What does "Kurumi" mean? And who is Kurumi, anyway?
When we (wife and I) set up the site in early 1997, we wanted a domain name, but hadn't
really thought of one. "Kurumi" came to mind because it's the name of a honey-walnut
dessert sushi. Kurumi is Japanese for "walnut."
It gets better. Kurumi is also a girl's name, and a character in the anime or manga series
"Kimagure Orange Road." (which explains all the "false" hits if you search
for "Kurumi" and "road.") At least one KOR fan has stumbled across my site and wondered
what the heck is going on:
Rob's SuperKOR ver 5.0 (Tripod)
lists kurumi.com under the heading "Oddball and Bizarre." Soo da nai zo.
In the early days, I set up the website to reflect a fictional company - Kurumi Design.
Some third-person statements on the site caused Kurumi to evolve into my nickname.
My name is Scott Oglesby; email me if you're a long lost friend, etc. and want to know more.
Okay, what does the Japanese script at the top of the page mean? "All your base are belong to us"?
It reads "Mou sugu suroogan ga tsukimasu," or roughly "Stay tuned for catchy slogan":
a placeholder because I couldn't think of one at the time (late 1996).
It will probably never be changed.
Chigaimasu!
For more than five years, the Katakana for "Slogan" was incorrect.
First, the "ro" sound was too short; the extended "ro-o" gives a more convincing
approximation of the "lo" in "slogan." Second (and I'm guessing this is a bugaboo
for many students): I mixed up the "so" and "n" katakanas. Ironically, it's easier
to make this mistake on a computer; when writing by hand, if you use proper strokes,
it's easier to distinguish the two characters.
Here are the old (black) and new (blue with fancy drop shadow):
I owe thanks to visitors who know much more about Japanese than I ever will:
Yoko Okayasu (the "so" vs. "n") and Hiro Amano ("so" vs. "n", "suroogan" vs
"surogan", and moving "moo sugu" to the beginning). Thank you!
What tools do you use to maintain the site?
I do all site work on a Power Mac G4.
The software I use includes BBEdit Lite, MacPerl, CodeWarrior, Illustrator, Photoshop,
and Fetch.
There aren't many bells and whistles on the HTML pages. I use Java for major applications
only (no rollovers or animations) and JavaScript in only one place
(a Connecticut Roads quiz).
The CGI code is Perl and runs on an Apache server.
This site is not "best viewed" with any particular browser or platform.
Trivia
The three Japanese characters in some logos are Hiragana script for Kurumi: "Ku ru mi."
The "puffy sticker" logos are just the "mi" character, with slight pun intended.