[SNIP]

2) I've tried to get into #ranma! and #anime! a few times, and there's 
always nobody on the channel (so my trying to join creates it).  Are 
there regional irc servers?  The UCDavis login says there are 11 sites 
hooked up but I don't know what that means really (I'm an IRC idiot) 
^_^.  Maybe just nobody was on the channel...if it is a regional thing 
are there ways to join to another region's irc?  

I don't know what kind of irc client you're using, so I don't know the
format of the command for yours.  Mine would be:

On UCDavis you should use 'efirc' instead of 'irc'...'irc' goes to
the Undernet, which is MUCH smaller and dosen't have many of the channels
that the FNet has (what you use efirc to get into) 'efirc' puts you
onto a diffrent server.
[SNIP]
Aaron Stolz
aaron_stolz@cyberstore.ca