September 1999

Entry... 9/1/99 8:52am

My brother told me what the goo on my windshield is. Turns out the neighbor's tree is a sugar maple (pictured above, repleat with autumn colors). So the goo is a mixture of a sugary runoff from the tree and aphid doo. Nice.

Everything you know has been shaped by watching movies. Here's a listing of the special physics that occur in a movie (and nowhere else) that we watch and believe, even though they go against all common sense and experience.

A friend of mine and I were talking about the dessert, Death by Chocolate, this morning. I found this recipe on the web, and oddly enough, it was created in Troy, New York. Come to think of it, I am going to Troy tonight to help a coworker move. Odd coincidence.

A coworker sent me this link to an internet gaming site. He said that I have to try out this game, Timball. Be ready, it will require a plug in to be loaded, but it nice job of sending it automatically (about 900k.)

Entry... 9/1/99 3:42pm

I began my lunch hour with noble intentions: To go to DMV and register my boat trailer, so that I can retrieve it this weekend from the marina. I got home and found that I had buried the necessary paperwork under a pile of other, unrelated, necessary paperwork (found my calling card). By the time I had found the paperwork and the tie down straps, packed, affixed the trailer hitch properly, and gotten gas in the beast, I had no time to make it to DMV. So I decided to have lunch, and do it tomorrow.

I ended up circling fast food restaurants like a vulture zeroing in on a carcass on a hot highway, and ended up at the mall for some passable bourbon chicken at one of those fast serve chinese places. The place was filled with back to school shoppers; mostly young girls and their mothers with armloads of clothes. Every mother looked broke and bothered, and every young girl just looked bothered. Which is, of course, the mood of choice for teenaged girls everwhere.

Alway eager to learn new words for common everyday objects, today I learned that 'plectrum' is a fancy way of saying 'guitar pick.' To that end, I found a site selling a new "high-tech" plectrum called the Orbit. I think I want one. At least to try. They aren't taking orders for a month, though, so I will have to wait till then.

A 26 year old Tennesee man is in jail in Fulton county today. Seems he was having an internet friendship with a 17 year old girl. He flew up here, and predictably they turned their long time online friendship into a live and in-person sexual one, having sex a number of times over the course of a week, at more than one area motel. He went home, and soon thereafter got arrested and extradited back to New York on statutory rape charges brought up by the parents and the county. I find the decision to prosecute ridculous. The sex was quite obviously consenual, the girl is months away from being a legal adult. Yes, the letter of the law was broken, but not the spirit of it.

Desk pop can count is up to 123.

Entry... 9/2/99 9:25am

I finally got to drive a U-Haul truck that was built past 1974. A really nice, air conditioned Ford F350 with automatic transmission. I started thinking that I should look seriously at picking one up for myself when it comes to "different" car (as opposed to "new") time. I can fit just as much stuff in the back as with a minivan, and I can tow with it. I wonder if I should get a gun rack and go total cliche... Oh, I'm rambling again. Anyway, I expected to help this guy move, and he told me stories of all this help we were going to have. I drive the truck up to his old place, and go inside to check out all that has to go, while he is off picking up one of the guys who is going to help. And it's all heavy, heavy furniture. A sectional couch with bed. A massive dresser. A pile of wood that is to become an entertainment center. The list goes on. Ugh. Very daunting. After a few minutes, he shows up with his friend, who is limping. Oh? A broken toe, you say? Can't carry really heavy stuff, you say? Wonderful. But more help is coming anyway. So we thought. One by one, the calls come in. "Uh, can't make it." "Uh, something came up." So as it turns out that just the 3 of us move it all ourselves. Out and over and up, and sideways and leftways and downways and rightways. Now of course the place he moved into is a 2nd floor apartment, and the stairway was designed in 1890 or something, when all furniture was skinny. What a hell that was, negotiating those stairs. Do I get a merit badge for this stuff?

Entry... 9/2/99 11:56am

Hooray! They are finally retiring all of those *#(!(# beanie babies! Now if they could just discover that all those Furby's aren't Y2K compliant and they blow up...life would be good...

Entry... 9/2/99 4:21pm

A senior Vice President at our remote location is currently engineering a flurry of messages regarding the response time of our email system. She reports that messages from her site to our Albany office take a few minutes to arrive, but messages from Albany are arriving "instantly." She has pulled all of her technical people together down there, as she wants to know why this is. They are now looking to us for an answer. My boss is refering to the heavens, asking "why me? why me?". Now I figure that we should be able to come up with a good, solid technical reason as to why this is happening. I told him to tell her that the mail was slower to Albany because "It has to travel uphill." That should hold them.

Entry... 9/8/99 5:51pm

"It's all about looking pretty"

Thunder rocks the sky and the rains fall for the 3rd day in a row. The trees out back have started to drop all of the gypsy moth caterpillars that have been growing in their coccons. They are everywhere now, crossing the road the climb up the brick siding of the building to bake in the sun. The rain keeps knocking them off, back to the ground. It appears that we are getting all of our warm summer rains now, instead of during the summer when we could have used them. It's going to be a long, wet, cold winter. And you don't have to listen to just me predict this. Everyone from the TV weathermen (and what do they know?) to the Farmer's Almanac call for all hell to break loose this year.

I am sitting in my office trying to will away the spirits of things that break. I am all alone right now. Anything could go wrong, and as Murphy says "it probably will." I cleaned out my email folder - deleted over 2,000 messages. That should make the server hard drive happy. I have my Winamp going, playing Mp3's. If I could, I would turn my phone off.

I haven't been doing much net surfing lately, but I did find this site dedicated to women on the net. I also enjoyed Mitchbert's site. He reminds me a lot of my friend, the Hittman, with an online self published zine of his own opinions on world events. This last link is a page that lists the Top 100 web sites based on voting at Worldcharts. Is your site there?

When I was out last week, we were sitting around a table at an outdoor bar in Saratoga, when an idea for a TV show hit me. We were talking about the movie, Titanic, as I had just recently seen the movie again. It came to me that we could do a TV show about the voyage of the Titanic. Each week, we would feature a different passenger (or a family, or some small focusable group) and tell the story of their final days. They would interact with other passengers, eat, sleep, fall in love, fall out of love, run, play, laugh, cry. Everything. We could have a huge set, and a big cast - so that as the action unfolds in the story you are watching, sometimes in the backgroud you could see other stories taking place. Sometimes you would be able to recognize elements of another storyline, when they would briefly touch the storyline that is going on. I can imagine one such scene: A girl, upset with her parents, runs from them crying and bumps in to a stranger on the deck. "Excuse me," the stranger says as she goes by, and that's it for the stranger. Then, in a future episode, this nice gentleman is taking an afternoon stroll after having a spot of tea when suddenly, bam! A young tearful girl smacks into him, and continues on. "Excuse me," he says to her back. And so on! It almost writes itself! Of course, the same actors would be used in the episodes. Imagine the different stories: A young boy in 3rd class. A man who works the boilers. A steward. A chef. A rich young women who falls in love with a 3rd class American passenger (hmm... nah, not that one. Too silly a premise. Strike that.) All I need is 2200 character sheets written up. Heck, 15% of them are known personalities and celebrities. Piece of cake! And then, after our protagonist has either been tossed unceremoniously into a lifeboat, or swallowed up in the boiler thrased waters of the North Atlantic, majestically and tearfully, at the end of each episode, the ship sinks.

"It's all about keeping your fingers out of the harvester"

It was a busy weekend. I saw the movie 8mm, with Nick Cage, on Friday. It wasn't all that great. For all of its taboo subject matter (snuff films), it contained almost no nudity but a ton of physical violence. What bugged me is that they did such a great job in presenting the most awful images, but went and tossed in that stupid, gratuitous "topless dancer whipping around a pole in a strip bar" scene. Groan. On Saturday, I got the beast out of the driveway, picked up my boat trailer, and drove out to the lake to collect the jetboat for the first time in 2 years. It was on blocks, nose first in tall grass. The owner of the marina grabbed a fork lift with 20 foot long supports, and drove right up behind my boat, and whipped it up in the air so quick that I was thinking it probably would have been better if I hadn't been there. He backed it out, and had me drive my car and trailer underneath the boat. Then he set the boat down on the trailer, sort of half on/half off. The job was finished by manually hauling the boat forward on the trailer with the come along. Amazing. But what I wanna know is how they do that with even bigger boats? Ok, maybe I don't want to know. From there, it was a short drive up to Canada Lake where I dropped the boat off to get an estimate for the engine repairs. Keep your fingers crossed that it isn't too bad.

I went to a restaurant in Gloversville called the Rail Yard, right where the old Gloversville Rail Station used to be. Good food, inexpensive, and comfortable. The flies are getting bad because of this weather, but I could have chosen to eat inside. If you are looking for this place, it's right next to an ice cream stand called the "Choo Choo." They have a train on a track going around the whole building.

Sunday brought me to the annual Labor Day party at the yacht club. There was a great bonfire built on the shoreline, out of some old dock decking, and most of one of our members boats. Turns out he had an old wooden powerboat that wasn't going anywhere, so it got cut up (except for the bow) and used for fuel. It looked great. Someone had painted "S.S. Minnow" on the back of it, and they had fashioned a mast out of a long, bendy branch. Every year there is what they call a "Ring of Fire" around the whole lake, and this bonfire was our contribution. We had a DJ that really stayed involved with the crowd. He handed out sunglasses, sombreros, and lottery tickets during specialty songs. I don't think I sat down much all night. It felt great to dance.

Found myself in a supermarket on Monday, buying stuff to make dinner with. Bought some of those jello pudding cups, the ones that Bill Cosby gets so worked up over. I thought that they came in packs of three, so I grabbed two of them. When I opened them later, I found out there are 6 in a pack. Lots of pudding at my house now. I had the low fat chocolate, and wasn't crazy about it. I guess I was looking for that sugar high. Sugar high. That reminds me of that scene in "Chasing Amy" where Jay is pouring sugar onto a spoon and eating it in the diner scene. I love the underhandedness of that. He just does it, and no one calls any attention to it.

"It's all about making things look like you meant to do them that way"

Entry... 9/8/99 6:50pm

An hour later, and I find myself at home. I walked out of the office into a veritable monsoon. Thunder, driving rain, flashes of light. Woo-eee! Of course, I got my monkey suit wet, even with the umbrella. I am sitting at my computer in the family room with the overhead fan on. Behind me, there is a a steady drip, drip, drip of water coming in through a leak in the roof. It's falling into a blue plastic bowl by the bookcase. My landlord is probably in no mood to get any sort of phone calls with complaints. I hear that his wife isn't doing well healthwise and he is also being tested for all sorts of nasty things. I'll live with the drips.

I spent a little time on the phone with my ex-wife and my daughter today. We are plotting a new computer for their house, so I have to see what sort of hand-me-downs I can pull together. They just need something that will let them do some word processing, surf the net and have email. I think a P166 with Windows 98 should do it. They just need to track down an ISA modem, but I think they would be better off getting an external 56K. My daughter is excited about this coming Saturday, as she will be 12. She has had one day of school so far, and thinks she has "too much homework already."

Decision time: Doritos or pudding?

Entry... 9/8/99 7:46pm

Found this online comic strip called Kevin & Kell. A nice mix of technology, social commentary, and intelligent plants.

Entry... 9/9/99 1:01am

With the rain, everything was cancelled tonight. I got all the household bills taken care of, wrote some checks, and did a lot of research and collection on the net. I went out to a diner with my brother and a friend of his and got some coffee and a short stack of pancakes. Then we came back here so that he could copy a CD from her. I cleaned out my car, since it's trash night, and tossed out the shrink wrap that covered my boat.

Do you believe that couches can fly?

Entry... 9/9/99 1:43pm

"It's all about laughing till you cry."

This morning at work, I was reminded of the classic utterance, "I work *with* you, not *for* you." Our DBA primadonna had imparted instructions for us in the technical group to set up a room for a presentation he has this afternoon. Now, let's forget that he knew of this a week ago and we are getting nailed with 6 hours of notice, and examine the fact that we are network system administrators and just because we know which end of a cord goes into a wall socket doesn't make us instantly his little beating buddies to order around. I dropped the data show off in the proper room (which he didn't even bother to sign out, or make sure it was free for his demo) and walked away. It's not my job to plug crap in.

A co-worker yesterday had the idea that we in our unit should band together and quit at once. Then we could sell ourselves en masse back to the company as consultants and run this equipment as vendors providing a service and charging an adequate rate to do it. I'm all for it.

My life is like a Dilbert cartoon.

Desk pop can count goes up by two today, to 125.

Entry... 9/9/99 10:20am

I went and saw "Arlington Road" last night and really enjoyed it. Tim Robbins turned in a great performance, and Jeff Bridges was acceptable but very "breathy" when he was playing up a panic. I won't give away the ending - it's a shocker.

Here's stuff you can make in your very own kitchen. Everything from prop blood and dancing raisins to a thaumatrope. That's right! A thaumatrope.

Entry... 9/13/99 10:28am

Monday, the 13th? I would think that a Monday the thirteenth would be unluckier than a Friday the thirteenth. At least, for me. I like Friday the thirteenth, and I sure didn't like getting up this morning to come to work. It's an absolutely perfect day out there.

My daughter turned twelve over the weekend. I called her up and talked to her while she was trying to entertain friends, annoy the cat, listen to her mother, and watch TV. A fairly common set of distractions for a twelve year old. "Hello? Are you still there?" "What?" "I said..." "What?" "Hellloooo?" Her birthday party got crashed by 3 boys, one of them a boy she has a year long crush on. It's pretty cute. She tried to get him to tell story that he made up at her party, but he wouldn't. I asked what the story was about. You could almost hear her rolling her eyes, acknowledging it to be some silly kid thing but still cute as all get out. She said "Dad, it's like sooooo stupid." I had to laugh.

There's something new afoot! You've heard of FarmAid? NetAid is here! Soon poor, distressed nations will have the ability to install point of use internet terminals in poor, distressed homesteads. Everyone has a right to be on the internet, by cracky, and big players like Cisco Systems and KPMG have banded together to ask you to send in your dollars so that we can "hook em up, Dano!" Imagine now, if you will, the scene. President Clinton gets his first email from a poor, distressed (but now technologically equal!) citizen of Ethiopia: "SEND FOOD!" Progress is made! Don't delay, send your checks today.

I installed Windows 98 on my home computer. Why? I don't know. Oh yeah. I was trying to get my SCSI card and my CD-ROM drives to actually work, and Windows 95 was offering me no relief. I had hours to kill while I sat there swearing at the computer, which still by the way, has no CD-ROM drive or SCSI card operating in it. I cleaned out stacks and stacks of old mail. I found all sorts of interesting things, 2 of them being gift certificates for local book stores that I got last year. I went to Borders and bought a smoking jazz cd, and a collection of like 1,324 songs by Gordon Lightfoot all on a 2 cd set. In the other bookstore, I found a new book of short stories by Kurt Vonnegut! I had no idea that he had published again. Very excited, I bought my own copy of Bagombo Snuff Box. There is a good question and answer interview with Kurt up at Barnes and Noble. Something I found interesting is that the movie based on "Breakfast of Champions" is coming out this month, and Vonnegut seems to be distancing himself from the work. He said (loosely): "if you want to see what I did, read the book. The movie was made by somebody else." I'll still go see it.

In another Vonnegut spotting, I was watching the credits for "Mask" last night, and they listed The Grateful Dead song "Ripple" as one of the works in the film. Nothing exciting about that, but the publisher of the songs was Ice-Nine Publishing. Vonnegut fans out there know what that means.

Also spotted at the bookstore, department: Richard Simmons has a new book called "Still hungry after all these years."

Ok, lastly - I found these links about pumpkin carving. Not just your average run of the mill pumpkins, either. Some of these are incredible works of art! You've gotta check these out:
Keith's Pumpkin Portrait Page ** New link, posted 3/2000 ***
Gusick's Jack-O-Lanterns
Pumpkin Masters - they sell kits so you can do this yourself!
Pumpkin Carving Party - I love the group photo. Look at the coffee table..chocolate and coke. Heaven!
Abrams Halloween '98

There is an interview with Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, on the Barnes and Noble site, too.

Entry... 9/15/99 11:13am

There's something about the world these days that just isn't right. Between the catastrophic storms and stupid lawsuits, corporate mergers and moronic politicians, earthquakes and icebergs there lies an uneasiness I can't explain. Something big is brewing. Anyone else feel it?

I am sitting in my office, listening to phones all around me ring. I call it "body hunting." This is what happens when everyone in my unit is out, as they are today. All my coworkers are at conferences or in meetings. So people are looking for someone, anyone, to explain their problem to. It doesn't matter if you are the right or wrong person to handle their problem, they don't care. When they don't find person A (the phone rings 3 times), they call person B and that phone rings. Then they try person C. After three rings, they call person A again (the correct person) and let the phone ring 3 times so it rolls to voice mail. Then they leave a voice mail. Alternatively, they hang up and walk over. They find me sitting there, and ask where everyone is. Then they feel it neccessary to include me in their problem and tell me all about it in glorious color, with plenty of detail, and a plantive plea for my intercession. It doesn't matter that I have nothing to do with it, or know anything about it. "You'll have to leave voice mail for Person A," I say. "I already did," they will say. Then I think "So why the hell did you feel it necessary to come over here and waste my time?" Cheeky bastards.

This morning I fielded 3 questions about personal PC's, was asked if a user could install personal software on their work PC because the compnay won't buy legal copies of the software that they require employees to use to do their job, and I hung a picture. I do confess, walking around here with a hammer in my hand is something I may continue to do.

Interested in the origin of phrases? I was trying to research the origin of the phrase "King's X," which I believe to mean something along the lines of "Getting away with something, because of a legal statute that prevents your conviction" but I haven't found it yet. I did find this site on phrase origins and Etymology. Ah ha! I love the internet. I found the meaning of "King's X" here, on this site Jesse's Word of the Day.

Entry... 9/15/99 2:27pm

I went to the mall today, and found a sale going at a local optical shop. Ok, when isn't there a sale on earwear? But this is a timely sale, as I desperately need a new pair of glasses. Unfortunately, money is tight right now, but I talked to the doctor there that is in charge, and she told me that if I came in for my exam, and left just a small deposit, she would have the glasses made for me and hold them. That is the sort of service companies these days are lacking in a big way. So, Friday, I have an exam and I will be able to have my contacts then (the sale was for contacts, exam, and glasses with frame and lenses.) I upgraded the both the frames and the lenses from the items they had on sale. But I have to have the astigmatism correction, and the transistional lenses. My eyes can't do the bright sunlight.

New words are being invented everyday! The internet brings us many new terms, such as internesia and 'fully buzzword compliant.' Read more at Jargon Scout.

Entry... 9/17/99 5:09pm

Ah, the weekend. It's here. Thanks God. Tonight, I am having dinner with my family. My Aunt and Uncle from Kansas are in town for a day or so. I plan to stop on the way over there and pick up a bottle of wine to go with the Chicken Kim that my Mother made. I am hoping that we get a game of cribbage going. I plan to spend the rest of the weekend in Vermont.

I am listening to "You can call me Al," by Paul Simon. I love this song. I went to the used CD store at lunchtime and picked up the disc. It had just come in from a DJ who was getting out of the business and sold back 275 of his CDs before he moved to Florida. I also got his "Negotiations and Love Songs" CD which has "Kodachrome" and "50 ways to leave your lover". 50 ways is one of the first songs that I ever learned all the words to.

A CD that I have been listening to quite a lot this week is the United Artist Collection of Gordon Lightfoot's first four albums. It's really great music. Most songs are just him and his guitar, sometimes with a bass track. Wonderful stories!

Yesterday, I finished the first cut of a website I designed for a local band called Arc. They are having their CD release party this Saturday night at Valentines, in Albany. I wish I could be there. Well, well maybe you'll go and win their CD - it's great. If you want to hear them, my brother ripped some tracks off their disc and made MP3's out of them. He posted the files on a custom page on Mp3.com, so anyone in the world can experience the joy.

Computer Update: I yanked the CD-Rom right out of the computer, and still no joy with the scanner. So, I am still broken.

Things are still interesting here at work. By interesting, I don't mean flowers and perfume, either. Let's just say that one of my coworkers almost walked right out of here today. Oh, I know what your thinking - moral is so high here. How can this be? After all, we did have a wonderful birthday cake party this afternoon.

I have new contacts. I picked them up at lunchtime after I went to the bank. The Doctor did a great job, and made sure that I got a pair with a slope wide enough to accomodate my eyes. I think the pair I had before was pinching the blood vessles in my eyes. These have a slight blue tint to them. More good news - my eyes are healthy and the prescription hasn't changed radically in 7 years (8.6 slope, 3.75 correction). I have new glasses coming in a week or so. I got an oval tortiseshell design.

The worst of Hurricane Floyd's effects seem to be over. The skies are clearing and we have sunny days forecast for the weekend. There are plenty of standing puddles of water left behind, and unfortunately, a lot of death, injury and damage. I suppose it could have been worse. But then, it can always be worse, can't it? It got so cold yesterday afternoon. I had to shut all the windows in the house, and not just because of the incredibly intense downpour. I was tempted to turn on the heat. Then I remembered what my heat bill is like.

My landlord (he really is great) came over again and performed miracles on our pipes with a 50 foot snake. Everything is draining out exceptionally well now. Woo hoo!

Entry... 9/20/99 4:51pm

Penguins are so sensitive. Penguins are so sensitive. Penguins are so sensitive. To my needs.

I saw the movie "Analyze This" with Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal on Saturday night while I was in Burlington, Vermont. I wasn't overly thrilled with the film. I didn't know that it was written by Harold Ramis. While I was in Burlington, I went to an event very much like our Larkfest. All along this street there were bands and sidewalk vendors. It was a great day weatherwise. Blue skies and not a cloud above us. I had a big old waffle cone of Chunky Monkey at the Ben & Jerry's. Burlington is where Ben & Jerry's ice cream was born. I also had a Guiness Stout at an Irish pub named Ri-Ra's. Ri-Ra's is gaelic for "Good times." We had a late lunch at Mona's on the deck, with an incredible view of Lake Champlain and the mountains of New York.

Wowbagger, the infinitely prolonged is a character from Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. His mission in his eternal life is to insult everyone in the universe in alpabetical order.

Looks like it's time for the working day to be over. And just when it looks like I have a night off, I get to go home and change and mow the lawn. Yay.

Ever wonder? This is a great collection of why things is what that is articles.

Entry... 9/20/99 8:01pm

The new TV season is here. Some shows I'd like to follow this year are NYPD Blue, Just Shoot Me, and Frasier. South Park, of course, completes the list, but they play new shows when it suits them. So you always need to keep an eye on the listings. The new Just Shoot Me is tomorrow night. I have to program the VCR tonight, though. I will be starting the new volleyball league tomorrow. I hear it's pretty competitive. We're playing in Clifton Park.

I forgot to mention earlier that the desk pop can count went up by 2 today, and now stands at 127.

Got home from work and changed into shorts and a t-shirt and mowed the lawn. Thank goodness we have a mulching mower. It was pretty thick! Not a moment too soon: We have rain predicted for the next two days. I washed the dishes, and had dinner with one of my roomies. Then, with all my chores done, I joined my brother and a friend of his in the basement for a jam session. It was fun. My brother's friend is just learning how to play the bass guitar. I got on the drums and we jammed for an hour. Wowie - my brother is getting really good with them leads!

Entry... 9/21/99 3:54pm

Oh my god..... has online dating become such commonplace in America now? Don't we deserve better than this? Ok... need an idea as to how to spend the evening with that special someone in Peoria?

I think I need to get away from a computer for awhile. I've spent most of the day moving files and folders from one server to the other. Tonight is volleyball night, so I went out out lunchtime and bought myself another set of knee pads. I don't know what happened to my other pair but they went missing. I'll bet I find them now. They are hiding under the bureau and they will come out when they see that I brought them friends. I am looking forward to more time away from the evil monitors. I am really beginning to think that computers, and the internet, are nothing but evil manifested on Earth. I don't believe that technology has improved my personal life, although it does pay the bills. So perhaps I am somehow a manipulator of technology, rather than a user of technology. I'll be happy the day they unplug all this crap. Of course, that will never happen unless a comet takes out our ability to generate electricity so it will be up to me to pull the proverbial plug and get a job tending bar in Key West.

Entry... 9/30/99 2:12pm

Hey all! Welcome back. Or rather, I'm back. Or whatever. I was off furthering my career in Buffalo, NY. Is it sad when you look at being sent to training as a resume builder, rather than as knowledge to help you do your job better? While in Buffalo, I saw the movie "Blue Streak" with Martin Lawrence and drank some very good Saranac Black Forest beer from the Buffalo Brew Pub. I would have to classify this one as a very sweet Bavarian Black beer. I kicked this brew back with a full rack of ribs. The home brewed stout was very tasty, and not too bitter. I love the brew pubs out in this area. You get a bowl of peannuts and shuck the shells right onto the floor.

Opinions. We all have them. Check out The Brunching Shuttlecocks: Pure and simple as a hammer to the forebrain, and the forever favorite The Hittman Chronicle: All the Views that Might Amuse. The Hittman himself was quoted in a recent (9/28) article on Flushing in USA Today. He's worth a second or third look.

Webwaste is a phun and phreaky site. Hey - if you are at all curious about some of these hacks that have been undertaken on government websites, visit Rootshell. They have captures of the hacked sites, as well as a lot of information as to what sorts of systems can be hacked. There's a new Word Macro Virus out there that will attack your MIRC installation if it detects it. If you receive a file called STORY.DOC as an attachment to an email, it may contain the IRC macro virus. This is a bad thing.

Are you a vegan? Do you like Scooby Doo (ok, who doesn't like Scooby Doo)? How about a recipe for vegan Scooby Snacks. What would happen if Shaggy, Dagwood, and Jughead had a Food eating contest?

Desk pop can count is up to 128 today.

A coworker tossed me this site URL today. There's a lot on here to waste time doing, viewing, and listening. The recommendation is for "Dirty Deeds done with Sheep." Check out Supertom.