Only hours after Google announces (ahem) "Google Gulp", Gulp caps are already finding their way on to Ebay!

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With the news that CNN is letting Tucker Carlson go, and likely shelving the show Crossfire, it's clear that Jon Stewart has the attention of 'big media,' no matter how much he professes to deal only in fake news.

CNN's US CEO Jonathan Klein, when asked about any influence from the well-publicised spat between Stewart and Carlson on Crossfire last October, Klein told AP, "I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp."

Despite running a 'fake news' show, Stewart has been championing a movement against politics-as-entertainment in the non-fake media, claiming that balanced news 'hurts America' and that just because there are two sides to an issue doesn't mean both deserve equal time and equal weight.

Appearing on his own program, "The Daily Show," the day after the tiff with Carlson, Jon told his audience, "They said I wasn't being funny. And I said to them, 'I know that, but tomorrow I will go back to being funny, and your show will still blow.'"

Not for much longer, apparently. Thank you, CNN.

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After such divine inspiration, I couldn't help but come up with a few of my own sequels to one-hit wonders:

I get to third base with myself

Love Plus Two

Fuck Happy, Time to Worry Again

Pump Up the Bitrate

Me So Pregnant (me hate you long time)

(we partied) Like Y2K was actually a threat

176 lines about 88 women

Actually somethings don't count (hanging chad remix)

How to be a Billionaire (dotcom remix)

Awkward Love Rhombus

Girls just want some quiet and three Advil

Facing that you need too much love (Step 1 of 12)

Cruel Fall/Cruel Winter Medly

Oh that's who that girl is (Nevermind mix)

After Rosh Hashanah, I find that my feet harbor less guilt and have regained a modicum of rhythm

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Despite my assertions that I can't give out Gmail accounts to everyone who emails me, about 20 strangers a day are doing just that. I'm sorry folks, but that's part of what a 'limited beta' means. Please don't send me resumes documenting how you've been an 'email professional' for 20 years, or how you'd be a great beta tester because you beta tested for Prodigy, AOL, and eWorld.

Part of being a good beta tester for a wide-use product is just being a normal, ordinary girlperson. (kidding!)

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I was going to post this, but Ray already did. Last week Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) accepted an honorary doctorate from William & Mary. This is his speech to the graduating class.

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For those of you wondering why Fury's been kind of slow this year; For those of you who get annoyed when I say I can't talk about what I'm working on; For those of you who wondered 'when?' when I told them I'd be able to tell them soon, that day is finally here!

I'm so very, very happy to point you all to Gmail, or at least the related Gmail press release, since the service isn't publicly available just yet.

I love this time of year...

April 2, 2004: Read the update

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UserFriendly summed up the state of yesterday's web ever so nicely.

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What would you do if you randomly were assigned Chris Rock's mobile number?

Kudos if you're half as cool as this lady.

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You know you've hit the big time when they write a song about you.

So spot-on, funny, yet critical, I link you to The Orkut Song (1.3meg MP3) by the Mighty Mighty Spatchtones. [mirror]

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For the latest in good news, check out Goodle.

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But no, for those who scour the paper, I didn't get married yesterday.

Like I told Ali, "Wow, I got a haircut, a husband, and a secret life, all in one day!"

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Gods, I felt bad when fractal sites got unexpectedly pummeled with traffic yesterday after the Google logo honoring the birthday of Gaston Julia linked to an image search for "Julia Fractals".

One of the site owners received four times his monthly bandwidth allottment in just one day, costing him $225 in overage fees, but he was quick enough to put up a donations plea on the self-same site that raised him $250, so it all turned out okay.

Now, adding insult to injury, Slashdot has posted a story about the pummeling, incidentally linking directly to a few of the sites that were hammered.

This has caused nearly as much traffic from the 'slashdot effect' as the original Google links delivered.

Luckily, everyone on Slashdot is tripping overthemselves to be the first to notice the irony...

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What if IKEA were a first-person shooter?

This is a screamingly funny piece from The Morning News: IKEA Walkthrough 2.3.1

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I just made a funny, but there's nobody in my office to share it with.

"Happy cows come from California. Mad cows come from Canada."

There, I can check that one off my to-do list.

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One of the best-written, informative fluff pieces I've read in ages, is this article about the necessity and tribulations of bathroom breaks during movies (especially Return of the King) in today's SF Gate (nee Chronicle).

excerpt: "While it may be no big tragedy to take a few minutes off from "The Green Mile," a bathroom break during "Return of the King" becomes a pisser of the highest order -- not unlike having to take out the trash in the middle of losing one's virginity."

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Like many San Franciscans, I was blessed with seeing dozens of Santas roaming the streets last Saturday night. For the curious, this is what all the santas were about.

Many elves died to bring you this news.

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Sometimes you have to willfully resist anthropomorphizing technology. I wanted to see if Men Without Hats's new album (their first new work in a decade) was on the iTunes Music Store, or any of their old stuff, for that matter.

Turns out the iTMS not only doesn't know any of their songs, but it even insults them!

(click to enlarge)

China's due to launch their first person into space before the end of the year, the third country to do so (after the US and Russia).

But are they really third? Or did a 16th century astronomer beat everyone else to the punch?

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A coworker in an office near my cube has a small dog at work who usually keeps to himself. However once every few days he comes in to my cube, sniffing every floor surface, under the desks, around the chairs, methodically. While performing his task, the ordinarily playful dog will ignore any and all calls for attention, pats on the head, or scratches behind the ears, and soon his exploration has led him into the next office, not to be seen here again until his next exploration later in the week.

I have, as of five minutes ago, decided to call him "Googlebot".

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Okay, browsing through the list of gubernatorial candidates is not the most efficient use of one's time, but it can be funny following a random link to a random candidate's web site.

Task for this evening: Create a 'random California governor's web site' redirector link.

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Snippet from an IM with Karen today:

Kevin: Oh, my new phone number spells some silly things, like 9-woman-8. Still trying to find a good one.

Karen: 9 women dated, 8 still friends

It's funny because it's true. I love my friends. Especially my ex-girlfriends. :-)

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Explodingdog finally has a 3-D contender to the throne: Boring3D.

Warning: A good hour might be spent reading the beautiful and odd archives.

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I was talking with a friend a couple days ago about how horrible (or nice, depending) it would be to be Martha Stewart's cellmate. How would she go about redecorating the cell? Making it hers?

Thankfully, as always, people with more time on their hands had the same idea.

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My 30 gig iPod came today, just in time!

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I'm a sucker for hard luck cases. Here you go, Mandy.

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Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman wrote, in Good Omens, "Civilization is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism."

Judging by the United Nations, that may be a generous estimate.

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Okay, you're a puppy.

God doesn't give you paper-training, but he does grant you a little logic, so your guardian watches you carefully, and picks you up and places you on newspaper whenever you have that 'gonna make' look on your face.

After a while, you get the hang of it: Whiz anywhere, get scolded. Get placed somewhere and whiz: Get praised. This puppy existence ain't so tough: You pee where your master tells you to pee.

A few weeks later this silly geekus erectus thinks about his cute puppy, and glaces at his cute Sony Vaio. He grins and grabs his cute digital camera, deciding that a little cuteness is in order.

Oblivious to being cute, puppy thinks, 'Mmm.. I should start looking for that newspaper thing...'

With digicam in hand, master grabs puppy, opens Vaio, and places one atop the other. As master says "Stay" and takes aim, the puppy recalls the only trick he's learned so far, and does the same.

So you see, the puppy really isn't to blame.

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Top ten items on House of Representatives' agenda after renaming French Toast to "Freedom Toast" in the House restuarants:

10. Eat Freedom for breakfast

9. Pass resolution to replace 'deja-vu' with 'woah, buh'

8. Require two-week quarantine for Americans returning from France

7. Blame Canada

6. Mandate that French classes instead teach students to speak English, but in a nasal 'Franch Ahccent'

5. Build bigger Eiffel Tower at the WTC site and call it the 'Freedom Tower'

4. 'Fetchez la vache'

3. Declare July 14th to be 'National Funny Nose Day'

2. Return the Statue of Liberty

1. Ban RU-486

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An autobiographical story like the kinds I look forward to writing again when I can harvest the hours off trees, and days pass like clouds instead of kidney stones.

Read it out loud to a loved one...

Thanks Noire, for the link.

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The week that G. W. Bush was inaugurated two years ago, The Onion ran a piece titled Bush: "Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosparity is Finally Over."

I'd be saying 'It's funny because it's true' if I also had the luxury of saying 'It's funny because it's happening to someone else.'

Truly, the Onion is staffed by genius.

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I love that there's a major city in Pennsylvania called State College. It makes me want to name a place 'town.'

"Where do you live?"

"I live in 'Town'."

"Ahh. I'm thinking of moving to 'The City'."

"Do you know Batmanuel?"

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Fortune cookie I got with lunch today: You have made a promise to give something. Keep it.

Great.

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Oh, and just to entertain you while I'm napping, I bring you the true origin of the MSN Butterfly:

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Okay, I know I put Strongbad's Email in the meme-o-matic over a month ago, but for some reason I just find today's weekly installment so, so funny, it's worth a mention. [flash]

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If any of you have never been to Exploding Dog, you really should. Readers email him captions and he draws the pictures. I love that site because content only comes every week or so, so I forget about it for months at a time, then visit and spend a half-hour rolling in laughter.

And I'm not the only one. The only thing better than Sam's juxtaposed cunning wit and crude drawing style is when people take that art and put it in the most (in)appropriate of places.

Yesterday I was walking down the hall from my office, surrounded by Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute in the subfloors of Newell-Simon Hall, when I came across this office placard:

Usability study, anyone? (click to enlarge)

In related (well, loosly) news, the CMU HCII t-shirts are in! During orientation week we split into groups to design our class shirt that we would wear to conferences, and to show our HCI pride. My group's design won out, and now we've got the threads to show for it!

(Okay, very loosly. In Kevin's head it went "Ooh. I should get one of thise nifty exploding dog t-shirts. Oh I should tell them about the HCII t-shirts that came in! Yeah, I'll just talk about it here, since it followed from the train of thought. Oh, but not their train of thought. Oh well. It's my site. Yeah. I can just explain it all in 100 words or less at the end. Then it'll all make sense. Do you really think they care about it making sense? Do you think they're still reading? Oh, nevermind.")

Anyhow, funny sign, new t-shirts. End of line.

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It was really foggy when I left for school this morning. I've got to leave earlier, so I can take some time to take pictures in the misty graveyard. Beautiful.

Anyhow, using Yahoo! Messenger to check today's local weather, I got a bit of a surprise:

Does Yahoo know something I don't?

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If you've ever accidentally confused the 'forward' and 'reply' buttons, you'll know just how embarassing it can be.

This reminds me of the time (about 8 years ago) when I shyly asked a girl I liked in the office to lunch, and accidentally sent it to the whole company.

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(I only wonder what kind of googles that title will attract...)

Crystal pointed me to an interesting Amazon photo and review of Harry Potter's Nimbus 2000 broomstick. Check out the last (as of now, anyhow) review.

I'm not sure which is funnier: the visual, or the fact that the reviewer only rated it one out of five stars for educational value!

On a related note, Amazon is getting a little too touchy-feely, as their most recent 'new for you' email to me reveals.

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A linguist at Temple University in Philly has come out with a paper spelling out the evolution and relevance of the slang term, 'like.'

Telling us GenX/Yers what we've known for, like, ever, it goes into reasons why 'like' is just as valid a word as any other.

Personally, I'm waiting for the inevitable copycat theses addressing such high-minded terms as 'was all' (eg. "And she was all, 'don't go there.'"), 'shiznit' 'hella' 'moted' (thanks Mellie for reminding me of that Valley gem!) and my new favorite: 'yinz.'

My favorite are the highly regional words (like moted and yinz). 'Sosh,' apparently revived from the '60s was another real-world valley girl fave. Got any of your own?

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I am the first 4 links Google returns for a searh for the word Skeezy.

G'night.

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According to CNN, South Korea plans to use the World Cup to "attrack tourists."

Since the story is a video segment and requires a paid subscription, one can only wonder what 'attracking' is, but I've got a hunch that it's using a high-profile spectator event to lure foreign nationals into your country, then holding them hostage, or at least taking their wallets. But hey, judge for yourself:

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The train just whizzed by a used car lot, where there are usually four cars parked out front, with huge letters stenciled on the windshield, one with an S, the next with an A, followed by an L and an E. Apparetnly there's always a big SALE! going on, a SALE! so big they have to write on the cars to make their point.

Today the S was gone, and there's a huge vehicular sign crying out ALE! and I think, Huzzah!

A few moments later, I wonder where the S car is. Is someone taking it on a teSt drive? Are they Squinting through the windShield? Does someone else, watching them drive by, nudge their partner and say, "Hey, look at that S-car go!"? Is there the obligatory snail behind the wheel?

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So it's been raining in Berkeley for two days. [that's bad.]

But I like the rain! [that's good!]

But there's a leak in my bathroom ceiling. [that's bad.]

But it's right above the toilet bowl! [that's good!]

So now I have to use an umbrella when I go #2. [that's ... odd.]

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I was getting tired of standing on my head...

That reminds me of an old joke:

A man dies and, being on the darker side of the fulcrum of judgement, he winds up just south of purgatory.

The devil gently beckons him and tells the condemned that he is to have his choice of eternities, that he is to choose from three rooms where to bide the time until the end of days.

The Devil walks the man to the first of three doors. Opening it, the man sees thousands of people, as far as the eye can see, standing on their heads, hands at their sides, perfectly balanced on an endless hardwood floor. Some are whimpering in agony, and others cry out for mercy when they see the Devil at the door.

The man closes the door and moves to the second, which he opens to reveal a similar scene, only this time the headstanders are balanced on an eternal slab of marble. Looking closer the man sees a few red patches on the floor where skulls worn down have left their sorry marks.

Clearly the first room, for all the similarites, was a better place to endure his torment, for some eternities would be longer and more painful than others. Nevertheless, there's a third door.

Opening the third door, the man experiences a momentary shock as green sludge and writhing, half-dead fish spill over the lip of the door and on to his (real? ethereal? imaginary? convenient? He pauses momentarily to wonder. In any case, now soggy) feet and trousers. This room, like the others, stretches on for eternity, with thousands of people ensconced within, but the second thing to batter his senses (after the fish) is the barrage of smalltalk and good cheer. The people here are right-side up, carrying on animated conversations with each other, smiling, and as oblivious to the man and Devil's presence as they are to the green sludge which reaches up to their knees.

The sludge, while noisome (and wriggling), hardly seems as bad as the inverted eternity on marble or wood, and so, pausing only briefly over such a monumentous decision, the man tells the Devil, "This is the room for me."

"Are you certain?"

(hah, doesn't want me syaing here...) "Absolutely."

[sigh] "Very well, then. Step inside"

The man steps down into the sunken floor, and slogs over to a coterie of attractive people to introduce himself. The door closes, ominously. "Hi, I'm Sa--" as he's interrupted by the booming loudspeaker.

"Okay everyone; Break time's over. Back on your heads!"

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Here are some of the sites I've noticed that have gone fishy today:

• Met4filter
• ebay
• Google (Check out the 'secret behind our pageranking' link)
• Fucked Company (check out the recent fuck, the buyout of pk interactive by idealab)
• Slashdot (everything you read is a lie)

Got any good April Fools sites? Share and Comment away! (oh, and be sure to put a target=new in your link tags in comments, or else the site will load in the teensy comment window...)

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Riding home on the train tonight, I can see the laptop screen of the guy in front of me. As he boots Windows 2000, I glance up at his desktop picture, a huge painting of Jesus on a crucifix with the Virgin Mary kneeling and weeping in front of him at Golgotha, bracketed by two other crucified men.

Now the guy's playing Diablo II.

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Last Wednesday I went to the monthly BayCHI meeting, where the computer-interaction experts of the Bay Area congregate to gab and see presentations.

That evening's main speaker was one of the founders of Google, who had a lot to say about a lot, and I took some notes, and I'll write up a little synopsis.

But not just yet. First I have to tell you about the mens room at PARC (where the meetings are held).

So before the presentation started, I went to visit the mens room. It's a testament to the true banality of this weblog that I not only feel compelled to inform the noble reader that I was going number one, but that it's vital to also convey to you that at least four, and possibly all ten of the people in this story also had to go number one. There was no number two to be seen.

Okay, the scene: One urinal, two stalls (one handicapped, one small, both with doors that come to a close when at rest). I walked into the restroom and there was one person using the sole urinal, two people waiting for him, and two closed stalls.

Standing there for at least a half-minute, the guy waiting in front of me cautiously taps the handicapped stall's door. No response, so he gently pushes on the door. It opens onto an empty stall. He's in business. Err, so to speak. Urinal guy is done and the other waiter takes his place. I'm tempted to knock gently on the second stall, but as someone comes into the restroom and starts waiting behind me, another temptation enters my mind (no, this isn't that kind of story!).

I wait.

Handicapped guy finishes, I go into the stall, and by the time I'm done, there are now six people in line, all waiting for one urinal and two stalls, one of which (I peeked from the other stall) has stood empty for the last five minutes.

Heh. Usability professionals... he hee... Unless each one of them was performing the same experiment I was...

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Sometimes bucking the herd can be your only escape.

I'm not sure which is more amusing, that she was smart enough to escape the slaughterhouse, or that in the end she was brought down by decoy cows.

In this case, the squeaky wheel saved herself from becoming grease.

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Cake is playing a webcast concert in Yahoo's FinanceVision studios, which are literally two floors directly below my cube here.

As Dinah so eloquently put it, "You've got Cake under your butt!"

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...but never thought to ask.

the Sea Monkey Worship Page has an excellent FAQ, answering such stumpers as "Are there any countries that would prosecute me for owning Sea Monkeys?" "How do Sea Monkeys mate?" and "What are Sea Monkeys made of?"

For the more inquisitive Monkey-lover, there is also the Ask the Sea Monkey Lady Answer Page, which delves into such advanced topics as "How can I encourage my Sea Monkey to reveal his true orientation?", "How will my Sea Monkey change if I neuter him?", "Why are my Sea Monkeys floating at the top of the tank?", "Do Sea Monkeys feel pain?" and "Is it okay to kiss my Sea Monkey?"

Some of the answers are even funnier than the questions. Wow. I haven't wanted to recapture my youth (err, the young, young youth) so badly since that time I went online and bought a large supply of Shrinky Dinks! (Let me tell you, oven... toaster oven... completely different animals when it comes to Shrinky Dinks. Trust me.)

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Mmm... Perusing all things Carnegie-Mellon this morning, and I came across this comic, 'Look At Me':

(click to enlarge...)

Now that I think of it, 'click to enlarge' would be a pretty spiffy name for a comic. Or a rock band, or a blog. Mmm. Ideas... Damn. Looks like the domain clicktoenlarge.com was grabbed three months ago. .net and .org are still available though...

And once again, I end up bloggin goff on a tangent. Funny comic tho'.

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The Ben Brown Show has now lasted for six episodes and, unlike The Tick, Ben is still going strong.

Making up for the lack of crime-fighitng skill with verve, with, and a Fray-annointed iBook, Mr. Brown trudges on, his very persistence an invitation to eat his brand of midwest justice.

Rock on, Ben.

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I just uploaded today's Apple countdown page. For those who didn't see the first one, here's the page for 3 days to go.

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Okay, so I may have taken it down from the front page by the time you read this, so if so, check out my take on Apple's '3 days till' message.

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Australian magazine The Age tackles this question, summarizing a year-long study where several volunteers shaved their bellies in the name of science, to test the 'hair conveyor-belt theory.'

More incredible to me than the study itself, (which is insanely great research in the name of abstract knowledge) is the quote:

"Most people have belly-button lint and they want to know why it collects in the navel, what it is composed of and why it is almost always blue,"
-Dr Kruszelnicki

Wow. And I thought the blue-lint thing was just me. I've actually talked to friends about this. Nice to see I'm not alone!

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Well, it looks like yahoo has to recall the trillion plus web pages they've delivered in the last five years and two months.

It seems that back in '96, when Yahoo! was granted the registered trademark 'Yahoo!', they updated the home-page graphic to suit, but in so doing, there was a casualty: Timmy, otherwise now known here at Yahoo! as 'Pixel #2899.' I call him Timmy because he went away the same day that the 'TM' was replaced with the 'R'.

So what can be done? Timmy's disappearance has gone unnoticed for five years and has only just been noticed by one of our own visual designers, browsing through the world-wide web archive. Now the hunt is on to find Timmy, and bring him home.

Watch the saga! Reload your Yahoo! home page every day (or hour, minute, whatever) and watch for Timmy's return!

If you happen to find Timmy, be he in your recycle bin, a porn popup, or changed into a transparent gif, let me know! Please put Timmy on your site and post the link in this post's comments! I'll see to it that Timmy is returned to the Yahoo! signboard safe and sound.

And for all the cynics, this isn't some marketing ploy, 5 years in the making. The error was found this morning, and I'm just having fun with it, as we all know I am want to do. :-)

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I got an email today from someone who suggested I check out their friend's blog. It's a nice blog, though I have yet to get really into it. What amused me though was their family portrait.

At first glance, though I couldn't pin down why, the picture looks like 'iFamily, from Apple Computer.' Further introspection (and witty repartee from friends) identified the shiny white floor, the Steve Jobsian hallmark black shirt and blue jeans, and the Wallycleaverness of the whole tableau as primary factors. Then of course there's the fact that they're the Newtons. "They probably all play sports together during the day, and board games at night."

And you can get them in any color you want, as long as it's white.

Okay, I'm really just kidding. I'm really just sad that my family hasn't had a real family portrait since I was seven years old.

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New on Meme-o-matic: Odd Todd. It's Todd, and he's pretty odd.

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I love the Capitol Corridor Amtrak train conductor. Southwest flight attendants have nothing on this guy.

This morning's P.A. soliloquy as we're pulling out of Jack London Square:

"So we've got a couple things in the lost and found bin this morning. We have a cellphone, so if you lost yours, come on up to the conductor so you can talk to your friends again. We've also got a... actually we've got two books. The first one has a monthly pass in it and the other is 'Dating for Dummies.' If either one's yours, come on up. (pause) 'Dating for Dummies'? Now I want to ask all of you, say you meet someone and you go home with them, and on their coffee table you see a copy of 'Dating for Dummies.' You should really just bolt.

"Now I'm a big fan of the Dummies books. I have a bunch of them at home: 'Crash Testing for Dummies,' 'Astrophysics for Dummies.' Heck, I even wrote one myself: 'Train Conducting for Dummies.' Actually, you don't have to be a dummy to do this job; you have to be insane. Anyhow, go to Amazon and buy it. Help me out, 'k?"

Wow, he's like a kindred spirit, only he has a captive audience and a hole punch.

The only thing I can think to add to this is that maybe the owner of the book did meet someone on the train, and wanted to ditch the evidence before they brought that person home.

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In lieu of a full review of last night's pilot for Star Trek: Enterprise, I give you "The Net's First 'Enterprise' Slash Fiction."

(Slash fiction, for those not in tune with the lingo, is fanfic (fanfic is fiction written by fans) with pornographic (pornography is- Ah, forget it...) overtones, usually homosexual).

I'm linking it here because it's timely, funny, and exactly the kind of thing people are probably writing right now in a not-intended-to-be-satirical way.

Oh, on another note, despite the assertion from several comedians that in the wake of 9-11, 'satire is dead,' it's clear that, if this week's Onion is any guide, satire was merely taking a two-week nap. Of course, there are always dissenting opinions, but how many of us are actually old enough to remember when SNL wasn't afraid to use comedy to affect social change, instead of belatedly acknowledge it?

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Sometimes a picture can say a thousand words... Sometime's it can't even say one.

Either kerning, or even better, a different typeface, could have solved this problem before it became one. Then again, maybe this is just the clientele they're trying to target, and I'm just not giving them enough credit.

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This message was passed on to me by Gina. I think this message should be standard on all flights, and even taught in schools:

As it was at most U.S. airports, last Saturday was the first near-normal day at Denver International since the terrorist attacks. On United's Flight 564 the door had just been locked and the plane was about to pull out of the gate when the captain came on the public address system. "I want to thank you brave folks for coming out today. We don't have any new instructions from the federal government, so from now on we're on our own." The passengers listened in total silence. He explained that airport security measures had pretty much solved the problem of firearms being carried aboard, but not weapons of the type the terrorists apparently used, plastic knives or those fashioned from wood or ceramics. "Sometimes a potential hijacker will announce that he has a bomb. There are no bombs on this aircraft and if someone were to get up and make that claim, don't believe him. "If someone were to stand up, brandish something such as a plastic knife and say 'This is a hijacking' or words to that effect here is what you should do:

Every one of you should stand up and immediately throw things at that person: pillows, books, magazines, eyeglasses, shoes -anything that will throw him off balance and distract his attention. If he has a confederate or two, do the same with them. Most important: get a blanket over him, and then wrestle him to floor and keep him there. We'll land the plane at the nearest airport and the authorities will take it from there." "Remember, there will be one of him and maybe a few confederates, but there are 200 of you. You can overwhelm them.

"The Declaration of Independence says 'We, the people' and that's just what it is when we're up in the air: we, the people, vs. would-be terrorists. I don't think we are going to have any such problem today or tomorrow or for a while, but some time down the road, it is going to happen again and I want you to know what to do.

Now you know. And knowing's half the battle.

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Some quickie tidbits while I turn qwer into something more interesting and usable (not that it's not nifty, but right now it's 'hey, that was neat' nifty instead of 'Let's see what's new at qwer' nifty).

A reader (I forgot to ask his permission to name him) sent me this link yesterday. I'm not sure which is more disturbing: that this file photo of Bruce Willis looks a lot like me, or that people I don't know (or at least whose names I can't place) send me pictures demonstrating just ho wwell they know what I look like...

I made up a joke a few days ago (granted I've been reading a little too many jokes from Yahooligans! recently, but here goes:

What's big, muddy, and uses lots of swear words?

I dunno, what?

Got my Gameboy Advance yesterday. I also got a 128 meg card for my Elph, so now I can take 220 pictures without downloading. Nifty...

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I have a pretty specific voice for this weblog, but it's not the only one I use. Ernie brings up a good case in point. I'm still laughing.

I think Min Jung sums it up best:

"I still don't get how *Kevin* with what's gotta be the *dryest* personal blog ever can be such a fricking trash talkign riot in person *AND* could win the humor sxsw award. Bejebus.

"I swear the white boy's sucked all the good luck from us yellow peeps some times."

Min, you're not the first person to say so. I'll tell you what though. I'm playing the lotto tomorrow. It's up to 45 million.

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Since every email address that ends in '.fury.com' goes to me (but not for much longer. Check for an announcement in the next couple hours), I get dozens of emails each day from spammers, mailing lists, and other email broadcasters to random email addresses @fury.com.

One or two each day are from an MSN community someone signed up for with a fury.com address. It's the 'X-Men Hangout' and after reading a few of the messages I get from there, I see now that I was clearly wrong when I said that daytime soaps might be the root of TV evil. I understand now that it's animated cartoons.

It would be easy for me to fix the mistake and unsubscribe the address from the list, but I just can't bring myself to do it, when insights into humanity (and I use the word in its loosest possible fashion) like this one from 'Drak_Vampiella' make it to my inbox:

"My ideal man would be like doom powerful... ice man and gohan look after me but i want proper love... my pic... Please help me. I WANT SINGLE EVIL MEN LIKE DOOM OR SOMEONE LIKE THAT."

Then again, I should use my powers for good. Maybe I should try to get Ms. Vampiella together with Sergeant First Class Bruner.

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My father and I are notorious punsters, but we make no pretense that our puns are any good.

Today though I saw a teriffic one. A company truck for a business called "Incahoots."

"So what" you ask? Well, I'll tell you: they're an importer of Peruvian Owls...

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Dial 1-800-888-3999 and listen to all menu options.

I love innovative viral marketing concepts. Face it, if not for this feature, you'd probably never heard of National Discount Brokerage, but now you're going to tell your friends.

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I read a story on ABCnews.com today, reporting that Florida is investigating the Psychic Readers Network, claiming they were comitting fraud by hiring people from homeless shelters and 'training' them to be psychics.

The funny part (not mentioned in the story) is that earlier this year, New York City officials created a jobs program to do just that.

So is it that NYC is more interested in getting jobs for their city's poor, or is Florida being bullied by some Psychics Union?

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Hmm: AD&D... ADD... Coincidence? If you were ever a DM back in junior high, you know that there's got to be a connection...

Thank god they didn't have ritalin back then. I don't even want to think about it...

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If you follow Jakob Nielsen's views on web design, you'll find this article from Untitled Document (the UK's answer to The Onion) very funny.

If you don't know who Nielsen is, you'll probably find it funny anyhow.

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I'm a huge BNL fan, so when I saw the headline, I was really disappointed. The last thing I'd want to do is bucket BNL in with the likes of Metallica and Dr. Dre.

But, after reading the article, I admire them even more. This is a proportional response.

I'm going to see the show with a bunch of friends in three weeks at the Shoreline (where hopefully they've discovered a way to turn their amps to 11 since the Sting concert) and I encourage everyone to see them whenever and wherever you can. They play a great show.

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Imagine if you're the IT director for an international non-profit organization, the group's initials were ICBE, and you were a late arriver to the net. Try explaining to your CEO why you can't get your preferred domain name.

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This is too funny to pass up. Take a look at the home page for the Palm m100, and then look at the 1993 Saturday Night Live parody commercial for the Macintosh Post-It. Once again, parodies of early Apple products end up being accurate predictors of the future...

Notice any similarities?

My favorite part is comparing the tagline for the m100: "Mobile, Modular, Magnificent." to that of the Mac Post-It: "Versatile, Intelligent, Sticky."

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Rereading my previous post, I suddenly realized the reason the world needs a 'chat phone' is so people can talk to AOLiza anywhere, anytime.

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It's funny how systems advance, cater to the user's needs, evolve, and eventually find more complicated ways of doing what they did so well in the first place. It's even funnier when people don't seem to realize that it's happening.

This morning's case-in-point is a CNN article on Nokia's phone-net strategy. The article is titled "Nokia steps up pressure with 'chat' phone". Now, just for a second forget that you're a geek and put yourself in the shoes of a normal person:

• Normal: Aren't all phones chat phones?
• Geek: No, this is really new! you can send messages to people and back!
• Normal: You can't talk on a normal phone?
• Geek: Oh, "chat!" Haha, funny. No. What this does is let you instant-message chat! See now? It lets you chat by typing!
• Normal: Why is this good?
• Geek: Because you can connect with anyone, anyhwere, over the Internet!
• Normal: So, anyone in front of a computer, right?
• Geek: Yeah, or anyone else with one of these phones!
• Normal: Why wouldn't I just call them?
• Geek: Well, say you're in a meeting, now you can chat during the boring meeting without it being obvious that you're not paying attention.
• Normal: Do you really think I can't tell the difference between when you're using your pilot to take notes and when you're using it to play klondike? Now try typing on the 10-digit keypad and convince me you're contributing to the discussion.
• Geek: Well, you could always use it while driving to let people know you'll be late...
• Normal: sigh...

Anyhow, a little longwinded, but hopefully I make a point. Now that chat rooms are starting to support voice, marketing decides that it only makes sense that voice devices are supporting text chat, especially when you can bill by the byte.

Actually, the funniest part of this whole phenomenon is how marketing can get people to put up with things they'd never normally tolerate. The Newton wanted you to print a little neater so it could understand your handwriting and people wouldn't tolerate that. Graffiti came out for the Newton (before anywhere else) and people berated it, saying it was ridiculous to learn new letterforms just to input text. Then the Palm comes out and people LOVE it, even though Graffiti is the only stroke-based input method available! Soon it's hip to know Graffiti.

Even worse, Dvorak keyboards have been at a standstill for decades, even though they're 10-20% more efficient than Querty keyboards. People don't want to switch because it's too much work, but now people are putting up with the slowest, most painful, concentration-stealing 10-digit cellphone numeric-to-alphanumeric input method, one that requires (counting...) FOURTEEN buttonpresses just to get an '@' symbol (Nokia 51x0), and they think it's super cool that they can send a two line email that took them 12 minutes to compose!

What's next? Java applets that run on your phone allowing voice-over-ip tunneled through your cellphone connection, billed by the K?

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Gotta love Salon. (thanks Liz!)

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I go to BIGWORDS.com looking for textbooks. Naturally, I follow the link to textbooks. There, in the middle of the page, is an ad for HOT SEX: How to Do It:

"Why have mediocre sex or even pretty decent sex when you could be having steaming, smoking HOT sex? Find out the details (with tips on every step from foreplay to orgasm) in this juicy-juicy-juicy how-to guide."

--Textbooks home page, BIGWORDS.com

Talk about targeted advertising. New students looking for textbooks. Holy cross-sell, Batman! I'd hate to see the up-sell.

I think the worst part is that you can buy a used copy. Hurry before they're all gone!

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Okay, this one's old news, but it's something you should hold close to your heart, not just read and dismiss. It's Scott Adams's Dilbert Fallacies.

Take this link, print it out at 25% size, and keep it in your wallet or purse. Keep it with you for a week, and check them off as you see each logical error applied around you. See if you can collect all 32!

Here's one to start you off: "I didn't get caught jaywalking today, therefore it's legal. to jaywalk."

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First it was 10 free hours, then it was 20, then 50, 100, 300, 500, and yesterday I got a CD in the mail saying "700 FREE HOURS when you sign up!*" Of course, reading the fine print, it says "* Free hours must be used during the first month". Let's see... 30 days in a month. 24 hours in a day. Hmm. 720 hours. Wow. I'm so glad I didn't take them up on their 500 free hours. At that rate I could have only been online 17 hours a day, but now I can stay on 23 hours and 22 minutes! I guess I'll use the other 44 minutes to check voicemail, and call friends and family who aren't in the AOL circle...

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