There are now 5 men working in my building out of a total of 36 people, which I believe is an all-time high. Gosh, I can hardly keep track of them all!


In online entertainment news...
First there were the LOLCats.
Then came the LOLCat Bible and LOLTheist at seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum.

It was only inevitable that we now have LOLCats can has science.

( Here are a few of my favorites: )

Haha! I love this site, for e-cards "when you care enough to hit Send." Unfortunately, I can think of very few people I know who would immediately appreciate the humor if one of these sentiments just randomly showed up in their inbox. Dammit.

'Tis the season for robins! I noticed the first one yesterday. Then, this morning while reading in bed I heard all kinds of twittering outside my window, and looked out to find one sitting on the roof calling to another that was on the ground below. That means spring is finally here!

I've scored another free book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. This makes 5 for me now, yippiee! I feel spoiled.

Hope it's good.

Conversations like these are why I still log on to NannyMUD after more than 12 years. You can always count on refreshingly geeky banter by old, familiar faces after a day spent with mostly normal people in the real world.

Wiz Narya: WASHINGTON - President Bush says he has no doubts about launching the unpopular war in Iraq despite the "high cost in lives and treasure," arguing that retreat now would embolden Iran and provide al-Qaida with money for weapons of mass destruction to attack the United States.
Wiz Narya: See, that was the thing. He thought he was a level 20 priest and Saddam was a demon.
Wiz Narya: Treasure. Jesus H. Christ.
Wiz Belegur: I'm pretty sure Bush lacks the requisite intelligence to be a level 20 priest.
Wiz Lonewolf: Oonst.
Wiz Yaleah: OMG, Belegur, priests need high WISDOM.
Wiz Yaleah points at Belegur and snorts.
Wiz Belegur: Oh.
Wiz Belegur hmms.
Wiz Lonewolf: Bah, clerics, not priests!
Wiz Narya: Didn't int help them remember things too?
Wiz Narya: No, maybe not.
Wiz Lonewolf: Depends on how crazy newfangled you wanted to get.
Wiz Narya: Okay, FINE, so I play WoW now and haven't played D&D or AD&D or their ilk in years and years.
Wiz Lonewolf: Good ol' fashioned D&D had a Prime Requisite of 9 Wisdom to be a cleric, and that was that.
Wiz Lonewolf: AND WE NEVER LIKED YOU ANYWAY NARYA
Wiz Lonewolf runs away crying.
Wiz Narya: He thinks he's a level 70 holy-specced priest and Iraq was the Black Temple.
Wiz Yaleah: All these points are moot; Bush doesn't have any of it.
Wiz Belegur: Unfortunately he's got pretty decent Con. :(
Wiz Narya: Well, maybe he needs to repair his armour to get his stat boosts back.
Wiz Oak: D&D sucked. GURPS rules!
Wiz Narya: Oh, NOW we're gonna start the whole Linux-vs.-Windows thing too, right?
Wiz Yaleah: And Luck. He must be a halfling.
Wiz Moonchild: Rumsfeld's broken and can't be repaired.
Wiz Narya: "GURPS is like GNU!" "YOU SUCK"
Wiz Moonchild: And he lost Colin Powell somewhere.
Wiz Narya: Colin Powell left the guild. :(
Wiz Narya: He doesn't run dungeon raids any more. I think he's off working on his tradeskills.
Wiz Earendil: WHOAHHHHH!!!
Wiz Yaleah: The real question is, if they all played WoW, which ones would be manginas?
Wiz Moonchild: it's OK, they recruited Joe Lieberman to replace him.
Wiz Earendil: Chester Cheetoh totally, absolutely, fricking RULES now
Wiz Narya: Manginas? I don't think that's in WoW.
Wiz Earendil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X2qT7Ki29Y
Wiz Earendil: stop talking WoW and watch this cheetos advert

Yesterday I purchased my first-ever pair of real running shoes! Up until now I had been using a pair of cross-trainers, which are OK for a variety of things, but they weren't really optimal. Before making a purchase, I wanted to give myself some time to determine if I was really serious about running, and I guess I am. I walked an hour in them today on an incline, and on Friday I'll try them out for a run. One thing I can tell right away is that they're significantly lighter in weight than my previous shoes.



One more thing for tonight: Do add Hecklerspray to your news feed for all your celebrity gossip needs. The liberal doses of sarcasm included with each story are spot on. It's British, so there are some names/stories you're not likely to recognize if you're from the states, but it's easy to skip over them, and the humor (or should I say humour?) is absolutely brilliant.

I've just rewritten my webpage. Yes, singular. It was time to get back to basics. Little by little, the vast amount of information I stored on my webpages and wanted to keep track of have been replaced with other websites that simply do it more efficiently and are better organized (Flickr, LibraryThing, All Consuming, LiveJournal, etc.).

Et voilà!

There are a few minor aesthetic bits that bug me, but I'm mostly pleased, and it shouldn't need much updating. Forerunners of this version include

• v3.0: Jan 2006 - Feb 2008
• v2.0: May 1999 - Jan 2006 (my mushroom phase)
• v1.0: ~1995 - May 1999 (I so regret not saving a copy of my first set of webpages, because let me tell you they were truly hideous.)

For additional web nostalgia, try the Wayback Machine. If you can remember the URL of a page from the past, they probably have a still-navigable snapshot saved. This is great if you need help remembering how ugly HTML used to be.

I can't stop myself from checking Flickr Stats daily now. Some of the results, like the one I mentioned yesterday, make me laugh.

Today two of the search terms used to land on my photos included scrapbooking mess and painted chickens.

I love the internets.

I just scored another free advance reading copy from LibraryThing! This is my 4th, and I feel lucky reading some of the discussion threads in which some folks say they haven't managed to get any yet.

It seems an algorithm is used to match a potential book against the contents of users' libraries, and those who score the highest get the book. There are a few other factors, like whether you read and reviewed any previous books you received, and possibly some other things. The 4 books I've "won" so far have been a little all over the board: historical fiction, a mystery/detective/crime novel, a memoir, and the one I'm expecting now is also a memoir, but from Darfur, Sudan.

In any event, this is what I'm looking forward to now (please excuse the ugly Amazon image):

The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur

*waves a little flag that says: YAY!*

I switched news readers this morning, from Bloglines to Google Reader. There wasn't anything wrong with Bloglines, but I only used a small portion of the site and its other features were always visible but neglected (by me) in the background. Google Reader so far seems cleaner and simpler.

In addition to transferring all of my feeds, I added a new one, Pharyngula, a fellow Minnesotan and university professor whose opinions and concerns mirror many of my own.

Mentioning Pharyngula allows me to smoothly segue into linking to these two absolutely amazing videos I first read about on his blog: The first demonstrates the cleverness and mimicry of cephalopods, who are undoubtedly the most intelligent invertebrates around. The second video is of several dolphins creating, manipulating and playing with air bubble rings. Both videos are stunning.

Underwater Astonishments

Bubble Rings

My attempts to embed these videos failed miserably, but they are still very worth checking out.

From the little I've seen so far, BookMooch is one of the more fun and useful sites for book lovers I've discovered in a while. But beware, gentle reader, if you're unable to bear the thought of parting with a single book -- ever -- this site is not for you.

Two days ago I signed up and indicated I had an advance reading copy of Have You Found Her to give away. Right away the next day I had an eager individual desiring my copy, and today I sent it to her for less than $3 via media mail. For inventorying the book, I received 0.1 points; for sending it, I received 1 point. Now I can request a book I'd like from another user, which costs 1 point. Essentially, it's a world-wide book-trading service, but no money exchanges hands.

I initially signed up because I haven't been sure what to do with the ARCs I've received from LibraryThing after I've finished reading them. Now this kind of makes me want to get some books out of storage to review and decide whether they're still worth keeping, or whether I should release them to another happy reader.

Christmas at our place was a fantastic success!! We were so pleased.

In the morning we intended to really sleep in, but I still was up by about 9:00. After puttering at the computer for a good hour or so I went down to the kitchen to make the cranberries. The recipe is so easy and because they are chilled in the fridge before serving, they can be made in advance. Then I peeled and cut up some potatoes and threw them in cold water so they would be ready when the time came as well.

Dad, Kris and Ron arrived at 2:00pm and we played Tripoli for a few hours, snacking on nuts, cookies, cheese and crackers, and oysters. The ham was already cooked, but let it heat up for an hour and a half in the oven while we played. It was a double-smoked ham that we bought from our local butcher (yes, patronizing the local businesses!). Eventually, we sat down to eat at a table of ham, garlic mashed potatoes and gravy, glazed carrots, peas, rolls, cranberries, and blueberry pie for dessert. I was thrilled that everything turned out perfect.

We exchanged gifts after dinner, and Dad gave us the new (huge) George Foreman grill, which also came with a separate rotisserie component. He gave us the gift receipt, in case we wanted to take it back or exchange it, but Jonas was checking reviews online and I think we may keep it. My concerns are how often we'd use it, and where we would store it when we weren't using it. Kris and I decided not to exchange gifts this year, but we gave each other small token gifts so Dad wouldn't really notice and wonder why. Jonas won $6 on his scratch-off lottery ticket!

Now in three days, on Sunday the 28th, we're hosting another Christmas dinner -- this time, a Swedish spread for Mom and Dean, and Anita and Dean. Jonas is going to stop at Ingebretsens to get the good stuff. I hope that dinner goes just as well!

I started a subscription to the census records at Genealogy.com for $19.99 per month. Overall, I am not altogether impressed with this site -- their search engine in particular is disappointingly weak -- however, they have the 1900 and 1910 censuses indexed and just for that I am willing to subscribe for a little while to get the information I need. So after everyone had gone home I spent a few hours totally engrossed in new census information.

Work was frantic today. Everyone and his brother decided to come to the library for some reason. The benefit, of course, is that the day flew by super fast! So before I knew it, it was time to go home and relax for the rest of the weekend.

Jonas spend most of the day studying for a certification exam he's signed up to take on Monday. When I got ome he hopped in the shower and got dressed, then we headed to Noodles & Co. for dinner. As usual, the food was delicious, but next to us was a table with a group of about 10 teenagers who were exceedingly loud and annoying. We couldn't have held a conversation between the two of us if we'd tried, so we pretty much just finished our respective meals in relative silence. The guy who'd brought our food also left us two coupons for free dessert, so on our way out we picked out some giant cookies to take home. Yummy.

In the last few days I've been bumping into an unlikely number of ancient acquaintances, people I knew 8-10 years ago on old talkers like Castle and Lakeside whom I haven't encountered or been in touch with for ages. It's been great catching up and reminiscing about "the good ol' days" when the the phenomenon of Telnet was a most magical thing. Does anyone but us old-timers even use Telnet anymore? Or know what it is?

Nowadays most Internet chat rooms are web-based, with little personality. People who are new to or first becoming interested in the Internet generally encounter a web browser first. As a result, if they're interested in chatting with others they will most likely do it through that interface. Unfortunately, this negatively affects the user base of Telnet-based chat which, with the exception of a few brave souls "crossing over" to Telnet perhaps via the invitation of a friend, is steadily shrinking. Heck, I didn't even have a graphical web browser the first year I had my PC. Then I had to buy more memory so that I could actually even run Netscape (and even then it crashed half the time).

Just about everyone has a basic Telnet program on their PC, and very few probably know what it is. It's yours, it's free to use, why not try it out? Check out one of these communities:

The Resort: By far the largest talker around, and with that comes the good and the bad. Let's take the bad first: with a larger general population comes a larger potential for annoying gits whose first question will probably be, "Do you have a boy/girlfriend?" Easy to ignore them. The benefit of having a large player base is the likelihood of encountering others with similar interests or otherwise interested in genuine conversation. Resort has been around at least as long as 1994 (when I first found it).

Surfers: Smaller than Resort with a large UK-population. Alive and kicking since at least 1994.

Foothills: Used to be the largest talker around, but the program has been largely stagnant for many years, i.e. no new features added to entice newcomers. As with the others, FH has been around since at least 1994.

With few exceptions, the base code for each of these talkers is similar, so if you've learned the commands at one, you've learned for all. Log in, customize your profile, make friends, decorate your room, and invite others in to chat. Become a spod.

And then there are MUDs. But that's a tale for another day ...