You scored as Druid Fairy. Your heart belongs to nature. Your green satin hides you in the brush. You influence plants to grow, and you have a special connection to animals. Druid Fairy 75% Snow Fairy 63% Ethereal Priestess Fairy 58% Twilight Mistress Fairy 50% Goddess of the Golden Dawn 48% Autumn Fairy 36% Pixie 33% Raven Fairy 31% Rose Thorn Fairy 31% Which Firefly-Path Fairy are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Mystic (cross-post from Xanga)

For those who aren't familiar with Mystic, you can think of the movie "Mystic Pizza" if you want, and have the correct town, but historically, it was a whaling port. It's almost on the Rhode Island border, but doesn't really have the same flavor as Newport.



This shot was taken in Olde Mystick Village, and is fairly typical of the perhaps two-square block pedestrian-only shopping area. Candle and handicrafts stores, along with the obligatory jewelry and clothing stores. All I bought was a new ultra heavy-duty canvas briefcase/satchel at the Army/Navy store. The one I've used for the past few years is starting to tear at the seams; I got it for free at an industry conference a few years ago, so it's no loss.



As you walk down the hill past the sign in the first photo, you see this view as you approach the seaport.



This is the Charles W. Morgan, a whaling bark. Built in 1841, this is the last wooden whaling boat still afloat. We had quite a bit of fun climbing around the deck and poking around down below in the crew's quarters and blubbering area.



Here's SJ at the till.



Here's a view of the shipyard entrance from the waterfront path. It's a working shipyard, alright, but it restores historic wooden boats. We actually got to view the work area from the second floor, looking down into the hard hat area. The tools used are modern, but other than power drills, the tools are mostly the same hand tools as the old ones, except not rusty: planes, axes, chisels, gouges, saws, etc. The current restoration is an Eastern-rig fishing boat called the Roann. I'll see if I can get a picture of it from the catwalk tomorrow.

More pics and historical tidbits later . . .

Korea

Today's entry features a few items that SJ brought back from his last trip to Korea for me. I specifically requested one of the items. The others are pretty cool, too. To the left, you see a celadon incense burner, almost 7" tall. It's the sort of thing you'd see in a temple. I thought maybe I still had some incense cones around, but all I could find was loads of pot pourri. Oh well, I can find incense on Astor Place or St. Mark's Place in the East Village.



Next up are a pair of celadon ducks. Actually, they're chopstick holders. Each one's ~ 1.5" from front of bill to back of tail. They're cute.


Lastly, we have the piece de resistance: a couple of pairs of silver-plated stainless steel chopsticks, spoons, and ceramic holders for them. The handles are engraved/etched. The chopsticks are not your typical round ones; they're more elliptical like linguini. This particular set is the sort of thing you might give someone as a wedding gift. I actually asked for a pair of stainless steel chopsticks, but certainly wasn't expecting a really fancy set like this. Nowhere in Asia other than Korea will you find stainless steel chopsticks. The manufacturer has a website at http://www.goldenbell.co.kr in case you're bored enough to go take a look.

I hope everyone's having a good holiday weekend so far.

I'm officially on vacation. Actually, I could have taken a Summer Friday and left at 1:00, but ended up staying until 4:00. Wasn't sure whether I wanted to lug my 3.04 GHz laptop with me on vacation (it weighs 10 lbs., and is really a substitute for a desktop-type machine), or whether I wanted to bring my much lighter and much slower office-issued laptop, which I almost never use.

The fact that I almost never use the office-issued laptop means that it was hopelessly out of date, and the battery had run all the way down. Had to get it up to speed. IT had turned off my second data port because I hadn't used it in several months, so I had to camp out in an empty cube across the hall from my office that had been used by a temp who's no longer around. That data port was live.

Even the network drives had to be remapped on that machine once I was finally able to log on. Winzip was at least two versions out of date. I had to install Nikon View so I can download photos to it from my camera. At least it had the drivers for the Netgear wireless card installed. Had to go add that machine to my list of computers at my LogMeIn account, then for the heck of it, installed the client it as well. Tested the remote access to my office desktop, and it worked fine, so even if VPN can't see all the network drives but not my desktop's C: drive, LogMeIn can.

Was ready to shut down and pack up the laptop with its cables, wireless card, and mouse, when WinXP decided it needed to do 12 updates before it would shut down. That took another half hour. The one thing neither my personal laptop nor my office-issued one has is my bookmark list from this machine. I should spend some time this weekend getting both of them updated in that regard. Can't surf people's blogs without the bookmarks if they aren't on Froggie's list, because I can't remember all the URLs; heck, I can't even remember who's on Xanga vs. Blogspot vs. MySpace. And why bring the Nikon and one of the laptops on vacation where broadband access is free, if I won't be able to post entries to my blog and read yours?

After reading the above, you might wonder why there is a picture of a blooming Epiphyllum accompanying this entry. There's no special reason other than I found it blooming with fourteen more buds on it when I came home this evening. Fairly typical of me to neglect a plant then discover out of the blue that not only does it have buds, but is actually blooming. It's always a nice surprise.

Hope everyone gets off to a good start for the holiday weekend. No rain on Monday, okay? Nobody wants a soggy barbeque.

When Harry Met Sally

Maybe Adrina's message below her signature on her CD liner came true today at long last. There is light at the end of the tunnel. I had a huge breakthrough today with a client who has been polite, but difficult over these past few months. The client has various in-store television advertising network packages it sells, and my task was to trot out new media codes I had developed for them and compare the resulting reach and frequency numbers that now come out of our systems with their "bible" of a spreadsheet they sent me (which even they agreed made a couple of invalid assumptions in the calculations, simply for expediency in crunching out the numbers across so many demographics, so it wasn't really gospel, but more like "shoot for something close to this").

This was a conference call with our salesperson and me in NY, our LA sales rep on the account, and the top two research people at the client. The bulk of the numbers discussion zoomed over the salespeople's heads like an ICBM, but the research people at the client and I were on the same page. They were absolutely thrilled with the numbers they saw. The head research guy was all joking and almost giddy with delight . . . I've never heard him quite like that before. Heck, we were even joking about where I was going on vacation next week, and it turns out the head research guy is from Rhode Island, so he knows all about New England seaport towns. Our NY saleswoman was high fiving me, which was funny, because she missed half the numbers discussion at the beginning, and was there mostly for the live demo of it in action.

I know the head research guy there had a lot riding on making this thing work, careerwise. I looked at our NY saleswoman while he was joking away, saying how great this is, etc., pointed to the phone, and said "I'll have what he's having."

The NY saleswoman's boss from Toronto was in NY today, and couldn't make the meeting after we pushed it back half an hour from the originally scheduled time to give the client time to digest the numbers we sent, but accosted me in the washroom later to congratulate me. As far as I'm concerned, she had no real interest in any of the details other than knowing that I saved her ass today from losing a $130,000 contract. That's a salesperson for you.

From my perspective, we as a company, maintained our integrity in working with them to produce the right numbers, and were far more transparent with them about how we went about it than our competitor was, when it tried the same thing for them earlier this year. Obviously, the transparency on our part helps tremendously with the client's comfort level in working with us.

Worked with the folks in Database and Distribution to merge my media codes for the client with the ones from the parent syndicated database to release a special version for just this client, so they see all the original media codes, plus mine for their network, tested it on my machine, and turned it over to the sales and support folks in our LA office to beam out to the client.

My boss next door heard almost the entire conference call through the paper thin wall, so he knew it went well, but I had to stop by to let him know that everything is out of our hands, and ready for the LA people to worry about as far as installation at the client this afternoon. I left at 5:00 today. I deserved it. My boss agreed. As of 5:00 tomorrow, I am officially on vacation.

We don't have an early closing before the holiday weekend, but my boss told me he was leaving at 1:00, taking a "Summer Friday," and that I could if I wanted as well. It really depends on my workload, but I'm tempted to take him up on it, maybe not at 1:00, but earlier than 5:00, if I can. I need to update my laptop computer's Firefox bookmarks with all the ones I have here for various blog sub-folder classifications, and make sure I have my Nikon software on it so that I can post pics from Mystic while on vacation rather than wait until we get back. Free hotel broadband rocks. I just hope it's wireless, because if it's a hard wire into a cable outlet, then between the two of us, we'll have to swap the cable back and forth between our laptops. Sharing is good, but I'd prefer to share a meal together with enough silverware for both of us, if you will, rather than trading off who uses the single fork provided with the meal. Now, there's an image!

Excellent, Excellent . . .

Okay, this is pretty cool. I ordered Adrina Thorpe's CD, Elusive, after giving her tracks a listen over on her MySpace. It arrived today. You know, one of the things I hate most about getting a new CD is having to practically use a scalpel to rip the shrink wrap and bar code thingamabob off the jewelcase. Alright, not a scalpel, but I do have to use a Swiss Army knife to carve the darn stuff off to get to the goodies.

I didn't have to. Adrina had already done it for me. It's not unheard of. Bud Buckley signed his CD, Feel My Love, for me and signed the liner. Deni Bonet stuck a nice note on a post-it and signed it when I ordered her two-pack of CDs. That was before I saw Deni in concert and met her in person last summer.

Adrina did both--the post-it note and the signed liner with a nice thought for the day: "May life's road lead you ever to the light . . .." Considering the way my life has been going the past few months, I could use a little light at the end of the tunnel. Perfect thought at the perfect time.

Here's the funny thing: until this evening I hadn't read her blog entry entitled "Sharpies." I figured it had to do with the permanent markers, but for a rail commuter within the greater NYC area, I assumed it had to do with marking up the jerk's socks who decided to sit in the seat behind you and shove his toes up your ass between the seat and seatback. Anyone who rides NJ Transit trains can relate to that evil thought. Black sharpie for people who wear white socks and silver for people who wear dark socks. Either one for people who wear no socks--and just "paint" their toenails for them.

When I saw the signed liner, I went back to read that blog entry, and indeed it was about signing CD liners! She wasn't kidding. It made me laugh.

And, I really love this album! It's the sort of thing I'd pop in the PC or car dash, and when the last track is finished, just hit play again.

I thought I'd mention this as a tangent. The bubble wrap shipping envelope was hand written; the handwriting matches the liner notes and post-it. Typical P.O. Box address, but it was return addressed Costa Mesa, CA. I've only been to CA three times in my life. Once was to Coronado when I was a kid, for a ship christening. Once was to my then-employer's Costa Mesa office (couldn't resist a drive to Newport Beach, while I was there). And the last visit was to Palm Springs for a convention, but then to extend our boondoggle a bit, my boss and I hit our office in Irvine for a couple of extra days. Easier to get back to NYC from John Wayne airport, anyway, than from Palm Springs. Between Irvine, Costa Mesa, and Newport Beach, that particular area of Orange county is one of the few with which I'm reasonably familiar. Now I'm really starting to miss In-and-Out Burger--best fast food burger I've ever had, but the fries are really funky.

Currently listening: Elusive By Adrina Thorpe Release date: By 05 December, 2005

Cloned mules Idaho Gem and Idaho Star will race against each other, and some non-cloned mules in Nevada, and on the California mule racing circuit this summer. I never knew there was a mule racing circuit. Can anyone even get a mule to gallop on purpose?

Scientists are agog about this one, because the two clones were raised apart for the last two years. They're interested to see if the difference in upbringing will have an effect on their will to race, which is in question. Apparently, they are from champion stock, so my skepticism isn't so misplaced.

What does a mule race look like? Do they trot? Do they break into a canter, or do they actually gallop? Do they chase a bale of hay around a paddock, sort of like greyhounds chase a fake rabbit? And how would you try to explain to your family that you've decided on a career as a mule jockey? It almost sounds like a rodeo side show to me. "Most of the year, I farm potatoes, but for fun, I race mules." Hmm.

Here's a ridiculous item of the day. An ultra-liberal organization calling itself Truthout reported over a week ago that Karl Rove would be indicted a couple of weekends ago for the CIA leak, and was being given 24 hours to get his affairs in order. The problem was that the story was false. When called to task on the veracity of the reporting, the organization's director merely claimed that he had gotten "too far ahead of the news cycle." Translation: it hasn't happened yet, but trust me, it will, because I want it to be true.

So much for journalistic integrity. It's one thing to opine about a news item in an op-ed piece, but quite another to completely make something up, report it as hard fact, and defend yourself by saying that the piece wasn't wrong--the "facts" cited just haven't happened yet is beyond the pale. Well, dude, we're still waiting. How much time do you want us to give you to make your fantasy come true?

This is the sort of nonsense that happens when someone has such tunnel vision that he makes up wild accusations in some sort of twisted sense of reality. We all know people like this. They make it a habit to form an opinion of someone or something, and let the facts be damned. Or better yet, force fit them into their vision of reality. Like Hillary Clinton's non-existant "vast right wing conspiracy" against her perpetually philandering husband. Like people who hurl accusations about Condoleezza Rice lying to them about intelligence saying Iraq had nukes, yet are the same people who believed John Kerry when he said the same thing during his failed flip-flopping campaign for president.

Whatever happened to looking at both sides of an argument and forming an intelligent, rational point of view? Hillary spoke at my graduation when I got my master's degree 10 years ago. Nobody booed her, even though I heard a lot of grumbling from students after the ceremony that her speech was nothing but an extended plug for her book "It Takes a Village."

There's just something about guys with the names William and Jefferson. And this guy doesn't even have the name Clinton at the end. He was videotaped taking a briefcase with $100,000 in bribes from some Nigerian official. The FBI said he took the briefcase threw it in dark red sack and brought it home. They later found the remaining $90,000 worth of it stashed in foil wrap packets in his freezer. Talk about hot money! Gotta cool that stuff down as quickly as possible.

Naturally, he maintains his innocence. Granted it was unprecedented for the feds to raid his office over a weekend, but according to a former federal judge perfectly legal. It doesn't look good for this congressman who represents New Orleans. Smells like typical Louisiana crooked politics. Personally, I don't think this guy's got a prayer in court.

"Honey, I think I'll thaw out some of that leftover lasagne for dinner. Hmm, I don't remember the lasagne looking like that!" And that's the ridiculous item of the day.

It's May 22, and we've got a friggin' FROST ADVISORY! But I refuse to turn the damn heat back on. Winter. It's the best 9 months of the year.

The answer is...a Korean golf tee!

Dinner was Nine Thai Soup, chock full of crab, and fried frog legs from a local Thai place. No, the fried frog legs were not part of the soup; it was my entree. Yes, frog's legs taste just like chicken. I know it's a joke, but it's true. A few were the bottom two joints. The rest had the thigh on them. It also came with some other house soup that was hot enough to clear out my sinuses! That takes some doing. It was probably Tom Yum, not Tom Kha, because it was red instead of milky.

Wow. I now know where to get my Thai soup. And yes, the frog legs were delish. Apparently, you can get them in hot sauce or garlic. The menu only says hot sauce. Froggie can now sleep happy. Hot sauce, baby!

Don't worry--the answer to the "what the heck is that thing" will be posted later this evening. The guesses were hilarious.

The answer to the question about "What the heck is this thing?" will be posted this evening, probably between 9:00 and midnight, Eastern. Until then, keep the guesses coming, because they are pretty darn funny. If you haven't seen the pic, just scroll down to the previous entry.

Can anyone guess what this is? It's a nifty little device. The red part slides up about a centimeter. No guess is stupid, but the wrong answer might be far funnier than the correct one. So what do you say? Give it a shot. Go on, take a guess. You know you want to.

My boss quit today. I was working from home, and had to phone and WebEx in for the Operations meeting for a good chunk of the day. Thank god (and my wallet) for speakerphone and a lightning-fast home computer, because it's just like being there in the office, without the human distractions.

About an hour after it was over, and right before I had to run out to the vet with the cat, my boss called my land lines number. It didn't sound like he was on speakerphone, until he told me he'd just resigned, and I told him "Oh, that's fantastic! Good for you. Congratulations! I'm so happy for you!" There was laughter in the background. I think it was just Meilin and Gary...at least, I hope it wasn't George and Joanne (it didn't sound Canadian, anyway). My boss gave the standard two weeks notice, and will be gone when I come back from vacation in June.

I've known him for almost 25 years, and I know he's been as miserable as I at work for the past few months. I helped him get hired a few years ago as my boss, which I never would have done if he wasn't a good guy. He's almost get tenure teaching at FIT, so that's his "rice bowl" as Meilin would say (i.e. fallback). Income isn't his mission at this stage of his life. Peace of mind is. I applaud him. He didn't take it the wrong way at all, when I congratulated him for leaving. He knew damn well that I am genuinely happy for him. I think he was expecting my reaction, but the others in the room probably weren't.

The Da Vinci Code has thus far gotten panned from all quarters. The only semi-positive review I've read was in yesterday's NY Post. Opus Dei is up in arms (no secret there, huh?), albinos are protesting the use of yet another albino villian, and Christian groups worldwide have sued to stop or delay its release.

I don't understand all the controversy. Either the film's worth seeing, or it's not. The Vatican has been largely mum on the topic, other than a couple of bishops saying they think it should be taken as an interesting tale--nothing more.

For once, I think the Vatican has it right. Perish the thought, because you may never hear me say that again. Dan Brown, the author, doesn't even try to claim that it's non-fiction. He's not rewriting history. What is to be up in arms about, considering that's it's fiction?

The film critics mostly don't like it because they think the acting sucks. Only Ian McKellan has seemed to escape the lousy acting theme that runs throughout the reviews.

I'll probably go see it, but only for a matinee ticket price, and even at that, I'll smuggle in my own snacks in my pocketbook, like I always do. Tip: hide them under your checkbook and change purse in case some over-zealous ticket taker decides he wants to search your bag.

Holy bug eyes, Batman, that's some shark! Or "shaak" in Boston Brahmin. The biggest fish I've ever caught was a flounder. I caught it somewhere in or near Daytona Beach, at some seafood restaurant where my grandparents liked to eat when we visited them. I was in grade school, so I really don't remember whether the restaurant was on the mainland or not, but nearby, we could borrow bamboo fishing poles and fish in some inlet next to the restaurant.

Maybe my parents had to rent the poles, but I don't recall being told that I had a time limit with it. My flounder was large enough to keep, legally, but I gave it to the man who managed to get it off the hook for me. He was a local, so at least he could take it home, gut and filet it, and have himself a nice dinner.

Here, in the Northeast, I've caught a few sunnies and bullies at a pond near my parents' house. I always threw those back. They're not good eating, and the bullheads will sting you like crazy if you're not wearing gloves when you try to take out the hook.

I love seafood--fish in particular, and crustaceans. But for some odd reason, I cannot stand bivalves. You will never find a clambake in my back yard, but it's not that unusual to find a lobster boil, or see me taking a whole rainbow trout and gutting and butterflying it myself for a butter sauteed dinner with lemon juice drizzled over it right at the end. Dee-lish!

The picture to the left shows Zeus and Thetis. This image summarizes my nearly six hour meeting with a Left Coast (San Francisco) client today. Our top two salespeople flew out there yesterday for an in-person meeting with them, while I conferenced and WebEx-ed in from the Right Coast. My boss listened in but had his mute button on the whole time. The client wanted me out there too, along with my boss, but I can't do air travel with a sick cat (nor will a boarding kennel take a sick animal), and my boss had to teach class this evening at FIT.

In the end I was far more useful where I was, because I could run a live demo of how one approach we suggested would work, and show them some real numbers. I made serious progress, by staying late last night, long after our sales people were on their respective flights, and running out more numbers this morning before the meeting, while simultaneously juggling panicky phone calls from one of them.

During the meeting, I tried a couple of things on the fly and produced more numbers for them to look at, proving that yes, we could tweak their overall audience estimate differently from the overall average by demographic segments within it. Okay, the last set of numbers produced got the male/female skew correctly, but also proved that we needed to further refine it by age within gender. Their head research guy looked at the numbers, assessed them the same way I did, and completely agreed with me. There were cheers all around.

The client needs to go blow out a spreadsheet the head research guy there created to include a bunch of other demographics over then next couple of business days, and from there, I can crunch the scaling factors I need by demo within the overall Adults 18+ population, and create the "composite" audience codes the client needs for different sales packages it offers. There really are benefits to getting the head numbers nerds together, even remotely to hash through the numerical minutae.

Our head saleswoman joked "that the more numbers she (meaning I) sees on a spreadsheet, the happier she is, whereas my eyes would glaze over." The truth is, that's the truth. Yes, her eyes would glaze over, and yes, I want all the numbers our client can give me, against which to check those that ultimately come off our system when I'm done working my voodoo. I merely replied "It's a by-product of being a numbers nerd, you understand..." to which the head research guy there laughed and said "We like nerds!"

At the end, everyone went away happy--my salespeople, the folks at the client, my own boss for my handling the meeting so well, and finally, I. The folks at the client were left with the impression that yes, we understand what their goals are, we know what the f*** we're doing, we have research integrity, we know how to accomplish their goals, and have a solid game plan with timelines for achieving them. Our salespeople no doubt were left breathing a huge sigh of relief that I bailed their butts out of the sinkhole into which they had tossed my department.

I had a feeling of god-like power after that meeting. Stopped by my boss' office next door afterward to fill him in on the 20 minutes he missed at the very end. Even told him that I was experiencing a feeling of god-like power, but not to worry, because "it'll pass." Let's just say that in the above image, I am not Thetis. You get one guess who is.

Took this picture after I got home this evening. Darn batteries had died in the camera, and the nearest AC outlet was too far away from the driveway to use the adapter for it. Fortunately I had a bunch of AAs around. That camera really eats batteries, so I try to use the AC adapter whenever possible. I'd been waiting for the azaleas to pop open, and they finally have. You can click on the picture to enlarge it. Funny I never noticed the car driving by on River Rd. up the hill when I snapped the picture.

The tiny red azalea had been around by the front door when I bought the place over 12 years ago. It didn't get any sun there, so I moved it around the side about 10 years ago, and it's made a comeback. It nearly died twice over a couple of harsher winters, and the deer seem to make mincemeat of the azaleas every few years or so, but it's a real trouper.

This year they came through with flying colors. The white one's spectacular under moonlight after it gets dark it almost glows. I put the bleeding heart in by the corner of the garage a number of years ago. It took a few years to really get established, and indeed now gets to be about twice the size you see here, practically taking over the front walk. It's really just get started. It's sort of hiding a bunch of mayapples back in there with it, but by the time the bleeding heart melts away in July the mayapples are visible and fill in the spot. They're blooming right now, but I really have to shove the bleeding heart out of the way to see them.

My next door neighbor liked my bleeding heart so much that she put one in her own little front garden. It's still tiny compared to mine, but it hasn't been there nearly as long, either. They don't really like sun, but they only get a few hours of it in the morning, which they can handle.

Not sure what work crew this was because they didn't look like our regular landscapers, and weren't in one of regular Fullerton trucks, but they were running around playing with the sprinkler system with shovels and other gardening related stuff. I wonder if they're the ones who uprighted my miniature weeping pussy willow that had fallen over last month. It was still over on its side over the weekend. Somebody propped it back up, and it happened today. It's really not a one-person job because it's at its mature height of 8' by now, and fully leafed-out.

I'll have to keep an eye on the landscapers a little later in the season after the columbines have gone to seed. They have a nasty habit of ripping out the seedlings in my garden, thinking they're clover or something. I guess there aren't any columbines in Central or South America, although I don't see why they wouldn't grow in some of the higher elevations of the Andes.

Here's an article that caught my attention:

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - In the latest Vatican broadside against "The Da Vinci Code", a leading cardinal says Christians should respond to the book and film with legal action because both offend Christ and the Church he founded.

Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Nigerian who was considered a candidate for pope last year, made his strong comments in a documentary called "The Da Vinci Code-A Masterful Deception."

Arinze's appeal came some 10 days after another Vatican cardinal called for a boycott of the film. Both cardinals asserted that other religions would never stand for offences against their beliefs and that Christians should get tough.

You can read the whole article here. Personally, I don't give a shit. I've been loaned a copy of the paperback version of the book, and still haven't bothered to read it. I'd like to read it, but it's too big to pack into my briefcase to read on the train commute.

Let's just say that I have no sympathy with the Vatican for how irrelevant it's become over the centuries, given its control-freak nature. The shriller it gets, and the more out of touch it gets, the more irrelevant it gets. These prelates can whine all they want, but nobody listens. Their entire attitude is "We are closer to God than you, so listen to us, or go to hell!"

Personally, I don't care whether there's a god or not. My carcass is either going to be buried or incinerated. I don't give a shit either way. The Vatican is merely breeding agnostics among my and younger generations. It could declare me a heretic and excommunicate me, and it would be meaningless to me. Completely and totally meaningless. My advice to you freaks in the Vatican would be to just get over your high and mighty selves!

"Popular American-born Irish actor Patrick McGoohan was born in New York City, the Astoria district on Long Island on March 19, 1928. His parents had immigrated to the united States and, within a few months after his birth, decided to return to Ireland. They settled in County Leitrim, and by all accounts his early childhood was a financially impoverished one on a family farm that produced little on poor soil." Read the rest of his bio here. (Actually, Astoria's in Queens, which really isn't considered part of Long Island--Long Island is considered to be Nassau and Suffolk counties)

Phil tells me that someone's going to do a remake of "The Prisoner." That is just so wrong. There's no way to match the uniqueness of the original when you bastardize it. I have the complete box set of episodes on DVD, and am watching them now. It's a fantastic series--highly creative and imanginative.

We have discussed "The Prisoner" in the past. He wasn't even born yet when it aired, but I was living in London at the time. Phil knows more about the backstory than I do. It was McGoohan's pet project. A very worthy one I might add. Yes, I was a little bummed with the final episode's escape ending, riding the streets of London on a bus, and jumping off in the middle of the West End, but even if the ending of the new version were better, it still wouldn't pass muster.

Number 6 signing out. Be seeing you.

Barbaro won by a lot. He's a gorgeous horse, but he had a lousy post position, so congrats to his owner, him, and his jockey for pulling it off. Let's just see if he can do the same in the Preakness and Belmont.

Yes, race fans, I'm a race fan. Rather, I'm a huge horseback riding fan, and riding English, like I do, is a lot closer to racing than this Western riding nonsense.

I don't actually bet money on anything. The worst I can lose is a diner breakfast. I can deal with that cost a couple of times a year.

Subject #1: Valerie Plame. A $2.5 million advance deal for a book? Honey, I don't care whether you were ever officially under cover or not, but take the money and run. Write the book, by all means, and if you really can't write for beans, let them send you a ghost writer, but that's a nice chunk of change, so don't pass it up, and don't pull a Kaavya Viswanathan.

Subject #2: Patrick Kennedy. After checking himself into rehab at the Mayo clinic, he claimed to remember nothing about the car crash. This was even after he issued a statement detailing the event, location, time, etc. No doubt he was prepped about the details before issuing the first statement. I'm more inclined to believe the blackout version, given the rampant alcoholism and drug abuse that is a Kennedy family legacy. Patrick denies drinking beforehand, yet at least two bar workers claim they served him that night, or "he's a regular here." Anyone wonder why Teddy's silence was deafening until Patrick announced that he was checking himself back into rehab? Remember Mary Jo Kopeckne? That's why. Yes, there's a cover-up here. The Capitol Hilll police no doubt were instructed to drive Kennedy home, and not give him a breathalyzer test. Hence the uproar from their union chief. I actually believe Kennedy, when he stated he didn't ask for special treatment. But that doesn't mean he didn't get it. Your ass or mine would have been locked in the hoosegow overnight for something like that. But we're not Kennedys. And he still maintains that it was Rx drugs that caused his disorientation, even after the barkeeps pretty much blew that lie out of the water.

Subject #3: Pete Dougherty. The on-and-off butt-ugly loser boyfriend of Kate Moss draws pictures using blood. They look like crayon drawings to me for the most part, but do any of you know someone who thinks it cool to draw blood and use it for ostensibly artistic purposes? I do. He uses it to autograph his self-published books; his initials spell NAP, and he thinks he's a brilliant author. Snooze is correct (well, maybe more like instantaneous migraine, if you actually attempt to read his convoluted nonsense). Enough said.

Verizon does have a rather nasty habit of making its technology user-unfriendly. All I wanted to do was add Mobile Web 2.0 to my cell phone family plan's primary number (i.e. mine). I didn't have it or VCast activated when I bought our phones and signed on for the plan, although mine has those capabilities. I still don't want VCast, but for an additional $5/month, yes, I finally think it's worth it to be able to upload and/or email pictures etc. from my cell phone to either Verizon's web-based pix/flix server or anyone's email. Minute charges will apply for web-based services, such as this, but shit, I almost never use the phone anyway, so how much airtime am I going to use up for it?

I really wanted the email feature. Without it, I can't upload or email any pics I take on my camera. The "Get It Now" feature was unavailable from the phone, so I had to order the hard way, through one of Verizon's websites. What the enrollment doesn't tell you is that the "dash plus five digits" at the end of your mobile account number from your bill is really your zip code. I discovered that by accident, just by getting an error message a few times, and trying my zip code for the heck of it, because I knew the first nine digits were correct. Then it worked so that I could actually place the order.

Now it's going to take 2-5 days to activate the service? I have a phenomenal picture I took of what QA did to Liz's cube today. She was on vacation this week. There's a tradition of doing odd things to people's cubes in that department when they are away for a week. They always occur on a Friday afternoon. QA must have used 2-3 rolls of ordinary Scotch tape to horizontally weave a crosshatch of tape across the cube at desk level, then rig another set of it in vertical bars across the entrance, as if it were a jail cell.

Naturally, just as I was getting ready to race out the door, they flagged me down to come take a look. Oh, this was so picture-worthy. I pulled my cell phone out of my briefcase and snapped a picture of it, but then realized that I hadn't signed up for the Verizon services necessary to email it to myself or a picture hosting service. At least Verizon's Pix/Flix hosting service is free, although it only holds up to 75 items. That's more than I would use, anyway.

Why should it take 2-5 days to turn on the damn service on my phone? The receipt/order confirmation talked about shipping me a box. Of what? A user agreement? Then why does it talk about reading it before opening the box that contains my new equipment? There's no new equipment to ship. I've had the phone for almost a year. Fucking beam it out to me, and send me a text message that it's been activated. Verizon sends me a free text message when I pay my bill online, so why can't it do something similar in this case?

Worried About Gas Prices?

This is what I drive. It's a '99 Saab 9-3 turbo. This is not actually my car--mine's a 2-door hatchback--but it's the same midnight blue, same tan leather, same sunroof/moonroof, same wheels. It doesn't get really great gas mileage (18c/26h), most likely because of the turbo. My '88 900S without turbo had a 16-valve 4 cylinder engine that got around 23c/31h. But the '88 really didn't have much in the way of torque in the lower gears, meaning that pickup was a bit lacking when peeling out onto a highway from an entrance ramp, and I had to feed it mid-grade instead of regular like my current car takes.

I had the '88 for 10 years and traded it in for my current one, taking delivery in Nov. 1998, meaning I've had my current car for 7.5 years. I just hit 17,100 miles on it last weekend. A 17 gallon tank of gas lasts me a month. I drive it 5 miles a day round trip to/from the train station, and occasionally run errands in it on weekends, carefully planning my route, so as not to waste time criss-crossing my tracks back and forth across town. Once or twice a year it might make a road trip no farther than 500 miles round trip, but usually more like 300 round trip. I've had to have the dashboard computer/LCD replaced, but even after 7.5 years of ultra low mileage, I still haven't rusted through a muffler or a tailpipe, so maintenance has been inexpensive on this car.

No doubt some clerk at my insurance company keying my annual estimated mileage into their database thinks I'm missing a zero when I conservatively overestimate it at 2500. Actually, unless it's over 12,000 a year, I don't think they really care. But I also have to jot down the current odometer reading on the questionnaire every year, which backs up my estimate.

So let's just say that gas isn't really a major line item among my expenses. NJ has the advantage of being near refineries and doesn't have crazy CA emissions rules or the force fed ethanol-mix that some Midwest states require, so we tend to be insulated from the highs that some states see. However, we never see the lowest prices either, so when gas was 95 cents a gallon when I was in CO one summer, I was still paying $1.10 at home. We pay about average, perhaps slightly less, if I tank up at the Getty instead of an Exxon or a Shell. The Getty is 10 cents a gallon cheaper than anywhere else around, so why not? It may only save $1.70/tank over the bigger players, but that'll get me a Boston Creme donut and a cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts, coffee and a toasted/buttered bagel at a deli, or a week's worth of NY Post newspapers.

See why I'm not really that bothered about gas prices? Since I really don't drive anywhere, it's a bit irrelevant. My brother drives a honking big Tahoe, but he drives about as much as I do. Besides, he's in the OKC area, which generally has lower than average gas prices, so it's not really hitting him in the wallet, either.

So the twit got caught plagiarizing from three different authors so far, and her publisher dropped her. Little, Brown canceled its plans to published a revised version of her book, and flat out said it wouldn't publish her second one either. The kid goes to Harvard, so how stupid could she possibly be? Evidently, very.

For one thing, I never believed that ripping off a half dozen passages from a couple of books from the first author could possibly be unintentional. That's just too many for coincidence. The author of those books didn't believe it either, and "Copya Fishystorython" had to issue an apology. But when the ripped off passages from the second and third authors surfaced, even her publisher realized she no longer deserved the benefit of the doubt. And the Bergen Record, for which she did an internship while in high school is going back to check out her articles it published.

I can certainly understand emulating some stylistic elements of a favorite author or two, but not entire scenes or passages. You can't possibly rip off three authors in your chosen genre and hope to get away with it. She didn't, and deservedly so.

This is not the same thing as taking, say, the song lyrics for "Little Red Corvette" and making it "Zippy Blue Chevette" then singing the spoof at a pool party in your backyard for your friends. Doing something like that almost demands that people are familiar with the original song and get the joke and irony in the revised lyrics. Heck, if I was caught doing 95 by a cop, I'd want to be driving a Chevette, because no trooper would ever believe a Chevette could go as fast as his radar gun indicates. Nor is it the same thing as singing "Happy birthday to you. You smell like a zoo. You look pretty nasty, and you act that way too."

I really don't understand this plagiarism thing the kid did with her novel. Seems like it would take me a lot more time and effort to go look up someone else's passages than it would be to simply write my own words.

From the FoxNews article:

In Cabot's "The Princess Diaries," published by HarperCollins, the following passage appears: "There isn't a single inch of me that hasn't been pinched, cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized. ... Because I don't look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis never had fingernails. Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights."

In Viswanathan's book, page 59 reads: "Every inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished, painted, or moisturized. I didn't look a thing like Opal Mehta. Opal Mehta didn't own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been traded in for a small sailboat."

Viswanathan could simply have said something like "Opal thought she was living in a scene from the book "The Princess Diaries" in which the heroine got a complete makeover, and no longer recognized herself."

My subdivision's homeowner's association issued new pool and tennis court passes this year. Mine was left on my front porch with my house number on my street, in a plain white envelope, with no stamp. It was hand-delivered. The envelope was labeled correctly, but the pass was so incorrect. The accompanying letter said to contact the office if it was incorrect.

There is no house numbered 87 on my street. If there were one, it would be on the opposite side of the street, but it goes from 85 to 89. Where 87 would be, if it existed, has a sidewalk in front of it, but is nothing but a grassy slope with a few trees on it. That's the first thing wrong with the pass.

The second thing wrong is that although the country of ancestral origin for my surname appears to be correct, my name isn't Collins. It never was, nor will it ever be. It doesn't even start with the letter C. In fact, nowhere is there a "c" in my first name, my middle name, nor my last name. My whole block is populated with families with last initials B, R, A, and K (not in any particular order from one end to the other). It's possible there's a Collins somewhere in the subdivision, but if so, it's none of the people I know from across the street, either. Nobody around here is an immigrant, but the names are all English, Italian or Jewish.

The third thing wrong with the pass wasn't what was printed out on it, but had to do with the orientation of the card itself as it was slipped into the plastic badge holder with a pin on the back. It was inserted backward, so that if I actually were to pin it onto an article of clothing, what you see in the above picture would have been facing my shirt, and the lock number for the tennis courts would have been facing outward. I'd give the person who assembled it a D-. The only reason I'd grade the effort above an F is because the card actually was slipped inside the plastic. Next time, bonehead, read the instructions. Oh, there weren't any? I guess you'll have to write the manufacturer of those plastic name badge holders a letter and demand a set of instructions for their proper use. "Caution: do not insert cardboard name badge after imbibing a 6-pack for lunch."

No, this isn't what I had for lunch, although it looks awfully good to me. It's the only picture I could find on the Ruth's Chris site that wasn't actually of one of the restaurants. I've eaten at the one in NYC, which I think is every bit as good as Morton's in Chicago, but with smaller portions, so that I don't have to ask for a doggy bag for the remaining half pound of my filet mignon. The image actually represents "fresh meat."

Our new hire started today. Meilin's Chinese, and will probably always have a bit of an accent. She got her bachelors from some university in Beijing, but has masters degrees from Johns Hopkins, and Iowa State, I think (it's definately not University of Iowa, where my dad got his engineering degree). Very bright woman, in her 20s, who actually did some teaching while she was at Johns Hopkins, from which we hired her. She's got an apartment in Jersey City that she managed to find on Craigslist, but her husband is still in Baltimore for the time being.

We'll be getting her up to speed this week on using our proprietary software. She already knows how to use SPSS and SAS. I really only know how to use SPSS manually without programming it to do anything; we mostly use it as a can-opener for converting flat data files into other formats. Fortunately she knows a bit about SQL as well, although she's not an expert in it. We currently only have Access as part of MS Office 2003, but our Utah office has phased out the use of Access there, and has basically told us "get up to speed on SQL, or else." Our network admin was supposed to install MySQL on Meilin's, Gary's, and my machines today, but never got around to it. I'm not against learning to use new database software, but as it is, I'm barely proficient with using Access, so we could use her knowledge.

Meilin and I phoned in a lunch special order at a Thai place on University Pl. They said 15 minutes, which they normally say, so we gave it 15 minutes, then walked over there to pick up our order, and had to wait half an hour once we got there. The restaurant was packed as usual with NYU students, but they were short staffed with some of their employees taking the day off to attend the immigration rally and parade at Union Square, just a few blocks up the street. You can bet that the staff that did show up for work were all immigrants, too. Our food was delicious as always. Meilin loved her Pad Thai.

As far as I'm concerned, the rally/protest/march didn't affect my day very much. The Hispanic guy at my train station newsstand was there, although the NY Post never got delivered, so I had to buy one in Hoboken. Lunch took longer than usual to make it out of the kitchen, but the restaurant was open, and we got our food. I armed Meilin with restaurant menus and told her which places I thought were the best around (Yummy House and Tina on 3rd Ave. for Chinese, Village Mingala for Burmese, L'Annan for Vietnamese, and several places on 6th St. between 1st and 2nd Aves. for Indian--it's called Indian Row for a reason).

The only thing the immigration protest march down Broadway did was hold me up a little crossing the street to get over to the 9th St. PATH station at 6th Ave., so I could get back to the Hoboken train station and catch my evening rush commuter train. Our block had been cordoned off with yellow police tape, but it was easy enough to duck under it, and dash through the stream of people. One young girl who was marching with the others almost plowed into me, but we thankfully avoided a collision. I would have felt really bad if she had bounced off me and landed on the asphalt. The march actually drew a small crowd of people who were outside taking a butt break to watch it go by, but the funniest thing I think is that were probably more immigrants watching the march and not taking part than there were U.S. citizens.

You can bet the ones not participating are legal immigrants, as is Meilin. She thought it was a bit silly, because all her paperwork's in order, and she's only been in the U.S. for about three or four years. The thought of an illegal immigrant wanting what amounts to full citizenship rights was amusing to her. I'm sure it was to Luciana as well (she's Brazilian), who works in another department, but just passed her citizenship test a few weeks ago. Nobody wants immigration shut down; I think most us just want it to be on the up and up and fully legal after following the procedures that others have done.

But people getting up in arms about congress proposing to make illegal immigration a felony instead of a misdemeanor strikes me as odd. You're not a citizen, so you have no voting rights. Taking away a right to vote that you don't have by making it a felony if convicted is sort of irrelevant. I've worked with Poles, Russians, Chinese, a Swede, and a Dane, all of whom were legal, and if they really intended to stay here, followed the proper procedures with green cards, work permits, and sometimes even applying for citizenship. None of them insisted that we speak their language; they all learned English as fast as they could. In fact, Meilin was an English major in China, so she already had a head start when she moved to the U.S. No legal immigrant I've ever worked with questioned the need to learn English. Granted they are all white collar workers, and English is still the lingua franca in the world of business, but Vadmin never groused that I only knew a few words of Russian, and Arkadiusz never complained that I didn't know Polish.

Anyway, enough. I've gone on far too long already, and probably bored you to death by now.