and so... i'm off! Complex...er... St. Louis, here i come!

nope, dude, it's just the dumbass browser at work. your permalinks are fine in IE5.5 and Netscape 6.

ok then, for those who have asked "what's a tolkhan?", to the left, below the quote (which is nifty, isn't it?) is a link to "what's a tolkhan?" and no, Rich, it isn't per se "an indian or a fairy", as you say, though i guess it could be both since tolkhan is me and i am both.

by the by, i'm having trouble with your permalinks again. it may just be my browser (like it was on Jean's page. IE4.0 sucks.) i'll check again when i get home.

which will be very soon. it's nearly noon, and i'm taking half a day off so that i may get on the road to St Louis early enough to get there before midnight. i still have to go home and pack though, 'cause i didn't do it last night like i was supposed to. damned computer had me distracted all night.

i feel good now.

today is someone's birthday here in the office, and my co-workers are decorating her cubicle (next to mine). as they hang the crêpe paper, one of them calls out to me "when's your birthday?"

"november," says i.

"oh, we missed it. are you twenty-one yet?"

bless you, marcia.

"i'm twenty-six."

"what?!?"

hooray! something to start the day out nicely.

i don't like this job-thing i have where i actually have to work. it's kept me busy all day and i really haven't had much time to surf. what free time i have had, i've spent working out the little unsightly blemishes of my blog's new look. how can they expect me to work when i have flaws in my blog?

if i'm doing this now, after it's been published, imagine how i was last night before it debuted. poor mikey sat alone most of the evening watching television. it's hard enough getting him to come over during the week (something about not liking Voyager or Buffy and Angel), and when he does, i spend all evening at the computer.

bad terrence. stupid terrence dummy boy.

so, anyone have any suggestions for "Sorry-I-Blew-You-Off-For-My-Blog-Please-Forgive-Me" gifts, please let me know.

United States Supreme Court B*tch-Slap. this is fun!
[link ganked from the Brandlands]

wowzers! the Daily Dean has me linked now. makes me giddy to have a referral from someone with a noggin i admire so much.

News/Rumor from Popbitch Newsletter

• Sara and Keren of Bananarama are planning a comeback. They already have a record deal in France, and a single scheduled for release in February.
• "Britney Spears is no longer talking to Nick Backstreet following his questions to her on live radio about her "Silicon Valley"
• Jermaine Jackson claims that the Jackson 5 are set to reform, with brother Michael on board. Then again, Jermaine just called his new-born son "Jermajesty", so he's probably mental.

that's all the really interesting parts of this issue.

you know, i had to get a new license in September, and the only day i could take care of it was a few days after i'd injured my back. i was heavily medicated with pain pills and muscle relaxers, so in my photo, you can almost see the drool running out of the corner of my mouth. i look like such a goob.

ah, yes... the debut of my new template. what d'ya think?

it looks the same in IE 4.0 and 5.5 as it does it Netscape 6. i'd like to attribute that to my talent, but i can't. it probably has more to do with a greater standardization between the two browsers.

the madness surrounding Napster spreads into new territories. [ok, so the articles a bit old...give me a break! i just found it!]

Condorman is gonna be on Starz Family in March! woo hoo!

so....tempting.... i know they're there....must resist.....

"I'm as receptive as... Susan Lucci through 19 years of award shows."

i want this! i'd just have to get a DVD player too.

"(Mark Burnett, executive producer of Survivor and Survivor II) is definitely a producer who is in a league of his own."

yes, him and all the other Reality TV™ producers. i guess that's why they've already decided to have Survivor III and Survivor IV.

ha!

yippee! the plans are confirmed. mikey and i are going to sunny St Louis this weekend, where we will spend a fabulous 2 days/2 nights beneath the Gateway Arch on the sandy beaches of the Mississippi River, sipping pina coladas in a midwestern tropical paradise.

when did priests start thinking it acceptable to pose nude for calendars?
[via Relapsed Catholic]

"Sunday's sermon topic: 'What is hell?' Come early and listen to our choir!"

"Don't let worry kill you; let the church help."

heh. from an L.A. Times article on church marquees.
[via Relapsed Catholic]

i'm not a social person. i don't interact with my co-workers. i rarely leave my cubicle until it's time to go home. i don't think i've had a conversation with any of the people i work with. so why would they think that i want to participate in office birthday celebrations?

so, i've moved on to the next book on my reading list. i'm still working through the archaic/classical period, which, of course, is completely focused on the middle east and mediterranean regions (a.k.a. European history), but that may change as i read deeper into the book. surely, the peoples of east Asia, the Americas, Africa, Australia and Oceania (did i miss anyone?) contributed something. there's one thing about this book that's really bothering me though. as i read, it dances in my mind and distracts me. but maybe i'm just being pompus.

is there anyone else who thinks that the title should be An History of Knowledge?

more evidence that i'm existing within some sort of temporal distortion: i woke up 10 minutes later than yesterday, yet i'm 18 minutes earlier for work.

the EPA made contact. he says he won't be taking any actions against my blog, which is good 'cause i wouldn't pay the fines anyway. i'd disappear, man, and head north. to Kansas. just try to find me in all that wheat.

and, since he (you know who you are) has returned on multiple occasions, he can now be classified as a "reader", thus, he must be given a name, so that all may known to whom i refer.

from this day forward, on this blog, you shall be known as...EPA Man (not terribly imaginative, i know).

now, out of curiosity, how much money would i have to give you to have the EPA shut down a particular corporation i have a beef with?

thanks, Jean, for the link to Bejeweled. it's not like i need something else to keep me from my work.

is there anyone out there who can explain to me what the point of Ultima Online is? i started playing about two weeks ago, but so far, all i've done is make various alchemal potions, tame about a dozen animals, and kill bunnies.

is it just some place that people hang out online, or are you actually able to go do something? i thought it was supposed to be a multiplayer online RPG, where you could go on Grand Adventures™, fight Evil Villains®, and Protect The Kingdom From It's Foes© (or, in my case, skulk around, steal other character's possessions, amass and horde wealth, and build a towering eerie castle from which to launch my conquest of the kingdom). instead, i spend all my time pursuing rabbits, hoping they have gold coins on them (and sometimes they do. don't ask me why) since you're not allowed to take anything that doesn't belong to you.

all i want is to become an evil sorceror striking fear into the hearts of all citizens, but the game is set up to disadvantage less-than-good characters. town guards attack and kill you automatically, even though there's no possible way for them to know who you are, or that you're an evil character. there are no cameras, and no fax machines. someone please explain the game to me so i don't feel like i wasted my money.

Anarchy at Your Local Wal-Mart, or fun things to do that'll really piss them off.

it's been nearly three years. you'd think i'd be over it by now.

i am trapped within a temporal distortion of some type.

i know i've been at work for almost 12 hours now, yet the clock says it's only been two.

i should have known this would happen by how my day started. i woke up 20 minutes early this morning, performed my normal get-ready-for-work routine in the same amount of time as i normally do, yet i was three minutes late for work.

also, i had my MP3 playlist playing as i slept. it's 7 hours, 28 minutes from start (Carly Simon's You're So Vain) to the last (Aqua's Around the World). i started the music at just after midnight last night, but the last song was ending when i woke up this morning at 6:40am.

time for me is in a state of dilation and contraction. beware all who approach me. i am in temporal flux today.

*sob* three of the four Borg children have left! how sad for Seven. and a convenient plot device.

the January 2001 issue of Discover magazine (you'll have to pick it up at the newstand to read the current issues. only previous issues are available online) has some good articles, including "The Year in Science." some of these top 50 fifty science news stories:

• Spinal Cords on the Mend- researchers have managed to repair breaks in the spinal cords of eight lab rats.
  
• Closer to Quantum Computers- physicists have achieved some success with superposition, the theory that matter can occupy more that one position at a time.
• A New Sugar High- researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada have produced some promising results in transplanting islets, the insulin producing structures in the pancreas, providing a spark of hope for the millions of people with diabetes.
• Bush Meat- in October of last year, biologists announced that Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey, native to the forests of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, is extinct, probably the first species known whose disappearance is due to commercial wild animal meat trade.
  
• The Year of the Genome- probably the biggest story in scientific news for the year 2000, last June, Celera Genomics and the Human Genome Project jointly announced the completion of the rough draft of the human genome. the focus of this story is too often placed on the treatment and elimination of various genetic disorders and diseases, but, as the Discover article points out, it's also step on the path of discovering unwritten history among human populations (why are Asians twice as likely as Europeans to be lactose tolerant? possibly reflecting a much longer history of dairy farming in the west) and genetic adaptation to infectious disease (sickle-cell anemia protects against malaria; types A and B blood protect against cholera).

and on the "I Want One!" front, the Wolf-Garten company in Betzdorf, Germany has unveiled a concept mower that uses a laser to cut blades of grass into particles less than a tenth of an inch long.