The Journal of American Medical Association has a bunch of articles posted on 5 different bioterrorism agents: Anthrax Smallpox Plague Boutlinum Toxin Tularemia Unpleasant reading, but EXTREMELY informative. I haven't been able to read all the way through them (they are LONG)

ok...those guys at the pentagon are comedians...I'm going to try to collect funny things they say. here are the first two. Donald Rumsfield: we're not running out of targets. the taliban is running out of targets.

Saw this today on MSNBC. About how eye contact stimulates the same portion of the brain as rewards. Make sure you look people in the eye to get your fix.

Hey Steve B.'s website. I've got it. Here

Buck pointed me at this site. Free Lunch I think I'm going to subscribe

Adrienne asked me to post this to the poetry page: The warm weight of you but growing cool head turned away eyes shut tight against this life (what color were they?) delicate skull curved and sculpted proud holding you smelling your sweet hair like peaches your fist curled tight holding our future is now a starfish open and unmoving on my breast they come to take you away

This article appeared in the September Wired Magazine written by William Gibson. He still speaks to me...in it he revisits Tokyo post bubble.

100 Afghan Proverbs

Ok...so I'm having a hard time caring about all this stuff lately...call it depression...I don't really care (heh). Here is a page put up by Wired that has some background on Afghanistan. I've taken to visiting this site every once in a while just to relax...and found this one following links.

This solution to the Bin Laden problem from my boss: If we kill him we make a martyr, if we capture him we encourage them to take hostages, so... We capture him, fly him to John Hopkins, get him a sex change operation, dress him in traditional Taliban female garb and put him back in Afghanistan. What do you think?

This is my favorite graphic so far, and I've seen a bunch.

Dirk forwarded this piece of work to me. It a lego movie of the Knights of the Roundtable scene from Monty Python's The Holy Grail. You have to see it. You may have to setup your player to make it work.

Hey folks the industrious Buck, Pasadena's Enigma, is serving up a daily dose of news on his site Boomtown. Check it out. Also he's got some articles up on hockey! Also some links to his band. HERE and and an enlargement of the pic HERE. The other gentlemen is Dan Leroy.

Joe sent me this link to the CIA site listing Afghanistan...

An appropriate quote I ran across yesterday from John Donne: No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

Amazon has set up a link to make donations to the Red Cross easy. It's a way to do something for our brothers and sisters in New York.

Guy sent me the text of this article and I found it on the Miami Herald website.

I got this today from Guy and posted it to our Haiku page. If you have anything you would like me to add send it to me. It doesn't have to be haiku, it does have to be some kind of poetry though. Let's start the healing process... Debris, smoke, bodies. Symbols of power destroyed. Tears well in my eyes.

anger, sadness, disbelief, rage, frustration, revenge... This photo was taken today by a friend of Ed's, Somsara Rielly who lives close to what was the World Trade Center.

Okay...I started this a while ago with the prodding of Joe and have had a couple of submissions from a few hearty souls. It's our attempt at some Haiku. Please if you want to have me post something, send me an E-mail and I'll show you how it is done. And only constructive criticism please. I can't vouch for the others, but I have a fragile ego.

Check out these swinging "youthful" pictures of my parents. I love these!

Okay! I got some pictures up from the birthday bash this weekend. Check em...

For those of you into this sort of thing the LA Kings schedule can be found in here.

Hey everyone! Thanks for making Conrad's 1st birthday such a success. We had a great time! I'll probably be posting pictures all week of the festivities. If you have any good pictures send me copies so I can share them with the masses.

This is horrible...the struggle for basic human decency continues...'nuff said

Poor Kermit. Before Conrad came into our home, he was the baby and afforded all the associated privileges. Alas no more...

Ah the turtle cat in all her splendor...

Okay...so...there are a bunch of new Conrad pictures up so stop your belly-aching...I do realize that he is earth-shatteringly beautiful...but please...it's embarrassing.

Heh...i'd pay to see this show. This guy can make a 300 foot inverted tornado that he then lights on fire. The tail whips around at over 300 MPH. Did I mention it was on fire?. Yep. I'd pay to see that.

Got this from Joe today. Check out this title: Video Game Character Wondering Why Heartless God Always Chooses 'Continue'. From the Onion of course.

Thought about this poem the other day when I was AIMing Flea. I love the first part of this poem. The Second Coming W.B. Yeats....

Okay. i updated our web site to include the two webcams I set up. One in my office at one at home. Use the buttons on the left to find them...

I took a wonderful hike this weekend up the falls in Monrovia Canyon with Conrad strapped to my chest. It was his first waterfall experience. He was underwhelmed but enjoyed the canyon nonetheless. He even slept on the way back down, obviously exhausted.

I apologize for the silence. I've been less than motivated.

A couple of things today. Joe let me know the name of the author of the Easy Rawlins mysteries...Walter Mosley. And these links from Ed. Movies created using the Quake II game engine...another one And for us Danny Elfman fans...this.

Heard this work by T.S. Eliot referenced this morning on Morning Edition (NPR) by the author of the Easy Rawlins mysteries (Mosley I think). I like this kind of stuff. In Joe's words "No one does the epic poem anymore". I figure people probably do, they just can't be heard above the din.

Flea pointed me to this place online where you can order California Native Wildflowers in bulk. Cool...so if you want to plant some of the local color pick some up, or if you live somewhere else and miss California, pick some up, or you want to introduce some non-native plants where you live...pick some up. Larner Seeds

Mornin'...Jim sent me this link yesterday. I'm not exactly sure if it is a joke or not. I'll let you be the judge. But at any rate it is an interesting perspective and well I had to pass it along, because....well just read it and you'll understand. It's about Memetics. If this concept is intriguing I recommend a book by Neal Stephenson called Snowcrash that is about a thought virus.

I you have ever wondered in to your systems BIOS setup and wondered what all those options meant, here is a series of pages that do a pretty good job of explaining what they are.

Joe sent me this link of the world from space at night...I LOVE these pictures. One of my favorite things growing up was the maps in the National Geographic...

A couple of things today...an article on Salon pointed me to a couple of sites I had heard of but hadn't taken the time to go see. Unfortunately they are on semi-permanent hiatus due to financing problems. Feed and Suck. I enjoyed looking through them. Also the sister site Plastic still appears vibrant.

Kubla Kahn is one of my favorite poems by S.T. Coleridge. Thought about it today and BAM! found it on the web...enjoy...

I'll never forget the scene in Zorba the Greek when the lead says to Anthony Quinn "ZORBA! Teach me to dance". For me it goes to the root of my relationship with Adrienne. ADRIENNE! Teach me to dance (and so she does). Anthony Quinn died over the weekend.

I stumbled across the entire script to Monty Python's The Holy Grail, while looking for something completely different, which is appropriate.

ARRRGGHH...ok how many of you spent a good portion of their high school/college beach days at Huntington. I know I did...well...you know that marsh just inland? The manmade one designed to provide wildlife habitat...it turns out that it is a HUGE fecal bacteria plant that routinely pumped levels of the bacteria to 1000's of times the legal limit in the waters at Huntington Beach...so when you got that mouthful of sea-water......damn that's nasty. Here's the whole article.

Wired swept up this cool article on smart dust. Nanotech rules!

For you home automation freaks. Joe sent me this link. I wish I had more free time...

Ran across this article on CNN that pushed me to this website. If you are worried about the data collected about you while you are surfing the web. This page gives you the option of turning off the tracking of many of the major profilers. Now I don't know how effective this is and it is done by the use of cookies. I completed the form and had to go to about half the advertisers sites to complete the "OPT OUT" process on their individual sites. If you are concerned about privacy this is one step you can take to protect it. Oh, and you will ave to do this on every machine you use to surf the net.

Some other notes. Two new signs on Myrtle Avenue in downtown Monrovia. "The Coldstone Creamery" a wonderful ice cream store and the "Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf" - good for you coffee and tea people. Also at the parade last weekend I noticed several signs that said "Welcome Krispy Kreme" on the corner of Myrtle and Lime. :-) I'm not sure I like the idea of having a Krispy Kreme " this close to my house.

This is a long post from Monrovia's website... Monrovia's Samson the Bear Put Down at Orange County Zoo Samson, the hot tub-loving bear, who became famous when his life was spared after capture in a Monrovia neighborhood in 1994, has been euthanized by the Orange County Zoo where he had lived a pampered life for the past several years. Samson was old and sick when he was captured. His advanced age, six years later, led to his being put down. "Samson was a wonderful symbol of exactly why we are working so hard to save our last remaining hillside wilderness," said Monrovia Mayor Lara Blakely. "Our bears, deer, foxes and other wildlife enrich our lives, and they deserve to live here safely and fully." Monrovia is working to buy up the last few hundred acres of developable hillside land to set aside as a wilderness preserve. Its residents have taxed themselves $10 million to help make it happen. "Samson helped raise the environmental awareness of our community," Mayor Blakely continued. "It is fitting that we are now dedicating ourselves to making those hills safe and secure for other Samsons who call them home." Samson had roamed the hills above Monrovia's northernmost neighborhoods for years, and was no stranger to residents there - rummaging through their garbage cans, feasting on fruit off their trees and taking occasional dips in their swimming pools and hot tubs. Video tape of Samson in just such a tub became well-known nationally, along with the story of his capture and reprieve. Samson had done some garbage-can feasting and hot-tub dipping one evening in September, 1994, but became seriously ill after ingesting a plastic trash bag. He was trapped by the California Department of Fish and Game, but deemed un-releasable because of his age, worn-down teeth and his affinity for human habitat. He was slated for euthanasia. An all-out effort by Monrovia to save Sampson, led by Mr. and Mrs. Gary Potter who had shot the now-famous hot tub video tape, resulted in then-Governor Pete Wilson ordering that the bear's life be spared. Orange County Zoo stepped forward at that point and offered Samson a home. He moved into the zoo in 1996. For the past year, Samson's home has been featured on the zoo's internet site, with a camera trained on his habitat during daylight hours. Samson's story was carried world-wide by the BBC shortly after its national exposure. Samson the Bear dolls, tee shirts and hats have appeared in Monrovia from time to time since 1994, and a book, "Samson the Hot Tub Bear," was published by author Wendy Tokuda. Since news of his death began circulating in Monrovia, residents have called City Hall to suggest tributes to the bear - a statue in one of the city parks, for instance, or a Samson the Bear Day declaration. I personally like the idea of a statue to Samson in Monrovia Library Park

Ed sent me this info on the LA to Pasadena (and ultimately including Monrovia) Blue line.

this is a really cool flash site...warning...this will be demanding on your computer...yugop

Can anyone possibly doubt that hot and spicy cheez-its are divinely inspired?

also added some new pictures to Conrad's page if you are following his growth...

I have update the hockey stats for the Spring season....we kicked everyone's butts except in the playoffs....but you know that. Guess who the goon was?

ok so I have been neglectful lately...we'll see if i can turn it around

This is a blurb about a new movie based on a Nabakov book. I'm not sure if they are advertising it on TV (since I don't watch it). But I'm willing to see the movie just based on the experience of reading Lolita. Here is a guy who learned how to speak English as an adult (I think). Humbling...

I got this site sent to me by one of my co-workers. It's a stick figure fight scene.

Ok...this kind of scared me...apparently there are active female hormones in most sunscreens...

Ok...earth day is coming...in the act locally frame of mind...here is a link of alternatives to commercial cleaning products...

Here are a couple of sites that I don't think I've ever linked to here but are interesting: This one is one I just found that ranks corporations based on their intellectual property (determined by patents) And this one is a great site that debunks pseudo-science and...well...general wackiness

Joey Ramone is no more...lymphoma has taken a punk idol...

Here are some videos from the recent Mars launch. What is cool about these is they are taken from a camera mounted on the Delta II rocket. I could only get the Quicktime links to work. I hate real...

This toaster "prints" the weather forecast on your toast. This is exactly what I need...

...sigh...

Does the current situation with the Chinese bother anyone else? How do cold war scenarios begin? Are you feeling the jingoistic tingle? If you are see the post below... Anyway, am I just paranoid? What do you think would happen if we sold the military items to Taiwan and China invaded and took over Taiwan? AARRGGG! Do you remember air raid drills? China is a nuclear power...

As a post feminist male (what does that mean? not sure but it sounds cool), I have spent much of my life pounding "Male" characteristics like aggressiveness and competition into submission, well, this is a contrarian article that makes me feel better about my rampant checking in our hockey league...heh..."take that you sunofabitch, skate better than me? not while sitting on the concrete" wooohooo...feel the testosterone flow baby!

I updated the hockey section with the new schedule and the stats from the first 3 games.

I just added another poem to Adrienne's Stupid Poetry page. Check it out. Short but sweet.

I got this note from Jim this morning that just killed me: from my boss, John, who had a nice job in Cleveland that allowed him to own a huge mansion there. Now he lives in a regular-sized house, because this is California and prices are outrageous. "I used to wonder 'what am I going to do with my brain while I walk from the garage to my bedroom?'"

Whoa...Monrovia just got hit by rolling blackouts...damn

Now this is a cool site. recreation.gov Perfect for those of us in Southern California who are feeling summer right now.

Uh...I found this while thinking about surnames for one of Dirk's EQ characters. It's a web site dedicated to the Klingon language. It's like looking at a car crash....

Ed forwarded this link. I think the name is self explanatory: Park Wars

Okay so the other day at work I got hit with a flying pickle...the pickle was launched by a woman who went on to hit someone in the face with a stuffed bunny and bite another co-worker. Hmmm...how many people do you know that have been hit by airborne pickles. Well, you know one.... It's such a rare and delightful thing when the absurd condition is so lovingly revealed...

Happy monday everyone 8-P. If your like me and are feeling depressed over the current attacks on the separation of church and state. Check the website for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Got bunch of new things today: i got the stupid poetry section working. if you noticed my sophmoric attempts...well those are there..but adrienne finally coughed up a piece of hers. now i'm not into self deception (much) and i know i stink, but adrienne is the real thing. also put some more pictures up of conrad "the cutest kid in the universe" i only had one picture of jim from his birthday. so that's what ya get on that one. ...and we had a friend, susan, move back east. adrienne sent her a disposable camera to take some pictures. i put a couple of them up. SERIOUS snow...

Joe forwarded the link to the election results in Monrovia. You'll find it here.

I'm tired and not particularly inspired or motivated, but I promised myself: 1 Haiku a day for the the work days. Now I was rather harshly reprimanded for not following the 5-7-5 rule by a Texan friend. (They are in power now, after all) So todays uninspired piece fits within the rules: tired vision blurs the mysteries of logic remain uncertain

Okay this is my first attempt at haiku since 4 th grade. I remember there being more rules...but reading through the link below it doesn't to be the case. Or I'm missing it and i'm sure some kind soul will let me know: flicker of light from a beige plastic box forgotten clouds

I can remember doing haiku poetry in grade school. Seemed like kid stuff at the time. It doesn't much any more. Especially after I read this rather exhaustive link on types of haiku. Read on if you are inclined...

I ran across this statement today in an interview with William Gibson. I thought it was interesting enough to pass along. Oh I found it at the Cyberpunkproject web site: LM: The breakdown of distinctions- between pop culture and "serious" culture, different genres, different art forms- seems to have had a liberating effect on writers of your generation. WG: The idea that all this stuff is potentially grist for your mill has been very liberating. This process of cultural mongrelization seems to be what postmodernism is all about. The result is a generation of people (some of whom are artists) whose tastes are wildly eclectic- people who are hip to punk music and Mozart, who rent these terrible horror and SF videos from the 7-11 one night and then invite you to a mud wrestling match or a poetry reading the next. If you're a writer, the trick is to keep your eyes and ears open well enough to let all this in but also, somehow, to recognize intuitively what you should let emerge in your work, how effective something might be in a specific context. I know I don't have a sense of writing as being divided up into different compartments, and I don't separate literature from the other arts. Fiction, television, music, film- all provide material in the form of images and phrases and codes that creep into my writing in ways both deliberate and unconscious.

whoa...this kind of gave me the chills. I went to this website and downloaded the plug-in. It fits in with the AI/Avatar discussion. Another thing I saw on the ARS site.

Joe saw the link to the intelligent agents and forwarded this link to some somewhat similiar work IBM is doing.

Okay Flea sent me this. Another thing to file in your waste of time bucke. This chat client has rooms that you move your avatar through. Its kind of interesting. If you create an account in here let me know and I'll pop in and we'll chat...Hotel Habbo

Every once in a while i think back to something I read growing up that has had an influence on the I view the world today. The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus, was one of those things. A snippet: If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.

Cool software agents inventing their own language to talk to each other using software chromosomes with random mutations ala DNA. This is the stuff AI will be made of...

Joe forwarded this link to me. It's about trying to get girls involved in engineering and science fields. I'd personally rather work with women than men so let's get to it. :-)

Ok so this is a pretty cool use for Flash. It's a mini-series, and its weird. I imagine there are a huge number of little Flash gems like this in the dark alleys of the web...

Ed sent me this link to a HUGE picture of the International Space Station taken from the last shuttle mission. It is a wonderful picture. Oh and can anyone tell me what country/continent is in the background?

Ok, I innocently wandered into this post and I'm pissed all over again. Apparently there was a show on FOX that advanced the notion that the moon landings were faked. Grrrr. This is an example and re-enforcement of the reasons why Adrienne and I stopped watching television. Normally I don't care. If people want to put their heads in the sand and be ignorant then that is their problem. But the last paragraph irritated me: "The space agency has encountered other such theories since the landings took place. Why bother to respond to what most consider such hair- brained ideas? "I think it wasn't in respect to the show. It was an answer to the number of emails that we were getting as a result of the show," NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said. Many of them came from elementary school teachers, who said their students had asked them about the show's claims. " Do your friends a favor and forward them to this site. I find it very useful. I'm sitting here pondering the future of the human race. Especially given this article...

jim turned me on to a book that explains the current state of thought in physics, especially in regards to super string theory. The book The Elegant Universe, is pretty accessible and explains some REALLY weird stuff. I ran across this link today that shows an experiment designed to look for extra dimensions that string theory predicts. Weird stuff...

I was talking to Dirk today and remembered a book I read in college that I really enjoyed. It was called the Unfettered Mind, and was a book of compiled letters from a zen master to a sword master. I found it more interesting than either The Book of Five Rings or The Art of War. If you pick them up and read them, let me know what you think, or if a couple of you want to read them at the same time I would love to discuss them.

If this car comes out next year...I'll probably buy one. It's a concept car from Jeep called the Willy's. Rant. A convertible SUV that is NORMAL sized, not some environment killing Titanic. EndRant. UPDATE I found another link to at Jeep's website

I seem to read this kind of article everyday. I usually don't post anything here because...well...I don't want to be alarmist or anything.

So...how'd you sleep after that hockey game? Did you lay awake until 3:00am replaying the game in your head? Grrrrr....Another game we dominated and lost...check out the stats. Dirk and I have posted the season totals.

More Java Applet Madness...thanks Flea

Hmm...Blogger seems to be having some problems this morning... Actually the problems were mine...it's a Monday...

Some news about the MAN...old Papa himself...all I have to say is "The bulls were good that day"......I think I'm ready for a re-read of The Sun Also Rises

Dirk and I have updated the hockey stats. See where you stand...or fall