don't expect many updates, i'm trudging through re-architecting the portal database and it's taking a *very* long time. 05:10 pm

the pictures on this site are rather graphic and probably disturbing to some. don't say i didn't warn you. all i could think when i saw this was how cool that you could get it tatooed first. aside from the "gross" factor of surgery pictures, michael's story was very interesting to read. 05:08 pm

So Why Normalize? i finally found a decent info source on how to design my database properly. ugh. 02:08 pm

i fail to see how blogs4God is any of these things. but maybe the "groundbreaking" and "cutting edge" part is making me biased.

"Building on early Internet concepts of Usenet and Web Rings, this cutting edge, groundbreaking portal has exciting navigational features, optimal feedback capability and an extensive search engine. The linking system enables effortless back and forth movement through your favorite categories."

celiac disease: a hidden threat. 04:44 pm

Why So Many Intolerant To Gluten?

"Gluten intolerance is now a recognized cause of brain calcifications and epilepsy, of dementia, of psychiatric disturbances: many researchers believe that, in genetically predisposed subjects, gluten is not healthy for the brain function.

This is just too much.

Having had over 25 years of variegated experience with gluten intolerance I find hard to imagine that the single most common food intolerance to the single most diffuse staple food in our environment might provoke such a complexity of severe adverse immune-mediated reactions in any part of the human body and function."

after someone made a post on the epilepsy-l list, i started checking out Celiac disease. one of the symptoms of gluten intolerance is seizures. there's also some form of connection with celiac disease and sturge-weber syndrome. which is interesting because i have a stain under my right eye. the thing is, i don't think i had it at birth. on my birth certificate, the mark on my chest was listed. the earliest photo i could find that showed it was one from when i was four. i am probably reaching on that one tho. 04:18 pm

Ailing valley searches its soul. i'm with the last guy "Silicon Valley is an illusion. sorry". however, i'll be happy when the next bubble comes along. via dave. 10:48 am

so let's try this again. apparently the add a comment form wasn't working when i posted this the other day.

in my never-ending impossible quest, i'm trying to rework the portal categorization system. basically having a site type, poster type, category type, and then categories.
it's been obvious from the beginning that most weblogs fall in more than one category, and also that some of the categories i have don't deal with the content but the *type* (i.e. group weblogs). i'm thinking of having the following break-down:

speaking of things that can be found on the web, this very unhappy email was cc'ed to all the employees at pricewaterhousecoopers. 01:35 pm

i can't resist a weblog named pile o'smeg. which reminds me, i get lots of refferals from people doing a google search for "vomit". 01:32 pm

Poisonous 'evil' weed found on family farm. it's scary how many imports affect the u.s. environment.

"''Pangea is what we called the clump of land before it split into continents,'' Tasker said. ''The pace and frequency of international travel is turning us into another Pangea.'' "

01:02 pm

At Grocery Checkout, No Wallet Needed. i really like the idea of using fingerprints instead of credit cards. my prints are already in the govt. system so why not have the convenience and security of using them to make purchases. this kind of "invasiveness" is useful enough for both consumers and companies to use. i can't wait until it becomes mainstream. 12:54 pm

i think that part of the reason my seizures have improved is the low-carb diet. sigh. i don't want to be on low-carbs for the rest of my life. then again, i don't want to have seizures for the rest of my life either. 12:40 pm

raving lunacy. water and glow sticks are drug paraphernalia. scary. 12:37 pm

make sure you read the source code of jack's letter. 12:03 pm

well duh. if you don't want personal information available on the net, you shouldn't put it up there in the first place. i was immediately turned down for a job back in 1999 (within hours of applying via email) because of my journal entries. 11:53 am

Silicon Valley Mood Worsens. 11:19 am

Santa Cruz gets tough. it would be nice to walk downtown without getting accosted by pan-handlers. 11:15 am

that's quite a letter to pyra. via jason. 11:06 am

someone on my epilepsy mailing list asked about the lamictal rash. it causes stevens-johnson syndrome. (for some reason if i link directly to this page, it gives an error. the url is http://sjsco.tripod.com/flyer.pdf.) "burning from the inside out". rather horrible and i've heard of at least one child who died from it. her father emailed me this fda warning. i believe it was the saddest email i have ever gotten. 10:47 am

omg! i didn't something horrible and unforgiveable. this salon article: How to fix a broken economy had an add for absolut vodka where you can peel the orange skin off the bottle. i couldn't resist. 09:47 pm

Buying Trouble. i find it very disturbing that an employee thought it would be a "good idea" to give the government the grocery lists of all their customers. i'm glad i don't shop at safeway all that often. 09:44 pm

in case you've been wondering where your trusty nextdraft newsletter has been for the last week, dave explains "Bad back. Almost fixed. Back on Monday the 29th...". here's hoping he gets better soon. 09:37 pm

these ImmigrationPortal Forums give timelines on how long it took people to get their citizenship. based on some of the dates, i'd guess i won't get my interview until november. thanks jason. 05:51 pm

NHS failings blamed for deaths among epileptics. if 400 people are dying each year in the u.k., how many are dying in the u.s.? Dawn is one. thanks sanj. 11:46 am

Poor sense of rhythm could cause dyslexia. interesting. 11:41 am

The truth about babies. research has shown that babies change a marriage from one committed to equality to a traditional gender split of the workload.

"Motherhood will introduce momentous, and often unanticipated, changes to a woman's core identity. It also brings a shitload of extra work. New mothers, who will typically have performed two to six times as much housework as their male partners even before the birth, will find their unpaid workload increasing by anywhere from 50 to 90%.

The fact is, the dream of shared parenting remains just that, and the reimagination of fatherhood is just another in a series of "stalled revolutions" on the exit ramp of 20th-century life. Co-parenting is not impossible, but it is surprisingly labour intensive, in part because it means making almost everything up as you go along, at a time when both partners' creative energies are at a low ebb. For wives, caving in to tradition is an obvious case of taking the path of least resistance. For both partners, it may reflect an implicit acknowledgment that having some rules, even bad ones, may be better at times of stress than no rules at all."

11:34 am

Britain's best views index. pictures like these make me miss england. funny, cuz i have very few memories of the british countryside, just something stirs in me when i see pictures. pictures of american countrysides don't do anything for me. 11:17 am

doesn't it make sense that "cohabitation without matrimony" causes more splits? the idea being that you're testing marriage before you make the big commitment. 10:58 am

Record Sea Temperatures Threaten Great Barrier Reef 10:41 am

Woman Pregnant with Nine Fetuses. that has got to be pretty scary. i can't imagine having to push out 1 baby, let alone 9. 10:38 am

Boy's Penis Stitched Back After Donkey Bite. you've got to wonder how that happened. 10:36 am

flipping through the HOT or NOT weblogs, i'm noticing that a huge number of them look alike. lots an lots of dotted lines. 10:35 am

a nice little review of the weblog handbook. via rebecca. 10:25 am

funny how the history of the stock market repeats itself. first the south sea bubble bursting in 1720 and now the search for a scapegoat that led to the Great Depression. 10:23 am

lol, andrea points out that "it's not the size, but what you do with it, that counts." hmmm. at one time or another i've had all of those things except for a thumb ring. guess that means i'm straight. 10:13 am

everywhere i look, a new bit about weblogging shows up. via dave. 10:05 am

WorldCom article on k-logs. quite a good article. it made me wonder whether to categorize them as k-logs rather than commercial in the new portal categorization. via dave. 10:00 am

i wonder how much it will take for california to force the federal government into legalizing medical marijuna. i have a feeling that San Francisco's Marijuana Cultivation will pass. via bottom quark. 09:45 am

woot! now it's only going to cost $98k to be a space tourist instead of millions. via bottom quark. 07:00 pm

while reading A Practical Guide to Blogging (which is quite well done btw) i followed their link to bottom quark where i discovered this Women wired to remember emotions article. in the show last night, they were tracking the brain changes of a woman who started testosterone injections. after 6 months he was using 2x more areas of the brain when trying to recognize emotions from photographs. 06:52 pm

well, i did it. i left the house, got in a car and went to the store. no seizures, no auras, nothing but a normal person going grocery shopping. it was such a relief. i think despite my seizures being much better controlled, i still felt "not right". being unable to leave the house to run basic errands was a key component to my living a normal functional life. i just recovered part of that life today. 06:17 pm

Globalgasm. only john could imagine and execute something like this. 05:59 pm

a better analysis of the finger-length data. only a very small percentage of lesbians have smaller finger ratios. there are many heterosexual women with small ratios too. mine is about .87, very low on that scale. 11:08 am

more on that study. this is old news. i'd just forgotten about it. i actually linked to that article 2 years ago. 10:57 am

apparently, homosexuality is linked to finger length. now what does that say about me? 10:53 am

we watched tlc's how to build a human last night. The Secret of Sex talked about how the default embryo is female. in other words, unless testosterone gets released in the womb, the baby is a girl. clearly, the female is the more important sex. despite what males have been saying for the last few thousand years. interestingly, taking testosterone changes how a woman's brain functions. motor skills improve and verbal skills get worse. another odd thing is finger length. according to the show, mens' ring fingers are longer than their index fingers. and the longer the ring finger, the more testosterone in the womb, the better the athlete. womens' index fingers, on the other hand, are longer than their ring fingers. what disturbs me about this is that my ring fingers are longer than my index. does this mean i got some testosterone and that's why i was a tomboy when i was little? 10:49 am

sanj pointed out that the salon blogs' urls are all numbers. not very easy to remember. 10:32 am

meg, matt and pb have released Chapter 8 of their book online. i'm too tired to read it right now tho. thanks dave. 10:15 am

dave's announcement about their Deal with Salon. 10:07 am

I Remember Patty. i wish i could write like that. actually i just wish i could remember my childhood enough to even consider writing something like that. 12:00 am

well, i have to say congrats to dave for creating a custom version of radio userland and getting salon to sell it for him. banking on the salon name and "salon community" idea is probably a viable way to go. but, i still haven't gotten past the stumbling block of "people actually *buy* weblog tools?" thanks sanj 11:48 pm

ew. you can now *pay* to get your url seeded into referral logs. what i'm unsure about is why that url showed up in my logs. does there system not work and therefore their url is showing up instead of their customers. if so, am i really on the top 200,000 website list? that would be scary. then again, there's only a couple of hits, so maybe it's just one of those random log hiccups. 09:50 pm

i ran across this in my referrer logs. it's an interesting little tool. goes on your toolbar, you rate sites, and then randomly "stumble" across sites. the big downside of the system being that you *have* to select categories of interest before starting. i'd much rather get all categories then take the time to refine it later than vice versa. 09:44 pm

L'Encyclopédie du Journal du Net defines "weblog." 06:31 pm

i'm not sure what's more scary. that this exists or that i'm tempted to add mine. btw, one of the creators of hotornot has his own weblog. via dave. 06:06 pm

i'm not sure whether dave posted this teaser because he's in on it or just because he discovered it. anyhow, i find it rather scary that salon is going into the weblog hosting business. hmmm... Salon Blogs, i wonder if they're planning on trademarking that. 05:53 pm

in my never-ending impossible quest, i'm trying to rework the portal categorization system. basically having a site type, poster type, category type, and then categories. it's been obvious from the beginning that most weblogs fall in more than one category, and also that some of the categories i have don't deal with the content but the *type* (i.e. group weblogs). i'm thinking of having the following break-down:

i was planning on taking the big step of driving to the grocery store today. things have been going well for over a week as far as daytime seizures. i'm still getting them at night. but sleep seizures don't affect driving ability. unfortunately, the dogs kept me up all last night. my meds react in funny ways to things like lack of sleep or food. i was getting doublevision and had to go back to bed for an hour before i felt "normal" again. the potential shopping trip has been postponed until tomorrow. jason is extremely disappointed. 04:08 pm

the other day, i mentioned revisionist history. thinking that i was imagining it, but having no proof. steve came through. matt was discussing metafilter back in march 99. sorry matt. although, in my defense, i interpreted "started" to mean "launched" rather than "planned". 03:50 pm

10 Things You Don't Know About Women. when did guys get it into their heads that thongs were a girls best friend? like diamonds could ever be replaced by a miniscule square of cotton or silk. 05:36 pm

Stocks See Fresh Lows, Fear Grips Street. i think it's safe to say that fear grips the general public at this point. 05:30 pm

while i can understand the negatives, i actually find it comforting that the pentagon is researching nonlethal weapons. drugs and bugs, however, are rather disturbing. 05:02 pm

for anyone that is on the atkin's diet, you must get La Tortilla Factory low-carb tortillas. they only have 3g net carbs each. they taste good and you can use them to fill the place of desperately needed bread. thankfully, my local grocery store, zanotto's has them. 02:58 pm

"Blogging is the only real innovation in storytelling that I've seen in my career," says Tom Brew, executive editor of MSNBC.com. and who said weblogs weren't revolutionary? Just Another Cultural Co-Op? / Blogging hits the mainstream, for better or worse. 02:20 pm

iUpdate points out that fatcatcafe.com is transmitting the virus. 01:52 pm

Beware the random blog. i find this very disturbing. especially since i just recently put blogsnob ads on the portal. if they're causing viruses tho, i'll have to pull them. 01:47 pm

i don't know why there's so much discussion about dave and the history of weblog tools. the first time i heard about using a web browser for "writing on the web" was back in may 1999. dave wrote about his idea for Edit This Page. just because it wasn't "officially released" until after blogger, dave was talking about it, developing it and adding features. for example in june 1999, he implemented posting via bookmarks. blogthis! anyone? even *i* was talking about weblog tools for the masses before ev even considered blogger. i said about linkvision on 7/13/99: "i envision this being a weblogging tool for the masses. at least that's the direction i'm going to try and steer it in." blogger, however, was far and away a better tool. for some reason all of these kind of discussions end up debating "what is a weblog?". doesn't any realize that my definition is the only *right* one? rebecca said "her criterion was simple: that a site consisted of dated entries. since the eatonweb portal was the most complete listing available, by default her inclusive definition won the day." so there.

it's funny tho, more and more i seem to see revisionist history happening. not neccessarily intentionally, but dates seem to creep back earlier and earlier in an effort to get "cred". for example, matt states "When I started MetaFilter.com in March of 1999, I hadn't heard of scripting.com" yet the metafilter archives only go back to mid-july 1999. i know that i've even stated that i started eatonweb in january 1999, but my archives show that it wasn't actually until 2/3/99 that i made my first post. although my first journal entry which is technically a weblog was on 1/30/99. i dunno, maybe i'm just imagining it. 01:43 pm

have to congratulate michael schumacher on his fifth world championship. an amazing race. i feel very sorry for kimi raikkonen tho. especially after watching schumacher push him off the track. apparently they were checking into that pass but no action was taken. 12:00 pm

i was watching the sunday night sex show the other day. well, technically, a re-run on oxygen. anyway, sue was talking about how you can prevent menstruation altogether just by taking the pill constantly. (according to this it was an article in the april 2001 of ladies' home journal.) instead of 3 weeks on - 1 week off, you'd be 3 months on - 1 week off. however, she made sure to point out that you have to be taking monophasal (one constant dose) and not triphasal (three varying dose) pills.

aside from being intrigued by the obvious benefits, i realized that i switched the type of birth control pill i was taking some time after i started on the lamictal. i'm not sure if it was mono-phasal, but it was definitely higher estrogen. (tegretol, my previous drug, interferes with absorbtion of birth control pills and you need to take higher dosage ones while on it.) it's quite well-known that seizure frequency can be affected by female hormones. therefore, my increase in seizures may have coincided with that switch. i think it's something that is definitely worth testing. i had always assumed that it was going off the atkins diet that caused the increase, but i'm pretty sure (as sure as my memory can let me be) that all those things happened at the end of 2000. i'll call my gyn on monday and see if he'll switch my prescription. 07:01 pm

how to live forever. not only will regenerative medicine - through the use of stem cells - cure things like parkinson's disease and cancer, when combined with cellular aging research, we may just be looking at life spans of 150 yrs. i, however, would just settle for no saggy skin. but, really, what will happen when the western world is living well into their 130's? will the shorter-lived humans revolt? 06:29 pm

first off, i have to say that i'm glad i haven't been closely following all weblog-related articles over the last 18 months. otherwise i wouldn't have been able to read through we've got blog in one sitting. in fact, i would probably have ended up skimming it or just not reading it at all. thankfully, i did read it. and while i had to force myself not skim some of the overly-long articles that i'd read before, i think the book came together very well. i put it down with the feeling that i had read a nice little story about weblogs. where they started, where they've been and where they are right now. i have to commend whoever (john?) organized them, they flowed very well. i only had two problems with the book as a whole. first, in the glossary, we-blog is attributed to dave instead of peter. a poor oversight. and second, i don't think matt's building an online community: just add water actually belonged in the book at all. in fact, since the whole section on community was specifically about metafilter, i think it should have been left out. i don't see the "metafilter community" as being an example of one of the many "weblog communities" (anymore than the "slashdot community" is). matt started a group weblog that evolved into a community. how he built that community and his tips on creating your own has very little place in a book on weblogs. it belongs in a book about communities. 04:12 pm

although i probably should have, i hadn't realized that i was mentioned in both we've got blog and the weblog handbook. they just arrived and need to be read immediately. a huge thank you to john rodzvilla for sending me a copy. 11:55 am

grrr. every single amazon php script uses call-time pass-by-reference. which is deprecated. which creates an error. which i can't figure out how to fix. i *do not* want to even attempt writing a script myself. 11:40 am

FHM.com - 100 Top Games 04:08 pm

The ABCs and XYZs of Weblogs. an extremely long analysis of weblogs, although i only skimmed it, it didn't seem to be anything new. funnily, it mentioned cyberjournalist.net as a weblog blog. however, since there are no dates on the posts, it isn't truely a weblog. 12:02 pm

FAA ID Challenge. rather scary. 11:51 am

Roll Up for the Floppy Television. can't wait. 11:41 am

adam recommended think like a chef, yet another book that looks good. so many to choose from. 11:33 am

duh. is there anyone who doesn't think of stock options as whipped cream handcuffs rather than golden handcuffs? 06:43 pm

earlier this week, prompted by one of jason's co-workers mentioning that public schools suck and you can spend $16k a year for kindergarten, i started looking into when kids start kindergarten and whehter it was required by law. other than finding that school stuff is an incredible headache and promptly deciding i didn't want kids anyway, i read a lot about a study that showed that kids who start kindergarten too early can be less successful scholastically. Child's word skills, working moms linked just reminded me of it. it makes me want to stay home with my child (assuming i ever have one) until the kid goes into kindergarten. although, i probably wouldn't even send a kid to kindergarten if it wasn't for the socialization aspects. this is all viewed from the idealistic viewpoint that my kid will be highly intelligent and i will have, with my never ending patience, already taught it to read and write by the time s/he's 5. maybe i should be looking into the costs of preschool... 06:32 pm

with higher-ups in the fbi giving their "personal opinion" that bin Laden is dead, you really have to wonder how important keeping him "alive" is to the governments war funding and public support. now, if saddam was smart, he'd let it be known that bin laden was truly dead. at which point a war with iraq would be looked at (by the public) solely as a war with iraq and not as a "war on terrorism". then he could sit back and watch bush fight for funding. then again, i could be wrong in thinking that most of the country doesn't want to get in a war with iraq. 06:13 pm

to confirm it, i have an astoundingly large number of PMS Symptoms. as jason would confirm (if he wasn't smart enough to keep his mouth shut) i definitely have the irritability one. 01:51 pm

i've come to the conclusion that my body requires high carbs, lots of sugar and chocolate during pms. my carb cravings this week are much worse than all but the first 2 days of the diet last week. i've already gone over my carb limit for the last 2 days and it's taking an extreme amount of willpower not to just blow it all and eat a bowl of cereal. 01:46 pm

a few weeks ago i realized that the red marks on my skin from past acne were actually scars and not just hyperpigmentation. the only treatment for which is some kind of microdermabrasion or laser treatment. not having the money to go to pay for plastic surgery, i started looking for home remedies. because of they won best of 2001 and runner-up, i bought osmotics kinetin and ddf's resurfacing kit. they arrived monday and i immediately used the resurfacing kit. afterwards my skin definitely looked smoother. i've been using the kinetin everyday, and i'm pretty sure my skin tone is evening out. the very dark spots are still there, but large areas of my cheeks and forehead appear to have lightened. i'm hoping that time will provide better results. i'm also buying a microdermabrasion cloth. can't hurt to try it. 11:33 am

while i don't have the patience to read all of this article on Popular Science | Immortal Skin, the mention of cancer reminded me of the guy i saw at the ins office last week. the back of his neck was covered in large bulbous growths and his face was covered in smaller ones. they were dark brown/black and i'm guessing it was skin cancer. perhaps squamous cell but i haven't been able to find any pictures that have a similar look over such a large area. it was really gross and a very good reminder to wear sunscreen. 11:17 am

You're Not Getting Older, Just Your DNA. interesting. 10:47 am

speaking of cars, we're actually beginning to reduce the number of vehicles we have. we *finally* sold the truck last month. for half the price we originally wanted but after two years, it was a relief to finally get rid of it. which leaves us with 3 running vehicles (honda s2k, wagon, and alfa), 1 non-working vehicle (pantera) and a motorcycle. hopefully, we'll be able to sell the honda at the end of the month. taking a huge car payment off our monthly expenses. then, all we have left to get rid of is the motorcycle and the wagon (once the pantera is *finally* done). sigh. 10:45 am

Thin Car Travels Far. 235 miles per gallon. now that's a car i'd want to drive. 10:40 am

while it may seem a bit extreme, this gps locator watch seems to be a really good thing to buy. with all the children disappearing lately, i'd hate to know that i could have been able to track my child but didn't take the opportunity. 10:33 am

a fascinating discussion of The Science of Food by heston blumenthal. who also writes articles for the guardian. thank you john muth. 10:20 am

as jjg reminds me, rebecca has a good list of cookbook recommendations. two books that overlap with my list of potentials are how to cook everything (necessary) and the best recipe (strongly recommended). 10:00 am

amazon lists can have the most useful info. cookbooks that will make you want to cook points out that pam anderson is a former executive editor of cook's illustrated. which explains why i was having a hard time deciding between them. essentials of cooking and how to cook everything (despite its daunting size) have now been added to my list of potentials. i'm very intrigued by how to cook by delia smith. it's a british book that has been americanized and the thought of all those english recipes has me drooling. of course, if i'd wanted to make a decision, i should have started this research hours ago. as it is, i've got to go cook dinner. which i believe will be baked stuffed mushrooms (adapted to be an entree by using portabello mushrooms). i'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one. 06:28 pm

tom's statement that "[the best recipe] is hands down the best cookbook I own" sent me off on a quest for a cookbook that i need. what i really want to know is how to combine flavors. i want to be able to throw together some ingredients that will make a decent sauce. i want to taste a dish and say "this needs x" and add that flavor rather than my usual "this needs something" and throw in some salt or pepper. i am currently incapable of seeing what we have in the house and just making something. in my quest, i've come across several likely prospects: the best recipe, the perfect recipe, how to cook without a book, the professional chef. while not what i'm searching for, i'm very tempted to pick up 365 quick tips (also from the cook's illustrated folks). 06:04 pm

so, i was writing a very long post about why i restrained myself from linking to articles that are on daypop and blogdex. when i reached the part about people ranting about writing for themselves and not others i dug up the link to my own personal rant and promptly realized that i was writing something very similar. which is annoying because i wrote it almost 3 years ago.

however, i did come up with *one* new concept. "how-to" guides for weblogs reinforce this kind of behavior and instill self-doubt by implying that weblogs only deserve to exist if they are considered "good writing".

dennis mahoney writes - "One popular complaint about weblogs is that they all link to the same sites, over and over and over. Sometimes that’s true and sometimes it isn’t. But if you do find yourself linking to a Wired article that’s already been noted on ten other sites, you might consider finding something else."

brendan o'neill writes - "We don't need long rambling introductory paragraphs before finding out what you think on a subject. A good writer thinks as carefully about what he should leave out as he does about what he should put in."

the first instills a sense of being a "bad" weblogger if you link to popular articles and the second implies that we won't read you if you're not a "good writer". compare those to this one made in march 2000.

mike murry writes - "you need to hide the editor inside of yourself. write without thinking. write whatever ideas pop in your head. once you write it, leave it. only makes changes to correct grammar or spelling. don't edit your thoughts."

different types of weblogs tend to adapt this principle to a certain extent. some follow a more journalistic code of ethics. some completely ignore the "leave it" bit. but their success doesn't rely on their "unique" links or their wonderful writing, it relies on their opinions.

and once again, i have proved to myself that i hate writing posts about weblogs. and i'm having a very hard time restraining myself from hitting the delete button. now what does that say about me? 04:39 pm

a little bit of old news, fox is going to remake rocky. i have a hard time imagining anyone other than tim curry as frank-n-furter. at least with richard o'brien as a consultant, there's a slim chance of it holding true to the original. thanks rebecca. 03:24 pm

now why doesn't this inspire my confidence in the economy? 02:38 pm

this article is the first i've seen of a financial motive behind the israeli occupation of palestine. "[arafat] has made it clear that the reforms cannot proceed as long as the Israeli army stays in the Palestinian cities and until the Israeli government transfers at least some of the $500m owed to the Palestinians in tax duties." 02:32 pm

one of the hardest things about the atkins diet is the lack of fast/convenient foods. it forces you to cook. many of the things you cook just don't taste right, probably because you're using fake flour and fake sugar. but, if you're desperate for pseudo-bread or pseudo-muffins, they become quite good. on the other hand, there are some very good low-carb recipes. monday, i made Thai Coconut-Ginger Shrimp. it was very good. 01:14 pm

today's Ben Brown Show has ben talking about the atkins diet he is on. watching it i realized several things: ben looked different than i remember (then again it has been 2.5 years since i saw him), he's now married (and has been for 8 months) and he's older than me (for some reason i thought he was 10 years younger than me). this just proves how disconnected i am. via dave. 12:59 pm

The watchdog didn't bark. i'm beginning to think that i just don't want to know about the corrupt business practices of this country's leaders. 11:58 am

Man arrested for burning kitten on grill. i really don't know how people can be such sick bastards. 11:51 am

there's something i really like about The Stomp Log design. i'm not sure whether it's the background image or the photos or just that it falls together in a pleasant way. 10:55 am

if, for some reason, you found my whole epilepsy surgery thing interesting, The Face of Epilepsy is telling the story of another person preparing for surgery. 10:43 am

last night i ordered this shinkansen sharpener for my for my global knives. they were in desperate need of sharpening. in case you haven't heard of or tried global, they're one of the best knives you can buy. extremely sharp. my mother-in-law said she'd never been able to cut a chicken breast so easily unless it was mostly frozen. 09:34 am

the trouble with going on a low-carb diet (other than the obvious lack of yummy foods) is that all those things you bought before the diet are of very little use. for example, i have boxes of corn pops and crunch berries languishing in the cupboard begging to be eaten. or the huge new bread-making cookbook that i received yesterday that i won't be using. sigh. 10:05 am

hmmm. i know it sucks to have nothing to do all day, but if that were me, i'd just buy a laptop and do stuff on the web all day. 11:44 am

hmmm, perhaps i should have done more research. since everyone else has already complained about brendan o'neill's post. 11:35 am

lol. it seems like every few months someone feels the need to give tips for better blogging. it would save them a lot of time and effort if they just linked to previous pontifications. (and yes, i'm too lazy to look them all up.) the fact is that people either know how to write well or don't. the point of most weblogs is the expression of opinions in your own voice. if that voice is long-winded, poorly thought out, inaccurate, or boring, then it may not be worth reading. then again, those things are completely subjective, and valuable treasures can be buried in those posts. now i'm wondering why i had to read your long-winded, boring, "too clever", unresearched post? 11:27 am

dave reviews rebecca's books. i hadn't realized he disagreed so much with her. 11:06 am

i can't help but wonder if people actually taste good. 10:51 am

a gorgeous crop circle. via jish. 10:46 am

Multiplayer Online Games Directory. haven't seen this one before. 05:51 pm

thinking about andrea. get better soon :( 11:18 am

A Tale in the Desert looks like it could be a really interesting game *or* incredibly boring. hopefully, i'll be able to get on the beta and check it out. 03:04 pm

Showdown in cyberspace: Star Wars vs. The Sims. a quite interesting article on the plethora of mmorpgs coming out in the next year. 02:21 pm

"Bush was elected on a promise to end the contradiction between presidential rhetoric and presidential rationalization. So far, all he's done is change the subject from sex to money." sigh. 11:11 am

i'm very nervous about the civics test. i mean, it's been 15 years since high school history lessons. at least there's an online test to practice on. 11:04 pm

i got fingerprinted today. for some reason, i had assumed that it would be done with ink on paper. instead, ins has a high-tech scanning machine that makes sure good prints are taken which are then double-checked by a manager. now my lucky fingerprints are being sent to the fbi. presumably to go into their fingerprint database. 10:26 pm

a pretty accurate description, i'd say. 09:45 am

i'd forgotten about the sealand data haven. 10:32 pm

a scary and interesting article from the perspective of an artist rather than the music industry. 10:30 pm

grosser. 09:50 pm

gross. 09:32 pm

i forgot to mention yesterday, transunion lets you fix your credit report online. it's very easy to do. unfortunately, experian and equifax make it so difficult that i'm mailing it to them. 10:20 am

i'm not sure whether i just don't want to believe that video games decrease brain activity or whether it really is rather unlikely. 10:06 am

UT psychology professor studies women's proportions. the "ideal" figure, proportion wise, is universal. no matter how much you weigh, .7 is the ideal. 09:39 pm

phew, i wasn't imagining it. "today's average 8 is actually larger than the average size 10 from 15 years ago. That's called vanity sizing, and textiles expert Lenda Jo Connell said it's getting worse." apparently, the clothing industry is trying to give us a better fit. 09:23 pm

searching for the "ideal" proportions (.67 - .7 waist/hip ratio btw), i came across this wardrobe strategy guide which describes 4 body types - pear, inverted pear, rectangle and hour-glass. i'd only ever heard of two, pear and apple. sadly, i'm a rectangle. 09:20 pm

The Universal Currency Converter. for those times when your husband asks you how much an australian dollar is worth and is too lazy to look it up himself. 09:08 pm

since i couldn't find my atkins' diet book, i needed to dig up how many carbs/day you can eat in the first phase. the atkins' site now has a handy dandy "My Atkins". no more writing down carb counts. 08:50 pm

i'm finally sitting down and trying to fix our credit report. even tho we have good credit, there's a huge amount of incorrect info, especially closed accounts that are listed as open and items that are more than 7 years old still being listed. ugh. Can I really fix my credit? gives a good strategy and sample letters. too bad they don't give the addresses. 01:12 pm

why do i have the feeling that Bush's Seeks Stiff Corporate Penalties will only affect individuals and small businesses while completely ignoring large corporations. how much is lengthening the mail and wire fraud sentence going to affect enron execs and directors and inside traders? 09:41 am

i hate forgetting to link to something and then spending 15 minutes trying to find the page again. well duh. wasn't that why i started a weblog in the first place? Warcraftstrategy.com has walkthroughs for the single-player campaigns. and yes, i suck at warcraft. 10:39 pm

Whorechalking. much more useful. 07:57 pm

Company builds game plan to help blind.

[Tim] Keenan, whose blindness started them on their quest, took on the other game designers, all old hands at Quake. ''Tim,'' said Spitzer with a laugh, ''just slaughtered them.''

07:33 pm

The Truth Laid Bear. while i applaud the concept, the result is rather lacking. 175 weblogs is an incredibly small percentage of those out there. this list was narrowly selected. "mostly, I stole from Instapundit and Vodkapundit's lists, since they are pretty comprehensive, especially when taken together". the addition of weblogs to the list is manual. *shudder* (that won't last long). basically, all you've got is a "a-list" of instapundit and vodkapundit's blogroll. anyone remember beebo... 12:00 pm

When Patriotism Wasn't Religious. this is what i wanted to read. 11:54 am

Bin Laden no longer exists: Here is why. i've been wondering about this for a while now. 10:51 am

Pakistan tribal court sentences girl to gang-rape. rather horrific. via brain damgage. 10:36 am

English and Welsh are races apart. interesting. 10:30 am

Today's fruits, vegetables lack yesterday's nutrition . it appears to be a food type of day. 10:21 am

What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? after losing 50 lbs on the atkin's diet (and only regaining 5-10), i decided that it wasn't necessarily the low-carbs but the low calories. what i was forgetting was the appetite surpressing aspect of the atkin's diet. which probably explains why i haven't been able to lose the last 15-20 lbs. i'm glad to see that the media and the medical establishment are finally realizing that a low-fat/high-carb diet doesn't help you lose weight and keep it off. the success stories i read from people who succeed on this type of diet are ones where the people become exercise freaks. marathon runners, run everyday, lift weights, do aerobics 10 times a week. as for me, i'm going back on the diet in order to lose that last 15 lbs. i'll miss all those carbs tho :( 10:05 am

WarCraft III arrived on wednesday. i'm enjoying the single player storyline very much. i also finished nwn on monday. i doubt i'll play single player again. although multi might be interesting with a few friends and a unique storyline. 08:59 am

i've decided that i hate july 4th. our dogs freak out from the fireworks. crazy barking everytime one goes off. that wouldn't be so bad if it was only for a few hours. but no, people need to shoot them off at 1 am. nothing like trying to go to sleep only to hear a firecracker go off followed by a dog freaking out near your ears. 08:57 am

every time i go looking for new skin care products i end up at Heather Kleinman's Cosmetic Connection. it really has the type of reviews that i want. now i might remember where it is next time. 10:18 pm