Since I'm on vacation for the week, you might think that I'd be off somewhere--maybe camping or hiking. Or maybe having a barbecue down at the beach. But you'd be wrong, because: 1.) The extreme forest fire hazard means all wilderness areas are closed, and 2.) I'm just ludicrously lazy. So what that means is that Day Two of my nine work-free days was almost entirely free of anything productive.

Almost, except for the thousand words I added to the story. I just emerged from a difficult bit in which our hero and heroine finally get a chance to talk, and motives are suddenly not as pure as one had previously thought. Ooooh. And then an old man shows up. Do I know how to build excitement, or what? Maybe I shouldn't offer that second choice there.

That was my morning. And for the rest of the day, I wandered the city aimlessly. If you ever find yourself in Steveston, visit George's. It's a little Greek café with something on the menu that resembles Greek poutine: fries with a Greek salad on it, and plenty of olive oil. I had a variation of it that included some kind of meat. Chicken, I think. It was hearty enough that I won't need to eat for at least a week now.

It's been Insanity Week for me, so a day without deadlines or committments was a welcome relief. It's 9:30. Time to...uh...time to do more nothing. I want to see how much nothing I can fit into one day.

Warning: if you're not a computer geek and you have no interest in computer gadgets, reading this blog entry will cause your brain to dissolve into a liquid, leak out your ears, and stain your shirt.

Because I'm upgrading from a desktop to a notebook shortly, I found myself with an ickle problem: what to do with my 60GB hard drive? It's nearly full of vids, music, and photos. I couldn't possibly squeeze all of that and the 20 gigs on my primary drive into my notebook. Well here's the answer...

This brilliant little gadget is a drive kit for mounting a hard drive or CD-ROM drive externally. You can mount pretty much any IDE drive inside the box, which plugs into a USB 2 port. For Macophiles, it also comes in a Firewire version.

With a transfer rate "up to" 480 megabits per second with USB 2 and significantly less than that with USB 1.5, it's slower than an internal drive. Notebooks, however, don't give you the option of mounting extra drives internally, so this is a nice solution. And it comes in a purty two-colour box.

So now my media has a new home, and if/when I get another hard drive, I can use one of those removable drive trays in it to swap out the drives as needed. Nifty.

An article on Canada.com reports that the Greater Vancouver regional district has only 42 days of water left. A hot summer with little rain has dried up the reservoirs, and water restrictions are in effect.

Oddly though, golf courses and car washes, among other businesses, are exempt from the restrictions. City council will analyze the weekend's water usage sometime next week and decide whether having green golf courses is more important than having enough water to drink.

I think extreme restrictions should have been imposed on everyone early in the summer, as soon as the reservoir level dropped to fifty percent.

But I shouldn't second-guess the wisdom of city council--they really know the business of running a city. And the mayor has a pretty good swing, I hear.

Link: Canada.com: Water bans eyed for business outlets

As a technical writer, I always appreciate a concise and well-written set of instructions.

Click to show full image.

In this example from Darren Barefoot's "Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness", the warning is clear:

WARNING
1.With appertain rotor of screw setting pre ceiling on the under standing that serew no wield. May wield two-faced, pressboard securing. wield pre to begin with wiping ceiling of bilge dasto.

Ah, this is the standard of excellence in documentation to which we should all appertain!

(Thanks, William K., for this link.)

Just when people started to think that Canadians might be cool, Ottawa implemented a new policy that prohibits smiles and other expressions in passport photos. A photo with any expression will be rejected by the passport office.

"The International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, has released a recommendation regarding a new specification for photos in passports," explained Suzanne Meunier, spokeswoman for the Canadian Passport Office. "What they say is that the facial expression should be neutral ... no smiling, no laughing, no frowning -- no expressions, basically." * 

This will make it much easier for customs officers to identify someone from a photo. People will look as grumpy in the photo as they do in the customs lineup.

Link: Canada.com: Don't dare smile on your passport photo

I see Cubey's underpants! (tee hee hee)



I swore I'd never do this, but I couldn't help it. How can I resist the opportunity to get Cubicle Dweller undies? It's just too weird.

Link: Cafeshops.com: Cubicle Dweller

Regardless of how little sleep you've had, don't ask your co-workers what year it is. They'll just give you a strange look and back away a step.

Warning: don't read this if you have a weak stomach.

Here's a story that makes me want to stop eating completely. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency reports on sometimes-bizarre health violations.

- Nature's Oven Foods Ltd., a Kelowna bakery, was fined $10,000 after pleading guilty on June 12, 2002, to preparing food for sale under unsanitary conditions. An investigation of a consumer complaint of a rodent embryo inside the wrapper of a loaf of bread found rodent droppings and insects in the area where baked goods were being prepared.

- Lilydale Co-operative Ltd. was fined $2,500 on May 28, 2002, in Abbotsford for handling 284 turkeys at the slaughterhouse in a way that caused them avoidable distress and pain -- immersing them into a scalding tank while conscious. * 

These are only some of the violations that have been caught. How many elude the inspection process?

(shudder)

Link: Canada.com: Gruesome findings in food probes

If anyone is watching The Two Towers on video tonight, you may consider replacing the popcorn with lembas--or "waybread".

3 eggs
1 cup honey (preferably wild honey)
1 tablespoon grated orange peel or three kumquats or one large finger of a hand of Buddha.
2 teaspoons orange flower water (optional)
3 oz blanched almonds
1/4 cup melted butter
2-1/4 cups semolina flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Place eggs, honey, orange peel or other fruit, orange flower water, and almonds in blender. Blend on high for 3 minutes. Add 1 cup of the flour. Blend for 1 minute. Scrape into a bowl and add remaining flour and salt. Whisk or stir until well blended. Bake lembas on a pizzelle or krumkake iron 15 seconds each or until lightly brown. You may substitute a waffle iron but add a teaspoon of baking powder. The texture will not be quite accurate in a waffle iron. * 

Alternatively, you could simply munch on fishessss.

Kirk Murkburger, a used car salesman in Des Moines, Washington, leads a quiet life of contemplation and rusty Hondas, until a spacecraft lands on his roof. The pilot, Princess Weenie of the Purple Slime Dimension, enlists him as her Hero and they set out on a quest to win back her claim to the throne of Barflesnack.

In a pitched space battle, Kirk is reduced to a shapeless blob of jelly and taken prisoner by the Nefarious Rog of Quarnon, the evil leader of the Barnacle Army, which inhabits the underside of a rock on a beach outside the Barflesnack palace. Kirk pretends to be an expert on the intricacies of interdimensional time-space travel and sells the Nefarious Rog a '91 Honda Civic in exchange for his freedom and a fresh Mason jar.

Once free, Kirk defeats Rog in a battle of logic and marries Princess Weenie. They live a long and happy life and together raise several little jars of raspberry jelly.

In a survey conducted by Leger Marketing, 59 percent felt that they were either very or somewhat satisfied with the education system in their province.

Unfortunately, 41 percent didn't understand the question.

I recently discovered that I haven't been receiving e-mail at my "cubicledweller.ca" or "cavers.ca" addresses. Messages are vanishing into the cyber-void. If you have e-mailed me in the last day or so, and I haven't responded, there's a very good chance that I didn't get your message.

I fixed the cavers.ca problem, but cubicledweller.ca e-mail is still down.

So... if I didn't reply yet, please resend your messages to: steve(at)cavers.ca. (replace the "(at)" with an "@", of course).

Wow. I get really anxious when I think of missing e-mail messages.

Update: I just got a message from the administrator. Another user posted a buggy e-mail script on his website and it went into an infinite loop. The script managed to generate 400,000 e-mails to a single address before they could shut down the mail server. By tonight, I should have access to cubicledweller.ca mail again. Whew!

When Brian Robertson was 18, he wrote a story--a fictional account of an armed invasion of his school. He was charged with a felony and could spend up to ten years in jail, if convicted.

After searching Robertson's car and his parents' home, authorities found no weapons, traces of explosive material or any other evidence that the teen was planning to attack his school.

But authorities said the story Robertson wrote was sufficient to charge him under an Oklahoma state statute, which was passed in the wake of school shootings across the country in the last few years. * 

Well, maybe it's for the best. We certainly don't want children to waste their time writing fiction anyway. All kids who write "dark" fiction should be rounded up and charged with sedition. It would solve the problem of over-crowding in schools. This is a step in the right direction, in my opinion.

Link: Wired.com: "Write a Story, Go to Jail"

Only a few days left until The Two Towers is released on video. I won't buy it, of course--I'll wait until the extended version comes out later this year. Until then, I'll watch the original edit for the second, third, and possibly tenth time.

Anyone up for a Two Towers vid party?

Link: www.thetwotowers.com.

Today, I bring you Part Two in the epic cubicle drama that I call "lunch".

In the end, I couldn't decide if I wanted maki or negiri sushi, so I bought the sushi combo. It's got bits of all kinds of raw fish in it.

I think I'll start with the tuna. Mmm. Cold, soft, and squishy. Just the way I like it. This always reminds me of those scenes in The Two Towers in which Gollum eats the whole raw fish. Yummy fishessss.

Cucumber maki? I really don't see the point of cucumber maki. If I wanted vegetables, I'd go to a salad bar.

And now, some salmon. I'll just put some wasabi on this one.

Mmm. Salmo--

Aaaaa!! Wasabi...stings... hot!! Sinuses... burning!!! Eyes... watering!!! Must drink miso--

AAAAA!!! Scalding miso!! Tongue burnt!!! Cool it with slice of mackerel!!

AAAAAAAAAA!!! Chopsticks slipped!! Mackerel up nose!!!

Wasabi-sneeze coming on... aaaaaa....;laksjf edl;e;oi 99e7fpo9uq2 ;

Nooo!! The mackerel exploded from my nose at high speed and splattered all over my keyboard.

Here comes the manager. Must act normal. I think I'll just bring this lunch to a close.

Blogs, as we know, are an excellent forum for exchanging important ideas and sharing experiences with the world at large. In that spirit, I bring you Part One of a ground-breaking series that I call "Lunch with Cubey", in which I share the experience of eating a cubicle-dweller's lunch.

Today, lunch is a salad from the Robson Public Market. I'll take off the cover now. It's kind of goopy with ranch dressing. Now I'm picking up the plastic fork.

I'm starting with a celery stick. Mmm. Plastic forks never seem to be strong enough to really stab into a celery stick. Carrots too. Crunch crunch crunch crunch.

A few of croutons. Did you know that the word crouton comes from the French word, croûton? It's true. It's also crunchy.

Now I'm eating a salad olive. Mmm. Tangy.

Cucumber slices. Cherry tomatoes. Those ones are always risky--there's a chance that it might explode when you bite it. This one didn't, fortunately.

Feta cheese. Can't have a good salad without it. More feta.

Broccoli now. I think I'll name this piece Albert.

The chunks of green pepper liven up the salad a bit.

Green lettuce now. I dislike iceberg lettuce because it's flavourless.

More lettuce.

More lettuce.

More lettuce.

Lettuce still...

I think I put too much lettuce in this one.

Oh, no. Under a layer of green pepper, I discovered another layer of lettuce! I thought the lettuce was over. I can't seem to get to the end of this stuff.

I need a break. There are splatters of ranch dressing all over my keyboard, and the some bits of the chopped green onion have escaped and lodged themselves in the CD-ROM drive.

Disaster strikes! As I reached for a sip of carrot juice, I knocked over the salad container. The horror! The horror!

My only recourse is to abandon my desk and move to the meeting table, carrying a handful of dripping leaves. I'll attempt that now.

In my haste, I slipped on a cucumber slice. Now there's carrot juice all over the floor. Cordon off the area!

Next time on "Lunch with Cubey": the take-out sushi combo dilemma... maki or nigiri? Will the drama never end?

In a frenzy of fiscal foolishness, I put in an order for my new baby. Here she is: Dell Inspiron 1100. Isn't she cute?

After it arrives, you'll find me blogging at the beach or in some trendy café. The downside is that I have to live on Mr. Noodles for a while.

I have to admit, it's going to be hard to let go of my current desktop. It's been my trusty workhorse for two and a half years. I can't believe that I can get sentimental over a box of circuits and buggy software, but hey... I'm a cubicle-dwelling geek. When I think of the computers that I've had over the years... [insert wobbly flash-back transition]

The first computer that I bought was a 386DX. It had 40 MHz of pure power. Okay, it's not impressive now, but it was a perfectly adequate computer back then. Painted the case black and even bought a (oooh) CD-ROM drive. Very leading-edge. Sold it to a friend.

Then I bought a 486DX 66. Where did that one go? Oh yes, my brother bought that one.

Then there was the P133. It died a gruesome death at my hands, unfortunately. It was an accident, I swear.

Then there was my Pentium notebook. That one's still limping along.

Then my P3 desktop.

[flashback ends]

Okay, that's enough of that. I can only hope that my P3 has a good life with its new owners. *Sniff*.

Gus McFlatulence-Davis is a rich kid who thinks he has everything. When he isn't buying and selling drugs to small, furry mammals, he's playing the zither as the token human in an all-platypus polka band, named "Gus and the All-platypus Polka Band".

Fate hits him with a cold crème-brulée-in-the-crotch when he falls into a trans-dimensional rift inside a Starbucks men's room. He wakes up in the Trellian Valley--formerly home of Narwin, the Golden Rhinosceros. As you'll remember from the prequel, Narwin was crushed by the Standing Stones of Aelia. The spirit of Pip, the exploded pelican, has returned to send Gus on a journey to find the Lever of Archimedes, with which Pip plans to lift the standing stones off Narwin.

After a wacky adventure involving a shipment of illegal anchovies stored in a balloon in Gus' nether regions, Gus returns with the Lever of Archimedes, but in a tragic miscalculation, they accidentally move the world out of its orbit and they all die a fiery death as they crash into the sun. In a final twist of irony, it turns out that Narwin had faked his own death and has been working at the Starbucks, safely on the other side of the dimensional rift the entire time!

Fans of science-fiction writing and specifically Robert Heinlein may find this link interesting. It's a critical analysis of the works of Robert Heinlein, entitled Heinlein in Dimension, by Axelei Panshin.

There's something in the air today. It's a hint at that change in the weather that signals the end of the hot, dry weather, and the beginning of the warm, but wet September (as JenB points out, this is only normal in Vancouver). Yes, it's a little early to feel it fully, but there's just enough of it floating on the air that it reminds me of fall. Even now, at the beginning of August, I see leaves that show signs that they're about to turn.

Those leaves. You can't trust them. Eventually, they'll turn on you.

It's the scent on the air, the leaves, and maybe the angle of the sun that reminds me of preparing to go back to school. I really miss that. The excitement of signing up for a full load of new courses, finding the textbooks at the bookstore, and panicking because there's not enough money to cover tuition and food until the student loan comes in.

It reminds me of walks across campus to find the building and my classroom for the first time. And wondering if I should eat at the cafeteria or wait until I get home in the afternoon. And preparing for the auditions for classes and plays. And buying piles of instant noodles to live on. And choosing a new travel coffee mug. And waiting in endless lineups at the registrar's office when they inevitably screw up my entire registration.

I miss it all. Maybe I'll abandon my career and go back to school. That would be fun, in a sick, overworked, undernourished way. I'm really tempted to do just that when the weather hints at turning into September like it is today.

Japan's largest maker of toilets, Toto, combines the porcelain throne with computer intelligence for an "every-four-hour fiesta for your naughty bits":

So there I am, sitting on this sleek-looking loo, idly punching the buttons on this little panel next to the toilet, and all of a sudden my bum is right smack in the middle of the perfect storm.  * 

If computer-controlled toilets become popular here in North America, will we have to worry when our toilet crashes? Will we have to back it up daily?

Link: Wired.com: Luxury Loo: The Seat Also Rises

Interesting blog entry with a touch of sarcastic humour.

I tried to watch Star Wars when it was on tv yesterday, but I couldn't do it. Two reasons:

1. It was the "special edition", which means Lucasarts messed with it digitally, and
2. It was pan-and-scan, rather than widescreen, which irritates me to no end.

When George Lucas and his digital wizards churned out the special edition, they inserted all kinds of unnecessary scenes and made changes that actually ruined scenes. For example, remember that scene in the saloon, where Han shoots Greedo, the bounty hunter? In the special edition, Greedo shoots first, but inexplicably misses Han's head by a foot. That completely ruins Han's introduction as a morally dubious smuggler. Over the course of the original three movies, his character develops into someone almost respectable ("General Solo"). That's a good story. But Lucas had to bugger it up.

The CG animals and droids in the Mos Eisley scenes do nothing but upstage the action in the foreground. Why is it necessary to have a snorting, mooing lizard in the background when the storm trooper pops up from the bottom of the frame to say, "Look sir, Droids"?

As for pan-and-scan, it should be abolished. If the cinematographer composes an image for a wide screen, it ruins the movie to show only half of the composition.

I've read recently (I can't remember where) that Lucas will never release the original Star Wars edit on DVD. All I have to say to that is Harrumph. Somebody smack that guy over the head. Once for the three "special edition" edits of the original trilogy, and twice more for inflicting Jar-Jar on us and ruining the mystique of the Force by introducing these midi-chlorien creatures (however you spell it).

Oh well. At least Princess Leia is easy on the eyes, as they say.

When I recieved this brochure for a tourist attraction at Stave Lake, BC, with my power bill, I did the usual thing with it, which was to ignore it. When I looked at it again, something bothered me that I couldn't put my finger on.

And then it hit me. There it was on the map of BC's lower mainland. Actually, there it wasn't, because the thing that I couldn't put my finger on was the City of Richmond, which was completely absent from the map.

To clarify, I don't mean that the map omits a little dot or a label or something. Richmond is located on a very large island at the mouth of the Fraser River (it's named Lulu Island for some reason, but nobody calls it that, because of the embarrassment it causes). It's really hard to miss, especially if you've ever tried to travel south from Vancouver. On BC Hydro's map, however, there's only a big, blue empty space south of Vancouver.

This made me wonder... is there some plan afoot to remove Richmond? Has Premier Gordon Campbell in a fit of public-private-partnership madness sold Richmond to a private developer, who will tow it to a more exotic location?

The other alternative is that Richmond is simply a figment of my imagination, and I didn't actually spend a large part of my childhood living there. No, Richmond has a website. None of my other figments have websites, unless I've imagined all of you. Hmm.

Anyway, I want answers from BC Hydro. Why is a city of 165,000 people missing? Who drew that map, who paid for it, and what's their agenda?

I'm betting that it's the same people who misplaced Prince Edward Island in the Fodor's travel guide.

In an attempt to correct a nasty problem, today I removed about a thousand words from my story, then replaced it with almost two thousand more to bring me to a total of 11,200. Our heroine now enters the story on an oxcart rather than in an endless, vomitous spew of exposition. Every story should have an oxcart. They're so useful.

Some people will tell me I'm nuts, but I'm thrilled to see that it's raining again. It's such a relief after weeks of relentless heat.

Go rain. Woo.

"Boredom made me do it," is my excuse for the two sci-fi DVDs that I rented last night.

Solaris (2002) - George Cloony, Natascha McElhone

If you enjoy action-packed space adventure, don't see this movie. Solaris is suspenseful, thought-provoking, and beautifully-filmed. However, I would have enjoyed it more had I not been made to look at Cloony's bare butt. Natascha McElhone did her usual beguiling-smile-acting, but no buttage from her. For the surprise ending where the aardvark leaps out of Cloony's stomach, I give it seven cubicles out of ten.

Stranded (2003) - Vincent Gallo

This action-less Spanish movie about NASA astronauts on Mars reminded me why I hate watching badly-dubbed movies. The DVD had the original Spanish audio track, but didn't have English subtitles. The acting was terrible, the dubbing was worse, and the casting choices baffled me. The woman who played the mission's captain could barely walk in a space suit, let alone act. I give it one cubicle out of ten.

It's the toughest decision he's made, Schwarzenegger says, since he had a bikini wax in 1978. Yes, that's exactly the kind of experience they need to govern California.

I suppose in all fairness, I should mention his other qualifications: he can ride a Harley, kneecap police officers with a shotgun, and remove his own eyeball with pocket knife.
His opponents should note that they can only stop him by crushing him in an industrial press or by bathing him in acid.

Or was that just a role he played?

Anyway, it's good to see Arnold so clearly taking a much-needed break from promoting his latest movie.

Link: CBC News: Schwarzenegger will run for governor of California

In an article posted on Wired.com, Xeni Jardin explores the initial fan reaction to the miniseries remake of Battlestar Galactica. Fans are aghast that producers are changing some basic elements of the show. Starbuck, for example, is now a woman. Thankfully, she won't be played by Dirk Benedict this time.

We considered seriously how space travel might happen. In outer space, objects in motion remain in motion. You can't bank against a gravitational pull. There's a sense of organized chaos, you have to turn your craft around and fire jets in the opposite direction to slow down -- just like the old games. When we were developing the show, I ran around telling everyone, 'Remember Asteroids! Remember Asteroids!'
- David Eick, co-executive producer

This kind of approach to science fiction is long overdue. Too many science-fiction shows have completely abandoned the "science" part in favour of cheesy space-opera, like Voyager, Andromeda, and (apologies to fans) Farscape. Any attempt to portray adventure in space that respects at least a few more laws of physics than the current batch of schmaltzy TV crap is more than welcome.

(Oh, and before the Farscape fans lynch me, I really enjoy the show too — more than Star Trek even, which is quite a revelation for me. It's a great show, but you have to admit... it hardly qualifies as science-fiction.)

Link: Wired News: Fans Battle TV Over Galactica

A lot has been said lately on the writing process. I thought that it might be helpful to compare notes on how we approach a daily writing session.

As my current project obsession is a foolhardy attempt to write a novel, I take extra care to stick to a regular routine in my sessions. I begin at the crack of dawn when I make a pot of coffee. This has to be done in a very exacting procedure that involves whole Colombian beans, a used sock, a ball-pein hammer, and a pot of boiling water. It takes a little extra effort, but the resulting cup is a rich, full-bodied poly-cotton blend.

When the coffee is ready, I sacrifice the goat. The sacrifice is entirely non-religious in nature — it's just that, to me, there's nothing more refreshing than a cup of fresh goat's blood before a day's writing. Because I'm a creature of habit, I have to pay close attention to detail: always use the same mug each day, and the goat's blood must never mix with the coffee.

With two steaming mugs set each on their own cork pad, I sit facing the computer monitor. I often sit like this for at least an hour or so before I continue.

When I'm finished staring, I begin to sing show tunes in a falsetto voice. There's nothing like a rousing rendition of Cabaret to start one's creative juices flowing all over the place. I start simply, with "Willkommen", and move on to "The Telephone Dance". Neighbours across the street are often distracted by the sight of me bobbing my head merrily as I shout, "'Table seven calling number nine, how are you handsome?', 'You mean me?'", et cetera. By the time I finish "The Pineapple Song", I'm ready to begin.

Then I empty the mug of goat's blood over my head and turn on the computer. Shortly thereafter, I begin to type. In general, nouns seem to come to me more easily than verbs, and I eschew adverbs entirely. As for adjectives, they're acceptable only if they contain several silent consonants and don't distract me from the nouns.

At the end of a session, I have a great big list of words, which I then rearrange into sentences. Oddly, the plot always seems to revolve around water buffalo, but I have no recollection of typing those words.

And that's how I like to write. How about you?

By yesterday afteroon, I reached 8,500 words in my story. I had wanted to hit that ten thousand mark just for the psychological significance, but I had to stop.

I need to go back and re-read chapter one to make sure that I haven't completely missed the point of a novel, which is to be entertaining. So far, the two characters that I've introduced have had some nifty discussions about life, the universe, and everything, but very little has actually happened. Isn't the first chapter supposed to be so riveting that the reader can't put the book down? I hope the reader likes conversation.

Also, someone pointed out a huge flaw in the basic premise of the story, so I may have to put this aside and think about it for a week or two (or three or four).

How do you know if the company that you work for is making evil software? Here's the on-screen help that I got for the command-line parameters:

	-D       Become a daemon (default)

	-i       Run interactive (not a daemon)

Well at least they give you the option of not becoming a demon.

For clarity, I like to add diagrams to the guides that I write. Here's my concept for this one:



Hold on. The command-line help says "daemon", not "demon". Never mind, then.

A "daemon" is a server process, apparently. I guess this means that my company doesn't necessarily serve the powers of evil after all. That's a relief, because I kind of like it here.

In case I haven't mentioned it before, I have a vast respect for professional novelists. My respect is even vaster (and crunchier!) now.

A concerted effort both yesterday morning and today has found me only a few thousand words richer. I've waded through some painfully tedious exposition that I know I'll have to rewrite or remove later, and now our hero has spent some quality time berating a computer. Maybe that last part is simply me projecting my frustrations into the story.

Anyway, looking at the nuts-and-bolts side of things, my story's word count has climbed to a modest 7,400 words. And now I'm pooped. Time to go outside and play.

Ee i ee i oh! (As I typed the the title for this entry, it occurred to me that it could be sung to the tune of "Old MacDonald".)

Yes, it's true. William Shatner is blogging at www.williamshatner.com. I only wish he'd start his entries with "Captain's blog, stardate...", and continue on to talk about blobby alien things attacking the ship and so on.

If the captain's bloggings aren't enough to entice you to his website, then I should mention that you can also purchase Shatner-related merchandise, like Bill "bobbleheads" or DVDs of various things that you've never heard of. There are also links to other Shatner-related sites, including a quite prominent link to BringBackKirk.com.

You know I'm bored when I start taking pictures of my boots.

This one turned out quite grainy, but I kind of like it anyway.

What's green and yellow, has six legs, and waits for you outside your door?



I don't know, but it watched me carefully as I locked the door only an inch or two from its head. I think I'll name it Mr. Leggy.