This is a reminder to RSS fanatics out there that CubicleDweller.ca has an RSS feed. Actually, I've always had one -- it's just that I didn't advertise it very well.

If you have no idea what RSS is, then you probably don't give a fetid dingo's kidney about my feed or anyone else's. In that case, please ignore this post and continue with your regularly-scheduled blog-surfing.

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When I tell people that I subscribe to the metaverse, Second Life, I get a lot of blank looks. And when I try to describe Second Life, they think it's either a role-playing game or another The Sims Online. The most unusual response was from a friend who thought it was some kind of kinky sex-chat program. (sigh)

If you've read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, you know what a metaverse is: it's a computer-generated shared reality that is built and inhabited by its users. Stephenson's Metaverse is a virtual world where people conduct social and business interactions much as they do in reality, but without reality's constraints. Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, have clearly followed this vision.

In an article on the New York Law School's website, Cory Ondrejka, Linden Lab's VP of Development, describes the role of user-created content in the metaverse and how it relates to Second Life.

Link: Cory Ondrejka: "Escaping the Guilded Cage: User Created Content and Building the Metaverse" (PDF)

As an aside, back in '94 or '95 when I tried to explain the World Wide Web to people, I got the same kind of blank looks as I do now when I try to explain the concept of a metaverse. "Well, what's it for?" Since then, the Web has become the single most recognized element of the Internet, and it facilitates human interaction in ways that the Web's creators never dreamed.

Is a metaverse going to be our next Web? In ten or twenty years, will we do our online shopping in a 3-D representation of a brick-and-mortar shop? Will teleconferences and distance learning happen in virtual seminar rooms? Will we chat with far-away friends and family as if they were in the same room?

Golly, but that would be swell.

A cube van drove past. Its top corner had a ragged, crumpled hole -- a driver had obviously collided with a low overhang somewhere. The name on the side of the van was, appropriately, "Urban Impact".

A is for ASCII chart pinned to my wall
B is for boredom of reading this all

C is for carpels repeating the strain
D is for drugs to deal with the pain

E is for eating my lunch in my cube
F is for food that could come from a tube

G is for grammar which are my best things
H is for hating my phone when it rings

I is for Internet surfing at lunch
J is for jotting down notes as I munch

K is korrecting my speling misteaks
L is for learning how RoboHelp breaks

M is mechanically editing text
N is for noodles I dropped on my chest

O is for opening up a new file
P is for putting it off for a while

Q is the quagmire of project delays
R is for RSI -- hurts more these days

S is for sitting and staring at this
T is for typing a very long list

U is for Unicode text on the screen
V is for virtually nothing I've seen

W is for wobbling, broken old chair
X is for x-rays for falling off there

Y is for yesterday's deadline that's passed
Z is for reaching the end at long last.

I wear Docs. I've worn them since '95. At first they were just a silly novelty -- oooh, lookit my boots, I'd say. Well maybe not exactly those words, but I enjoyed the newness of them.

After a while, they became a part of me. I mean, I became used to the feeling of the boots, and after years of wearing boots, shoes just feel wrong. My ankles feel bare. The difference in weight throws off my sense of balance. I replace the boots whenever they wear out.

You can imagine my shock when I found out that Doc Martens aren't sold in Canada anymore. You just can't get them. Here I am in a major city in North America and I can't buy a replacement pair of boots. And no, you won't see me buying the "Rocky Ridgeway" knockoffs (or whatever the brand is). They MUST be Doctor Martens or I won't wear them.

Then I wondered what this means. What does it mean when my favourite item of clothing is so out-of-fashion that they're not sold anywhere? Am I that old? This is a bit like old guys who refuse to part with their white patent-leather shoes and matching belt. Or professors who perpetually wear tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows (or Homer Simpson, who wears a leather jacket with tweed patches on the elbows). They're throwbacks. Fashion dinosaurs who failed to keep up with the evolution of clothing.

My only consolation is that Docs were, at one point, considered edgy and cool. That point alone puts me on the evolutionary ladder above the white-belt-wearing, middle-aged dinosaurs. I'm more like a fashion neanderthal.

So what do I do now? Do I evolve? Do I learn to wear shoes? Do I force myself to put on those space-age, casual runners that I see everywhere? God, those are butt-ugly. Look, if you're going to own runners, at least get the kind that you can run in. And if you're not running, YOU DON'T NEED THEM.

No. I refuse. I won't evolve. I'll buy my Docs on the Internet, and when I walk down the street, I'll ignore the taunts of passers-by and the astonished looks of small children and pets. I am the fashion australopithecus. I am primitive man.

And if you don't like the way I look, well then just remember who's wearing the ass-kickin' boots.

In my February 12th entry, I used the word "r33t", but I have no idea what it means. Are there any AOL script-kiddies out there who can tell me what "r33t" means? I'm fairly certain that I know what "h4XX0r" means, but "r33t" is a mystery.

If I hadn't been in my cubicle, I would have shouted "whoo hoo!" at the top of my lungs. For years, George Lucas has resisted his fans' demands to put the original three Star Wars movies on DVD. It looks like he's had a change of heart. The DVD set, which is to be released in September, will be the "Special Edition" releases of Star Wars, The Epire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.

I'm thrilled to finally add these to my growing DVD shelf, but I'd rather have the theatrical releases, and not the digitally-monkeyed-with re-releases.

Greedo did not shoot first!

Link: Eonline.com: "Star Wars" Finally DVD Bound

As a professional cubicle-dweller, I need to keep an eye on the lunch situation. I like to keep my finger on the racing pulse of the fast-food industry, because food is a subject that's as close to my heart as any of my clogged arteries. For me, lunch is as much about a mid-day entertainment as it is about sustinence. So I stay on top of the greasy burger trends.

I have to say, however, that this high-protein Atkins fad has gotten way out of hand. Every food vendor on the whole planet is now offering Atkins foodstuffs, which usually means that it's the same as the other food, but they leave out the bread. Take Subway, for example, and their Atkins wrap, which is the same as a sub, but without the bread and most of the vegetables. Even the 7-11, junk-food central, has special Atkins displays that promote good-health through high-protien.

So I shouldn't be surprised when Satan's sous-chef, Ronald McDonald, offers up a high-protein choice for the health-conscious. Their concept of healthy eating: the new "Protein Platters". These heart-clogging meals consist of the regular hamburger, minus the bun. So basically a pile of meat and cheese with the usual token, limp vegetables for appearances sake. For example, the "Beef Protein Platter" consists of "Quarter Pounder® beef patty, one piece of strip bacon, one slice of processed cheese, shredded lettuce, slivered onions, tomato slices and dill pickle slices".

Alright, to be perfectly honest, the bun isn't my favourite part of eating a buger, but it's the only thing that keeps me from getting meat and cheese all over my hands. And removing the bread from an big, greasy burger hardly makes it a "healthy" meal -- the bread is quite possibly the only thing in their burgers with any nutritional value.

Finally, I have to wonder how the McDonald's marketing people settled on the name "Protein Platter". It's only one letter away from a protein splatter, which conjures unpleasant imagery for certain Disneyland visitors and staff. Shudder.

Today, his eminence, Bishop John, sent me a link to a bizarre Flash-based game, in which you try to make a yeti bash a penguin with a club. I don't know anything about the site, I don't know why the yeti would want to abuse the penguin, and I don't know why a yeti and a penguin are even on the same continent. But it is kinda fun.

My best try sent the penguin flying almost 300m.

Link: a really strange game involving a yeti and a penguin

At last! It's the online store of my dreams!

Today I discovered the Penguin Warehouse website, which has the caption "Be the first on your block to own a penguin!" They also offer penguin literature, penguin food, and toys for penguins.

I wonder if they offer penguin snacks, because the local supermarket doesn't seem to sell penguin jerky.

How did I miss this one? I must have had my head buried in the snow.

Apparently the Queen will be knighting Bill Gates. He will be a knight. A knight! I can just imagine the ceremony... "Ride forth, O Geek Knight through the Gaping Holes of Windows Security and smite the vile e-mail worm!"

I have no intelligent comment on this at the moment because I'm still agog at the absurdity of this. Agog!

Link: The Seattle Times: Bill Gates to recieve honorary knighthood

Today I steered clear of McDonald's, I eschewed Little Panda Chinese Take-out, and I... uh... didn't go to Subway. I also misplaced my thesaurus. Where is that thing?

Lunchtime found me at the salad bar, and I loaded up the smallest container with vegetable matter. It's usually busy in the market at noon, and today was no exception. A garrulous, bald-headed man was at the salad bar too, chatting with someone about the federal deficit. Then he turned suddenly and gesticulated at me with a styofoam cup full of chopped pickles.

"The pickles are good, eh?" he grinned, and I noticed that his red sweater was held shut with an oversize safety pin. "Dill pickles. No garlic!"

"Er... yep," I remarked cleverly.

"This place is great! Lotsa healthy food here. Dill pickles're great! Not like those other places... the other places... like greasy foods. Not like here. Other places like... with pizza... and... other places like, uh..."

He trailed off, deep in thought, and I filled in the silence, "Like McDonald's?"

"Yeah, like McDonald's," he nodded vigorously. "That stuff'll kill ya. Fulla grease. It'll make ya sick. Yer payin' to make yerself sick, huh? But this place is great! Lotsa healthy stuff here. Why'd ya want to pay to make yerself sick? 'Cause greasy food like that'll make ya sick. I never eat there. This place is great!"

He continued enthusiastically in this vein as he paid for his cup of pickle chunks. Twenty-five cents. After paying, he wandered off to strike up a friendly conversation at the wine shop. I paid for my salad and trudged back to my cubicle to continue working, and I wondered why I couldn't be as enthusiastic about salad as that guy seemed to be.

Maybe I need more pickles in my life.