I don't know why I like this so much, but Star Wars Asciimation is too cool. I've never tried creating one of these, but I have to imagine that this is about the most boring and tedious activity in which you could ever engage. Of course, it's fun to watch, so I'm glad somebody finds this an enjoyable hobby.

In an effort to stay abreast of all the news that's fit to know, I scour the web the web with unending vigilance. The latest find: the Glen Lachart Star (the links on the left-hand side of the page lead to the various issues). The paper claims to be Dependable, Reliable & True. I think it's just funny.

Many people claim that the violence kids are subjected to through various media outlets results in a skewed sense of judgement. After reading the letters to the editor in today's Daily Camera, I'd have to say that the same holds true for readers of science fiction.

I'd summarize for you, but each word is so precious that I've included the entire letter here for posterity. At least this guy is correct about one thing, I do laugh.

The time is at hand. These are the days where we will look back and say "this is when it all started." We're on the verge of living a sci-fi nightmare. Now you laugh, shrug your shoulders and change the channel. But, how long is that going to be an option?

America's forests are burning. There's a two-mile thick cloud of brown smog consuming China. The Great Salt Lake is drying up. On TV, it's hard to tell what's news, parody or entertainment. People are blowing each other up on a daily basis. Europe is flooding. People actually feel the need to discuss whether or not it's bad for a priest to molest a child. We know how to clone, but God says not to. Killer bees. Money is more important than peace. Our planet is dying. Our way of life is crumbling.

The environment will fail, and when it does, there is only one answer: domes. And who has the resources to build these domes? Our government? Pfft. The corporation. Giant, protective domes, a network of domes, protecting the people from the ravages of the environment. But who are these people? They are drones of the corporation. You have to be loyal to the corporation, or you may not live in a dome. Many different warring corporations will build domes.

And what of those who would not live by the laws of the corporations? Those who will not fit in or conform to the corporations? They will live outside the dome, in the wasteland. Living by the power of their minds and wits, scraping together an existence from the waste and garbage of the domes. Fighting the mindless mutants, vitctims of radiation and biological contamination. And we will fight the mutants, and we will attempt to undermine the domes at every given opportunity. This will be life. Drone. Wasteland warrior. Mutant. These are the choices. How will you choose?

Yes, now you laugh. You doubt. Change the channel. This is when it all started.

ERIK CHISHOLM, Boulder

It appears that the long-named U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has come up with a website in an attempt to get kids to engage in more physical activity. The tag-line... Verb - it's what you do. No, I'm not kidding. That's the real name of the site. Perhaps President Bush came up with the name himself.

Poking around on the site, some of the exciting things you can do: make paper airlanes, design web pages, and stencil. Wow, those kids will be dropping the pounds in no time with this sort of vigorous activity.

When I was a kid, one of my friends had a secret technique for making paper airplanes that he would not share with the rest of us. Whenever we made airplanes, his would always fly the farthest and stay aloft for the longest. His lack of sharing really sucked. Of course, as a kid my life sucked--as did the lives of all those around me--because we did not have the internet. If we had, I could have gone to this site with instructions on how to make really cool paper airplanes, and I could have crushed him like a bug. Ah, to relive the past.

I don't know why, but I continue to be amazed by the audacity of the Bush administration. Their latest claim is that Bush can "go to war" with Iraq because of the permission granted by congress in 1991. Check me if I'm wrong, but the war with Iraq is over--has been for quite some time. The effects still linger, but to claim that the original decree is still valid seems rather ridiculous. Frankly, I'm amazed they can present this argument with a straight face.

Of course this is just the latest in a string of events where the Bush adminstration does whatever the hell they want and tells the rest of us to go pound sand. Why won't Bush just go to congress and get approval? After all, this is the way things are supposed to work. I suspect he'll go to congress after he begins taking action. That way, he can whine about how congress is supposed to stand behind the President in times of war.

This woman sees an emu, mistakes it for a naked man, and calls the police. Even if you've never seen an emu, I don't think there is any way you could mistake it for a man—naked or otherwise. I wonder what Freud would have to say about this?

Well, yet another state full of bible-thumping morons has managed to slip creationism back into the classroom. Last year it was Kansas, this year it's Georgia (warning, this link requires a free subscription to the NY Times). Why can't these people leave their religious beliefs at home and in church, why do they keep insisting that this stuff be taught in school? It really blows my mind.

So far as I can tell, the cruz of their argument against evolution is that it's just a theory. To that I say, so what? Just about every piece of science taught is a theory. They think that by adding the just in front of it, that this somehow diminishes the theories factual basis or it's probability of being true. Not so. Evolution has withstood over one hundred years of very vigorous scrutiny and it's still around, stronger than ever. Has it changed over time? Sure. But the underlying principles remain the same.

So what do they propose instead? Creationism. Creationism is not a theory, it is a view of how the world was created put forth by a particular religion. It has no place in the teaching of science. First, there is no scientific basis for it. Second, it's unconstitional. Maybe these people haven't heard, but in our country government institutions, such as schools, are not supposed to favor one religion over another.

If they want to talk about creationism in the context of religious studies or history, fine go for it. But make sure you include other religions as well. I'd love to hear the cries that would erupt then. Most of these people can't stand having their children subjected to other views for fear that it will corrupt them. Rememeber kids, knowledge is dangerous.

Several weeks ago I was moving rocks while I was working on the never-ending fence project. As is to be expected when there is potential for injury, I was injured; I managed to get my index finger smashed between two rocks. At the time, it didn't seem very cool, but I'm pretty happy with the results this event has had on my finger nail.

I now have what can only be described as a Neopolitan finger nail. The bruise is three distinct colors, each of equal size. The colors are red, white, and black. Exactly like the Neopolitan ice cream. How fun for me!

I sure hope the guy who wrote this book comes for a book tour in America. I, for one, would personally like to get my hands on him. I'm sure others would too.

On Monday night, I went to the football game where the Broncos "played" the 49ers. The game itself wasn't that great seeing as how it was preseason and the Broncos lost. What was great was our seats; we had seats in one of the much-hyped luxury boxes. I must say, they are very nice.

The first thing you notice is the concourse. It's about the same width as the concourse at the Pepsi Center, but with about 1/100 the number of people. The result, you can actually move around.

The other really cool feature about the suites (aside from the convienent, no-waiting bathroom) is that they have a video monitor that allows you to replay each play from any of the cameras in the stadium. During the times when the refs are reviewing controversial plays, you get to check out every camera angle; replaying the best ones. It's very nice.

Combine all this with comfy non-obstructed view seats, your own wet bar and lounge and you've got yourself one very nice way to enjoy a game.

On Sunday, I was cruising through downtown Boulder at 8:30 am. The traffic light at Broadway and Canyon was out, so there were two cops directing traffic at the intersection; one of the busiest intersections in town. Remarkably, when I came back through town at 3:30 in the afternoon (when there was much more traffic), the traffic signal was still out and there were no cops there to direct traffic. I guess that explains the glass--and other accident garbage--currently in the intersection.

What I want to know is, at what point did they decide that they'd done enough and that they should leave? Who knows, maybe they got a hot lead on the Jon Benet Ramsey case.

Michael Jackson claims that he has never had plastic surgery on his face. Looking at these pictures which show his face over time, I have a hard time believing those claims.

The site at which this page resides, anomalies unlimited, has some pretty cool/weird/wacked-out stuff on it. It's worth cheking out. Being from Colorado, I certainly get a kick out of the conspiracy claims concerning Denver International Airport. There's not much chance that any of these claims are true given the total incompetence of everyone invloved with that airport.

It seems that you can't watch more than five minutes of television without being subjected to a commercial from the Gap. As if that's not bad enough, now they're trying to create a "buzz" around their new fall advertising campaign by previewing their commercials on Yahoo! What kind of tool goes out of their way to look at commercials with which they'll soon be bombarded?

This story is almost too funny to be true. Yet, it did happen, here in my own back yard...

Seems some morons camping in Nederland injured themselves while "play" fighting each other with spears. Nothing like a good spear fight to pass the time, huh? Once both combantants where too injured to continue, they of course decided to go to the hospital for some medical care (for which you and I will be paying). Once at the hospital, one of the morons in question pulls out a gun--which turns out to be a starter's pistol--and you can imagine the mayham that ensues.

My favorite quote from the story is this:

They also expressed outrage that their friends didn't receive immediate medical treatment once it was determined the gun was not real.

Yeah, right. After causing all this trouble, we want our self-inflicted wounds patched up as quickly as possible, free of charge.

Yo G. What do you do if you're a techno geek, but you secretly want to be a gangsta rapper kickin it around town in a pimp-mobile, keepin it real with the ho's? If you're anyhting like the homies at pimprig.com, you pimp out your computer. Yea... word up.

I like the currently featured rig. It combines a coffee machine and a computer into def piece of machinary. Can a version of this from Dell be far behind?

Be patient, the pages load slowly.

As a kid, I always found playing Battleship kind of boring. It's just too slow. Now, somebody with way to much time on their hands--or else, somebody who's trying to learn Flash--has created a Flash version of Battleship. I must say, it's very well done and it's a lot more fun to play on-line since the game goes so much quicker.

As always, I'm a sucker for wacky flash-based pages. This one in particular is an interesting study in fluid dynamics. It uses flash to simulate an experiment in which I'm sure many of us have taken part.

Wow, not only are crows annoyingly loud, they are also smart.

When I was a kid, lo those many years ago, one of the explanations as to what made humans "different" than other animals was our ability to use tools. That idea has since been blown out of the water by the discovery that chimps and other primates make and use tools. Now the birds are getting in on the act too.

We've still got those opposable thumbs though.

A team of researchers in Australia is claiming that the speed of light may not actually be constant. If true this would certainly set the scientific world on it's ear. Who knows, maybe this "discovery" will one day rank up there with cold fusion.

If you thought the Taliban were bad, the Florida state legislature is not far behind. They have passed a law that requires women who want to put their baby up for adoption to put ads in local papers if they can't find the father. In these ads they need to include their names, description and their sexual history. This includes women who were raped.

How do laws like this get passed?

Yikes, even those in the Bay Area are starting to recognize that Colorado may be the next version of themselves... at least so far as housing is concerned. It's already to the point where you can't go skiing on the weekend; not due to lack of snow, but due to the horrible traffic on I-70. Can we look forward to things getting even worse? Given the total lack of action on the part of local politicians, I'd say most definitely.

According to police in Rome, they have arrested the man who has been fishing money out of the Trevi Fountain since 1968. Sounds like much ado about nothing, right. Well it doesn't sound so trivial when they mention that the guy hauls in about €12,000 per month. That's some serious cash.

This whole thing sounds very odd though. This guy reals in about €144,000 per year—a lot of money by most standards—and he's been doing it since 1968, yet he's a broke bum. Where's all this money been going? My guess is that that would be a far more interesting story

Here's a great headline from the NY Times, "Rumsfeld Seeks to Boost Intelligence". Oh, wait, my mistake. That should read, "Rumsfeld Seeks to Boost Intelligence Units". I think I like my version better.

This is an important consumer alert...

If you're like me, a big eater of suger cerals, you know that chocolate makes any ceral better—why they ever got rid of the Chocolate Frosted Flakes® is beyond me. So, in an attempt to "better" my ceral, I often add chocolate milk powder to the bowl, then the ceral, and finally the milk. The result: chocolate, and hence better, ceral.

This has been working all well and good but today I ran into a little problem. I was mixing up a bowl of Marshmallow Froot Loops® with the above recipe and I was shocked to discover that we were out of chocolate milk mix. Not to worry though, we had hot chocolate mix. Bad idea!

Take my advice, never add hot chocolate mix to your ceral. It appears that without the heat from the liquid, the powder does not dissolve. It turns into a stick, clumpy, mess that is not appealing to look at, much less ingest.

There really ought to be a warning label on this stuff. Who do I sue?

Another day, another massive swing in the stock market. Down 4% one day, up 4% the next. Is it any wonder that people have lost faith in the market? In the current conditions, it seems as if the swings are based on daily sentiment, there is no long-term goal or outlook. Unless you're a day trader--and, probably even if you are--is there any doubt that you're going to get hammered?

It appears that no matter how big you are, you eventually have to do as you are told. I can't wait to get a look at this code. I'm wondering if they've tried to do like Netscape and clean things up so it looks like they know what they are doing. Knowing Microsoft, they've probably taken the opposite approach.

This random word generator is pretty darn cool. You give it a sequence of letters with which to start a word, and it creates new words for you. Actually, they aren't really words, but they sound like they could be. Some examples:

What do Shaquille O'Neal , Deion Sanders, and me all have in common? Aside from the obvious answers--we all: 1) are human beings; 2) live on the planet earth; 3) have the fame and adoration of millions--there's another response: we are all victims of turf toe. Yes, that's correct, I've been stricken with turf toe in the prime of my career. The injury occurred last week after playing ultimate and I have to say, it hurts!

A visit to the doctor confirmed the horrible news. I'm supposed to take it easy and I've been given a "special" insert to put in my shoe. The insert is actually pretty cool, it has a very thin kevlar/steel plate in the front of the foot that is supposed to keep your toe from getting bent up (which is what causes the condition). Let's hope the thing works.