In every movie that has a "suddenly-it's-a-few-hours-later" shot, if they're burning big thick candles, the fact that time elapsed is usually shown by the fact that the candle is suddenly reduced in height. However, I know this is another bit of movie magic because all the big thick candles I've ever had always burn right down the center and the edges usually retain their height, so I end up with a candle that hollows itself out as it burns and I eventually have to slice off some of the excess wax with an X-Acto knife in order to get to the wick.

Although if they actually have special movie candles that burn evenly all the way down, I think they could make a decent amount of money from selling them to the general public. I'm sure some candle chain could partner with the studios to offer us poor saps an "Official Movie Candle(TM)." And I'm sure people would buy it too.

- The first Internet site was built by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN's website, http://info.cern.ch. The site is a pointer site now, but the contents are archived by the World Wide Web Consortium here.
- According to Google, Fox News was the #6 used news source in 2001, surpassing the Associated Press, CNET and The Economist. (How scary is that? More people turn to Geraldo for news than other long-standing and reputable sources.)
- As of December 2001, 529 million people worldwide are online. Out of these 529 million, 43% speak English as their primary language.
- In January 1993, there were just under 1.5 million Internet hosts. In July 2001, there were just under 126 million.
- As of July 2000, 7.3% of American domains were owned by people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. New York was second with 6.2%.

- The first Internet site was built by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN's website, http://info.cern.ch. The site is a pointer site now, but the contents are archived by the World Wide Web Consortium here.
- According to Google, Fox News was the #6 used news source in 2001, surpassing the Associated Press, CNET and The Economist. (How scary is that? More people turn to Geraldo for news than other long-standing and reputable sources.)
- As of December 2001, 529 million people worldwide are online. Out of these 529 million, 43% speak English as their primary language.
- In January 1993, there were just under 1.5 million Internet hosts. In July 2001, there were just under 126 million.
- As of July 2000, 7.3% of American domains were owned by people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. New York was second with 6.2%.

The Simpsons American English dictionary defines a "Homer" as:
1. American dolt
2. achieving success through idiocy

I'm beginning to think that life is defined by that second part of the definition, because I often wonder how people get so far in life without Darwinism weeding them out. I went to Star Market tonight to pick up some dinner, and was told by the guy at the fish counter that I look "menacing in that jacket" -- yes, I was wearing the long black coat again, I suppose my unshavenness contributed a little -- in addition to the fact that the cashier shook my sushi at me and asked me if it was "enjoyable to me." If it wasn't, would I be buying it?

The Simpsons American English dictionary defines a "Homer" as:
1. American dolt
2. achieving success through idiocy

I'm beginning to think that life is defined by that second part of the definition, because I often wonder how people get so far in life without Darwinism weeding them out. I went to Star Market tonight to pick up some dinner, and was told by the guy at the fish counter that I look "menacing in that jacket" -- yes, I was wearing the long black coat again, I suppose my unshavenness contributed a little -- in addition to the fact that the cashier shook my sushi at me and asked me if it was "enjoyable to me." If it wasn't, would I be buying it?

Music section updated. Two requests though:

1. Please don't link directly to the music page or to the files themselves. I put them up there for your listening enjoyment and to expose you to some new music you might like if you're so inclined to being exposed, but I don't want the attention just for having music files here because I would prefer not to be sued for copyright infringement.

2. Please download the files to your own computer rather than stream them from my site (especially if you think you might want to hear a song more than once), since I don't have the bandwidth to support people using their web browsers to download and play the songs over and over. To download, right-click for Windows or click-and-hold for Mac on the file names, then select "save link as." That will allow you to download the files to your own hard drives.

Otherwise, rock on with yer bad selves.

Music section updated. Two requests though:

1. Please don't link directly to the music page or to the files themselves. I put them up there for your listening enjoyment and to expose you to some new music you might like if you're so inclined to being exposed, but I don't want the attention just for having music files here because I would prefer not to be sued for copyright infringement.

2. Please download the files to your own computer rather than stream them from my site (especially if you think you might want to hear a song more than once), since I don't have the bandwidth to support people using their web browsers to download and play the songs over and over. To download, right-click for Windows or click-and-hold for Mac on the file names, then select "save link as." That will allow you to download the files to your own hard drives.

Otherwise, rock on with yer bad selves.

I think the most interesting aspect of 2001 was how narrowly-focussed our nation was after September 11th. Things that normally would have generated a lot of controversy were deemed acceptable when done in the name of "support of our nation and its victims." For example, a few New York City area Planned Parenthood clinics offered free abortions in the wake of 9/11, which usually would've garnered at least a story during some part of the evening news or in the Nation/World News section of the newspaper -- especially given the fact that I would expect a decent amount of protests as a result -- but I didn't hear about it until I read it in one of Newsweek's "Year in Review" recaps this week. In the name of patriotism and national security, "inalienable human rights" were abrogated by our Dictator-in-Training, Señor Ashcroft, but I didn't hear much response from the ACLU. And in the space of a single week, our Not-So-Fearless Leader's approval rating jumped over 40 points, yet he didn't even take any action during the actual week of September 11th except make a few flowery speeches about how we need to stand firm in the face of adversity and how "we're gonna git 'im."

September 11th brought a new and almost McCarthy-esque view on supporting America, in some ways. I'd say at least half if not more of the cars I see on the road today are either flying a small American flag or have a flag sticker. Flag companies were suddenly inundated with purchase requests to the point where many sold out their stocks within two weeks of 9/11. And people who didn't fly flags were considered "unpatriotic" by some -- I myself was the among the targets of personal attacks because of my lack of flag, despite my feelings that our country is not reduced to a piece of fabric or a sticker but that our spirit is embodied in many different things, including what I had hoped would be tolerance for other cultures as heralded by our supposedly democratic and "open" and "accepting" ways of society. Muslims expressed fear of wearing traditional garb in public because they were scared of being attacked by angry mobs, mosques were subjected to vandalism and Arab-Americans took over the #1 spot of ethnicities targeted by racial profiling.

One of the more interesting aspects of the post-September 11 donation spree was the controversy surrounding the Red Cross. When the Red Cross announced they were splitting post-9/11 donations between victims' families and preparing for future disasters, protests and accusations erupted from all over the country. Immediately after the terrorist attacks, Red Cross blood bank stores soared -- but now almost 4 months later, they are once again in need of blood donations yet the several-hourlong lines to donate blood are no longer there. And the uproar about the donation money guarantees that families who suffer losses because of natural disasters -- such as the communities in the Dakotas who lost everything in the flooding last year -- will never see a dime of this outpouring of American generosity because it all went to the WTC victims' families. Not that the WTC victims' families don't need it as well, but it's still all cases of being affected by circumstances beyond their control, be they terrorists or acts of Nature. People in this country still need help, even if they weren't attacked by terrorists, which why I think ideas like Sheldon's bobupndown penny drive for charity are so valuable.

It's been predicted that the nation will start to recover from this recession around the middle of 2002, but I expect that the War on Terrorism will be long and protracted and will last throughout the year. It's just a matter of which runs out first -- our intelligence information and ability to find and capture terrorists, or our collective attention span.

I think the most interesting aspect of 2001 was how narrowly-focussed our nation was after September 11th. Things that normally would have generated a lot of controversy were deemed acceptable when done in the name of "support of our nation and its victims." For example, a few New York City area Planned Parenthood clinics offered free abortions in the wake of 9/11, which usually would've garnered at least a story during some part of the evening news or in the Nation/World News section of the newspaper -- especially given the fact that I would expect a decent amount of protests as a result -- but I didn't hear about it until I read it in one of Newsweek's "Year in Review" recaps this week. In the name of patriotism and national security, "inalienable human rights" were abrogated by our Dictator-in-Training, Señor Ashcroft, but I didn't hear much response from the ACLU. And in the space of a single week, our Not-So-Fearless Leader's approval rating jumped over 40 points, yet he didn't even take any action during the actual week of September 11th except make a few flowery speeches about how we need to stand firm in the face of adversity and how "we're gonna git 'im."

September 11th brought a new and almost McCarthy-esque view on supporting America, in some ways. I'd say at least half if not more of the cars I see on the road today are either flying a small American flag or have a flag sticker. Flag companies were suddenly inundated with purchase requests to the point where many sold out their stocks within two weeks of 9/11. And people who didn't fly flags were considered "unpatriotic" by some -- I myself was the among the targets of personal attacks because of my lack of flag, despite my feelings that our country is not reduced to a piece of fabric or a sticker but that our spirit is embodied in many different things, including what I had hoped would be tolerance for other cultures as heralded by our supposedly democratic and "open" and "accepting" ways of society. Muslims expressed fear of wearing traditional garb in public because they were scared of being attacked by angry mobs, mosques were subjected to vandalism and Arab-Americans took over the #1 spot of ethnicities targeted by racial profiling.

One of the more interesting aspects of the post-September 11 donation spree was the controversy surrounding the Red Cross. When the Red Cross announced they were splitting post-9/11 donations between victims' families and preparing for future disasters, protests and accusations erupted from all over the country. Immediately after the terrorist attacks, Red Cross blood bank stores soared -- but now almost 4 months later, they are once again in need of blood donations yet the several-hourlong lines to donate blood are no longer there. And the uproar about the donation money guarantees that families who suffer losses because of natural disasters -- such as the communities in the Dakotas who lost everything in the flooding last year -- will never see a dime of this outpouring of American generosity because it all went to the WTC victims' families. Not that the WTC victims' families don't need it as well, but it's still all cases of being affected by circumstances beyond their control, be they terrorists or acts of Nature. People in this country still need help, even if they weren't attacked by terrorists, which why I think ideas like Sheldon's bobupndown penny drive for charity are so valuable.

It's been predicted that the nation will start to recover from this recession around the middle of 2002, but I expect that the War on Terrorism will be long and protracted and will last throughout the year. It's just a matter of which runs out first -- our intelligence information and ability to find and capture terrorists, or our collective attention span.

Overnight, our cable company added 4 new Cinemax channels to our digital cable lineup. This brings the total number of channels we get to 130, 26 of which are movie channels. The bad thing about it is that there's either more than one thing on at once that you want to watch, or there's nothing on any channel that you want to watch. Unfortunately, lately it's been more of the latter.

Overnight, our cable company added 4 new Cinemax channels to our digital cable lineup. This brings the total number of channels we get to 130, 26 of which are movie channels. The bad thing about it is that there's either more than one thing on at once that you want to watch, or there's nothing on any channel that you want to watch. Unfortunately, lately it's been more of the latter.

I dunno... I just... don't find Anna Paquin attractive. And that Southern accent she adopted for X-Men kept fading in and out, which annoyed me.

I dunno... I just... don't find Anna Paquin attractive. And that Southern accent she adopted for X-Men kept fading in and out, which annoyed me.

I woke up this morning after a fitful sleep involving dreams of finding my car with three flat tires (strangely, it was my first car, not the one I drive now), catching up with a bunch of people I knew in high school and telling them of my plans to move to Los Angeles, making one of them mad at me by accidentally ruining this experiment he was running even though I didn't think I did anything wrong, punching out someone I used to work with who annoyed the hell out of me (he annoyed the hell out of me both in realtime and in my dream), and seeding the U.S./Canadian border with Christmas trees by dropping magical fir tree needles all over. What does it all mean? I couldn't even begin to tell you.

Despite the fact that I said it was just another night and I didn't want to "celebrate" New Year's, I'm still feeling let down about the events that occurred. Even though it's noon and I just got out of bed, I still feel like crawling back there.

I woke up this morning after a fitful sleep involving dreams of finding my car with three flat tires (strangely, it was my first car, not the one I drive now), catching up with a bunch of people I knew in high school and telling them of my plans to move to Los Angeles, making one of them mad at me by accidentally ruining this experiment he was running even though I didn't think I did anything wrong, punching out someone I used to work with who annoyed the hell out of me (he annoyed the hell out of me both in realtime and in my dream), and seeding the U.S./Canadian border with Christmas trees by dropping magical fir tree needles all over. What does it all mean? I couldn't even begin to tell you.

Despite the fact that I said it was just another night and I didn't want to "celebrate" New Year's, I'm still feeling let down about the events that occurred. Even though it's noon and I just got out of bed, I still feel like crawling back there.