This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.                             the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil

        20021127   

Michael considered fate at 13:55   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Writings, Bio, Resume, and source code to WebGet are now up.

Michael considered fate at 10:03   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Do we have a right to anonymous viewing? Do we have a right to cover our tracks?

In the real world I can go and purchase the latest GQ and read through it without someone asking for my name or my phone number (unless I buy it at Radio Shack, though they have apparently finally given up on that). In the real world I can buy the New York Times to wipe up last night's puke without being profiled into some database. In the online world, however, I can't even read a blogspot without being watched, monitored, counted, and tallied. Every click, glance, and eye twitch is recorded for the future control of my consumer life. Sometimes in the form of surveys or logins or free membership, but also behind the scenes without my knowledge at all - sniffing and poking and prodding my machine for information. What OS are you, Where are you from, What browser are you using, When was the last time you were at this site?

So where does it end? And to what end do we shackle ourselves to this control? Where is the line between positive information collection to better the sites we visit and the negative information collection to abuse the visitors of the sites?

Do I have the right to read your site anonymously?

or

Do you have the right to see who is reading what on your site?

Which is the stronger of the two rights in your mind?

Michael considered fate at 09:16   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Think of one of those nasty e-Cards. You know, the kind where you get a message in your inbox that says "So and so sent you an electronic greeting card. Go here to claim it. If the link doesn't work go here instead and type in this obnoxiously long line of numbers:1293047190479012801942397239042039842039840802". Now think of one of these cards tailored for thanksgiving where a little turkey in the corner awaits your click to start the animation. Now, thinking of this little turkey wiggling as if impaled on a stick every time you mouse over it. Now think of this turkey wiggling, and gobbling in a high pitched squeal every time you mouse over it. Now, imagine through the wonders of flash animation that if you are really really fast you can mouse over the turkey to illicit multiple high pitched gobbles played simultaneously, almost as if in a round.. like the little turkey is singing row row row your boat.. but in turkese. Now imagine your hand spazing out and shaking the mouse over and over the turkey as if in epileptic seizure while the turkey squeals in delight, gobbling and chirping as if hundreds and hundreds of turkeys were right here on your desktop, shitting all over the place and molting feathers in your coffee.

Now if that didn't make you smile, I had my wisdom teeth out last week and didn't eat a single thing for 5 days.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

        20021123   

Michael considered fate at 19:11   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
The grass is always greener. It's not what *they* tell us, it's what we tell ourselves. It's just the fact that you're looking at the grass on the other side of the fence at more of an angle than the grass under your feet. No wonder it's greener. Go, jump across the fence. Cause when you're over there, looking down with a big smile at the oh so green grass... look up.. look back.. the grass will have mysteriously gotten greener over here while the grass over there will somehow have lost it's color. And what is it in the end? Where does our problem lie? It's all in our perception. We perceive the grass is greener because we are seeing it with a different light shown on it, we are seeing it lying at a sexy angle. It's just better. Maybe if we all lied down on our own grass, got reeeally reeeally close to it, laid our heads on the ground and inspected closely from new and exciting angles - then maybe we would find a grass so green.. so green our minds would explode.

.... or maybe the neighbours grass would still be greener from that angle. who knows.

        20021122   

Michael considered fate at 14:10   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Well, they did indeed knock me out, drug me up, and yank my teeth. Since you're not supposed to eat or drink anything, water included, for 8 hours before the surgery the last solid food I ate was a tuna sandwich on Sunday evening. Right after the surgery I drank a milk shake but quickly puked it and a lot of blood up. Since then I've consumed about 2 litres of ginger ale, a few cups of cranberry juice.. and that's it. I attempted a piece of pizza today, 4 days after the surgery, but I still can't completely close my teeth together so that was a disaster.

On another note Sugarloaf is being so charitable this week, it's opening, by offering $20 lift tickets if you bring three cans of non-perishables. Wow, isn't that great? Of course, they don't mention that only 2 of the 15 lifts are operating and only 4 trails out of 129 or open.

Michael considered fate at 13:58   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Well this guy got burned by his laptop - now that's just plane funny.

        20021118   

Michael considered fate at 09:59   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
This is me


But in a few hours it will no longer be me because they will knock me out, inject me with drugs, and yank the living shit out of my teeth. I plan on being comatose for the whole day so if you need anything call my butler.

        20021116   

Michael considered fate at 19:23   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Someone is Standing Up For the Sleaze. Funny, because I don't recall doing much at all on lower St. Laurent my whole four years in Montreal. It was always the end of the road, as far as you had to go.. unless you were looking for Metropolis. I bought hair dye there once, and it didn't even come out the right color.

        20021115   

Alex considered fate at 15:44   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
This is the kind of picture I think you would like. In fact, I saved this picture exactly thinking of you. In fact, you should print out this picture and hang it on your wall. I have two thundercats pictures hanging on my wall at home. I printed them on photo quality paper that I stole from lab. What now.

Yeah, it was mostly the Ts that I was trying to prompt to write . . . because I seldom hear from them. But the general traffic has just slowed to a near standstill these days.

what's the difference between posting, and posting and publishing?

sorry to hear that you're sick. on monday, when you get your wisdom teeth out, you're going to wish that you weren't. you'll wish that the sickness would have already played out to its logical conclusion. hee hee!

BTW I don't know where the fuck Joy is. But if you see her, you could always send her my way . . .

Michael considered fate at 14:48   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
My nose runneth over like the babble of a mountain brook.

Why can't a stream babble? Seems like only brooks are allowed. Streams run fast, but they don't babble. silly.

Michael considered fate at 13:34   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
So go check out the trailer for Bowling for Columbine and then maybe see it if you're interested. It was good, thoughtful, and provocative even if some of the reviews do say it is not as cohesive as it could be. Plus, I heard it got a 10 min standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival.

Michael considered fate at 12:12   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
"Linux is the new Unix," Says Dell

Ohhhh... ahhhhh... what a visionary.

So I was thinking.. does everyone know the big names in the Computer world? Do you know who Ellison is? Where Joy is? What Metcalfe did? Well, you should. Read on.

This is by no means a complete comprehensive list but it'll get you started with names you should be familiar with. (and since I think WIRED does such a swell job at it, I'll quote links to articles in wired about said people. I will also include googlisms for each person)

1) Bob Metcalfe - Inventor of Ethernet, founder of 3Com
The Legend of Bob Metcalfe
bob metcalfe is overcommitted
bob metcalfe is in touch with the people who determine the future
bob metcalfe is overloading
bob metcalfe is the curmudgeon of the computer press
bob metcalfe is a leading inventor
bob metcalfe is a member of the mit class of 1968
bob metcalfe is telling the truth
bob metcalfe is the brains behind the ethernet
bob metcalfe is one of the daddies of the internet


2) Bill Joy - cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems
Why the future doesn't need us
bill joy is obviously in low earth orbit
bill joy is absolutely right
bill joy is serious
bill joy is chief scientist and corporate executive officer of sun microsystems
bill joy is also a member of the national academy of engineering
bill joy is elitist
bill joy is not taking credit for things he didn't do
bill joy is one of the industry's leading visionaries
bill joy is hooey?
bill joy is a crackpot


3) Steve Jobs - cofounder and CEO of Apple Computer Co.
WIRED interview
steve jobs is simply a fluke
steve jobs is boring and profitable
steve jobs is trying to kill me
steve jobs is an innovation leader in this industry
steve jobs is right on target with where apple must go
steve jobs is the man
steve jobs is a visionary in the world of personal computers that led the entire computer hardware and software industry to restructure itself
steve jobs is supreme over steve wozniak


4) Steve 'Woz' Wozniak - cofounder of Apple Computer Co.
The World According to Woz
steve wozniak is still fathering the computer revolution
steve wozniak is known as woz
steve wozniak is reprogrammed
steve wozniak is tired of all play and no work
steve wozniak is probably the single most important person in the microcomputer revolution
steve wozniak is among the elite individuals that have become part of the national inventors hall of fame
steve wozniak is one of those people


5) Bill Gates - cofounder of Microsoft
Why Bill Gates Quit His Job
bill gates is satan' page
bill gates is a satanic worshiper who uses microsoft to gain
bill gates is the anti christ
bill gates is a theif
bill gates is on the bus
bill gates is a hero
bill gates is darth vader
bill gates is right
bill gates is the pope
bill gates is the devil


6) Marc Andreessen - cofounder of Netscape
Crank It Up
marc andreessen is the young co
marc andreessen is wrong to claim that netscape "supports all standards"
marc andreessen is putting the ooooooooooh back in ipo
marc andreessen is a cyberspace folk hero whose programming savvy made the vast resources of the internet's world wide web available to anyone
marc andreessen is one of the most important people in cyberspace


7) Tim Berners Lee - inventor of the WWW
Crank It Up
time berners-lee is generally credited with inventing the world wide web
time berners-lee is now with the w3 consortium at mit

Michael considered fate at 11:38   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
If anyone else is getting a script error on line 61, leave a comment please!

        20021112   

Michael considered fate at 13:40   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Everyone needs at least one porn link on their webpage.. might as well be to a page dedicated to the wonders of synonyms in our delectable language.

Michael considered fate at 10:01   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

        20021108   

Michael considered fate at 11:57   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
I have lost my Bananas


I think this should be the new replacement idiom for I have lost my marbles. I have lost my marbles had a good run of it, don't get me wrong, but it is a bit dated at this point. No one plays marbles anymore for the most part, let alone even own any, so how can one lose them? Bananas, on the other hand, carry a more subtle and complex case for crazyiness. Bananas are commonly seen as the gorilla's main food source, or if not main then at least favorite. They are known as a nutrient rich fruit that provides a plethora of essentials. In this way they make for a great joke - if you lose your bananas then you either a) Have puked that which you already ate (equivalent to forgetting that which you have learned, either academically or socially) or b) lost your stored supply or supply line of bananas (equivalent to loosing touch with what is normal and sane, loosing touch with your supply of reality). Either way you are now lacking essentials [of mental awareness]. You are missing important fuel.

This all makes for a great idiom yet there is more. The banana being a gorilla commodity, it symbolizes where we came from - our primal roots. Our societies, ancient and aging, are based on the original social interactions of man-beasts. Our societies are worse than Microsoft's operating systems - code built atop older code built atop even older, ancient, and often buggy code. Losing your bananas means losing touch with the norms of our society - losing touch with what is accepted, but not necessarily what is correct.

Rarely is the idiom used to describe a truly insane person. It is a catch-all for weirdos, hacks, and innovators. It is a term used to describe those going against the grain - people pushing up and out at the glass ceilings in our societal minds. Sort of like stretching away from our primal roots. Like sluffing off blind acceptance and embracing change and advancment. Here, again, losing your bananas applies itself in a unique and subtle way. Hurrah for the multifacetted losing your bananas. Three cheers for plantans!


i have lost my bananas

        20021107   

Michael considered fate at 10:33   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Ross is .. well.. mostly no longer in general.

For whatever unexplained reason he has dropped off the face of the earth (mostly). He has contacted me about Thanksgiving plans though he has given no explaination for his departure from the online world. Perhaps someday he will return. Until then..

I would like to apologize for the lack of comment counts. That is to say, you can not see whether there are any comments or not unless you actually click on comment links, and that is a shame and it hurts me.. But, alas.. What can you do? I am still on the scene and will try to do my best to correct the problem.

(I would have put all this in a comment, but then how would anyone know it was there)

        20021106   

Alex considered fate at 23:51   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
hey, what happened to ross? is he no longer a contributor?

Alex considered fate at 23:51   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Ah, how nice it was to have my first post. No, you should continue to use your blog. my blog is really only temporary until i find a better solution for a bulletin board. I can't have cgi running for security reasons . . .

Do you see the breakdancing videos? and joe eigo? I offered to host joe eigos videos, because he's so rad. check them out.

later
a

        20021105   

Michael considered fate at 13:27   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
This has got to be the most irritating website ever:

SomeoneLikesYou.com
Got a Secret Crush?
Find out if they like you, too! Here's how:
1. Create a list of all your secret crushes...
2. Wait while they list all their crushes...
3. When your crush lists you, too, we'll notify you both!

        20021104   

Alex considered fate at 22:54   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
now anyone can post to your website as me. fuck.

Michael considered fate at 10:49   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Access forbidden!

You don't have permission to access the requested object. It is either read-protected or not readable by the server.

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster
Error 403
www.psych.ucsb.edu
Mon Nov 04 07:47:45 2002

Michael considered fate at 10:44   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
I was going to do this in installments, but who the hell wants that.. ? As yet unnamed, completely unedited for worthwhile content, and a few days late for halloween.. but give it a whirl anyway.

It was cold when she came out of the grocery store. Colder than it was supposed to be for an early fall day in New England. The sun sat lazily on the horizon with a soft melancholy mood and glared blankly at Susan while she loaded the food into her car – eggs and bread for french toast tomorrow morning, a pint of Ben and Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie, and a can of cat food for D.C. She had just gotten out of work after a torturous teacher's union meeting and she owed the white tabby a treat for running so late. All she wanted to do now was go home and crawl up on the couch with her book and her ice cream, her cat and her comforter.

She started up the car and pulled onto the wide main street. The car sputtered in complaint but responded quickly, zipping across the on-coming traffic and settling into it's own lane. After five blocks she pulled the ice cream out and, in a slow and deliberate manner, pulled the cover off. She licked the inside of the top clean and then replaced it and threw the carton in the passenger seat. The entire ride home the sun kept popping in and out of the trees along the side of the road. The crisp edges of the buildings and street signs contrasted sharply with the orange haze of the evening sky. The few clouds still around were wisping about in a sort of forlorn sadness – the last children on the playground unwilling to leave the game.

When Susan passed the Texaco station it's fluorescents were already on in the waning evening light. She paused at the intersection; the stoplight blinking a steady red on– off-on-off-on-off. In the distance she could hear a dog howling mournfully. It was fairly far off and it sounded like it was barking about something, for it's supper maybe.

“Where are you, dog?” she wondered aloud as she took off again. She tried to pinpoint the direction of the bark but as she turned the corner she could no longer hear it as well. “It must be up ahead somewhere,” she thought. It was strange to her that she would hear a dog this far out; The only two houses for the next ten miles were her own and the abandoned farmhouse across the street.

A large shipping truck flew by a few minutes later shaking her out of her state and she realized she had driven for a good mile without actually looking at the road. She felt uncomfortable and tired and tried to pull her sweater closer around her. She shivered and looked at the clock on the dashboard: 5:36. She hunched over the steering wheel and tried to find the sky but the trees wrapped her in. She drove on.

The drive was usually her favorite part of the day; a chance to unwind after eight endless hours spent pleading and cajoling two dozen tiny kids with screaming mouths. Today, though, she was sick of it all. She didn't want to look at the forest rushing by or the broken yellow line. Today there was something sinister about the road and she felt as if the last thing she wanted was to be on it. The centerline twisted comically at her with an evil smile, it's faded yellow the color of rust at the bottom of a Half and Half can left out over winter. The trees pushed in on her with alarming insistence.

As she crested the small hill about a mile before her driveway she spotted something laying up ahead halfway in her lane. As she approached it she could tell it was an animal and she held her breath. From fifty feet away it looked like a shepard/collie mix but she couldn't tell without her glasses. She slowed to a near crawl, pulling out into the center of the road, and as she passed she peered down at the lifeless body. It was indeed a dog of some kind but she couldn't be sure from it's contorted pose. Over it stood two blackbirds. They cocked their heads and stared blankly at her. She stepped on the brake and stopped the car short before her mind had made the decision. She took her eyes off of the scene to put the car in park and looked back immediately in an involuntary motion. The birds were still standing over the prone form though they seemed less interested in her now. They pecked tentatively at a red gash where the dog was most certainly hit by a vehicle on it's hind quarters. They stared at her with their black unmoving eyes in between tiny sideways hops. She yelled, but she wasn't sure what she said. She just knew she felt unsettled inside - disrupted. The birds didn't twitter nervously as most birds do – they just stood there motionless, unphased by her outcry. The closer of the two hopped towards her and she could see the outline of the dark woods on the other side of the road gleaming in his beady eyes. It opened it's mouth to make a sound and then paused as if thinking better of it, it's tiny black tongue dipped in the middle and rough like sand paper. As she sat up and sped away it finished it's thought and she heard it shout loudly behind her. CAW. In her side mirror she could see it still staring at her. The other one raised it's head from the dog. CAW-CAW.

She drove a little too fast the last mile home and turned into her driveway with the faintest squeak of the tires. All of a sudden she noticed it was dark enough now that the sky was melting into the tops of the trees. “Too early to be this dark,” she mused. It was almost a quarter till six but not late enough for it to be so black out. Her mind automatically kicked in, rationalizing for her – It's overcast, I haven't been noticing how early the sun sets, I don't usually drive home this late – before she realized how clearly she was able to see the dead dog just a mile back in the road. There had been plenty of light. Enough light to see the birds – reflections in their eyes and the glisten of fresh blood on their beaks.

Her heart skipped a beat and then rushed ahead of her, forcing her out of the car before her mind could force her to freeze from some unfathomable and unexplained fear. She grabbed the food and half ran towards the door of the old farmhouse, it's windows like the wide staring eyes of a petrified child. When she reached the porch and the automatic light came on she regained some of her wits and turned her back to the wall, one hand on the doorknob. She took a few breaths with her eyes closed and felt slightly better.

“Heeeeeeeeeerrrre kitty kitty kitty kitty,” she called. She swept her eyes over the yard and the edge of the woods, looking carefully by the pile of old wood ripped out of the house for renovation. He liked to hang out in the pile where mice could be found by the dozen. She spotted a white streak by the corner of the barn and he came running down the driveway to stop at the bottom of the steps.

“Come on, come inside now,” she said. He looked at her questioningly. His all-white coat was usually dirty in places but tonight it shined an almost pure white while his eyes winked in the funny off-on way that cat's eyes do under directed light. He brought his back legs down and sat quietly looking at her, the worry of a dog on his face.

She reached up on her tip toes, running her hands along the top sill of the door frame looking for the key. Her shirt pulled up and her stomach pressed against the glass of the cold window. She shivered but as she found the key and came down off her toes she felt the slightest vibration from the door and she froze again. In an instant the fear was back and her heart was racing faster and faster. She looked back questioningly at D.C. but he was still sitting there looking at her, unanswered. She peered through the window into the blackness, squinting, but finding nothing. She forced herself to stop and count to three and breath. She couldn't live with this unrelenting fear of the dark if she was going to live alone and she knew it, but it kept coming back. She slid the key into it's slot and jimmied the door so it aligned with the - albeit crooked – frame. She turned the knob and the door opened roughly into the entryway. Then she remembered the cat.

“Come in now, D.C... I'm not going t...” she stopped mid-sentence. D.C. Was gone from the bottom of the steps. “Where are you now?” she said, her words absorbing the frustration she felt about her irrational fear. She looked around again but without stepping her body back outside onto the porch. From the bushes came a slow and painful holler that D.C. usually reserved for proudly announcing a victorious game of cat and mouse. His green eyes stared through the plants but nothing else of him could be seen.

“Come in RIGHT now!” Susan demanded. She whistled his favorite call but his eyes didn't move. “Alright then,” she thought bending over to reach into the shopping bag. She pulled out the can of food she had bought and turned back towards the bushes but his eyes were gone. “Goddammit D.C.” she moaned but the hairs stood up on the back of her neck and she stayed poised, can in hand, staring strongly into the dark, willing the green globes to reappear.

There was no watch on her wrist but the seconds ticked by loudly in her ears, her heart thumping pressure into her head like the throb of a bass drum. Despite the cold her forehead beaded ever so slightly with sweat. Odd spots of heat and ice, as if blotched onto her body by the hunched form of a giant artist, began to appear, grow, and slide over her torso.

Her mind snapped out of it's thoughtless loop and she sprang through the door, slamming it shut behind her. As if it had been waiting for her to leave the automatic porch light snapped out and the shock of it caused her to flatten her body against the entry wall. She ran her arm along the door frame till she felt the cold of a metal light switch plate. She paused, her inner monologue arguing with itself, and let her hand fall to her side. Committed, she slowly pulled herself away from the wall, stood tall and erect and walked forcefully through the entryway to the kitchen door. There really was no door – just a frame – and she stopped there, proud of her small victory. She listened again for things that go bump in the night but only the fridge hummed back. The old kitchen chairs shined ever so lightly from the metal along their edges and it was now that Susan looked out the window and noted the large, orange moon hanging just above the horizon. It was the harvest moon, full and bright while everything around was seemingly pitch black. Next to the door she found the kitchen light, and flicked it on. The overheads flickered once and sprang to life.

The next second was the longest she would ever live in her life. There, under the kitchen table was the most horrible thing she had ever seen. It's terrible eyes swirled with darkness and it's paleness, dirty against the linoleum, went creeping in a slithery sliding ooze. It backed away from her, mangy and sunken with hair so thick like fur but patchy and sick, like poison. It stared, unphased, as if temporarily disturbed from it's work, and it's spine curved inwards as it backpedaled in one fluid motion. It's form low on the floor like a crouching cat it moved almost seamlessly, like a movie being rewound. The front arms did a backwards moonwalk, miming the legs of a bicyclist, while it's haunches took larger, slower crawling steps. It's animal-human form sunk into the depths of the den engulfed by the darkness leaving in the kitchen nothing but the weight of it's evil lingering, filling every corner with it's death.

Less than a second later it was gone and Susan sunk to the floor. Her body was shaking and trembling. She gasped desperately for oxygen but there was no moisture anywhere and the air tasted burnt and toxic. Painful seconds ticked by as her mind raced through her hallucination but every aspect passed the test of authenticity. She hit herself with her bunched fists and cried and yelled out at her imagination but the taste was still in the air and she could still feel the evil floating like mist in the room.

After a time she lifted herself slowly from the floor, back sliding up the wall. She listened for sounds while her eyes tried not to look at anything so as to make her ears more acute. She noted the yellowing wallpaper peeling at the top of the room and the discolored cabinets. She saw the dark rings of coffee cups on the counters and the dirt of ages smudged deep into the window sills. Suddenly overcome with dinge she squeezed her eyes shut and as her legs straightened and her head came up the lights flickered out. She opened her eyes. There was no moon.

        20021103   

Alex considered fate at 07:14   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
YEAH MOTHERFUCKWEER!!! I got my own fucking blog now, BEATCHHHHHHHH!
YESSSSSs.
Yessssss.
What now. Come check it out. You can post and publish and view the page all at the same time.

ROCK ON!!!!!!!

        20021102   

Michael considered fate at 16:00   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Hey Everybodee, I am Lara Croft.. Weee.

Which Angelina Are You?

        20021101   

Michael considered fate at 18:21   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
Microsoft Antitrust Judgement Released
"If the Beltway sniper could get the same judge, they would be told not to do it again and be given a new box of cartridges."

Michael considered fate at 16:43   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
BritCoal: i had a doctor's appt today
BritCoal: first time to the doctor in about 3.5 yrs
BritCoal: I love how you walk in, they ask you if you feel fine, and they declare you healthy.. just like that.
BritCoal: Really makes you feel a lot better about yourself.. and you start running around, eating twinkies and binge drinking ...
BritCoal: explaining it all away:
BritCoal: "It's okay... I have a clean bill of health!"
celestialxxxx: doctors aren't what they used to be


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