Design Your Own Home Page. I just saw this in the bookstore. Its a really nice looking book. Full color inside and some good information on blogs and blogging. Molly is amazing.

Vegan lasagne? Nice. If I'm ever in San Francisco I'll have to ask Evan for some restaurant suggestions.

Nice, I didn't even realize that Amazon had Free Music Downloads. Gotta fill up the iPod.

Twilight: "I cannot draw, and I can only paint objects rather than pictures. However, I can knit, I can sew, I can cook, and I can stick things together quite well. Instead of picking paint colours, I pick fabric or yarn. Instead of using a paintbrush, I use needles. That is my creativity." Good stuff.

Dictionary.com has Text Advertising and now a Premium version. What's next, a "thin media" publication? I'm game.

Wil Wheaton:

Here's the thing about red pepper flakes: even when you wash and dry your hands really well after you're done? The oil that makes them spicy is still on your hands. So when you absentmindedly scratch your chin, or rub your eye, or go to the bathroom, every single thing you touch will immediately burst into flames.

Every. Single. Thing.
Burns.
Oh, how it burns.

Similar scenarios have played out at genius labs. Ouch.

Mac OS X Hints is coming soon.

Fly Guy with art by Trevor Van Meter is a beautiful thing. I wish this was available on my iPod. Email me when it's ready? Nice.

Cool, Sorting-hat.com says I'm in Gryffindor.

Barbie's pregnant pal pulled from shelves "The pregnant version pops out a curled-up baby when her belly, attached by a magnet, is opened has been pulled from Wal-Mart shelves across the country after complaints from customers." They should rename this toy "Barbies Alien Buddy." That'd fix the problem.

Santa already knows that Many Tools of Big Brother Are Up and Running. How do you think he checks up on everyone?

Cool. I'm finally on OSX so I can try out BlogApp. Gorgeous.

I went into this building yesterday. There were CDs, videos, books... all kinds of media. I took what I wanted and walked out without ever paying. Crazy! And they saw me do it. Weird. Apparently, this is a normal occurrence. The place was even called "Free Library." This could catch on.

Book Review "If what you want is ease and a little fun in getting your ideas onto your web page, Blogging is not a bad book for the money." Not bad=good!

I went here today for lunch. Ate salad. But I can't complain about any place that brings me a fresh glass of wine before I've finished the one I was working on. More wine!

Yahoo! News - Hundreds of Muslim Immigrants Rounded Up "Hundreds of Iranian and other Middle East citizens were in southern California jails on Wednesday after coming forward to comply with a new rule to register with immigration authorities only to wind up handcuffed and behind bars." What's with the rounding up and the handcuffing?

Attribution links as ant pheromones and the like. Cool post at Microcontent News today.

Gabeanderson.com has a list of Vassar Blogs. Good stuff.

Since my powerbook went kaput a few months ago I have been out of the loop with all my usual web readings and hadn't noticed until today that Joe Clark has a new book: Building Accessible Websites that looks great. I gotta get me one.

Just in time for winter: Modern Drunkard sign language.

Note to self: Avoid walking around Harvard Square in a rainstorm before sitting down to 3 hours of Revels. Otherwise, discomfort could ensue.

Blogging - book review Roy Johnson wrote a review of my book if you're wondering what your $20 at Amazon will get you in the way of blogging advice. Thanks Roy!

Mozilla appears to be the browser of choice for the Playboy Lifestyle. The first post in this discussion at MozillaZine asks, "Did any of the bunnies list being a moz developer as one of their turn-ons?"

Uh, oh. Monsur is on to me.

Feng Shui for web designers:

• Make sure it has an appealing entrance area - the 'splash' screen and main menu page.


• Avoid using an internet service provider which has a bad history - for example, one which has hosted several failed sites. This would create bad feng shui even though, to 'rational' eyes, the internet service provider has not been in any way responsible for these failures.


• Don't line up all elements against the sides of the screen.


• Ch'i thrives in harmonious and pleasant environments. Designing websites which merely look 'businesslike' will not give pleasure and a healthy circulation of ch'i.


• Only have a smallish number of carefully-selected links. Long lists of links are stagnant in appearance, and the ch'i rapidly escapes through them.


• Different companies are trying to develop the industry-standard plug-in that will deliver ambient music, in small files (that's why it has to be ambient), to web sites. These would probably be good for the feng shui of sites, since soothing ambient music in the background would be akin to the flow of running water, which increases the flow of positive ch'i.

I'm recently back from a two day conference at Vassar College where I'm happy to say the staff of the Alumnae House were great about providing delicious vegan meals. Nice.

If you were me, what would you do? Take a shower? Drive your car into a ravine? Sleep? Dispose of yourself piecemeal with an in-sink erator? Well, I am me and these questions need to be resolved. Hold my calls.

Arev: Armenian Folk Ensemble will be live today at noon on 89.7

Fun with FedEx Is there a Santa Claus? Let's ask FedEx.

I told Livia to add some movies to our Netflix que. Result: I'm about to watch Snow Dogs. The tagline is, "Get ready for mush hour." I let you know. Update: Didn't finish the movie; not enough talking dogs.

Amazon.com: Wish List for Biz Stone. I love Amazon.

Evhead has migrated his blog to the new version of Blogger. Will we all have it in time for the new year? We shall see.

Richard French of the Astronomy department at Wellesley College posted this today: "One way to remember that we all live on the same planet is to look at another one. We took this image of Saturn with the Hubble Space Telescope two days ago." Here's a bigger picture. Cool, thanks Mr. French!

Free Electricity from Your Phone Jack: "The Phone Company always has a steady source of DC power available. Convert the 48 Volts DC from the modular jacks in your home or office to a voltage that can be used to power the items you need to get on with your life, even if there's no power from the electric company."

Katherine Murray's latest book, Faster Smarter Microsoft Office XP arrived the other day. It's huge! 350 pages of secret stuff that will help me outwit my fellow earthlings. There's also a companion blog. Thanks Katherine.

PhDweblogs is a non-profit initiative to bring together PhD students’ weblogs from all around the world. If you are preparing a PhD, or have a blog about your research interests, you can register it there.

Jason needs temporary Manhattan office space. Xanga.com is headquartered in Manhattan. Sounds like a match to me!

Wired News on Mac Loyalists: "Mac users are not merely an ad hoc group of people who happen to use the same kind of computer. They represent a distinct subculture, with its own rituals, traditions and mindset."