Last updated 6-28-2022
How ya like me now?
It took me countless hours, but the Web site is completely upgraded now. Behind the scenes, where you can't see it, all the files are organized much more neatly, and lots of old images have been tossed. What you can see: the neat interface with the small footprint up at the top, revised (and additional) copy on existing pages, some new photographs, lots of new links... Enjoy it, or don't.
Between work and this site, I've been almost completely drained since the year began. Fortunately, less than 36 hours from the time I'm posting this, I'm heading for Brazil with my mom and my best friend Barbara! Another much-needed vacation... Summer's winding down there, so it'll be nice to get away from the cold and the snow for a bit. :)
I'm sure I won't get away from bad global news, though. Brazil and Canada are still sniping at one another over the Canucks' refusing to buy Brazilian beef on grounds that it may be contaminated with mad cow disease, a prospect that Brazil hotly denies. Just my luck, I avoid getting pulled into the Gulf War (during which I was of prime drafting age) and end up conscripted to fight the Brazilian-Canadian War!
Dubya's at it again. Lay off the missile defense shield, mister. This is just not going to sit well with the Russians, the Chinese, and even some of our allies. And why must you wave a menacing stick at Iraq? Daddy ask you to clean up his unfinished business? I'm not happy about what's going on in Baghdad, on either side, but the U.S. should either finish the job it started ten years ago with an international coalition, or else back off. Cat-and-mouse isn't doing anyone any good, and the sanctions seem to be hurting the Iraqi people much more than the Iraqi government.
I've eased up a bit on my condemnation of Sharon, but I still don't think he's Israel's best hope for peace. Not by a long shot. In any event, he may not be on the scene long enough to matter; if he can't get a coalition government together soon, it'll be votin' time again. Sheesh.
I'm disgusted by the Taliban's decision to destroy all the statues in the country, including some incredible artwork like the two giant standing Buddhas. It seems petty to me, considering they'd originally declared that statues were OK. If this goes through, it will be a real tragedy for the Afghan people. The Taliban wants to deny its people their real history and rewrite it so that they've always been Muslim, but that's not the reality.
More chaos and destruction in Indonesia. This is appalling... :0
Speaking of appalling, I saw "Hannibal" Monday night with Yesika. Heh-heh... It was good, though rather slow in parts. But some of it was indeed quite graphic, and Yes, who's not squeamish about gore, was nauseated by one scene (if you've seen the movie, I'm sure you know the one I mean). Yum...
Wow. Now there's a blonde with nice eyes. Don't think it'd take much for her to hypnotize someone with those... Mental note to self: stay away from her. Get a seat on the bus far, far away from her... Heh-heh-heh.
I was sitting on the bus, slowly making progress through the snow the other night, and as I saw a solitary happy duck in a stream as we drove by, I thought to myself that we must really be wreaking havoc with Mother Nature. It wasn't the usual pollution sources I was thinking of, but rather the cleanups after blizzards. Five hundred years ago, if there was a huge snowfall, most of the white stuff stayed on the ground for weeks or months; now, we fall over ourselves trying to remove it, with shovels, snowblowers, plows, salt... I wonder if anyone's done a study on what effect this is having.
Boy, when Seattle rocks, Seattle really rocks... Heh.
OK, the CD-titling poll is not going over very well at all. But, damn you, I'm not going to give you a new poll until I start seeing real results from this one! C'mon, it's been up for several weeks now, and there have only been fourteen votes, and eight comments (not including mine)? If you think all my suggestions suck, fine: tell me that. But surely you must have an opinion, somewhere... - A
Last updated 6-28-2022
