As I mentioned to John, my McAfee SpamKiller has gotten decidedly less effective over the past couple of weeks. So I went looking today and downloaded Spam Sleuth by Blue Squirrel Software.

I’ve technically still got 60 days before I have to decide whether it’s worth keeping, but I’ve got a pretty good feeling so far.

Thanks to Wired for this link.

Found an article that tracks closely with my experiences in the recent war. The Navy is indeed embracing secure websites.

Station Wagons. Nothing but.

Makes me miss the Superwagon. The Subaru I’ve been driving the last few years doesn’t quite measure up. Very little personality.

Wow. Wow.

Armstrong takes the stage, picks up 50 seconds in raw time on Ullrich plus about a 20 second time bonus. The attack on the Tourmalet will be legendary, but then on the Ardiden, Armstrong got pulled down by a spectator’s goodie bag. Ullrich waited for Armstrong to get back on the bike and catch up, and Armstrong then immediately attacked, flying up the rest of the climb.

(Aside for y’all who don’t follow cycling – The last time Ullrich rode the tour, he had a terrible accident, dropping off the road and into a ditch on the backside of a mountain. Armstrong sat up on the descent, and wouldn’t start attacking again until Ullrich was back on the bike, and had caught up to Armstrong. There’s kind of a code of ethics which holds that you don’t blow a race wide open just because one of the other riders has hit some bad luck. Ullrich paid Armstrong back today).

Tyler Hamilton finished about 90 seconds back today. He’s in fourth overall, but is about 8 or 9 minutes back, so pretty much out of the running for the overall win. But the guy in third was even further behind, Hamilton has a shot at picking up the third place overall.

The other cool story was that a young French rider, Sylvain Chavanel, lead the stage from early on until 3 km from the finish. Armstrong gave him a pat on the back and a kind word as he caught and passed Chavanel who’d had about a 6 minute lead at the base of the Ardiden. In past Tours, where Armstrong had huge leads by this point, Armstrong would have let the young guy have the stage win. Today, Armstrong needed to pick up the time. Too bad for Sylvain.

The Tour ends on Sunday. Armstrong is sitting 67 seconds in front of Ullrich with a mountain stage and a time trial left to go. Ullrich took 90 seconds from Armstrong in the first individual time trial. The German is a machine, huge man, tons of power. While Armstrong has won 6 out of the 8 time trials he’s raced in the Tour, Ullrich blew him away this year. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Wow. Legendary climb today up the Tourmalet, down in the Pyrenees in southern France (Basque region). The Tourmalet’s been climbed in something like 73 of the 90 Tours since 1903. 2,100 something meters above sea level. 17 kilometers (1.1 miles give or take) at 7.5% grade. Your car would be screaming. And the killer is that in today’s stage, there’s another big climb, Luz Ardiden (13.4 km at 7.6%) left to go.

Halfway up the Tourmalet (where Greg Lemonde blew open his first? TdF win), Jan Ullrich, the German with the checkered (wanted to say checquered while listening to Phil Sherwin and Paul Liggett on OLN (Click to listen)) past decided to attack. Big jump. For those who don’t ride too frequently, when you’re cruising up a climb, about the hardest thing to do is to accelerate when you’re already climbing quickly. Lance Armstrong jumped, pressed hard to keep Ullrich’s wheel, and is stalking him. I’m wondering if there’s going to be another ‘Look’ on the Ardiden like there was on the Alpe d’Huez in 2001.

Tyler Hamilton, the Cinderella Story of this years TDF, is hanging strong just behind Armstrong and Ullrich. Hamilton, you’ll recall, broke, as in Fractured, his collarbone in the first stage this year. Hamilton is leading a group just behind the two leaders.

Days like this are why I dig cycling. Makes me want to skip work and go put miles under my tires…