Cholesterol debris.
I spent this weekend in the ex-Live Music Capital of the World, Athens,
Ga. I was visiting my sister and borther-in-law, and I joined my friend
(and roomate) Teo <teo@eden.com> on his journey to walk the walk of
the sheep-skinned. Congrats, Teo!
The first highlight of the Journey was getting to see "Heavenly
Creatures" again. When this movie came to Austin I gave it rave
reviews and I'll do it again, now. It's the true story of two
girls growing up in New Zealand and the problems that arise for
them when their escapism gets a tad too extreme. I won't ruin
the story for you, because it's best to see this movie without
any clue as to what's going on.
The second highlight from the little, but bountiful town of Athens
is that they've got a Q-zar arcade! This is an indoor laser-tag
game. If there is one in your area, go and get your adrenalin
pumping. It'll leave you weak-kneed. (If you see me win the
lottery, I'll be building a Q-zar in Austin.)
The final highlight I'll be sharing with you is my communing with
nature. I went with my sister and brother-and-sister-in-laws to
a local state park with a small river and waterfall. My sister
decided we should find our own private spot away from the small
crowd near the falls so we made our way around the first bend and
started wading around. Soon after I felt something brush against
my leg. Now, I was raised in the south and things-brushing-against-
your-leg-in-natural-watering-holes isn't something to concern you.
I looked down and saw it was a tan rope-like object. Then I no-
ticed it was a swimming tan rope-like object. It'd already swam
past me at that point so I was still un-concerned. Then it de-
cided to head for the bank - between it and the bank was my brother-
in-law who'd just sat down in a low spot. He felt the thing bump
into his arm and when he lifted his arm the snake decided to swim
across his chest. Now, being a good-ol' central Texas country
boy he, also, knew when to be concerned about things-brushing-against-
you-in-natural-watering-holes and immediately jumped up and ran
screaming to the bank. Needless to say we decided there was a
reason a small crowd had formed near the falls and we joined them.
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[ From Cliff, <mbuna@eden.com>. I keep saying I won't do any more ]
[ pentium jokes, but this one was too good to resist. ]
For the trekkie in you, I saw this .signature file on some mail I
received that I thought you would enjoy:
> I am Pentium of Borg , Division is futile , You will be Approximated
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[ Also from Cliff: today's safety tip ]
"In retrospect, lighting the match was my mistake. But I was only trying
to retrieve my son's rat." Dick Stone told doctors in the severe burns
unit of San Francisco City Hospital. Admitted for emergency treatment
after an attempt to retrieve the rat had gone seriously wrong, he
explained, "My son left the cage door open, so his rat, Vermin, escaped
into the garage. As usual, it looked for a good place to hide, and ran up
the exhaust pipe of my motorcycle. I tried to retrieve Vermin by offering
him food attached to a string, but he wouldn't come out again, so I peered
into the pipe and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him."
At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what had
happened next. "The flame ignited a pocket of residual gas and a flame
shot out the pipe igniting Mr. Stone's mustache and severely burned his
face. It also set fire to the pet rat's fur and whiskers which, in
turn, ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the exhaust pipe which
propelled the rodent out like a cannonball." Stone suffered second-
degree burns, and a broken nose from the impact of the pet rat. His son
was grounded for 6 weeks.
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If female-style masculine-curiosity is your thing, then you should
write Dahven@aol.com and ask about her issue 2.4 of *cultural debris*.
Apparently Dahven puts out this literary publication on a less-frequent
basis then the WU, but has a much longer periodical. She's very in-
sightful and would be glad for you to join in. Write her and let
her know that you're interested.
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[ In the wake of <yech!> popular "on-line" "services" getting WWW ]
[ browsers, I'd thought it'd be nice to hear about what's avail. ]
[ Here's my opinion of AOL's browser, and then the KMc tells us ]
[ about prodigy. ]
For once I didn't throw away the brightly colored blue, green, and
yellow package that came for me via snail mail. I'd heard that AOL's
browser didn't suck, and decided I should try it out. Apparently when
Hot Wired (who usually represents _some_ journalistic integrity) was
was talking about AOL's browser, they were talking about the specs
for AOL's browser and not the browser itself.
The AOL WWW browser is slow...damned slow. It's even slow compared
to what AOL usually runs at. (We won't even bring up the fact that
AOL _still_ hasn't jumped to 28.8k modems.) It was also buggy. It
took several (read 6-10) retries to pull up a URL and even then only
a few pictures would load before the browser gave up. AND when a URL
failed to load the browser didn't even show any signs that there was
a problem (maybe because it didn't even realize there was a problem).
Stay away from AOL. (....bunch'a bourgeois simpletons...)
[ From kellymc@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu ]
As far as Prodigy's browser goes, I think the most telling fact
is that I've never bothered spending more than a few minutes with it
because it just doesn't measure up to a "real" browser. Of course that's
at 14.4 (or worse, 2400--Shreveport, the cutting edge of telcom) so I'm
jaded from having access to a real net connection. Putting those out of
my mind, however, the Prodigy browser isn't *that* bad. I believe it is
.gif and .jpg -capable, although certain images fail to load on more than
infrequent occasions. But assuming you can get a clean, fast connection,
I'd say it equals or beats plain ol' Mosaic at least.
[ And then KellyMc has this to say about AOL... ]
Of course, isn't the AOL browser still a beta? hopefully they'll
get those kinks worked out. Scratch that- Hopefully they won't get the
kinks out and will cancel the whole deal. What happens when 1 million
(generally less than net-literate) users are instantly granted Web
access? Slooooooow.
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[ These next two pieces are continued from the previous letter ]
[ via KellyMc, but they're of a different subject matter. ]
Have you looked at http://www.springfield.com ? I haven't had the
chance, let me know if you go.
[ This is the site of the "Who Shot Mr Burns?" episode of the Simpsons. ]
-------
Hey, here's a review of the big pot of Red Beans and Rice I made today
(seems qualified subject matter for WU :)):
After today's kitchen toil, I have to say I've learned that the
proof of a RB&R recipe is in the stock meat. I started with six ham
hocks, as opposed to, say, my Mom, who usually uses the whole bone and
scraps of a honey-glazed ham. My batch turned out good, with a pretty
potent intitial spiciness, thanks to plenty of Cayenne and Tabasco, but
it didn't maintain a strong flavor. Of course, just a light sprinkling
of Tony's "More Spice, Less Salt" Seasoning before eating really did the
trick. Mom's however, maintains a good mouth-watering flavor on its own,
and I must credit it to the ham bone. The ham hocks after cooking reminded
me of some bland boiled beef rather than tasty tasty pork, the other white
meat. I dig on swine.