Sidekick II Release 2.3 update just arrived. Good stuff ... browsing greatly improved by supporting javascript ... live links in all apps ... expanded AIM. Read more ...

Unfinished Egg McMuffins

"Stones must die ... Stones must die". That was the chant as we, the Beatles, put down unfinished Egg McMuffins, copies of Facefull that were always strew on the floor of our Pete Best's Lexus LX470, and medium regular hots from Dunkin Donuts sweetened with Jack, gathered our gear and broke from the parking lot into the course. It was our third annual battle ... Beatles versus the Rolling Stones ... and I was Stuart Sutcliffe again. Lennon and McCartney were already out of sight, George and Ringo were on my wings and Pete was still sitting in his SUV fumbling with a new Icon X ... lucky bastard. I was trying not to be jealous and also trying not to think ahead to Miami in November at Bicentennial Park ... 2005 NPPL Super 7 Paintball World Series ... oh yeah ... focus Stu, focus ... be the gun. My prime objective was to take down Brian Jones. The dead against the dead ... seemed somehow the right thing to do.

"One minute Jonathan Reed was hiking with his golden retriever in a forest in Seattle. The next, his pet was being torn apart by a 'gray' -- an alien being with an elongated head, smelling of rotting fruit." No, seriously ... why am I wasting my time wandering around Sachuest Point where the most exciting thing I've seen lately was two German tourists studying a dead mole rat when I could be in Peru learning more about UFOs. ¿Dudas que tu destino esté en las estrellas? ¿Piensas que se pueden explicar los «milagros»? ¿Sabes lo que distingue a la ciencia de la pseudociencia? ¿Quieres saber si existen los fantasmas, si los extraterrestres ya están entre nosotros o si tienes poderes paranormales realmente? Read more here and aquí.

Hurricane Katrina has revealed a national disgrace ... yes, it has ... you know it as well as I do ... and, no, I don’t mean the looters or even the dumb gun-totting punks in the streets of New Orleans ... and I certainly don’t mean the thousands of frightened people waiting for help ... nor do I mean the many, many volunteers who are doing the best they can and who are making a difference. The national disgrace I am seeing is the shockingly slow and poorly orchestrated response of our Federal Government in providing the needed help. Was there something going down at the ranch that was really more important than hurricane relief in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama? Is this the best the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can do? Is it really true that FEMA doesn’t have access to sufficient food and water, and ready delivery means, to support the 30,000 people in need at the Super Dome? Is there really no way to more rapidly deploy shelters for these and the others displaced in the area? Exactly what disasters has FEMA been planning for? How, for example, would they feed and shelter a city where most of the population didn’t have time to escape? Aren’t there some scenarios - natural disasters, accidents or attacks - where this could happen? Aren’t we thankful that this wasn’t one? Can you imagine how ugly these situations would be ... or will be? Can you Michael? And you GW?

177 Voice Access Challenge ... are you the winner? Hmmmmm, I'm hanging out here reading about Yahoo SMS access and wondering why these people haven't picked up that we don’t need no stinking keyboards ... I want to use my voice over my phone to retrieve information and I want to do it, as the Pussycat Dolls say "maybe this lifetime" ... and since I know there are folks out there who can program rings around me, I want you to build it for me. Yes, I’m willing to pay. OK, so I’m not willing to pay much but here’s the deal ... I’ll give $177US to the first person who puts together the pieces so I can dial an 800 number, ask for a book, chapter and verses in the bible as in "Mark, chapter 1, verses 1 through 13" and have that passage read back to in a high quality voice. I’m thinking something like the current keyboard search at oremus Bible Browser only by voice over the phone, with something like one of the better AT&T Natural Voices reading back to me. To win the $177US, your bible, and since it’s my contest I’d like the New Revised Standard Version, would need to be on line for at least 30 days ... and hopefully might actually stay operational. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, the challenge is only open for the next 177 days. Have you started yet?

Exactly when during this last winter or maybe even spring did watching
sports on TV get to be about as exciting as watching the Powerball
numbers being drawn? Apparently all I want is the results and no
interest what so ever in anything else. I realized this tonight when
first I shut off the 7th game after just a glimpse in the second
quarter, and then second, when, after my allergies woke me around 2
thirty, I pulled my SideKick out from under my pillow and IMed "Smarter
Child" to see Spurs had won., thumbed this in without turning on a light
and crashed.

Sitting on the porch after the rain ... I was enjoying the nearly 20
degree drop in temperature, waiting for Mina to call, exercising my
thumbs and watching the neighborhood cats prowling along the shrub that
runs down to the river. She does.

Are you kidding? Hard to understand why everyone doesn't have one of
these jewels. Broadband? Who cares ... this is truly neuromantic.

Sidekick?

Sidekick? ... What's that? And why would I want one?

Y!Q ... huh? Ok Jeremy Zawodny and others involved ... I have to ask ... why even do this? Isn't this simply the reinvention and repackaging of the basic hyperlink into a more cumbersome to implement, space invasive, and, oh yeah, Yahoo branded format? Am I wrong about this? Why would anyone go through all this work for such limited results? If I was going to build an enhanced search feature that allowed quick targeted search from a web page, I'd build it so the person viewing that page could search ANY word on the page .... yes, ANY word or ANY phrase ... wait ... I already did this for IE users about 9 months ago ... it's called Search Selected @ and you can exercise it on this page by selecting any text you want and then clicking a link in Search Selected @ section of the menu to the right to perform target search at a number of sites. Or ... duh ... you can put this same capability on your own page by pointing to my javascript file. Come on Yahoo ... I have higher expectations of you than Y!Q and its cousin the purple news spot. Wasn't it about the time these jewels were introduced that Google blew through $250 a share? Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not, now 'scuse me while I get back to dusting my roses.

Rotwein, rotwein, so nah wie ein "Kuss" ... and just as delightful ... my pockets full of ticket stubs, restaurant receipts and iconic postcards ... Peterskirche, Osterreiche Galerie Belvedere, Beetovenhaus - Haus der Neunten, K&K Demel, Stephansdom, Albertina, Spanische Hofreitschule, Puppen & Spielseug Museum, Meinl, Sammlung Alter Musikinstrumente, Leopold, Hawelka, Orpheus, Michaelerkrche and more ... as well as two blistered toes are the superficial residue of a fantastic visit to Wien ... bitte, bitte, can we go back for just one more Melange, a great deal more rotwein, sacre torte of course and perhaps a French lament at Michaelerplatz?

I had to do it ... even though the Book of Common Prayer can be found everywhere on the internet, there wasn’t a site that met my needs as far as providing easy to use Morning and Evening Rite II Daily Prayers ... so I’ve put one together ... it’s been in the menu below the Recent Posts and the Search Selected @ links for quite a while now and I’ve just noticed that it is actually starting to get a little traffic. A question you might ask is “what’s the chances these daily prayers will be maintained by someone who's apparently been too lazy to post in this blog but twice in almost 3 months?” It’s a good question ... there’s some work involved with this ... at least in it’s current configuration ... and I haven’t got an answer ... but I also figure it should only be about 3 months before Yahoo provides a similar service anyway.

A mad green dreaming hope ... converged in the stunted brush ... spring ... the true spring ... before any new growth. Sachuest Point today is cool, severe and poised for blooming. Aren’t we all.

Blogging Dangerously

A year, more or less, of blogging dangerously is over. Everything passes, everything changes ...

Mina and Evan have gone to Barstow, Texas to look at property in a gated community run by a former member of the Weathermen group.

Mary died peacefully in her sleep ... her rosary draped, as it always was, around the neck of a bottle of vodka on the nightstand ... half empty, Smirnoff.

Mimsy has gone to live with her father in New Hampshire after Lorraine was jailed following her shooting of the furnace repair man while she claimed to have been hunting mice in the cellar.

Dennis moved to Fort Pierce, Florida where he is busy rebuilding after the damage from last year’s hurricanes.

April and Johnny Utah had recently gone to Khao Lak in Thailand in search of more information regarding the gold key and their fate is unknown.

Paul is in Iraq as part of a DoD team gathering data for a Sequential Characteristics of Organizational Readiness to Execute wheel chart.

Daphne left the retreat on Sconticut Neck after an incident involving feral cats. She is believed to be on Monhegan Island.

I have taken a job as groundskeeper for a nearby Episcopal Church. There is a small stone cottage in the field behind the church and I am considering leaving 177 to live there.

... no regrets, no tears goodbye ... take care of your blessings.