filmcritic.com gets the ultimate geek symbol of approval! Woo hoo!

Your eBay link of the day, in case you'd like to buy this concept for a "restaurent" (with domain name!) that sells such items as '"Kebab or Spinach Stuffed Breads' to 'Personal Pan Pizza'---'Keema Samosas to Grilled Chicken Drumsticks'---'Ice-creams to Hot Cocos' Etc." Too bad "I love these domains and am not ready to part cheap." Note, the seller also has numerous wedding gowns available at auction. Bid often.

In lieu of anything interesting to say (what ever happens on Thanksgiving?), here's the top Google hit for gobble.

Conversation with staff at Chavo's:
ME: ...and can I have a Coke?
DUDE: You want bottle or can!?
ME: What's the price difference?
DUDE: Oh, different!

Yep, it's a fatwa.

Lately I've been having very realistic dreams of taking long trips. Sometimes these are car trips -- 24 or 36 hour drives without stopping. Sometimes I have to fly to Europe for one day and fly right back. Usually this is business-related, sometime family-related. According to dreammoods.com, travel dreams signify either that I enjoy what I do and take great pleasure in it or possibly the "lurking of my rivals." I don't know if either of those sounds very close to the mark. By the way, did you know that most dream interpretation web sites are pay-for-a-reading ventures, Miss Cleo style? Geez...

As everyone knows, I'm fascinated with bullies. The Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Eig caught up with his grade school bully and the tale is a sad one indeed. Highly recommended.

One wonders about the delivery mechanism.

I have hit my head -- hard, every time -- on something three times in the last four days (twice yesterday!). Is this a sign of something more serious than simple klutziness? I don't know how I could hit my head getting into the car I've had for five years, but somehow I did it....

Best spam subject line of the day: "Does your dog have trouble walking?"

Ever wonder how a superhacker thinks? My interview with Adrian Lamo might help explain it. Or it might not.

Here's a pet peeve (what, another one?).

So I'm in this corporate training thing (a whole other peeve) and we are, of course, asked to introduce ourselves to the roomful of strangers. Never mind that we will never see each other again -- the training session is on disaster planning -- we are supposed to say who we are, what department we work for, and who our boss is. Why this information is important I don't know, especially the boss part. So anyway we're going along and most people are dutifully spending 15 seconds on the intro, but this one annoying woman decides to take the opportunity to give us her corporate life story, going on and on about how her department structure has changed and how she now has "dotted line" responsibility to a bunch of different people. Essentially what she's hinting at is that she's probably next to get laid off but she wants to convince us all that she's worth saving -- never mind that no one in the room has any involvement with her job in any way. I wanted to slap her around a little, but there was candy to distract me.

The moral of the story: Shut the hell up.

A story like this makes you lose all respect for the Rolling Stones.

Meanwhile, here's a really disturbing picture of Michael Jackson.

And all was right in the world. At least it was in Wisconsin.

I am amazed at how quickly I've come to identify with the dad characters on TV sitcoms. Everybody Loves Raymond seems really, really funny to me now. Amazing.

Not all angels are innocent.

My collected thoughts on a new candy I bought today: The dark chocolate Kit Kat.
- First off, with 45 days to go until Christmas, this is touted as a holiday stocking stuffer. 45 days!
- That shock behind me, what does this have to do with Christmas? The white chocolate version (also available) makes more sense, but I think all chocolate candies should be dark chocolate, all the time. Dark chocolate rocks!
- Finally, execution on this candy is poor. I consider myself an expert on the Kit Kat, but this version does not appear to have anything between the layers of wafer. They're just mushed together. Having just finished the four sticks, I guess some of them have something between the layers, but it ain't dark chocolate. Fix it, people of the H.B. Reese Candy Co.!

P.S. Baby slept the entire time on the Home Depot trip. Of course, my parents called while we were out and frantically tracked us down, asking if we were "at the hospital!?" Bubbububbbububb.

Last night much better than the night before. Ashley figured out the trick to get Zoe to sleep for a couple of hours in a row. Two nights ago she wouldn't sleep for more than 10 minutes. Now she's up to 1 1/2 hours or even 2. I feel practically rested. Tonight we are taking her out for the first time (at five days old, sheesh, she's ready, isn't she?) -- on an excursion to Home Depot. I have a feeling this is going to be quite an experience.

I am surprisingly more resilient to high-pitched screaming than I thought I would ever be. Years of tuning everyone on earth out are paying off, yeah!

Here's something non baby-related. Look yourself up and see if you too are "that kind of person."

Should I be offended that my spam filter perceives replies to my baby announcement not just as spam but as "Adult Content"?

Last night as I was trying to find some dinner, waiting for Baby Z to be born, I passed a number of Irish bars in the neighborhood. For some reason -- and I'm not an alky -- the lure of the bars was palpable. For some reason I was overcome with the fear that I was going to ruin it all -- that I would lose my job, go broke, lose the house, etc. etc. -- and make a poor life for the then unborn Zoe. I'm getting over it now, because looking at her little face (this picture was taken at age ~150 minutes), you can't help but wonder if everything is perfect in the world. Happy birthday, Zoe. I'll do my best.

Roberta Austin of The Compulsive Reader offers this review of Half Mast. Thanks, Roberta!

Thank God -- you can have 'em!

Highlight something in Microsoft Word and hit Shift+F3. It cycles the selection through ALL CAPS, all lowercase, and First character of a sentence capped. Invaluable for cleaning up text.