This is the kind of civil disobedience I can get behind. Staffers at an Oregon weekly took the trash of their local politicos after a ruling legalized warrant-free searching of curbside rubbish. The contents are revealed, and I'm dying to know more about the "Extremely personal note on dinner napkin, handwritten in pencil."

Now I'm "award-winning": Best WORK OF FICTION featuring a murderous computer geek

Official motto on Idaho license plates: FAMOUS POTATOES.

The PC I use only to connect to the Internet became infected with NIMDA, and I spent two days trying to eradicate it. This is on a machine that does nothing but send faxes and dial the modem. No email sent or received. Rarely used to view web pages. Virus definitions auto-update daily. WTF!?

My cousin-in-law made this chocolate-covered caramel trombone for my uncle as a Christmas gift. I guess he opened his present early.

Is it just me, or does it seem like the challengers are winning more often on Iron Chef?

Final Survivor pool rankings:

1 Nullifier 925
2 Renutt 875
3 Nachos 645
4 BigMama 495
5 LoRez 470
6 Hongos in Diff'rent Area Codes 370
7 Roberto 250
8 Grech 225

$60, baby!

Editors' secrets revealed (including mine) in Ellen Ullman's mediabistro piece!

"These are designs not only for our time, but for all time."

Which evokes all time better? The crazy angular building that looks like it's going to fall down any minute? Or the grid-shaped buildings that evoke prison bars. These WTC designs get better every time around.

No, this is not for real, but it's a pretty hilarious idea.

And this is a new policy?

I cut my teeth at the Texas Business Weekly. Now I'm on the front freakin' page!

I've been quite ill. It all started with a stomachache that then turned into the whole flu-like thing. And that pain in my tooth is flaring up. It's actually in the gum around the tooth. And now I realize it's partly in my lip. I don't know: Was it always the lip? I'm probably dying. Flesh-eating bacteria or West Nile maybe.

I realize this is not very entertaining for you, the reader, but this is the hypochondria part of the site. Sorry.

Hey, I think I know the other kid who was really scared and didn’t want to take your baby Jesus and the whole time all he did was say stuff like you’re going to hell, this isn’t right, stop.

Google's new shopping service, Froogle, does not appear to work. At all.

Bizarre correction from my old stomping grounds, never known for rigorous fact-checking. Link courtesy Jim Dedman.

Absolute best thing I've seen on TV in ages.

Minor moment of concern of the day: Stopped at a red light next to a construction crew, which is carefully and rather wide-eyed lowering a 50-gallon tank labeled "LIQUID NITROGEN" into a manhole, with inches to spare around it, and about 2 feet from my car.

For god's sake, don't forget to ban the thing from the street, too!

The job of a film critic is a thankless one. Being on the Internet makes it even worse, as the trolls of the world need only hit a button to tell you HOW ST00PID U R!!!! Jeremiah Kipp and I wrote this little feature, outlining our favorite idiotic complaints and explaining why so many people are so very asinine.

She will eat your brain!

Wait a sec, Rob Schneider fills in for Regis Philbin on his talk show??? What have I been missing in this awesome world of daytime TV? Man, the things you see on a half-day vacation...

My pal Neil runs one of the top ten sites devoted to black cheerleaders, or at least, that's what people who click-through from Google believe. Funny how an odd phrase like "black cheerleaders" can get you lots of traffic. I'm hoping to steal some of that thunder now. After all, they're hot, ready, and WAITING FOR YOU. I also have some Britney Spears nudes if you're interested.

Today is already little Zoe's one-month birthday. Crazy. What was I most unprepared for? The soreness of my stomach and ribs due to the incessant kicking of them by a baby that insists on being held upright so she can look around. Ow. Check out her preferred t-shirt here.

Another excellent review of Half Mast, courtesy of The Boox Review.

Received this interesting resume in JPG format from someone who thinks... well, I'm not sure what he thinks. You tell me.

I enjoy Big Night more each time I see it. After years of seeing the film over and over on cable, I decided to make the fabled timpano, a drumlike pastry filled with "all the good things in life," per the film. It's so impressive in the movie that you can't help but salivate over the thing.

Here is the (five-page) recipe I followed.

Here is what the end product looked like:

And here are the (substantial) changes to the recipe I made; if done "the right way" the estimated time expense is about 10-12 hours. I spent 2 in preparation, and 2 in the baking (not really working). The end result: very delicious, but far too much food for two people! I highly recommend trying it out when you have a lot of free time. I wonder how the remaining half will keep 'til tomorrow...

NULL'S TIMPANO STREAMLINING
- First off, I don't have a "timpano bowl," so I used a smaller, deep, round casserole -- a real timpano serves 12. Mine (thank God!) only serves 5-6.
- I didn't make my own dough. I rolled out frozen Pepperidge Farm puff pastry sheets, which gave it an interesting crunchiness and, well, a little "puffiness" too. A Godsend vs. rolling your own!
- My "little meatballs" were not so little. Do you know how long it would take to fry that many 1/2-teaspoon meatballs!? Mine ended up being 1- to 2-tablespoon sized out of laziness. They were fine.
- I used sweet Italian sausage in the meatballs instead of ground beef.
- I (sad to say) did not make my own ragu. I used various Barilla jarred sauces, added red wine, fresh basil, and fresh oregano. It was fine.
- Did not need nearly the 3 pounds of ziti (I used rigatoni) called for. My half-size timpano needed maybe half a pound. Why waste all the room on pasta!?
- Skipped the hard-boiled eggs.
- Could not find a non-sliced salami, so I used sliced salami.
- Oddly, could not find provolone cheese of any kind. Used Sonoma Jack, which turned out very well I think.
- Otherwise, followed the recipe pretty much exactly, halving all the ingredients and cooking it for the same amount of time as a regular timpano. (Only cooled it half an hour.)

Rave reviews from the tasting board!

Chris Seibold provided a very thoughtful review of Half Mast for MyMac.com. So thoughtful in fact that he wrote a multi-page addendum (which he sent to me, deciding that the book is indeed literature) after reading the book a second time... alas, MyMac appears not to have published the second part of the review. C'est la vie.