Hey California, get on the stick. This public service announcement brought to you by the Annoyed to Hell by Telemarketing Society. (The link lets you pre-register for the state's Do Not Call database, which goes live in October.)

Another pet peeve: People who stand RIGHT IN FRONT of the elevator doors waiting for them to open so they can get on. These people simply forget that, hey, half the people on elevators are trying to get OFF! Idiots.

Strangest gift delivery ever:

We went out on our deck this afternoon and saw a plastic bag from Borders Books on the floor. Obviously something inside. Within: A package with card, TO our daughter and FROM the house next door (just the address, not the people). Sure enough, it was a baby gift for our young-un, apparently simply thrown from the deck next door onto ours.

Now the question becomes: When we deliver the thank you, do we put it in their mailbox or just throw it over?

Memo to Catherine J. Null of McKninneytown Rd. in North East, Maryland:

Your order for the Dr. Atkins Three-Book Package set has been confirmed. Alas, you used my email address instead of yours, so Amazon can't tell you about it.

Let me know when it arrives. Thanks.

Overheard: A few days ago.
The scene: Local coffee klatch, mostly 60-year-old women huddled around a table at a coffee shop.

Woman #1: Do you like escargot?
Woman #2 [abruptly]: No!
[pause]
Woman #2: I've never tried it.

PC mod of the day.

Don't worry, I had to look up what a speleothem was, too.

Vote Christopher Null for Best Local Author!

I hereby declare a permanent moratorium on the phrase "razzle-dazzle."

A new low in Oscar pool-picking. Spirited Away? Adrien Brody?? Eminem??? Roman Polanski???? This was just out of control. Completely insane.

I managed to get a whopping 6 picks correct out of 24. I might as well have rolled dice. Amazingly, some 20 people out of the 60 in my Oscar pool did even worse than I did. I may have sucked but y'all are just bad. Good riddance, now I never have to hear "All That Jazz" again!

God help us all.

--Coming March 29, 2003.--

My old stomping grounds, New Architect, got four Maggie nominations this year, including a best interview nomination that I'm very proud of. April 11, let's go Narc!

Best. URL. Ever.

http://www.anthrax-chlamydia-gonorrhea-syphilis-symptoms-pictures.com

From SFgate traffic: ADVISORY *** anti-war rally update *** some war protestors were last seen hanging out on beale street near mission street. most have disbanded.

I love the "hanging out" part.

Read it to the end (from Yahoo! News):

Other smaller soirees also canceled red-carpet arrivals -- though it's not clear exactly how lavish the red carpets were anticipated to be anyway. Those events included Wednesday night's Women's Wear Daily and the Diamond Information Center pre-Oscar bash at Keanu Reeve's mother's house.

Anti-war protestors: When you block traffic during rush hour, do you think this is rallying support for your cause? Go chain yourself to a federal building or something. Why do you want to prevent people who are just trying to get home from work from doing so? It's counterproductive, and it's just plain bad PR.

Excellent spam aimed at Sutro Press: Have you ever thought that your book would work well as a corporate promotional item? (For those who don't know me, the book is about a murderous teenager...)

Still a big day. Chunk of flesh removed from my back (mole)... sick from antibiotics (unrelated to mole)... sick from flu as well (unrelated to antibiotics). And exhausted.

Today is a big day. My wife goes back to work after almost 5 months of maternity leave. I start a new job. First full day of day care for the little one. At 8am, the bleary three of us open the garage door to head out on this adventure... only to find six police cars, a fire truck, and ambulance, and a fire marshall all cluttering up the street (and blocking the driveway). Now I live in a pretty sleepy neighborhood, so this is a strange sight. The scuttle among the neighbors is that something happened two doors down from us, where an elderly woman lives (alone? dunno). Our next door neighbor says she heard a loud THUMP THUMP from there in the middle of the night. Foul play is possibly suspected.

Spent today:
- 20 minutes waiting for UPS driver to move truck blocking the driveway
- 1 hour with cat at vet to have a large zit popped and her chin shaved (don't ask)
- 2 hours in after-hours clinic with feverish baby (102.9!)
- at least 1 hour, 30 minutes driving to all these places.
Beat.

Talk about a double whammy. I just shipped a book to a guy who not only lives in Lebanon, NH -- he also lives on Poverty Lane.

My wife probably won't approve, but oh well. It's an excellent piece of Americana.

The sum of my new knowledge for today: Electric mowers aren't much more expensive than old-school manual push mowers. And free shipping from Amazon saves me a trip to Home Despot.

Yasser Arafat. He's always got that same black-and-white spiderish-print head covering thing on. Does that pattern signify something? Anyone in the know on this?

Why, why, why did I waste all day playing Nethack? I have so much I need to do. Which, I guess, is why I did it.

My first front-of-the-box blurb (at least that I know of): The Kingston High at Amazon

My current list of grievances:
- Washington Mutual, which has apparently sold my name, phone number, and details on my mortgage to every person on earth. Stop calling me!
- Earthlink and SBC, who combined have hacked together a poor DSL connection for me.
- AT&T (now Comcast), whose cable service is filled with static and who say they can't do anything about it because "the signal is too weak." Huh? It's your signal, Einstein!
- Belkin, whose wireless router product is possibly the buggiest consumer electronics device I've ever owned.

That's all for now. More grievances as situations develop.

Why can't I get assignments like this Vanity Fair story? [See Michael Jackson blurb, top of page.]

Now searching over 3 billion medical records.

Funniest thing I've seen in forever: The cop dude on Six Feet Under fishing a dead possum out of a swimming pool.

Let's barber, yo. Link courtesy Neil.

Now at 580! Holy moley. And on bn.com ... 280,000! Odd.

Amazon rank is now 780. Amazing how addictive this is...