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"Hoodies," or hooded sweatshirts, have been effectively banned in the UK. How very odd.

Despite using other pens, the Pelikan Level 5 is still my favorite.

Although my gold one died a premature death at the hands of my then-toddler son, I had the foresight to purchase a matte black one as a reserve. The matte black had a stainless steel nib (ewww), but I was able to swap out the gold nib from the other one.

The Namiki Vanishing Point -- my previous favorite -- also had a gold nib, but tore through ink far too rapidly to be used as a day-to-day writing instrument. By contrast, the Level 5 holds an enormous amount of ink.

Too bad the cap can't post, but I've gotten in the habit of holding it while writing.

Check it out at http://www.level.de/english/l5.html.

As an aside, I don't think you can get these in the United States anymore. I had to order the gold one from Malaysia and the matte black one from Germany.

Spammers suck ass. Comment spammers suck even more ass.

There's a couple of authors that I'll read just on the the strength of their name on the cover. However, one stands out: Leo A. Frankowski.

I've always been a fan of the "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" genre, but he takes it to a new level with the "Cross-Time Engineer" series. Most authors have their protagonists gently mincing though time, afraid to step on a bug for fear of somehow altering their futures.

Bah. I say, "Bring it on." So does Frankowski.

I've always had a pet theory that time is like an infinite amount of possibilities where everything that could have occurred did occur. Therefore, a misstep by a klutzy time traveler wouldn't affect causality. Getting back to where you left would be problematic, as you would have to navigate a finite -- but nearly infinate -- amount of subjective "futures" from which to choose . But, I digress. When my inner geek is faced with a problem, he starts to get sidetracked with potential solutions.

Anyway, after reading the adventures of Conrad Stargard for the umpteenth time, I decided to see if he's put out anything new and stumbled upon his web site. I was able to get in touch with Leo, and he was kind enough to send me "Conrad's Crusade" -- the as-of-yet unpublished 7th book in the "Cross-Time Engineer" series. My jaw dropped. Needless to say, I spent the next couple of hours tearing through it.

So, not only is he one of my favorite authors, he's also a hell of a guy.

A picture's worth a thousand words:

I was on my way to work the other day. As it was after 9:00am, and none of the NPR stations carry "Morning Edition" past that, I switched over to Bob and Tom.

They had Kevin Pollock on -- apparently, he is a gifted impersonator. Not a "wow, that sort of sounds like so-and-so" impersonator like Rich Little, but a "wow, that IS so-and-so."

I had just taken a sip of coffee when they had him do Christopher Walken being interviewed:

Frankenstein never scared me. Marsupials do. 'Cause they're fast.

Every surface between my shirt and the windshield was sprayed. I had done this once before, but it wasn't on 270N going 65+ (it was on Teri just prior to both of us going to work -- we had to change).

I don't know why I found this particular bit to be so amusing, but there it is.

There's many annoyances with WinXP.

For instance, a couple of years ago, I plugged in a wireless network card on my laptop, and my task bar just disappeared never to return.

I used to use GeoShell, mainly due to its ability to map hotkeys. As that functionality has been relegated to AutoHotKey for portability reasons, I decided to look into other shells.

Enter sharpe. Similar functionality to GeoShell, but much more ascetically pleasing. Coupled with adding stuff to the desktop (something you couldn't really do with GeoShell), one word sums it up: Wow.

Check it out.

The Indian guys who share my office made me eat "Kaju Burfi", which is a candy-like substance made from sugar, ghee, cashews, and bison milk. It is covered in silver foil, which gives it a fish-scale appearance. Apparently, silver foil is good for your health. "It makes you younger," said Raju. I think this is Hindi equivalent to "it makes you strong," ala Tony Bordain's "A Cook's Tour."

Bison milk.

I shit you not.

As it's pronounced "Ka-jew Barfy", I don't think it'll catch on in the states. "Hey, Billy Bob, pass me that there box of kaju burfi." Some marketing weenie will rename it "Super Mega Cashew Power Bar..." I can just see the packaging: a starburst pattern ejaculating, "Energized with Bison Milk!".

It wasn't bad.

Patterns of Software by Richard P. Gabriel is available at his site.

As an aside, this is the second book I've seen from New Riders that is "open sourced" with the first being The VIM Book by Steve Oualline. Self: Look up links to this.

If I ever get around to writing a book, I'll have New Riders publish it.

Madame Lee is up to no good.