Who says engineers aren't creative Late hours, endless supply of colored post-it notes, who knows what can happen.

Oh.....My.....God...They exist. Remember that post I wrote back on June 5th, 2001. Of course you do. I saw one. It was on some big ass truck waiting at the light on the corner of Big Bend Road and 41. They were just hanging there. They were the skin colored ones as well.

Oh speaking of old Web stuff, remember that Peter Pan guy? I saw him on Sunday. I was biking out at flat woods. I recognized the bowl haircut and the green tunic. He also has a green bike.

What were they thinking? Beth and I saw Sideways on Monday. I have no idea why this movie is getting such good reviews. It's not a bad flick, but it doesn't live up to the hype. There's not much story, and the characters were an older version of Mikey and Trent from Swingers.

Whatcha in for? Watering on the wrong day. We got a citation in the mail last week for a watering fine. The citation came striaght from a judge and we were ordered to pay $172 or we would face criminal charges. They really take this seriously around here. Actually, only Beth would have faced jail time since her name is on the water bill.

Whew, close one. Oh alright, I guess I can take care of it for her, but she owes me. We had until the end of the week to file for an exclusion (i.e. get out of it). County restrictions allow every day for 30 days after sod is put down, and every other day for another 30 days on. So with my lawyer cap on. I needed to know two things. First, The exact date the sod was put down, and last, the exact date the citation was issues. I'm pretty good, aren't I?

So I called the county, but the guy was sick that day. Ok, so I called my builder and he said he'd get back to me. This was Monday. The next day I called the county guy back, but he was at lunch, then he was out of the office, then he was out in the field, then he was on break, then he was rehearsing for riverdance, then he was.... So now its Thrusday, and I've got nothin. I've got to get a grip on this case or my client is going to fry (or we'll just have to pay the fine).

I finally get a hold of the county guy to get an answer to the first part of my case. "The fine was issued on December 21st". Ok great, halfway done. Now I just have to get a hold of the builder and find out...Wait, hang on. Called the county guy back. "Did you say December 21st?" "Yeah" "Are you sure?" "Yeah" "Positive" "Yeah" "Ok, bye"

I was having a problem with math. Citation date - Closing date = -2. Called back the county. "Hi, its me again" "Yeah?" "Did you know that this citation is two days before we closed on the house?" "No" "Oh, well this citation was issued two days before we closed on the house" "Yeah?" "Yeah, then can you dismiss the citation" "Yeah".

Damn I'm good.

I'll see your 3 Pentiums and raise you a Xeon Las Vegas casinos are starting to incorporate gambling chips with microprocessors so they can crack down on counterfieting. The casinos can also track how much gamblers have, where they are, and how much they bet. Most importantly, you will get your free drink quicker after you lose everything you have. Just another example of technology serving the people.

MaqQuest meets it match Google launched Google Maps which is pretty much like every other map site, except you can scroll without having to reload the page. The rendering is a little slow, but it is still pretty slick.

Un-Real Estate In what may or may not go down in history as one of the most unbelievable/incredible/mind-blowing/potentially stupid real estate deals of all time, David Storey purchased his own private tropical island for the grand sum of $26,500.

Take a moment to let that sink in... it gets better.

The island is quite large, boasting rich fields for actriculture, untapped mines, and plenty of beachfront which the owner plans to develop.

So what's the catch? An island for $26,500? There is a catch, right, there has to be!

Yup. The island does not exist. Well, at least not in the real world. Mr. Storey paid twenty-six thousand five hundred very real dollars for a very unreal piece of real estate. The island is part of a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). A freaking video game.

Idiot! I can't believe these people. What a loser, spending his life savings so he could be the talk of the comic book shop. Don't these people have a life? What can he possibly do with it. Yeah, he can have all his tarded friends in the game come to his island and it would be the "cool" place to hang out in cyberspace. Then some bigger loser will come along and buy it off of him for like $50,000...which would give the first guy a profit of twenty-three thousand five hundred very real dollars.

I suddenly feel very cold.

Could this happen? Can somebody actually purchase virtual property and make money off it? Yes, it is possible. It's very difficult to grasp, but yes. He owns something that others may want. I'm going to keep an eye on this one. In the meantime, there's a little piece of property I have my eye on in the southeast section of the Ms. Pac-Man board. Here is a good article on it.

Free is good OpenOffice.org is an OpenSource (i.e. FREE!) alternative to Microsoft Office. I finally got a chance to download it and try it out. Doesn't look as pretty as Office, but it will read and write Word and Excel files. So if you don't want to shell out $400 for your own copy of Office, this is for you.

Come to think of it, I've never known anyone who has actually purchased Microsoft Office.

Wednesday update The new furniture was delivered today. It's really nice. I think the days of assemble-yourself-particleboard are long gone. I now have grown-up furniture. The dealer gave us a "window" as to when to expect the delivery. Of course the window was 8 hours long. Oh well, good excuse to take a day off from work. Gotta wait for that delivery. It could take all day long you know. As the delivery men left, I glanced over at the digital clock on the microwave. It was 9:20. I guess I'll just have to pretend it took all day long.

WTF?