actual results may not reflect reality I was thinking about online surveys this morning. Back in like '96 or '97, ESPN had a survey to see who had the best mascot. Penn State ended up winning with around 500,000,000 votes, or something. I think Michigan was second with around 2000. It turns out, some CIS student wrote a program to vote for Penn State several thousand times per second. Penn State was disqualified, which, if you think about it, really wasn't fair. I mean, ESPN didn't say you couldn't write a computer program to vote for your favorite mascot 1000 times per second, did they?

I actually tried to do this. When I as "working from home" for three months, I watched a lot of MTV. Don't laugh, I was sick of the Roseanne reruns. Anyway, they used to do this thing were you could vote for the next video to be shown. They'd give you four choices and you had to jump up and get online and vote. Then they'd show who was winning. The thing is, they actually had some good options. But it was always just so frustrating to see Ludicrisp take it in the end.

Just for once I wanted to see Weezer win. So I looked at the page to see how they did their voting and went to work. Of course I set it to vote only 100 times per second. Didn't want to risk shutting down their servers and having to explain to the FBI why I'm lauching Denial of Service attacks from my apartment.

It ended up not working. I felt like such a failure. But not for long. I soon discovered that Nickelodeon was showing Cheers reruns all day. Sometimes I love my short attention span.

Tonight's triathlon training 60 minute bike 60 minute run 30 minute jacuzzi Why do I do this stuff agan?

I knows stuff. I really tried to keep clear of the Terri Schiavo ordeal, but it's just gotten so big that you have to have an opinion. That's the way big news stories are. You just can't escape it. You walk around at work and people ask you what you think, and it's like crap, you gotta have something somewhat relevant to say. When people say "Hey Mike, what do you think of the Terri Schiavo case?", you can't just say, "Yeah, umm that 6-foot rule really sucks".

So, in the sake of saving yourself from becoming the subject of low whispered snickers behind the cubicle walls, you have to find out some of the facts of the important issues. Not that having intelligent opinions is going to erase your drunken performance of 'Flashdance' at the Christmas party, but, you know, it helps.

Now in order to formulate an opinion on a current event, you've got to learn the facts. So, where do you go to uncover these so called "facts"? CNN? Fox News? the paper? Of course not. You need to turn the one source that you can trust to be accurate and unbiased; your friends.

The next step is to take these facts and form an opinion. Don't worry, you don't have to come up with one on your own. There are plenty of people out there that you can borrow from. There's people like John Stewart, Bill O'Reilly, James Carville, Sean Hannity & Alan Colmes, and the magic 8-ball. All of whom have well thought out opinions which you can adopt. If none of these float your boat, you can use mine (My, what a great segue into my opinions about the Terry Schiavo case) and here they are:

1. Nobody wants to see this girl die. If we could wave our magic wands, she'd be right back up there on that pole.
2. There are two groups of people involved. The first is Terri, Michael, and her parents. The second is everybody else.
3. We want to believe in our judicial system. Her parents have new lost 30 rulings in both state and federal courts. You can't blame them for trying, but we have to respect the judge's decisions.
4. Jeb and Duh-bya. First off, worry about running your god damn state. Second, worry about running your god damn country. Terri is one person. You two jerk-offs are responsible for millions of people. We can't afford for you to be creating all this legislation for one person. Do you have any idea how much you cost per minute?
5. Supporters. Hundreds have gathered outside Terri's hospice in Pinellas Park. Six miles to the south, dozens of homeless search for a place to sleep in Williams Park. Number of supporters: 0. But you know, one can only deeply care something if there are news cameras around

(end rant)

OK, so you've got yourself some facts, you've formed or borrowed yourself an opinion. Now go out there and show them you are a man (or woman, whatever you prefer) who cares about the world.

Finally! Sick of people who park like idiots. Now you can let them know. I like how the site states that you should not attach these to other people's cars.