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It's post time for shopping season

Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, the media covers 13,205,129,675 stories about how it's the busiest shopping day of the year. A story in the paper says Biff Smith got to K-Mart at 2 a.m. so he could be first in line to buy the newest Pokemon stuff for his son. Then there's a TV shot of Emma Jean Santaclaus, who purchased $5,000 worth of Barbie accessories for her 27 children. Then on radio, an anonymous man outside any mall says, "Yeah, it's pretty crowded in there. I guess I picked the wrong day to get my watch fixed."

Here's the site for living in the past

A rarity on the Web is a site that can keep one entertained for longer than 20 minutes. The only chance most sites have at this is by spending 18 minutes loading some cool program that can do your laundry while you wait.

JFK learns how to build HTML tables

Those of you who have mastered the art of building a Web site have probably encountered the most important tool known to designers: the protractor.

Coming in second would have to be tables, the backbone to many pages you have visited in your lifetime, or at least within the last three weeks. Tables are the most primitive of the HTML tags because people like to have things in nice readable fashion, excluding tabloid magazines. Most people prefer tabloids that look similar to newspapers more than 40 years ago, which contained at least 343 headlines on each page.

The results are in: Bush, Gore lose to The Golf Channel

I have one simple request for Christmas -- that someone, ANYONE, will finally be named president. Yes, we have George W. and Al, but if they name Al W. George out of Minot, N.D., instead, that would be fine.

What caused this whole problem? The people of the United States, of course, always trying to stir up trouble, whether it's at the local moose lodge or bingo hall. Can't people fill in the correct circles? Can't people count votes right? Can't people use turning signals when changing lanes?

E-mails overrunning a business near you

Is this what the world is coming to? People sitting 6 inches away from each other will not talk to each other but instead, write short e-mails?

An example:

From: Someone

Sent: November, Wednesday 1, 2000 11:41 AM

To: Someone else

Subject: Outside

Did you see that?

From the Archive

Search engine optimization is a pizza cake

I hope at least a few of the 17 people who read this column are interested in building their own Web site, or already have, or would want to if all the letters on their keyboard weren't missing.

The trouble with starting from scratch on the Internet is it's tough to find your newly created URL in the search engine. The good news is there are ways to make it easier. The bad news is you will need more than just the return and shift keys to accomplish this.

Big Baltimore book events at the end of September

I have two more book appearances this month, both during the last full weekend in September. I'll be at both the Baltimore Book Festival and Baltimore Comic-Con.

Wii update

Nintendo has owned up to the problem with the wrist strap problem. The games firm has announced that it will replace broken straps for its Wii console.

Rejoice! Not that I have a Wii, but I just cannot stand to see broken televisions, windows, dogs, etc.

Trip produces Web sites, headaches

I feel it is my duty to debunk a longstanding falsehood about our great nation: It does not rain every day in Seattle. What did you think I was going to say, we were still owned by Great Britain?

Dig deep into your inbox

I would gather that everyone reading this column has seen a computer before. I'm also betting that just about everyone reading has an email address, which means this is directed at YOU.

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