You made it! Thanks for visiting.
Maybe you are one of those people who are completely terrified of computers, the Internet and lemon-flavored cough drops. If so, you probably are no where near being able to read this column, and if I had to guess, you are most likely hiding in a basement in Turkey. That is, if they have basements in Turkey. So if you know someone like this, please print this column immediately and send it to them because it could save their life.
I bet you $100 you've visited an online gambling site.
Ha! What a trick. See, if you said no, but I had to pay you, then it would be gambling.
Online gambling, much like the beginning of this column, seems to be frustrating and silly. For the sake of every potential column reader, I've looked at a few online gambling sites and come to a simple conclusion -- I am sick of blinking Web sites.
Sometimes Web sites don't work. They just don't. There are plenty of reasons, including " the sun was in my eyes," why a particular site will not work. It's definitely frustrating when you know other sites are working, except the one you want to go to, The Original World Famous Home Appliance Shooting Page, just won't boot.
"Believe it or not, I'd rather clean a bathroom than watch a football game."
-- whatever man said this would probably prefer to remain anonymous
I'll give you three guesses to determine where I found this quote. No, not the bakery. No, not the thesaurus. Yes, an online dating service!
I'm the kind of person who likes to know how something works. In a world where many things cannot be explained -- volcanoes, the afterlife, females -- it's good to know there is a logical explanation for Internet linking.
Linking is not a new concept. Marco Polo is said to have marveled at Asia's ability to store files and download directions from Mapquest. How do you think he made it back?
Google recently made a mildly surprising announcement (at least, to me) that the company is shutting down its online collaboration tool, Wave. Google does a lot of cool, neat and worthy stuff obviously, and I think Wave fits into this category. It's just that the actual marketing of it was rather peculiar.
Some people love them. Some people hate them. Most people don't understand them, yet many people use them anyway.
While this could describe cellphones, I'm actually talking about emoticons. Even this program thinks it's a misspelled word. Fortunately, there is plenty of information online to give you the background on these wacky characters.
Update (09/28/08): The links in this original column no longer work. I suppose that just goes to show how fast stuff becomes obsolete online!
Everyone likes pictures: taking pictures, posing for pictures, ripping up pictures of exes.
Now that I said that, you're probably thinking you're one of those people who cannot stand getting your picture taken.
It's amazing that we live in a time period when at any given moment, we could
find out that everything we previously knew about the universe was incorrect.
But so far, it's safe to say that Mars does exist, the sun is at the center
of our solar system and "Space Camp" really wasn't a very good movie.
If you haven't been following the news lately, or maybe you've been busy with
other things, like selling your belt buckles on eBay, let me go over some
of the recent astronomy highlights:
This just in from the Department of You Can't Be Serious: Pangea Intellectual Properties (PanIP), a technology development company based in San Diego, is suing boatloads of companies for infringing on its patents. The company claims to have patents on e-commerce and Web-based financial banking systems, which means any Web site that conducts shopping on the Internet is violating a patent and could be sued as well.
To quote one of my favorite Different Strokes characters: "Whatcha talkin' bout, Willis?"