You made it! Thanks for visiting.
I just wanted to give a shout out to all of the people who stopped by the Inner Harbor Barnes & Noble in Baltimore on Sept. 1. The rain started Friday morning and didn't stop until sometime Saturday, producing more than 4 inches in the city. Instead of drowning, however, I sold a couple of books and met people from all over the country, and a few from distant lands.
If you are any sort of sports fan whatsoever, you have probably read numerous articles on sites like espn.com, cbssportsline.com, etc. You may notice that the links I just provided are not clickable because assuming you are a sports fan, you already have them bookmarked. If you are not a sports fan, you should probably stop reading this, because the website I'm about to list will be incomprehensible to you.
I try to read as much as possible, so I thought I could pass along reviews about good books that I have been reading. Here's the first!
What would it feel like to be able to freely make decisions, without the effects of remorse?
I'm taking a little vacation this weekend, but I won't be stopping the book tour just yet. I'll be at the Barnes & Noble in Baltimore's Inner Harbor 3-5 p.m. Sept. 1 for a little book signing and discussion about "The Developers."
I was going to be in the area because I'm going up there to see my beautiful girlfriend. So I figured, well, I might as well try to sell some books while she's finishing up with her kindergarten class for the day.
Most people know of the Internet only from the mid '90s on. But actually, the Internet started long, long ago, in a galaxy, well, that you live in.
I recently came across a page on UCLA's website that showed the first words uttered on the Internet. The day was Oct. 29, 1969, which also happens to be my mom's birthday. The researchers sent an "l" and an "o" before the system crashed. Apparently they were trying to login, and, much like any old computer I've used, it crashed almost immediately.
A few weeks ago, while doing research (if you can call it that) for a column, I came across a site devoted to myths and legends. I thought I had visited just about every genre of Web sites, but boy did I miss a big one.
Paranormal Web sites seem to be fairly normal these days. Not that I'm completely surprised by this, but I was shocked to see the latest reports of phenomena. I really must be out of the loop because now there are theories on Mothman, Owlman and Goatman out there. I swear I did not pull these names from an episode of "Power Rangers."
George W. Bush is trying - yet again - to slash funding for NPR and PBS. This week, Bush proposed a new budget with devastating cuts to public broadcasting. "Sesame Street" and other ad-free kids' shows are under the knife. So is the independent journalism our country needs.
Enough is enough. We've fought this fight before and won - but we can't afford the risk anymore. With the new Congress, we can make sure this never happens again. We need Congress to insulate NPR and PBS from the political winds.
Today, March 14, is Pi Day. Well, according to the Wikipedia entry about it, March 14 is the unofficial celebration for Pi Day, because the date is 3/14. Other countries read dates a little bit differently but it seems appropriate due to other factors, listed by Wikipedia:
Can you keep a secret?
Last week, I met with a special agent from the Department of Defense. I had my shrubbery costume ready (luckily, there were no dogs around), but it wasn't necessary. The agent led me into a room in the Crawfordsville Armory, looked both ways and closed the door. The questioning was ready to begin.
As people make advances every day in technology, we also lose stuff that we don't need to know anymore. When was the last time you rewound a videotape? If you can think of anything you don't need to know anymore, check to see if it's on this list of Obsolete Skills.
I don't agree with all of them (you still need to know how to compute sales tax if you are a business owner!), but it's a pretty good list nonetheless.