You made it! Thanks for visiting.
You cannot escape the Internet. OK, you're right, you can. You can move to Uruguay. But for all the trouble, you might as well find a computer and get busy.
A lot of people have been talking about designing a "homepage," which has nothing to do with your living quarters. Simply put, a homepage is the portal to the most important information on a particular Web site.
Computers can be your friends. No, they won't take you to lunch or buy you a drink. But they can do more than collect dust. Assuming you are human (and if not, don't let that stop you from reading), you probably fit into one of four categories:
1. You still use a typewriter, you're still building a bomb shelter, and your best friend in grade school was Robert "Robbie" E. Lee.
Editor's Note: This was Ben's final column while writing for the Crawfordsville (Ind.) Journal Review.
This will be the last column I write for the Journal Review. I may start them again sometime in the future. I would like to. But for now, this will have to do.
If any of you have column ideas, please still tell them to me and send them. I will keep a list, and somewhere down the road, maybe they will let me do this again.
In a day and age when there are so many different types of people, with various races, ethnicities and personalities, there is one type I'm more likely to associate with frequently.
I have an insatiable and unconscious desire to surround myself with Dr Pepper drinkers.
But IÃÂm also convinced that most Dr Pepper drinkers are psychotic.
Which comes first is unclear. And calling someone psychotic can be misconstrued, so Dr Pepper drinkers, donÃÂt take this personally. But ponder the following arguments.
The world's not revolving faster, nor have its inhabitants been hibernating, but time is moving faster. If time doesn't slow down, it could get pulled over, and it won't stand a chance in court.
Vacations have a lot to do with the insane pace of minutes. No, not the vacation you take. The vacation other people around you take. Many people working at the Journal have taken trips all across the United States, even to Canada. When someone leaves any business for a break, the remaining people must suffer the consequences.
There are a plenty of new careers and opportunities these days, yet you rarely see anyone entering the piracy field. Some people have invented their own versions of a shipwrecked pirate - stealing stereos, hacking into computer files, playing baseball in Pittsburgh - but few take their chances on the high seas.
On the other hand, the Assocated Press said pirates killed more people in 1998 than the year before. The International Maritime Bureau reported Malaysian pirates, who killed 67 crewmen last year, are "getting increasingly violent."
Pirates? Violent?
Apple seems to have released enough stuff in October that it's hard to put my finger on what to highlight. There's the iPod with larger capacities and video capabilities, iTunes 6 (a free download for Mac and PC), the new iMac G5, the list goes on. If you're interested in any of these items, or possibly something I didn't mention (there's a lot!), check out apple.com for more details.
I like to dance. I may be the only columnist on the
Web who would make such an outrageous statement.
Not to put other columnists down, but I can't imagine
Dave Barry breaking out into Salsa or George Will doing
the Lambada. If I could imagine that, I wouldn't, because
it creates a very unpretty picture. With or without
guacamole.
Maybe if they had more time, they would visit their
I had expected this note would give you an exact date, preferably in December, to announce the launch of "Corporate Ties." Unfortunately, it will have to wait a bit longer. I've been slightly busier this fall than anticipated … we purchased a house, we're preparing for a baby in March, among other things. The good news is that once I have a decent block of time to devote to the book, I should be able to finish it.
Until then, here's a new excerpt from the book.
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.