Welcome to the first installment of my new weblog. I'm gonna cut the introductions down to the bare minimum, as I have a lot of links I'd like to post and discuss. This is me - my name's Patrick and hopefully I'll have enough stickwithitness to continue updating this blog in the days ahead in the face of my inherent laziness when it comes to such endeavors. Again, hi there, any questions, drop me an email. That said, on with today's breakdown:

Armchair Jeopardy! fans, keep your eyes on the prize...beginning Nov. 26th, the quiz show will double their prize money, the $100 questions will be worth $200, the $1,000 worth $2000, etc. -Link-

Well, there seemed to be a few small victories in the war on terrorism of late, with the Taliban being ousted from Kabul and eight humanitarian workers released from their clutches...Britney's on top of the charts, Wacko Jacko's in the news again and for today, at least, things seemed eerily...normal.

My friend Bill e-mailed me these two quotes last night:

"The men of Afganistan will never be defeated because they are willing to
die for their country."
-Bin Laden

"No man ever won a war by dying for his country. You make the other guys
die for theirs."
- General Patton

Actually, it was really good seeing all those people freed from the Taliban on television last night in Kabul, I heard on ABC's late night news program that as soon as the Taliban were out of the city, one man dug up his television and vcr, which he'd buried in his back yard early on in the Taliban's reign, plugged it up and stuck in "Titanic". That's what it's all about people, that and everyone's right to listen to music, even really weird music you can't really dance to, shave their beard or take off their veil and BY GOD FLY A KITE WITHOUT BEING HASSLED!!!" If you don't have that, you don't have shit. We should have kicked their asses a long time ago. Now I guess we'll see how the new thugs, ahem, I mean rebels, shoulder the mantle of responsibility.

These guys at RockRage have a really nice collection of fonts, done in the style of those used by various rock bands, has nothing to do with anything but who doesn't like freaky fonts? Very cool. -Link-

The Leonids comet shower is approaching and the eighteenth, which was of course singled out tonight on the local weather for clouds and rain. I don't begrudge anyone rain, I realize it's been really dry and there've been fires, but I really, really hope this doesn't get rained out, because even if they make some radical Star Trek style advances in medical care I doubt I'll be here for the next big go round, 98 years from now. Fingers firmly crossed. _ I'm not a nut about astronomy or anything, but I saw a great shower back in '96, I think it was, and it was great, very impressive in an "I'll be damned, did you see that?" kind of way. That was nothing though, they're saying, compared to this shower. They're forecasting activity of George Lucas proportions. -Link-

The Onion's headline today, "Spaghetti-Os Discontinued As Franco-American Relations Break Down" cracked me up.-Link_

Those wild and crazy Pompeii party animals were just plain buck wild, you have to wonder if some power above just decided "Enough!" and put an end to it all in the name of good taste:

ROME (AP) - Archaeologists have unveiled another steamy corner of ancient Pompeii, and this time it is an eyeful: a bathhouse with a unisex dressing room whose lockers sport erotic sex scenes -Link-

I just can't stress this enough...if you haven't heard of a band called The Gourds, I suggest you get out your Morpheus or LimeWire or even, (gasp!) buy one of their cds. Any band that can do a kickass bluegrass rendition of Gin and Juice is alright by me...be sure and download their version of the song, as well as the video of Snoop Doggy Dogg's reaction to the song on their website and the video for their song El Paso-Link-

My friend Phil is getting an Xbox tomorrow and as such is now officially my best friend. This thing looks so cool...plus, I was blown away when I found out that they're already hacking away at a version of M.A.M.E, the multiple arcade emulator for it, which runs the three thousand or so arcade and neo-geo games at 60 fps quite nicely, thank you, so they say. Yes, just the extra-bit of nerd-bait to really make an old pac-man, galaga fan like myself salivate...not to mention the fact that in the screenshots of the NBA game they're releasing, you could read the tattoos on Allen Iverson's arms. -Link- Xbox -Link- M.A.M.E and Emulation

Just an aside here, but Doonesbury has been really funny lately, check it out sometime. -Link-