One of the most-watched religious cults can be found near Athens. On New Year’s Eve, they held a big bash here in town, and front-page news in our local paper. The group, known by many names but most commonly called The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors is an odd blend of Christain, Muslim, Egyptian, and American Indian beliefs. Their focus if the arrival of a spaceship that will arrive in 2003 to take away a select 144,000 people. There have been many articles written about them, including this one in Time and this one in the New York Times (scanned in, including photo). The Freedom of Mind Center also has a page on them. They run a bookstore directly across the street from my apartment, and I went in the other day. Right as I entered, a tall man in a fez showed me a book and told me that if I read it, “no one could touch me. Not the FBI, not the CIA, not the president, nobody.” I didn’t buy it, but I did admire the cover artwork on all the books. Much prettier than the Watchtower artistry.

On Sunday, February 20, 2000, the Cartoon Network will air Brak Presents The Brak Show Starring Brak. Brak is, of course, one of Space Ghost’s old enemies who suffered severe, um, brain damage while passing through some sort of nebula. Now he sings a lot and tells jokes. He has his own page on the Cartoon Network servers. He has reviewed his own show. You can find more details via Kim’s Brak Scrapbook, including a few screen grabs from an unannounced preview aired while I was away. And, just to round things off, you can see me dressed up as Brak several years ago for Halloween. It sounds like Brak could use a vacation to Madison: “I am so tired. I’ve been taping my new show and hobnobbing with the big time celebrities appearing on my show and eating butter. I’m worn out, buddy buddy! "

I made it back. Had a fantastic trip, saw Randy, visited the Gobbler (now known as the King Arthur Inn, but still featuring up-the-wall shag carpeting – pics to follow), and had a wonderful time. I’ll post details, but not until tomorrow at least.

I’m leaving in the morning to visit a dear friend in Madison, Wisconsin. Thanks to an incredible stroke of luck, I’ll also get to see Randy while I’m there. Hot-diggity! I might also get to peek inside the Gobbler, too. I’m not planning on updating while I’m gone, so check back after the first. I’m flying back on New Year’s Day… I’ll either be looking down on all the burning cities or sitting back and reading The Name of the Rose (suggested by Dan over at Lake Effect), depending on the circumstances.

David Letterman’s been full of internet references lately. Besides haveing a Mahir-lookalike playing ping-pong backstage (“I kiss you, David Letterman!”), last night his guest John Withspoon heavily plugged his site, www.bangbangbangbang.com. There, you can buy T-shirts with such witticisms as “You got to coordinate” and “Ho’s got to eat too”. He claims he’s made up about 1000 shirts and sold 30, so he’s sure to have your shirt in stock.

I received my first non-english spam today. The subject was “Wirtschaftsmagazin “Mein Geld” “, I thought it was a Make Money Fast. After siccing the Babelizer on it, I see it’s just another hot stock tip: “Prominent Internet enterprise went to the Frankfurt stock exchange. My cash expects course Ralley. Cover yourselves up now at start prices. "

I was reading this CNN article about the long-term environmental damage in North Carolina due to hurricane Floyd. Nice and lengthy for a CNN article, and near the bottom I ran into the following quote: “Crowder said almost all the menhaden caught in sample trawls recently have shown signs of disease. Also affected are other species, including hardier fish such as weakfish. " Hardier fish such as weakfish? Is this for real, or did someone slip that in there to see if we were really reading?

I see that the $5 link below isn’t working today, illustrating the dangers of deep-linking dynamic URLs. Try this instead, though it’s another deep link and may not work. To manually find the page, go to greatergood.com. Once there, pick a charity from the list, go to the “Travel, Computers, & More” shopping category, and once there choose “Greater Good Webcertificates”. Finally, there you can find a link to the free $5 certificates, good at most major web retailers. Ho, ho, ho!

I’m taking a vacation next week to balmy Madison, Wisconsin. That’s made work this week extremely busy. That’s made updates here less frequent. I’m really grateful for all of you who come read what I have to say. Some of you I know, most of you I don’t. I’m working on a little Christmas something for all of you, but it’s been harder than I hoped to pull it off.

About that Christmas gift to you all… I’d hoped to do something a bit more substantial, but that’ll have to wait for another time. Instead, go here to claim $5 spendable at many, many places on the web. May I suggest GreaterGood, who has teamed up with many major on-line merchants to give sizable portions of your purchase price to charities of your choice, all at no extra cost to you. Again, may I suggest the Rails to Trails Conservancy, a group committed to reclaiming old railbeds for recreational use. Of course, you can give to whomever you choose. Happy Holidays, and be generous to everyone you can in any way you can.