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.

I just returned from seeing Man on the Moon. I won’t give any spoilers, but I left satisfied. Carrey did as good a job as anyone could have done, though a time or two it was disconcerting to see his big goofy grin poking out through Andy’s face. If you’ve seen all of the Comedy Central specials, there’s few suprises for you, and still some unanswered questions (Just how did Tony Clifton get a guest spot on the Miss Piggy Show?) The neatest thing about the movie was during the closing credits, nearly the entire theater joined me in my usually solitary activity… watching to the very end. And I don’t think they were staying just to hear local Athens fellows REM’s songs.

The big, bright full moon is out. Last night was overcast, but tonight is hazy. The moon’s shining through, reflecting off the haze, looking like a big fuzzy ball of light. I know, it’s not really as once-in-a-lifetime a moon as the meme claimed it’d be, but from down here, it looks wonderful to me.