Two wonderful sites courtesy of Bovine Inverus: detailed instructions on how to build your own Boba Fett suit and an essay on auctions where people spend money to win a smaller amount of money and how it relates to our everyday life. That second one is probably the best thing I’ve seen on the web in a while.

Nearly eleven years ago, I left home for college. Most all of my possessions were boxed up and shipped by UPS to my college address. Out of the eight boxes, I received three. It seemed clear that they were stolen somewhere along the way, as inside each box was plenty of material to identify me and how to find me should they just have gotten misplaced. I was pretty upset about the whole thing at the time, as most of what was lost was irreplaceable. Signed high school yearbooks, an awful lot of writing, an entire fantasy world I had created and pored hours into. As the years went by, I realized that it wasn’t entirely a bad thing, as it forced me to start over, reinvent myself, and move on, and the me that emerged was a good deal better than what I had before. It doesn’t even sound right to me that my entire life should be defined by what was in a few small boxes, but at the time, that’s how it was. I write this because one of the things in the boxes, perhaps the only thing with real monetary value, was my class ring. The ring was returned to my parents yesterday, and is now on its way back to me. Its eleven year history is still being discovered, but apparently it never made it out of the county my parents live in. It’d be neat to find the rest of the stuff too, like opening up a time capsule, but I don’t hold out much hope it’ll all turn up.

In Madison, we stopped into The Puzzle Box, a small toy store filled mostly with “thinking-person’s toys”. Two companies caught my eye, The Unemployed Philosopher’s Guild and Found Objects. The Philosopher’s Guild has a number of quirky items, including “Brainy Beanies” and “Fruedian Slippers”, my two favorites. Found Objects sells art and zen related games, displays, and things to play with. My favorite is the “Dada Box” game, where you try to make sentences out of words randomly drawn from a bag. The words are magnetic, much like the Magnetic Poetry series, but cheaper and more versitile.

Of course, there was a pile of work waiting for me back at the office. I’ll sprinkle Madison tidbits in with regular weblog entries over the next few days.
Just down the block from my friend Marjorie’s place is the Crystal Corner bar, where apparently many blues legends have played. Where, I couldn’t tell you, as the place was very small. Average neighborhood-bar-sized, really. But they had well-kept pool tables and cider on tap, and is a nice place to unwind. I was there for a bit on New Year’s Eve afternoon, and while playing pool, I was treated to fun games of pool with Marjorie, the Simpsons on one TV, some football game on a second, and a discussion between two wizened bar patrons about the Chinese calendar, the Gregorian calendar, the origin of year zero, and the whole arbitrary nature of the millennium. That’s a bar worth going to.

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. "