November 30, 2002: [•] Last night, after work, I abducted Immy from his room. We headed on up to Middletown to scope out girls and see how badly Black Friday screwed up the stores (HAH You have to clean up after messy customer you store jockeys you EHEHEH!). We made our usual mandatory stops into the Galleria and Walmart. Amazingly at 11PM Walmart was still hopping with shoppers caught up the day’s buying frenzy. I felt really bad for the employees because it is a 24-hour/7-day a week store so there is no real rest for them. I was beat so though so I went home and passed out by midnight. Tonight I have Gette again and she’s staying over until Sunday night. More Daddy time, which just so owns (as they say). [•] BTW: Immy says that Hoagie is doing well and that’s a good thing. He’s doing something or other in Arizona. I personally think it’s a government conspiracy and Hoagie has actually been abducted by Elvis impersonating aliens, but that is just me. [•] Broken gave me a sneak preview of his next web site layout and it’s looking nice. Keep an eye out for that update. [•] The other day I taught Skyler the joys of dealing with bounced checks. I’m sure it was just as much for her as it was for me. LOL [•] Immy gave me a little peak into the plot line for the Christmas episode of Stack Ups! and all I got to say is make sure you read it once it’s posted. It is hilarious! [•] I don’t care what MapQuest claims about the accuracy of their service. Every time I ask for directions with their online service I either get steered two-hours out of the way (even when using the “shortest route”) or worse yet thrown on a road that barely exists. For example: One time it steered me up a dirt road that was carved into cliff and I was in a 2-ton van begging God to not let me plummet 20-feet down the cliff into a shallow lake below. The best part was 20′ up from that dirt road the main highway turned around and reconnected with the other side of the dirt road. So basically there was no reason to even use it! Thank you MapQuest for almost killing me! [•] Massachusetts is the sole state that hasn’t settled its antitrust lawsuit with Microsoft. Word on the street says that in order to comply Microsoft must declare clam chowder the official soup of Windows XP and hire a Kennedy family member as official Chief Executive Alcoholic in order to reach compliance with existing state laws. 🙂 [•] Intel has announced that the next Itanium CPU will debut at 1.5GHz. [•] The US Military, ISPs, and server hosts are massively cracking down on illegal content including MP3s and pirated software. So store illegal stuff on your PCs at your own risk my friends. [•] Tis the season to be scammed online. Fa la lah la, la lah lah la! [•] Check out the Times-Herald Record News Briefs and look for the article about a fight at the mall. Immy and I were at the mall when it happened. They had tons of undercover security agents walking around that weren’t so undercover looking (they were all carrying around walkie talkies and you could hear every security page… not so secret agents!) and they all went running past us. When we got outside it was police and security everywhere with the suspects being searched. Totally hilarious. [•] Traffic was insane everywhere yesterday. One of my friends made the mistake of getting off the Thruway at the Woodbury Commons exit and found himself stuck in a nightmare situation. I was coming back on 211 past the Galleria earlier that day at around 11AM and I found the same snarled traffic. By 8PM, however, most of the traffic had cleared up. Shopping patterns are interesting and fun to analyze, but I don’t feel like boring you too much so MOVE ALONG! 🙂 [•] Linux Kernel 2.2.23 has been released. [•] Apparently now government officials in Kenya are saying a recent bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel isn’t related to al Qaeda activity. Then again, everything that goes wrong they blame on al Qaeda nowadays. I really don’t think al Qaeda is as powerful or closely tied as most people think. They seem to be just a bunch of angry people who randomly hurt people. Even I could organize that “global terrorist network” and that is just sad. [•] It is time once again for my favorite auto show, The 2002 SEMA Auto Show . [•] Mmmmm… race track tuned Acura NSX. [•] I’ve come to the conclusion I need a REAL day off. I’ve been working nonstop for a month. God, I hate being a workaholic. 😛