This was a pretty intersting article. It's worth a read if you are at all interested in matters of the environment.

CNN.com - Antarctic ozone hole splits in two - Sep. 30, 2002

Well, today is the 2 year anniversary of my arrival here in Boston. I came up on a Saturday by myself, leaving Tara and Trevor in NJ while I searched for someplace for us to live and slept on Clay's futon. Admittedly, I was really upset about having to coming up here without them and I probably would have fallen apart (more than I did) if Clay hadn't been there to help me out.

The last two years have been very interesting. That is probably the best way to describe them without being overly positive or negative. There have been more than a few lows during that time, and lots of great moments too. All in all, I am enjoying living in New England and am having a great time with the family.

As far as how my career (or lack thereof) has gone since we have arrived, I would have to say that I am dissapointed with how things have turned out. I am hopeful that the next two years bring some positive changes in that area, or at least provides some interesting opportunities.

...does anyone really care?

Hasselhoff says he hit 'rock bottom'

There are two things I do care about in this article:

• How is it that an article about David Hasselhoff can only find an "undated file photo" for this, that clearly is from about 10-15 years ago as evidence by the Miami Vice-esque jacket that he is wearing? They have nothing newer?

• Why do I get the feeling that this is all just a PR campaign to get people interested in watching the silicone infused Baywatch reunion movie that he is working on? (Please do me a favor and don't watch it when it does come out, you know you are above that.)
  

You are now free to move about the cabin.

Over the last week or so, I have been working on moving all of our photo's to a new format. This should make it easier for friends and family to view our pictures and for us to organize them. The application was downloaded from Blorp.com, which was passed on to me by our now southern friend Clay, who also uses it.

Check them out here, in out photo albums section. Let us know what you think of them by posting here.

Our good buddy Clay, has officially started a new business called MP3NewsBreak.

It is a really interesting product, and intend to help them promote it as they roll out more and more features. Below is a description of the service that they are offering. If you are a frequent user of WinAmp or an MP3 player, do yourself a favor and check this out.

As per their site:

Mp3NewsBreak creates personalized news content to incorporate into your mp3 playlist. With Mp3NewsBreak you can listen to the news you care about when you care about it with the music you care about.

Unlike listening to a news stream, with mp3 newsbreak, you listen to your personalized news, and then return to your music.

Mp3NewsBreak is an ultra-affordable solution to staying tuned in to the days events while listening to your music at work, in your portable audio device, or anywhere else that is mp3 compatible.

We're advertising free both in terms of content, and in terms of influence. The only thing we're interested in is providing you the most important stories of the day, not the stories that our sponsors want you to hear.

Dunkin' Donuts founder dies - Sep. 23, 2002

MASHPEE, Mass. (AP) - William Rosenberg, the food franchising pioneer who founded the Dunkin' Donuts chain and saw it spread from coast to coast and into 37 countries, has died. He was 86.

Rosenberg died Friday of bladder cancer at his home in Mashpee, on Cape Cod, the company said.

After World War II, Rosenberg had cashed in $1,500 in war bonds and borrowed an additional $1,000 to start a business serving coffee, pastries and sandwiches to factory workers.

He opened his first coffee and doughnut shop, called the Open Kettle, in Quincy, Mass., in 1948. The name was changed to Dunkin' Donuts two years later. The company still is the world's largest coffee and baked goods chain, with about 5,000 locations.

What I found most interesting about William Rosenberg was that he developed the "Canteen Truck", that can still be seen stopping at factories, car dealerships, etc to serve coffee, snacks and lunches all over the US.

For those of you that are eagerly anticipating the next Harry Potter book...

Rowling says fifth Potter book just around the corner. - Sep. 20, 2002

This woman, Madelyne Toogood, was caught on tape maliciously beating her daughter in an Indiana Kohl's parking lot last Friday. I watched the video of the beating this morning on CNN - and make no mistake, this is a closed-fist beating - and I was sickened. The newscasters had to present a veneer of impartiality, but I don't have to. This woman should be in jail. She should not be allowed to keep her children. She is neither fit for society, nor for motherhood.

This wasn't a "kid whines for ice cream for the eighty-ninth time and you're having a bad day anyway and you lose it and smack them on the rear" kind of hit that happens once in five years. It was a "shut up you stupid girl I wish I'd never had you and if I hit you hard enough and often enough maybe you'll shut up and go away" kind of hit.

Madelyne has a criminal history and was apparently angry because Kohl's employees refused to process a suspect return for her. Good start. Then we see her walk to the parking lot, put her child in the car and (because she assumes no one can see) begins to assault her. First the girl is shaken roughly, then her ponytail is grabbed and used to yank her head around violently, then she is thrown into her car seat and even though we can't see the girl, we can see a closed fist making contact with something about head-height. I doubt it was the car seat. And the very worst part of the whole tape is watching that child's foot twitching after mom stops beating.

Apparently Madelyne's family has been "less than cooperative" with the authorities (they are suspected of hiding her), but the tape is being played repeatedly on news stations nationwide and it's not easy to hide from outraged Amercians. Just a note to my friends and family: if I see you hit a child repeatedly in the way that I saw this woman beat her child, I will personally zip tie your wrists together and drive you to the police station after a quick stop at a tattoo shop where I'll pay to have 'I beat four-year-olds" engraved on your forehead.

Man, the 2002-2003 Celebrity Death Pool season at The Great Below is only 5 weeks in and so far 5 celebrities that teams had selected have died. The interesting part is that all the celebrities that died from our lists has had a last name ending in the letter "H". What are the chances?

If you haven't checked it out, please do. Adam's design is clean and perfectly suited for the site and Tara's database's and PHP are really starting to make the site interesting and cool. I just tend to get in the way, and as soon as Tara and Adam realize that they don't need me, I won't be able to claim any involvment in the site at all. We will be starting a new season in January if you want to get involved in the celebrity death pool fun.

Many days, Adam and I go grab lunch at a place called "The Hidden Kitchen". The reason that it is called by this name, is that the entire take out is in one room on the lobby level of an old office building. This one room is perhaps 10' x 10' with one door and is quite cramped.

Today we noticed something that cracked us up. Over the door as you leave the kitchen is an electric "EXIT" sign, red letters and all. We pondered on our way back to work whether or not they ever have had problems with people trying to exit the kitchen through the oven or ventilation system, that they felt the need to post a sign. (We realize that it is probably a fire code regulation to have one of these signs, but the absurdity of the sign made us laugh.)

Everyone knows the astounding story of Todd Beamer and his companions who saved us from the destruction of a fourth building on September 11th. I would venture that more people are familiar with Todd's tale than that of biblical Job.

In fact, we've taken up the story as a parable-like example of the infallible American spirit. Rather than crash into a national landmark, we'll sacrifice ourselves. But does anyone know for certain what happened on that plane? There are no eyewitness accounts; only third-hand pieces of the story fit together into the most heroic tale imaginable. It's entirely possible that we're glorifying the wrong people for actions that were never performed.

Americans blinded to matters of taste by patriotism can find the phrase "Let's Roll" emblazoned on baseball caps, sweatshirts and a CD compilation at the Let's Roll Store. These tacky items, along with a myriad of speaking engagements is Lisa Beamer's blatant attempt to capitalize on her husband's death. But that, I can't entirely fault her for. I mean, if you've lost your husband at least you can have notoriety and liquidity, right?

It's the constant adulation for this woman from the media and the public that pokes at me. Instead of giving money to the Todd Beamer Foundation, give it to the woman whose husband died last week in a car wreck. Or the man whose wife didn't survive her brain tumor operation. Trust me, Lisa has enough.

This morning Trevor came into our room very sad, asking if he could sleep in there on the floor. I asked him why he was so sad, and he told me that he had a bad dream

Daddy, I had a nightmare that Mommy, and you and me were all in the car and we stopped the car and I got out and you and mommy drove away without me. :(

Ugh, it broke my heart to hear him say this and of course I let him stay in our room. I also gave him a huge hug!

We did this activity a few weeks ago, but I just found the pictures today. This is our attempt at creating, then cooking the Pillsbury Dough boy:

For those of you that read my post last month "Ankle Adornment", I mentioned a young man who came into the store I work in with a radio tracking device on his ankle, probably due to some legal problems he had in the past.

He came back into the store this evening, without (it appeared) the device. I was curious to ask him what had happened to the anklet, but I did not of course. How does one start that conversation? "Hello stranger, I was watching you the last few times you were in the store and saw that you had a radio tracking device on your ankle. Did you complete the terms of your parole, or did you cut it off with a hacksaw this morning?" Nah, I'll have to be satisfied with my imagination.

Speaking of interpreting random events as signs from God, last night I read Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable by Mark Dunn. The isolated island nation of Nollop, off the South Carolina coast, reveres the pangram, The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. They even have it displayed in large tiles for all to marvel at.

When the 'Z' tile falls, the elders interpret it as a sign from their deity that 'Z' is to be shunned. As more and more tiles fall, less and less can be legally spoken and written. Citizens are exiled, flogged and driven to madness by their diminishing vocabulary and shrinking society.

The story is told via a collection of correspondence between Nollopians. Ella Minnow Pea is a quick read because even small notes are posted on their own page. And toward the end, when there are only five letters left in the aphabet, the letters get pretty short. There isn't much you can spell with just LMNOP.

Clay passed on this great link of an interview/Q&A from our favorite TV Cooking Show host, Alton Brown.

Slashdot | Alton Brown Answers, At Last

He is one of the most interesting people on TV today and provides an intelligent and scientific approach to cooking. His show Good Eats can be seen on The Food Network.

Yesterday on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks the New York Lottery pick 3 came out 9-1-1. Now, while this is interesting, and quite a coincidence, this is nothing special AND this is not a fix.

I just had an argument with a few people here at work that this is a very possible outcome and that I am not surprised. They all seemed to think it was a fix. First, there are only 1,000 possible outcomes each time the drawing comes up. With only 365 days in the year, this makes the chance that the date will come up as the lottery number on any given day is 1 in 365,000. Now, while I admit that these odds are slim, and that this drawing is pretty amazing that it hit with a number that is the same as the date, it is still very possible. 1 in 365,000 still means that there is a chance it will happen. In fact, this is not the first or last time that this has happened.

The other side of this is that people are amazed that it hit on 9-11. What significance is there between the lottery and the terrorist attacks? None that I can tell, so I don't get why this is meaningful in any way.

For more info about probability as it relates to gambling, check this out. After which you may play your lottery numbers less frequently.

I am even more baffled by people who insist on relating people's birthdays to one another. "ooh, today is your birthday? My cousin is born the day before you, isn't that weird?" Umm, no. I don't know your cousin and there are only 365 days in the year, so there are always going to be people who have a birthday close to mine, unless I am born on February 29th.

Final Note - My calculation about for the lottery, I know, is not 100% accurate between me not being a math professor and not including both leap year and the fact that the pick 3 is not drawn every day of the week, but you get the idea.

We never posted any pictures from Trevor's birthday up here. Here is a shot from our family party (just the three of us). Happy Birthday buddy!

Every year without fail, my family has their annual Pumkin Cutting party. It has been going on for something like 35 years now, and is the most important event of the year. (Or at least I think so!) This year I am working at the bookstore and taking the weekend off to drive to NJ is unfortunately not going to work. I was really upset about this, as the Pumpkin Cutting party is the highlight of the year and I hate to miss it.

To compensate for this, we have decided to throw the first Massachussetts Edition of the Liloia Pumpkin Cutting Party. We are having it on the same day and will be maintaining many of the standard traditions for our party.

I don't think we will be singing Halloween carols. I for one am not a big fan of them, but with the family it is enjoyable. I don't think we would be able to get our friends to join in on that part of this. Some considerations for tricking them into singing would have to include drugs, alchohol, blackmail, pyramid cult schemes, and firearms. Tara, let's consider these options.

We will be posting pictures from both Pumpkin events here on the site, if you want to see any of the ones from last year, check out this or this.

It would be really cool to connect the two events through some sort of webcam, but I think we will settle for calling my family during the party and saying hello.

UPDATE - This previously had the typo PIMPKIN CUTTING PARTY, and while that might have proven more interesting than a PUMPKIN CUTTING PARTY, that is not what we are doing. Sorry to anyone who got all excited when they saw the original message!

One of the newly discovered perks of working at the bookstore is getting my hands on advance copies of books that are being released. Lullaby is not due in stores until September 17th, but I saw this one on the break room table, and ran for the hills. I just finished it last night, wow. Chuck Palahniuk (pronounced Paula-Nick) did not dissapoint. As with his other novels Chuck explores the dark side of human beings and our convoluted moral structures as well as identity, family, and the overwhelming concept of belonging. This book is being billed as a thriller and compared to most novels, it is, and a dark one at that. Compared to his other books, this is par for the course and a great read.

There isn't a whole lot I can say about this. Just read the Amazon product description and then read the reviews by the parents. Thanks to Adam for this one.

Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom

On a trip home this weekend I read in the local paper in Nutley about this:

ACLU Press Release: 08-22-02 -- Racist Owners of Swim Club Barred "Black" and "Brown-Skinned" Visitors, ACLU of NJ Charges

During High School, I worked at this swim club as a lifeguard for 1.5 seasons. I ultimately left partly because of the way they treated people. I am really glad to see that someone is looking into this after all this time.