As some of you may know, I have a page with Dr. Pepper Imposters. It is just a few photos of cans I have collected. Today I received this email:

I am writing to say that Dr. Thunder is the best soda ever, even better than Dr. Pepper. My friend Keith Gilliam would like to be the next spokesmodel for the drink, and if you could help us out in any way possible it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

The Biggest Dr. Thunder Fan Around

Now did I mention that I worked for Dr. Thunder or that I was a casting agent for them anywhere? Folks, am I missing something?

I replied:

I'm sorry, but I have no connection to Dr. Thunder. I am but a humble webpage maker with a picture of Dr. Thunder. Good luck to Keith on his spokesmodel career. I know he will do great.

Heaven help America.

BTW, the pencil sharpener is up to $2.75, go bid more, there's less then 30 days until I need $300 for a new Playstation 2!

I wonder if this tag still works?

My children had two fish. Peanut Butter & Pom Pom. I was never really sure which fish was Peanut Butter and which fish was Pom Pom, one was orange and another was black. The orange one, I'll call him Pom Pom, hadn't been looking to good lately. Droopy fins and what not. I had chalked it up to the long trip we took, when I placed the long term food cube in the tank and left the light on for 10 days.

Last night, while the children were taking a bath, Michele took me in to see Pom Pom. Pom Pom had no balance or orientation. He couldn't stay horizontal and keep bumping into things. He would swim a bit, then float toward the surface, then swim a little more. I'm no expert, but I could tell Pom Pom would soon shuffle of his mortal coil.

Rather than letting my children find a fish floating in the tank come the morning, I had to take action. My wife is not good with these things and left to wash the kids. I got a net and bowl and took Pom Pom from the fish tank. I expected him to quickly die by the time the I got outtside to dig a grave. I dug a shallow grave and looked in on Pom Pom. Mouth still gasping. I watched him for a minute, thinking happy thoughts to ease him out of this life. He didn't die. I decided not to bury him alive or let him linger on. I killed the little fish to end the ordeal. I thanked him again for being a good pet and making my children happy. I buried Pom Pom so he could return to the earth and feed the trees in our backyard.

Sometime soon, the girls will realize there is only one fish in the tank. I guess I should tell them Pom Pom died, but it would be easier to tell them that he went for a long trip. Being a parent isn't all diaper changing and mess cleanup.

I am making a big sale on eBay.
Go read all about my fabulous auction item.

Act now, or someone else will grab it!

I spent the day yesterday running powe rin the kitchen to the stove & exhaust fan. This has been coming for about two years. It too two trips to the hardware store, but its done. I rule.

I played Unreal last night in Team Deathmatch. I really enjoyed that mode. Not as predictable as Assualt, and with team damage on precision was key.

For the record, gnutella is kinda messed up. Finding valid servers is fuxxored.

Tonight I try to get UT running under linux. Wish me luck.

On the way to drop off the kids at nursery school, I heard a loud crack as I lowered the driver's side window. The window canted at a seriously wrong angle and refused to lower further. Due to my training as an engineer, I was able to determine that a) something broke in the window, and b) I have screwed up my car karma in some strange way.

Saturday morning the Saturn heads to the dealership and I find out how much this little problem will cost.

The family was supposed to get a portrait taken today. Michele makes a big deal about getting good family portraits taken regularly. She's right, of course.

Today I was driving with Zoe inthe Saturn, following Michele to the studio, when the car died. Right in the middle of the 110 freeway near downtown. For those not from LA, the 110 is the main north/south freeway. Very busy. Many people honking at you when you break down in the high speed lane. Zoe, at 4 years old, was quite upset at being stopped on the freeway.

A quick tow to the Saturn dealer confirmed that that the fuel pump died, AGAIN! Yes, a short 14 months ago, the fuel pump died. It's two months out of warranty. Suxxor for me. $400 for a new fuel pump.

I posted another Ultima tale on the BV War Board. Enjoy.

Also, go read this and that. You will laugh.

Last night I got the XFree86 4.0.1 up and running. In fact I'm typing this from my sweet KDE environemnt now. What a pain that was. Well, the graphics are working and I am happy. I d/led the Quake 3 demo for linux, since it would have a simple install rather than hacking the files from my Windows Q3A CD. Would the OpenGL driver work? Hell yeah!

Within seconds I was fragging away under Linux. Soon enough I'll run the benchmarks to compare the two operating systems.

My problem now is that sndconfig doesn't recognize my Diamond S100 sound card. Yeah, yeah, I should have bought a Souundblaster 'cause of good driver, yadda, yadda, yadda. Shut up! Now I need to figure out how to install and load the ALSA drivers for my card. I read the docs and they have scary words like make install. What's an RPM freak like me to do?

Last night, the kids were at my parent's and I took my wife out for dinner. She wanted to get sushi. That's fine by me, I usually get tonkatsu at Japanese restaurants. I've never been attracted to sushi and had never tried it.

The place we went is called A Float Sushi. You sit a typical sushi bar, and there is a water trough running all the way around the bar. In the trough is a chain of wooden boats, each with small plates of sushi on it. As you see somethign you like, you grab the little plate off the boat. My wife loves this idea. My theory is that A Float captures a women's two favorite things in one, she can eat AND shop at the same time.

Well for some reason I felt brave and decided to try sushi for the first time ever. I grabbed a plate of some bright red fish. Michele said it was tuna. I steeled myself for the first bite. I imagined that the texture would be similar to raw beef or chicken. Amazingly, it was completely different than anythign I would have expected. The texture was smooth and almost creamy. I ended up eating two plates of tune before we left. Now I can't say I crave the stuff, but I don't fear eating sushi anymore. I can see how once you are past the 'yuck, raw fish!' stage you can find the ones you like. For those that haven't tried sushi, it's not what you think. I'mnot saing it's great, but it's something you won't expect.

First, go watch this movie. That was me circa 1984. Hilarious stuff.

I wrote a new Ultima tale tonight.

Here's a tip for all you wannabe linux weenies out there. When doing a fresh install, take the time to check if your video card is supported. I repartioned my drive to install mandrak Linux on my box. Went smooth until the X configuration. Bomb. Try again. Bomb. After beating my head against the wall for the entire morning, I finally read the readme.txt. Well, it seems that my super sweet GeForce 2 GTS ain't supported too well just yet. It seems that besides needing XFree86 4, I need the custom drivers from nVidia as well.

Unfortunately, the Mandrake install loaded XFree86 3 instead of 4. So now I am tasked with upgrading to 4 from the command line. To top it off, you can't RPM from XFree 3 to 4. I fear that it might involved *gasp* compiling a new kernel. Wish me luck.

Well, since my wife doesn't read this page I'll write about her here. My wife drives way too fast. She cranks up the music on the Rio and blazes down the highway. Today she was on her way down to visit her friend Jenny when she got pulled over for doing 80. Bwah-ha-ha!

Looks like it's internet traffic school for her. Best of all, after traffic school, she'll have to be on her best behavior for 18 months. I will enjoy ribbing her endlessly about this.

Now if only I could convince a certain cousin that driving at 140 on the interstate is also not a smart idea.

Yeah, I know no updates for a bit.

First, go read crookdimwit.com

Next, last two boxes of DOTS. Box 1: 7 cherry, 2 lemon, 1 lime, 4 orange, 4 strawberry. Box 2: 5 cherry, 5 lemon, 1 lime, 5 orange, 2 strawberry. Cherry continues to dominate. Lime gets the shaft.

Lastly, this place is funny.

1) Eating corn on the cob while talking on the phone.
2) Not putting up your webpage when you say you would.

Well I'm in beautiful Cincinnati this week. Visiting my in-laws and helping to watch the kids while Michele is at the Quilting show.

I went to a drug store today to pick up couch medicine for Mira. I spied a lovely box of DOTS there. A big 7 ounce box of DOTS. Picture coming soon as I get a chance to d/l the image off the Coolpix. Of course, you are asking the same question I did, "Is the flavor ratio the same as in the little boxes?"

Here's the stats:
Cherry - 18
Lemon - 10
Lime - 5
Orange - 14
Strawberry - 10
Total - 57

A little different from the regular alphabetical order we've seen in the small boxes. Cherry still comes out way ahead, but what's with there only being 5 limes in the whole box? I think a letter to DOTS will be in order soon.

Message to James & Ethan: Meteor Crater - Diamonds - Stuckeys

Supposedly on Monday my brother's new site CrookDimwit.com goes live. Go and read. Mock him endlessly if it is suxx0r. Send him righteous cash through Paypal if it roxx0rs.