Note for some of you great E2 visionaries: I'm not pitching this, and I look at its ferocious slantedness with great askance. But the organization and efficiency of http://www.apologeticsindex.org may be "inspirational" to those working to send E2 to ultimate greatness. One good (again, horribly slanted) example is http://www.apologeticsindex.org/d48.html (I am reticent to show an offsite link, but please consider the spirit of my intent.)
Truly saddened at John Ritter's tragic death. I know a bit about celebrities, and worst of all, celebrities born to celebrities, and it's not very pretty in the overwhelming majority of cases. John was one of the true exceptions. He rose above the loss-of-perspective trappings of fame. I pray that he will continue to influence entertainers in that regard.
About me: the nic is just an expression of my primary rant. In truth I want them disemboweled. I want their (spammers') names, addresses, and the names and school names of their children. These are evil pain-inducing individuals. That their scope is below that of "traditional" criminals, and below that of obvious evildoers such as virus/Trojan originators, does not dismiss the need to punish them with real and effective deterrent pain. I am livid - teetering below postal - on this matter. (Here in Texas we don't like crime.)
Meanwhile there's far more to this user, and that diatribe reflects perhaps 1/2 percent of my reality. Altruist/volunteer, "nice guy," fun-lover, game aficionado, white collar finance, formerly C/ASM/etc. developer, 40s (but not visually or emotionally stereotypical - like 30 with more wisdom:), borderline genius, broad and fanatical "musicaholic" (and unashamedly snobbish there, a la Kenny G faggotry) - gifted soloist but wannabe bandmember, TV and movie nut (also somewhat snobbishly^H^H^H^H discriminating).
And Gawd, yes, humor. Shirley, one has to appreciate this and Steven Wright quotations at that.
Have lived a life of controlled semi-adventure, including interesting episodes in Vegas, pork bellies et al, motor speed, recreational inhaling, a bit of Fosters and a bit of Chivas. Dabbled in but ran away from television production and suburban City Council politics.
I do expect some of you will read this after I messaged you a correction to one of your posts. As I will confess to being somewhat O.C.D. (well, it does have useful plusses too), rather than get upset, just think of "It's not you, it's me" - and regard it as the result of my sometimes anal-retentiveness. Remember, I'm really a "nice guy" and I didn't dis on you in public. If you happened to be one to receive my sledgehammer sarcasm therein, it was because I perceived that incorrect information was professed in an air of authority and "convincingness" - and I personally regard that as an intolerably dangerous practice. (But, hey, Rush Limbaugh does it over and over - and I mostly agree with him :)
And that's my story ... IMNSHO ;-)
Now if you're so pathetic that you want to keep reading, my E2 story:
Friday night of the long U.S. Labor day weekend 2003 I was idly googling for the pair exactamundo fonzie (who knows why). The top hit was at E2. Now the following is absolutely true: as I type this, it is Monday. I have stopped only to sleep and to go buy 3 pounds of pistachios. Remember, I'm the Obsessive Compulsive one, right? Well, the clever b@$tards kept putting in the most perfectly addictive links below each node. So the shift-clicking began. (Each shft-click/alt-tab starts a link loading in background.)
In 8 months of XP operating system I have only once been required to reboot (though I do monthly or so for form), since you can "hibernate" without really rebooting. Well, since Friday I have twice crashed. Erratic behavior begins when approximately 49 instances of Internet Explorer are active. Late Saturday I pushed it to 59 but really felt it choking and wheezing(LOL!).
This is the most consistently intelligent, adult collection of material in a public forum that I believe exists, except for some ultra technical/ultra specialized ones (e.g. a medical forum). For the awesome breadth of content here, I don't understand how in the hell the signal/noise ratio is held at (in my experience) infinity. Hell of an editing job, gods.
And when I say adult that implies no offense. What it means is that the younger posters here *post like* adults. Cool, kewel adults.
Out of hundreds of nodes visited so far, not one useless post found yet. A couple of corrections were seen, though the correctee's post had been zapped. Just awesome.
Update Monday noon, still an infant in the community: "interesting reading" node count down to 7, plus FAQ, University, newbie don't-dos, clueless newbie cautions, html tags, page of cool, Inbox (well I've closed news and prior news!) and a few others in progress of being read - so IE count is now down to 21 LOL