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If there’s a message in here, it’s thoroughly lost on me. It sure is interesting to watch though. QuickTime Movie

Thanks blort.

A bunch of e-mail clients are changing the way they handle image display. A newsletter redesign may be in order. I’m pretty sure our newsletters are readable even if you can’t see any pictures, but I should be 100 percent sure (and then some).

Ideal Me: I want to do National Novel Writing Month this year.

Real Me: There’s no way, man.

IM: One of my goals last year was to write a novel. This is doable. I should do it.

RM: That’s a fine goal. One of your other goals was to learn a second language. Why don’t you work on that for a while?

IM: Language Smanguage, I want to write a novel.

RM: 50,000 words? In 31 days?!

IM: I can do it. I just need to want to do it badly enough

RM: Dude, You’re going to be traveling for a week. You’re distracted as hell as it is. You already have some weekends planned, and you can easily think of lots of other things you’d rather be doing than writing. I mean even putting all of that aside, November is sweeps month.

IM: TV blows this season. I could unplug it.

RM: Yeah, right! (LOL)

IM: I don’t care. I want to do National Novel Writing Month this year.

RM: It’s just not in the cards. Maybe you could do your own version in like January or something.

IM: You said that last year….

Anyone know if there is a way to tell Mozilla (v 1.5 for Mac OS 10.2.8) not to open mailto links in Mozilla’s integrated mail client? It refuses to honor the mail client I have set to default by the system, and I can’t find anywhere in program to tell it.

Since most of the time when I click on a mailto link, it’s an accident, I’d actually like something that would pop an alert — do you really want to pass this link to your default mail client [yes | no]. That’s probably asking for too much, so I’ll settle for just passing the link to the client that’s already in memory and configured.

Update: Well, That was easy enough.

Well, no. It’s not easy enough exactly. The easiest (and best) way would be to have the program honor the system default to begin with. It’s actually a very rude behavior. At least it’s fixable though.

I’ve had Brian Green’s book, The Elegant Universe for about a year now. So far, I have not found time to read it. I very much want to read it, but I am lame. Enter TV, with a 3 Part Nova Special:

This would-be revolution goes by the name of string theory, the most musical explanation of creation ever invented. It describes the elementary particles that make up nature not as little points but as vibrating strings of energy, a different “note” for each different kind of particle. How it developed and what it might mean is the subject of “The Elegant Universe,” starring the Columbia University physicist Brian Greene, author of the best-selling book of the same name. The three-part rags-to-riches story, which starts on Tuesday night, is billed as the biggest project “Nova” has ever done, with a $3.5 million budget, gobs of animation and special effects, and appearances by many of the leading lights of modern physics and string theory.

Sounds really interesting. I have to remember to record this.

futureshock video Saaawweeeeeeeeeeetttttt!

Just in time for Halloween, I came home to a bathroom sink puking up the scariest, most vile concoction of water and black … well, let’s just call it stuff.

Now, I’m a seasoned home owner. I’m no stranger to minor plumbing repairs. I’ve fixed a toilet (badly). I’ve installed a new garbage disposal (more or less). I knew just what to do. I put my shoes back on and headed out to the local K-Mart for a big bottle of that drain cleaner stuff.

I poured in the recommended 16 ounces, and went to watch TV for a few hours while the corrosive chemicals did their clog dissolving thing. I returned to a clogged sink that was decidedly unphazed by my attempts at fixing it. In fact, I think I may have heard the gurgling of a drain demon deep in the bowls of my plumbing laughing at my pathetic attempts.

So, I poured in a whole bunch more of the drain cleaner and went back to fiddling around on the Internet for a while. Returning after a few hours, I found a sink free of water — though still really dirty with a bunch of that black stuff. Victory I cried as I turned on the sink to flush out the sink a bit.

But wait, not so fast. The sink filled up and once again refused to drain. I may have won the battle, but I hadn’t won the war. Not by a long shot. Throughout the course of the night and the following day, I poured the rest of this big bottle of cleaner into my drain. My drain sucked it up like a drunk on a bender and continued to puke up black stuff.

I decided maybe it was time to bring out the big guns. I unwrapped a wire hanger and proceeded to try to snake my drain — MacGyver style. As you may have guessed, that worked exactly not at all. I did stir up some of that corrosive chemical stuff to burn a few of the top layers of the flesh off my hand, but that’s about it.

So, under the sink I go with the idea that I can maybe remove the trap and clean it out by hand. That trap was welded shut. It wasn’t having any of my puny efforts to dislodge it. Like any craftsman, I knew that you need the right tool for the job. I went to get a hammer. A few little love taps, and the trap unscrewed lickity split. It also dumped a bunch of water all over the underside of my sink. I cleaned out a whole bunch of black, tar-like stuff. I screwed the trap back on (the seal is weak, and it leaks a bit, but I can fix that later). I turned on the sink. Still clogged. This thing must be deeper than I thought.

I think my only recourse is to call in a professional. Tomorrow, I see about finding myself an exorcist.

Is there anything worse than a show that used to be a shining beacon of light now reduced to a phlegm stain? I used to love the West Wing. From time to time, there would be moments that would give me chills, and every week, there was something that made the weeks wait worth while.

No more. I understand that Sorkin left this season. His loss is sorely felt. It was almost unwatchable tonight. I keep looking at it and expecting to see a glimmer of its former glory. You almost can. It’s like looking at somebody who was once beautiful now scarred by the worst kind of plastic surgery mistake imaginable.

Pretty much this entire season of TV sucks harder than it ever has. Is there a writers strike I didn’t hear about or something?

Orange Ted and Friends is not nearly long enough. I want more please.

It was a beautiful sunny day, so I took my camera up the The Getty for a bit. Have a Look.