The 'earthy' and larger Shrek II colored M&Ms are hilarious. Don calls Jared a little "two ton tanker". We drove out and found the "Foto's Fotos" cache on Friday night with Maite. Also viewed "The Transporter" (again) on VHS on Saturday night.

I think the Pope is correct that many of America's youth are losing sight of the fundamental values that formed this country. Here's a stupid example of what's wrong with this country: apparently some apartment complexes forbid their tenants from displaying the American flag. How retarded is that?

Had a wonderful dining experience at McDonalds, of all places, on Saturday. With all the health-conscious changes they've made lately, I actually ate a full meal there today and didn't walk out feeling guilty. I had the Go Active! adult happy meal, with a premium fiesta salad, with a bottle of Dasani bottled water, and some apple slices. The toy, of course, is a pedometer. Becky got the traditional child's happy meal, and she got a Neopets-themed box with a purple jub jub plush toy, and a red kougra trading card. For her meal, she got Chicken McNuggets, and the apple slices (which she didn't like, however, because they were 'too cold') in place of french fries and a juice box of apple juice in place of a traditional soda.

The world's first 64-bit computer virus was discovered today (W64.Rugrat.3344). Ah, the future looks bright. Found the "Impress Us Cache" today at lunch. Passed the 6,100 mark on Seti@home today. Watched "Daredevil vs. Spiderman" on VHS tonight. Read Matthew Reilly's "Rewind" short screenplay tonight. Part five of his "Hover Car Racer" book is due out on June 4th.   =)

Another Mac OS X security update was released today. Speaking of updates, I installed Windows XP SP2 RC1 today to test things. I like the new Windows Update (v5) look, although there are some functionality problems with it. Updates in Internet Explorer 6.0 SP2 look good so far, and the built-in popup blocking seems to work smarter than that offered by the Google toolbar.

There's no logical or logistical way for a non-tube (i.e., heeled) sock to fit more than one size of foot. The fact that sock packaging suggests otherwise really irks me. When you purchase a package of Hanes ankle socks, for example, it'll say that the socks fit feet with shoe sizes 6-12. Ummm, hello, there's a huge difference between a men's size 6 foot and a men's size 12. I have a smallish size foot (size 8), and the stupid socks won't fit me properly. Inevitably, the heel of the sock ends up resting too high up on the back of my foot, not on the heel of my foot where it should be:



What's the big deal, anyway - why can't they just make socks in the appropriate half sizes (or at least in whole sizes, for Pete's sake) just like they do for shoes? One size does not fit all (and 'one size fits most' is another crock). Pure laziness.

The 'Just How Evil am I?' cache kicked our butts tonight. We were hoping to score another FTF, but alas, 'twas not meant to be. We had fun visiting briefly with Don, Alice, Maite, Trini, Tony, Aleen, Bill, Jesse, Bradley, and Vicky instead.

Tried some "Rocklets" candy from Argentina - like M&Ms, but not as good. Watched "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" last night. Also not as good as the original.

Had a great time at Brad and Emilie's BBQ on Saturday. I had to admire Brad's barbequing skills, grilling three different types of meat simultaneously. Got to meet a few new people, and eat some delicious grub. Earlier in the day we visited Fallon, Nevada and logged a few more caches:

'GBES Navigational Rally'
'Steel Wheels'
'Super-Sized'
'Singing Mountain'

We volunteered to work checkpoint #2 for the rally, and were conveniently stationed across the street from Sand Mountain. It was hilarious to watch all the rally participants running around looking for the nearby caches, and their excitement was fun to see. It was great to meet Katya75, Katya's Mom, Oscar and Jasper the dogs, and Bob36912, who were also working the checkpoint. Once again, Monty's enthusiasm was infectious, and it was great to also meet Ivan, Monty's brother, who helped out enormously with everything.

Here's a hilarious article about the new Opera 7.5 browser, and why it basically sucks. Also hilarious in the news today is the fact that the security hole in Mac OS X that was patched by Apple last Friday is, ahem, still an open security hole.

Finished listening to "Star Wars The New Jedi Order - Edge of Victory II: Rebirth" on abridged audiobook today. Found the following caches:

'Get Back into the Air Conditioned SUV'
'Valmy Cache'
'Maiden Grave' (first to find it!)
'Emigrant Trail 1'
'Launch Pad #4'
'Playing Around'
'Tiny Tin Cache'
'Welcome Home!'
'Angels and Pioneers'
'Score times Four'
'Warbirds'

and travel bugs today:

'Blue Light Special'
'Baby Blue Elephant TB'
'Smokey Bear'

Had two great Sobe's today: "Long John Lizard's Grape Grog" and "Black & Blue Berry Brew". Mmmmm. Misti exchanged our defective new TV for a new working one (same model). Nice.

I was beginning to think I had really bad luck when that first TV didn't work, but one of the Sobe bottles had a winning cap (I won a free Sobe), so maybe not. Then, however, I discovered that the benchmark I thought I had found in Valmy, Nevada (LR0365) turned out not to be a benchmark, but apparently just a witness post or something (so it doesn't count), and the real benchmark was only about 6' away (but I didn't see it - of course, I wasn't really looking for it, I didn't know there were any benchmarks in the area - I just happened to stumble across the witness post en route to a cache).   =(

Finished listening to "Garden of Evil" by Edna Buchanan (a Britt Montero novel) on abridged audiobook today. Found the 'wild style geocache' today also.

Gmail's terabyte email storage limit was a temporary glitch, after all. Good times. There's a hilarious retro Mac SE (System 7) on the web that you can play with. Fun stuff.

Last week's discovery of Emilie the Sauropod (a new kind of dinosaur) in Montana is hilarious, mainly because it's name is Emilie (Suuwassea emilieae).

Ah, the joys of buying something defective. Our old Sanyo TV died today, so we ventured forth to purchase a low-cost replacement. The Emerson EWF2004 flat screen caught our eye at the bargain price of only $119. Of course, that's not such a bargain after you carry the thing into the house, unpack it, connect it all up - only to find out that it's defective and won't even turn on. Shaft.

We again watched the most excellent film "Uncorked" (Minnie Driver, Rufus Sewell) tonight, and again fell in love with the guitar solo ("Ross' Concert"). Words cannot describe.

I think it's cool that a Reno geophysicist has discovered why the Earth wobbles. Surprise, surprise, another Mac OS X security problem.

Sad to hear that Tony Randall passed away today. Well, apparently 1 GB of email storage wasn't enough - Gmail now offers 1 TB (yes, one terabyte) of email storage space to certain Gmail users (including me!). (I bet the stupid ceiling for attachments is still only 6.95 MB, though!) Dumb.

Well, it seems that enough people are fed up with the limitations of iTunes, that there are now several ways popping up to bypass iTunes' security.

Glad I had the captions on when we watched "The Prince of Egypt" again Saturday night. I was curious about the phrase Ashira l'adonai in one of the songs at the end of the film. This phrase doesn't appear in the English King James' Version of Exodus 15, of course (since it's not English), but also isn't contained (as written) in said chapter in the JPS Hebrew version, either. This, most likely, is a case of phonetic 'transliteration' (as opposed to 'translation'). More information on this is forthcoming. (As I research it.)

My new shoutbox seems to be experiencing all sorts of random technical difficulties. Please stay tuned.

Another Mac OS X 'highly critical security hole' found. This isn't surprising, of course. There will be many, many more.

Reread some articles about the 'Selfish Biocosm' hypothesis of intelligent life, evolution, and extraterrestrial beings. The whole topic is eerily LDS.

Five more Sasser/Netsky worm writers arrested. It's been 50 years since desegregation in U.S. schools (the 'Brown vs. Board of Education' Supreme Court ruling).

We watched the film "Brigham Young" (1940) with Vincent Price and John Carradine (David's dad) last night. Pretty good for an old black and white one.

We are trying out a 5.5 lb. tub of Xylitol (a healthy sugar substitute). Unlike Splenda, which is simply not bad for you (as opposed to sugar, which is bad for yout teeth and body, of course), Xylitol is actually good for your teeth (fights cavities and reduces plaque), as well as being okay to your system. Plus, it seems a little sweeter than Splenda, without the aftertaste.

Read the free white paper "Why Spammers Spam" from Vircom last night - nothing too earthshattering (obviously the only reason someone would do something so stupid is for money). It was nice to be able to visit with the gang again at Pam Freestone's UNR graduation open house today. Great food, too.   =)

Well, in true commercial fashion, it seems the folks at 2RSS couldn't resist ruining a truly great service with advertising. Their heretofore free Atom-to-RSS feed convertor was previously advertisement-free. Not any more - they are now injecting stupid little RSS advertisements into the stream. Time to look for another solution. Lame.

It is my goal this year to learn how to crochet really well. I am going to learn one new stitch a week. Once I am comfortable with a number of stitches I am going to create something - don't know what yet - but something. I was taught to crochet when I was little by my grandma. But, I was only about 7 years old so I only remember the one stitch she taught me. So, I subscribed to, and bought, some magazines that show me how to do a number of different stitches and how to create all kinds of things like, sweaters, shawls, afghans, etc. I am excited to learn! Richard thinks one of my magazines is funny because it's called "Crochet Fantasy" and if you say crochet as it looks instead of as it is pronounced, the name of the magazine sounds pretty funny. =)

Jared is almost crawling!! He gets up on all fours but hasn't got the movement of one leg at a time down yet. He sat up by himself yesterday for the first time. He is growing so fast. He loves his big sister. Becky will do just about anything she can think of to make him laugh because it makes her happy when he laughs. It's great!

Symantec had 70 virus definition revisions yesterday. Wow. That's the most I've seen in a single day (so far). Learned something new about Linux today (which was probably old news to everyone else): Not only do all Linux users despise SCO, but they also despise Red Hat. I do, however, think it took a great deal of courage for them to admit that Linux is too hard for the average home user to use, and that they'd be better off with Windows. Granted, Windows isn't that easy for most people to use, either, but I think it's easier than Linux. Interesting.

Aaron Pratt's gmail spam experiment is hilarious. Interesting to learn that Google now offers listservs (email groups), just like Yahoo Groups has always done. Conversely, Yahoo has copied Google by offering drastically more email storage space (100 MB, up from 4 MB previously). The world is full of copycats.

SCO has been caught stealing copyrighted material. Ironic. Found someone's cool panoramic photo of Reno on the web. Sweet pic. Read with interest this article about the human brain's 'auto-pilot'.

<tongue in cheek>Glad to know that I still have a function in life.</tongue in cheek>

Downloaded a free eBook on DNS - looks like it'll be a good read (to me, maybe not to you necessarily). I was glad to see that Brad now has an Atom feed available. Life is good.

An Opera security flaw was disclosed today. Linspire update: it boots intermittantly, but now crashes. I got to see the "KDE Crash Handler" in action this afternoon. Here's what it said: "The application KDE Panel (kicker) crashed and caused the signal 11 (SIGSEGV)." And that helps so much... NOT! And, of course, the backtrace was completely useless, also.

In other bad web news today: one of my favorite web-based diagnostic tools, Network-Tools.com, is down due to host ASP/VB scripting problems. Likewise, SamSpade.org has been down, too, off and on for awhile.   =(

We attended a Reno City Council meeting this morning, in order to receive a volunteer certificate for the Reno Clean and Green event on behalf of our local GBES Geocachers group. What I didn't know what that (Brother) Steven Wright works for the City as the Director of the Division of Community Relations (the very division that oversaw the entire cleanup event). Small world.

Since when has pistachio ice cream not been green? Misti found this awesome recipe for 'watermelon sorbet slices', and it calls for pistachio ice cream for the 'green' outer part of the watermelon, with strawberry sorbet and mini chocolate chips for the 'red' inside part of the watermelon. It's very tasty, but as it turns out, the Häagen-Dazs pint of pistachio we picked up wasn't green. It wasn't anything a few drops of green food coloring didn't fix, but the whole point of pistachio has traditionally been to be green (or so we and the recipe thought).

Got my mom hooked up with an AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) account on Mother's Day, so now she can chat with her kids remotely. She seems to like it a lot. Heather's been in town for Mother's Day, and she really likes little chunko Jared. He's been doing this thing lately with sticking out his tongue and laughing. It's really hilarious.


Misti loved her Mother's Day flowers, but has really been ecstatic about her two 'new' DVDs of some classics she's been wanting to see for awhile: "The Sound of Music" and "The Princess Bride". She's owned The Princess Bride on VHS forever, but the DVD has the added interviews, commentary, and makings of/behind the scenes stuff that really add value to a title. Becky really likes The Sound of Music, of course, and now runs around singing 'Do-Re-Mi' at the top of her lungs.   =)

Jennie Carrick at work's son's school did a confection fundraiser, and we scored some Gateway rainbow cookie dough. Here's what our hand-sculpted cookies looked like before:



and after baking:



Misti discovered that the Godzilla theme song (written by Akira Ifukube) is one of the same songs that they use in 'Charlie's Angels'. And both of those, remarkably, resemble the 'Addam's Family' theme, too. Ah, good, old fashioned copyright infringement. Who needs the Internet to infringe. Not the movie industry.   =)

Picked up another pack of Pop Weaver Butter Light popcorn last night. I used to try to procure the 'healthy' popcorn, but Pop Weaver's 15 pack costs the same as the healthy brand's 6 pack and most other generic 8 packs, so this choice has been an economic 'no-brainer'. Besides, Wallymart's always out of the healthy choice.

I tried some of Keebler's new Scooby-Doo! cheddar goldfish-like crackers recently, but they pretty much blow. Saurus doesn't like them, so I ended up eating the whole, unhealthy, yellow dye #6 and sodium-laden box.

I was slightly dismayed to find out that the gas mileage claims are false for hybrid cars. Linux update: my Linspire computer wouldn't boot this morning at all, yeah! Linux blows even more.

The Wallon.A virus is out today, as is another Mac OS X trojan horse (AS.MW2004.Trojan). I find it more than a little odd that McDonald's new "I Am Asian" site doesn't offer content in any, ummm, Asian languages. Hello?!

Sasser.F and Gaobot.AJD are out today. I guess someone is trying to make a point that the two guys they arrested in Germany on Saturday really aren't the ones (or at least the only ones) responsible for the Sasser and Gaobot virii families.

Speaking of virii, my stinking Linux box got a virus somehow. Not only that, but the Trend 'ChipAwayVirus(R) On Guard ver. 1.65' (that I previously thought was compatible with Linspire) now says that the operating system isn't compatible with it. Not only that, but (of course) none of the online virus scanners will work with Linux. Not only that, but stinkin' Linspire wants to charge for every single update and upgrade in the book, despite the fact that I've got a fully-registered version of it. Not only that, but Linspire suffers from the same "num lock" being disabled at boot time problem that some unpatched WinXP systems do. And if that weren't enough, Linspire doesn't know what to do with BitDefender Linux Edition v7's .RPM, .RUN, and .DEB files. (Double-clicking them doesn't do anything, as there are no extension associations, and running them from a Terminal command line results in permissions errors; CHMOD'ing them to 777 and re-running them results in yet more errors.) And on top of that, Linspire has locked up twice in 2 days. Linux blows.

Watched "A Wrinkle in Time" last night on channel 8. It's one of Misti's favorite books.

Found some Strawberry Mentos on clearance Saturday at the Albertson's on Prater and McCarran - a 1.32 oz. pack for a quarter. Mmmm. Also shopped a little at Twin City Surplus and found some American Camper 1 qt. polyethylene canteen and belt kits for $1.99 each. A steal. Found the 'Ship out of Water' locationless cache at Don Wai's China Clipper Restaurant on Greenbrae in Sparks. Hit exactly 51,000 miles on our car at 3:20 p.m. whilst replacing the log at our 'Kitty Litter 2' cache. Watched the ultra-cheesy "Godzilla vs. Biollante" on VHS from the library (it's currently overdue).   =(

Also watched "Lilo & Stitch" on DVD. Blogger has a completely new look and feel. I don't like it. Everything is "too big", even at a 1400x1050 screen resolution. I can't even imagine how bad it probably is at 800x600. Also, the new built-in commenting system doesn't seem to work with my blog, and the permalinks are now broken. That's progress, for ya.

New worms out: Sasser.E and Cycle.A (a copy-cat of Sasser). Apparently, they arrested a German 18-year-old boy that may've written the Sasser worm (of course, he's already out on bail). Wow - that was quick. If the press was right, then that was also the same person who unleashed the Netsky virus. Also, a different guy was arrested (also in Germany) as the possible author of the Gaobot/Phatbot/Agobot/Polybot family of virii. Busy weekend for German law enforcement!

David IM'ed me yesterday - good to chat with you, Dave. I don't even want to know the story behind this one:



We (like everyone else) watched the final episode of Friends last night. Good stuff, the whole twins thing was a good twist. Gas prices in Northern Nevada suck.

AquaDrops follow-up: well, I decided to give AquaDrops a second chance, this time with their 'citrus' flavored mints. I'm glad I did, because these ones are actually quite tasty. (The 'mint' flavored ones are disgusting.) I also tried the new Hershey's Sugar Free Chocolate. Very nice.

Got some fabulous Mother's Day flowers for Misti today from Riverside Flower Shop. Good stuff.

Tomorrow is International Tuba Day. YES! Has anyone else noticed that Softsoap liquid hand soap is too... stringy? After dispensing the soap into your hand and then moving your hands away from the container and into the sink, Softsoap leaves a string (or trail) of soap across the edge of the counter and the sink, causing you grief and creating yet another reason to have to clean the bathroom. This, to me, is unacceptible for a hand soap.

An interesting followup on the Gmail situation: you can receive a 6.95 MB attachment in Gmail, but you can't then forward it. As it turns out, you also can't forward a 6.9 MB attachment either, but a 6.8 MB attachment will go through. Lame. Also, sometimes when you submit a 'bug report' or a 'suggestion' to them, it doesn't work. Someone should file a bug report that filing a bug report doesn't always work. Double lame. I honestly expected better from Google.   =(

You know, Adobe Reader 6.0.1 really ought to replace Acrobat Reader 5.1.0 when you install the newer one over the previous one. The fact that you install 6 but then it doesn't register itself with the file association ".pdf" is just crappy. Double clicking on a PDF file after installing 6 really ought to invoke the newer software, not the previous version. Lame.

'All Your Base Are Belong To Columbia Pictures'. Grabbed the "Tater Tot Cache" during lunch. Was interested to learn that Brad nearly stepped on a live rattlesnake yesterday whilst geocaching. Scary. It isn't bad enough that currently Nevada has the 3rd most expensive gasoline in the Union (of course, gas was free in Michigan), and is also the most dangerous state in which to live - we also have rattlesnakes.   =(

Giant redwood trees can apparently only grow to a height of 426 feet (142 yards, or 130 metres). Who knew?

Did a little caching today in and around the Reno and Carson City areas - nabbed the 'Blarney Stone', 'Reno Air Race Cache', '       ' [no-named traditional geocache], 'Star Wars on Earth', 'NEVADA STATE SYMBOLS', 'Rock Climber's Delight', and 'Old Hwy 50' caches.

Finally 'beat' Brad to 200 caches found, woohoo! Actually, since there was no OFFICIAL challenge, we'll let him lose gracefully - no shame in being second best. Someone has to be the runner-up, not everyone can be a winner. Besides, it's not if you win or lose that matters, it's how you play the game, right?   =o

Ate dinner at Chili's in Carson City tonight with my aunt Ginger and the Elders - one of whom is from Haiti, where I served. It wasn't too awfully surprising how much Kreyòl I've forgotten, seeing how it's been 13 years since I've last heard or spoken it.

First there was Mac OS X "Jaguar" (10.2), then "Panther" (10.3), and now "Tiger" (Mac OS 10.4). Dang, we just upgraded, too. Gotta love having an old version, just months after upgrading.   =(

In more Mac news, Apple has released a 'monster' highly critical OS X security patch that all OS X users are 'highly recommended' to install immediately. Welcome to the Internet, Mac users.

Wow - Apple really sucks today. Now, apparently, iTunes won't recognize iPods. What's up with that?

I think it's cool that Kevin Mitnick is back in the news, this time for using his hacking skills for the public's benefit in tracking down other hackers. Takes one to catch one, I guess. Can't someone hire Mitnick to track down the Beagle and Netsky/Sasser virus authors? Oh, I guess someone already answered that question for me.

The Sasser worm (and its variants [B, C, and D]) and Netsky.AC are out today. Nothing new here - if you are routinely doing your updates (Windows, firewall, and daily antivirus updates), there's nothing to worry about, despite all the press this one is getting. In fact, blocking this type of worm is really nothing new if you already block unused ports and do your updates. If you think you might be infected with Sasser, however, go to Microsoft's Sasser page for instructions and a test.

Apple's QuickTime and iTunes have a critical vulnerability, so users are asked to patch their Apple software ASAP. Did a little caching today during lunch ('Toy Store Cache') and after Family Home Evening, too ('Welcome to the City of Sparks and the Silver State'). He he. Part 3 of "Hover Car Racer" was available a day ahead of schedule.   =)

I'm reading "Hover Car Racer" by Matthew Reilly, for free, one part at a time (3 chapters per part) as they're released to the public (currently only parts 1 and 2 are online - but part 3 will be available on May 4th). Pretty slick. I was also pleased to see that the Hover Car wallpapers are available in standard resolutions with the correct screen aspect ratio (e.g., 1280x960), not in an incorrect one (i.e., 1280x1024).

Spent a few minutes at a garage sale yesterday and Misti got some sweet cookbooks. We did some great caching yesterday in Fallon: '"Pass the Bread"', 'TINY BOX', 'Hidden Hill Cache', 'Welcome to Fallon I', 'TOOL TYME', 'MoMo's Cache', 'A-Line White Crossing', '"Da Plane - Da Plane"', 'Fallon Travel Bug Hostel - Memories of Marcia', 'Park-N-Cache', '"www.i G O"', 'Soda Lake', and 'Clerks!'. Whew!

Jared's been given some good nicknames lately, including 'chubby chicken', 'chunko', 'squealy dan', and 'squeezebox'.   =)

You know, I bet you used to be able to tell your kids that the 'tag goes in back' (so they'd know how to put their pants and shirts on), but in today's world that no longer holds true. Becky's been stymied several times with tags sewn into the side seam (pants as well as shirts), as well as even a few that were in the front - apparently, on purpose (mostly pants, not shirts).