Events

Oy, oy, oy! This is too funny.

Yesterday's post about the flaming mouse is apparently so much hooey, says the Associated Press in a follow-up report today: A small-town rumor that sparked world-wide interest about a mouse burning down a house has been found to be untrue. "It's really humorous more than anything that a mouse burned down the house," [81-year-old Chano Mares] told KOAT-TV in Albuquerque. The mouse was dead when it hit the burning leaves. Mares said he trapped and killed the critter and tossed it on the fire. So This...

Update: The following entry may be false. Or maybe the guy just changed his story after the A.P. got ahold of it. The Associated Press reports today that a New Mexico man destroyed his house when he threw a mouse into a pile of burning leaves, only to have the mouse run into the house and set it on fire. This reminded me of a segment on This American Life involving a rookie cop and a squirrel, except that the cop didn't intentionally set fire to the squirrel. Sic transit gloria musi.

We seem to have gone from November to January to March. Last month was bitter cold and snowy; so far this month, temperatures have been unseasonably warm, and this weekend we actually had sun. Raymond Park, Evanston, Ill., looking toward the First Congregational Church. Copyright ©2006 David Braverman.

Except that Anne loves this photo: County Galway, Ireland, 24 July 2005.

As promised, here is the memorial photograph of the hard drive that blew up Thursday:

I've heard that people are having trouble leaving comments on the blog. Please let me know if you try to leave a comment and get an error message. I have an idea why this is happening—Das Blog has some defects in the way it handles multiple time zones—and I need more data. Thank you.

Even though I previously reported that the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season had ended, it appears my entry of four weeks ago was premature. The season acutally ended today as Tropical Depression Zeta finally dissipated. Forecaster Stewart at the National Hurricane Center reports: SHOWER ACTIVITY HAS CONTINUED TO DECREASE AND IS NOW LIMITED TO JUST A FEW SKINNY BANDS OF SHALLOW CONVECTION WELL TO THE EAST OF THE CENTER. AS SUCH... ZETA NO LONGER MEETS THE CRITERIA OF A TROPICAL CYCLONE... WHICH MEANS THAT...

I debated even calling attention to this latest bit of drivel from the mental midget extraordinaire, Pat Robertson. But he had this to say about critically-ill Ariel Sharon last night: [The prophet Joel] makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who 'divide my land.' ... [Sharon] was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America. Anti-Defamation League...

This morning I've been working in the Inner Drive Technology Comprehensive Testing Facility, trying to read an ancient hard drive I discovered a while ago. I've tried many methods to read this old 130 MB disk. It has two files on it, a "readme" file dated 23 February 1995, and a Doublespace volume with the same date. In other words, this hard drive is a snapshot of what I was doing 11 years ago. In order to read a Doublespace volume, you need MS DOS 6.22, Windows 95, or Windows 98. I haven't had a...