Queen of the universe Oct 27, 2005
There was this church in Orlando, FL called Mary, Queen of the Universe Catholic Shrine.  It's been stuck in my head for about 2 months now.  I've had a strong urge to say something about it, but I just don't know how to say it. 

Let's start with the "shrine" part.  Shrine is one of those words like "meditation" that has somewhat of a bad connotation.  People jump to conclusions when they hear these words.  Actually, a shrine is just a place where devotion is paid to a person or an object.  Like a church.  Pretty simple.  But I'll go ahead and jump to the conclusion that the word shrine brings to mind some sort of unhealthy ritualistic pagan-worship.  It also brings up the thought that "shrine" and "stalker" usually go hand-in-hand.  Either way, good choice of words. 

Ok, now the "Queen of the Universe" part.  Mary was the mother of Jesus Christ who was the son of the living God and savior of the human race.  He was an important dude.  So I can almost see how someone could've thought, "Mary, mother of Jesus, the most important person ever, son of God, God is the king of the universe ... Mary, Queen of the Universe!"  But still, I have to make fun of this.  Who is she?  He-Man's wife?  Don't you think it's a little bit of a stretch to call this woman the queen of the universe?  Sure, she was the mother of the son of God, but queen of the universe?  I mean, c'mon. #religion
Earn extra points Oct 26, 2005
I like sarcasm on things that are supposed to be serious.

#travel
Social Oct 26, 2005
I'm not a social person.  And I think I figured out why.  This link talks about caffeine and how it can actually impair one's thought processes.  The Yerkes-Dodson law in cognitive science basically says something to effect that everyone has a different basal level of arousal or awareness, and this is a function of our anatomy/physiology.  Take a look at the picture:
The article says, "The phrases 'extrovert' and 'introvert', as they are currently used in psychological literature, refer basically to a person's basal level of -- you guessed it: physiological arousal."  So in other words, certain people are naturally on the up-slope of the arousal curve and some people are on the down-slope.  Or some people are at the bottom of the slope and some people are at the top.  People at the bottom (extroverts) generally seek more forms of input.  They can multitask.  They're loud.  People at the top (introverts) are generally quiet and shy away from large groups. 

I'm a textbook introvert.  I don't like to talk to people.  I don't like to make new friends.  I'll go out of my way to not talk to someone.  It's nothing personal.  It's not that I think I'm better than everyone because I'm at the top of the curve.  It's just that I'd rather avoid conversations.  And now I finally have an excuse:  I'm on the border of being overstimulated.  Be careful, you might push me over. 

I kind of thought of this on my own when I was a kid.  I noticed that whenever I went on a roller coaster, I would walk away and talk constantly about how awesome it was.  My conclusion was that I was more sociable because of my increased adrenaline levels.  So that would mean that I normally have relatively low adrenaline levels.  It sorta makes sense. #psychology
RSS readers part 2 Oct 25, 2005
Ajax Blog wrote about a few AJAX-powered feed readers.  Here are my reviews:

Inform is annoying from the get-go because it opens a popup window from its main site.  Not cool.  It seems to be kind of difficult to use and unnecessarily complicated (read software bloat). 
My rating:  1/5 stars

Orangoo looks like a great idea, but it's not quite up to par.  It has a bunch of errors and problems, and it's painfully slow.  I'll wait for version 2.0. 
My rating:  1/5 stars

Rojo is pretty cool.  It has the ability to tag and share stories with other people.  It's a lot like a social [insert buzzword] site, such as Flickr and del.icio.us.  Its only downside is that it seems a little slow and it's slightly hard to navigate through. 
My rating:  4/5 stars #technology
Wikipedia roundup Oct 25, 2005
Don LaFontaine - The voice of Fox commercials
Double entendre - Phrase with two different meanings
Epenthesis - Inserting a syllable into a word, such as Yogi Bear:  "pic-a-nic basket" and Homer Simpson:  "saxo-ma-phone"
Hal Douglas - "The" voice of movie trailers
Jesus H. Christ - 'It is often stated, jokingly, that the H stands for "Harold" or "Howard", as in "Our Father, who art in Heaven, HAROLD be thy name" (supposedly a child's mispronunciation of "Hallowed" in the Lord's Prayer).'
List of lists at Wikipedia
List of Simpsons Episodes #technology
Sounds Oct 24, 2005
"Ring, ring!"  My alarm goes off.  I get up.  "Ding, ding."  My car starts and I'm off.  "Bing-bong!"  I have new emails.  "Ding!"  The microwave is finished injecting my lunch with radiation.  I run to it like a happy puppy.  "Ding!"  Oh yeah, Outlook reminds me that I have a meeting today.  "Beep!"  Sorry, I was glazed over at the traffic light.  "Beep, beep!"  Cool, Wendy sent me a text message. 

Update (2007-04-12 9:33am):  This is similar to the idea of Pavlov's dog, a phrase "used to describe someone who merely reacts to a situation rather than uses critical thinking". #psychology
MVSpot Oct 24, 2005
MVSpot.com has a bunch of music videos, and is much better than VideoHtmlCodes.com. #entertainment
RSS readers (2) Oct 24, 2005
I've tried a few RSS readers (also known as feed readers, aggregators, etc.) lately and I feel qualified to write a comparative review.  Most of the services I tried are web-based instead of downloadable programs.  This is because I want to be able to read feeds no matter where I am, without having to download any software. 

My Yahoo is about as good as every other Yahoo creation.  It has big banner ads at the top of the page, which is a big no-no.  Its biggest downfall is only being able to see a summary of each article, and not full text. 
My rating:  1/5 stars

Google Reader is sadly very buggy and unimpressive.  I expected much more from Google.  Some good points are that it uses keyboard shortcuts much like Gmail, it can tag articles with labels, and it's Ajax-based so it's "cool".  It's bad points are that it's given me several problems with adding new feeds and sometimes it just doesn't work at all.  But I think it'll improve in the future. 
My rating:  3/5 stars

NewsGator has a nice user interface and is very customizable.  But I can't help thinking that it feels like a Microsoft product.  It's main downfall is that it doesn't show full-text articles. 
My rating:  2/5 stars

Bloglines is my favorite so far.  It uses keyboard shortcuts and has many custom settings.  It's not ad-supported, which is unusual but welcome.  And it's owned by Ask Jeeves, my former homepage for many years. 
My rating:  5/5 stars

Mozilla Thunderbird is the only desktop reader I tried.  It seems to work pretty well and is fairly customizable.  But it defeats my purpose for a feed reader:  to read things wherever I am, without installing any software. 
My rating:  4/5 stars #technology
Metallica (3) Oct 22, 2005
Back in April of 2000, Metallica sued Napster.  At the time, I understood why:  people were copying and sharing music without paying for it, something that had been happening with tapes and CDs for years but had become a big deal with the advent of peer-to-peer software.  However, I didn't realize something until I heard it on VH1:  Metallica were essentially suing the people who liked their music.  They searched on Napster for their songs and found that a lot of people had their music.  Most bands would have been proud that so many people listened to their music, but Metallica wanted money.  I guess I just never realized how Metallica directly sued their fans.  It's not like they can say they were looking out for the rights of other bands.  They were looking out for their own good, and they wanted people to stop listening to their music.  And it's not like they wanted to stop file sharing in general because they didn't agree with the idea.  No:  they wanted to stop file sharing so people would stop listening to their music. 

Now, whenever I hear Metallica on the radio, I'm repulsed.  If they don't want me to listen to their music, fine, I won't.  Buncha jerks.  By this event alone, Metallica lost countless fans.  Good job, guys.  Super instinct. #entertainment
Link blog Oct 22, 2005
Kottke, a person who has a website I visit quite often and copy from frequently, has a section called Remaindered Links.  It's essentially a link blog:  a few little snippets about some interesting websites he's visited lately.  A lot of people use del.icio.us for this.  I started using that, but didn't really like storing my stuff on a different site, seeing that I already have a website with tons of storage space.  Since then, I've been using the WordPress "Links" feature and displaying some of my most recently visited links.  But these links aren't stored in the same database as other WordPress entries, so they're not searchable.  Kottke also wrote about Tumblelogs, which are sort of like link blogs, but more stream-of-consciousness.  Entries can be focused on links, but they don't have to be.  I liked this idea, so I decided to make a little change.  But instead of being one of those jerks who just uses some cool new word to describe everything he does (Ajax, Web 2.0, colophon, remainder, tumblelog), I decided to expand on what I already have.  So instead of having several separate blogs, I'll just have one blog that contains main entries, links, and maybe even pictures.  Thus the creation of the links category.  It's part of my main WordPress blog, which means it's searchable.  I don't know why I didn't think of this before. #technology