Lee.org

A friend asked me, “And you? How are things?”
————

I got a letter just a few days ago saying that the Hackettstown school system has approved my application to become a substitute teacher. :-). They say I’ll be teaching in 2 weeks.

I started my math and psych courses…

The Math class is hard. It’s really hard. I’m worried. This is gonna take a lot of concentration and work… a lot of hours of cursing my own stupidity during homework sessions. Well, at least I’ll have the psych class to balance it out!

I’ve been working a lot on my web page. I think it’s replacing some important social element in my life… like not getting out enough or having a girlfriend or somesuch. It’s a healthy enough and stimulating activity so I’m not too worried. Check it out at www.lee.org.

I’ve started playing chess online and with Chessmaster 9000. Even when set to high school level, little automaton “Carrie” still kicks my ass, but that’s what learning is all about. At least she doesn’t gloat about it. :-)

I continue to sell my bottles of Marilyn Merlot wine on eBay. See . Wine is gonna put me through college! (assuming my supplier doesn’t run out or figure out how -he- can make as much money as I am on these bottles!

My folks haven’t been in NJ now for a month and I’ve taken over the house. It’s nice. Though I have to say that even when they were here, it was pretty darn OK. They’ll be back for a week starting next week.

I’d love to have a partner to interact with, voice ideas with, and work with. I feel I’d be more happy and successful in life if I had one. I’ve thought this for years and I’m disheartened that for all my looking I haven’t found one. I’ve been a part of a whole, missing the whole for a long time.

Kikkoman! Kikko Man!

http://yoga.tripod.co.jp/flash/kikkomaso.swf

a local version

Wuw. This is some of the most….. I don’t know.. you just have to see it for yourself… Wuw. Did the soy sauce maker actually commission this work? If so… what does that mean? Wuw.

If you can read the Japanese and it says anything interesting, please write to me! I’d be most interested in finding out what predicated the swinging dead cat, and how the fish-headed Kikko-Man got the chick in bed. Wuw.

Did I mention…. “Wuw”?

I had my first classes today… Math is (surprisingly) going to be a challenge while Child Growth and Development will be an excellent opportunity for me to polish up on the fine art of BS. I haven’t been in a classroom in 10 years. This will take a little getting used to!

————–

I put some more spit-polish on my “I hate NERO” page after a friend asked me about NERO. I startle myself at how much of a grudge I’m still holding over this thing. I guess my “counter-betrayal mechanism” has been working overtime since Cha. I have to vent the toxic fumes in some direction. So, come one, come all, step right up and see the gruesome object of my disgust.

————–

I’m still in the Wavexpress beta program… which mostly means that I write to them when I find a bug. I’ll always love poking at things and making them break. More than that, I love taking all the failure modes into account to try to figure out exactly what’s broken on the inside…. you know… like shaking a present at Christmas 10 different ways to try to figure out what’s inside.

[written 5-9-02 updated 1-24-03]

People habitually use the term “RSVP” incorrectly.

It is a French acronym for “Répondez s’il vous plaît”. Translated into English, that’s “Respond if you please”.

So, when one puts that on a letter, one means to say, “Tell me whether you are coming or not.”. If you are coming, tell me. If you are not coming, tell me. Etiquette demands that you respond one way or the other. A non-response is an insult.

Many people think that it just means, “Call me back if (and only if) you are coming.” That is wrong wrong wrong.
————–

1-24-03

A friend of mine throws these big parties with long lead times. One thing that he does, that I really really like is a graduated RSVP list. He writes:

I. Send me email and let me know whether you are
1) Definitely attending
2) Probably attending
3) Maybe attending
4) Probably not attending
or 5) Not attending

If your response is 1), 2), 3) or 4), you will receive all the followup mailings until you tell me to stop.

A few weeks later, we all get a list with the RSVP list of who will Definitely be there, Probably… etc. It works out very well..

A friend wrote to me about Nooks & Crannies ™

>Not exactly, Lee. CLAIMING ownership, and actually owning something are two
>different animals. Just ask the folks at Enron.
>
>In this case, Registration No. 2614090 (NOOK & CRANNIES) (Ampersand, not
>”and”)is owned by “MEGARGY LICENCIA HASZNOSITO FELELOSSEGU TARSASAG,” a
>Hungarian holding company which licenses the mark back to Unilever
>Bestfoods, the parent coporation of Entemanns, which makes Thomas’ English
>Muffins.

and my response:

Hahahah! That’s hilarious! It sounds like the little old lady that swallowed a fly! But in this case, she probably swallowed the fly for tax purposes, yes?

It’s the 20th birthday of the Internet!
Happy Birthday, Internet! Make a wish and blow out your candles.

Oh, and happy birthday to the world as well! ;-)

lee

—— Forwarded Message
From: Bob Braden
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 10:08:38 -0800 (PST)
To: ietf ot ietf dat org
Cc: internet-history@postel.org
Subject: The 20th anniversary of the Internet

We ought not to let pass unnoticed the impending 20th anniversary of
the Internet. The most logical date of origin of the Internet is
January 1, 1983, when the ARPANET officially switched from the NCP
protocol to TCP/IP. Six months later, the ARPANET was split into the
two subnets ARPANET and MILNET, which were connected by Internet
gateways* (routers).

The planning for the January 1983 switchover was fully documented in
Jon Postel in RFC 801. The week-by-week progress of the transition was
reported in a series of 15 RFCs, in the range RFC 842 - RFC 876, by
UCLA student David Smallberg.

There may still be a few remaining T shirts that read, “I Survived the
TCP/IP Transition”. People sometimes question that any geeks would
have been in machine rooms on January 1. Believe it!! Some geeks got
very little sleep for a few days (and that was before the work “geek”
was invented, I believe.)

So, on New Year’s Eve, hoist one for the 20th anniversary of the
Internet.

Bob Braden

______________________________________________

* Routers brought to you by Bob Hinden of BBN.

** Prominent survivors included Dan Lynch of Interop fame.
And of course Vint Cerf was working the Levers of Power at
ARPA.

—— End of Forwarded Message
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
— end forwarded text

(excerpted from a mass email to lots of friends)

After more than 10 months of unsuccessful looking for a Senior/Mgmt Software Quality Assurance position in or around NYC, I decided that a change of pace was in order. Money was getting a little tight and my resolve to stay in the dot-bomb industry was floundering.

Everyone keeps telling me that I’d make an excellent teacher so I started looking into it…. and I decided to give it a go! To get started, It’s going to take a couple changes… I’m getting ready to take a job a substitute teacher to get a feel for where I’d like to end up; no, subbing it’s often yucky work, but it’s a start in the right place. I’ve got to go to school for a while to qualify to teach, probably starting January at Centenary in Hackettstown. The program will take somewhere between 1 and 3 years; I’m figuring out the details now. I temporarily moved to my parent’s place in Hackettstown. The idea is that they will be away for most of the winter, I needed a place to regroup and get started on this second career. So I’ll be here until May. That’s when my snowbird parents arrive back in town.

I’ll certainly miss my old place. But I still say that the neighborhood is way too sterile. Having a doorman sure was nice though. Shara, my housemate of four years has stayed in Jersey City, moving to her own place near Grove Street. Our recent housemate Dwight went to a different building at Newport. And our long lost Pierre is still far and away; last reports set him sunning himself on the beaches of California.

Hackettstown is a beautiful change of pace. It’s a small town 20 miles from Pennsylvania and a 1 hour drive to NYC. Just yesterday we got 6 inches of snow and the lake behind the house froze over. The wintering geese don’t look happy about the ice but they’ll get used to it.

Be seeing you,

lee

Here’s a scary Halloween story.

Police officers with shot guns and flack jackets break up a pagan wedding, where 2 people are wearing fairy wings
by Tish Owen (owner of The Goddess and The Moon, Nashville TN)

(more…)

Lukas showed me Oddtodd.com. Lukas Rulez

[written 5-8-02]

Every day for 20 years. It pisses me off so much that EVERY SINGLE DAY, news about “the situation in Israel” makes the top of the headlines. I don’t freaking get it. The “situation” hasn’t changed one iota since the Six Day War in 1967. Where is the news? Why are newscasters taking up my time with this crap?

Let’s try a timeline:

As a reference for the reader, Palestine, Canaan, The Ottoman Empire, and Israel are all pretty much the same 180 mile by 40 mile strip of land. It’s just a little smaller than New Jersey. (hmm, that gives me an idea… nah… forget it)

1300 BC Egyptians enslave Jews. Jews displeased.

1100 BC Jews escape Egypt and conquer Canaan, "The Promised Land". Canaanites displeased.

1 AD A guy gets nailed to a cross for saying how nice it would be if we could all get along. Jesus displeased.

70 AD Romans sack Jerusalem. Jews displeased again.

1516-1917 Muslim Ottoman Empire rules Palestine. By the end, no one claims ownership of the land. Jews and Muslims both live there. Both Muslims and Jews split their displeasure.

1917-1948 British take over Palestine. In a big PR move by the British government, they encourage Jews around the world to move there because the Jews want a homeland and no one else wants to host them. Upon leaving, the British (reminiscent of their glorious colonial days) split the land into 2 sections, Jewish and Arab/Muslim. No one displeased for a for a while, but just wait and see.

1948-1967 Jews gain in strength and numbers in Palestine/Israel, realize they can reclaim their ancient (G-d certified) Promised Land. But heathen Muslims are still living on "their" land. So as not to piss off the rest of the world too much, they try making life miserable for Muslims… maybe they’ll just leave.

1967 Six Day War. The Israelis got tired of waiting. Israel takes prime real estate from neighboring (Muslim) countries. Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon displeased (but that’s ok because we don’t like those guys anyway, right?)

1967-present. Everybody is pissy at everybody else.

   The present dialog:

• Israelis to Muslims - It’s our land now, God promised it to us. So put on a yarmulke or get out.
• Muslims to Israelis - Hey now, we’re just trying to get by on land we’ve been living on for the last 500 years, coexisting with your likes for a long while. Besides, Mohammad said we could live here.
• Israelis to Muslims - Mohammad, eh? Our god said we could live here first, so git’!
• Muslims to Israelis - You gave up your claim 2000 years ago! We’re a peaceful people but, respectfully, our God could kick your god’s ass if he wanted to.
• Israelis to Muslims - We’ll see which claim is more relevant after we’ve kicked your sister down the stairs a couple times.
• Muslims to Israelis - You evil bastard! I’ll come over and bash your teeth in myself!
• Americans to Israelis - Here’s 1.6 trillion dollars. Have a party.

While this is going on, there’s folks on both sides are trying to find a compromise, but it’s hard to calmly deliberate compromise when one side knocks down your house with your grandmother still in it, and the other side takes sniper shots at the baby seat in your car. Ah, the joys of religious extremism.

So, they go back and forth, knocking over houses, blowing up busses, police playing rough, suicide bombings, "peace keeping" forces, riots, hatred, distrust, pre-emptive attacks, pre-retaliatory strikes (I like that one, it’s funny), hostage takings, hostage exchanges, tradable hostage playing cards, reform packages, summits, accords, terrorist attacks, terrorist counterattacks, counter-terrorist attacks, counter-terrorist counter-attacks (I’m not making this shit up! (Well, maybe just a little))

They’ve been playing this tit-for-tat game for 30 years. Neither side wants to be seen as the bad-guy, the monster, the genocidist, in the eyes of the world. Both each side is fed up with the other. So it’s become this big Public Relations campaign. Both sides are the advertisers, and we, via newscasts are the consumers. They want us to believe in the justness of their cause and get on their side (and give them money to run their war). But it’s a broken record, like most ad campaigns I suppose. I could get a New York Times articles from 15 years ago, change the names of the leaders, show it to you and you’d think it was today’s "Israeli Conflict" headlines. There is no new news in Israel.

The solution to their religious land war problems is difficult to find. But I resent that both sides have made the American people their pawns via their newscast pleas. Their problems are not my problems. It’s a matter between the Jews, the Muslims, and their gods.

There are so many other good things to talk about in the news! Why do news agencies keep talking about "the Israeli crisis" all the time? People die all the time from so many other reasons than bombs and guns. In 2001, 41,000  people were killed in America by cars. That’s more than 100 per day, every single day. But when was the last time you saw a news flash of a car-crash death? And how about showing good things in the news. How about a news program that shows 25 minutes of positive news and then finishes with a story of something bad happening. We only see the reverse happening in America. I’ll make that the topic of a future Rant.

There is no new news in Canaan.

Partial Bibliography

The "Here’s 1.6 trillion dollars" line was suggested by my friend WDuty. He sites Christian Science Monitor and HonestReporting.com.
Timeline of Biblical and World Events (Before Christ’s Birth)
The situation in Israel involves the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights
Zionism Table of Contents