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July 31, 2004
Just Ad games
A while back, I point out a game that involves a bike and naked ladies. Dean linked to it as well. No. Stop that. You can click the game in a bit. I’ve actually got a somewhat serious point to make.
I remember once reading that AOL considered Seinfeld to be its biggest competitor. This was, of course, back in the days when Seinfeld was on TV. The Web, of course, has become a huge hit since those days (though AOL is hemorrhaging money), and probably does rival most TV shows for eyeballs. This has put advertisers into something of a quandary: How to get people to know your products exist in order to buy them...
If the eyeballs are shifting from TV to the Web (and with DVRs [TIVO], away from TV ads), the natural response is to shift advertising dollars from TV to the Web. But how?
It’s easy enough to simply take a 30 second spot and run it next to a website, but who would pay attention to it? I haven’t seen another company go the Salon rout and put everything behind an "ad wall" (if you want to read a Salon article, you’ve got to either pay or watch an ad). If the ad is good enough, people will watch it just to marvel at it’s beauty, a la the Honda Ad from a while back...
But these are simply stop-gaps along the way to a real solution: make users _want_ to experience the ad. A site like interactive. The beauty of this ad for Bennett’s motorcycle insurance is that you don’t really think of it as an ad: you think of it as a contest of skill, Man vs. Clothing. The name might not sink in immediately, but if you play it enough (and you will...), the name “Bennett’s” will sink in...
We’ve always demanded that Advertising be interesting: that’s why so many of us watch the Super Bowl, after all. What’s changing is the nature of that interesting. It is no longer enough for the images I see to be flat and flashing on the screen, if a company wants to win my mindshare, they’re going to have to get me involved...
If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got ladies to undress...
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Times, they are a-changing
TTimes (New) Roman and its part in the Development of Scalable Font Technology
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July 30, 2004
Guess what I got
My Blogfather has Coffee Mugs. I’ve got mine, have you yours?
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July 28, 2004
Review (movie): Le Divorce.
The first thing to note is that this movie is not a comedy. The second thing is that this is not about a divorce. This movie attempts to be a semi-serious look at the French culture: a sort of Frenchmen in the mist with better food...
We start by watching Isabel Walker (ably played by Kate Hudson) arrive in Paris as a sort of advertisement for all that is American. I’d say that This does a much better job speaking for us than much else I’ve seen. Hudson is not merely an American, though. She is a Californian; a good example of why we all they all could be...
In the very next scene, we have the titular divorce brewing. Roxy, Walker’s older sister, (Naomi Watts) is being left by her husband. Roxy doesn’t realize it at first, she thinks that he is merely packing for a trip. And we’re off...
Roxy is pregnant, of course. And there is a painting involved. And Hudson has an affair with a powerful French “warmonger” (did you know they had those in France?). Eventually the Walker Family comes to further muddle the plot provide further contrast between the French and Californians...
The movie is well structured, though it is over-full. Walker becomes more assimilated into the French culture, until finally she is able to navigate its intricacies with ease-- at least to American eyes. To French provincialists, however, she is never quite able to keep up. As Walker acclimates, the movie looses something of its investigative air. The director seems to realize this, so he brings a Brit into a scene. The Brit gets off one good line that seems to knock the entire perspective back a bit, leaving the audience to think “right, this _is_ an alien culture”...
Ultimately, the complications prove too much for the director and writer to cope with. Did the husband marry Roxy just for the painting? When did Roxy’s lawyer start seeing Roxy, and why did we only find out about it ¾ of the way through the movie? Since no actual divorce takes place-- or is even filed for-- in the movie, why is it called that?
Rating:
2 Eiffel towers out of 5 bottles of French wine. Good acting makes up for some poor direction and scripting, but can’t save this unfunny comedy. I wish I were a powerful French Warmonger, though, so I could sleep with Kate Hudson...
-Update:
Needed to fix some things noted in the comment thread.
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July 26, 2004
I'd make a terrible Hamlet...
Or perhaps that should be "Hamlet the Terrible"...
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July 25, 2004
Annie Jacobsen
Sooner or later, the most outrageous fictional prediction comes true
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July 24, 2004
Mozilla
Apparently 26.9 % of you are visting here with Mozilla. This compares with 24.5 % of you who visit using Internet Explorer. Part of this is no doubt because I myself am using Mozilla. But now I’m curious:
What browser are you using? Drop a comment...
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Scientists Named Steve
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Who had that idea?
Funny. but weird.
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Where have you gone, Madam Clouter?
After reading Thison Ayn Clouter's site, I am moved to ask:
Madam Clouter, are you single? And if so, are you perhaps within the state of Northern California? For to win the heart of (or, failing that, a night with) a woman of such wicked wit would be a wondrous thing...
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July 23, 2004
My blogroll has been updated. Has yours?
First the good stuff:
Not Suitable for Work is, well, not suitable for work. So if you click the link and get fired, not my fault. But he (She? They?) find sites with attractive naked ladies. So if you’re at home or your boss is really liberal, click and enjoy...
domai is another site of naked ladies. These may be the most attractive women on the ‘net. These women actually seem to enjoy being human beings. Either that, or they are _wonderful_ actresses. 1 pic/day, 3 on Fridays...
Sadly, it isn’t all sex around here. Fortunately, Pandragon is a nice site as well. Right now, these guys are covering the Dem. convention. Nice commentary, good site...
The Teenage Pundit is a bit too young to click the links above. But we won’t hold that against him. He is a fan of teams that aren’t from the Bay Area, and we won’t hold that (too much) against him. He is a sharp guy, and young idealistic enough to think that it isn’t geeky to listen to the 9/11 commission report on Itunes...
Redemption in a Blog seems to have his ear to every tech. development in the English language. Take a look over there and learn more than you ever wanted to on maters computational...
Old School Gamers are likepenny-arcade. Sadly, without the comics. Of course, today, that’s _just_ like Penny-Arcade...
Internet Explorer also has a blog. And now they’ve even got a team working to upgrade it. That’ll be nice...
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Rarely is the question asked: how does he really feel?
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Guess who has a blog?
IEBlog
Internet Explorer
Apparently they’ve reactivated the IE team. All it took was a 1% drop in market share. For a huge corporation with well over 90% market penetration, this is a _wonderful_ response-- it means MS is aware that the market is not happy with them...
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July 22, 2004
Sign these guys up for combat pay!
Army Develops MRPs (Meals Ready to Pee On)
Wait...
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July 21, 2004
Go, baby, go...
Bennetts - Neil Hodgson's SuperJump
Ara just got married. So he won't be enjoying this...
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July 20, 2004
Speaks for itself...
CollegeHumor.com : New Funny Pictures, Funny Movies, and Funny Hotlinks Daily!
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And who can blame him, really?
The Onion | White House Declares War On DSL Provider
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I want this case...
Unleash your pc to the extreme at PCUNLEASH
Anyway, if you haven’t come across the V1000 before, then what I’m about to show you may blow your mind. So you’ve been warned. Because not only is this case different on the outside, but the interior’s layout is very innovative as well. But don’t take my word for it. Read on, and see if this case changes the way you think about cases.
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Bad Ass!
redemption in a blog: Got Lone Wolf?
I wish I'd been playing wit hthese for the last few days...
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test
are we back?
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July 15, 2004
Microsoft
Despite recent evidence, I’m something of a Microsoft partisan. Over the years, they’ve come out with products which are consistently better than their competitors’...
The key to MS’s success has been to put the end user’s experience ahead of any other issue. People who dig into MS code are often driven nuts by this, but I’ve never heard my parents complain about Internet Explorer being non-standards compliant. What MS does _very_ well is to ensure that the same operations will reach the same outcomes. Try this: open your web-browser. Find some text. Press and hold the left mouse button, and drag it along that text. Release. Press Ctrl^C. Open anything onto which text can be dumped. Press Ctrl^V. the text shows up!
It doesn’t have to be that way. Programs could use other keys. Programs could not support this feature at all. Programs _could_ make the ctrl key shut down your computer. But MS decided that all their programs would work together, and work the same way. If MS hadn’t done this, my parents would probably not notice that it was missing. They probably don’t notice that its there. But they use it, and their lives are easier because of it...
How about a more extreme example?
I first heard about this from one of the developers of the hit game SimCity, who told me that there was a critical bug in his application: it used memory right after freeing it, a major no-no that happened to work OK on DOS but would not work under Windows where memory that is freed is likely to be snatched up by another running application right away. The testers on the Windows team were going through various popular applications, testing them to make sure they worked OK, but SimCity kept crashing. They reported this to the Windows developers, who disassembled SimCity, stepped through it in a debugger, found the bug, and added special code that checked if SimCity was running, and if it did, ran the memory allocator in a special mode in which you could still use memory after freeing it.(emphasis orig.) Joel Spolsky (read the whole thing)...
Because it served my parents, MS made sure SimCity’s bugs worked.
The problem with MS is that they’re lazy. They work _very_ hard as long as there is competition. They put out products which are better than anyone else’s as long as there is market share to gain. Once they crush their competitors, they pretty much stop. After IE6, they basically stopped work on IE. I don’t know that this sort of behavior will ever go away-- I do know that since I want Internet Explorer to be better, I use Firefox...
What’s amusing to me is how much people who create software (especially in the open-source community) sneer at Microsoft’s efforts to make my parent’s happy. Some of them are starting to understand the connection between my parents and commercial success (Linspire is a good example). Until everyone does, though, Microsoft is going to rule...
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July 10, 2004
Careful what you write
HoustonChronicle.com - I write badly, therefore I am a would-be terrorist
I opened my laptop and showed her shining example after shining example of similarly awful dialogue. She understood that that word, b-o-m-b, was no reference to ordnance or terrorist weapons of any kind.But my explanation wasn't good enough for the three Dallas police officers who meanwhile had surrounded me — summoned, I supposed, for backup in case the dangerous character tried to write something even worse.
It gets worse:
That set me back. Why would I be put on a watch list even after Homeland Security had satisfied itself that I had no intention of blowing anything up, that my privacy had been violated by a nosy person who made an error and that I'd been the victim of a crazy misunderstanding?
There was a time-- call it about 2 years after 9/11-- when a customer came up to me complaining that a "swarthy" individual was reading a book on ballistics. I was working in a Barnes and Noble with a Café. The military base was right down the street-- and the woman kept insisting that the government "wants us to watch each other now". I told her in no uncertain terms that I was unwilling to call the FBI (how did we know that he wasn't working for the FBI?), but that she was a free citizen...
What I was afraid of, a fear which I tried to impress upon this woman, was of the same thing happening to this young student as happened to the erstwhile author in the linked story: being innocent but blacklisted for life regardless...
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July 08, 2004
Quiz Time!
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July 07, 2004
Good First Start
The New York Times > Business > Former Chairman of Enron Is Said to Be Indicted
My Dad, of course, wants to see Lay charged with Murder...
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Lawyer, Lawyer, Lawyer
Atticus Finch, like John Edwards, was a trial lawyer. So was Fiorello LaGuardia. So was Ralph Nader, back when he was widely admired. So was Thurgood Marshall. So was Abraham Lincoln.
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I Vote Death
Nigerian big wig spammers caught in the net
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July 06, 2004
Is Microsoft Replaceable?
Macintosh and Linux (for some reason, I can't find any people on my blogroll who use Linux, though I know some of my readers do) users are laughing at this question, but the vast majority of us use Microsoft products every time we hop onto a computer...
Microsoft's three basic strengths are its Web Browser, Email clients, and Office Suite. While many have criticized MS for letting these tools become stagnant, Its been a long time since I've experienced any product on the Market that was as good as, let alone, better than, what MS was putting forth...
Make no mistake an operating system is chosen mainly on the basis of the applications that will run on top of it: until someone other than MS is making tools as well as MS does, Windows will always be the market leader...
(yes, yes, Apple makes shiny toys better than MS does. I'll even grant that Safari is better than IE-- without having ever used Safari. But Apple lacks an Office suite that works as well as MS's. Until they have one, Apple will be stuck with the market share that they have now...)
So, in this round-up, I pit Firefox against Internet Explorer, Thunderbird against Outlook Express, and Open Office against Word. I'll even lower the bar a bit: if an application is within shouting distance of the MS product, it'll get the nod...
First up, we have Firefox. Firefox is a nice little (free) browser that has done everything I have asked it to. This product is actually better than its Microsoft Equivalent. Perhaps the easiest-to-notice to use Firefox is tabbed browsing. This is something which you'll have to experience to understand how it works, but in a nutshell, tabs are a tool for Internet junkies to keep their desktops from being too cluttered...
Next most obvious feature is pop-up blocking. I'd forgotten how ubiquitous pop-ups were until I turned off my Googlebar for a while. Boy, those things are annoying. With Firefox, I'll never have to deal with another one...
The best thing that Firefox has done is more of a design concept than a feature. I'll let them explain it:
We've put a lot of thought into making using Firefox easy and obvious. Browsers like Mozilla and Opera seem to be focused more on esoteric features, at the expense of all-round usability. That's why we have created a browser that works in the simplest and most straight-forward way out of the box. Defaults have been carefully chosen so you don't need to spend time setting up the browser. Menus and dialog boxes are kept clean and free of options that only a marginal number of people use. If there's a feature that Mozilla or Opera has that Firefox lacks, it's probably for good reason. But if you really do need a particular enhancement, a large number of quality extensions are available for free. -Why you should switch to Firefox.
If you decide to switch, the first thing it will ask you is if you want to copy your Internet Explorer settings over to Firefox. After that, it just gets better...
I've not used Outlook Express in a long time. I may never use Outlook for my mail again. Thunderbird is a full-featured, nice looking, fast Email client. It does a good job at checking my spelling (anyone who has Instant Messenged with me knows my spelling is piss-poor), and its contact list may actually be superior to Outlook. It doesn't have Gmail's Lables or Conversation View, but otherwise this thing is damned near perfect. If they'd only add a calender (Someone is working on it), I'd ditch Outlook altogether...
This program will also let you import your Outlook/Outlook Express settings/mail/contacts right in. A useful feature...
Open Office is probably the weakest link of the three programs. It has the most settings that need tweaking out of the box, its Spell checker is not as robust as I should like (it misses "repeat words", and doesn't correct things lik ethis-- a fairly major failing given my typing habits). I've been keeping my eye on this product for a year or so now, and it has most definitely come a long way...
I almost decided to ditch Word for it completely when I thought I saw that it had a bibliography feature (An obvious feature I'll never understand why it is missing from current Word Processors.) Unfortunately it was only the creators of the program bragging that they'd written a book...
I've written this whole post on Open Office, and after posting to the web, I'll chuck this program and go back to Word. Open Office is almost there, but not quite...
Conclusion
The two programs that I tested which are done by Mozilla are definitely ready for prime time. They function well, have good defaults, and let me know what I am doing. Firefox is actually good enough that I installed it on my Parents' computer, as well as my roommate's over the weekend. I recommend them highly...
The third is a program which I'd recommend to anyone looking to ditch Microsoft (but not someone who depends on a word proccessor for a living. Sorry, Mr. Scalzi) : there's a penalty involved as far as ease of use is concerned, but not a big one. I fully expect that within a couple of years, that penalty will have gone away completely...
Posted by Andrew at 11:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 04, 2004
On this Date in History:
It was hot in Philadelphia that year. The Continental Congress was also tolerably warm. For a year, John Adams of Massachusetts had been demanding the forcible separation of England and some of her North American Colonies-- Treason...
There were new ideas being bandied about the continent: Natural Rights, Limitation on Power, Human Dignity. None had, as yet, created a government based upon those ideas...
On 4 July 1776, that changed. While the War had for a year been raging, the conscripts of the Continental Army had no idea what they were fighting for. Congress had been on the verge of negotiating a settlement between themselves and their erstwhile king. As well they might-- Their army was on the verge of total defeat...
Into that fray a missive was launched: a unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. This document gave the troops heart: they would know what they were fighting for. This document helped secure international support: radicals around the world (especially France and Spain) would know that we were attempting to create a nation where Tyrants would not be able to come into existence. The war started before the document, but the war was won in large part because of the document. Today we celebrate the 228th anniversary of the signing of that document...
Below the jump, I'll post the entire text of the document. The middle section, the one outlining the Crimes of the King, is perhaps especially relevant. This year, as every year, we must ask ourselves how well our current government stands up against the Crimes of the previous government...
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
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July 02, 2004
Less funny than the latter Roman Empire...
but funny, nonetheless...
Posted by Andrew at 11:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 01, 2004
Barbie has a new man!
Barbie is dating again, this time it's a hunky Australian - Jun. 29, 2004
Does it seem indecently soon to anyone else? I think the rule is 1 month for every year you dated, so Barbie is due for a few more months of solitude yet...
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