[WEIRD WIDE WEB] - When is a cat too fat? When it's TUBCAT.

[WEIRD WIDE WEB] - Who is this webpage for? - Using the Toilet

[UPDATES] - Rui follows up yesterday's contributions - He writes:

You can see David Blaine performing the levitation here http://www.artbell.com/mediafiles/BlaineLevitation.mpg, and some good pictures of spooky ice here http://www.artbell.com/letters48.html.

I feel compelled to add that although I have never listened to Art Bell's show, I ahve heard he's not the most incredulous person. However, as I have seen these ice spikes form myself, the links to images are worth posting.

[WEIRD WIDE WEB] - Google in Klingon? Yes - Google is multi-lingual, but I never would have expected this: Google nejwI' Qatlh

[MEA CULPA] - Woman *NOT* stuck to Airline Toilet - It turns out that the story of the woman stuck in the airline toilet was not true. This story was widely reported (by the BBC and Reuters and, yes, here on Aces Full. Once again, Snopes sorts it out: Urban Legends Reference Pages: Travel (Stuck on You)

I was inclined not to believe originally (I even mention it sounded like an urban legend) but I was drawn in by the media outlets which repeated the story.

[SCIENCE] - SPOOKY SPIKE - Rui comes through again. This is a phenomenon I have been curious about for a couple of years now but I had never seen an explanation. Sometimes when I take the ice out of the ice cube tray I'll notice a strange spike sticking up out of one of the cubes - something like a stalacmite. It didn't look like it could have been caused by drips from the ceiling of the freezer. I was stumped. This site says the subject has been covered in "New Scientist" and offeres a couple of possible explanations.

[MAGIC] - David Blaine's Levitation is something that really fascinated the first time I saw it on his tv special some years ago. Later, after reading many threads on a USENET magic group, I discovered the Balducci Levitation, a form of close-up magic that is very convincing if done right. I've done it and it does work. It's not all that impressive when you know the trick, but Blaine's ability to set a mood and then perform this levitation put the people on his show into emotional fits. Rui sent me this link, which is an excellent description of the trick. EXPOSURE: The Balducci Levitation

[SCIENCE] - Where is lightning most likely to strike? NASA provides new maps of lightning strike frequency. Who gets the most lightning strikes? Looks like lightning is always striking in the heart of Africa. New maps from orbiting sensors reveal where on Earth the powerful bolts will most likely strike

[MOVIES] - McBeth - Set Macbeth in 1975. Throw in a fast food joint and Christopher Walken. You get: Scotland, PA

[NEWS] - Personal Jetpack - Dear Santa, I would like a personal jetpack for Christmas. I have been a good boy.

[HUMOR] - Rejected iMac Designs - The Daily Probe -- Because real news sucks.

[FUN] - What kind of Starfleet officer would you make? Find out at: BBC Online - Cult - Star Trek - Quizzes
I am told that "Engineering" is my Star Trek destiny. But I apparently have a socal skills problem.

[NEWS] - TIME.com: How the U.S. Killed the Wrong Soldiers - A very unfortunate thing. Not making much of a splash in the news, probably because the people killed are "middle-eastern-looking." You know how those people are. Imagine if we had killed a bunch of British forces. Do you think that would be a major news story?

[COMMENT] - Have I mentioned Michael Moore's Latest? - Agree or disagree, I always feel he has his own way of putting things. Mike's Message 1/29/2002. Obligitory sample quote:

Let me ask you this: If someone was setting a house on fire, and they called you to help them set it on fire, and you said no you wouldn't help them -- BUT then you also DIDN'T call 911 and inform the police that someone was going to burn down a house, do you think you would have committed a crime?

[ACK! Revisited] - Whew! - My machine does have a fan - a tiny processor fan that seldom comes on. After disassembling the machine and putting the parts out on the back porch of my office for a few minutes, the computer is now much happier (and cooler). Cabin fever, I suppose.

[ACK!] - Uh-oh - My machine here at work is making a weird sound, like the fan is having trouble. Trouble is, there is no fan in this machine. If that's the hard drive making that noise, I'm in trouble. So I may be somewhat unresponsive today as I make sure all the important stuff is backed up!

[SCIENCE] - Are we evolving? This article examines the question of whether or not western life has halted our evolution. It seems more likely to me that it has changed our evolution, and that evolution does not stop. It's a fascinating question. See: Guardian Unlimited Observer | International | Is human evolution finally over?

[HUMOR] - Flame Warriors - Anyone remember this blast from the USENET past? Still relevant today, the flame warriors are archetypes of people you meet in online communities. In those days the flame warriors were USENET posters. Today you'll find them on almost any discussion group.

[FUN] - Remember "cookie?" - I'm talking about back when a cookie wasn't a browser spyware device, but rather a "fortune cookie" - a little nugget of humor or wisdom that your computer spit out at you on a regular basis. Here's a site called "Bongo Bob" which does much the same thing every time you click the link.

[FUN] - Googlewhacking? - Searching for the one... that is, the combination of two dictionary words that result in only one hit from Google. Googlewhacking: The Search for The One True Googlewhack.

Both words must be "common" English words, and the arbiter is dictionary.com. Google automatically tells you if your word is in the dictionary by underlining the search term when it guves you the results (the term then becomes a link to the definition on dictionary.com

(My first successful Googlewhack is "hieroglyphics tularemia")