Ok, no one take this the wrong way, but I was just at the Church of Satan website, and found the Basic Rules pretty logical. To wit:

1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.

2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they
want to hear them.

3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go
there.

4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and
without mercy.

5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the
mating signal.

6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a
burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.

7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it
successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of
magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all
you have obtained.

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not
subject yourself.

9. Do not harm little children.

10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or
for your food.

11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone
bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

Sounds good to me, with the possible exception of number 7. Magic is crap. I am sure my mother is currently fretting about me visiting the Church of Satan website. Maybe if I hadn't let him and his brother play Dungeons and Dragons, she's thinking. Well, since I don't want my mom to think I'm a satanist, I'll post something from the other side of the God/Satan divide: Dad sent me this online collection of Christmas Carols. It's open source, print out as much as you want, and please note the terrible computer generated accompaniment. I heard better computer music for my Commodore 64.



There's been a new edition of the Onion out since Wednesday. Back when I was really bored at work, I knew which days my favorite updated sites were published. Hold on, I still do: News of the Weird on Mondays, nothing on Tuesdays, The Onion on Wednesdays, nothing on Thursdays, and The Economist on Fridays. There were more but I've found that it's a waste of valuable surfing time to always go to the same sites, so I don't keep as close track of things like that anymore.

Mooks update-- (vocabulary -- mook. (n) White boy metal/hip hop teen slacker type. See Fred Durst, Eminem, etc.) I have been enlightened as to the derivation of those teen blogs I've recently reviewed. (Explanation on the bottom) Apparently such sites are known as E/N sites, denoting "Everything/Nothing." I still don't really understand, but apparently these sites are weblogs that feature grotesque pictures, porn, generally offensive content to attract the maximum page views. I guess it's a bragging thing. I notice that they don't refer to these sites as blogs, and those that do claim bloggership don't think they are either, as far as I can tell, but some of the ones I've seen are virtually the same as a weblog, just with a different content source. This site, while not a blog, is highly regarded by two or three of the E/N sites I've seen. Warning. It is about sex. The graphics and layout are very slick; professional quality, but the content is pretty well spotty. I smell plagiarism. For example, in the intro to the section on the Kama Sutra the thing reads like the prologue from a translation:

The Kama Sutra, which means "Sex Science", is the
earliest surviving example of a written Hindu
love-manual. It was compiled by the Indian sage
Vatsyayana sometime between the second and fourth
centuries A.D. His work was based on earlier Kama
Shastras or "Rules of Love" going back to at least the
seventh century B.C., and is a compendium of the
social norms and love-customs of patriarchal Northern
India around the time he lived.

The guy can't even spell "pregnancy" right in the quiz on his front page.

Update on the Don Foster story I posted yesterday: the story I listened to about the disputed authorship of "A Night Before Christmas" on NPR's Morning Edition. Very interesting stuff. In a 28.8 configured wave for easy listening.

Update on the Brad and Claire saga: Brad did not lose his job. Awwwwww.

Personal update: I got my LSAT score yesterday and was disappointed. Only a 165. However, that's still 94th percentile, which should be good enough to get into law school. Also, we took Relffits to get spayed today. Poor pup. She's been lying around lethargically all night long. I've been communicating with my old friend Jeff Shaw over the last few days. Jeff is getting married on the last day of the millenium. Congratulations, Jeffy. He is a freelance writer, professional advocate for Native Americans, and oozes indy credibility, and also is getting published in In These Times, a widely respected lefty publication.

It's been another weird, bizarre week. I'm glad I get four days off now.