Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina is the only thing on the news today, same as yesterday. Hotel lobbies have had the television on so that everyone eating breakfast can listen to the news about the tragedy and whether Bush will release some of the strategic oil reserves in this state of emergency. I was thrilled to find an NPR station today playing All Things Considered until I heard more about Hurricane Katrina again. They had a guy on who was talking about how the levees that have been keeping the Mississippi out of New Orleans when it floods have been keeping the floods from depositing fresh earth on the Mississippi delta. Since oil drilling and other human activities have been helping out erosion down there, the Gulf of Mexico has been getting closer at an alarming rate. He also said that the billions of dollars worth of real estate is worth saving and that, in general, the levees are a good thing.

I don't know. Hurricane Katrina starts with a K. That means that this is the eleventh tropical storm this year. The mere fact that they name their storms down there could be considered an indication of a "trend". Every year, millions, if not billions of dollars of damage are caused by tropical storms. How can this be called a "disaster" or and "emergency" when it happens so often. Your house doesn't have a roof anymore? I guess you didn't nail it on well enough. You just got rescued in a boat? Why did you stay in the first place, and why isn't your house on pontooons? You knew there were hurricanes and floods in the southeast when you moved there.

So, yes, it's bad that this happened, but I have a hard time having much sympathy when it happens so often.

In other news, I passed through the ironically named town of Biggsville, population 350 today. I also passed through Lucas, Iowa and will be passing through Davenport, Iowa later this week. Not really important, but now my page will get hits from people doing searches on John Sandford books.

And finally, while listening to LAZER something FM. They played One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer as sung by George Thorogood (as a cover, sort of), and I thought to myself: I think I have all of those at home.

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I am a bad man.

Some of these hotels have the odd idea that fake plants will make people want to stay there. I try to point out that people are just going to show up and then be disappointed that there aren't any plants in their room. I tell them to expect calls from guest rooms by irate people saying "Your website shows plants in this room. Where are my plants?" and I ask them if they're prepared to put plants in every room where people ask for them. What I don't mention is that I think they're wasting my time moving these plants from room to room. I'm already there for 2 hours, I don't want to wait another 30 minutes for them to move fake plants around.

Anyway, the other day, someone had this "unique" idea again. Since the panoramas I take are a series of 12 photos in a circle, I have often moved objects like trash cans out of a shot and then moved them back again after I have moved on the the next angle. This time, I moved the plant so that it will be on the desk, night-stand, and table in the panorama. If I can remember which location it was, I'll post a link to the tour so you can see it once it's up.

I also had a sudden inspiration in a hotel restaurant while taking some still photos. I turned all of the Tobasco bottles in the room so that they faced the camera. And there will probably be several panoramas at a variety of hotels where you will be able to see my aluminum clipboard if you know where to look, but that was an accident and I almost feel bad about it.

Every night, after taking these pictures, I am supposed to upload the files to VR National using the hotel's high speed internet. Some hotels have been slow enough to take 8 hours to send one archive and some have been fast enough to send 4 files in one night. The place I'm at tonight is giving me a whopping 6.5 KB per second, that's almost as fast as dial-up folks! Sign up now! With 28 hours remaining on the upload, I don't think I'll be getting this one done on time either. The downstream speed doesn't seem all that bad though.

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08-25-2005

It seems like it would be a good idea to make a shower curtain rod out of aluminum. It's strong, lightweight and won't rust. If you throw a washcloth over it though, you are reminded about aluminum oxide the next morning.

I drove past a Hershey confection plant in Robinson, IL today. It smelled like chocolate!

Odd billboard of the day: "You never run out of minutes talking to god." It made me think of bag ladies for some reason

"Danny's Qik-Sak" liquor store. I don't think I'll be buying anything there.

And last but not least: I've seen a couple of what I'll call MHotels on this trip. They're like a motel in that you enter the room from the outside, but they're like a hotel in that you enter the room from a central hallway. Same room. Odd.

08-26-2005

I drove past Eastern Illinois University in Charleston today. They have the most impressive Old Main type building I have ever seen. It looks like a castle from a distance and like a tiny palace from close up. The central tower has crenellations on the top that give it a great, fortified look.

It sounds like Madness has a new single. Well, I don't know if it's new, but Steph has everything they've ever done and she hasn't heard of it. It's called Shame and Scandal and I heard it on WPGU 107.1 out of the University of Illinois in Champaign / Urbana. College radio stations have been a boon for me since my iPod died. I just hope there are lots of colleges around these parts.

Update:Madness has a new single and a new album. The single is indeed called Shame and Scandal and the album is called The Dangermen Sessions. Rock on! I'll be buying that one ASAP.

08-27-2005

I woke up this morning to a real visual treat: dense fog as far as the eye can see, and that's not very far. It reminds me of the mornings I drive past Lake Calhoun and see the sailboats bobbing in the fog. The photographer in me doesn't want to go to work; It's too beautiful out. Unfortunately, it's the photographer in me who's going to work today. I guess maybe that's a good thing.

08-28-2005

OK, this is just wrong: I'm driving down the Interstate and I see a roadside stand. Let me say that a different way: There's a roadside stand on the Interstate where I am driving. This is an Interstate Highway people! What are you thinking! The speed limit is 70 mph through hill and cornfield, well, OK, vineyard at this point. But how many people are going to stomp on their brakes and walk over to a stand selling grapes when semi trucks are zipping past them at 80? Enough to stay in business I guess. Yeesh!

You Can't Judge a Book by it's Cover: The place I'm staying at tonight looks like a total dive from the outside. If I were driving through the area and it was time to look for a place to stop, I'd think seriously about passing it on and looking for someplace nicer up the road. Obviously, since it's a major, international hotel franchise, the rooms themselves look like you could be anywhere in the world, and that's something that I'm slowly learning on this trip. But the point is this: The guy running the place is great. He's the nicest guy you could want to do a photo-shoot at 7:00 in the morning for. The place doesn't have coin-op laundry yet because he just bought the place a year ago and is working hard to get it up to his standards. Get this: he's letting me use the hotel's laundry facilities and he's not charging me for their use or for the detergent. Wow. And hey, I just noticed this. He's done something that I think gives the place a European Flair because Scotland is the only place I've seen it. Instead of having little bottles of shampoo and bars of soap that you just can't use all of in one shower, he's got shampoo and shower gel dispensers in the shower. Why don't more places do that? I still have my bottle of shampoo from last Saturday night's hotel. Ironically, I was planning on replaceing it with one from this hotel.

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For everyone who thinks I am a food snob: You're right, but here's some evidence to the contrary.

Typical breakfast: Whatever they have in the hotel lobby. Usually a Bagel or English muffin with Cream Cheese or Jam on it. Sometimes cold cereal and, if I'm lucky, bacon or something else warm.
Typical lunch: Maybe some beef jerky, maybe some rice crackers and wasabi peas (I mixed them because the crackers were boring), probably a ham or turkey sandwich with cheese. The sandwiches haven't had any mustard on them because (heres the non-food-snobbery bit) it just seems like too much effort: I'd have to get out a knife.
Typical dinner: Ramen or udon noodles, maybe some Yogurt, maybe some string cheese

Good Idea: Putting rose bushes along the fence separating your cornfield from the road
Bad Idea: Putting up a sign in your cornfield that says "Jesus is coming back - Jesus is coming back" without a bell tower around for hanging lanterns. To be fair, there wasn't any water around, so one lantern is probably enough.

I saw a lot of signs today. One of them was advertising "Brown Eggs" and "Goat Meat". Yum!

So, there's this town in Missouri called Lebanon. It's not pronounced the way you'd think; they swallow the last syllable so it doesn't sound like the country. But I just saw a sign for Palestine Illinois. How do you pronounce that differently? Maybe I'm not as far into the southern US as I thought. Maybe this is the middle-eastern US. Whoever named the town of Pinkstaff had a sense of humor though.

Last thing: I'm used to seeing those prairie chicken oil pumps sitting out in the middle of a [large flat noun of your choice] not running anymore because the well has gone dry. I guess they're cheap enough to let rust when you're done using them. But some people must remove them when they're done because I saw a prairie chicken and oil tank junk yard today. It looked kind of sad.

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This morning I realized that, since leaving the "show me state", I've been in two other states with no sign of a state motto. I guess those missourians need to be shown on a regular basis.

Back before Tech-TV was bought out by G4TV, then raped, then discarded like so much used tissue, they had a show called TechLive. One of the anchors was Sumi Das who also produced and hosted Fresh Gear on the same network. I just found out that she has not disappeared from the face of the earth. She has reported for MSNBC and recently left there for CNN Newsource. I saw her on CNN this morning during breakfast reporting on hydrongen fuel-cell vehicles. It's nice to know that those people found places to go.

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8-20-2005

Note to self (and anyone else who needs it): If you're heading south on I-35 through Iowa and you see a sign for gas at the next exit in Turro, you'll find that the next sign says to head West for 4 miles to get to the Kum & Go (hee, hee) in Turro. For the love of Pete, don't do it! Keep going 4 more miles south on I-35 to the next exit. There's another Kum & Go (snicker!) and when I drove past it after the 8 mile round trip to Turro, I saw that gas was 2 cents per gallon cheaper there.

First impressions on the state of Missouri: There aren't nearly as many country radio stations as I'd have expected. I actually found 3 public radio stations in Kansas City playing All Things Considered and at least one of them was receivable all the way to Clinton, where I'll be spending my first night. I actually enjoyed listening to A Prairie Home Companion. (The battery on my iPod was really low)

On the way through Kansas City, I noticed a couple of billboards advertising adult oriented establishments. One in particular had the copy: "Topless entertainment for men and women". If they openly accept women at a strip joint, I guess that's annother sign that I'm not nearly as far into Hicksville as I expected. Of course, maybe they expect that the women will either take off their own tops or that they'll be busy making sure their husband doesn't forget they're there.

There's no Internet access here and I won't be watching Nero Wolf tonight because the place doesn't have the Biography Channel, but they do have Cartoon Network and Teen Titans is one that I haven't seen before, so that's good.

Tomorrow, I have to remember to keep the digital camera in the front seat with me so that I can take pictures of the things that spark odd thoughts like these.

08-21-2005

Second Impressions of Missouri: I keep seeing places with names like "Show Me Collectables and Souvenirs" or "Show Me Church of Christ", I haven't found a "Show Me Movies or "Show Me Topless Dancers" yet though. I guess I'll keep looking.

Missouri isn't a very interesting place to drive through visualy. I know that coming from Minnesota, I'm calling the kettle black, but really, Missouri is slightly bumpier than Iowa so far. Around the Lake of the Ozarks area, there's some nice topography and roads that ride like roller-coasters and there's always the Harry S. Truman Dam and Reservoir Visitor Center operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Interesting architecture there.

I have learned something about satellite television though. The hotel room, I'm in has 15 channels (2 of them HBO of course) and most of them are currently displaying "searching for satellite signal" messages because the southern sky is full of severe thunderstorm. My internet connection seems to have died too so I won't be posting this until later.

08-22-2005

So anyway... It seems that the reason for Missouri to be getting bumpier is that I have entered a region called the Ozarks, apparently named after some sort of fictional mountain range. The roads have much more of that roller-coaster feeling around here, and the landscape is much prettier. The whole area reminds me of the Mississippi river valley in southern Minnesota near Red Wing and Rochester. Lots of hills to go up and down.

Remember that thing about there not being all that many country music stations? Forget it. The area I'm in now is nothing but country, christian, christian/country, and one classical station. I love my iPod!!! Thank you, friends.

I saw the damndest billboard today. It had a cross in the upper left corner and a cloud-like shape with a white-lined rectangle on top of it to the right. I thought it was God's Hockey or something. Then I saw the copy: "Jesus: Long Cheakbones, No Beard, Bangs". I actually said out-loud "what the fuck?" and made two u-turns so I could take a picture. I guess someone is trying to suggest that Jesus is female? Hmm.

As you drive east out of Perryville Missouri toward Illinois, you'll head down a long hill into the river valley and onto what once were the flood plains. There you'll see a large assembly of corrugated steel buildings on either side of the road, and along the railroad tracks there. On one of the doors is a small sign that reads "Plant Entrance, Employees Only". That was the only marking I saw on any of the buildings. I can only assume that if you work there, you work at The Plant, and you probably know what to do there. As you continue east from The Plant, you'll come to a place where the Mississippi is crossed by a simple, two-lane iron bridge and the roar of cicadas threatens to drown out the sound of your engine. Then you'll drive around in circles looking for your hotel because the directions don't make sense at this time of night.

08-23-2005

Not much of note today. As I left my hotel this morning, I splurged on a pack of chocolate-frosted mini-doughnuts and a really big Sprite. I was a little surprised to see a state lottery vending machine in the gas station there. I guess I'm not in Minnesota anymore.

I've been seeing a few oil wells here and there across the countryside, some of them have been in people's front yard. That must really suck for them. I mean, not having to work for your money and all. When I crossed the Indiana border earlier this evening, I stopped at the first rest stop to pick up a map and refill my water bottle. Now I know what they mean when they say "sweet crude". That well should have been drilled a few feet farther from the oil fields. Damn that was nasty.

Yuck!

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This is a copy of an email and it's response that I received a few days ago. I felt that this information needed to be redily accessible to others who were searching for it.

Sorry it took me so long to get a reply together on this. I'd like to point out that the only part of this that can actually be attributed to John Glen is the paragraph at the bottom from a debate in 1974 that is an excellent rant about the military being a real job. No complaints there. I think that John Glenn is a great man and that it is unforgivable for the original author of this piece to attribute statements to him that he didn't make.

On Aug 9, 2005, at 7:39 AM, you wrote:

SENATOR JOHN GLENN SAID: Things that make you think a little.......

1. There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during the month of January.....In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January. That's just one American City, about as deadly as the entire war torn country of Iraq.

First: This refers to January of 2004, one of the highest murder rate months in Detroit and one of the lowest casualty months in Iraq. January 2005 had 107 US military deaths in Iraq and there have been 1842 so far (5/03 through 8/8/05) including accidental deaths related to combat, patrols and combat support operations.

Second: The population of Detroit is 951,270 as of the 2000 census and we currently have about 140,000 soldiers in Iraq. That means that 3.6 per 100,000 Detroit residents were murdered during January of 2004 and 27.8 per 100,000 US soldiers in Iraq were KIA during that same time. Not to mention that 76.4 per 100,000 were killed during January of 2005. The average death rate among US troops in Iraq is about 62 per month, that's about 44 per 100,000.

Third: It's cost us over $186,000,000,000 to get those 1,842 sevicemen and women killed, if we'd spent that money here at home, we could have significantly reduced our murder rate. Bush said that some of that money was an "emergency expenditure" to send armor, ammo and parts, but shouldn't they have been sent with armor, ammo and parts in the first place? I can just see it: "Get moving, troopers! ... What? ... No, you'll only need two clips."

References:
US Census data at AreaConnect for Detroit
http://detroit.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

US DoD Press Resources (click on the OIF/OEF Casualty Update for a PDF)
http://icasualties.org/oif/USChart.aspx

2. When some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war, state the following ..

FDR...led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.

You've heard of the whole "Allies and Axis" thing? We were already on the verge of going to war to help out England, France and Russia, who were (and still are) our allies, when Pearl Harbor happened. That's why Japan considered us a target. We also nuked Japan twice, not Germany. As far as I know no American who wasn't a radical isolationist has ever suggested that helping defeat Hitler was not a good idea.

Truman...finished that war and started one in Korea, North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953,55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,334 per year.

John F. Kennedy....started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.

Johnson...turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

Nixon was president from 1969 - 1974. I think he deserves some of the credit here. Otherwise these three can be taken together. Is the author trying to establish that starting bad wars is a good idea? Or maybe that, since we have a history of starting bad wars, Bush shouldn't be blamed for continuing in that great US tradition?

Clinton...went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent, Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

Bosnia was already at war when we went there to stop it. This was peacekeeping, not regime overthrowing. I also note the distinct lack of US casualty statistics here. Could that be because they were embarrassingly low because the Clinton Administration's planning actually worked? Clinton was never offered "bin Laden's head on a platter." He was offered some indeterminate help in exchange for unspecified aid--hardly the clear-cut situation the author would like you to believe. Clinton did send cruise missiles into Afghanistan to target bin Laden, who has indeed attacked us at least twice on our shores. He doesn't live in Iraq though. This is about Iraq. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan and think we should stop taking troops from the rebuilding of Afghanistan and sending them to Iraq. Of course, Osama has moved on to some other country all together by now because Bush has changed his mind on why we started wars after 9/11:

"I don�t know where he is. Nor � you know, I just don�t spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you. I....I truly am not that concerned about him." -- Bush on Osama bin Laden in 2002

References:
Former US Secretary of State Marshall Freeman Harris on Bosnia
http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/bosnia/clindeb.html

CNN.com has a Bush Transcript from March 13, 2002 (my quote is about 2/5 of the way down
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/03/13/bush.transcript/

3. In the two years since terrorists attacked us President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people. The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but...It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation. We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records. It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick killing a woman.

We may have officially taken Iraq in less than 51 days, but some would argue that we still haven't really taken Iraq, since more of our troops have been killed after Bush declared an end to "major combat operations" than on the way in. We've given up looking for chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq so that's kind of irrelevant now, although it's worth pointing out that we have been looking for WMDs in Iraq since 1991.

References:
CNN.com: US calls off search for chemical weapons
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/12/wmd.search/

Hillary Clinton never found all the Rose Law Firm billing records, but are your records from 15 years ago complete? Just because someone called it a possible scandal when they started investigating Whitewater is no reason to keep calling it a scandal 10 years after everyone involved was cleared.

In 1969 Kennedy didn't have a cell phone. He walked for help, tried to get Mary Jo Kopechne out of the car and never did call the police; they called him the next morning.

 

Wait, there's more...................... Some people still don't understand why military personnel do what they do for a living. This exchange between Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum is worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive impromptu speech, but it's also agood example of one man's explanation of why men and women in the armed services do what they do for aliving. This is a typical, though sad, example of what some who have never served think of our military.

JOHN GLENN ON THE SENATE FLOOR Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13

Oh. My. God. I can't believe they go the date that wrong. This whole exchange happened in May 1974 for Pete's sake.

Senator Howard Metzenbaum to Senator Glenn: "How can you run for Senate when you've never held a real job?"

And Metzenbaum was misquoted here. What he said was that Glenn had never "met a payroll", suggesting that Glenn had never owned a business and, therefore, was not qualified to be a Senator. He wasn't speaking directly to Glenn at the time, he was stumping. The following paragraph comes out of a debate between the two candidates 3 days later on May 3rd 1974. Metzenbaum didn't raise the issue during the debate, but Glenn took the opportunity to reply to Metzenbaum's previous campaign statements in a prepared speech:

Senator Glenn: "I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps. I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by antiaircraft fire on 12 different occasions.I was in the space program. It wasn't my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It was not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the daily cash receipts to the bank. I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day... to a veteran's hospital and look those men - with their mangled bodies - in the eye, and tell THEM they didn't hold a job! You go with me to the Space Program at NASA and go, as I have gone, to the widows and orphans of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee... and you look those kids in the eye and tell them that their Dads didn't hold a job. You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends buried than I'dlike to remember, and you watch those waving flags. You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell ME that those people didn't have a job? I'll tell you, Howard Metzenbaum; you should be on your knees every day of your life thanking God that there were some men - SOME MEN -who held REAL jobs. And they required a dedication to a purpose - and a love of country and a dedication to duty that was more important than life itself. And their self-sacrificeis what made this country possible. I HAVE held a job, Howard! What about you?"

As I stated earlier, I agree almost entirely with that paragraph.

However, this is the most recent thing I've been able to find about Glenn's opinion of the war in Iraq:

BLITZER: "Senator Glenn, while I have you, I remember interviewing you many times where you were in the U.S. Senate, a member of the Armed Services Committee, a member of the Intelligence Committee. In terms of the war on terrorism, is the American public safer today now that Saddam Hussein has been captured?"

GLENN: "The American public? Well, I'd be hard pressed to say that, that the American public. I didn't see Saddam Hussein as being quite the danger that some other people did.

His neighbors were not really afraid of what he was doing over there. We haven't found any weapons of mass destruction yet. I'm glad we have him. He was a bad man, there's no doubt about that.

But as far as, do I feel safer because he's been captured? Well, I'm glad he was captured. But do I feel safer? No, I guess I don't feel that much safer.

I want to see us cooperating with our allies and getting all of our intelligence information, the best intelligence information we have available from all over the world. Work together with our allies all over the world. That's the way we'd prevent these things.

It's one thing to say we're going to bring people to justice. But these are people who have committed their lives to being suicidal and doing what they want to do anyway. And so, to me, the main thing is trying to prevent those things.

You only do that through better and improved intelligence. Not only our own, with our own CIA and FBI and all of that, but with cooperating with what the intelligence knows from other nations around the world, our European Alice and people in the Mideast. These all should be put together so we can prevent these things, not just try and catch people after it's happened."

Interestingly, it's from the month before this e-mail purports to be about.

For those who don't remember - During W.W.II, Howard Metzenbaum was an attorney representing the Communist Party in the USA

This isn't part of the quote anymore, and it's really not relevant, since he was suggesting that Glenn didn't have the capitalist experience to be a US senator. Metzenbaum retired from the Senate in 1995 after serving alongside Glenn since 1977, both as Democrats from Ohio.

If you can read this, thank a teacher.... If you are reading it in English thank a Veteran. Please keep this circulating.

Yes, veterans kept us from speaking German and possibly Russian. And yes, please feel free to pass these corrections back to the people who sent you this poorly thought out e-mail. Maybe next time, they'll do some fact checking before clicking "Forward".

Ben Zvan

<><>
I called them mad...
They called me mad...
And damn them,
they outvoted me.

--Nathaniel Lee.

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Here's a feedback letter I just sent to iSkin about their Evo2 iPod protector. At first I thought I'd just point out that they had some design flaws, but then I just got angry.

Hi,

I love the idea of the iSkin, but I have a little complaint. I spent $400 on my 40GB iPod back in January and I wanted to protect my investment from the rigors of daily use. I decided on an iSkin EVO2 because, from the soft-contact screen cover to the ventilated back surfaace, your descriptions made a convincing argument for it being an effective means of protection.

I just removed the iSkin from my iPod so that I could use the dock that has been sitting idle since the iSkin makes the iPod to big to fit and was horrified to find that the iSkin, while protecting my iPod from scratches had actually caused scratches itself. The dust that entered alongside the click wheel was held in place by the iSkin causing a fog to appear, the RevoClip backer has etched a halo around my Apple Logo and each of the 6 "soft contacts" on the screen cover has created a distinct dot on the front face.

I think that the iSkin is a great concept, but I would have been better served by one of those cheap iSocks than by your scratch-o-matic. I think it is irresponsible to continue to sell these products as protective devices.

I guess I really don't think this is too harsh. I love my iPod even if they did lower the prices a week after I bought it and I thought I was protecting it by getting an iSkin. I don't know now if I'll just stick it in my back pocket or what, but I don't want to put it back in the iSkin.

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There is no news to post today so I'll just put in this plug. Don't forget to take a look at Ill Will Press. Foamy may be hard to understand, but he's worth it. And, if you have a lot of extra bandwidth, please help them out by volunteering to host one of their comics.

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