I'm not sure if online petitions work, but I guess something like IMAP access for Gmail is worth a try. Sign it here.

Ah Blogger-toplevel-random-blog-bar, how I love thee!

You have given me a whole new way of wasting precious minutes of my tiny life, reading about other people's tiny lives.

Seriously though, I plan to experiment a bit and see what percent of blogs are political propaganda, what percent are contain the words "ponderings", "musings", "thoughts", "ramblings", "pondermusings" etc. in the description, what percent are Spanish, what percentage suck, what percentage rock, what percentage have so messed up a template that the blog-bar does not show up, what percentage are dead, what percentage are spam blogs and so on until I'm bored and decide to do something else.

Like watch Conan O'Brien on my new TV!

Ah brand-new-24-inch-flat-screen-Toshiba-TV, how I love thee!

You have given me a whole new way of wasting precious minutes of my tiny life, watching other people's tiny lives.

Seriously though, I plan to experiment a bit and see ... Oh. Wait.

A warm summer is all you look forward to here in nowhere-land. And then we have this, record low temperatures for summer.

"I think it's terrible," said Tropics server Nadia Sarkarat, 19, of Waukesha. "This is August. People should be going to the Wisconsin Dells, not walking around in winter coats."

Sarkarat was bundled up in four layers, including a long-sleeved T-shirt and hooded sweat shirt, but she still wished she had brought gloves to fend off the biting winds.

Can somebody up there please send us a few scorchers?

Slick web-app department

Microsoft strikes again with MSN Web Messenger Beta. A full-fledged (almost) version of MSN Messenger using only a browser. No Java and no ActiveX! Yes, you read that right no Java and no ActiveX! It works using Firefox so it's obvious they are using standard W3C technologies. Highly recommended.

<gasps for breath and claws his way towards the land of books>

Finally got new things to read, and began by reading Alias: Book 1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos. This is immediately added to my list of must read books. Jessica Jones is an ex-super heroine who has given up super stuff to become a private investigator. Best quote (at least, best quote from what I have read so far):

Lucas will feel guilty about this. He's a decent guy and a buddy and he'll feel bad about this. But that feeling will pass. Because he'll also look back and remember this was the one night that I let him do anything he wanted. And even though he'll know it's wrong he'll smile to himself. He just won't be able to help it.

Then he'll feel bad again. But I can't say that I care, really. I don't care what he feels like. I just want to feel something. It doesn't matter what. Pain. Humility. Anger.

I just want to feel something different.

And while on the topic, I must mention Jeff Smith's Bone. Bone immediately pushed Sandman (by Neil Gaiman and various artists) down to number 2 in my list. (Sorry Neil.) The best way to describe Bone would be Calvin and Hobbes meets The Lord of The Rings but that doesn't really do it enough justice. So, I'll just stick to the word 'magical' and leave the rest to your imagination.

I almost finished reading Bone two weeks ago. 'Almost', because I still haven't read the last graphic novel in the series. However, I hadn't noticed the humongous 1300 page, One Volume Edition on Amazon before. Guess where I'm going to be spending my next paycheck!

Among other things I have with me but haven't read are Cerebus: Volume 1 by Dave Sim and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Reviews will follow soon.