The Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City are only 16 months away. They started accepting applications for 26,000 volunteer positions this past March. There are three mascots symbolizing higher, faster, stronger. I’m just glad that the giant kangaroos on bicycles that appeared in the Atlanta closing ceremonies didn’t make it to Sydney.

My cat has a Harmony Buckle collar. It is very cool because the patented fastener is a yin yang symbol that comes apart but holds securely. I didn’t realize until I looked at their website that they have products for humans too. So I could get a bracelet or keychain for myself that matches the meowing one’s collar.

Today I’m going to the Vintage Computer Festival. I wouldn’t say I’m being dragged there, necessarily. In fact, I will probably find it to be interesting. And according to the website, “The Vintage Technology Cooperative has plans to build a massively parallel Commodore 64 supercomputer.” Whew. The Atari Historical Society has its very own little corner of the exhibition hall.

The Flummery Digest is a collection of news items that illustrate extreme political correctness. The entries reveal a rather sad trend (or perhaps it’s not a trend but a constant?) towards extreme sensitivity which can lead to actions that seem to be the products of a not sane mind. (However, readers should also take into account the filtering and bias of the media which reported these stories.)

The Coffee Science Information Centre has a nicely designed site which provides information about coffee and caffeine based on research. Looking through it, though, I get the distinct feeling that it was funded by the coffee industry. All the health information has a definite bias towards the positive. All the possible benefits of coffee are highlighted and all the medical research discussed is laudatory with negative reports diminished. Either coffee is better for us than I thought it was or I’ve stumbled onto yet another camouflaged PR site. Take a sentence like: “Although some negative results have been reported, overall there is no conclusive evidence that moderate consumption of coffee during pregnancy presents any hazard to the fetus.” and be your own judge.

Netcom’s shell machines will be shut down in the next day or so. I’m switching my email address to the domain I do have control over, ltao@girlhacker.com. Netcom plans to forward for a year, but I’m better off transitioning now. I’ll really miss that account. I’m giving an IMAP mail server a try now.

I always hope that there are many kids out there like I was, perusing library shelves and discovering treasures, often not realizing that they are stumbling upon a much loved classic. I’d hate to think that everyone’s just sitting around waiting for the next installment of Harry Potter. Get thee to a library! A web site has been created for C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. He wrote seven books (just like what’s planned for Harry) of magical adventures and I am sad to say I don’t remember many details anymore, but that means I’ll just have to read them all again!

OK, cows, moose, salmon, potato heads, and now chickens. Yes, “bwak bwak” chickens. Lynwood, WA, population 33,000, used to be one of the largest egg producers in the country. A local artists thinks giant fiberglass poultry would be a great way to bring in tourist dollars and promote the city. I suppose that’s more interesting than giant eggs (though egg decorating is a loved art). And just to round out the list, the article mentions the “Big Pig Gig in Cincinnati; Horse Mania of Lexington, Ky.; and a show of 5-foot-tall Snoopy sculptures in St. Paul, the childhood home of the late cartoonist Charles M. Schulz.” (thanks Marc)

Are you overrun with mosquitos? The Mosquito Magnet is a pricey device that lures blood-sucking critters into its net by sending out a plume of carbon dioxide like we and other yummy animals do. It runs off a propane tank just like a gas grill. You’d think that mosquitos would be better off not causing irritation, not to mention spreading diseases, when they take our blood. What is the evolutionary advantage of being targeted for a slap? I suppose they’re just fast enough and prolific enough (one female lays 100-300 eggs at a time) that it didn’t matter.

Here’s a SF Chronicle food article on the celebrity chef trend. “The restaurant has become a pop culture icon”, with lots of people eating out lots of the time. Various people connected to the “foodie” industry have differing opinions on why chefs have become all the rage. Mimi Sheraton, former NY Times critic, says it’s just an extension of our need to create celebrities. It’s celebrity that’s the trend, not chefs in particular. If you take a look at how those survivors of reality TV are being treated, you can see her point. Julia Child worries that chefs and diners will forget that it really should be about the food, not the cachet of a TV show. Examples of various restaurant-related TV and movie characters, such as Monica on “Friends”, are given to illustrate how glamorous the profession has become. But, alas, Jack Tripper, the struggling chef from “Three’s Company”, and those waitresses from “It’s a Living”, perhaps the pioneers in this “new” trend, are overlooked.