We saw a very cool looking computer at an open house. It was much more interesting than the house, especially since we discovered that the house was priced at over a million dollars (and not a mansion by any means). Turns out it was a 20th Anniversary Macintosh. It’s a sleek model that escaped my notice in 1997. The audio and video features sound impressive for the time. But CPUs never age well.

Parents of Original Milk Carton Child Give Up Hope. The boy whose disappearance sparked national awareness of missing children has never been found. His father is declaring him legally dead in order to proceed with a civil suit against the man they believe is reponsible for his death. His mother won’t sign the documents that ask he be declared dead, but she’s not opposing the action. The father is, most certainly, propelled by the chance to seek some form of justice, or he very likely wouldn’t want to sign either. A NY Times article on the subject.

The Diablo II Expansion Pack will be released in a couple weeks or less. Just as the wedding planning ramps up. pooh. Runes are new and look to be very interesting and useful. The rarest of them makes weapons and defense items indestructible.

There should be a “wedding planning confessions” site. Here’s my contribution about invitations: even though all the books say you should write out the complete address with no abbreviations, I simply refused to write out the state names. Except for a couple of the short ones. I didn’t even use the old style medium length abbreviations (which you can see on this chart). I used the common two letter postal codes. It’s a good thing I’m not inviting Miss Manners or the President.

This is probably rather common now in other countries, but it’s the first time I’d seen it. The Stereo MC’s “register for more info” form has a field for “mobile no.” so they can send you text/SMS messages. (You may remember the Stereo MC’s for their single “Connected” way back in the early 1990s. They have a new album out finally after 9 years, and it supposedly takes up the groove where the last one left off. They’re touring a bit too — I noticed their return from a flyer advertising their appearance in Boston.)

In college there were always rumors about students tunneling, an activity that supposedly was grounds for immediate expulsion. The rumors were more about MIT fraternities using Wellesley’s steam tunnels for secret rituals, rather than our own students running around underground, but I often wondered what was behind those padlocked basement doors. When there was snow on the ground, the track of the steam tunnels was obvious as the heat would melt the snow above. But I never braved the chance for expulsion. There are numerous websites devoted to college tunnels, such as UC Berkeley. Wired wrote about it in 1993. Away from campus, explorers conquer inaccessible areas of cities, such as hidden sections of Grand Central Station in NYC. You can’t get expelled but you can get fined and jailed for trespassing. These urban explorers often seek out abandoned buildings in their modern archeological excursions. Last year, a documentary was released chronicling the homeless who took shelter in abandoned Amtrak tunnels underneath Manhattan.

If you’ve known me for a while, you know I have a penchant for see-through electronics. Here, via Memepool, is a page devoted to a clear MacSE. Of course many of the latest Apple products have some amount of clearness to them. Once I was in an audio store and asked the salesguy how much the neato clear speaker was. He said “uh, that’s a demonstration model so you can see what’s inside.” Hmph. Harman Kardon’s funky clear speaker set is still Mac only; their PC speakers are the usual yawn beige and black.

Thank goodness. Landmark Theatres is back under old management and the Palo Alto Square theatre I mentioned a while back is renegotiating their lease. Cross your fingers. It sounds like the new old management has the right perspective to make the art house chain thrive again. (Thanks peterme).

Everyone is noting the Duck Tape Prom fashion contest, but delving a little further, I discovered that a couple from L.A. recently won a Duck Tape wedding. They will be married in Duck Tape wedding clothes. Canadian sculptor Todd Scott “will be making the bride’s and bridemaids’ bouquets, a Duck Tape wedding cake (to supplement the edible one) and an array of beautiful floral arrangements and decorations for this very unique wedding.” It’s September 29, 2001, at Universal Studios. Sticky jokes will abound, I’m sure.

It is often educational to think of something commonplace and wonder how it got that way. And with the Internet nearby, you don’t have to head off to the library to find the answers. Today I wondered “tuna in cans… how did that happen?” A few clicks later, I discovered that the tuna industry began “by accident” in 1903 when sardines became scarce. Albacore tuna had no market value at the time, but an enterprising employee at a San Pedro, CA sardine plant decided to can it instead. The public liked the taste and an American pantry item was born. San Diego was once the Tuna Capital of the World, ranking third in the local economy to the Navy and aircraft industry. Tuna headed for cans is cooked under steam pressure, both before canning and afterwards. These days, most canned tuna is produced by foreign countries, as the U.S. industry fell to competition, rising costs, regulation, and environmentalists. There are opposing views on the “dolphin safe” controversy. Some say activists exaggerated the dolphin issue and filmed an atypical boat and crew to generate highly emotional publicity. The truth, as I always try to remember, probably lies somewhere in between.