I am looking outside my office window. It’s hailing. It’s also 80 degrees outside.

Well, it’s starting to get hot again here in Central Texas. These days it’s been super-humid and yucky too. I got my A/C recharged in my car, but it doesn’t seem any colder. It’s weird in the summertime driving home from work, and not being able to keep your hand on the window more than a few seconds because it will burn you. Man I hate Texas summers.

I found this in a gardening newsgroup that I read and thought it was pretty funny. (Names have been changed/removed)

wrote in message news:<>…
> I know that this may sound a bit crazy……
>
> If any of you guys run across a centipede or scorpion around here, and
> you have some kind of jar that you could put it in, do you think that
> you could give me an email, and I could come pick it up from you?
>
> I am a fan of odd crazy animals, and I would appreciate any of these
> guys that I could get.
>
> If you don’t feel safe doing this, then don’t do it. It’s not worth
> getting stung over……
>
> Appreciate any help……
>
> =bill=

PLEASE WHATEVER ANY OF YOU DO…..DO NOT CATCH ANY OF THESE LITTLE
CREATURES FOR HIM! We don’t need another violent or harmful animal.
This is his girlfriend by the way…and I am allergic to ant and
mosquito bites, so I’m sure one of those would kill me if I got bit by
one…because I have to be taken to the hospital for Bee Stings. I am
not trying to sound mean at all, I just don’t think it is a good idea.
He gets too excited by little creatures and wants them all as pets.
Thank You!!

Last night I had a few things I wanted to do. First, I wanted to pay some bills (yuck) and after that work on Bay’s page. I pretty much know what I want to do with the design, now it is just executing the plan. After that, I was planning on going for a quick bike ride around the neighborhood. Finally, I was hoping to get a few games of Battlefield 1942 in with the [KrshFrkz> crew.

But my body and mind would not cooperate, and I fell asleep at 8:30… At least I got some much needed rest and am fully refreshed this morning.

Claw Theater is a site that Chris found and it is totally awesome. It features cats starring in some classic stories ranging from Snow White to Titanic. The graphics are top notch. I don’t know what they used for their CG, but it’s gotta be high-end SGI stuff. And the music is pretty neat too. On par with Vangelis or Philip Glass, I would say. Make sure you have Quicktime installed to hear the soundtrack to the plays.

Bad Spam:
Today I checked my email and there were 35 new messages. 33 of them were spam (unsolicited) email. Some of the best subject lines were:
“When can I see you again?”
“what is this”
“fwd: you’ll like that”
“Re: when”
“No More Spam for Barron!”
Oh, when will it end? I have been using the Junk Email filter in MS Outlook and it works ok. I think my list of Junk Senders is probably about 200. When I check email at night, about 20% gets filtered into the Junk Email folder. Hopefully the spam epidemic will subside in the future as Microsoft, America Online, and Yahoo! have reportedly joined forces in the war against spam.
*update*
“In the toughest move to date against unsolicited commercial e-mail, Virginia enacted a law Tuesday imposing harsh felony penalties for sending such messages to computer users through deceptive means.”

Good spam:
Spam musubi is so awesome! We usually pan fry our spam (low sodium) and season it with garlic powder. We have a plastic musubi mold that is the perfect size for spam musubi. I prefer to eat it without any kind of sauce on it like some that I ate in Hawaii. Spam n eggs on rice is a great breakfast too.

In my search for a Honda Passport/Supercub, I ran across this group of moped enthusiasts: The Moped Army. It looks like a totally fun group. You should check out their photos. You don’t see too many mopeds around anymore… it’s a shame because they are pretty fun. Gotta love Moped Army’s slogan/dvd title: “Swarm & Destroy”. 🙂

Mariko sent me this link to the Gas Buddy. Here you can check on the latest prices in your city/state. What’s cool about it is that you can find the cheapest station near you. It works good for us because Austin is not a big town, so it is possible to find one of the stations listed on the “cheapest gas” list.

This morning I awoke to the sound of a gas-powered mower. One of the neighbors had decided that 6:30am was late enough to start mowing their yard. Does that seem strange? Not to mention rude. I am not even next door and it was loud enough to wake me.

An old obsession of mine is back! When I was in Japan, I fell in love with the Honda Super Cub. There were a lot of cool variants, for instance, the Press Cub (for newspaper delivery). These motorbikes are so uncool that they are supercool. Here’s a link to the Honda website in Japan that has the super cubs. Here in the States, they are hard to find and expensive. I am hoping to get lucky and run across one in the classifieds. If you know of one for sale (cheap) in Austin, let me know!