Well, that damn William Shatner cost Mike and I 20 bucks. That\rquote s a whole lot of dilithium crystals. Or maybe it\rquote s not \endash I think the don\rquote t use money anymore in the Future.

However, none of that changes the fact that we were taken by PriceLine.com to the tune of twenty smackers. Here\rquote s how it went down:

I bought tickets to see Phantom at the end of the month. For Mike, Me, and his parents. I thought it would be a good bonding experience. So, Mike\rquote s parents are coming up at the end of the month and asked if we could go to RENO for the long weekend (Actually, we\rquote re leaving early Monday and will come back on Tuesday). s, Mike thought he\rquote d use Price Line to get a good deal on a 4 star hotel(The Eldorado). Price Line stated that no one had ever got a room at the hotel for less that 40. So Mike started there. And they accepted it.

So, he told me (he was very excited. It was kind of cute) about it all. I, being the more net savy of the 2 of us, went to the Eldorado site and checked the prices for a room for the day we\rquote re staying. 25 bucks! That\rquote s 15 less than we paid (and we had to pay Price Line a 5 buck service fee).

We tried to work out something with the hotel, but they said \lquote Sorry\rquote .

So I\rquote m sending William Shatner a bunch of tribbles.

(For those who aren\rquote t geeks, and think the title is a little harsh, it\rquote s a quote from ST: Wrath of Khan starring William Shatner).

Well, I was fortunate enough to watch the Sox take on the A\rquote s and WIN WIN WIN! It was a good game \endash and my many thanks to RSD Miranda for taking me.

Say hello to baby!

After a bit of hedging and back and forth, I plunked down the $$ for a new computer. Well, new to me. I\rquote m currently using a Dimension 4200 with PIII 800mhz and a 512 meg of ram. Which, for most things is fine, but I do a lot of stuff with video editing and gaming. So\'85I\rquote ve been itching to get a new system \endash even came close to installing a new motherboard in my current system.

Dell has some deals on refurbished systems. Basically, people get them home and something doesn\rquote t work. So they return them. Dell fixes it, and re-sells them at a discount. I saved about $1500 bucks.

So, my new system will be:

Dell Dimension 8300 Mini-Tower: Pentium\'ae 4 Processor at 2.8GHz with 800MHz front side bus
1 GB DDR 400MHz SDRAM (2 DIMMs)
1.44 MB Floppy Disk Drive
120 GB EIDE Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
128MB DDR GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI
Sound Blaster Live! Digital Sound Card
Microsoft\'ae Windows XP Home
DVD+RW/+R with CD-RW
17 inch Flat Panel Display

Of course, now I have to let Mike buy new plants!

Belated Happy Birthday to my younger sister Kel (Though, she spells it Keill). I wish her all the best in the upcoming year.

I think I\rquote ve said this before, but of all the things I miss of being back east, spending time with my family is what I miss the most. I remember hanging out with Kell (And the rest of my family), just playing games and laughing. About nothing.

I feel bad when both good things (like Birthdays. Though, she\rquote s 32 and may not see it as a \lquote good thing\rquote ), and bad things happen back at home, because I can\rquote t be there to laugh or to help. And that\rquote s what I wish I could give to her most of all. Someone to laugh with, and someone to cry with when she needs it.

Or maybe just someone to split a bagel with.

So, being split from her by a whole continent, I have to be satisfied by offering her the two words I know she\rquote s longing to hear.

Chicken Lips.

This seems like fun!

It's called Flash Mobbing. It involves hundreds of people descending on a chosen location - supposedly spontaneously - and talking gibberish.

The latest social phenomena to sweep the world, last night it came to London.

Or, to be exact, at 6.30pm it came to Sofas UK, a soft-furnishing outlet off Tottenham Court Road.

A Flash Mob is an internet inspired gathering of strangers who assemble to perform pointless acts.

Last night's 200-strong Mob had met in four Soho pubs where they were given an instruction leaflets. These told them: "Be at the Sofas UK shop at 6.30pm precisely. At 6.33 text a friend with the message 'Call me.'

"When they call, tell them you are at the Flash Mob No 1 in London. Look at a sofa, view it with the reverence and awe one should have for soft furniture and speak the words 'Oh wow, what a sofa.'

"You must behave as if the letter O never existed and omit it from every word you use. Disperse promptly at 6.40 and leave the area. Say goodbye to a person you do not know, Return to your life."

Acting just as instructed, the mob descended on Sofas UK to the bewilderment of manager Derek Robinson.

Due to the heat wave and lack of customers, he had shut the shop early and was heading for the pub when he saw the huge crowd and sprinted back, keys in hands.

As the mob invaded the shop and whipped out their mobiles to wax lyrical about soft furnishings, a perplexed Mr Robinson asked: "Can you tell me what is going on."

At last, the Internet is finally changing peoples lives!

This, admittedly, may not be in the best of taste \endash but I found it interesting. While at work, I had stepped out to the men\rquote s room to use the urinal. There was someone in the stall and, to not put too fine a word on it, he had emitted an odor or two.

That, in of itself, is not unusual. What happens next is \endash as I\rquote m washing my hands I hear, the ssssssssshhhhhhh sound of an aerosol can and the stinky smell was joined (not replaced) by an overwhelming scent of fresh lilacs. Or some such.

The guy had brought his own air freshener into a public bathroom. Is it me, or does this seem a little bit of overkill? I mean, we all want to be respectful of other bathroom patrons, but that certainly was going the extra mile.

Of course, the total effect was less the sweet smelling room he had intended, and more the commingling of sickly sweet artificial floral smells combined with stinky.

Speaking of things which stink, those closed captioning people are getting way too serious about their \lquote craft\rquote . Remember the old days \endash you pretty much got dialogue which may or may not have exactly matched that which was actually spoken. In terms of Special effects, you might get a \endash sounds of gunfire- clue or \endash loud explosion-.

Now adays? I was watching Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition, which is a good movie by the way. Since it\rquote s supposed to be suspenseful and all that, there was a lot of theme music. The closed captioning included thing like this:

suspenseful music, played on tin flutes, comprising of mostly minor chords plays, rising to a frenzied pitch

Full dark organ music, in the key of c minor, hinting at Mozart\rquote s Requiem plays, resolving itself into a sustained dissonant chord

(By the way, not that you asked, but I like having the closed captioning on \endash not because I can\rquote t hear, but because A) It helps you better understand mumbled dialogue. B)Sometimes the closed captioning is different and often is edgier or funnier. Honest.)