most of us net-savvy users understand not to trust Microsoft, but this article about trust highlights the fact that our financial institutions are far more lax with our personal data and deserve even less trust that the software monolith.

thanks to the hundreds of you who sent kind emails to me on my birthday. i never knew i had such a following. *grin* it makes growing old and senile, that much more beautiful.

interesting idea about peeping in on the giant that is, Amazon. a site called AmazonScan (which hasn't been sued just yet) monitors products sold on Amazon's site. you can pick a product and come back later to see how well it'd doing.

for example, The Sims Vacation expansion pack has a current rank of 2 when compared to all the items that AmazonScan scans.

in the same vein, give it up for hatten är din.

innovative sites are hard to come by. so when i came across Daler Mehndi's site, i knew i had found true greatness.

even before i opened this email from MrsMar, I knew it was destined for greatness. well planned, carefully crafted and delivered. this email had it all. and sure enough, it has done what few emails have done in the illustrious history of the clanberries, it made me laugh and spill coffee on my new tie. and for that, it is well-deserving on the Golden Berry Award^(tm).

after many years, Rush will deliver Vaper Trails into stores on May 14th. yummay!

hahaha! be warned that this discussion of Survivor 4: Episode 7 is completely void of good taste. but, it does have several funny parts. i especially like the Pontiac Vibe references. (btw, Wax should not buy a Pontiac.)

Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman

Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman

This makes me think about (2) things. First, 5%?!? More like 35-40%. Second, I remember CB's Taxman. Back when we played DV8 and he did nothing. hahaha. i wasn't much better. plus, it was my own fault for expecting us to beat those guys. 8^)

i have to give Mar props for bring me back. back to yugop. i could spend hours just playing there.

very interesting read about a writer seeking first review of a documentary on Dubya done by the daughter of a huge liberal. did you get all that? here's the review.

if any of you berries have a Gamecube, you owe it to yourself to go rent/buy the new Gauntlet game. we had a 3-player game going the other night and it was funtastic! a similar (read: copycat) game is coming soon for the PC called Dungeon Siege. but since it's a PC game, there won't be the comraderie that comes from have 3 or 4 players gathered around the same TV. "Blue Elf Needs Food Badly."

Good ole Razz passed along this link about Battlezone type game called BZFlag. It's all vector based so it should be fast!

Congrats to Maryland for winning their first ever NCAA Tournament! (They also helped me win my brackets game worth 2.4 million dollars.)