Happy New Year!
The sound of a bamboo flute is in my mind, and I’m in a comfortable state.

May many blessings come to you and yours in 2002, and the years that follow.

2001 has been a great year for me, much better than 2000, and leaves ’90s in the dust. (the 90’s were a poor decade for me… I’m glad they came, but I’m even more happy that they’re past.) I have high hopes and a great feeling about this coming year, and the years ahead.

Here’s a 2001 recap via google… fascinating zeitgeist.

Now they’re sending spam about spam protection services:

Dear Email user,

Your email address sysop@scottobear.com was harvested by a SPAM robot. It got your address from the webpage http://www.scottobear.com

For more information about SPAM Robots and how you can protect yourself, Click Here

Sincerely,
Champ Mitchell
Anti-Spam Services
http://www.email-cloak.com

Dingalings…. The funny thing is that the spam protection they are offering (for $8.95, no less) is just a piece of JavaScript that splits email addresses so they cannot be gathered. Here’s the same thing for free:

<script language=”JavaScript”>
document.write(‘<a href=”mailto:’ + ‘name@’ + ‘youremail.com’ + ‘”>’ + ‘name@’ + ‘youremail.com’ + ‘</a>’);
</script>

Just replace “name” and “youremail.com” with your information and you’re good to go.

Frankensquirrel and Pig Eyeballs. I’m going to monitor this guy’s sales for a while, I think.

Back from my day’s mission of chores, the house is nicely clean, and the bed is made, covered in fresh sheets, warm from the dryer. Newt’s already perched on the pillowcase, in half-loaf position and purring. With that, and the patter of rain, I think I’ll join him in a little catnap. (Could you resist the call?)

My New years’ resolutions.

On my palmtop – 160 x 160

Laptop 1024 x 768

on any of the tvs – approx 640 x 480,( I think)

On the powermac, 800 x 600

On Big brain, (who I’m working getting up to speed on right now, dual monitor) 1600 x 1200 (on the 19″) and 1024 x 768 – (17″, #2)

On the Atari ST in the corner – 800 x 600 as well.

I’ll get back to you on my eyes, Newt’s eyes, and the binoculars.

My New years' resolutions.

On my palmtop – 160 x 160

Laptop 1024 x 768

on any of the tvs – approx 640 x 480,( I think)

On the powermac, 800 x 600

On Big brain, (who I’m working getting up to speed on right now, dual monitor) 1600 x 1200 (on the 19″) and 1024 x 768 – (17″, #2)

On the Atari ST in the corner – 800 x 600 as well.

I’ll get back to you on my eyes, Newt’s eyes, and the binoculars.

remembering a villian for my old gaming days….Ray’s beastie.

I am Hallow’s eve, a hoarse whisper through dead trees, the dread shiver of the bumpkin. A bony rotten hand, now beckons you to stand, and fear the great Gray Pumpkin.

Buwahahaha muhuwahahaha haha yessssss.

He was just a nut. A fun looney who wore a rotting gourd on his head as a jack-o-lantern mask. (He was Linus van Pelt all grown up, mind cracked by the great pumpkin never arriving)

Off to go on midday walkies and get my errands done before my sweetheart gets home from work. Laundry, bills, and groceries.

There was no real point to this except that I’ve now stolen about a minute of your life, which I will use as fertilizer in my Dark Pumpkin Patch of Evil , and soon my tendrils will encompass the world! Bwahahahahahahaha

or not. 🙂

I’ll see you kiddies later.

remembering a villian for my old gaming days….Ray's beastie.

I am Hallow’s eve, a hoarse whisper through dead trees, the dread shiver of the bumpkin. A bony rotten hand, now beckons you to stand, and fear the great Gray Pumpkin.

Buwahahaha muhuwahahaha haha yessssss.

He was just a nut. A fun looney who wore a rotting gourd on his head as a jack-o-lantern mask. (He was Linus van Pelt all grown up, mind cracked by the great pumpkin never arriving)

Off to go on midday walkies and get my errands done before my sweetheart gets home from work. Laundry, bills, and groceries.

There was no real point to this except that I’ve now stolen about a minute of your life, which I will use as fertilizer in my Dark Pumpkin Patch of Evil , and soon my tendrils will encompass the world! Bwahahahahahahaha

or not. 🙂

I’ll see you kiddies later.

Back from Danny’s birthday party… Typical for him, he had a pokemon theme, as his 40th b-day also as usual, I enjoyed the kids much more than the adults. (excepting Dan, of course) Denise, a 11 year old Chinese girl just here 6 months, and a *total* sweetheart. She and I drew pokemon characters on a sketch pad, and she did a fine job of capturing the likeness of pikachu and charzard…. while my squirtle and bulbasaur were sorely lacking. We swapped drawings and I think I came out ahead.

Sara was the other little girl, maybe 12. not as graphically inclined, but spent most of the evening chatting and gabbing and speaking and talking…very chatty….gabby enough to hold up both sides of the conversation, but charming enough to not make you mind.

Made a lot of small talk with the grownups, but nothing worth any real mention… Most of Dan’s pals aside from myself seem to speak mandarin or cantonese, sometimes both.

I ate a copious amount of sheet cake, appetizers from the relish tray, and cheese… ack… totally bad for me, but it’s a party, right? I think I’m entitled to splurge once in a while.

After the party, Dan and I went out to the Mai-Kai (instead of dave and busters, away from the show, just the Molokai Bar off in the corner) for a couple of rum drinks and quiet conversation… we both reminisced for a bit, and gabbed about our assorted woes, neutrals and good times. We’re going to head to D&B’s later on this week, when we’re both more up for the noise and hubbub.

hum, hrm… hoom

Well, it’s time for Scotto to go help Danny with his Birthday party… we have about 20 people to feed, and entertain. Not really in the mood for it, but It’ll be more fun once there, I hope. Newtie will have to hold down the fort while I’m gone… I think he’s up to the task. I’m moving at Ent-speed today. Hoom. Hum. *shuffles & trundles off*

See you kids before sundown.

Well, between light pollution and a cloudy sky, I was mostly out of luck with the eclipse. Using a pair of 7×50 binoculars helped some and I caught a slight change of shading, but overall vision was poor. The upshot was that it was warm enough to walk outside in my shorts and a t-shirt. I can’t reccomend binocs for an amateur skywatcher enough… you don’t have to set up as much as with a scope, and with something like the moon or other bright sky objects, I think they are actually easier to use.

One of the better sources for info – http://www.earthsky.com/ – a well put together site.

Chapter IV
Treebeard

The Ent and the Ent-wife
396 KB

‘There was an Elvish song that spoke of this, or at least
so I understand it. It used to be sung up and down the Great River. It was
never an Entish song, mark you: it would have been a very long song in Entish!
But we know it by heart, and hum it now and again. This is how it runs in your
tongue:

THE ENT.
When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough;
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow;
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain-air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!
THE ENTWIFE.
When Spring is come to garth and field, and corn is in the blade;
When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid;
When shower and Sun upon the Earth with fragrance fill the air,
I’ll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair.
THE ENT.
When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold
Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of trees unfold;
When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is best!
THE ENTWIFE.
When Summer warms the hanging fruit and burns the berry brown;
When straw is gold, and ear is white, and harvest comes to town;
When honey spills, and apple swells, though wind be in the West,
I’ll linger here beneath the Sun, because my land is best!
THE ENT.
When Winter comes, the winter wild that hill and wood shall slay;
When trees shall fall and starless night devour the sunless day;
When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain
I’ll look for thee, and call to thee; I’ll come to thee again!
THE ENTWIFE.
When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;
When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past;
I’ll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:
Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!
BOTH.
Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.’

just a fyi, sleepyheads. eclipse

The Moon’s dance around the Earth and Sun paints a different face every night. In the early morning of Sunday Dec. 30, one usually invisible transformation will reveal itself, when the Moon dips its southern edge into the Earth’s shadow. This will make a dramatic penumbral eclipse; a subtle intersection of the Earth and Moon, seen in the Americas, across the Pacific to Eastern Asia.

“If casual observers get up at 5, they’ll notice the lower left-hand side of the Moon is dimmer than the upper right hand side,” said Fred Espenak, an eclipse expert at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The effect will be the most subtle of three types. There are a variety of eclipses because the Earth throws two shadows. There is the darker umbra, the exact silhouette of the Earth carved out of the sunlight. Then there is the penumbra, which is a larger cone of diffuse shade, where the Sun’s light and the Earth’s shadow mix.

In a penumbral eclipse, the Moon passes through the partial shadow of Earth. The subtle change in lighting on the Moon is usually visible only with a telescope. An umbral eclipse on the other hand, is quite noticeable and varies in degree by how much the Moon drops behind our planet. A total eclipse is the most dramatic and rare, when the moon is fully behind the Earth.

Although Espenak said a penumbral lunar eclipse is, “the least scientifically interesting,” he did agree this particular event will be special because of its strength.

“This one, as far as penumbral eclipses, is a very deep one,” he said. “The Moon will move very deeply into penumbral shadow, almost to the edge of umbra.”

The moon will dip itself 92 percent of the way inside the Earth’s penumbral shadow at 5:29 a.m. EST, 2:29 a.m. PST.

Back from my trip to the galleria mall… or as I’ve dubbed it today… “midget village”. Midget village is populated by a tiny, yet numerous throng of people, each of whom are easily at least a foot shorter than I am. As I lumbered and meandered through that ant hive, the vast sea of miniscule madness generally parted before me, allowing ample passage to get to the stores I needed to visit in record time. I managed to pick up Dan’s birthday present quite quickly at the suncoast video…LOTR soundtrack on CD, and a blank tape to dub it to for listening in the car. It’s marked the first time in an age that I’ve actually picked up music at a music store, instead of online… the last time was the Enya CD for my dearest one, and before that, who knows? I’ve grown spoiled by mp3 servers.

While there, I got the remainder of Dave’s Christmas Prezzie, too (which I won’t mention here, in case he’s reading it) I stopped off at archives for a cup of hot chocolate, but they were closed… so instead I treated myself to an order of nathan’s french fries and a pink lemonade, and headed to the bus stop… the first time in a span that I’ve been on the bus, too. Things haven’t changed much…. though it seems a bit more crowded now that season has begun. Read on most of the trip back, and scouted a few places to take pictures of on my time off. The strip mall of gluttony, comprised of only take-out and dine in food joints is one, especially the south wall, with all the graffiti on it. The Pompano Beach graveyard is another, not to mention lighthouse point and the gateway theatre.

A lot of different memories dancing in my mind….I look forward to hitting a museum or the imax during break… it feels like a minor chunk of my knowledge base is lacking, or underused… I wonder if the ft lauderdale aquarium is near to being finished yet? I think that’d be a fun place to poke my nose, and a lot closer than the key west aquarium, which is a great trip. Avoid the miami seaquarium, which was very run down the last time I went…maybe the most dumpy florida attraction, ever…and I’m counting Xanadu, house of tomorrow on that list. (I loved Xanadu when it was open… now it’s a shut down sigh of yesterday. I’ll miss it, unlike the tupperware museum, once right down the road, long gone now.)

Newtie greeted me with a friendly mer and loving headbutts upon my return, so I’ve been playing with him these last few minutes with my feet while my fingers type. I think I’m going to take some more Kitty-comfort now, before wrapping the gifts, and maybe read some.