Real clip (or possibly clips) from the Paris Hilton tape

Apparently what was made available on the net, back a ways, was not the real thing. It was nothing like this, which decidely is the real thing: Paris Hilton with her ex-boyfriend, from the real tape. This is decidely NOT work safe. In fact, if you don't like this sort of thing, DON'T LOOK (sadly, we are in permanent blog sweeps mode).

Congressman Mark Foley

Why did Congressman Mark Foley, of Florida, think that flirting with teenage boys, who were pages in the Congress, could be done with impunity? Obviously, since he was forced to resign over this behavior, he could not get away with it. I have to think that he is caught up in being a homosexual pedophile, and is stupid, besides. He must have had some success at this sort of thing, and just now got in trouble (permanently). He ruined an otherwise promising political career and may have jeopardized Republican control of the House.

Running ASP .NET on Windows XP Home

I may upgrade a machine and may put Windows XP Professional on it, but I was looking for a way, without doing that, to do ASP .NET 1.1 development without IIS. I have been impressed by Wikipedia, in some areas, and this is another. Wikipedia has an entry about using the UltiDev Cassini Web Server for running ASP .NET applications. This weekend, I will install and try it out (if I get XP Professional, I may be attempting the hardware upgrade and doing the OS installation, as well).

This guy in Colorado should not have been running loose

In the bad old days, the guy in Colorado would have been locked up for vagrancy. We are too enlightened, these days, to do such as thing, so what do you get? 16 year old girls sexually assaulted (whatever that means) and one dead, besides. The killer got off easy, because he shot himself. The authorities were slow to panic, which caused the whole business to be worse than it might have been if they had gone in, early in the game. MSNBC has the latest scoop. Their TV may suck, but their web site is at least "useful".

This morning, the local Tom Thumb gas station had unleaded regular for $2.049/gal

I am amazed at how quickly the price of gas has dropped. Yesterday morning, when I bought gas, unleaded regular was $2.069/gal and this morning the price was 2 cents less: $2.049/gallon. The price has been really dramatic and percipitous, and is good for everyone. Elsewhere in the Dallas area, people are paying perhaps 15 cents a gallon more, just because of the market that the stations are in.

Football player Terrell Owens attempted suicide

According to KRLD, Cowboys' controversial player, Terrell Owens, attempted suicide by taking 30 pain pills. The original story had been that he had an allergic reaction to the pain medicine. He may have just trashed what is left of his career. Perhaps he already knew something we do not know.

Wargame designing seems to be hazardous to the waistline

I knew John Hill in the early 1970's, in Lafayette, Indiana, when John had a hobby store that specialized in selling wargame-related books, games, and miniatures. I did a small amount of artwork for the original Bar Lev game, from John's then game company, Conflict Games. There is a picture that is quite old now, from 1999, showing Al Nofi, James Dunnigan, John Hill, and Jack Radey. I was struck with the general state of the guys. Al Nofi, late of the Naval War College, was in the best shape of any of them. Through the grapevine, I have understood that John Hill has been working as an intelligence analyst in the DC area for quite a long time. I think that explains his absence from much game design.

I would not vote for the current crop of Democrats

I have voted for a lot of odd presidential candidates, but I draw the line at voting fo r any Democrat, given the current state of the party. I would have voted Democratic in 1968 so I could vote for Bobby Kennedy, but I watched TV when he was assassinated by a Palestinian. I dislike many of the Republicans in Congress, but mostly because they don't seem to stand for principles. The Democrats are even worse. They stand for beating the Republicans, hating President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, and are against anything that they like. I wouldn't trust Nancy Pelosi to wash my car, much less be Speaker of the House.

I continue to see signs that the economy in the Dallas area is better and seems to be improving further

Just based on what I see happening in IT business in the Dallas area, the local economy seems to continue to be better and I can see signs of further improvement. I have a rather narrow perspective, from IT consulting, but this is the best that I have seen since early 2001, when there was an abrupt collapse. I suspect that the collapse had started in 2000, and that we had coasted along on momentum, into 2001. At that point, the situation in Minneapolis was still pretty good, so I starting doing consulting work there, until May 2004. The economy went into a slump in Minneapolis, by the end of 2001, and stayed down, but not at low as Dallas. Dallas was hammered badly by the the collapse of technology and, especially, telecom. I had been back in telecom since early 1998, although I was diversified by late 2000.

JustJared.com has pics of Madonna's bad hair cut and styling

I don't know why Madonna thought this looked good, but we can see the pics at JustJared.com, and we can see her bad hair cut and styling. It starts with the bleach blonde color and then has short, ragged ends. It just does not work out well.