Get the inside scoops at what all the cool kids are taking about here. Where you can figure out exactly what l33t actually means.

End of the jokes

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- American Airlines and Trans World Airlines said Thursday they would stop serving meals in the main cabin on most domestic flights by Nov. 1.

Mildly amusing, but mostly painful. Pr0nalize a web site here. It's safe for office viewing, unfortunately.

Paniful pr0n

A teenager had part of his penis bitten off when three girls asked him to help them practise moves they saw on a porn film.

FRIDAY, 9/21/2001, 12:30pm HST by Raul

There are some pretty weird site ideas out there. Live Nude Cats is one.

This one is especially for Gspot: Slow Mo, the rapping retard.

Lucasarts has released some screens of Jedi Knight 2, an upcoming Quake3-engined game. Looks pretty damn cool.

Dialup pr0n fiends will appreciate this little spoof. Of course, not suitable for work. Slowpr0n.

Self-fulfilling dot-com?

The registry of .com, .org, and .net Internet domain names may have foretold the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Dr. Neil Livingstone, CEO of Global Options LLC, a Washington-based counterterrorism and investigations company, believes terrorists, or their co-conspirators who orchestrated the attacks, may have registered as many as 17 Internet domain names that could have tipped off authorities as early as last summer, it is being reported by CNSNews.com.

Hey, does the FBI have a record on you? Find out here.

THURSDAY, 9/20/2001, 10:Ish pm HST by Penfold

Anyone see the new Miss Cleo ads? She's turning herself into a religious martyr now.

Yes, it's that time again. Time for a Tokenasians.com contest. To win, submit a caption for this picture here. Best caption wins. Winner to be determined by the webmasters. Entries due by the time I go to sleep, Sunday, September 23, 2001. Prizes are from the Hockey Hall of Fame and whatever I can scrounge up around here.

Unfortunately, no one wants to see it

"Despite what you might have heard, Napster is alive and kicking," says the company. "In fact, we're very close to completing our new membership service. It is looking fantastic, and we can't wait to show it to you.

How does Google manage to consistently turn a profit in such a tight market? By being the best bar none. See why the market loves them so here.

No, I'm not making this up. Read about a 7' wooden phallic carving with two US flags and the stir it's causing here.

THURSDAY, 9/20/2001, 12:31am HST by Raul

"That's right, I got it, you don't!" Two words: Oh yeah. NHL 2002 came via UPS today, and after a couple of games, here are some random observations:

• The graphics engine has been optimized. Faces are more realistic than last year (which was more realistic than the year before). You can tell most players by looking at their faces. The cut scenes get choppy but the gameplay is pretty damn smooth, even with all details turned up on my system. Smoother than 2001 at equivalent settings, I think.
• Lots of new little features, but few have anything to do with more realistic hockey. This probably pissed purists off, but I believe you can turn these extras off. The features include on-the-fly multi-angle replays, the breakway cam (which I find kind of lame) and "scoring" to get "NHL cards."
• Gameplay has improved! So far my main gripe is that slapshots take too long to "wind up". But most everything else has been improved a bit from 2001. I haven't seen a head-over-heels hit yet; gameplay reminds me a lot of Fox Championship 2000, which was lauded for is realism.
• I don't like the new commentating. The guy they added is damn annoying.
• The new intro song is a quick techno ditty, that I can't identify.
• Saucer passes are kind of neat, but they are a bit hard to control just yet.

Fedex 2-day service vs. UPS blue (next day): I had two packaged shipped to me a day apart. Package A was shipped via Fedex 2-day service on 9/17/2001. Package B shipped via UPS blue on 9/18/2001. Fedex doesn't guarantee 2 day service to Hawaii, they say it might take an extra day. AFAIK, UPS does guarantee blue-label in 2 business days.

As of evening on 9/19, I had package B in my hand. The Fedex tracking said package A wasn't freakin' even in Hawaii yet. I have my doubts that they will be able to get it here tomorrow either.

Note that I have had problems with Fedex before: even if the item is here on the 2nd day, they will deliberately wait until the 3rd day to deliver it. UPS in this case delivered it on day 1, even though they had until day 2.

Summary: FEDEX SUCKS.

Well Nikon has announced its entry into the battle at 5 megapixels, already being waged between the Minolta D7, the Sony F707, and the the Olympus E-20. The Coolpix 5000 features a swiveling LCD (Canon G1/G2-style) and a nice control set. Expected price: $1050-$1100.

WEDNESDAY, 9/19/2001, 11:58pm HST by Penfold

I am the conveyances master. All warranty deeds and assignment of apartment leases shall fall beofre me.

What happens when you try and combine a text based game from the 80s with modern 3D tech? I really don't know, but this might be it.

For those who started thinking about this way too much a few days ago, Bush unlikely to bring back draft.

The unkindest cut

Share prices of online travel agents have plummeted and several US airlines have warned they may have to declare themselves bankrupt unless federal aid is forthcoming. The shining light of Internet commerce - online travel tickets - is severely diminished.

As if

Swaziland has banned single young women from having sex for five years in a bid to fight the spread of Aids.

WEDNESDAY, 9/19/2001, 4:00am HST by Raul

Well today is the day I go live with the redesign. I have been working quite a bit on the site to get this thing out before a few other things happen this week, not the least of which is NHL 2002 (it's in the mail!) All this while dealing with the fallout of a major news event on a major media outlet.

Anyway, it pains me to do this, but alas, this site no longer supports Netscape. It is designed strictly for IE 5.0+ (it might work on earlier versions, but I don't have any to test), at 800x600 or higher. Believe me, I have agonized over this for a while, as one of the things I have always prided this site on is cross-platform compatibility (even text browsers, to some degree).

But sound off if you have any kinds of problems viewing the site. Let me know if you're a Netscape junkie and can't get your fix -- if there is enough demand, I might look into a workaround. Or if you know how to make it work in Netscape, let me know. Heck, drop me a line just to tell me how you like it even if it does work.

Yeah, I'm working on the crappy section tabs and the sections that aren't converted yet.

A new twist on an old favorite: It's Pong, it's 3D, it's free, and it's kinda fun. What more could you ask for?

Well there aren't any In-n-Out Burgers here in Hawaii, but if you happen to be on the mainland, try ordering some "secret" menu items. Their simple posted menu hides the fact that they are capable of every bit as much grease as everyone else. Submitted by Jui

In case you find the print medium interesting in its own right, the Poynter Institute has a gallery posted of over 200 Page Ones from papers around the nation from the day after the WTC/Pentagon attacks.

Oh yeah, here's that Taleban defacement article. I was mistaken, it's not "Taliban."

TUESDAY, 9/18/2001, 11:58pm HST by Penfold

There is a drought in effect. Get it if you can.

Pre-season games are being played as we speak. My fix, I need my hockey fix, hehe.

Jagr scores in his first game with Washington, unfortunately the rest of his team sucks and they lost 6-1.

Foresburg decides to take time out to fully recover from the spleening.

Raul says that NHL 2002 is in the mail. Time for the jockey sessions again. Bet Jui will love that.

Oh the traveler's pain

Most of the Federal Aviation Administration's new rules make a lot of sense. But some of them don't. Several new FAA regulations are arbitrary, burdensome, and unlikely to make our airplanes or airports any safer.

TUESDAY, 9/18/2001, 10:40pm HST by Raul

Every bunch of friends has got to have a wise guy that loves to call Shotgun. Maybe even more than one guy. Anyway, evidently, this problem has been addressed by many groups of friends, and thus The Official Rules of Shotgun have been created. Here's another version.

My addendum to these rules is: "The fact that you smoke does NOT automatically entitle you to shotgun."

More coming later. Much more.

MONDAY, 9/17/2001, 2:00pm HST by Raul

Just a couple quickies.

This is just one of them freaky yuppie-ish or rave-ish cool toys: Lite cubes are freezable, reusable ice cubes that have built-in lights. You tap 'em on a table to turn 'em on or off, and the batteries last for about 12 hours (apparently, they can't be changed). Interesting, but um ... unnecessary.

LAUSITZ, Germany - Two-time CART racing champion Alex Zanardi, 34, of Bologna, Italy, was in critical condition at Berlin's Klinikum Berlin-Marzahn hospital Saturday as a result of injuries sustained in a late-race accident during The American Memorial CART event at Lausitz, Germany.

This was actually submitted for news a while ago, but I hadn't found a context in which to mention it. But any site that features Tokenasians.com, intentionally or not, deserves mention: Decorative Edison is a personal cartoon drawn up by The Dragon, who happens to be Freakylemur's SO. The Lemur occasionally guest-draws, too.

Here's the strip in which we appear.

Not surprisingly, ATK (maker of the OCIW, see below) was one of the biggest gainers on Wall Street today ...

SUNDAY, 9/16/2001, 9:58pm HST by Penfold

The hike to Kuliouou wasn't as bad as I remembered, but then again, I wasn't carrying anything this time.

Refractive index ring a bell? Well when it comes to optics, suffice to say that the higher the index, the thinner the lenses. These three are all more or less the same prescription, just different refractive index plastic. Pretty thick, isn't it.

I am an optometrist, and big fan of your site. Regarding your item on refractive index in spectacles. , let me share that it is certainly a big factor, but only when considered along with other variables. Probably the MOST important thing you can do to reduce the edge thickness of a "minus" spectacle Rx like yours in the photo, which gets thicker as it goes out from the center, is to select a frame which gives the smallest possible fitting ED (effective diameter). Just put on a frame, and notice where your eye sits in the shape of the frame in straight-ahead gaze. The longest single radius from your pupil to the frame, usually the "down and outward" direction, is doubled, and that is the fitting ED. To reduce this value, select a frame with as small as possible a horizontal width (the "A" measurement, in optical jargon), and as small as possible a bridge size ( the DBL, or distance between lenses). Then, note that the eye should sit as close to the vertical center of the frame as possible, by chance fitting . In sum, you want a frame to be small, and well centered on the eye.

Once you have a good, small style, then choose the lens material, realizing that index is again only one factor. One material, polycarbonate, (aka Lexan), can be ground to 1mm center thickness, and still be safe, whereas regular plastic (CR39) , either in normal index of 1.49 or "hi-index" of up to 1.6, must start at 2.2mm in a "dress" lens. (As opposed to 3mm for safety lenses). Poly is "only" a 1.56 index material, but the ability to start thinner can often give a thinner lens than a 1.6 index lens starting at 2.2 centers. There are glass (HiLite) materials as high as 1.7, but they weigh a ton, compared to poly, so they are seldom used anymore. Poly has a few bonus features, too, such as natural UV adsorbtion without any special treatment, and unbelievable impact resistance. A poly spectacle lens will stop a .32 calibre slug point-blank. A 1.6 high-index CR lens would be toast.

Finally, always ask to have the edge of the lens polished, instead of leaving it dull, and the lens will look thinner. Avoid light cosmetic tints, as they make the edge show more. You can now get photochromic lenses in poly, but they are a bit pricey. Anti-reflection coats also will make a lens look thinner, but they are a BITCH to keep clean, so I usually dont recommend them except to really technically sophistocated people who are total clean freaks.

If you notice your picture, your thinnest specs are the smallest. If you took the big old pilot shape on the left, and did them in poly or hi-index, they would still be pretty thick. -Dr Mikee

This is set to be the US's replacement to the venerable M-16. Stocked with more electronics than a MFer, check it out here.

This is the OCIW of which I speak. -Raul

I have a big puffball running around here somewhere, but she's a dog, not a 14 pound mushroom. Read about it here.

Say what

The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.