We only had eleven Trick-or-Treaters last night, in four groups: twin pirates who were so young they couldn't say Trick or Treat or walk down the stairs on their own, twin tigers who were also under the age of 3, a group of four which somehow included one of the twin tigers, and a group of three teenagers who didn't dress up. That's a trend I've seen in my two Halloweens as a candy-giver: kids in middle school no longer dress up for Halloween because they're too cool, but they expect candy anyways. Kids also don't say Thank You anymore and even have trouble with Trick or Treat, opting sometimes to just hold their bags open instead.

I took the remainder of my candy to work and dumped it on my desk for the passerby.

I voted today. Did you? I arrived at 6 AM and voted a half hour later after waiting in an endless line, just before the terrorists blew up the elementary school. Ironically, they were targetting a school play that was going to villify the Pilgrims and the damage to the voters was incidental.

November will be just like October. Prepare yourself for another month of endless news stories and postulation on voter fraud.

Mike wrote an interesting, thoughtful post yesterday on work .

Did anyone seriously expect a different outcome? I was hoping for a little rioting. I need a new stereo.

I think it's interesting that I live in a neighbourhood that's probably 70% Hispanic, but there wasn't a single Hispanic at the polling place on Tuesday morning.

I recently picked up the first season of the series, Arrested Development, the comedy/mockumentary on Fox that got an Emmy but no one watched last year. It's very funny in a dry, sarcastic sort of way. Pick it up if that's your style.

I think it's great that one of the supporting arguments for Bush's MANDATE OF THE GODS!! is that "George Bush has received more popular votes than any President in the history of the US." Eat your heart out, Thomas Jefferson.

I decided not to go into work this weekend, for the first time in a month or so. On Saturday, my dad and I poured the concrete for the sidewalk that now runs the length of my driveway, and removed a crab apple tree from the front yard. Yesterday, Anna and I went out to one of those Corn Mazes in The Plains, Virginia. It was nice afternoon and a cute little romp through corn, but would probably have been much better during peak season or at night -- the corn was dying off and most of the stalks could be seen over.

It's been awhile since I had a news graphic on a news post.

I just got spam from Minotaur K. Barbarossa for online drugs. I guess email from Joe Johnson just isn't believable anymore.

Anna won tickets to a local Avril Lavigne concert tonight by answering silly questions on a radio morning show. I just gained $20 from a memory card rebate I mailed in about six months ago. Sounds like a watershed day in the history of the Uri! Zone.

Holidays in the middle of the week are stupid. I'll be going in to work regardless and my commute can't get any shorter, no matter how many cars are on the road.

Traitor's Knot, Part 4 of 5 of Book III of V of the Wars of Light and Shadows is coming out soon -- this is the only fantasy series that I really eat up. The last book came out in January 2002. For more exposition on this series, see my news posts from 12/8/01, 1/29/02, and 2/13/04.

Happy Birthday Kelley Corbett!

This is a great parable for our time: . Just a day after the hubbub surrounding the showing of Saving Private Ryan during Primetime, CBS interrupted the final minutes of CSI: NY to scoop Arafat's death. CBS has now apologized to the billion irate CSI fans, promising to reair the CSI: NY episode in place of a repeat of a CSI: SOMEWHERE ELSE episode tonight.

Firefox 1.0 came out a couple days ago. The footprint is much smaller than the release candidate and things work well so far. Give it a try at www.mozilla.org if you're tired of IE bloat and vulnerabilities.

What this site is missing is more cat videos.

What this site is missing is more cat videos.

What this site is missing is more cat photos .

Lost is on tonight.

What this site is missing is more cat photos. But I'm out of those, so you'll have to settle for more BU and House pictures .

Now that I've caught up with all the movies and pictures since September, you'd think I'd have a backlog of interesting content to resume news updates with.

There's talk of making a sequel to Mrs. Doubtfire . I always figured that Mrs. Doubtfire was a member of that modular one-of-a-kind lowbrow comedy like Crocodile Dundee and Home Alone (at least until they lost their membership for having sequels), but I guess a talented writer can come up with a believable reason for Robin Williams to again dress up as a woman to save his children. No doubt in this one, Sally Fields dies and social services plans to take away the kids unless Robin Williams hires a nanny, but he can't afford a nanny so he becomes one and hilarious antics ensue. This will be followed by a sequel to Howard the Duck.

Speaking of Robin Williams, has anyone seen that Comedy Central gem of his standup routine from the early 80s where he's stoned out of his mind and trying to get the audience to laugh, but no one's stepping up?

I've been keeping pretty busy with work, but have devoted most of my recent spare time with a new Warcraft 3 mod. Onslaught is a combination of Unreal Tournament 2K4: Onslaught and Footmen Frenzy, written in pure JASS which I learned specifically for this map . Give it a try if you're a fan of Warcraft mods -- Version 1.1 was just released today.

Yesterday, Florida-Mike released the stylized version of chompy.urizone.net . There's no good reason to call him Florida-Mike since I know no other Mikes at the moment.

If I don't learn anything else at work, I know that basura means 'trash'. That's what we have to write on anything not in the wastebasket, or else no one will collect it at the end of the day.

Sorry for the recent lapse in updating -- I've been pretty busy at work. Yesterday, I had Thanksgiving with Kathy & Chris in Falls Church and made some cheddar cheese soup. I just got home from work a little bit ago, and now it's time to do some cleaning.

Sitting busy.