60 pounds of marijuana found along Florida highway by poilce.
There is probably some state code that requires police to inform the public if something is found that is over $x in value, because they’ve provided the phone number to call if the owner wishes to claim their property. Of course, they don’t say what will happen next.

source (with fun photo)

I have this friend. They are obsessed with the British author, Charles Dickens, and have used a Dickens character as their web identity for quite awhile – handles, domain names, email usernames, etc.

Well, I just heard from this friend that they recently received an email addressed to a person with a foreign sounding name, with an attached excel spreadsheet, supposedly containing information the recipient needed for a conference at which they were speaking.

They were about to delete it as potential viral spam. Not about to open the spreadsheet. When they realized there weren’t any spelling errors in the email. So they did a google search on the intended recipient’s name and realized this was a real person, who was obviously also a fan of Dickens, as their email address was online in multiple places, and they used the exact same username as this friend of mine. Different email provider, but my friend uses a common email provider that a secretary could easily accidentally tack on to a username.

So now this friend of mine had an ethical issue to pursue. The first task was easy. They sent an email to the secretary and told this secretary they had emailed the wrong person, and even provided the secretary with the correct email address, and the website they had found the email address on. The secretary couldn’t possibly have asked for anything more. My friend could have forwarded the email to the intended recipient, but decided that would just embarrass the organization that had misdirected the email, and it was an easy mistake to make.

But the ethical issue: to open the spreadsheet or delete unread. The intended recipient seemed to be a cool guy from all the information gleaned from various websites. Politically active on the ‘correct’ side of issues from my friend’s perspective. This friend of mine has only one complaint. They wish the contents were more interesting than they turned out to be. They want to be privy to information they aren’t supposed to be privy to. I told my friend they shouldn’t have opened the excel spreadsheet. That it was wrong. They asked me what I would have done. I guess I don’t know the answer to that question.

1) Health

Good health is relative. In January of 1986, at age 17, I lay in a hospital bed paralyzed from the neck down. As I slowly recovered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, through observation of other patients at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, I realized I was lucky. I spent four months of my life in the hospital, then a few more months in a wheelchair, a few more with a walker/cane, but by September I was walking on my own.

Today, I am not in as good of shape as I’d like to be. I’d like to lose about twenty pounds. But beyond being overweight, I am generally healthy, for which I am thankful.

2) Close Family

Talking with others, I know my family is unusual. We are all speaking with one another, we get along well, and there’s no one I can think of in my extended family – parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins – who I have to put up a false front to get along with whenever I see them. On the contrary, if asked about each of my relatives, I think I would put a check mark by each one and say that I would rather see them more often, than less often.

3) Friends

I have developed a lot of good friendships over the past fifteen years in the science fiction fan community, as well as through my writer’s group, and at poetry open mics. At my high school’s twentieth reunion in September I was reminded that I had for the most part lost all contact with my high school friends. There are some signs that some of those friendships could be reestablished.

You can run, but you can’t hide!

It seems Neil Diamond and myself have something in common. He has just admitted, that at age 29, he wrote the song Sweet Caroline about none other than Caroline Kennedy, after he saw a photograph of her. She was only 12 years old. There are some rather disturbing lyrical images in the song when you consider he was 29 and she was 12. (“Hands touchin’ hands reachin’ out touchin’ me touchin’ you..”)

And Drew Barrymore was only 9 in 1984 when Firestarter was released. Of course, I was only 15. So it’s not really as bad. And of course, I didn’t write a hit song.

Cleaning personnel unlock bedroom door in hostel to find resident wearing a tshirt, and ‘riding’ a bicycle, in an unseemly fashion.

This was reported to the police, and found to be illegal.

My guess is the bicycle didn’t consent.

It’s only 4 days away, so to prepare:

We start off with An Addam’s Family Thanksgiving

We proceed to the classic WKRP segment no Thanksgiving tribute would be complete without:

The Drop:

The Resolution:

Since William S Burroughs is a famous local-boy with his own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, here’s a video of WSB himself reading his poem; “Thanksgiving Day, Nov 28, 1986″ (Contains some language some might find obscene)

For something a little offbeat, and a little more family friendly:

“Aren’t You Glad You’re Not a Turkey?” (a performance by a music director of some synagogue somewhere. Wish it were my own. Or I’m glad it’s not my own. Haven’t decided yet.)

And for those who like instructional how-tos:

How to Butter Bake your Turkey (tv commercial circa 1959)

There was an award-winning SF Novella a few years back entitled, Bears Discover Fire. A scary tale that was. However, it was fiction.

It appears Bears may have discovered Cars!

Police in New Jersey say a black bear is suspected of stealing a people carrier and taking it for a spin.

Officer Dave Dehardt found the vehicle by the side of the road near Vernon Township, reports Court TV.

The passenger window had been broken and the door panels were damaged.

Police spokesman Det Sean Talt said: “He determined it was a bear because of all the bear hair inside.

Only one question: was it determined to be bear hair through genetic testing…or does the Detective know Bear Hair when he sees it?

Could it have been a large dog named Cujo?

In case you haven’t seen it yet, The Daily Show writers present the “Not The Daily Show” explanation of the writer’s strike.

Less humorous presentations from United Hollywood

In short…don’t piss on writers, because writers know how to write!

National Novel Writing Month pariticipants in several localities are competing against each other for most words written gross, and most words written per person. These are called Word Wars.

Here are the current stats for St. Louis and our chosen competitors:

Don’ t tell anyone, but at least one St. Louis participant hasn’t updated their word count online since the first night, and that’s not because they haven’t written anything since. So the St. Louis per-person average is a little lower than actuality. Of course, this could be true in the other localities as well.