No comment

I just don't know how to respond to this...
The ideological librarians

Sunset

Here's a sunset I snagged a photo of in Casper, WY last week.

The face

My Charnel House limited and book-on-CD editions of Koontz's The Face have arrived and the appropriate information has been updated in the ms. No word back from Rich at CD yet so I'm still stalled on when/how to turn in the completed ms.

Cursor miner's library

If only everyone had this opinion of libraries and librarians. (Flash w/ audio)

"Special" gold box savings

Here's a great deal from Amazon.com's gold box. It seems that through this offer, I can actually pay more than usual for the item.

Casper mountain high

I've been in Casper,WY since Sunday and I'm heading to Cheyenne later today. The last two evenings I spent biking around the top 500 feet of Casper Mountain. Here's a picture of the view from the top (8,300 ft) and the view from Crimson Dawn Park (7,950 ft).

What's in your arsenal?

I found this on Amazon.com today. The first one made me think it was a glitch in the system. The second made me think otherwise. The third is what all of them should have read.

What if jesus worked in the library

"The Real Jesus" by James Quinn

The dmca has too much power, spuprise!

According to this article, "Privacy latest salvo in DMCA war" from C|Net, Congress gave gay pornographers significant supoena powers and are now regretting it.

A downloader goes up the river

A very insightful interview with an MP3 downloader now serving time in a supermax.

Ashcroft followup

Here is a link to the complete text of Ashcroft's remarks yesterday:
Prepared Remarks of Attorney General Ashcroft "The Proven Tactics in the Fight against Crime" Washington, D.C.

The Onion had this to say about the PATRIOT ACT:
"Revised Patriot Act Will Make It Illegal To Read Patriot Act
WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush spoke out Monday in support of a revised version of the 2001 USA Patriot Act that would make it illegal to read the USA Patriot Act. "Under current federal law, there are unreasonable obstacles to investigating and prosecuting acts of terrorism, including the public's access to information about how the federal police will investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism," Bush said at a press conference Monday. "For the sake of the American people, I call on Congress to pass this important law prohibiting access to itself." Bush also proposed extending the rights of states to impose the death penalty "in the wake of Sept. 11 and stuff."

Late in the day the ALA issued this press release which stated:
"Today, American Library Association (ALA) President Carla Hayden welcomed a telephone call from U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. In the call, the Attorney General expressed his concern that people have misunderstood his commitment to civil liberties and committed to declassify the Justice Department report on Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act."

Good ol' ashcroft

Today Ashcroft Mocks Librarians calling them 'hysterics' over the PARTIOT ACT. The ALA responded with their typically long-winded URL.

New koontz appearance

My copy of To Wake the Dead by Richard Laymon arrived today. Since Dean wrote the introduction it will be included in the Collector's Guide.

Two chips for the price of one

Intel chips to do double duty
"What we are doing is creating virtual machines inside the microprocessor," Otellini said. "You can run multiple versions of Windows or different operating systems."

Dean koontz in braille

I've received my copy of Expectations 2002 from The Braille Institute. It contains a reprint of Dean's poem "Snowland" from The Paper Doorway. This item will be included in the Collector's Guide.

Photo

Here's a photo of a Rocky Mountain sunrise I took at 6.30am on 09.12.03

Proof!

Kansas is flatter than a pancake!

A different perspective

[Thanks again Louise]
Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorish since 1492

There's nothing like telling the future of last year

Check out the advertisement near the bottom of this page from 9.11.2003. Just in case they change the ad, here it is:

The beeb online

According to this Slate article the BBC is looking to put it's complete archive of programming online, get this, for free!

More on the partiot act

Should you be scared of the Patriot Act? Read this Slate.com article and decide for yourself.

More on 9/11

Here's an interesting and enlightening article on the six biggest myths of 9/11.

Digital first-sale rights

This article on the resale of an iTues song is interesting in it's own right but this paragraph really caught my attention:

"Under the "first sale" doctrine, the owner of a lawful copy of a work is allowed to sell it without the permission of the copyright owner. But a recent study of the first sale doctrine from the U.S. Copyright Office suggested that the doctrine does not apply to digital goods, because such transfers imply making a copy of the work--something that's not explicitly addressed in the doctrine."

Bush/Cheney 2004 bumper stickers

[thanks Louise]
With the presidential election wind-up already in full swing, the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign has been hard at work developing a list of bumper-stickers. Which do you prefer?

Bush/Cheney '04: Four More Wars!
Bush/Cheney '04: Assimilate. Resistance is Futile.
Bush/Cheney '04: Apocalypse Now!
BU_ _SH_ _!
Bush/Cheney '04: Because the truth just isn't good enough.
Bush/Cheney '04: Compassionate Colonialism
Bush/Cheney '04: Deja-voodoo all over again!
Bush/Cheney '04: Don't Change Whores in Midstream
Bush/Cheney '04: Get used to it!
Bush/Cheney '04: In your heart, you know they're technically correct.
Bush/Cheney '04: Leave no billionaire behind
Bush/! Cheney '04: Less CIA -- More CYA
Bush/Cheney '04: Lies and videotape but no sex!
Bush/Cheney '04: Making the world a better place, one country at a time.
Bush/Cheney '04: Or else.
Bush/Cheney '04: Over a billion Whoppers served.
Bush/Cheney '04: Putting the "con" in conservatism
Bush/Cheney '04: Thanks for not paying attention.
Bush/Cheney '04: The economy's stupid!
Bush/Cheney '04: The last vote you'll ever have to cast.
Bush/Cheney '04: This time, elect us!
Bush/Cheney '04: We're Gooder!
Bush/Cheney: Asses of Evil
Don't think. Vote Bush!
George W. Bush: A brainwave away from the presidency
George W. Bush: It takes a village idiot
George W. Bush: Leadership without a doubt
George W. Bush: The buck sto! ps Over There
God Save the King!
Let them eat yellowcake! Vote Bush!
Peace & Prosperity Suck -- Big-Time
Vote Bush in '04: "I Has Incumbentory Advantitude"
Vote Bush in '04: "Because every vote counts -- for me!"
Vote Bush in '04: "Because I'm the President, that's why!"
Vote Bush in '04: Because dictatorship is easier
Vote Bush in '04: It's a no-brainer!
Vote for Bush & You Get Dick!
Who would Jesus Bomb?

This blog to go pro

It seems that since Google now owns blogger.com (host of this site) their "pro" features will become free soon. Watch for me to take advantage of them ASAP, especially the creation of an RSS feed.

Presenting

Tomorrow night I'm giving a presentation at the Aurora Public Library titled "The Art of Book Collecting for Beginners". The room holds 40 but library has allowed 50 to sign up (assuming 10 people won't show) and we've already scheduled a second session for November which currently has an enrollment of over 30. Gee, I hope this first one tomorrow goes well...

Dean koontz book additions

Since I've not yet heard back from my publisher, items continue to be added to the book. Since it comes out on the 23^rd (my birthday btw) Ever Day's a Holiday: Amusin Rhymes for Happy Times will be inlcuded. Also Bently Little's The Policy and Richard Laymon's No Sanctuary will be included in the appropriate appendix.

Finally

For those of you keeping track, I finally closed on my ReFi Monday night. (O.k. I'm a little behind on posting things here...) This puts me well on track to being completely debt free and into a new house in two years.

RIAA settles

This morning the RIAA settled the first of their 261 recent lawsuits agains muic swappers. They settled with a 12-year-old!

Late in the afternoon P2P United [no link available] offered to pay the settlement for her.

New find & new item

The new paperback printing of Lightning came out today. It includes a 'new' afterword by Dean a-la Phantoms, Watchers, Strangers and Whispers. (None of these 'new' afterwords are actually new. In Lightning's case, the essay was previously printed in Useless News. In the others the 'new' afterwords were previously printed as forewords in the Dean Koontz Signature Series editions.)

I've also run across an image of Invasion in The Great American Paperback. I was just flipping through the pages and stumbled over it. The interesting bit is that dispite Dean being mentioned in the picure's caption, it is not listed under his name in the index. Both of these items will be included in the book.

Not new but definitely improved

I've reformatted the online version of my recent RSS article. It is now much easier to read and more closely resembles the layout of the printed article.

Remembering 9.11

Some libraries are pledging to stay open for 24 hours on September 11th.

Author photo

This evening I heard Marisol speak. A photo can be found on my author photos page.

Koontz book status & new item

I'm waiting to hear back from Rich at Cemetery Dance on some questions I have to answer before I can submit the manuscript. As soon as I hear back from him I'll get to finalizing the book. Also, I've received my advance copy of Odd Thomas so it will be included in the book.

Time travel spam

Wired.com has the story behind the spam looking for a warp generator and other non-existent technology.

GeoCaching

Due to Annie having her right (it's on the left when I'm looking at it...) big toenail removed, GeoCaching in the back woods of Aspen-Snowmass was out of the question. So instead we looked for a couple of USGS Benchmarks. We found KL0303 but we believe KL0305 is long gone.