From Fridayfive.org.

1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)?
I am definitely a periodicals kind of person–specialized magazines pertaining to my favorite interests. Fortune, Wired, Business Week, and Entertainment Weekly are all regulars for me.

2. What is your favorite novel?
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!)
No, I don’t have a favorite poem, but I do have a favorite rap song. I’ll share the first verse of Hard Knock Life by Jay-Z. For those that are not rap connoisseurs, this is the song with the Annie musical chorus. You may have heard it:

From standin’ on the corners boppin’
To drivin’ some of the hottest cars New York has ever seen
To droppin’ some of the hottest verse that rap has ever heard
From the dope spot, with the smoked Glock fleein’ the murder scene
You know me well, from nightmares of a lonely cell, my only hell
But since when y’all niggaz know me to fail? Fuck naw
We all my niggaz with the rubber grips, for shots
And if you with me mah I’m rubbin’ your tits, and what-not
I’m from the school of the hard knocks, we must not
Let outsiders violate our blocks, and my plot
Let’s stick up the world and split it fifty-fifty, uh-huh
Let’s get the dough and stay real jiggy, uh-huh
And sip the Cris’ and get pissy-pissy
Flow infinitely like the memory of my nigga Biggie, Bay-beh!
You know it’s hell when I come through
The life and times of Shawn Carter nigga Volume 2

4. What is one thing you’ve always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read?
I don’t think I get to read enough interface and conversions functional design documents (inside joke). Really though, I wish I had time to finish reading the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I am half way done through The Two Towers and want to finish the Trilogy someday soon.

5. What are you currently reading?
Interface and conversions functional design documents and control matrices–lots of them.

An 80-year-old man in London was called up by the Ministry of Defence to help the U.S. fight the upcoming war in Iraq. This is proof positive that Tony Blair is so far up Dubya’s butt he can’t see sunlight. More importantly though, it also means that the powers that be know that war is definitely coming. We’ll see what happens.

A Texas judge ordered a defendant’s mouth taped shut with duct tape after the defendant refused to be quiet. I didn’t know whether or not to title this, “Reason Not to Go to Texas No. 749.” Ultimately though, taping someone’s mouth shut is one of many uses for duct tape. Since we all know it also fights terrorism–thanks to homeland security.

The new trend in blogging is mobile blogging, or “mobblogging.” This is when people update their blogs using a cellphone or a Blackberry mobile device. The next big thing in mobblogging is audioblogging. This is where bloggers call a phone number and leave an audio message that is published to their blogs as an audio file. This may be done in lieu of or beside of a text message. Personally, I like blogging from my laptop–the old fashioned way.

Check out this website that shows worldwide images of the anti-war marches that took place on February 15th. Big ups to Maria Labos for sending me the link.

A French chef kills himself after an influential food guide lowers their rating of his restaurant. Although I admire passionate people, there’s nothing serious enough to justify suicide. Funny, the French don’t want a fight with Iraq but can kill themselves over food. Well, at least they have their priorities straight.

A strange balloon accident occured in the Napa Valley wine country today. A tourist was holding onto the basket of a balloon as it was being inflated and failed to release the basket as the balloon took flight. He eventually let go of the basket and fell to his death. Nena has nothing to do with this, but I thought of the song when I read the story. Oh, the power of word association.

A woman in Indonesia claims that a genie broke into her house and circumcised her 10-month-old son while she was cooking breakfast. She heard crying in the bedroom and rushed in to see her son had been circumcised. I doubt that this was the work of Barbara Eden. That’s one genie I don’t want visiting me in the middle of the night, or the day for that matter.

It reminds me of an old genie joke:

A guy is walking on a beach and finds a bottle. He rubs it and a genie comes out and says, “Greetings master, I can grant you one wish.” The guy says, “Hey, I though that I was supposed to get three wishes.” The genie says, “Not today, so make it a good one.”

Having just broken up with his girlfriend after she complained of his “size” the guy was feeling very dejected so he exclaimed, “I want my dick to be long enough to touch the ground!” The genie said “Ok” and chopped his legs off.

The 45th Annual Grammy Awards show will air tonight and I feel absolutely no excitement about the show this year. Perhaps it’s because the state of music is pretty grim–there just isn’t a lot of good artists to choose from in a lot of the categories. Or is it that we are tired of the Grammys missing the boat and giving awards to irrelevant artists. How can we forget the award going to Jethro Tull instead of Metallica in 1989? Or Steely Dan winning Album of the Year last year? Why don’t we just do an award show honoring all of the great artists that never got Grammys? That would be more entertaining.

Mike Tyson dropped Clifford Etienne in 49 seconds in the first round tonight. Etienne went down hard, man-boobs and all, after being caught by a Tyson right cross. One can’t help but wonder if Etienne threw the fight, since he seemed almost relieved to be laying on the canvas. Tyson later admitted to Jim Gray that the fight was all about the Benjamins. What a shitty fight! Looks like a Lewis vs. Tyson rematch may be looming in the horizon.

From Firdayfive.org.

1. What is your most prized material possession?
Other than my car, my bike and computer are the most expensive things I own. However, my most prized possession would have to be my camera. Oh, and the Tivo. Ok, it’s a three-way tie between my laptop, my camera, and the Tivo. That’s my final answer.

2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest?
I have a couple of books that I’ve had for over ten years. Also, I have a collection of all of the Wired magazine issues for the first five years.

3. Are you a packrat?
No. Other than a few books, the magazine collection, and lots of pictures, I don’t like to keep a lot of things. Melissa is the packrat of the household. She still has a doll she had when she was a little kid in the closet.

4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum?
I like clean, but now that I am married I can live with a little clutter. I think I may just be getting lazier in my old age.

5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there?
Yeah, the theme is “shelves everywhere.” Seriously, living in San Francisco doesn’t allow for apartments or homes with a lot of space. As such, our apartment has a lot of shelving and organizing systems to make the best of the space.

Kobe dropped another 40 on the Jazz last night and continues his amazing run. He has scored 40 or more points in seven straight games and has at least 35 in his last 11. Fuck Mike, I wanna be like Kobe.

Mike Tyson is back in the news again. First, it appeared that he didn’t want to fight and feigned sickness, missing a plane to the Mississippi training site three days in a row. It wasn’t until Showtime announced they would cancel the Etienne fight scheduled for Saturday the 22nd that he decided to show up for training. So he shows up with a tattoo on his face!? He got it ten days before the fight! What the hell was he thinking!? Apparently, Tyson didn’t think that his erratic behavior, violent outbursts, and prison record made him look “scary enough.” Perhaps a bullseye drawn on his face would have been more appropriate. Then Etiennne got cold feet yesterday–it’s crazy. As of this writing, the fight is back on, but who knows what will happen between now and Saturday. One thing is certain, a lot of people want to see this crazy bitch get dropped.

I watched Michael Jackson Unmasked on Dateline last night and was once again shocked to see the transformation that Michael has gone through in the last three decades. The most entertaining part of the special is when Donald Trump is asked, “Do you think he’s aware of the image he now has with people?” His straight response, “I think when Michael looks in the mirror he says, how the fuck did I do this to myself!” I almost pee’d in my pants–Trump’s delivery was comedy–he’s my new hero.

North Korea’s leader lives ghetto fabulous while his people starve. One of his ex-bodyguards has decided to tell the secrets of what he saw during his eleven years of service to the dictator–indoor bodyboarding in wave pools, seven story pleasure palaces, seven luxury homes, and drunken escapades. Read the entire story of Kim Jong-il from someone that was inside his inner circle.

Melissa and I attended the anti-war march in downtown San Francsico and marched from Powell Street to the Civic Center. We were sick and didn’t think we had the strength to walk from Embarcadero so we did what we could. We were shocked to see so many people there. The most people we had ever seen downtown (on Market Street) was during Gay Pride last year, this was easily three times as many people. Our guess is that it was close to 250,000 people. It was amazing to see so many people coming together in support of peace–truly a once in a lifetime event.

Michael Jackson was involved in a civil lawsuit in 1993 where a 13-year-old boy claimed he had been sexually molested by the star. The case was settled out of court for an estimated $15 to $40 million dollars. Page two of the lawsuit explains the sexual molestation in excruciating detail. Check it out. Big ups to Chad for finding the link.

“You are 48% Geek. You probably work in computers, or a history deptartment at a college. You never really fit in with the “normal” crowd. But you have friends, and this is a good thing.”

I heard that in some circles Valentine’s Day is “kiss a geek day.” Be sure to take the Geek Test at fuali.com to find out if you are a geek. If so, get ready for some lovin’. Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

In Sri Lanka, four male government soldiers and three female Tamil Tiger rebels had a fistfight after they disagreed whether the women fighters should be allowed to wear belts to keep their pants up. You can’t make this stuff up!

Duct tape sales have risen amid fears of a terrorist attack. Perhaps the terrorists themselves have increased the demand for duct tape. Did you ever think of that? They have to attach the bombs to their bodies with something and duct tape is not only strong, but very economical.

Experts have said that the public could even use duct tape to combat a chemical weapons attack by making their homes airtight. If you believe that, you’re a moron! Don’t get me wrong, I think duct tape has a lot of uses around the house. But saving me and my family in the event of a chemical or biological weapons attack isn’t one of them–that’s just plain silly.