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So I use AOL-IM heavily. For people who don't know, it's a very decent "instant messenger" program, to 'chat' with people online, one line of text at a time. For some reason I've always been secretive about my nickname (kirkjerk), but I realize that's kind of silly...it has very good blocking features, and I have never gotten "spam" while on it. (Unlike one of its main rivals, ICQ.) Anyway, it always makes a noise when someone from my "buddy list" logs into it, and being the micromanager that I am, I always go and peek. And I'm realizing it's such a bummer when a buddy logs on, then off, it always feels like a rejection, they were looking for someone to chat with and I didn't make the cut.

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Funny of the Moment

According to a film my wife saw in her philosophy class, Bertrand Russell received a letter from a woman who proclaimed herself a solipsist. She went on to say that she was surprised that there weren't more solipsists.

This is kind of an obscure joke, in fact I didn't get it until I did a websearch on Google. Solipsism is the belief that everything except yourself is illusionary. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream, that kind of thing. Obviously it's not a belief that promotes prostelytization, why bother to covert imaginary beings that they're the only unimaginary part of the universe. (I suppose there could be an aggressive form of solipsism where you try to convince everyone else that they don't exist, but I haven't heard much about that.) Here's a link on Applied Solipsism , might as well just make your webpage for yourself since everyone else is just a figment of your imagination anyway! Most 'Blogs seem to work on this principle.

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Link of the Moment
A shallow analysis of Osama's beard. But the English edition of Pravda is really interesting. It's a whole 'nother viewpoint from most Western papers, and the translation seems to be a little rough, so it carries a strong sense of other-ness.