Bruner Blog

It is just me (and Tig and Tom) or have comment spammers severely stepped up operations lately? I’m getting hammered with the crap in the last week or so. Any other bloggers out there notice a recent spike?

http://blogs.msdn.com/David_Gristwood/archive/2004/06/24/164849.aspx

Fun with Flash from Super-Jam.com.

Complete photo gallery here.

…is on my inner thigh.

(Yes, I’m drinking alone at home again.)

UPDATE:

1. This post has caused me blogger’s regret. Seemed funny at the time (as I was writhing in pain after trying to pinch it just before posting this) but just pathetic and gross in retrospect

2. It’s really more of a very frustrated zit than a boil
3. You may be pleased to know it’s almost gone

http://www.newcomicreviews.com/temp/spidey/rotate.php

Egad! I just found out that Miki is not hosting his fabulous 4th of July party this year! I had totally come to take it for granted. Now what the hell will we do? Any suggestions?

I just learned that an old journalist friend of mine died a year ago in Iraq in a car accident.

In the last two years of my period living in Budapest, 1994-1995, I was the offical correspondent for the Boston Globe, and Elizabeth was the Europe bureau chief. In fact, she was the whole bureau, covering the continent from Portugal to Yugoslavia.

In fact, I only met her in person once or twice, but we talked numerous times on the phone. I was relatively inexperienced working for a real newspaper, and she was always helpful in areas such as advising me on crafting my story pitches and even stories for the editors back in Boston, as well as negotiating the politics of the paper. Although constantly harried in terms of her work schedule, she was consistently cheerful, ready with a chummy laugh and generous in big-sisterly mentorship.

In subsequent years, I would hear her periodically giving interviews on NPR shows from places including Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. I’m very sorry to hear belatedly that her brave, warm and intelligent voice has been silenced forever.

Groucho Marx, singing Father’s Day.

(Thanks, Olivier, for tracking it down!)

I think I’m turning into the old Elizabeth Spiers. Not only do I want to marry Jonathan Franzen, but I’m thinking about taking up stalking Christopher Hitchens as well.

The guy’s liberal credentials are unimpeachable and his intellect is simply so far out there it’s creepy. Yet, like me, he’s morphed into some weird new kind of liberal foreign policy hawk. Please, someone, buy me all of his books for Christmas (since you just missed my birthday).

And, as if I didn’t love him enough already, in this Slate piece he tears Michael Moore a new one so wide you could just give Moore a gentle poke and his whole blubbery mass would just snap insideout, his stupid, greasy baseball cap landing gently on top. It’s really must-read stuff.

Also, while you’re at it, listen to an interview with the Wise One on the Brian Lehrer Show yesterday on why the war in Iraq is still a good idea, among other topics.

It’s nice to be loved.

In memory of our dearly departed friend, who unfortunately cannot be with us to celebrate, the NYBlog Sick & Benevolent Society presents the First Annual Paul Frankenstein Memorial Big Apple Blogger Bash.

When ? Friday, July 9th @ 7:00 p.m.

Where ? Siberia Bar, 346 W. 40th Street. (between 8th & 9th, there’s no sign so just look for the red light over the door).

Who ? Bloggers, friends of bloggers, people who read blogs, people who think they might know someone who blogs.

Please join us for a night of fond memories and stories of Paul, excessive ’social’ drinking, and bitter recriminations.

The fine print notes that Paul is not actually dead, just traveling for the summer, but bloggers don’t need much excuse for an elbow bender. Rather than being flattered, Paul, who IMed me with the details, finds the whole thing a bit creepy. In a sweet way.

From Salon.com’s article “Hail to the Moon King”:

June 21, 2004 | You probably imagine your congressman hard at work in the Capitol debating legislation, making laws — you know, governing. But your newspaper probably didn’t tell you that one night in March, members of Congress hosted a crowning ritual for an ex-convict and multibillionaire who dressed up in maroon robes and declared himself the Second Coming.

On March 23, the Dirksen Senate Office Building was the scene of a coronation ceremony for Rev. Sun Myung Moon, owner of the conservative Washington Times newspaper and UPI wire service, who was given a bejeweled crown by Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill. Afterward, Moon told his bipartisan audience of Washington power players he would save everyone on Earth as he had saved the souls of Hitler and Stalin — the murderous dictators had been born again through him, he said. In a vision, Moon said the reformed Hitler and Stalin vouched for him, calling him “none other than humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.”

To many observers, this bizarre scene would have looked like the apocalypse as depicted in “Left Behind” novels. Moon, 84, the benefactor of conservative foundations like the American Family Coalition — who served time in the 1980s for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice — has views somewhere to the right of the Taliban’s Mullah Omar. Moon preaches that gays are “dung-eating dogs,” Jews brought on the Holocaust by betraying Jesus, and the U.S. Constitution should be scrapped in favor of a system he calls “Godism” — with him in charge. The man crowned “King of Peace” by congressmen once said, according to sermons reprinted in his church’s Unification News: “Suppose I were to hit you with the baseball bat to stop you, bloodying your ear and breaking a bone or two, yet still you insisted on doing more work for Father.”

Click just for the crazy photo, even if you’re not going to read it all.

We all know that Hallmark started Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc. But what’s the process for doing so? Here are some holidays I’d like to suggest:

• Divorcee Day
• Step-Parent Day
• Unemployee Day
• Thanks Again for Getting That Abortion Day
• Beloved Pet Day
• Lovable Loser Day
• …

Seemed funny before I actually typed it up.

I don’t know the story behind this picture. A friend just sent it to me. I’m trying to get clarification. Photoshop? The woman is 3 feet tall? It’s actually a small kid in a cat suit? All I know is, if it’s a real cat, it could eat my two cats for breakfast.

UPDATE:
Thanks to Erika Herzog for directing me to Snopes.com for details on this photo, the ultimate source for validating or refuting the incredible things you find online. Snopes concludes the photo is real and includes other shots of the woman (Martha) with the cat (Riley). I was right (in private conversations — something I neglected to blog) that the cat is a Maine Coon, the largest breed of domestic house cat. Apparently, the woman is short, the cat is fluffy and the perspective of the photo exaggerates the cat’s proportions. The cat, nonetheless, is big: 24 pounds at the time of this photo.

UPDATE: Of course, the morning after I posted this rant, The Gmail Team got my account fixed at last…

For all the controversy over Google’s Gmail service, let me say that not only is it over-rated (as much as I got to play with it, anyway), it’s also hosed or easily hackable or something, and the support service sucks eggs.

Basically, I got an early trial account, played with it a bit but quickly fell into the habit of checking it only once a week or so. So, one day, about a month ago, I went to check it and I couldn’t log in. Password problem. Since I use the same password for virtually all sites like this, so that didn’t seem right.

Of course, I tried the “Forgot your password?” link, but the question it prompted me with (”What was your first phone number?”) is definitely not something I would have chosen (I have no idea anymore what my first phone number was). Again, I almost always use the same question to prompt my password, and that wasn’t it. Moreover, a few weeks later, when I tried again, I was prompted with a different question.

If you can’t come up with the right answer to the question, it asks you to enter an alternate email address that you should have registered with and it will email you a password prompt there. I did so, but I never got any such email back from them.

So, I complained to my friend at Google who hooked me up in the first place, though he has nothing to do with the Gmail division. He suggested I try the http://gmail.google.com/support/ URL. Great, except for one thing: you have to log in to access that page!

So, I looked around on the site for an email address I could write to for some support. I looked and looked and looked and couldn’t find anything. Finally, I searched via Google and found gmail-support@google.com listed on someone else’s blog. So I wrote that.

After several days, I got a response (signed, in every case, “The Gmail Team”). Long story short, we’ve had several rounds back and forth, the upshot seems to be that they’ve aware that various Gmail accounts are getting hacked and hijacked. (I know I’m not alone, because my buddy Lindsay is blogging about a similar problem.)

Anyway, The Gmail Team ultimately sent me an email saying the problem was all cleared up and I should log back in and reset my password. But, guess what? I CAN’T! They sent me a link to reset my password, but it expired one hour after they sent it to me, and I didn’t click it in time. I continue to try to have it send me a new URL I can click, but it continues not to send me anything, and The Gmail Team hasn’t responded in two days…

The best irony was that, because I was an early beta tester, Google actually linked to my original blog comment about the service among reviews they posted about the service on this link — http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/reviews.html — but that link is now dead!