~ netscape 6 unscientific discoveries:

   slower to open
   slower to get pages
   faster to load pages

   crashed alone 5 times in one hour
   crashed each time trying to load aim
   error when checking mail – every time
   rollover images fail
   unwanted margin and toolbars appear in pop-ups

~ machine updates:
   1) the angry red planet fleet mazda has been returned from the shop, now containing a ‘used’ air flow meter – a bargain at barely over $300!
   2)angry still has redhat 6.2 purring like a kitten under its coffee stained hood, but the linux has yet been fully explored as the monitor still waits to be configured properly. we have been directed to the proper config file, and have been brushing up on our vi., but we have yet to uncover the specs for the monitor. it is a packard bell 1020; there is no support on the packard bell website [w] (when it comes up, that is), and the support page to which we are redirected [w] seems to offer up nothing unless you subscribe to their pay service. so, if anyone has documentation or information on a 14″ packard bell 1020, please get in touch with our linux crew.
   3)planet has broken the 900 mp3 threshold.

~ lots of friends coming in these days, from our friends at star*1 [w] and from belligerent posts to various school [w] intranets and message boards. welcome aboard.

~ the angry red thesis is still languishing.

~ swapped out the ram, every combination of the cards brought the same ‘signal 11’ error. managed to pillage the desk of an absent student, providing a second monitor for the cause. now that we don’t have to share a monitor with ‘planet’, the failures should be coming much more rapidly.

~ if the f.c.c. claims that less than 3million of the 50million u.s. internet users have ‘highspeed’ access [fcc.gov], the only use of having the post office [usps.com] assigning email accounts to every address in the country (presumably including the 250million folks who do *not* have internet access) is that u.s.-approved email would facilitate the operation of the f.b.i.’s carnivore [fbi.gov]. i wonder if ten days is enough time for them to write a dummy code to turn over to epic [epic.org].

~ janet reno muses that a softer name like ‘tea time’ or ‘cinnamon’ might ease concerns over a program which sifts though an isp’s email; perhaps i wouldn’t mind being monitored by ‘vegan’ [w].

~ the angry red planet has been removed from service for the past week due to another two-pronged assault on its operations. last thursday, while the angry red machine rested alone, somehow havoc was wrought against its ‘tcp’ installations, causing internet connectivity to come to a halt and inspiring a half-dozen hikes to the local library to visit micr*s*ft’s support and downloads pages. a day after this ‘crash’, while driving through ‘mossland’, the mazda 323 suffered a fatal electrical problem which has rendered it useless to this day. it’s carcass sits in the road outside the angry red office, with its tags still fresh from the previous week’s $400 emission repairs.

~ the very first information that the restored internet connection was that lars ulrich had testified before the senate over napster [w].

~ after viewing a rock-and-roll show in santa ana on saturday, i explained to my companion the good-natured contempt i have often seen expressed towards drummers: ‘who’s that guy hanging out with the musicians?…the drummer.’ we challenged ourselves to name by name a ‘famous’ drummer, and the best only names we came up with were neal pert and the drummer for van halen, whose name i have subsequently forgotten in the past two days. i wonder how someone as prolific and clearly as renaissance as lars ulrich escaped our attention; after all, you may remember, he is testifying to the u.s.senate about napster [w].