In the spirit of journalistic integrity, I must correct a previous post. I can’t count. Simply, it boils down to that. Scott is the third, not second moderator of Tuesday Night. The esteemed co-founder of Tuesday Night, Mr. Nanberg, is the second moderator. Other errors that have been in previous posts are corrected below:

• Brian’s laptop did not actual go bang when he hooked up the xterm. It actually went ssssszzzzzpop!

I am, in fact, alive. Yes, I know, I forgot to send an email last week. I know that some of you suffered massive withdrawal… I heard the withdrawal Spendolini actually was twitching in his cube because he did not receive his email. So, to solve this problem of missing emails, I have made a decision… I am going to deputize someone. I am looking for one of you to step up and write an occasional email. Requirements: * Must be willing to write an occasional email. * Must be funny or insane or both * Applicants do not have to have ever been to Toledo Lounge (this puts people like… Beth Tritter or Sergio Leunissen in the running) Benefits Include: * Coveted “Moderator” status * A small electronic soapbox from which you can babble * A captive audience How do I apply? Just send me a sample rant and I’ll go from there… In other news… What a week? What on earth is wrong with humanity? Bombings? Rioting? The new Fall TV lineup? Is it too much to ask to live comfortably and let your neighbor do so too? I had a good flight on United… okay, granted this isn’t a big deal compared to rioting in Israel, but hey, I’m on a plane way too much right now. Okay, so I won’t be around this week… or possibly next week… and definitely not the week after… but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go to Toledo. Kudos to Skippy, Fitz, and XMan for going to Toledo last week.

(Just ‘cuz I’m not at Oracle doesn’t mean you all get a little bit of my insanity in the beginning of the week.) So this is a bit strange… I am at home in my new office… “working!” This is the Washington DC offices for Access360 for a while now… their kinda nice :) As a last prank at Oracle, with the help of Skippy and Fitz, I really pulled a good one of on… Brian Spendolini. Yes, Brian, it is time for a bit (more) of pubic humiliation. Brian needed a monitor. Skippy and Fitz decided that he should get one. So, Skippy and I gave Brian my old xterm and told him it was a monitor. (To fill all you non-propellor heads in, an xterm is essentially the forerunner of a network computer: it is a big, dumb computer that doesn’t really have an operating system or anything like that and is used in conjunction with unix machines. It is NOT a monitor by any stretch of the imagination.) Brian was happy. Then Brian tried to hook the xterm to his laptop. He needed a cable. First he called Skippy, who told him to talk to Fitz, who told him to talk to me. We sent Brian to Fitz’s old cube to rummage through the various boxes of cables. (please be aware there is not way to connect an xterm to a laptop… that’s what we thought.) Brian can’t find the cable and I send him back to Fitz, who sends him on more of a wild goose chase. To make the story a bit shorter, somehow, Brian finds enough cables to link the two together. He hooks them up, flips the power, and bang! a cloud of smoke comes out of his laptop. I get a message from him saying he needs a new mother board to fix his fried monitor port. Needless to say, Brian’s nickname has change from Spendolittle to XMan for getting the xterm to “work” with his laptop.

First, I have to apologize for the late email from Josh, which was my fault. He actually wrote it on the right day, but due to a minor administrative goof, it did not get approved until I got back. Thanks to him for writing something in my absence. Second, the trip was great. Istanbul is amazing. There is nothing like sitting on the deck of a ship under a full moon, surrounded by Asia on one side, Europe on another, and minarets everywhere you look. Besides the Greece/Turkey phase of the trip, I was in Italy in a town called Casino di Terra. The town wasn’t much to speak of, but the villa rocked! Next September, I am definitely going back there… assuming the Sergio has the space for me. On to Paris from there… I really enjoyed Paris this time. I think that has to do with the fact that I have an income now. I don’t think Paris is a really backpacker friendly town… but with a little cash in pocket and a good exchange rate, Paris rocks! When you see them… ask Skippy and/or Fitz about dancing on the bar at a place called Manneken Pis (literally mannequin piss.) So what’s with the email’s tittle? The two major nude beaches on Mykonos are Paradise and Super Paradise. I leave it to you to figure out which one is the gay nude beach. (Trust me… it isn’t to hard to figure out.) To be filed under Season of Change: * Mr. Nanberg is back on the East Coast. He is working (again) from Richard (?!) doing radio work for Hillary’s campaign. I think he is living with family in NYC. There is now a good chance that there will be a Tuesday Night Live from New York City. * Some of you might already know this but, I am leaving Oracle. No, really, I am. After 4 1/4 years, the time feels right for a change. I will be staying in DC. I will continue to call on the Federal government as my customers. I’d be happy to tell you all the details tomorrow night.

It’s silent. It’s small. It’s so damned cute! No, it’s not Mini-Me. It’s The Cube. I got my Cube last week and have been playing with it every time I walk past it. In fact, it is much like the King Crimson song “Discipline” in which the singer is talking about a piece of art he has created and says that he plays little games with it like not looking at it for a while and, making sure he still likes it, he plays with it. The same holds true with the Cube. This is exactly what a computer should be. For the second week in a row, I will be in town. I am not sure what to make of that… kinda strange actually waking up in my own bed so consistently. File this one under strange. Some of you may think that I make up the bizarre things I see or hear; that I have created an elaborately strange world for my own amusement. This is, in fact, not the case. I am not creative enough to come up with things like the bumper sticker I saw on Sunday. it read, “Love me, love my goats.” There is no way to make up something like that, absolutely none.

I’m back! Jeez, what a trip. More transportation hassles… what a surprise. This time I sat at SFO trying to get home while they, “Repaired the backup computer that controls pitch and yaw.” I have no problem waiting for such a repair. News from Tuesday West: Perched high atop a hill, Todd and Josh have set themselves up with a spectacular view of the financial district and PacBell stadium. I was thinking as I was driving straight up, “If San Francisco got even an inch of snow, the city would be paralyzed.” The town is completely ludicrous from the standpoint of snow. I mean, in a storm, not even the most trained sherpas would try to get up those hills. In other news, the average rent for a one bedroom place in SF is $2000. Yikes! Todd was showing me horrid little shacks that are going for $1 million plus. Simply, that’s nuts. Oh… the subject of the email? Strange ’eh? I have a few country-western songs I am thinking of writing. “You’re the dirty that I know” stems from going out with friends on mine in San Francisco. Kelly was attempting not to touch the bus we were in and instead insisted one clinging to Jon causing the two of them to flail about. When asked why she was doing that, she said the bus was dirty. Jon said he was dirty too. Kelly stated that he was the dirty she knew. I liked that. So the song is a girl singing to her recently ex’ed boyfriend on his answering machine. The basic gist she sings is, “You don’t have a job. You’re unkempt. You’re a lay-about. You don’t really shower. You’re dirty, but, having seen what’s out there, you’re the one I want. You’re the dirty that I know.” There’s a second song I have in development too. It’s called, “I’m a dog in a bar (What’s it to ya?!)” Inspired by a man and his pit bull in a bar. The dog came on in and looked around as if to say, “Yeah, I’m a dog in a bar. What’s it to ya?” The main chorus to the song goes: I’m not neutered. I’m not spayed. I’m a dog in a bar. What’s it to ya?

Is it me? Is it Texas? Is it United? Is it global warming? Someone, please explain to me, how in four trips to Austin, I have been unhasseled and on-time just once! Yes, I’m back in Texas… again. It was 97 degrees when I landed (landed late, did I mention that?) at 8:45pm. The only plus to this trip is I am staying near the “Bat Bridge.” Austin has about a billion bats living underneath a major bridge in the city and at dusk they come flying out and take off for points unknown. I saw something about it on PBS… apparently the bats eating something like a million tons of bugs per night. Now… if we could only focus their energy on the W, I would sleep a lot better. In other news, Gore is going to announce a real first. He is going to tap Sen. Lieberman from Connecticut as a running mate! That’s right kids, your Hebrew school fantasies are going true, there’s a Jew on the ticket! Oh, this is going to be a good presidential race! I can’t wait to hear the reaction from the farfarright. On my most recent flight… well, the one before this Austin trip, I was sitting next to a reasonable fellow. He and I made the usual “we’re trapped here on this flying tube for a few hours, so we’ll make some idle banter to pass the time.” Things were going great until he fired up Napster, queued up about a billion mp3s, put on his headphones, and began to “sing” along. This guy sang like someone who hummed while eating. And he was loud… but here’s the scariest part - I didn’t do anything. Have I a) become to old to bother (jeez, 26), b) my taiji skills have progressed to the point that I simply let go of life’s daily annoyances, or c) am just too uptight to ask to someone to stop singing like a freakshow in a shower because I might offend them?

Okay, so the above subject line is only funny to about three people on this… but since they have just been added back to the list I figured I’d make them welcome. I want to explain why I sent around the seemingly silly little color-based personality test. I took it… it scared me. It was eerily accurate; in the same way that the psychic above Toledo Lounge was accurate to the point I am never going back there. So I did the most domesticated thing I have ever done this weekend… I bought a vacuum cleaner. This thing is an f’in machine! Now, my place is a breeding ground for dust bunnies, and I ain’t talking about some small little glob of hair, I’m talking about huge Hugo-sized dust balls that roam from room to room making a noise that sounds something like a billiard ball rolling over wood. I now possess a dust bunny slayer. I worked up a sweat vacuuming… it’s a full-on work out. In other news… a restaurant review: DC Coast I went to DC Coast last week with a buddy of mine who used to live here and was back on expense account. Before we had ordered food, we ordered about $150 in wine. You’d expect for that much coin there would be some asskissing going on… there wasn’t. The food was great. During the week, DC Coast closes at 10:30… a bit early, and when they say they close, they mean it. My friend and I were sitting enjoying the last glass of wine, talking, when the waiter, looking at his watch, asked if we wanted dessert… we put him off. A bit later, he snuck in behind me and took the candle off the table to hasten our departure! This was over the top. For a $250 dinner, I expect a heck of a lot better service… thank god I wasn’t paying.

So on Saturday, Fitz, Millinger, and few other folks (including myself) went to see the Bethesda Big Train play the Reston hawks in a sub-Farm League baseball game. A good time was had by all… without beer! Highlights included the manager for Reston getting sent to the showers… but of course there is no real locker room to be sent to, so he had to walk back through the stadium and out the main gate. Other highlights include hundreds of children swarming around Josh’s car when a foul ball nearly based in his windshield. On the subject of the Season of Change we have more people to add to the list. Ev is heading off for SF soon. Melissa is heading to Duke to get an MBA… DC really is just a rest stop in people’s lives. The following is an email the Viv sent me, giving me instructions on how to take care of her pet hairball… guinea pig… hamster… whatever. I include it because it is pretty damned funny. At any rate, I’ll see you tomorrow, i From Viv: ok, here’s the schedule: Friday morning - give him lettuce, hay, carrots, and pellets Friday night - give him lettuce, hay, carrots, pellets, and hugs Saturday morning - give him lettuce, hay, carrots, pellets, hugs, kisses, and little scratches on the head Saturday afternoon - spend 1 hour scratching his little fuzzy head. Play Satchmo for him - he likes dancing to it. Saturday night - give him lettuce, hay, carrots, pellets, hugs, kisses, little scratches on the head, and play helicopter with him Saturday at 2 in the morning - stumble into the apartment in stilettos as if drunk - that way, he’ll miss me less Sunday morning - give him lettuce, hay, carrots, pellets, hugs, kisses, little scratches on the head, play helicopter with him, and take him to church - he likes to hear the bells toll, and they help cure the hangover Sunday noon - take him to Kramer’s for brunch - he like the salad. Order a bloody mary for yourself - to cure the hangover

… I don’t know who you are. You let me change lanes, while I was driving in my car. The previous lyrics are by a guy named Geggy Tah in his song “Whoever You Are.” I think that verse could become the anthem for the Beltway. Scary News: 1) Tuesday Night West has been formed under the watchful liver of Todd and Josh. What’s scarier still is that there are already members. Even scarier than that, it looks like I am going to make to two Tuesdays in SF next month. Yikes! 2) I may be wrong about this one. I got a brief glimpse at the 7-11 ad that was really scary. Apparently, 7-11 has new Slurpee technology they are trying to get adopted… a multichambered Slurpee cup! From what I saw they have come up with a large Slurpee cup that has three chambers so that you can make sure that the Slurpee flavors you squish into your cup don’t mix! Doesn’t everyone know that a majority of the fun with Slurpee is coming up with odd combinations like Coke - Pina Colada - Banana*? This kind of unwanted Slurpee innovation is set to shake the foundations of Slurpeedom… sheer madness! * This Slurpee flavor combination is, in no way, endorsed by Tuesday Night Inc.