GlenM

Inspired by your comments (particularly about bald, fat guys being sexy), I went running tonight. Three miles, nothing spectacular. It was a grueling job. And my lungs burned from the cold, which is kinda new for me especially at these temperatures. I’m sure tomorrow I will be punished appropriately.
Mark put a new version of WordPress on my blog. Its got a lot of new bells and whistles. One of the particularly interesting features is that it tells Akismet that Mark is a spammer, and therefore he is unable to comment. Mark has been requesting people who use Akismet to check their spam folders for Mark’s comments, and to please unspam him. Ofcourse, it is a possibility that Mark is indeed a spammer and this is all a clever ploy to get us to make him legit. We shall see.
In other news, I remain incredibly fat. True, I have dropped several pounds in recent months, however the truth of the matter is that all the weight which I lost in the most recent 3 months, was actually weight that I had gained in the three months prior to that. Net result = zero, i.e. no gain, no gain. I’ll take what I can get.
Now that the fat pants fit again (ok, they are still tight but at least I can get them on), I’m feeling more comfortable sitting at my desk all day long typing feverishly and trying to make enough money to prevent the mortgage company from taking my house away. Despite what you see in the fun commercials with smiling faces, those people only want your money. Seems like every damn month they are asking for some. I’m not sure what happens if I ever stop giving it to them but you can be quite certain it involves a big guy named “Frankie” with a bent nose.
I’ve been working on my cholesterol. Apparently my HDL was only 26 and the total was like 120 (can’t remember exactly). The total is nice but the HDL sucks. So I need to lose weight and exercise. I’ve also started putting extra virgin olive oil on my salad instead of the ranch dressing. I drink a cup of cranberry juice every day. I take fish oil pills. I eat about 50 grams of fiber a day (been doing that forever really). And now I’m eating 4 tiny squares of extra dark chocolate.
To be honest, the whole chocolate-helps-cholesterol stuff is probably total crap. The results I read about say the cholesterol changed by 2-6 points. That’s nothing. Statistically, there is zero change. But at least it makes you feel better about having bad cholesterol, and maybe that’s the whole point.
In patent news (not that anyone cares) District Court Judge Cacheris decided that the new continuation rules, which the patent office was trying to implement, totally suck and there is no damn way he is going allow any such shenanigans as long he presides on the bench. The Entire Country 1, USPTO 0. You can all thank Glaxo Smith Klein for saving the US patent system from draconian rule. Two important points: 1) The lawyer for the USPTO says they will likely appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and 2) The currently pending Patent Reform Act in congress would grant the USPTO authorities which would effectively overrule the decision by Judge Cacheris. One thing is for certain, the lawyers are going to become even richer before all this is over.
Last crazy thing to say tonight.
I used to be psychic,
Its totally true. When I was young(er) I could totally see into the future. Not like I could see lottery numbers or horses races (because then I would not even be typing this, I’d be out flying my personal spacecraft or something), but more like accidentally see the future. Imagine its like getting the hiccups. Everyone gets them and you can’t plan when they happen, but they do. You can’t stop them from starting, you can only struggle to make them stop. That’s how it was.
Here’s one example. When I came home from college my Mom and Dad got me something for my birthday. Mom wrapped it and they always take great pride in making me guess what it is. They handed the box to me. And it was like someone else was talking with my mouth and I was just watching them do it, powerless to stop them. The words came out but I couldn’t tell you I planned them or even had a conscious thought about creating them. Like the hiccups. They just poured from my mouth.
“Its a coconut carved like a monkey.” And it was.

Now, if it was a new notebook, or a movie, or a puppy, I could see how you would think that would be an easy guess. But it was a damn coconut carved like a monkey. Does anyone else have one of those? Anyone ever seen one? I never had. The words just came hiccuping out of my mouth and I was more shocked than anyone that it was true. Crazy.