My Yearly Post!

Never mind me. I'm just turning the engine over and driving on down to the store so the battery won't die.

Yes.

That's right.

I'm back again.

Hello?

[chirping of crickets]

"Rocked Me to My Core"

And how.

Steer clear of the Westchester County Libraries; they've got at least one librarian with a serious empathy problem:

Even the dead apparently have to pay the fines on their overdue books at one Westchester County library. Elizabeth Schaper said she was charged a 50-cent late fee while turning in a book that her late mother had checked out of a Harrison Public Library branch.

"I was in shock," Schaper said. "This has rocked me to my core."

Schaper's mother, Ethel Schaper, died at the age of 87 on Sept. 16 after suffering a massive stroke. A few days later, Schaper said she found a library book, "The Price of Silence," by Camilla Trinchieri, that her mother had checked out from the library.

"My mother was an avid reader _ she read an average of two books a week," Schaper said. "She was a frequent patron of the library."

Schaper said she returned the book last week, and was stunned when the man behind the library counter told her of the 50-cent fee.

"I told him that maybe he didn't hear me right, that my mother had just died, otherwise I'm sure that she would have returned it on time," Schaper said. "His only reply was that, 'That will be 50 cents.'"

"I mean, you've got the 50 cents, right? Surely you inherited some money when the old broad kicked it? Huh?"

Great service.

A Close Shave

Look, I'll be honest with you. It's hard for me to focus on the finer points of this AP article about eating locally grown food. I think the reason for my confusion is the first paragraph of the piece:

Dick Shave got a duck for dinner. It was firm, fresh and - this is very important when you're only eating food grown within 100 miles - raised nearby.

Hang on here; just one second, please.

What was it that was firm, fresh, and raised nearby?

Oh, right.

Ahem. But seriously. If your name was Richard Shave, would you go by Dick?

Operaführer

You're using Opera, right? No? Well! You need to be.

Once you have used "Go to URL," once you have zoomed in 150% on the microscopic text of a webpage, once you have searched for text in your favorite engine or database simply by selecting it from a right-click dropdown menu, once you have used the Notes panel to paste in frequently typed text to an email . . . you will never use another browser again.

Mark my words!

Live Long and Prosper

Interesting little side note in a NYT article today about "one-day university" programs, one of which features a psychologist:

To some, the thrust of positive psychology is misguided; people are no more able to change their level of happiness than their height. But while Mr. Achor agrees that each individual has a genetically programmed base line mood, he also says that people are able to shift that base line through a variety of tactics. So he talked about research with depressed patients that showed exercise was more successful in preventing relapses than medication; a study with nuns that demonstrated the life-extending benefits of keeping a journal that records positive experiences; and a study of monks that indicates how meditation increased insight-producing gamma waves in the brain.

Gotta remember that part; gotta make an effort to note and record the good stuff. I'll live longer!

Leniency for the Tycoon

What a phrase. And what a fighter!

A South Korean tycoon on trial in a sensational assault case said Monday he punched bar workers after his son was hurt in a scuffle, but denied using a steel pipe and stun gun.

"I delivered several hooks," Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn said under questioning by the prosecution at Seoul central District Court, using boxing terminology to describe the punches.

Clad in sky blue jail garb, Kim, one of South Korea's richest men, said he chose the description for the punches because he was once head of South Korea's amateur boxing association.

Kim said it was he himself who "mainly beat" about half a dozen bar workers, although he added that his bodyguards were involved later, when "I got tired."

Well hell yes! When you get tired, you've got to have your minions step in, to do at least some of the ass-kicking.

Among charges the tycoon faces are illegal detainment and assault with dangerous objects over the alleged revenge attack after a March altercation at a Seoul karaoke club with his 22-year-old son, Kim Dong-won, a student at Yale University.

[. . .]

The dramatic details of the case, which media have likened to something out of a gangster movie, have drawn intense public interest in South Korea, where the heads of family controlled conglomerates wield great economic, political and social clout.

At one point Kim told the packed courtroom that he lightly hit one of the workers on the head with a steel pipe to scare them. He later retracted the statement and denied using a stun gun.

Kim's lawyers said the attack was not organized or premeditated in nature, and called for leniency for the tycoon. They said his prolonged absence from management could cause a crisis at the conglomerate.

And if anybody deserves a little leniency now and then, surely it's the head of a family-controlled conglomerate?

And while we're in Hanguk . . . what do you think your first public statement would be after finally getting the hell out of the world's most backward state?

A North Korean family of four arrived in South Korea on Saturday after leaving Japan, where they landed two weeks ago after a rare boat voyage from the communist country.

The family - a couple and their two adult sons - arrived at the international airport in Incheon wearing hats and covering their faces with masks.

"Liberty, democracy, human rights!" yelled one of the North Koreans at an airport gate, before airport security officials escorted the group away.

He couldn't hold it in; he had to shout it! Loud and proud.

Finally, ever wonder what W's Secret-Service codename is? Here's a hint: It fits, and on multiple levels.