PerversionTracker posted a review of a program called Cretin Tracker that "offers handy features for maintaining a detailed list of the transgressions of your family, friends and coworkers."

Deja vu, huh?

I’m sure y’all have already done this, but if not, don’t forget to submit your phone number(s) to the National Do Not Call Registry at donotcall.gov!  I just did, finally. Us folks in Illinois had to wait an extra week or so before we could register, which caused the matter to slip my mind for awhile.  But my delay didn’t make any difference… the ban goes into effect for me and all other Land’O'Lincoln residents at the same time as everyone else, October 1st.

This is hilarious!!  I entered my name and chose ‘sensitive songwriting’, ‘female singer’.  It didn’t ask me for an album title.  Here’s what I got:

Edith Frost
Odyssey of the Mind
1991, ***1/2

Until now, Edith Frost was principally known as a explosive live act.

Underneath her antics lies a eclectic artistic maturity that reveals how she has grown since she was a young new-waver. Imagine the aching rock of Joni Mitchell’s "Clouds" grafted, as if by a mad scientist from the bayou, to the crass hip-hop assault of the No Limit Tank Soldiers, and you haven’t come close to describing the sounds on Odyssey of the Mind. Don’t call it a comeback — Edith Frost has been here for years — but never with such Brian Eno-produced blue-eyed soul. An ambitious concept album about being a loner and the importance of brushing your teeth, the main dish of this gutsy meal is the playful "Lost Tongue."

Every chord change on "Women Notice Things Like That" will break your heart. This one’s getting a lot of rotation at the office. Edith Frost gained a reputation early on for being savvy. I will have this album on repeat mode, forever.

Get yourself over to Basic Hip to download a copy of Leona Anderson’s "Music To Suffer By". I have the LP, it’s one of my most prized possessions.  The albums at Basic Hip are only available for a week or so, and I don’t know when this was posted, so you’d better hurry!

There’s a really funny poll going on over at Fark.com.
What’s your favorite prank to pull on telemarketers?

I used to get calls all the time from the local Policeman’s Benevolent Association. It was always a man with a very stern cop-like voice.  I tried all sorts of replies, and he’d always do his best to bully me into a donation.  One time he practically threatened me.  Something along the lines of… "Ma’am, do you have a PROBLEM with police officers?  Would you like to?" That got me so angry that I looked up the association’s name on the internet and found out that the calls were likely NOT coming from actual police officers, just hired telemarketers like all the rest.  So the next time the call came I stopped the man in mid-sentence and asked "Sir, are you a police officer?" He stumbled on his words, and his hostile tone immediately wilted.  He admitted that he was not an officer, and started reading a spiel full of legalese intended for dubious folks like me.  I said "Thanks but no thanks" and hung up.

Guess it worked, ‘cuz I never heard from those guys again.  :-D

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Chronos has FINALLY released a mini upgrade to StickyBrain, one of the first programs I registered when I switched to Mac. Yup…

fixed a bug that allowed Private notes to be viewed using the sticky slider in the Control Palette even if Show Private Items hadn’t been selected.

This is the bug that I first complained about on September 28, 2002. I don’t see why it had to take so long to release this, but I’m relieved I can no longer accuse them of abandoning their product. I still use it every day; I have yet to find anything that works better for reminders.

According to a story on Plastic, Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips now has to share songwriter credits with Cat Stevens for the song "Fight Test".  It’s apparently a little too similar to Cat’s song "Father & Son".  I’m sorry, but I know both songs and yeah, they’re similar but not the same.  Frankly, I think Wayne’s song is better and goes a lot further melodically than Cat’s song did.  And the melody-fragment that’s similar is just too generic IMHO to make this a clear-cut case of the p-word.  (I can’t even say it, because I love the Flaming Lips too much.)

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Metafilter just reported the death of Strom Thurmond.  His departure is no surprise considering his age, and his dinosaur segregationist idealogy certainly won’t be missed.  What really surprises me though, is that TheState.com actually has the nerve to run the EXACT SAME tribute page that got leaked by the paper three weeks ago.  At the time, the Senator was not quite dead yet — the memorial page was done in preparation for his obviously upcoming demise, and sat unprotected on their website, just waiting for some smartypants Farker to come along and google it up.  It went straight to The Smoking Gun so you can do your own comparison.  Sometimes the media just boggles my mind, seriously. How dumb can they be to run the page again and not even mention their earlier gaffe?

John asked me if I knew of any Cocteau Twins lyrics sites, and I was all… omigod, you haven’t seen this?!?  If you’re a fan you’ll die laughing.  At the same time I think it’s about as accurate as you can get considering the source. I don’t think I could do much better and I’m a certified SuperFan(tm), I have all that gibberish totally memorized.

I love them so much, I think they need to keep making records and blow off the whole band-breakup thing.  My humble opinion.  :-)

Oh, what would I do without my daily dose of Fark?  Now we’re treated to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University dress code for men.

From Fark…

Attention Ladies: When selecting your attire while at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, please view this slide show using mannequins to demonstrate what is and is not immodest.

The software developers have been busy this weekend.  NoteBook has a new update out — they’re modestly labeling it as v1.1, but the ‘What’s New’ page is about a mile long.  Cute little XShelf is now at 1.1.1, and URL Manager Pro has a minor update as well, to 3.0.6.  And — as if I care! — there’s a new security upgrade for IE.  How long did that take ‘em?  Call me cynical, but the only reason I ever open IE anymore is for ego reasons, to make sure it’s not mangling my own website.  Pfffft.

Have y’all heard about the silly catfight between Moxiepop and Moxie.nu? The latter claims to be the first to use that name in a writerly context… WTF?  Does no one remember Dawn Sutter’s zine called Moxie way back in 1997?  MOXIE: THE MAGAZINE THAT TAKES NO GUFF?  It was a real magazine you could buy at the store, so I don’t know what Moxie.nu is going on about.*

The story just showed up on MeFi, and the comments are flying at Tim Blair’s site, if you want to read more.

* Personal bias: I did an interview for this mag, and Dawn is an old pal. And of course I know about the ancient soft drink MOXIE. If anything, that’s the true original Mox.

Here it is, everything you ever wanted to know about tying knots.

If you’ve ever messed around with webpage construction, you should go look at all the different designs at the CSS Zen Garden.  All these templates use exactly the same HTML; only the style sheets are different.  (And the graphics, obviously.) Inspection of the site’s source code proves that its beauty is not just skin deep.