Author: jbenton

Interesting things you learn from referrer logs: http://i.am.a.notalentassclown.org/ points to Metafilter. At first, I thought this was some sort of anti-Matt Haughey snub, but then I checked the domain registry:
Registrant:
   Matthew Haughey
   [address withheld]
   San Francisco, CA 94117
   US
The man has a sense of humor. Reminded me of the Harvard jokesters who registered www.safetyschool.org.

Holy hit count! I’ve somehow been Metafiltered (thanks, Matt!), which means that there are, um, a lot more of you here than there normally are. Welcome to the neighborhood. And again, my sincere thanks if you are participating in the Mazie Project 2002.
Unrelated: News of Eric Clapton’s sudden marriage to a 25-year-old woman inspired this link to groupiecentral.com.

Make a grandma happy: Mazie Project 2002!
And make a mix while you’re at it.

We’re all gonna die, thanks to “mysterious dark energy.”
“Distant galaxies will eventually be moving apart so quickly that they cannot communicate with one another. In effect, it would be like living in the middle of a black hole that kept getting emptier and colder.” I’ve had relationships like that.

A brilliant new all-haiku blog from my coworker Katie. Among the gems:
New Year’s tradition
Cheetos and Benjamin Bratt
God bless A&E
Inconsolable
“Why this mortal toil?” I cry
Dawson’s a repeat
Now that I have blogged her site, perhaps Katie will screw up the courage to comment here. (And her blog-reading friends, whom she has heretofore banned from leaving comments on crabwalk.com, are hereby invited to do the same.)
In other news, it’s snowing in downtown Dallas. w00t!

I need your help! My dear, sainted grandmother turns 70 on Jan. 26 and I’m trying to think of ways to mark the occasion. You can help two ways: (1) giving me any great ideas you have, and (2) participating in the Mazie Project 2002.
Mazie (that’s her name, Mazie) Project 2002 is an attempt to get as many people as possible to send her birthday cards. She sometimes gets a little lonely down in Louisiana, and while I drive down there as often as I can, it’d be great for her to know that lots of people are thinking about her. (Even if they don’t know her.)
So, if you woke up this morning thinking, “I am a good person! How can I show this to the world and improve my karma?”, here’s your chance. Her address is Mazie Benton, 803 W. Branche St., Rayne, LA 70578. And if you want to feel extra good about yourself, ask someone else to send a card, too. Why should you do this? Well, Mazie’s really, really cool. There’s your reason.

And so begins another year. Went to Benihana with a group of friends from work on New Year’s Eve, then finished up the evening at Lakewood Landing, where, coincidentally, I spent last New Year’s. Very different feel this time around, though. Last year, I’d been in Dallas only a few months, and the city still had that new-car smell of possibilities. This year — well, settling in has its pros and cons, I suppose.
2001 was actually pretty great for me, professionally and personally. We’ll see about 2002.
Anyway, I’m back at work, chugging away, sifting through press releases, deleting emails, and admiring the new 2002 Scooby Doo calendar on my cubicle wall.

The economics of Christmas.

We’ve all heard of a dying boy asking for one final wish. So what do you do when his one wish is to have sex with a woman?
In Australia, the answer apparently is: hire a prostitute. “He did engage in the act and it was everything he wished it to be,” the boy’s psychologist reports. “He was very, very happy and only slightly disappointed that it was over quickly.”

News release of the day: “An open house and demonstration of Esperanto, the international language, will be held January 3, 2002, at 7:00 pm, at the Arts Council of Northeast Tarrant County, Bedford Boys Ranch, in Bedford, Texas. All are invited to attend and learn more about Esperanto, a politically and culturally neutral language that is intended to be a common second language without replacing anyone’s national language. Classes are scheduled to begin Thursday, January 10, 2002, and will meet weekly through May. Registration for classes may be made at the open house or by contacting Phil Dorcas at 817/858-0689 or by email at pdorcas@airmail.net.”