"The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde

I apologize for only getting this posted now. I forgot about it on the 27th and PM'd Wench the next day asking for permissions to post it. I apparently missed her reply and am only posting now.

"The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde tells us the tale of SpecOps LiteraTec agent Thursday Next and her misadventures with her adversary, mastermind Acheron Hades. Hades is a criminal who can project his outward image as anything he likes, he's nearly impervious to bullets (as Next finds out) and he can exert his will through weak-minded people.

The book is set in an almost 1984ish Britain, ironically in the year 1985. The story begins with some background information. Shortly after, the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens is stolen. The theft puzzles the authorities on the scene. The surveillance tapes show no disturbances, and the glass case the manuscript was housed in only shows slight ripples on one side. Thursday Next knows who is responsible: Acheron Hades.

So begins her renewed pursuit of the number-three most wanted criminal in all of Britain. Later, a stakeout goes wrong when one of the persons involved accidentally whispers Hades' name -- alerting him to their presence with another of his superhuman powers. All the agents involved in the stakeout are killed, except for Next due to the care of a stranger. She later determines that it was none other than Edward Rochester, the eventual husband of Jane Eyre in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.

Hades kidnaps Thursday's aunt and uncle, Mycroft and Polly. He also steals Mycroft's latest invention, the Prose Portal, which allows people to travel into literary works. Hades has one of his men go into Martin Chuzzlewit and kidnap an unnamed drunkard mentioned in one scene. The man then kills the character, only later to be discovered by Next. Dickens fans across England are perplexed at the disappearance of the drunkard, who was erased from the book upon his death.

When Jack Schitt and Next track Hades, his lackeys, and Mycroft and Polly to an abandoned hotel in Wales, Hades jumps into Jane Eyre. Thursday follows him. After what seems like months in the book, but is really not that long in the real world, Hades disguises himself and infiltrates Thornfield Hall to kill Jane. Rochester's mad wife, Bertha Mason, chases Hades around with a pair of scissors. Hades seems genuinely wary of this crazy Creole. He sets fire to the house in an attempt to kill Next, Rochester, and Mason. After a shootout on the roof where Rochester gets his hand shot off, Next finally accepts that her ammunition will have no affect on Hades. She realizes that the Creole's scissors were made of silver, and that was why Hades was so insistent on getting away. She remembers a silver bullet given to her by a vampire hunter earlier in the book. She loads the bullet and scores a direct hit on Hades, killing him. On the escape from the house, the servant stairway collapses. Rochester loses his eyesight but manages to get himself and Next out of the burning building.

Eventually Next's story parallels Jane Eyre in that Rochester advises her to let go of the grudge she has with Landon Park-Laine, who was her dead brother's best friend. He told a military tribunal that Next's brother was responsible for the destruction of an entire light armor brigade during the Crimean War, which Thursday served in. Next finally lets it go, realizing that Landon was not to be blamed for his testimony against her brother. She, with the help of some folks she met along her adventure, shows proof of Park-Laine's fiancée’s husband, to whom she's still wed. Next and Parke-Laine marry, providing us with that warm fuzzy feeling that everything's all right.

It was amusing that Brontë fans liked the ending that Next inadvertently created more than the ending that Charlotte Brontë herself wrote since Rochester and Eyre get married, where in the previous version they did not. The edited "Jane Eyre" ending in "The Eyre Affair" is the actual ending of the book.

What are your thoughts on Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair?

-Ze Baron

YAHOO! OpenID

A friend just pointed Yahoo! OpenID out to me.

Here's the first paragraph:

OpenID makes it easy for you to deliver a simplified login experience for your users. Rather than having to create a unique user name and password for your website, users can now use an existing user name and password that they have created elsewhere. Of course, this is true only if "elsewhere" is a participating supplier of OpenIDs.

At Yahoo!, we acknowledge that simplifying the user login experience across the Internet benefits everyone. That's why we are a huge supporter of OpenID. By enabling our 248 million registered users as OpenID accounts, we hope that gives you a lot of reasons to support OpenID too.

Hmm. Just the other day a friend of mine said that she was reluctant to vote for Multiply at Blogger's Choice because it was another ID and another password. I have all my stuff noted down so I don't have to remember it, but I sort of agree with her.

Then I look at a program like this and wince.

The potential for this... imagine getting your YouTube, Multiply, Gmail, MySpace, and Facebook IDs hacked at once. That would be like online identity theft. Now, I imagine that Google and Yahoo! would have different programs and all that other corporate crap...

I hope that they are doing this right. I still don't think I'll sign up.

(For discussion -- could this be the future of 360?)

Ze Baron

MULTIPLY STAFF BLOG

Keep up to tabs with the latest posts at the Multiply Staff Blog.


-Ze Baron

JUST JOINING MULTIPLY?

This is a tutorial for all the bloggers who have just landed at Multiply. Multiply veterans, feel free to refer newcomers to this post, rather than to our homepage. This post is open to everyone on Multiply, not just group members like all other content. Newcomers, I suggest you join this group so you will be able to see the content outlined in this post.

You've decided to open an account at Multiply. Now what?

Things are much more different here than they are at sites like Blogger, WordPress, MySpace, Facebook, or even... 360 *insert dramatic music*. That's why we're here. Even if you didn't come from 360, I am confident that this group will provide you with the best help available. In fact, if there is something that, after searching all the tutorials and stuff, you don't know how to do, I will personally explain it to you or write a tutorial for the group about it. But first, I want to cover some of the stuff that we've already got going on. I suggest doing these things in the order I've outlined.

Import Your Posts From 360 (or another service)

This post outlines the first thing that you'll want to do once you get to Multiply. Having blogged for a few years at 360, I was disappointed at having to start over again once I got to Multiply. After more and more people started flowing in, though, the Multiply Staff (great people!) designed a tool to import the blogs. Whoo-hoo! Be sure to follow the steps in the post there to get it done right the first time.

Manage Your Privacy Settings During Blog Import

This is the second thing to be sure of. Multiply added this to the import tool so that your security settings will be maintained as they travel across the great Internet expanse. It was quite thoughtful of them, eh? Just be sure to read this post and be aware of how your privacy settings reflect who sees what you post.

Shut Off or Edit Your Email Alerts

When you registered, you put in your email. Multiply will send you an email when there is a post in a group you join or on a contact's page. This is handy when selectively applied. I don't suggest leaving your email alerts all on because groups like User Support, Customized Themes, and Y!360 Refugees have a lot of posts that will rapidly fill up your inbox. This post will guide you through the process.

Customize Your Page With 360-like Tools

Here's a post that explains how to customize your page. The tools outlined in this tutorial are almost the same as at 360. There are more advanced ways of customizing your page, like with CSS, but understand that your page can be customized without the use of CSS. If you're interested, that tutorial is more advanced and is found in the group once you get the basics hammered out.

Removing Posts From Your Inbox

Many users complain of having an information overload in their inboxes. This post outlines a way to remove whatever content you choose. While this feature might not be helpful to you now, once you add contactsand join more groups remember that post and refer to it. You will find it very helpful.

Helpful Groups and Links

Here is a list of helpful links and groups I've compiled. Check it out, join the groups that you find most interesting, and bookmark the post for further reference. Be sure to at least glace at the ToS, and join MUDS and User Support.

*M* Tutorials

For even more in-depth help on setting up and getting used to Multiply, check out *M* tutorials. Between this group and *M* tutorials you should find all the help that you need.

Y!360 Refugee Group Badge

I hope that you've joined the group by now. If you want to show your membership on your page, use a YRefs Group Badge. It's designed in three different sizes to suit any page. And, when you click on it, the badge will take you to our group.

Ask A Question, or Introduce Yourself!

One last thing. If you have any questions about this tutorial, about Multiply, or about most anything related, post a note to the group. Looking for your friends? Post a note and tell them you've arrived!

-Ze Baron

Privacy Option: Signed-In

I am interested in a privacy option that's a little more lenient than "Network" and more protected than "Everyone." After pondering this almost every time I post a blog, I came up with the perfect security option. If, besides Everyone, Network, Contacts, Individuals, and Advanced, we could have a new option, which I call "Signed-In"

That's an admittedly dumb name, but it expresses the premise I'm trying to get across. Network is limited to your contact's-contact's-contact's, I believe. Everyone is, naturally, everyone with internet access.

What bothers me (and a lot of other users, I'd bet) is that the Google Spider and the Yahoo! Slurp, which are their respective owners' web crawlers, index our pages that are set to everyone. I hate seeing many, many pages of stuff from my site show up when I search my page out.

I also hate it when I block someone and all they have to do is sign out to view my page set to "Everyone." Aside from stopping them from commenting, that defeats the purpose.

The Signed-In setting would make the content set to this setting available only to those people who are signed in to an ID. That would, first and foremost, defer the crawlers and secondly stop people who aren't absolutely bent on attacking a specific person. It would even prevent people from signing out so that they don't show up on Multiply's page history bar at the bottom of most pages.

This is a feature I would set all my posts and modules and everything to... my entire page, if it were possible.

-Ze Baron

Blog Privacy Settings

I love it how we can set our individual blogs to be accessible by certain levels of people, or by individuals, but there's a problem I have with it. Say I have all my blogs on their respective security settings... then one day, someone wants to harass or spam me. They probably don't have a life, so they'll go through posting lots of vulgar comments on all the blogs that they can see, which is most of them since I almost always post to "Everyone."

As great as Customer Service is, they don't handle all reports instantly 24/7 (but that's another feature I'd like to recommmend.) That's why I think we should be able to click "Customize My Site," then click "Edit" on the blog module, then set an access level to get into the module where the blogs are listed at, much like can be done with the contacts module (among others) now.

Ideally, this would not change the individual settings on each blog.

Hypothetically, let's say I had a blog about how I hate my job set to all my contacts but business associates, a blog set just to family about a family reunion, a blog about my trip to the beach set to contacts, and a post about Multiply's recent nomination for best blogging host set to network, plus a bunch of inconsequential stuff for everyone.

Then someone comes along who keeps creating accounts and attacking. Lock down to "Contacts," then only they can see my blog registry.

Another reason I find this would be good was for vacations, or periods when someone wants to change all their blogs. The best reason for this, though, is when someone is blocked and just signs out to read things set to "Everyone." Temporarly changing the settings to "Network" until that person bores would be a profound help.

-Ze Baron

MULTIPLY NOMINATED FOR BEST BLOGGING HOST

Multiply's been nominated at Blogger's Choice!

We can actually win this thing. The winning nomination has 225 right now, and Multiply has 29. This group has over 1,800 members! Create an account there then vote for Multiply.



Spread the word! Multiply can win this thing. Everyone, please, vote!

-Ze Baron

LENT

Well, Lent is nearly over. I say that because I have a question for you folks.

I gave up some things for Lent, like drinking the can of Mt. Dew I had most days after the daily grind. When can I start indulging again?

Now, Lent is 40 days long, like the time that Jesus spent in the desert and the time the Israelites roamed. From Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, not counting Sundays, is 40 days.

But, I've been reading online. Some people say it's the Last Supper, some say the beginning of the Triduum (which is essentially the Last Supper), some say Saturday night before Easter, some say Easter.

One of the things I was reading was a thread with posters all over the board. The toss-up seems to be between Easter and Holy Thursday.

I'm looking for both opinions and links to reputable sources.

-Ze Baron

LENT

Well, Lent is nearly over. I say that because I have a question for you folks.

I gave up some things for Lent, like drinking the can of Mt. Dew I had most days after the daily grind. When can I start indulging again?

Now, Lent is 40 days long, like the time that Jesus spent in the desert and the time the Israelites roamed. From Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, not counting Sundays, is 40 days.

But, I've been reading online. Some people say it's the Last Supper, some say the beginning of the Triduum (which is essentially the Last Supper), some say Saturday night before Easter, some say Easter.

One of the things I was reading was a thread with posters all over the board. The toss-up seems to be between Easter and Holy Thursday.

I'm looking for both opinions and links to reputable sources.

-Ze Baron

"The Americans" -- Gordon Sinclair

Following recent discussions here and in the media, I wanted to repost this which you've doubtless seen many times:

"The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Misssissippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan .. the Truman Policy .. all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.

I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or women on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them ... unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

When the Americans get out of this bind ... as they will... who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.

I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year's disasters .. with the year less than half-over… has taken it all and nobody...but nobody... has helped."

Gordon Sinclair (1973)

-Ze Baron

"THROW GRANDMA UNDER THE BUS"

Here's an article with commentary on the whole Rev. Wright / Barack Obama scandal. Since I caught this lovely flu virus last night, I am just going to repost this rather than write my own commentary. She can be disagreeable, but in this case, I agree wholly with what she has to say.

"Throw Grandma Under The Bus"
-- Ann Coulter

"Obama gave a nice speech, except for everything he said about race. He apparently believes we're not talking enough about race. This is like hearing Britney Spears say we're not talking enough about pop-tarts with substance-abuse problems.

By now, the country has spent more time talking about race than John Kerry has talked about Vietnam, John McCain has talked about being a POW, John Edwards has talked about his dead son, and Al Franken has talked about his USO tours.

But the "post-racial candidate" thinks we need to talk yet more about race. How much more? I had had my fill by around 1974. How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people?

As an authentic post-racial American, I will not patronize blacks by pretending Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is anything other than a raving racist loon. If a white pastor had said what Rev. Wright said -- not about black people, but literally, the exact same things -- I think we'd notice that he's crazier than Ward Churchill and David Duke's love child. (Indeed, both Churchill and the Rev. Wright referred to the attacks of 9/11 as the chickens coming "home to roost.")

Imagine a white pastor saying: "Racism is the American way. Racism is how this country was founded, and how this country is still run. ... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God."

Imagine a white pastor calling Condoleezza Rice, "Condoskeezza Rice."

Imagine a white pastor saying: "No, no, no, God damn America -- that's in the Bible for killing innocent people! God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human! God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme!"

We treat blacks like children, constantly talking about their temper tantrums right in front of them with airy phrases about black anger. I will not pat blacks on the head and say, "Isn't that cute?" As a post-racial American, I do not believe "the legacy of slavery" gives black people the right to be permanently ill-mannered.

Obama tried to justify Wright's deranged rants by explaining that "legalized discrimination" is the "reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up." He said that a "lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families."

That may accurately describe the libretto of "Porgy and Bess," but it has no connection to reality. By Rev. Wright's own account, he was 12 years old and was attending an integrated school in Philadelphia when Brown v. Board of Education was announced, ending "separate but equal" schooling.

Meanwhile, at least since the Supreme Court's decision in University of California v. Bakke in 1978 -- and obviously long before that, or there wouldn't have been a case or controversy for the court to consider -- it has been legal for the government to discriminate against whites on the basis of their race.

Consequently, any white person 30 years old or younger has lived, since the day he was born, in an America where it is legal to discriminate against white people. In many cases it's not just legal, but mandatory, for example, in education, in hiring and in Academy Award nominations.

So for half of Rev. Wright's 66 years, discrimination against blacks was legal -- though he never experienced it personally because it existed in a part of the country where he did not live. For the second half of Wright's life, discrimination against whites was legal throughout the land.

Discrimination has become so openly accepted that -- in a speech meant to tamp down his association with a black racist -- Obama felt perfectly comfortable throwing his white grandmother under the bus. He used her as the white racist counterpart to his black racist "old uncle," Rev. Wright.

First of all, Wright is not Obama's uncle. The only reason we indulge crazy uncles is that everyone understands that people don't choose their relatives the way they choose, for example, their pastors and mentors. No one quarrels with idea that you can't be expected to publicly denounce your blood relatives.

But Wright is not a relative of Obama's at all. Yet Obama cravenly compared Wright's racist invective to his actual grandmother, who "once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

Rev. Wright accuses white people of inventing AIDS to kill black men, but Obama's grandmother -- who raised him, cooked his food, tucked him in at night, and paid for his clothes and books and private school -- has expressed the same feelings about passing black men on the street that Jesse Jackson has.

Unlike his "old uncle" -- who is not his uncle -- Obama had no excuses for his grandmother. Obama's grandmother never felt the lash of discrimination! Crazy grandma doesn't get the same pass as the crazy uncle; she's white. Denounce the racist!

Fine. Can we move on now?

No, of course, not. It never ends. To be fair, Obama hinted that we might have one way out: If we elect him president, then maybe, just maybe, we can stop talking about race."

(End Quote)

Personally, I think the entire thing is disgusting. He's been going to this loopy church for twenty odd years, and he says he's never heard the pastor talk like this. He says he disagrees with what the pastor says but he refuses to quit the church. That's just crap.

He's been going there willingly for 20 years. I'm sorry, but no one was putting a gun to his head telling him that he had to go. Remember when Michelle Obama said it was the first time she was proud of her country? Do you think that it has anything to do with her listening to this man froth at the mouth for twenty years?

What if Hillary Clinton went to this church for twenty years? Just think what the media would have to say about it! What if a white pastor said these things, like "God damn America!"

Obama's denied that he's Muslim. That's fine and dandy, but this guy comes in a close second when measured for America-hating. Is this the kind of person we want as president? Just because he's black and goes to these traditionally black churches doesn't mean he can be excused.

-Ze Baron

BARON MAKE A FUNNY

Some clever things... classic and new alike.

Inspired by Pascal's Pensées, a little old lady goes to the bank with a satchel filled with $100,000 in cash and asks to open an account. The cautious banker asks where she got the money.

"Gambling," she says. "I'm very good at gambling."

Intrigued, the banker asks, "What sorts of bets do you make?"

"Oh, all sorts," she says. "For example, I will bet you $25,000 right now that by noon tomorrow you will have a butterfly tattoo on your right buttock."

"Well, I would love to take that bet," says the banker, "but it wouldn't be right for me to take your money for such an absurd wager."

"Let me put it to you this way," says the woman. "If you don't bet me, I'll find another bank for my money."

"Now, now, dont be hasty," says the banker. "I'll take your bet."

The woman returns the next day at noon with her lawyer as a witness. The banker turns around, drops his pants, and invites the two to observe who has won the bet.

"Okay," says the woman, "but could you bend over a little just to make sure?"

The banker obliges and the woman concedes, counting out $25,000 cash from her satchel. The lawyer meanwhile is sitting with his head in his hands.

"What's wrong with him?" asks the banker.

"Aw, he's just a sore loser," she says. "I bet him $100,000 that by noon today, you'd moon us in your office."

-Ze Baron

TUTORIALS

Back in the days of 360, a lot of users didn't know how to get multiple pictures into their blogs. That was how little people knew of HTML. I didn't even know how to do it until I asked someone, who kindly explained it to me. After being asked quite a few times and walking people through it, I made a tutorial with pictures. And so there it started.

I've done that here, too, at Refugees. If you go to our main page, you'll see the tagged content boxes with "tutorials" and "tips" (among others.)

If there is anything that isn't there that you want to know, or if there's something that you think needs to be added, please leave a comment here or PM me. Also, if there are any tutorials there that you think need clarification, notify me.

Bear in mind that I don't know complex CSS. I can write one on how to hide your online status, but that's about the only CSS I understand. Those questions should be directed to Multiply Design.

I acquired some software that will aid my tutorial writing, but it's only a 30-day demo so I want to get it done within a month. Let's get hoppin'!

-Ze Baron

PHOTO SURVEY

Multiply asks us to complete another survey.

Isn't it great that they're actively seeking our input?

Click here for the survey.

-Ze Baron

SKIRTING THE SMOKING LAW

I don't smoke. I've never been addicted to smoking. I do love the smell of a nice cigar, though. Cigarettes, on the other hand, disgust me.

I think that the Pennsylvania government is considering a smoking ban in public places. I, for one, hope it passes. Nothing makes me angrier than when I am out to eat with someone or a few folks and someone comes in and lights up. This happened to me once, actually. We were waiting for our food at a restaurant that takes quite a bit of time to prepare it, and an older man and his wife came in. He lit up a cigar and she a cigarette (and later a few more.)

The establishment was smoking or non & the ban isn't passed yet. They're certainly allowed to smoke. They were the only ones in the restaurant (not counting the bar) that were smoking. When I got home I hung my coat out rather than in the closet so it could air a bit and I threw my shirt in the wash. I can't stand the smell.

That brings me round circle. I found this article about bars in Minnesota skirting a public-smoking ban. It's all well and cute that they're doing this, but I don't think that I'd order lobster or a rack of ribs while watching "The Phantom of the Opera." Bars are bars and theaters are theaters. If it says on their occupancy permit that they are a bar, they should be slapped with the $10,000 fine.

Did you notice in the article that the bar that started this was a strip club? The owner said it was hard for the girls to get dressed and go for a smoke outside in the freezing temps. Please!

I don't mind if people smoke, but I don't want to be puffing their cig at the next table over. Passive smoking also causes cancer, you know.

If you still doubt why I'm mad, think about this. What if you were sitting at the next table over in a restaurant, and I started releasing clouds of cyanide into the air? That's obviously deadly, as ten million Jews will attest. Poisoning someone else against their will is illegal.

Smoking is often classified with drinking. I think there's a major difference. Small amounts of alcohol are good. Alcohol, if consumed responsibly, isn't addictive. Alcohol has long-term effects, like those on the liver, plus short term effects that are typically alleviated the next morning. The consumption of alcohol only harms the drinker (if it gets to that point.)

Smoking hurts short-term and long term. Smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States. Smoking is addictive. Tobacco is always bad for you. Most of all, smoking harms those around the smoker who aren't smokers themselves.

See the contrast?

I have seen two lungs, side by side, one from a smoker and one from a nonsmoker. The difference would blow you away. One is small, shriveled, and black, and the other is large, robust, and pink.

I don't mind if you smokers want to smoke -- just do it in the privacy of your own home.

I may sound like a health nut and anti-smoking activist, but I'm not. I'm an average citizen who has seen what smoking wroughts on the body. I've seen people wither away from cancer. I don't want that to happened to me. I want to live to a healthy 100 and drop dead with a grin on my face.

-Ze Baron

ME AND MULTIPLY

(A slight departure from regular programming.)

This is originally written for my personal site, so please read it in that sense.

This is long overdue...

A few weeks back, Everett, a Multiply employee, contacted me asking for my snail mail address so he could send me a Multiply t-shirt. I don't recall the exact things he said, but they were happy for what I was doing at Refugees, helping out the new members and stuff.

I declined the generous folks offer, asking only for a few different shots of the shirt so I could edit my avatar in and post it on my page. I've uploaded that as my headshot.

It wasn't the t-shirt, though. It was the recognition. I was ecstatic that Multiply had took notice and wanted to reciprocate. I mean, really, coming from Yahoo! where the little people in 360 stared up, gazing at the top of the Yahoo! skyscraper, trying to get some attention... and here, I was just blown away by this.

The whole thing that still perplexes me is that, truthfully, I'm really not that helpful of a guy in real life, especially at work. I have always been pretty quick to pick things up, and subconsciously I expect others to, so I often get irritated when people ask for help for things that I think they should know how to do.

I believe that I have another facet of my personality that makes up for that. I can't stand to see people do things wrong or inefficently. If you are struggling to do something, I'm the type of person that comes in, and says, "No, that's wrong, do it this way next time. It'll work better, trust me," in an annoyingly brusque manner.

That's why I often find myself pondering why. What possessed me to start Refugees when five of my friends had set up accounts here to scope the place? What made me spread the word through my friends and ask them to ask their friends? What made the group successful, in my eyes, and why am I still doing it?

This type of thing is uncharacteristic for me... perhaps this is an example of how time online blends into things in real life.

Ze Baron


<--Classic
Ze Baron


Multiply
Ze Baron-->

ME AND MULTIPLY

This is long overdue...

A few weeks back, Everett, a Multiply employee, contacted me asking for my snail mail address so he could send me a Multiply t-shirt. I don't recall the exact things he said, but they were happy for what I was doing at Refugees, helping out the new members and stuff.

I declined the generous folks offer, asking only for a few different shots of the shirt so I could edit my avatar in and post it on my page. I've uploaded that as my headshot.

It wasn't the t-shirt, though. It was the recognition. I was ecstatic that Multiply had took notice and wanted to reciprocate. I mean, really, coming from Yahoo! where the little people in 360 stared up, gazing at the top of the Yahoo! skyscraper, trying to get some attention... and here, I was just blown away by this.

The whole thing that still perplexes me is that, truthfully, I'm really not that helpful of a guy in real life, especially at work. I have always been pretty quick to pick things up, and subconsciously I expect others to, so I often get irritated when people ask for help for things that I think they should know how to do.

I believe that I have another facet of my personality that makes up for that. I can't stand to see people do things wrong or inefficently. If you are struggling to do something, I'm the type of person that comes in, and says, "No, that's wrong, do it this way next time. It'll work better, trust me," in an annoyingly brusque manner.

That's why I often find myself pondering why. What possessed me to start Refugees when five of my friends had set up accounts here to scope the place? What made me spread the word through my friends and ask them to ask their friends? What made the group successful, in my eyes, and why am I still doing it?

This type of thing is uncharacteristic for me... perhaps this is an example of how time online blends into things in real life.

Ze Baron

ME AND MULTIPLY

This is long overdue...

A few weeks back, Everett, a Multiply employee, contacted me asking for my snail mail address so he could send me a Multiply t-shirt. I don't recall the exact things he said, but they were happy for what I was doing at Refugees, helping out the new members and stuff.

I declined the generous folks offer, asking only for a few different shots of the shirt so I could edit my avatar in and post it on my page. I've uploaded that as my headshot.

It wasn't the t-shirt, though. It was the recognition. I was ecstatic that Multiply had took notice and wanted to reciprocate. I mean, really, coming from Yahoo! where the little people in 360 stared up, gazing at the top of the Yahoo! skyscraper, trying to get some attention... and here, I was just blown away by this.

The whole thing that still perplexes me is that, truthfully, I'm really not that helpful of a guy in real life, especially at work. I have always been pretty quick to pick things up, and subconsciously I expect others to, so I often get irritated when people ask for help for things that I think they should know how to do.

I believe that I have another facet of my personality that makes up for that. I can't stand to see people do things wrong or inefficently. If you are struggling to do something, I'm the type of person that comes in, and says, "No, that's wrong, do it this way next time. It'll work better, trust me," in an annoyingly brusque manner.

That's why I often find myself pondering why. What possessed me to start Refugees when five of my friends had set up accounts here to scope the place? What made me spread the word through my friends and ask them to ask their friends? What made the group successful, in my eyes, and why am I still doing it?

This type of thing is uncharacteristic for me... perhaps this is an example of how time online blends into things in real life.

Ze Baron

EXHAUSTION NEVER FELT SO GOOD

One feeling that provides a large sense of accomplishment is the tiredness and the aches and pains that result from working out and being active. Part of my New Year's resoultion was to work out, not to look better but to feel better.

Today I worked out for an hour and a half, mostly riding the elliptical machine because of the low impact. I want to jog in the summer, so I have to get stronger legs now. I also used some weight machines for toning arm muscles... I was happy that I got as many done as I did as I set the weights at a higher amount than I suspected I could work with.

That, and I've decided to sign up for tennis lessons. Perhaps that will lead to greater things, like the country club.

-Ze Baron

SPEAKING OF ENDORSEMENTS. . . .

My freind Shawn posted a blog about one of Hillary's endorsements... well, you have to see it to believe it.



That's right... Jack Nicholson. If you're really intrigued by this, here's another video for your viewing pleasure:



Well, so we know of another reason not to vote for her, eh?

-Ze Baron