More than just an exercise in existentialism, it's also a direct question for the Googlegods. Just what is Jim anyway?

jim is wrong
Frequently. Constantly. Currently.

jim is tired and formulaic
Okay, so content has been a bit spotty quality-wise lately. Give me a break here! I've been busy.

jim is seeking public input on matters affecting all cheshire
Because I am very concerned about matters affecting Cheshire.

jim is all confused
I'm getting there. more...

Posted by: Jim at 10:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Beware the Ides of March indeed! Food beasts look out - March 15 is Eat An Animal For PETA Day. Michele's got some nifty posters and I've even made my own contribution.

Posted by: Jim at 11:14 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Kimberly Swygert of Number 2 Pencil is always entertaining and elucidating. Then there are the posts like this Nyquil induced beauty that take it to the next level and make me appreciate the unique benefits of a heavily medicated female mind.

Ahhh, Vampire Ninja Muslim Christians - whole families of 'em - working at Wal-Mart. In Texas. What grist for my Nyquil-induced dreams.

Hmmm...is Kimberly channeling LeeAnn?

Posted by: Jim at 11:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The 14th Bestofme Symphony is up at Irritable Blog Syndrome. It's short and sweet, a perfect Monday morning danish, served up with style by The Bull herself. Get on over there and enjoy!

Now where's my coffee?

Hosting: Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note.

Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.

Spread the word: Webloggers, please give Christine a hand by spreading the word. A little linky love goes a long way.

Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There's one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.

Posted by: Jim at 08:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Some advice to today's youth, from author Charles J.Sykes:

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome.

Posted by: Jim at 05:39 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I never did like being a kid (or any age under 21, really). No money, no freedom, no car, and worst of all - no clue. Life got a LOT better when I was older, smarter, wealthier, and more mobile.

Posted by: Harvey at March 08, 2004 01:45 PM (tJfh1)

2 Youth truly is wasted on the young. I wouldn't want to be a teen again, either, but I realize now that I really didn't have as much to complain about as I'd thought I did.

Posted by: Dawn at March 09, 2004 07:28 AM (Q0xHi)

3 I'd just enlisted in the Army, for 4 (so I could spend one glorious year at Monterey, 1965, Janis Joplin at the Monterey Jazz festival- but I digress) and once I got past the unfairness of basic training and the unfairness of life going on and on and -yep, here it is again today!- ON, I began to realize what an awesome, beautiful chance life is, and devoted myself to LIVING, sans shoulder-chips, being! Here, now! BE who I want to become! But then, I'm a Baha'i...

Posted by: SharpShooter at March 11, 2004 11:28 PM (TEXo2)

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Magister Mundi sum!
"I am the Master of the Universe!"

You are full of yourself, but you're so cool you probably deserve to be. Rock on.

Which Weird Latin Phrase Are You?

(Found over at Jen's)

Posted by: Jim at 03:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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What happens when a corporation moves past the event horizon? When it becomes so immensely huge that not even federal regulators can adequately describe its girth? Why, its employees realize they can do human type things like writing with humor and nobody will find out about in in a billion nanoseconds because the beast is just too large to watch its own backside.

The introduction and instruction for the Tweakomatic tool is one of the funniest bits I've read in quite a while. Yeah it gets a bit geeky at points but it's good stuff the whole way through. Here's an exerpt:

As you probably know, Microsoft has a sort of love-hate relationship with the registry. The registry is the configuration database for Windows and Windows applications, and many options can only be set by manually changing a value in the registry. For example, if youÂ’ve ever read a Microsoft Knowledge Base article, youÂ’ve likely seen a sentence similar to this:

To correct this problem, change the following value in the registry.

Now thatÂ’s fine, except that this sentence is invariably followed by a disclaimer similar to this one:

Warning: DonÂ’t ever change a value in the registry. Ever. We know we just told you to do that, but would you jump off a cliff if we told you to? DonÂ’t ever change a value in the registry. DonÂ’t even say the word registry. We know a guy once who said the word registry, and three days later he was hit by a bus. True story. As a matter of fact, you shouldnÂ’t even have a registry on your computer. If you suspect that you do have a registry on your computer, call us and a trained professional will be dispatched to your office to remove the registry immediately. If you accidentally touch the registry, wash your hands with soap and water and call a doctor. Do not swallow the registry or get it in your eyes!

Now, to be honest, some of those fears are a bit exaggerated, and the disclaimer is there largely for legal reasons (remember, this is the day and age when you can order hot coffee in a restaurant and then sue the restaurant when the coffee they give you turns out to be, well, hot). If you do it correctly, changing the registry is perfectly harmless. At the same time, however, it’s true that there are certain values in the registry that should never be changed. In fact, changing them can pretty much wipe your computer out, once and for all. It’s like working on the bomb squad: if you snip the right wire, the bomb is defused and everything is fine. But if you snip the wrong one—Boom! You just created Microsoft Bob!

Um, not that weÂ’re saying Microsoft Bob was a bomb or anything.

It's worth it just for the Microsoft Bob digs.

Oh, yeah - the Tweakomatic looks pretty good too.

Posted by: Jim at 02:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Andrew's got a question: What are the top 5 biggest problems facing the world today?

That's easy!

1. Terrorism


2. Socialism


3. Excessive Legislation


4. Africa


5. The Middle East

Posted by: Jim at 09:13 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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I've won the caption contest over at The Cheese Stands Alone. Go and bask in my cleverness and remark in wonder at LeeAnn's astuteness in selecting my entry as the winner. Now I shall sit back in anxious anticipation as I await my fantabulous prize.

Points: It's a gimme but what the heck. One point to the first person to name my source for this post's title. No searching, please.

Posted by: Jim at 09:15 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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The 13th Bestofme Symphony is up at Ambient Irony. Pixy Misa did some beautiful work. And all that after a hella day at the job! Get on over and enjoy some of the best reading in the blogosphere.

Hosting: Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note.

Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.

Spread the word: Webloggers, please give Pixy a hand by spreading the word a little linky love goes a long way.

Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There's one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.

Posted by: Jim at 11:11 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I can't tell you just how much time I wasted with Mario. But was it really time wasted? Is time ever wasted when you are enjoying yourself? Well, yeah, I guess sometimes it is. For those of you who don't give a crap about wasting time as long as you're enjoying ourselves, check out the Adventures of Mario:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

Posted by: Jim at 08:13 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 V. Cool - I want part 4 now (and have to be a little concerned as to why Dopple G Seems to have a never ending supply of flash stuff to entertain us with!)

Posted by: Rob at March 01, 2004 09:28 AM (kXZI6)

2 Well, he's a programmer and you know how they are. Spend most of the day playing Doom or surfing the web...

Posted by: Jim at March 01, 2004 09:30 AM (IOwam)

3 erm, I must be with the wrong firm ... but of course we designers have an infinitely higher work load than those code monkeys ... now where did I leave that BFG.

Posted by: Rob at March 01, 2004 10:27 AM (kXZI6)

4 That was totally awesome!!!! But I HATE cliffhangers!!!

Posted by: Susie at March 01, 2004 11:16 AM (5u/dN)

5 uhh...can someone 'splain that to me? Is this some kind of abstract statement of Mario's inhumanity by reducing him to a squiggle as he races around in the eternal pursuit of materialism? I ain't seeing it.

Posted by: Christine at March 01, 2004 12:17 PM (Q/NXM)

6 It takes a while to load. The dancing squiggle is the artist's version of the "loading bar" you usually get.

Posted by: Jim at March 01, 2004 12:52 PM (IOwam)

7 Got to wait for part 4, evil. Nice skins btw, love the kitty one cause it has a kitty.

Posted by: mog at March 01, 2004 07:30 PM (Dqis0)

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