So one of my own personal complaints about Fury? There are 110 links on the front page. If you live in Southern California, you might understand when I say that I feel like my front page looks like the menu at Jerry's Deli. If you don't, you'll just have to take a look at the web version of Jerry's menu and realize that the physical version is at least four times worse.

I may go more hierarchical, or allow people to choose the modules they want to see, ala My Yahoo, or I may find some other completely novel solution which, by definition, will have to be learned by the user and is therefore bad.

Happy Birthday Karen! Wherever you are!

I got a call yesterday from the wonder-twins. They were at the Mall of America, having once again braved the world's longest undefended border and rejoined the homeland. My accursed cellphone doesn't have signal in my building so I got a voicemail instead of a real conversation, but Karen said they'd call again in a few days, probably from Nebraska. (What on Earth is in Nebraska?)

Anyhow, much good wishes, love, and luck, and a safe and speedy return!

Today I get to have lunch with a face and a name.

Rather, I get to have two lunches.

For the first, I'm having lunch with George Chen, a name you probably don't recognize, but someone with a face you'll almost certainly recognize from somewhere. George, aka "The Internet Guy," is a web developer who, as it happens, went to a photo shoot some years ago, and ended up as the Internet's stock-photo poster boy. Like Wil Wheaton, it's sometimes hard to remember that there's a real person behind the 5meg TIFF files. And yes, I'll see if I can get a picture with him. Like Ernie says, he's the next Curtis!

Hot on the heels of lunch #1, A co-worker and I are lunching with Matt Haughey to chat about net stuff. If you don't recognize his name, you'll almost certainly recognize his creation. Oooh. Now I just have to finally meet Ev and my homage to-do list will be complete!

Throw into the mix a meeting from 10 to 11 and another from 11 to noon and my day is 2/3rds gone.

Add into the mix my odd commute today. I went to sleep late (that's always a fair guess when you see me post at 1:30 in the morning) (but at least I got to see West Wing, Friends, Will & Grace, and half of Enterprise) so I decided to splurge and try out the new later train leaving at 8:02 from Emeryville. I was a little late, but luckily I knew that the train was later (28 minutes), and to add to that I decided to pick it up in Hayward, to make for a faster trek home tonight. So it turns out I was the only person to get on the train at Hayward, and I walked into an absolutely silent car. Downstairs was empty, and upstairs there was only one fellow traveller. Almost spooky. Fire up the powerbook, iTunes, and the Supreme Beings of Leisure cd I was listening to in the car and it gets downright otherworldly.

Now I'm between Fremont and Santa Clara, it's 9:30, and considering that I'll probably have to catch lightrail from the station, I'll be lucky if I get to work by 10:20.

Double-buh.

So I watched the Buffy premiere last night, but in so doing missed Enterprise and 'a very special' West Wing, so now I have to be careful not to spoil those by reading the wrong blogs or articles. Ahh, whatever. I can just avert my eyes.

One more reason to go to SXSW in March.

No, I'm not talking about Brad's initiative, worthy though it is.

Wednesday is my day without weblogs. I may write, but I will not read.

It's not a protest.

It's not a statement.

It's a necessity.

You see, Buffy's much anticipated season premiere aired tonight. I mistakenly thought Gilmore Girls was supposed to have its season premiere tonight, overlapping Buffy, but I was mistaken. Before I realized my error, I made plans to watch Gilmore Girls alone tonight, and head to Emily's tomorrow to watch Buffy. (Emily's TiVo was saving it for her, as she couldn't watch it tonight either.)

So at 8pm instead of finding myself in must-see T-vana, I ditched a television wasteland with nothing to offer me but TBS's ST-TNG: A Five Day Marathon.

So, as the rest of the world has watched this episode and is raving about it (well, those who are Buffy geeks anyhow), I seal myself in an anti-blog bubble for the day, refusing to let the tiniest bit of spoilage mar my timeshifting of bliss for 22 hours.

Just look at all the temptation out there. (I assume there are search results. I refuse to indulge in a glance.)

Clearly, this will be the problem when everyone gets TV on demand. How will people know what to talk about at the watercooler/latte bar/instant messenger?

Here's a final thought for the evening: You can rent DVDs all over the place, but not CDs. If DVDs became readily copyable, do you think they would stop renting them? If CDs became copyproof, do you think they would start?

So last month I jokingly commented that Amazon should let people surf by books that look like other books, but I realize now that I missed the far, far bigger picture.

I'm sure most of you are familiar with Amazon's purchase circles. Amazon takes all their information on who buys what and who likes what and creates aggregations of what items are disproportionately popular in a given geographic region, company, school, or other institution. Similarly, they use this data to tell you what you'll think of other items based on the opinions of 'people like you.'

All very well and good, as now they can tell you what your community is reading and listening to, so you have to think less, but I'm waiting for the next step. With all the data they have on people, places, purchases, and your likes and dislikes, it seems only natural that Amazon should branch out into the real estate market.

Think about it: Amazon could turn the tables 90 degrees and tell you "People who think like you do live in Anytown, USA. Click here for houses in that area."

In fact, why stop there? What about Amazon.com Dating Circles? "Here are the top ten people in your area who share your taste in Books | DVDs | Music | Toys" Amazon could give advice on roommate selection. you can run a credit check and an amazon personal compatibility profile for only $9.95 per pairing.

You could tie in your E911-equipped cellphone to amazon and it can call you when there's someone near you who's also read "To Kill a Mockingbird" in the last 6 months.

The possibilities are endless. Buy stock now...

Something wasn't right.

I've been having some strange dreams lately. It's probably been a lot of things: I rearranged my bedroom and now my bed's in a strange place. I'm regularly living on 6 hours of sleep a night. I go to sleep thinking of unfinished projects and wake up in a rush.

I've been having strange dreams. Dreams of flying I'm completely familiar with; not flying like a bird, soaring, gliding, and circling through thermals of inspiration, but more like the flight of a butterfly, alternating floating downward and twitching upward. This is a familiar dream.

Strange dreams. Dreams like vignettes. A few seconds here, lay the background, and scene. And on to the next. Most of them I don't remember beyond the wheel-of-fortune structure of flipping from one environment to the next.

Strange. Two nights ago one flash was my car, the front fender damaged on the driver's right, sort of shredded, sort of planed off, so the bumper was higher on that side for want of a bottom. I was unsettled on Saturday, vaguely unsettled on Saturday, until I remembered this night-picture and segmented it off from reality. All better.

Today's morning ritual involved getting up later than I ought to have, to catch my train, rushing to get it all together, walking up Haste to my car.

Berkeley parking is somewhat of a mystery. When I get home, bet it 6pm or midnight, Berkeley is perpetually packed, residential and meter parking alike. Luckily, a silver-lining of my working world is being able to park at a meter, as my start time is substantially earlier than when the meters tick on at 9. The mystery is that, though the meters are packed when I get in in the evening, come 7am mine is the only car remaining on a block of 25 spaces.

Are the other 24 who were here last night all earlier risers than I am, or are they partying until 2am, then driving home?

No matter. My car is at the top of the block, and walking towards it from 300 feet out, I can't decide if it's mine. It doesn't look quite right. I don't think about it again and come half-a-block I can see that it's Baby. I walk up, unlock the door, hand on the handle, and I stop.

I go back to the front of the car, the dream-vision coming back, to check out the front bumper.

Fine, normal. Okay. I turn back to the door.

Something wasn't right.

Back to the front I go, and realization dawns. No license plate. Gone. Just an empty bracket. No trauma of a violent parallel parker, just the void of absence.

I check the back, just so see if my assailant was going for a hat trick. At least they left me that one, with the registration tab I spent far to long acquiring.

When did this attack occur? Were there cars around bearing mute witness? Did it happen days ago and I only just noticed? Was my dream prescient, coincident, or simply a subliminal realization trying to share itself with my conscious awareness?

So now I assume that my license plate, too clever by half, is adorning someone's dorm room or apartment. What my assailant isn't counting on is the interconnectedness that seems to run through my life. Three friends of mine who don't know each other all attended the same wedding on Friday, for two people I've never met. I can meet someone and within 15 minutes find a common acquaintance. I just know that I can find someone who knows upon what wall, in which hall or frat house, the license plate "GRR ARG" stands imprisoned and shackled. Have you seen it? Vanity theft is the most dangerous kind indeed. For the victim robbed of a non-fungible item, the desire for recovery is strong, and the thief feels the need to display the acquisition, for what good is art in a drawer?

It will take a few weeks for this spell to run its course, but I know that I will get it back. It may take some help from friends, or some more dreaming, but it will come back.

Grr, arg! Indeed.

Addendum: I just got off the phone with Ali, who tells me I was very lucky that they didn't take the back plate, as I can get a replacement front plate without a problem, but if someone steals the back plate, they'll keep the plate out of circulation for seven years. Umm, thank you I guess?

I know it's hard for Miss Manners and Dear Abby to keep up with all the changes in the world, so I figure I'll ask all of you guys instead:

So I had this group of friends in my freshman year of college. This would be ten years ago now. We were the kind of group that you think is really close, the kind of friends you're going to have for a lifetime. And the next year you realize you were only friends because you lived in the same hall of the same dorm. Sad but true.

But I get ahead of myself...

My ten-year High School Reunion is in two weeks and I decided not to go, mostly because I fell out of touch with my highschool friends even faster than my freshman friends, but I started getting nostalgic. What happened to all the people who I used to know?

Hello Internet! Forget Classmates, I go straight to Google and The Wedding Channel, to download the dirt.

Pumping names into input fields like the nickels into slots of a Denny's in Reno, I find that Ari Stotland is the proud owner of a "Steak-Home" in Vegas, Dana Weinberger is a Post-Doc at Scripps, and Jeff Karish finished Law School at Harvard.

Suddenly I don't have to go back to my reunion after all. I can find out what I want off the net, and save myself hours of driving or flying.

So back to the etiquette quandary: I'm tossing more names, running out of high school and moving on to freshman year, and I find that my friend Carina Balogh, one of the aforementioned Freshman Friends, just got married last week. Carina and I went to lunch a couple times in the year following the dorms, but we never travelled in any of the same circles. I don't have so much as an email address for her, but suddenly I have the means to buy her and her husband a wedding gift.

Call it nostalgia; call it boredom; call it whatever, but would you call it freaky to get her and her new husband a set of measuring cups, eight years out of the blue?

Well I guess we'll see.

Monday: Amazon Wishlists: Unwitting windows to strangers' souls?

So I finally got a call from my friends road tripping through North America. They're in Hope, Canada and are having a great time.

I wish I could tear myself out of the city for a few days. I wonder how low the airfare and hotels are for Vegas now. Hmmm...