Ever get the urge to customize your desktop environment with a new background image, font, or system beep? Luckily, it's easy to do and there are countless sites out there to help.

But would you really want these system sound replacements? Am I the only person who's reminded of "Duff Man"? Maybe just the thing for the office...

Feeling a little disconnected... goin' to sleep. Maybe I'll blog something witty in the morning.

Is it Friday already?

So a couple of my friends had been planning a trip to Egypt and Jordan for over a year until with just two weeks to go, the world changes and they have to find something a little more safe.

Last Saturday they set off on a three week road trip to Canada, possibly dipping back down into the states to see some true Americana like Carhenge, the Great Balls of Twine, the Mall of America and the House on the Rock.

Anyhow, they're completely incommunicado, without any firm agenda, and I made them promise to at least call every 3 or 4 days, just to give an update and to let me know they're all right.

Pah. It's been six days now and I haven't heard a thing. More frustrated than worried, but I'd like to hear from them before it starts changing to worry.

You guys out there? Until I hear their tales, I'm keeping myself entertained reading about another person's 21 day journey through Americana.

In lieu of a full review of last night's pilot for Star Trek: Enterprise, I give you "The Net's First 'Enterprise' Slash Fiction."

(Slash fiction, for those not in tune with the lingo, is fanfic (fanfic is fiction written by fans) with pornographic (pornography is- Ah, forget it...) overtones, usually homosexual).

I'm linking it here because it's timely, funny, and exactly the kind of thing people are probably writing right now in a not-intended-to-be-satirical way.

Oh, on another note, despite the assertion from several comedians that in the wake of 9-11, 'satire is dead,' it's clear that, if this week's Onion is any guide, satire was merely taking a two-week nap. Of course, there are always dissenting opinions, but how many of us are actually old enough to remember when SNL wasn't afraid to use comedy to affect social change, instead of belatedly acknowledge it?

So, after a few weeks of eschewing the train and trying an earlier schedule, I've returned to the Amtrak way, at least 2 or 3 days a week, because though it takes longer, I've forgotten how much I enjoy the time I spend on the train, writing stories, blog entries, or just listening to music and looking out the window for inspiration. These are moments you don't get nursing the gas and brake for three hours a day.

For those curious on the traffic front (and knowledgeable about Bay Area freeways), I found out that the primary reason for the increased traffic is because they've closed down 237 between 680 and 880 while they finish the 237/880 interchange. This means that a lot of people who normally go 680-237-880/237 are now going 680-580-238-880 to 880/237 or 680-Mission-880 to 880/237. Phew! What that means in English is that a whole lot more cars are coming in to 880 South, right at the point when it narrows from 5 lanes to 3, which makes a gridlock that cascades back thirty miles, and isn't likely to get any better for at least a month or two. Amtrak and/or driving at 6am is my friend.

One other think I like about my train is that every day I pass within about 200 yards of Kisa and Emily as I pass through Hayward. I always wave, either literally or in my head, and try to picture what Kisa is doing right then. She's usually sleeping.

Wow: The conductor just came on and announced that starting next week they're adding another train to the schedule down to Santa Clara, so I can catch the 8:05 train out of Emeryville and get to Santa Clara around 9:15. Not something I'd do all the time, but it's a great alternative to driving when I miss the train, or absolutely need that extra hour. Now I just have to figure out how to get from the Santa Clara station to Yahoo!, considering the Y! shuttle will probably only meet the first train. Maybe it's time to get that motorcycle after all...

Today I left Berkeley at 7:04 am to drive the 45 miles to work in Sunnyvale. On a good day, I can make the trip in an hour. On a normal rush-hour day, maybe an hour and 45 minutes.

Today I got in at 9:54, nearly three hours after I left.

There was no accident, no construction, just 10mph traffic that stretched on for miles and miles.

After getting in, I was commiserating with a friend who had a worse-than-usual commute down 101 today, and she thinks she has the explanation: Nobody's travelling. Deloitte & Touche, Arthur Anderson, Ernst & Young, and others, all have large campuses in the South Bay, and they all have bans on travelling right now, so everyone's driving to work at the home office.

Argh. Amtrak, here I come. I am sorry that I forsook thee.

Okay, okay. I was about to go to sleep and I see that I haven't posted anything since yesterday afternoon, so I feel compelled to churn up some nugget of insight right now, on command.

I really am going to sleep now though, so this is a quickie.

The Blogger Purity Survey is moving along. I sent out the list of 500+ questions to eight fellow bloggers, and six have already gone through the list, rating each one on its merits for inclusion in the final survey. Now I'm feeding those numbers back into an excel spreadsheet, removing duplicates, fixing grammar, and sorting into 5 or so categories.

The net result is that the BPS will go live for the masses within 7 days.

The other big news is that Mac OS X 10.1 was finally released today (well, 'announced' today, (well, it was 'announced' back in July) for Saturday release) and I can't wait to get it on my powerbook. The big upside for me is that, after installing PHP and mySQL, I'll once again have a development machine without having to mess with stuff via FTP and SSH to Dreamhost when I want to tinker with code and databases. I lost that when I tore down Linux in favor (and I use the term lightly) of Win2K.

And best of all, it'll be portable, so I can actually develop web apps on the train, instead of write untested code that I'll have to debug later. I'm also taking the train tomorrow, which means I'll be able to start catching up on the ever-growing scraps of blogthoughts that is threatening to burst my meager wallet.

Okay, now to sleep.

Sometimes a picture can say a thousand words... Sometime's it can't even say one.

Either kerning, or even better, a different typeface, could have solved this problem before it became one. Then again, maybe this is just the clientele they're trying to target, and I'm just not giving them enough credit.

Emily and I went to the Alice Radio Now & Zen Concert in Golden Gate Park today.

Barenaked Ladies, the original headlining band, cancelled last week, as their families didn't want them flying from Toronto to San Francisco, and so they pledged $25,000 to the Red Cross instead. In a rush to find replacement bands (Stereophonic cancelled for similar reasons earlier in the week), Alice managed to sign up Alanis Morissette and Melissa Ethridge to headline the show with a week's notice.

The show itself was great. Despite miserable parking conditions and an admission/security check line over a thousand people long, we still managed to get near the stage just as Stomp started their opening act. The morning was overcast (this is Golden Gate Park, after all), but instead of burning off, the fog grew more dense, and the arena got colder through the day until 4 or so, when the fog finally started to dissipate, and brief breaks of sunlight caused the affected part of the crowd to cheer, much to the probable confusion of whichever band happened to be on stage at the time.

rather than go through a play-by-play of the bands, I just thought I'd share one poignant moment. While the Now & Zen show is an annual event (this is its third year), and plans were naturally made far in advance of 9-11, it was rebranded as "Now & Zen, a day of healing in the park, a charity event for the Red Cross," and went so far as to get an official recognition from Mayor Willie Brown.

Red, white, and blue were the colors of the day. Flags abounded, and spirits were high. By the time Alanis took the stage around 4, everyone was in a good mood and was hyped to see the artist that enticed most of them to come out in the first place.

Alanis was vivacious, and very energetic (I think Cher could learn a few things about love-of-hair from Alanis), and she even played two songs, "The Man," and (argh... I forgot the other one. Anyone?), that she'd never yet played in public. Towards the end of her set the crowds were thinning, and so Em and I ventured forward from our spot on the hill to get a closer vantage point for her last song or two.

Getting right up near the sound booth, we waited for the last song, which I simply assumed (among other things, by the fact that she hadn't played much, if anything, else from 'Supposed former Infatuation Junkie') would be 'Thank You.' It caught me completely unprepared when the first four notes I heard went like this.

I suppose I'm being melodramatic when I say that those four notes threw me, but the song they belonged to is "Uninvited," which instantly struck a chord from the terrorism angle. A stronger sentiment and a clearer implied meaning was scarcely heard that day. After those four notes she stopped the band. The original set list included Uninvited, following up with Thank You as the closer, but they were running over 'curfew' and could only play one song and, quite rightly, Alanis saw that closing with anything other than 'Thank You' wouldn't be right, especially if the final piece was 'Uninvited.' For just a moment I felt my own internal dichotomy, the struggle between peace and vengeance, take external form. I'm only writing about it because I felt, whether it was good or bad, it was powerful.

Anyhow, that was my moment of Zen. We had a nice (though cold) day in the park, listened to some fine music (including Slappy!), had good company, and I finally got to see Alanis (though the bitter tale of how I missed seeing her at the onset of her stardom is a story for another day).

Did anyone else have a moment of Zen last week?

...or at least your phone.

Congress mandates cell phone locating ability, ostensibly for emergency 911 services:

"Under the E911 mandate, carriers could track phones embedded with GPS chips, even when they aren't turned on."

But this is just so dispatchers can know where 911 callers are calling from, naturally. Mind you, I'm not making a stand on privacy issues here, but I do take offense at privacy-removing bills being masked as anything else.