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Dear gentle reader: this blog has been operating continuously since I was a teenager. The writing below is at least a decade old. In that time every molecule of my body has been replaced, along with many foolish ideas and flighty beliefs. I want to keep some of those things public out of an honesty and humility I owe the world. I trust you to carry that context with you.

March 25, 2004 /

For some reason (most likely NewsBruiser’s ping of weblogs.com), NFD got listed at Blogweb.org. Sensing an opportunity for aggrandizement, I helpfully updated the listing, placing myself correctly in the elite category of XBOX/YANNI. Now I’ll just sit back and watch the hits pour in!

March 24, 2004 /

Hey, heads up. In case you syndicate NFD via its RSS feed, you should be aware that the feed address has changed (as linked right there). But then, of course, if you do read this thing only by syndication, you… won’t ever get this message. Um.

A lot of addresses have changed, actually, including the permalink format, but Leonard somehow managed not to break backward compatibility with old links. So they’ll still work, and the original NFD Lite permalinks (which redirect to the original NB permalinks) will still work, but the whole situation is just getting increasingly meta. One of these days the whole thing’s gonna go critical. Metacritical!

March 24, 2004 /

You will live in Mansion.

You will drive a Dark Blue Hummer.

You will marry Janeane Garofalo and have 3 kids.

You will be a Dad in Mountain View.

Now you, too, can Play MASH Online, magically removing its barely-scandalous social purpose entirely. Reduce your childhood pleasures to solved problems! Next: Candy Land, or possibly War.

March 23, 2004 /

This is the second Spring Break Follow-Up Post, and it’s mostly to say that Spring Break Was GREAT! I wasn’t as good about keeping a personal travelogue this time as I was when I went to California, but fortunately I have a roommate and trip companion with a photographic memory. I’ll try to finish that up and patch the holes today or tomorrow.

Notable events that are true:

  • We did get caught in a blizzard, ditch the car, and walk five blocks with only a vague idea of where we were and an increasing chance of hypothermia. We lived, though. As did the car.
  • We did have every intention of seeing Kid Koala and other assorted DJs at a Real Club in New York City.
  • We did learn to appreciate the beauty of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
  • We (this time including Bee and Graham, Maria’s college crew, who are awesome) did stay up until four in the morning for no apparent reason, eventually acting pretty drunk without actually being drunk. This is what grownups do for fun, kids.
  • A cool thing about that night, though, was that Graham and I learned to communicate with gamma rays!
  • We did share our floor of the Days Inn (in Bodily Region) with the entire high-school Asian population of Pennsylvania.

Notable events that are not true:

  • I completely remembered to tell everyone at my job that I was leaving for a week on March 14th–long before, say, March 12th.
  • We did way more in Providence than mostly hanging out on the third floor of the mall.
  • I in no way embarrassed myself on the Dance Dance Revolution machine in the Brown Post Office. (You can take that as “I did play, but did look ridiculous,” or as “I did not play at all,” really. Your pick.)
  • We did actually see Kid Koala, because the show was not sold out.
  • We were extremely nice and careful with your car, Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, and certainly never killed its battery with a cell-phone charger and had to get a recharge from the hotel man. Thank you very kindly for its use. Look! Over there! Behind you! You’re not looking!
  • I came home and, on our self-appointed Monday of Rest, did something more useful than get mad at Prince of Persia all day.

It was a great trip. I can’t say the past month and a half was the most traveling I’ve ever done, but man, it was a lot of traveling. Who knows, I might even grow a beard now!

March 23, 2004 /

Just try to guess whether this headline came from the Sports or Society pages. Go on, I dare you.

Campbell, cool in blue, eyes green

(You looked at the URL, didn’t you? You cheater.)

(Um, or you figured out they don’t do Society pages anymore.)

March 23, 2004 /

Oh, right, we’re home and not dead. We got in Sunday night after driving (or, in my case, passengering) like long-distance maniacs all the way from Bodily Region, Pennsylvania. I learned to hate Pennsylvania on this trip, by the way. It’s like Wyoming, but colder and less populous.