Coffee Klatch

To the roar of the crowd and the grateful cheers of its many users, WordPress 3.0 has arrived! Here’s a video tour of the latest and greatest from WordPress:

Calling all computer gamers! I need some advice.

Last time I finished a Master’s Degree, I rewarded myself with a quality PC game. In three weeks I will be finished a new Master’s Degree and want to reward myself similarly. The games I currently own and enjoy the most are:

• Sid Meier’s Civilization IV (with Beyond the Sword expansion)
• Neverwinter Nights
• Sid Meier’s Pirates
• Occasionally
  • Quake
  • Medieval Total War
  • CivCity Rome
  • Snood
  • Insaniquarium
  • Various other medieval or pirate-themed games

What new or newish game would you recommend for me to get? I prefer replayability over high-end graphic effects and I like puzzle, simulation, and role-playing games the most.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Very cool, but definitely someone with too much time on their hands!

Are you looking for something new and interesting to use for your computer’s desktop wallpaper? I found a site today that has loads of free, high-quality images. It’s at VeryVeryFun.com. The search that took me to this site was looking for pictures of places in Europe. There is a very nice collection of Europe HD Wallpapers at this site, as well as lots of images in other categories, too.

You have just received the Amish virus. Because we don’t have any computers or programming experience, this virus works on the honor system. Please manually forward this virus to everyone on your mailing list and then delete all the files from your hard drive.

Thank you for your cooperation.

The Amish Computer Department

Have you ever wanted to go back and see some of the customized logos that Google has come up with for various holidays and anniversaries? They’re all on Google’s site: http://www.google.com/logos/index.html

And you can even subscribe to their RSS feed for new logos!

Pretty cool!

Dear Abby: Should I Be Honest?

I am facing a very serious problem. You see, I am a Vietnam-era deserter from the U. S. Marines, and I have a cousin who works for Microsoft. My mother peddles Nazi literature to Girl Scouts and my father (a former dentist) is in jail for 30 years for molesting most of his patients while they were under anesthesia.

The sole supports of our large family, including myself and my $500-a-week heroin habit, are my uncle (master pick-pocket Benny “The Fingers”), my 70-year-old aunt Hester (a shoplifter), and my two kid sisters, who are well-known streetwalkers.

My problem is this: I have just gotten engaged to the most beautiful, sweetest girl in the world. She is just sweet sixteen, and we are going to marry as soon as she can escape from reform school.

To support ourselves, we are going to move to Mexico and start a fake Aztec souvenir factory staffed by child labor. We look forward to bringing our kids into the family business.

But I am worried that my family will not make a good impression on hers. In your opinion, Should I, or shouldn’t I, tell her about my cousin who works for Microsoft?

Are you looking for someplace to host your website? I use DreamHost and always get great service and very inexpensive rates. But they’ve got a sale on this weekend that will blow you away. ENDS TODAY!!

UNLIMITED Disk Space!
UNLIMITED Bandwidth!

And only $9.24 for AN ENTIRE YEAR OF WEB HOSTING!!

After that, I think it’s back to their normal rates of $8.95/month, which is still outstanding for web hosting. (If you miss this incredible sale, you can still get a great deal on web hosting.)

Visit http://www.dreamhost.com/limited-time-sale-going-on-now.html

Top 25 Signs You’re Part of the 00′s
(that’s pronounced “aughts”)

1. You just tried to enter your password on the microwave.

2. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

3. You call your son’s beeper to let him know it’s time to eat. He emails you back from his bedroom, “What’s for dinner?”

4. Your daughter sells Girl Scout Cookies via her web site.

5. You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven’t spoken with your next door neighbor yet this year.

6. You check the ingredients on a can of chicken noodle soup to see if it contains Echinacea.

7. You check your blow-dryer to see if it’s Y2K compliant.

8. Your grandmother clogs up your e-mail inbox asking you to send her a JPEG file of your newborn so she can create a screen saver.

9. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.

10. Every commercial on television has a web-site address at the bottom of the screen.

11. You buy a computer and a week later it is out of date and now sells for half the price you paid.

12. The concept of using real money, instead of credit or debit, to make a purchase is foreign to you.

13. Cleaning up the dining room means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.

14. Your reason for not staying in touch with family is that they do not have e-mail addresses.

15. You consider second-day air delivery painfully slow.

16. Your dining room table is now your flat filing cabinet.

17. Your idea of being organized is multiple-colored Post-it notes.

18. You hear most of your jokes via e-mail instead of in person.

19. You get an extra phone line so you can get phone calls.

20. You turn off your Modem and get this awful feeling, as if you just as if you had pulled the plug on a loved one.

21. You get up in morning and go online before getting your coffee.

22. You wake up at 2am to go to the bathroom and check your E-mail on your way back to bed.

23. You start tilting your head sideways to smile.

24. You’re reading this.

25. Even worse; you’re going to forward it to someone else.

This is a terrific combination of many of the email hoaxes and urban legends that have circulated the Internet in recent years. Enjoy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was on my way to the post office to pick up my case of free M&M’s (sent to me because I forwarded an e-mail to five other people, celebrating the fact that the year 2000 was “MM” in Roman numerals), when I ran into a friend whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering from having been served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (which is predictable, since as everyone knows, there’s no actual chicken in Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is why the government made them change their name to KFC).

Anyway, one day this guy went to sleep and when he awoke he was in his bathtub and it was full of ice and he was sore all over and when he got out of the tub he realized that HIS KIDNEY HAD BEEN STOLEN! He saw a note on his mirror that said “Call 911!” but he was afraid to use his phone because it was connected to his computer, and there was a virus on his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened an e-mail entitled “Join the Crew!”

He knew it wasn’t a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was working on software to prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute the $250.00 Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates. (It’s true – I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from BILL GATES HIMSELF, who was also promising me a free Disney World vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.)

The poor man then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidneys, but a voice on the line first asked him to press #90, which unwittingly gave the bandit full access to the phone line at the guy’s expense.Then reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle around which was wrapped a note that said, “Welcome to the world of AIDS.”

Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital – the one where that little boy who is dying of cancer is, the one whose last wish is for everyone in the world to send him an e-mail and the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every e-mail he receives. I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch of x’s and o’s in the shape of an angel (if you get it and forward it to more than 10 people you will have good luck, but for only 10 people you will only have OK luck, and if you send it to fewer than 10 people you will have BAD LUCK FOR SEVEN YEARS).

So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving without its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights at him and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation.

Send THIS to all the friends who send you their mail and you will receive 4 green M&Ms — if you don’t, the owner of Proctor and Gamble will report you to his Satanist friends and you will have more bad luck: you will get sick from the Sodium Laureth Sulfate in your shampoo, your spouse will develop a skin rash from using the antiperspirant which clogs the pores under your arms, and the U.S. government will put a tax on your e-mails forever.

I know this is all true ’cause I read it on the Internet.