Don't know why I keep up with the Fairchild Superfund site news, but I do. Coupla' weeks ago got a mailer where the board explained that some of the new homes on whisman were found to have unacceptable levels of TCE. I seriously considered buying one of those homes - except sanity prevailed. A half a million bucks for a little house with no yard on a toxic dump? No thanks. I found something better. Today they report that they're re-thinking the use of these huge air scrubbers surrounding the old Fairchild plant. They work by pumping the ground water up and spraying it around in a big tube so the TCE will evaporate and hence be removed from the ground water. Now they're questioning the effect of having all this airborne TCE in unhealthy concentrations surrounding all the office workers in the area. That would be Netscape/AOL workers. Along with Veritas and Verisign and all the other folks now inhabiting those buildings. I spent years working next to these scrubbers, and walking around them during breaks. In retrospect, one can only say 'Doh.' Work on top of a TCE plume and these giant chemical pumps right there pumping it in your face. That's what they were designed to do. I smell class action, but doubt I'll see anything personally unless I start growing extra limbs or a tail or something.

This is some hard selling. Finally got somebody to look closely at the vintage Gibson. Only problem was he strolled right into my display window bay to do it. Uhm... Scuze me, but that's off limits. I'd be glad to show you something but I can barely squeeze through there without breaking anything. He cursed at me and walked out. Next lady... she's renting a 300 dollar cello. This is bottom of the barrel. It's made out of plywood. I only have it because I don't have much to lose when it inevitably gets the neck broken off. She'd love to buy the thing, but it's so expensive. How come they're so much cheaper on eBay?, she asks. Uhm, because they're junk? It's hard to say that with a straight face, knowing the one she's renting is junk. Here's a real cello. It's $600, and even that is comparatively inexpensive for a decent cello. Didn't get the sale. Either one. She'll buy one off eBay. But she might be back. I shudder to think what she's going to get for sub-300 dollars. Probably one that somebody glued the neck back onto...

The guy in charge of CNN programming stepped down. This is the guy who brought you the freaking sidebars on headline news so that you have to keep track of six different totally unsynchronized information feeds on one screen. He also brought us Rudi. She did lose the sparkle. Not when I thought she would; back on special assignment in Israel. She finally cracked when they made her share the stage with this dorky looking dude. Looks like they dumped him in less than three weeks, but the damage is done. She's no longer the princess of primetime.

This Kim dude is getting annoying. That would be the leader of the northern Korean faction. It's all extortion. He ain't gonna' do diddly. That is unless we don't send him some aid money real soon now. But he wants that money real bad. Everytime we slap his hand and say we're not gonna' be blackmailed, he ups the anty another level. Now he insists he's prepared to nuke us and take over the south and maybe nuke us again for the hell of it. Yeah? You and what army? The Chinese? Uhm, nevermind... the check's in the mail.

Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson? Isn't he in jail? He's fighting again? Must be as old as I am. Should be hilarious.

Rumsfield apparently has in his desk a list of things that could go wrong in Iraq. One of them (according to published reports, which I don't have in front of me) is that Saddam might blow the wells. Doh. Of course he's gonna' blow the wells. The reason it's a concern wasn't about the ecological disaster, but because it would destroy revenue needed to rebuild Iraq. You hear lots of folks shouting 'It's about OIL' these days, and whether we like it or not - the argument is compelling. We're gonna' go in there and sieze the wells. We are. It's part of the plan. That's disturbing. Who's gonna' rake in the profits? Who is gonna' control the wells? We should only need a few million dollars to rebuild Iraq - even if we decide to nuke the place. The wells are worth billions.

Somebody hacks the credit card system and has access to all the numbers - at least those that were used last month. My guess is they've got data overload and won't be able to cash in on it. But what if it were them terrorist dudes? Hack VISA and take a thousand from everybody in America. Heck, take everything you've got. We're doing a lot of What If these days? Huh? What If? Would the credit card company reimburse us?