You're an Italian battery-charging company named Powergen. You need a Web site. What domain name do you grab? Of course.

[part of Business 2.0's 101 Dumbest Moments in Business]

Tonight, the Berkeley Finnegans Wake Group hit this:

Poor Isa sits a glooming so gleaming in the gloaming; the tincelles a touch tarnished wind no lovelinoise awound her swan's. Hey, lass! Woefear gleam she so glooming, this pooripathete I solde? Her beauman's gone of a cool. Be good enough to symperise. more...

Ladies and gentlemen, our political lesson of the day is brought to you by Ben (of Ben and Jerry's), truemajority.org, and some Oreo cookies. I can't imagine how anyone can disagree with the argument put forth here.

[spotted at Boing Boing; Flash is required]

I just watched the broadcast of The Late Show that I attended last night. A couple of reactions. First, Paul did not sing, "Bloomie, I love you" as I reported following the taping, but rather, "Bloomie, I'm lost." I may have screwed this up because, looking over the lyrics of the song that the cape routine is built around, I don't see the lines "Baby I'm lost" or "Lost in the wilderness" at all, and yet Paul sings those lines during the climax each week. Hmm. Is Paul grabbing those lines from another blues song? If you know what's up here, please enlighten me via the comments for this post. Further: They sure did give extremely short shrift to both "Will it Float?" and the cape routine. Ah well.

When I got up this morning, I was still high off having been in the Ed Sullivan Theater last night, so I decided to keep the energy flowing by having lunch at Rupert Jee's Hello Deli, which is right around the corner from Dave's headquarters, and figures prominently in the show quite often. I got myself a corned beef and pastrami sammich and a Sprite. Grand total: $6.25. So it turns out that Rupert offers one of the cheapest lunches in town. The sammich scores only a 3 out of 5, but I wasn't expecting 2nd Avenue Deli quality here. It was just a gas to be in the Hello Deli. The place is tiny, an absolute shoebox. There's room for eight people to sit and eat, and that's that. The clientele seems to be mostly Dave fans stopping in to gawk and eat, but there was also a regular who came in and was warmly greeted by name. And yes, Rupert's default facial expression does in fact seem to be that odd deer-in-headlights, confused look you're used to seeing on The Late Show.

And tonight, folks, I was there.

Tip: If you know you're traveling to New York within three months, there is a a form you can fill out to put yourself on the list for Late Show tickets should there be cancellations, which are apparently routine. The tickets themselves are free.

I had actually forgotten that I'd filled out that form when I first learned I'd be coming to New York to cover the LinuxWorld trade show. So I was a bit shocked when my cell phone rang yesterday and the voice on the other end said, "This is Molly from The Late Show." It didn't take long for the shock to turn to elation. more...

My soul has been nourished. I made my way to New York today to attend the LinuxWorld Expo trade show, which begins tomorrow. An hour afer I landed, I checked into my hotel, and shortly thereafter, I'd already hopped a downtown 6 to Astor Place. I got off there, headed upstairs, walked one block east and two blocks uptown, and arrived at the 2nd Avenue Deli, which serves the best corned beef and pastrami on the planet. One sandwich and one beer will set you back twenty-five bucks once you're done with tax and tip, but that's part of being in New York. This city sucks the bills right out of your pocket. But when you're putting an end to a sixteen-month craving, you don't even notice.

For decades, a hooded man has left cognac and roses at the grave of Edgar Allen Poe each January 19, thus marking the macabre writer's birthday. In 1993, the visitor left a note that read, "The torch will be passed." And passed it was, apparently to the visitor's sons. All we know about them is that they've mucked up a tradition with lame notes they leave behind. This year, we learn that they are anti-French louts who cannot proofread. Listen carefully: I think I hear Poe rolling down there.

Philip Mangano is our nation's "Executive Director, Interagency Council on Homelessness," but it's more meaningful to call him the President's "homeless czar." And it looks to me like Boosh might have screwed up here and got himself someone who is neither inept nor mean.

Mangano has an intensity that you generally don't get in government types. He thinks it's possible to end chronic homelessness nationwide within ten years. He believes homelessness is a social evil, and compares the movement to end it to the abolitionist movement. He believes that "The only approach that will end homelessness is a non-regional, bipartisan, non-ideological, non-sectarian approach" He also says that to him, parties are irrelevant: "There's no D or R or I or G on this issue." In a short profile in today's Chronicle, he really can't be pegged as one of W's guys until the very last line:

"Then pray for me," he said [to the homeless couple he'd been chatting with]. "I'm trying to help you."

So we've got ourselves a religious man who — oh, hold on a moment. There's someone at the door. more...

Greetings, readers. I've been absent cuz the machine just plumb ran out of steam at the end of the year, and though it's now running again, it's not quite yet up to full speed.

I have, however, put a fresh coat of paint on the walls. In 2003, green was appropriate: Something was growing. Now, something may be taking flight, so I've wrapped things up in blue.