web-goddess

How incredibly weird. A reporter for the New York Observer managed to infiltrate the secret initiation rite of the “Skull and Bones” society at Yale University. This is the same society that both President Bush and his father belonged to, as well as “founders of Time Inc. and the C.I.A.” and “several Secretaries of State and National Security Advisors.” Slate calls the exposé a “great day in the annals of American journalism“. Wasn’t it also a movie starring Pacey?

Let’s see, on Monday Metafilter wondered if George Bush’s new strategy is to “court the Catholics.” I’d say the signs are good… On Wednesday Notre Dame announced that Bush is going to be this year’s commencement speaker. Ugh.

Steve points to an interesting page full of the real facts about the famous McDonald’s spilled coffee case. I always thought it was a frivolous lawsuit, but hearing that a 79-year-old woman had to have skin grafts on 6% of her body changes things a bit.

Oh good Lord. As an experiment, two journalists from the Guardian walked around London asking American tourists about foot-and-mouth disease. Unfortunately we Yanks pretty much lived up to all the stereotypes. These people were idiots (“Is that the one where you have to burn your shoes?”), with the notable exception of one 13-year-old kid.

I just found something else cool on Quadra – a site where you input your location and it tells you where you’d come out if you dug a hole straight through the Earth. From London, I wind up in the Pacific just off the coast of New Zealand.

Did I mention we’re thinking of getting a cat? Because we are. I just came across what must be the biggest innovation in feline-human interaction ever: a computerised cat door that will only let the kitty in if she’s not holding something in her mouth. How cool is that?

Toni Morrison’s come out in support of that Gone With the Wind parody I mentioned before. Apparently so have Harper Lee and Pat Conroy. Is Harper Lee still alive? I didn’t know that. And wasn’t “To Kill a Mockingbird” her only novel? Wow.

I just finished reading all ten Pulitzer Prize-winning essays by David Moats of the Rutland Herald newspaper in Vermont. Mr. Moats wrote about the landmark Supreme Court ruling that led to the institution of civil unions for gay couples. It was the first Pulitzer for a Vermont paper in history. I highly recommend them.

If you downloaded my Simple Poll System to try out at your own site, you should know that I just fixed a bug that cropped up when you tried to view the results before anyone had voted. Re-download the source files and just replace “pollresults.php” if you need to.

New Poll: In honor of my lunch today, a new poll has been started. Please take two seconds to give me your views on the gift from the gods that is hummus.
 
Results from the old poll: Well, apparently you guys didn’t notice much of a change in the site. By “new design”, I was referring to the now full-screen page width and the row of colored boxes down the left side of the page. As Snookums pointed out though, these aren’t big changes and only design-obsessed geeks like me would even notice. I was basically doing the cyber-equivalent of “Do you notice anything differently about me?”, and you guys were giving me the stammering boyfriend “Uh, no?” act. Point taken.