One of my few, very few comments on this year's election, illustrated by a screen capture by Need To Know.

OK, I missed it when it came out, but I saw it today. You know that web site addresses are everywhere, right? Your chewing gum package has 'em, as do the landscape trucks that trundle by. But today I saw this. Staid Pennsylvania has leapt ahead of the other 49 laggards! (But I will say the web site, while "official", looks like you can get what you need from it - more than can be said about a lot of other sites. Including perhaps this one?)

I cleaned my keyboard last night, using a wildly over-priced kit from CompuUSA: ReadRight's "KeyboardKleen". It includes a bottle of "specially formulated" cleaning solution, a small can of compressed air, and some foam-rubber pads. The cleaning solution is probably mostly alcohol and the compressed air is good for only a few full passes of the keyboard. The only thing worthwhile is the pads - they're squashed mostly flat so they'll more easily fit between the keys.

Most of the gunk on the keys was finger spooge, and I noticed that some keys had more crud on them than others. You can tell I'm a solitaire-playing mainframe programmer, because the F2, F3, F7, F8, and F9 keys were the worst. F2 is the "new game" key in Microsoft Windows solitaire games. F3 is the "exit" key, F7 and F8 are scrolling keys, and F9 is the "swap window" key, when using IBM's OS/390 online system, TSO.

Oh, and my "d" key is still sticking, even after removing the cat, dog, and people hairballs.

Each month the postman brings solicitations from desparate ISPs looking for customers. AOL, MSN, and others spam your meatspace mailbox over and over. It used to be that you could at least reuse the floppy disks that came with the mail, but now all the companies are sending CDs. You could use them as miniature Frisbees®, but they're kinda small for most people's hands. Here's a site that offers several Martha Stewart-like ideas for recycling them: Nikki's AOL CD Present Collection. In the same vein, there's a Christmas tree. If you're a pyromaniac, or just fond of torturing inanimate objects, check out About.com's CD Christmas Ornament Project. (I suggest you paint your enemies' faces on the CDs before starting this one!)

From the Uncle Bonsai Venues discussion board, to Christine Lavin's comments on Pirhanha Women of the Avocado Jungle of Death (also known as Cannibal Women...), then to TestingTesting and their Monday night eclectic RealAudio streaming concerts. I like the Local Buddha show on 12-27-99, "electric psychedelic grooves and jams". Who's got the mushrooms?