I realize now that I was updating my blog everytime I was on a plane. Vacation made doing that difficult.
”Sir, you have to have
a ticket before we’ll let you sit on the plane,” scolded the ticket counter lady.
”But I just want to write my blog in there!” I begged. ”Sir, we don’t even know what a blog is.” ”Come on, 5 minutes? Please?” ”That’s it, sir. We’re calling security.”
I ran off.


I am sitting next to a 7 year old that’s drawing realistic renditions of raver chicks. I don’t know what this means. It could be a sign.
Perhaps it means I should avoid raver chicks. I have a most special friend right now who is not a raver chick. If she is, she’s been cleverly hiding her baggy
pants and glowsticks. I wonder where I put my pacifier? Oh, that’s right. I stopped using it in 1970.


They’ve left for a poddy break. Yay. I’ll summerize my New Year’s experience at Number’s. Uneventful. I only made one stinky little
dollar during the balloon drop. Everyone else also made a stinky dollar, too, so it leads me to believe they were only dropping stinky
dollar bills this year. The economy needs to rebound so they can start dropping 20’s again, dammit. I took care of the decoy balloons
that litter the floor by installing a sharp nail in the toe of each shoe I wore. As I walked across the dance floor, any balloon that I would
kick would blow up. It severely confused a lot of people who would then go and try to do the same thing, only to find out kicking the balloons
would only send them flying up into the air. Sometimes into people’s faces. Not good.


I am going to read my third James Patterson novel during the next few weeks. I’ve already read ”Kiss The Girls” and ”Along Came
A Spider.” I have never seen the film adapatations of either novel. My current novel is ”Pop Goes The Weasel.” There were no
spiders in ”Along” although there was considerable girl kissing in ”Kiss.” I am hoping there’s not a lot of weasel popping in ”Pop.”
I’ll try not to get my hopes up too high.


I managed to see a few films while I was in Houston. ”Ocean’s Eleven” was great although I had already seen half of the film earlier in the month of December.
I was at what must have been a porn theater. I think it must have been a Thursday night when the proprieter of the theater thought to
himself, ”Hey, let’s just play mainstream movies here tomorrow.” The place was filthy. It even made Number’s look clean in comparison.
Sagging wallpaper and parts of the ceiling were in a sorry condition. Usually I shun a theater if there is no stadium seating. For some
reason I was open minded. Bad idea. The floor was sticky. The seats were creaky. There was a smell that I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
I won’t be going there again. Okay, well, maybe if I’m drunk and I’ve got a concussion, then, maybe.


On the 15th we were treated to a very nice company Christmas party held at our office. In tight fiscal times, we were lucky to even
throw a party at all as most other offices waived theirs. Through a combination of pitching in and taking Pot Luck Dinner to a whole
new level, we had a great time. There was a flash piece that we did that made it seem like 9/11 was the reason for all our woes. It
wasn’t, but it certainly didn’t help. I have mixed emotions about how the new culture of awareness and patriotism has spilled into
marketing. Admittedly, it’s a good thing. Don’t expect my site to join in, however. A dark gothic/Matrix slant on things doesn’t jive well with the flag
and Uncle Sam.


Okay, more movie news. I saw ”Harry Potter” in New York near Lincoln Center at the Loew’s IMAX there. Last time I saw a
mainstream movie on an IMAX screen was the dreaded ”Last of the Mohicans.” I remember patiently waiting for that movie to get
to the point where I could stand up and yell out loud, ”Oh my god! He’s the last of the Mohicans now!” I’d fallen asleep halfway through
so I never got my wish. If you are reading this and you’re thinking that it would be clever to rent ”Last of the Mohicans” and invite me
over for a viewing, please lay down on the floor until that idea goes away. Anyway, Harry Potter was O.K. I guess I need to read the
book. Same deal with ”Lord of the Rings” herein referred to as LOTR. I enjoyed the movie. I even remember a very good hacker board
here in Houston named The Mines of Moria back in the 1980’s. It featured mostly Infocom game cracks and Apple ][ game cheats,
although your standard fare of purple box or black box or whatever hack culture instructions were available —
all depending upon what circle you had
access to. I was lucky enough to be a member of the elusive Nineth Circle and could access anything on the site. I could write a
whole novel about the 1980s dial-up BBS subculture that very few people knew about. We were totally geeks. No wonder I had
such a hard time picking up chicks in Junior High.


I have lately been trying to locate really old friends but with no luck. Richard Noble is one such person that I am trying to locate. He
attended Jersey Village High School with me and is responsible for my appreciation of Prince, Sade, and some of the lesser known
artists of early hip hop. He moved to Atlanta, Georgia last I heard. He was getting married the same week I had to start a monthly
training program for my team at Compaq. I didn’t get to make the wedding, but I also wound up losing his number. I have tried in vain
to find it again. The problem is that his parents have unlisted numbers. I will bet his is unlisted as well. Heredity is an amazing thing.
Other friends that I wonder about include Carol Farris. If you go to the Creations section on the site and look up my Mark In The News
sections, you’ll see she appeared in The Houston Post with me. According to her parents in the early 90’s, Carol married an art dealer
or something like that and had moved north. It is entirely possible that I could pick a grade in Elementary school and put together
some kind of freaky reunion page up. Doing the same with Jr. High or High School would be considerably more work. My 15 year reunion
is this year, so maybe I can cut some corners on that respect. Bleah.


I finally re-sampled my Back to the Future 4 short although I messed up the audio and need to resample a chunk again. I also cut out
some of the cheesier adlibs as well as changing the beginning where I briefly showed the ending of BTTF3. To establish the film
all I really had to show was the DeLorean getting destroyed by the train because I pick up on the same railroad tracks right after the
credits roll. You’ll see. Well, you’ll see after 1/11/2002 when I get back home.


More later. Need to take off jacket. Even at 33,000 feet and what is surely temperatures in the negatives outside this plane, I am
breaking a sweat and need to swig my Diet Coke.