- The limit is in your mind. You can do anything. At Zombo.com.

Via the fun folks at MetaFilter, where it's Flash Friday

- Also on MetaFilter this morning, I came across an interesting post concerning the blogs of suburban husbands who are frustrated with their emotionally distant wives. They mention two blogs - which I admit I haven't read yet. But I think, especially if there are more than two that deal with real issues, rather than just tales of illicit sexual conquest, that this could be fodder for a very interesting story for Wired News. We shall see.

Via MetaFilter. Yes, it's true. That's all I've read this morning. Just got up. Geez, give me a break. I stayed up too late reading Angels & Demons.

- So, here I am...It's Thursday. My lunch was canceled, so that means drinking yummy chai and talking about the Internet with K. The Internet is a crazy, weird, wacky and bizarre place. And that's just this site.

If you visit "My Cat Hates You" don't be offended. Cats have bad days. Think about it. We eat steak and tomatoes and burritos, and they have to eat kibble every damn day. No coffee, either. Or, they have to go and catch their food. Imagine how you'd feel if you had to do that every day. On no coffee.

Anyway, if you go into the page with lots of cats, be sure to notice the roll-over comments. Those cats really do hate you.

- My story on VisitorVille ran on Wired News yesterday. It was a fun story about a software package that allows site owners to view their site traffic in an urban, cityscape-type metaphor. It looks like SimCity. But it's a business tool. Imagine!

Anyway, the story got Slashdotted, and in the comments section, there were some fabulous musings on how the Slashdot effect would work in the VisitorVille environment, in which visitors who arrive from search engines are seen to be delivered by a logoed bus:

"Thousands and thousands of buses with "/." on top pour into the town. They all dump 50-60 passengers each and the streets suddenly become full. It's so packed that there's rioting in the streets and fighting. Everyone pours out of the buildings to join in the looting, and every building in town goes dark as people make for the exits. The streets are so packed that the /. buses are just plowing through the people in town, leaving bloody corpses strewn in their wake. As the looting continues, people start making off with the foundations of the buildings and, one by one, they start simply collapsing and filling the area with rubble and dust.

After you yank the network cable, the dust slowly clears and all you find is countless corpses, destroyed buildings, and smashed busloads of people from where the buildings fell on them."

Or this one:

"'That's the 15th 'Slashdot' bus I've seen this morning! Is there a Fat Virgin Convention in town? I have to get my ass to work!'

"'I know, not only have they plugged all the streets, but they're filling every coffee shop. I tried to get a biscotti this morning and I couldn't even get to the counter! They were just pushing and shoving to get to the counter, and then they'd just read the menu and leave. Bastards who did order just got a cup of coffee, then dumped it on the floor. Bastards.'"

Ouch.

- So, should magicians' secrets ever be revealed? A host of them say no, and are protesting a new exhibit that, among other things, offers an explanation of one of Houdini's signature tricks. Don't visit the site if you don't want to know how he did it.

I can see their point. After all, the magic of magic is that the audience suspends its disbelief, and so if any magician's secrets are exposed, it cheapens the veracity of all the others'. Still, sometimes the truth just wants to be known.

Via MetaFilter

- A young lady friend of mine once told me that she wouldn't date any guy who couldn't identify the tattoo on her upper arm. It turned out to be a schematic of a transformer.

In short, she was hot for geeks. Having spent the last four-plus years of my life in the Burning Man world, I will tell you that I've now seen that in spades: hot women dating geeks. The rest of the world tells you it's not possible. Yet, here it is, front and center. And why? Well, this site gives a primer on why. A little superficial, but a good beginning of an explanation. On the other hand, maybe this was written by a geek trying to perpetuate the myth.

Via reBlog

- More proof that the Bushies stole Florida, and thus the presidential election, in 2000. This Flash video offer convincing, though unsourced, evidence of illegal scrubbing of the Florida voter rolls of nearly 9,000 voters. Rather stunning...And the kicker is the end.

Via reBlog

- It seems there's a new trend in video games: restaurant games. It's hard to fathom how this came about, but apparently, the Japanese are all a-twitter about the opportunity to dive in and pretend you're behind the counter at a popular noodle joint. You gotta feed the patrons, handle the flow, make sure everyone's happy, keep the food coming, and not fall behind.

I wouldn't believe it, but I happened to come across this. Via Octopus Dropkick

- K also recommends Republican Survivor. It's pretty strange. I thought it would be funnier, but it's pretty much stereotypical versions of the usual suspects. Be afraid. Very afraid. However, you, the voters at home, get the chance to get rid of the likes of Ashcroft, DeLay or Ann Coulter. What's not fun about that?