real world marathon

 No way can I be this old. Real World is in its eleventh season.

 There's a new ActiveBuddy in town: RingMessenger isn't part of the Lord of the Rings site yet, but probably will be soon. I held this little conversation with the robot:

ibsrex: Where are the Hobbits?
RingMessenger: Hobbits. Hobbits have pointed ears. Hobbits have oversized feet and never wear shoes.
ibsrex: Tell me a story.
RingMessenger: Very well. There once was a human named ibsrex who was chatting with RingMessenger... All kinds of fantastic, wonderful things happened and they both lived happily ever after. The end. Did you like my story?

Smart ass, Hobbits. I've been working on building one of these little bots myself, but it's going very slowly. But someday, you'll be able to talk with ibsrex without ever knowing if it's him talking back or the perfectly programmed robot (as if there were a difference).

 MSNBC.com lays off... how many? Let's see: "Cherylynne Crowther, a spokeswoman for MSNBC.com, declined to disclose an exact number of layoffs but said they were equivalent to 9 percent of the company's staff of approximately 200." If my math is good, that would be 18.

 This fake MIT Media website about the "Erotic Communications Group" is a hoax of this real MIT Media website. So says this NYTimes story.

 Wow, I missed this big local news. The founders of City Pages, Tom Bartel and Kris Henning, are starting a new "free at first" magazine that is "half-way between The Onion and the New Yorker." The editor of Rake will be former-Spiner/Suckster Hans Eisenbeis.