Brain surgery

I am applying liberal amounts of coffee to my brain to get it to remember something it hid away years ago. Once upon a time, I used Access a lot. Now I barely remember how it works. Bleh.

Today appears to be the release of Firefox 1.0. Good luck getting to the site, as it appears everybody wants to escape the tyrrany of IE 6 and its shitty, shitty browsing. Seriously, how do you live without tabbed browsing? Or real font rendering? Or sane CSS rendering? Or any of the vast number of improvements in Firefox. Pop-up window blockers, etc...

It appears that my friend Kevin's debit card was stolen. I hope they bought something nice with it, rather than the time Mrs. GFR's card was stolen. That thief went and bought a bunch of groceries at Plaid Pantry. Then there was the time another friend's card was stolen and the person went to a Christian supply store. Probably to buy a copy of the Ten Commandments or whatever. Oy.

Arafat appears to be beyond pining for the fjords now. Or not. I just checked, and he's still alive. For some sick, horrible, lingering value of alive. Which is more than one can say for the people battling in Falluja. Or some of them. And for what? I'm reminded of the poems of Wilfred Owen.

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb, for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not they hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.