We interrupt this web page to bring you a special report.

I'm taking some time off from updating this web site. There are a few reasons. Oh, you want to hear them?

Well, first, I'm having surgery on May 3. Nothing major, but then again, I think any time you are knocked unconscious and someone cuts into you with a sharp object and makes you bleed is something that should be considered "serious." Having the body altered is not something that's an ordinary occurance (unless you're Michael Jackson or Joan Rivers), so I'm going to want to rest and do nothing but sit on the couch, read, watch TV, and not have to worry about updating things here.

But even before that, I'm going to take some time off. I have a ton of writing I'd like to catch up on (editing my novel to get ready for publication, short stories), and the two will get in the way of each other. Well, correction: it's not that I can't do one while I do the other, it's just that I'm trying to get in the frame of mind that there are a lot more writing projects I should concentrate on that (gasp!) have nothing to do with the web. It's so easy to get caught up in the excitement and immediacy of writing on the web and forget about all the other writing I should be doing. This will give me an opportunity to catch up on those things and to also rethink how I will do things from now on.

No, this isn't a permanent thing. I just need time to write. Things will return around May 8 or so.

Are you as sick as I am by the new kinder, gentler, touchy-feely Microsoft commercials? Yes, Bill, the world is a better place with you and Microsoft in it. All these years you've been doing it for US! Now I feel so bad about thinking the things I thought. Can you ever forgive me?

Excuse me while I vomit.

It's not enough that he has to interrupt all of our favorite shows to tell us how innovative [insert laughter here] Microsoft is and how they've been doing it for US, to make the world a better place! But he expects us to believe this campaign is just so they can bring wonderful Microsoft products to our homes and workplaces, and it's NOT a carefully-timed PR strategy to get the public on their side during this whole mess with the Justice Dept? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeze.

The ad comes off like some presidential campaign commercial, and it's arrogant to the extreme. I've always thought that the majority of the computer-using public (and even the non-computer-using folks) look at Microsoft as BEING the computer industry. After all, they have all the money! After all, their software is what I use at work! After all, I need Windows to run my computer, don't I? Plus I heard Apple wasn't doing too well, right? And now I realize that Gates and co. themselves also believe they are the computer industry.

I know I'm going to see that commercial tonight again during Friends or ER, and it really irritates me.

Here's something else: the whole controversy over whether Leonardo DiCaprio should have interviewed President Clinton. ABC journalists and other media were outraged! Should ABC run the interview?

Have you ever seen such a ridiculous non-issue? So what, DiCaprio isn't Barbara Walters. But even Barbara Walters isn't Barbara Walters anymore, with her talk show The View and her puffball interviews on 20/20. Newsanchors and reporters and hosts are all celebs nowadays, putting their make-up on, getting their multi-million dollar deals, their limos, making sure their hair looks perfect. I have no problem with DiCaprio interviewing Clinton about Earth Day. He's this year's spokesman, so at least he knows what he's talking about.

Oh, but getting the Titanic star for the interview was just a ratings ploy! Yeah, as if everything the networks do isn't.

There, is that enough to hold you over for the next few weeks or so? No? OK, then check the archives tomorrow. I'll upload a couple of new articles I've done elsewhere recently. And there's a new poll on the main page, too. Vote and enter to win $100,000!

Well, no. But just imagine!

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