A Hopkins, Minnesota teenager will appear in federal court in St. Paul Friday to face charges stemming from the release of a variant of the virulent W32.Blaster Internet worm that ravaged computer systems worldwide earlier this month. Jeffrey Lee Parsons, 18, will appear before federal magistrate Judge Susan Richard Nelson at 2 p.m. CDT at the James R. Dougan Federal Building in St. Paul, Minnesota, according to Deputy Clerk Mike Chutich. [MacCentral]
Apparently he made some sort of lamer version of Blaster and re-released it. Bummer.

Did you see the giant spider?

The Onion has an opinion piece about Apple's iPod and why you don't necessarily need to lust after them so darn much: I Have An iPod - In My Mind.

Last weekend was a refreshing and relaxing couple of days that involved finishing some house work on Friday and then taking off for Iowa to spend time at "The Cottage" on Lake Okoboji, thanks to Pat and Smitty (the best hosts ever)! Fabulous tuna steaks on the grill, fresh corn on the cob, picnics on the boat, Arnold's Park, swimming, viewing the moon and mars through the telescope and, of course, Combat Tetris. Fun. And my new favorite picture of all time -- Meg in the mirror with an antique hat she found.

Did I mention that Skooter Du 4 was a fun time? I should have. It was. 105 scooters riding around the metro area, live bands, BBQ, games, prizes galore, midnight rides... There is a gallery of pictures uploaded by participants at scoot.net.

I took on a little customization project last week (as if I wasn't busy enough already) and stripped apart Nora's (Meghan's sister) white iBook and made it into a pink iBook. It turned out pretty nice, if I do say so myself. The white paint was removed using rubbing alcohol and lots of time and gentle scrubbing. Finding the right color of pink paint in a spray can was a challenge and a half and involved finally going to WalMart at 10pm at night. Did you know you can camp in your RV in their lot? Apparently so.

Here are some more detailed photos of the pink iBook:

There you have it. A bubble-gum pink iBook.

On Friday I got to play with a pre-production dual 2 gigahertz G5 PowerMac. I was impressed. Very nice machine. I wrote up a mini-review over on soundtracklounge if you wanna read more about it. The performance was pretty good, but I can't wait to see how well it does once the machine is fully tweaked and optimized and the software is as well. It looks to be a real good.

Literally. Yeah, so I've been a little preoccupied and busy and distracted and such. Can you blame me? I didn't think so. When love and happiness and bliss come along you grab it.

I asked the question Sunday morning, after making a big breakfast and coffee and tea and reading the paper. It was exciting and emotional and the time got all screwy, like some sort of localized warp in reality surrounded us and distorted the outside world and made my senses more intense (you know what I'm talking about, right?), and maybe I cried a bit after she said yes twice.

Then I got a little scared when she said, "You have to go talk to my father." Gulp. The Talk. What the heck would I say? How would I start? Would it go well?

We had dinner at her parents' house Sunday night and her two younger siblings were there and it was normal (ie: crazy and loud-ish) so I was panicked and didn't think I'd get a moment with her father to "converse," but suddenly the opportunity presented itself and I confidently blurted out, "I asked your daughter to marry me this morning." Probably not the words he was expecting (if he was expecting any), but he was immediately jazzed up and asked me, "Well, what did she say?!" and then he was up and shaking my hand, telling me congratulations and such. Whew.

But then the really tough part came up: asking about the dowry. He mumbled something about a jar of pennies somewhere, trying to appease me with coin, but I pressed on. "I was kinda thinking more along the lines of sheep and goats," I hinted. He thought for a minute: "You can have those two cats," he replied, conveniently leaving out the word 'damn' but still conveying the thought.

He then returned the surprise by asking, "So, do you golf?" Crap. He golfs every day. I've never golfed in my life. I've hit balls at the driving range and I've mini-golfed, but I've never set foot on a real course. Perhaps I have no need to worry as his sons don't golf either, so I've got a bonding opportunity should I take up the sport. Mental note made to check into it.

At dinner he surprised me yet again. Smart cookie, this future father-in-law. He suddenly says, "Now is the time when I think we should all go around the table and share what has happened in the past week." Perfect, as her family and friends are all in attendance. Tommy went first with a tale about his car radio theft. Then Meghan. It really didn't go much further for some reason. Becca's reaction was the best. I thought she'd choke on her food or knock her chair over.

And then "Big Fat Greek Wedding" (Irish, really) started happening to me. I'll keep you posted.

On the way in to work today I was damn near in an accident due to a guy driving down the wrong side of the road while using his laptop computer! His computer was blocking his view completely and he was just cruising along the street, totally oblivious to his surroundings. I swerved out of the way and yelled at him out my window. He was startled (startled!) to realize he almost ran me off the road and/or crashed into me. Oh, and of course he was driving a fucking SUV. Troubleshooting your laptop while driving? He's lucky he only had a blue screen of death and not red.