Offshore outsourcing taken to a new level: Spiderman India. And the press release.

In a related story, Marvel Entertainment announced the layoffs of Peter Parker, MJ, and Aunt May. "We appreciate their many years of service and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors," a spokesperson for Marvel noted.

Here's something collected from the old "cellar door"...

"...But I've learned I'm not a blogger, at least not the typical Weblogger (if there is such an animal) whose journal usually consists of link, pithy comment, link, pithy comment, ad infinitum.

Shelley Powers wonderfully expressed many of my concerns about cellar door in her reasons for discontinuing her blog, "BurningBird." As she says in her farewell note, it's "seductively easy" to write a Weblog. Too easy. Too facile. Too impermanent. Writing lite.

As good a writer as she is, Shelley also proves one of her points by misusing "compliment" in her fourth paragraph. The word she wanted was "complement." I'm probably not the first person to catch this, and it's likely that someone has even emailed her about it, but the rules of the game
- apparently - are that you don't edit after posting, even grammatical errors.

As far as community goes, I've done my best to avoid online communities, with some exceptions. The Google Answer Researcher forum is a perfect example of why, usually dominated by people who seem spoiling for a fight with anyone about anything..."

Update: Shelly's farewell didn't last for long.

Fred's been a busy boy. On Friday I:

1. Updated and uploaded the old Web site.
   
   
2. Bit the bullet and became master of my domain. I'm now the proud owner of www.fredbals.com* thanks to GoDaddy.
   
   
3. Revamped the old "cellar door" blog into the NEW, IMPROVED fhb blog.

*My other choices included "bals.com", already in use by a German "manufacturer of an extensive range of high quality industrial plugs and sockets...", "serious moonlight", homesteaded but not in use, and (half-seriously), quantic.com, which WHOIS says is owned by a domain broker, and, for reasons unknown is currently linked to a cheesy portal called Seeq.

Places to Go, Things to See Dept:

I like the retro interface of "Terminal Island" a lot. (Hint: Type "posts" at the $ prompt and hit return). Shades of VAX/VMS.

Found a good set of Poker strategy articles last week, as well as a link to pictures of the astounding Ms. Shana Hiatt, erstwhile hostess cookie of the World Poker Tour. I know, I know, my sexism is showing. She's still a babes. Speaking of which, btw, the Shana pictures are courtesy Shirley Rosario at pokerbabes.

Not a bad re-start, he sez immodestly. Think I'll stop while I'm ahead and save more for tomorrow.