I have seen at least three people driving with the ubiquitous white iPod earbuds in their ears lately. I mean, this is nothing like the people I would see driving around Arlington with a giant mug full of coffee (are you sure you really want to be holding a cup of hot, steaming liquid while trying to drive? You do know that you can buy a travel mug for, oh, I don't know, $5 and it won't spill coffee all over your lap, right?). Anyway, I am going to make a leap of faith (trust me on this) that the drivers listening to their iPods on blast are also the type of drivers who don't flinch when someone honks their horn. Unfortunately, I am not. Here is my basic reaction when I hear honking (even if it seems like it didn't happen remotely near my car):

1. I instinctively look around to see if someone is honking at me
2. If I so much as think someone is honking at me I ask, "Is he honking at me?!" to
    a. Lynn, if she is in the car
    b. myself, if no one is in the car
3. More likely than not, I haven't done anything wrong, in which case I ask loudly why the other driver is honking at me
4. Then I start to cry

So, I am assuming that the earbud drivers just don't have that reaction. I also assume they can't afford the $5 investment for one of those phony tape-deck-music-inputters. You know, you plug it into the headphone jack of your iPod (or cd player, or 8-track, or what have you), then stick the faux tape into the tape deck. By the magic of science, music has been granted to your stereo speakers! In fact, I have about a half dozen of these things laying around. Send me an email, I will mail you one. Hey man, I am just trying to better my hood, just like Mister Rogers.

I added an RSS feed for this blog so you can see when new entries are added. What do you do with an RSS feed? You subscribe, of course! It is an easy way to keep track of your favorite sites without having to bookmark 12 webpages and visit them everyday. I use the popular Netvibes, but there are numerous floating around: iGoogle, Pageflakes, My Yahoo, Google Reader. All of them should have a link that says something to the effect of "Add content" or "Add RSS feed" or "Add stuff". Just copy this link (http://www.longueur.org/thehillellis/feed.ashx) into the textbox and, bam!, you have a quick way to find out when new entries are added. If the link changes, you can always click on the little RSS icon at the top right of this page to get the most current feed. Next on my todo list is tagging support, so that should be coming in the next week or so.

I haven't posted that much because I have been wrestling with the javascript and CSS that makes this website look so damn attractive. If you haven't noticed before, we now have some archiving action at the bottom of the website. The archives are split out for Lynn and I because I have a sneaking suspicion that one of us will write more than the other (hint: probably not me). So now entries are archived once a week has passed and there are more than 3 entries that need to be archived -- smart, eh? Hmm, maybe too smart.

Anyway, I also added some crazy updates if you are one of those freaks with tiny screens; things should resize nicely so that things don't get super cramped. Of course, I just suggest you don't have your screen resolution set to 640x480, but whatever. You with the normal can see what happens, too: make your window smaller and see things magically shrink and move around. Fancy, no?

And now I suggest that you take the time and read through all of our archives. Go on. There is a only a week or so. And if you have already read everything, go read it again. The archives are like a fine wine -- no, they don't get better with age -- but, they will get you drunk thirty minutes after imbibing.

On my walk to feed my caffeine addiction (small Americano, little bit of half and half, please) the other day, I was walking, as usual, thinking to myself and not really paying attention to anyone around me. Now I vaguely realize that I am somewhat a fast walker. I mean, not old-grandma-walking-the-mall fast, but, you know, decently fast. So, I passed a dude on my left, he looked over and motioned like he wanted to ask me something. "Oh crap," I thought, "I was in the middle of solving life's profound mysteries!" Then he started talking. I will quote the conversation verbatim, or as verbatim as I can remember:

   Hey man! Yo, do you bank around here?
   No, sorry, I --
   Well, I have this check, I have this check here, and I need to cash it. This check, it's from the prison so it has got to be good. I just got out of prison and I got this check. See, the prison gave me a check and all I need to do is cash it.
   Umm, yeah, I think you need to have an account at the bank before you can cash --
   Yeah, I need to cash this check and it's good because it is from the prison, so you think you can help me out?
   Sorry man, I don't have a bank around here.

At which point, I commenced walking to the coffeeshop. If I had a bank around the area, I probably would have helped the guy out, but just as a general tip, buddy: When enlisting help, you should probably keep the fact that you just got out of prison out of the conversation.