¤ After using the courts to keep Napster and MP3.com from freely distributing music over the Internet, the Recording Industry Association of America asks a federal judge to stop people from humming or whistling copyrighted songs in public.

 

¤ Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson rules that Microsoft must be split in two because it plays dirty and cannot be trusted. Microsoft lead attorney Bill Neukom denies the charges, and kicks the judge in the nuts when he's not looking.

 

¤ The FBI discloses that it has been systematically reading and deleting email messages sent to and from paranoid people. According to a Bureau spokesman, the FBI has been pursuing the strategy for "exactly as long as those people think we've been doing it."

 

¤ The Internet reaches a demographic milestone as a new study reveals that for the first time, the majority of U.S. Internet users are FBI agents posing as teenage girls.

 

¤ America Online launches a membership drive offering 700 hours of free Internet access in the first month, meaning a new user would have to stay online 22.5 hours a day for 30 days to use up the free connect time. This would be funnier if it weren't true.

 

¤ In a speech accepting his party's nomination, George W. Bush pledges to turn the Internet into a "God-fearing, gun-filled, sexless, Republican Internet" if elected, and promises to introduce a bill requiring every computer on the network to be powered, not by "liberal, Gore-loving electricity," but by safe, dependable oil. "My friends, let me ask you, do you know what the Internet is?" Bush asks the crowd. No one seems to know.

 

¤ Just days after pop diva Madonna won a battle to wrest control of Madonna.com by arguing she was the world's best known Madonna, Attorney General Janet Reno employs a similar argument to win the rights to VirginMary.com. Several alleged virgins, many named Mary, attempt to win the domain, but Judge Harvey Winston decides to award the domain to the Attorney General without testing her, and despite her non-Mary status. "Is Janet Reno named Mary? No," writes Judge Winston. "Is Janet Reno a virgin? That, frankly, is a question this court is not willing to contemplate."

 

It's interesting to look back and see that plenty of people are still making the same tired jokes. I don't really know if this is good or bad. Some stability in the world is all right, and Microsoft jokes probably aren't hurting much of anybody. On the other hand, isn't it a problem that we think we're new and edgy when we're really doing the same thing continuously? I don't know... random stuff for a random kind of day.

 

Not much else to report, other than I'm heading into a weekend going back home to even more family than usual, so that's going to keep me on my toes. Everybody keep in touch! I could use a few new faces around, lately.

 

This isn't a crazy depressive trip. It's been slow, nothing serious. I just feel lonely again. It comes and it goes. Right now... it has crept up on me. It's tough to talk confidentially about any of the people I know, because I've made the dumb mistake of publicizing the existence of this page. Silly me, right?

 

So, without naming names or making anybody feel bad--because that's not my intention, trust me--I just have to say, maybe just for my own good, that I feel distant from people and as though I'm compromising what I want in order to coexist with other people more easily.

 

I feel as though the dishonesty on my part is less than my friends and acquaintances deserve. It's hurting me, and I know that if I told them the truth, they'd be in the same position as me: there's no simple solution to this, and really it's just an uncomfortable stage. I don't really know if it would do any good telling people, you know?

 

So, I get to shuffle through this week, or however long I feel this way, and try and figure something out. Of course, I always have elaborate plans and resolutions that never happen. I'll probably be busy doing that this week, among other things.

 

On another note, I'm going back home for my kid brother's graduation this weekend. I have an outside hope that getting away from Cedar Falls, even briefly, will help things. Then again, it'll be family, which is never pleasant, and on top of that, my dad and his mom will be lurking around.

 

Wish me luck on all counts, I guess. I'd appreciate it.