Adam Bosworth explains why, even though I spent the only dollars I've ever spent on a computer book on an XSLT book, it was probably wasted money.

This is the paradox: XML was chosen in part because humans could read and write it, unlike the highly efficient babel of binary formats that preceded it. Yet languages encoded as XML grammars and used for manipulating XML can only really be read and written by programs (and a few very smart people). This is why books for XML and Java and books on XSLT sell in such great numbers. In making the formats easy and interoperable, we made the programming hard.

Uusally reading a resume wouldn't be that fun, unless you were voyeuristically looking at someone's resume who you knew was a total idiot and they were making themselves look brilliant. That might be fun. But I think reading my friend John's resume is fun just because he's led an interesting life and it's written in a very friendly prose style. It's better than any resume I've ever read.

Ed: the kind of man who ignores young boys until there's a real lesson to be taught to them. Who's nickname for me was "Red on da head like a dick onna dog." Who probably stood 5'6". Who smiled with his entire upper body and scattered the hundreds of cigarette butts that retards and boys scavenged. For whom the lyric was written, "Gas-fume casualty in a repossessed car, Vietnam vet playing air guitar."

Part three in "The Greatest Night of My Life".

While Angel, the kids and I, were in the trailer's living room, Mario and David the mental patient were in our room having a "hobo smoke". David swore by the hobo smoke: you take a piece of newspaper, rip a long strip, roll it, light it, and smoke it. Tobacco was optional. If you were living it up that day, you could gather all the cigarette butts you could find, empty them onto the paper and smoke that. There were hundreds of cigarette butts on the ground around the trailer, but thanks to David and us, there wasn't a lick of tobacco stuck to any of them.

Installment two in "The Greatest Night of My Life".

Well, the swing bike that I was lusting after, and was for a short time high bidder on, is going to sell for over 400 bucks. 38 minutes left and all I can do is watch it go. Especially sad when I was the one who popped the reserve on that sucker.

I guess I'll just have to wait for a rusted one to show up. Bummer.