Don't Get Your Speedos Out Yet

Yep. It has been confirmed that liquid water does exist on Mars. Not just in one place but in a few areas around the red planet. This fact, while interesting, doesn't seem to be that significant. Many years ago scientists came to understand that liquid water absolutely essential for all life to begin. The discovery of liquid water on Mars has excited scientists all over the world (the average temperature is about -30C at noon so it's not entirely liquid). Finding water on Mars increases the chances of finding life there. We're not talking Little Green Men! Finding microbes would revolutionize the way we look at the Universe and ourselves. Such a discovery would suggest that if life existed in a rugged environment like Mars, the chances of life existing on other worlds increases a thousand-fold. For more information and images go to:

www.nasa.gov/home/

Follow the links to access the Mars photos. 

Chain e-mails: An Urgent Warning

I received this information from both Yahoo! and Google. This is no joke! Chain E-mails are commonly sent through the Net via your server. These e-mails have attachments and a large "CC" list. Usually, they encourage you to send it to between 1 and 10 people. Some attachments are in "pps" format or "jpg" images. They are usually cute and completely irresistable or are messages of deep thought. Some have music while others haven't.

I think you know the ones I'm talking about ("Send this message to 10 friends in the next 10 minutes or your head will explode."). According to Yahoo! and Google these "chain e-mails" often contain spam, or worse, viruses! Sending it to so many people will spread the bad stuff all over the Web ... including your computer. Some virus stay dormant on your hard drive until it activates at a random moment.

You can send all the "chain e-mail" you want. Personally, I'm going to delete them before opening them. As I say, do what you want but I highly recommend following these instructions. 

Confessions of a Big Pussy

Dang! I guess I did try the weirdest things in my ... ahem ... youth.

Here I am in that murderer outfit! Yup. I was the Dawson College mascot, Cool Cat. Every time I donned the big cat head, I inhaled the tangy, intoxicating sweat of all the previous suckers that wore this suit. I had to look through the dark "sunglases". They were really tinted pieces of plastic, permantly smudged with the finger prints, nose prints and some ... other stuff.

I normally wear size 12 shoes. The footware that supposedly came with the outfit looked more like black duck's feet. My big toe reached about halfway into the foot. This and the dark, smudged glasses made walking tough; navigating the stairs was a nightmare. The genius who invented this horror made only one air hole, at the lower part of the head. I was sweating, I couldn't breath too good and I had insisted that someone "volunteer" to be my guide. I had to take breaks every 15 minutes or else the CO2 levels got too high and I started hyperventilating.

Cool Cat also had a blue tail, held in place with a safety pin. People pulled on my tail all the time. When it came off my guide had to pin it back on.
At sporting events people would through plastic cups, beer cans, whatever they could get their hands on. Meself and this costume were so big that it blocked the view of the came. The same abuse went on at parties. It was non-stop torture ...

... But I would trade this experience for all the tea in China! Despite generaly unpleasant conditions I enjoy this. I've got to admit, when the end of the semester was looming over the horizon, I was really hoping that Cool Cat didn't have any more events to attend. Thankfully, today's mascot costumes are more "user-friendly" and much lighter.

The best part was that I could make and ass of myself (at Christmas I played a "Jack Daniels" Santa [hips!]) and no one knew who was in the outfit! Totally anonymous! Oh, what fun.