Paris Hilton has had her 15 minutes. Even though we share the same last name, I claim no association with this no-talent, spoiled-brat, bought-her-looks, bought-her-fame ho who happened to be born into an extremely rich family. But this story is promising. Maybe, just MAYBE this will expire her 15 minutes of fame. I personally think it was over long ago, like before it even started. One of the more interesting things about the story is that it appears in the Yahoo! Internet News. Interesting that an only-hype, no-substance celebrity like Paris makes it as Internet News, huh?

No, not the one on Saturday Night LIve; this is a weekend update for my life. And a busy weekend it was…

It’s been a while since the Friday Five had a theme. This week there IS a theme!

1. What was your favorite breakfast cereal when you were a kid?
Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes; couldn’t get enough of them. I still like them.

2. What is the best toy/prize you ever got in a box of cereal or because of sending in UPC’s?
We never did that because there were five of us and we never collected enough to get five of any one thing.

3. How do you take your eggs (scrambled, over easy, egg beaters)?
Sunny side up, soft yolk. How else are you going to season your hash browns unless you break the yolks on them?

4. What is your favorite breakfast meat (bacon, ham, sausage)?
Bacon. Absolutely bacon. But I do like a nice ham steak.

5. What is your favorite spot (local or chain restaurant) for breakfast and where is it located?
It sounds really goofy, but I like to go to the local HyVee for breakfast. They have what they call a Feature Breakfast that is two eggs cooked your way, 2 slices of bacon (or two sausage links), hash browns and 2 slices of toast (wheat or white) for $3.49. Can’t beat the price, and it’s done pretty well and is also fairly quick service.

Around here, Thursday means the Thursday Threesome!

Onesome - Comment: Are there any blogs you regularly read and comment on? Is it just to say “hi, how are you?” or is there one site that just makes you have to join in the conversation?
I have a number of them in my blogroll on the side here. My favorites are probably Hey, Freak!, Dell’s Diner, pesky ‘apostrophe and Snappy Hour.

Twosome - and Trackback: Does anyone actually ever really use this function of their blog?
I’ve seen it used on other blogs and have had it used by others to trackback to my blog. I’ve not used it, though.

Threesome - Spam: We all hate it! Anyone have any clever ways of dealing with it? Share it with us, please.
For my blog, since I use WordPress the absolute best plugin to kill spam is called Spam Karma. It sounds kind of hokey, but I simply haven’t had any spam since I installed it. I get emails stating how much spam it’s killed. Very cool. For my home email, I use Thunderbird and it’s spam tools are very good; I get more spam at work than I do at home and we have lots of protection in place at work. Thunderbird is that good.

Ya know, I’ve gotten pretty conservative over the years. Not on purpose, mind you, I think it is a natural progression. I believe it was Winston Churchill who was credited with saying “If you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart; and if you’re not a conservative at 40, you have no brain.” However, this story is really pissing me off. The Reverend Jerry Falwell is suing a guy who is critical of his opinions on the website “fallwell.com”.

Come on Jerry, are you and your constituents that stupid to mistype your name as a URL and not realize that they don’t have your site? I mean, REALLY! If Jerry’s going after this guy, then maybe the White House should go after the most popular porn site on the internet: “whitehouse.com”. That’s right… it’s the most popular because a lot of people type that in thinking they’ll get to the US White House web site which is at “whitehouse.gov”. (Does that mean there really ARE a lot of stupid people?)

Here we go with Are You More..

01) Thinking that phallic symbols are abundant or thinking that most phallic symbol recognition expresses the viewer’s desire for dick?
I think both are appropriate. I think if the viewer is desiring dick, that’s what they’ll see. I also think there are plenty of phallic symbols out there.

02) Thinking Bo Bice will win tonight on American Idol or thinking that Carrie Underwood will win tonight on American Idol?
I don’t watch the Gong Show.

03) A great aunt/uncle or a lousy aunt/uncle?
I’d like to think I’m a great uncle. I guess you’d have to ask my eleven nephews and three nieces.

04) The first to get up in the morning in your house or the last to get up in the morning in your house?
I am definitely LAST. As I’ve stated before, mornings were made to stay up until not to get up for.

05) The first to go to bed in your house or the last to go to bed in your house?
See #4. I’m last to go to bed in my house.

06) New-age or old-fashioned?
In a lot of ways I’m old-fashioned. However, they didn’t have computers in the good old days now did they?

07) “Really good food is worth waiting for” or “the longer I wait the more displeased I become”?
If it truly is good food, it’s worth the wait… of course, appetizers don’t hurt to make the wait bearable!

08) A sharp dresser or a frumpy dresser?
I lean toward frumpy. I don’t have the desire to be a sharp dresser, only good enough to get by.

09) “A penny saved is a penny earned” or “you gotta spend money to make money”?
You gotta spend money to make money. Definitely. You also have to spend money to get stuff!

10) Thinking that convenience is it’s own reward or thinking that hard work is it’s own reward?
Hard work is its own reward. Convenience isn’t work at all now, is it?

So I’m in the bathroom at work; yeah, I do that sometimes… and I’m thnking…

I was getting a little tired of the “Jakarta” theme. It was OK, but was also heavily graphical so it took a while to render the page. I’ve pretty much finished the modding of this theme, Blue-Bye-You, to include all of the stuff I want. I still need to change the header graphic to one of my choosing, but other than that it’s done… Whaddya think?

Yeah, that’s right. KC and I went to see Revenge of the Sith yesterday. I have to say that even though I knew the end result of the movie (as most Star Wars fans do), I found a few things different than some of the hints I remembered from other movies.

I thought the story line was good. It was definitely predictable. But the actors seemed to bring their characters to life quite well, even the “supporting cast” actors. Hayden Christensen looks like he’s on his way to becoming a big star. The same for Natalie Portman. The effects were, as in all other Star Wars movies, top-notch. There were scenes that you simply said, “Wow!” because the place looked so real and yet you knew it was not real. I also thought this particular episode showed the most emotion of any of the first three “prequel” episodes.

Now for the things that differed (that I was just wondering about):

• Was anyone else surprised that Darth Vader/Annakin Skywalker lost his legs in the fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi?
• In Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Luke asks Leia if she has memories of her mother and she does. She said she was sad and cried a lot. Luke had no memories of his mother. How can Leia have them?
• If the Emperor and Darth Vader are so good with the force, how come they don’t see the deception about hiding Vader’s twins?
• Better yet, if Vader is so good with the force, why does he believe the Emperor when the tells him that he killed Padme?

Even with these questions, it was a highly entertaining movie. I believe it is the first “must-see” of the season. I rate it a 9 of 10.

Well, none that most can see. I updated the calendar software that I use for my Family Calendar. The actual family calendar is password protected, so you may not see it if you aren’t a member of the family. If you are a member of the family and don’t have a password, just send me an email and I can set you up.

I use Datenator for my calendar software. It is easy to set up and administer. It’s also easy to hack up so I can include only the stuff I want. If you are looking for a stand-alone calendar for your website and have PHP and MySQL, check out Datenator. I think it’s great.

The Friday Five is kind of all over the place this week. All about what made me…..

1. What made you happy this week?
My daughter turned 21. That’s a big thing, ya know. Not only for the person turning 21, but for their parents!

2. What made you sad?
The continuing attacks against the President and his character. Too many people are going after him with half-truths and bald-faced lies. Yet our economy is surging, unemployment is down to record lows and we are winning the war on terror. It makes me sad because if these people attacking him would put their energy into something constructive we’d probably cure cancer or something.

3. What made you angry?
The bogus story put out by Newsweek saying that members of our troops flushed the Koran down the toilet. Yeah, right. I’ve got a few things to say about that:

• What kind of toilet can flush a 5-pound hardcover volume like the Koran? The toilets in my house can’t handle too much toilet paper, much less hundreds of pages from a book.
• Would there be such an uproar if these troops had flushed the Holy Bible?
• Why is it that so many US citizens actually believe this nonsense without checking facts?
• Isn’t it strange how citizens of other countries are quick to criticize our deeds (especially one like this) and in general demonize the US, but they usually line up quickly to accept funding from us?
• Do you think Newsweek is privy to insider information in Guantanamo Bay, our Cuban military base where this event supposedly happened?
• Why did so many other news outlets carry this story without checking the facts?

4. What are you looking forward to in the next week?
One thing I can’t talk about until afterwards because it is a surprise; can’t let the cat out of the bag too early!

5. What are you not looking forward to?
Mowing yard. It’s supposed to rain off and on all weekend and then get warmer. That means grass to mow. I swear one day I’ll rip up all the grass and trees in my yard and put down astroturf!

With apologies to John Fogerty, here is this week’s Thursday Threesome.

Onesome: Full - Full? What meal fills you up the most during your day, breakfast, lunch or dinner? …or is it the ice cream you’re digging into as you wander around the blog world long past when you should be asleep {g}?
What fills me up the most is when we (me and my co-workers) go to either El Allende or El Olmito for lunch. Authentic Mexican food, not that crap puke stuff you get at Taco Hell Bell.

Twosome: Moon - Do you really think there’s any truth to the popular idea that “things” happen when the moon is full? Come on, it’s just us here…
Yes, I do. It isn’t because odd things happen, though. It’s that there’s more natural light and it’s easier to see what’s going on.

Threesome: Rising - …and shining? : What is your normal wakeup time on Thursday mornings? …and can you be described as a “Morning Person” or not?
My normal wakeup time Thursday is the same as every other weekday: 7:00am. And as KC will definitely bear witness to, I am NOT a morning person. Mornings were made to stay up until, NOT to get up for.