In order to make this post, I have to reveal that I am a loser. Perhaps I’m fooling myself thinking that this may be news to some of you. Regardless, let it be known that I wrote A&E to complain about the cancellation of the reruns of Northern Exposure.

A&E,
Just a quick note to express my disappointment of your cancellation of the Norther Exposure re-runs you’ve been running. I understand that the show can’t run forever though, and I thank you for giving such a great show a second life and a whole new audience during the time you did run it.

thanks,
Steven Garrity
:: steven@actsofvolition.com
:: https://actsofvolition.com

Embarrassing, yes. But I had to admit it in order to post this impressive response. I don’t think it was written just for me – there must be at least a thousand freaks just like me. Nevertheless, I was very impressed that a human got my email. One tip for companies responding to customer email: don’t call me ‘viewer’ or ‘customer’ – take a second and type my damn name.

Dear Viewer,
Thank you for your comments regarding programming on A&E.

Because our licensing agreement has expired, the program mentioned in your email, NORTHERN EXPOSURE, has ended its run on A&E and will not be returning to the network. As the final cycle commenced in late July, we did not have enough time to repeat the entire 110 episodes; thus, we decided to telecast the most highly rated episodes.

We appreciate that this popular series has won many friends during its tenure on our network, and we know it’s difficult to say goodbye to Cicely. Keep checking fan clubs and various web sites such as www.retrotv.com/nexp.html and http//www.netspace.org/moose/moose.html for updates on the stories of Joel, Maggie, Maurice and all the gang.

A cable channel, Hallmark, is now telecasting NORTHERN EXPOSURE. As copied from their site (www.hallmarkchannel.com) we found:

Weeknights at 11:00 pm (ET/PT)
Return to Cicely, Alaska with the Emmy award winning hit series that captured the hearts of millions. Beginning Monday, Oct. 1, watch the adventures of Northern Exposure six nights a week.

A&E Home Video continues to sell single episodes of this popular series, while supplies last. For available episode titles, please visit “Shop A&E” at www.AandE.com using the search words “Northern Exposure”, or call to order at 1-888-708-1776.

You may also purchase merchandise, or obtain information on ‘Moose Fest’ by contacting the following:

Cicely’s Gift Shop
PO Box 595
112 W. Pennsylvania Ave.
Roslyn, WA 98941
509-649-3080
website http://www.cicelys.com

We hope that other programs telecast on our network make your decision to watch A&E worthwhile. Please be advised that your comments and suggestions help to evaluate our present and future schedules.

Thank you for your interest in A&E. We appreciate your support.

Cordially,
Viewer Relations

A&E Networks
235 East 45th Street
New York, New York 10017
www.AandE.com
www.HistoryChannel.com
www.Biography.com

Thank you A&E. And for the record, I do not look like Ed, although I do admire him. Here’s a cheesy midi file of the Northern Exposure theme song.

I was never a big Guns n’ Roses fan. While in high school it seemed I didn’t have the hockey skills or perfectly curved baseball cap peak to fit in with their followers. When the Smashing Pumpkins came along though, I was totally on board. The two bands seemed worlds apart until some time ago the following was suggested to me.

It’s just a hypothesis, but there may be evidence to the effect that The Smashing Pumpkins are the Guns n’ Roses of the 90s. Both were monster-rock bands and quintessential rock stars. The pumpkins didn’t seem to resound with the redneck audience like GnR seemed to. I think there are more parallels. What have I missed?

An intriguing photographic comparison of the surface of Mars before and after a massive dust storm caught my attention at Wired News. While our world goes all to hell, it looks like the next world over is inhospitable in its own unique way.

In a long-overdue admission of inadequacy on the part of science, a scientist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, when asked about the Martian dust storm, stated that “We don’t understand the details.”

A quick search revealed impressive terrestrial dust storm imagery and showed that Earth has had some bad-ass dust storms of our own. How come no-one told me about this? (btw, that tiny thing in the bottom right corner is Africa!)

Semi-related: the amazing satellite photos at 300 Miles High are well worth linking to again.

I’m running IE6. I have a great little links bar on top with all my bookmarks. I enjoy this. However, IE6 has no idea what it’s doing. When I click on a favourite I have no clue where my link will appear.

Sometimes it’ll pop up a new window, sometimes it will take over some random window (like my Webmail…) and I can’t seem to find out where to fix it. Anybody else have this problem?

This happens to me all the time, I hope I’m not the only one.

I run Win2k and when I type sentances, I like to capitalize the first letter. I do this by holding shift then typing a letter. Sadly, I often start typing without thinking, so I’ll hold down shift, and muse my first word. Well, Win2k assumes I am crippled and can’t type properly and boinks up this fine message:

Boo!

The following is the refreshing Licensing Agreement from Winamp’s new developers beta of WinAmp 3:

This is beta software. Play with it as much as you like, but don’t blame us if it melts your computer into a pile of scrap metal or steals your girlfriend. Check out the readme.txt for some features to try out.

Is that not much more effective than ICQ’s Licensing Agreement? Both companies are owned by the same mega-corporation, btw.

Along the same lines, also check out another of Winamp’s download agreements.

Now that we live in the age of sincerity, I thought I would give it a shot. To be clear, however sincere this post may purport to be, it pales in comparison to Rob’s classic Easter post.

Due to a variety of recent life circumstances, I have found myself, on occasion, in the capable and caring hands of my family. Growing up in North America, family isn’t something a young man is overtly taught to value. Family, rather, is term homophobic politicians use to convey a baseless and dangerously vague set of values. Perhaps as a result of this, I have been surprised to find that I am genuinely grateful and appreciative of my family.

At a stage in life where freedom and independence are paramount, I am, perhaps in some part due to this very freedom, only now beginning to understand the value of family. For this, I am thankful.

What are you thankful for?

The good boys of radiohead are finally going to officially release a recording of their song True Love Waits. Apparently from the OK Computer era, the song is at least as strong as some of their best album tracks. Apparently they’ve yet to produce a studio recording to their satisfaction

The song will be included on the live I Might Be Wrong EP which will be released in November.

If you go fishing for versions of the song (and you should, the keyboard arpeggios will make you cry) you should also look for the many varied versions of the The Bends-era track, Killer Cars.

Eels have a new album out: “Souljacker.” Rock and roll with horns used sparingly. The usual brilliant lyrics.

Oct. 4th at Confed. Centre Library at 8pm. I will be introducing a poet I’ve never read. He is Bruce Taylor. He has also written a book about puppeteering! Admission is free. Nice people get coffee and cookies or something. Muffins, maybe.

If you are a fulltime UPEI student, and have two hours to spare on most Wednesdays, The Cadre will give you twenty five dollars. You will go where we tell you. You will put copies of the paper there. This is entirely legal.

If you can create original graphics that closely resemble elements from cold-war era soviet propaganda posters please let me know. This is a very serious request.

New aioku. Check it. Go.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from The Onion this week. Last week’s edition didn’t come out because of the WTC/Pentagon massacres.

The Onion did an entire edition about last week’s terrorism. I was amazed by how well they handled it. Two things in particular are God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule and then the Talking To Your Child About The WTC Attack sections.

The writers there are amazing.