My Louis Farrakhan African Name Generator name is, get this, "Shaft".

The new Dr Who will not be Eddie Izzard, and he won’t be wearing any silly haberdashery (darn the luck).
I enjoyed Eccleston’s performance in The Second Coming (which also involved Russell Davies, the new Dr Who series’ producer), so am looking forward to seeing his take on a classic rôle.

If I ever bilk my friends and/or colleagues out of a large sum of money, I will not then lose that money falling for a 419 scam.

But since it’s from Google, Gmail lets you store a gig of old mail and search for the message you want. Makes hotmail seem, well, uncool. (Note: you can’t actually get an account yet, but you can ask them to send you updates)

Simpsons voice cast on strike. I wonder how much of the staff will quit if they get replaced.

Need a porn name? Try my porn name (mine is Sean Shaft). Yahoo has a (fairly sparse, it looks like) directory of name generators, including one for your hobbit name (mine is Samwise Brockhouse of Loamsdown — interesting that I’m a Samwise). My elf name is Tuor Séregon — I didn’t like that at first, but it’s kind of grown on me).
For a bunch of names all at once (using, it appears, the traditional formulæ), try The Name Generator.

Okay, who farted on Mars?

No news from the bottling folks. I suspect I’ll have to walk over there to get anybody’s attention. A delightful loyal reader made me aware of this report from a couple years ago (well, okay, the reader actually pointed me at this), so maybe I shouldn’t even bother trying to find it, if they’re that sloppy with preparation.I do enjoy the FDA enforcement reports, in any event.

An excerpt from a confirmation email sent to me by a hotel chain: "We’re sending you this confirmation notice electronically for your convenience. [Chain] keeps an official record of all electronic reservations. We honor our official record only and will disregard any alternations to this confirmation that may have been made after we sent it to you." Well, what if I correct the spelling of "alterations," huh? What about that?

If this is true, how do you explain this? Yes, they considered the bird feathers contamination, but if they’re producing the stuff in a "secure facility," how does that happen?