It's that time of the century again. None of this every 4 or 5 year national election. It's the great papal showdown. Mud will be thrown, things will be burnt and papal shenanigans will run wild.

Presumably, just like after November 4 here on HuSi there will be those celebrating and those in mourning.

Paddy Power has a papal election vote.

And in this diary - you too can vote for the pope.

The question is this though. The papal elections are a closed ballot. There is a time when the result will be known by the cardinals, indeed it may already be settled. Should the Catholic Church then place a massive bet on the result?

And a real miracle. On Soviet Canuckistan's Science show, which is podcasted, there was this story about The Voice which takes in a picture and spits out a   sound

I went for my first ever group ride and it wasn't bad but the stories I've been told about other bikers being unpleasant was somewhat supported.

I've just read Tobias Wolff's Old School which wasn't a bad book.

Does anyone out there listen to any tech pod casts? Is there anything better out there than Lug radio?

And it looks like the Hitch Hiker's Movie may well be crap.

Why are books so much more expensive than CDs, DVDs and even back catalogue games?

Why don't DVD's use the same size case as CDs?

Note to all - don't lie to parents that you're going on holiday to Thailand.

Notes on Christmas and other crap.

Partly prompted by Theophile Escargot's music poll, partly prompted by playing WinUAE and partly prompted by a visit to the library is some stuff pondering what happens when you start competing with your own back catalogue. What happens to art/media/entertainment forms when the back catalogue becomes so vast and easy to get at that there is little demand for new stuff?

FX is going to make a MASH for the US led invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Age has an article  as does The  Hollywood reporter.

The cool thing is that it's going to be made by the guy who made Hill Street Blues.

But this is a heads up, no doubt this will be discussed ad nauseum on teh interweb.

So, my nice little Dell Lattitude L400 goes on the fritz, the power cable and connection gets screwed. So I take it to a lap repair place that is recommended by a mate of mine who is a tech support guy. The laptop repair place fixes the power problem after two attempts, but they also kill the switch that turns the screen off when the laptop is closed, rendering the laptop useless.

The laptop guy says he will sell me a heavier Dell laptop of the same vintage for $AU350, which means giving me about $AU300 for my old laptop. I'm not sure what to do.

What have people tried when a technician fixes one thing but kills another?

And end of job stuff.

Expert opinions requested.

This comment page is attached to some gruesome pictures of W's big Adventure.  

Is the big right wing comment a troll or is the guy a moron? Who can say?

For each and every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

But, and this is where the brains of HuSi are required, which side is cuter?

There may be No IQ difference and there may or may not be a charity difference but there seems to be an attractiveness difference.

Whatever it is that may have happened yesterday.

Thanks to whoever mentioned Drupal, a php CMS setup. Drupal is cool. Thanks. Has anyone out there used it? What are the biggest traffic sites that use it?

Anyway, I got a great new job offer. The catch would be that I would pretty much be managing myself, working from home and thus would only have myself to blame. It would make it difficult to complain on the net about how daft my work setup was or whatever as it would all be down to me.

Do you people hear news of the Melbourne Cup?

The answer to Iraq is easy. Contained within.

My back hurts like buggery.

Comments about the Australian election will go into Cam's site and not into an apppalling K5 article.

Also, anyone know what happened to metafilter?

And a question, what would you say to someone who told you they were going to study computer science or software engineering now at Uni (college for you Usians?)