markbetz.net

I’m a hole poker, and people don’t much care for hole pokers. I learned this lesson years ago, when I was the boatswain aboard a large sailing vessel. The boatswain is the highest-rated seaman aboard who isn’t an officer; his job is to keep everything on deck and above in working order, and supervise the other [...]

Rising from the ruins once again. About a week ago I opened up the site and learned that it had been crapped on by hackers. Here’s what apparently happened, as far as I can piece together from what has been posted online: Network Solutions, where I host this blog, had their file system permissions set [...]

Somewhere along the line, between devouring everything Tolkien wrote nine times, and putting down the eighth volume of The Wheel of Time in disgust, I lost my appetite for fantasy. There was a time when I would have departed for Middle Earth in a heartbeat, if you had shown me the door. I used to [...]