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The Big Game Lottery (the link blocked by my company’s proxy server) is up to $220 million today. So, a bunch of us in the office decided to buy into the scam. I purchased two lottery tickets, so my odds of winning the grand prize are one in 38 million. (How do they determine these odds without knowing how many lottery tickets will be sold?) I guess we’ll find out how special I really am.

Tonight I found the missing first few weeks of Blogger entries for my journal here and imported them. You can read them using the archive links on the right side of the page. I also created an about Spike page, including an semi-updated list of the concerts and shows I’ve attended.

In addition, if you look closely, you will see that you can now email my entries to your friends (undoubtedly with the purpose of making fun), and if there are comments for an entry, the last commentator is listed.

For those who are curious, here is more information on Israeli/Hebrew current events and modern history. Check the archives, there’s a lot of good stuff there. The entries in this weblog will give readers a better idea of what’s going on in the Middle East than the information you get from some of the US press.

Bush has declared that he will veto any bill allowing any kind of medical research regarding cloning including non-reproductive cloning. While I can understand some people’s position in being against reproductive cloning (breeding humans to be used for body parts and creating “designer children”) but for him to get in the way of medical research that could save thousands of lives is ludicrous.

Did I ever mention I don’t like politics? I think I have.

When I have some more time, I want to check this site out more.

When it comes to what’s going on right now in the Middle East, my views are based on what I learned growing up in a Jewish society. I’m sure if I grew up going to Arabic School instead of Hebrew School, I would have learned things with a different perspective.

I’m not saying I have any realistic solution as to how to bring peace to the Middle East, but I believe that if people stop justifying things by saying, “My God told me it’s true, and since my God is the real God and yours is not (because He told me so), I am right and you should die for believing otherwise,” and by trying to determine boundaries based on religious beliefs (like in the Middle East and Southeast Europe), people might be able to better live in harmony.

Today is (arbitrarily) the ten-year anniversary of the day I began using my signature emoticon (known at the time as a “smiley”):

:>

But, it is true. A college professor with some time on his hands has found a way to help people out little by little, and he is gaining the attention of people willing to help him to help people.

What do my roommate and New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have in common? Here’s your first hint… the mayor was approached about the fact after a “joint (ahem) press conference.”

The New York Post must really love those ironic puns.

It’s beautiful outside today. I think I deserve a long lunch break. On top of that, the next couple of weeks look good for some fun events in the city. Woohoo! Getting out of the apartment once in a while is a good thing.

Comcast Online is really starting to piss me off. I call up their customer support number, and I get a message that I should stay on the line and someone will be with me shortly. After that, sometimes I get the familiar “hold music” and other times I get silence. When I get the silence, who knows whether they line is connected. In the rare occasion I get the hold music, I’m on for a pretty long time, and if I’m lucky, I’ll eventually get a recorded voice that tells me to continue holding. And then the message is looped, so I keep hearing it until eventually the phone connection just drops. It’s really starting to get ridiculous.

On top of that, the storage facility, whose services I no longer need and would like to stop being charged for, does not pick up their phone.

Why does the world always want to get in my way when I’m trying to get things done?