Tuesday, I took my second shot at Trivia Night at Jimmy's Old Town Tavern in Herndon. As with last time, my tablemates were quite good in getting us past the written-answer qualifying round, where they could use their Internet-enabled cellphones to look up the answers (although I did my part in the ...

Welcome! You've got layoffs: A preparation guide for AOL employees. Welcome, soon-to-be-former AOL employee! I'm Joe Loong, graduate of the AOL Layoff Class of October, 2007, and I'm here to offer you a few bits of advice gleaned from my own personal layoff experience. I hope that these items will h...

Two ongoing Mideast wars, the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, wildfires in Australia, Israeli election uncertainty, simmering crisis in Gaza, multiple nuclear proliferation threats, and the only thing the celebrity-minded simpletons out there can wrap their silly little heads aro...

Actually, there's not that much to tell. Saturday was Crostonfest, a surprise thank-you in honor of DC tech scenester John Croston, held just before the DC Geeks Love Wine tasting event at nclud. While we waited for John, there was Mario Kart: Looking down: Oblivious to the passersby gawking. And th...

Here are a bunch of things I'm looking at over the next few months. I say this in spite of the fact that I passed on tonight's Over the Rhine show at Birchmere (so very tired). And this may not include events that I can't talk about, should they exist: * Tonight, Feb 9, 7:30pm: DC area Tweetup, Indi...

I was in the gym last night on the Stair Master, and Wheel of Fortune was on the TV directly in front of me. I haven't watched the show in years -- the last time probably found me laid up in bed with the flu, gazing slack-jawed at the original daytime version, where Vanna White still turned the card...

The case of my Macbook cracked on Wednesday, right at the spots where the nubs on the screen bezel contact the palm rests. I didn't bother taking a picture, because it's a known issue and looks exactly like all the other Macbooks that have experienced the problem. I scheduled an appointment at the A...

My sister, being smarter than me, went to Harvard. Somewhere along the line, picking at the crumbs of her Ivy League education, I managed to glean a few copies of the Harvard Lampoon from the mid-90s, which I recently rediscovered in a box. Since getting the entirety of their archives online doesn't...

I was looking over the big to-do this week about AOL finally baptising the Web publishing unit with the name "MediaGlow." (Incidentally, MediaGlow is pretty anagram-rich -- highlights include "Wild Omega," "Dime Aglow," "Mid Lo Wage," and of course, "Lewd Amigo"). Being outside looking in, I just kn...

Two weeks into the New Year and I'm already falling behind. Before I get into any new business, I decided it'd be best to clean out some entries in my drafts folder, from 2008 and earlier. Here are the entries that I'm officially pulling the plug on (with the dates they were last touched): Religion ...