*yawn* I really should sleep earlier when given the choice... :)

Well slept like a log and woke up at 1pm today (happiness is sleeping in) and went to uni to do my assignment (no! no!) for a few unproductive hours... Met up with Julian for dinner, and then with Alex who had the great idea of going down to Chapel St for ice cream (you guessed it - Lix again!) and coffee just to prove to ourselves that we aren't complete losers on a Saturday night... ;p

Also played some C & C Generals at the local LAN cafe to pass the time... Other than that - not much else of note happened! Which, after this week, is exactly what i needed

*sigh of relief*

Hmmm... this post is way too short... How about some takes from my other hobby - trawling around news sites (it pays to be informed i say - especially on the news which isn't breaking any headlines) and passing to Julian any interesting financial related news? ;)

Here's some keepers which i've read today, serious stuff first:

- Ever since Microsoft announced last week of flaws inherent in some versions of its Windows OS its been found that hackers are distributing software to break into computers (from a Chinese site no less), similar in design to the recent Blaster virus in. The patch for these flaws has been released for some time now - so go get it! Check it out.

- Remember that post where i talked about Kazaa users being sued? Millions of users are still using Kazaa every day since the lawsuit (there's only been a 5% drop)... More info here.

- The annual Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans has been released! Bill Gates is now worth no less than $46 BILLION and on average the wealthy have seen a 10% increase in their personal fortunes. More here.

- VeriSigns new service of redirecting people from '404 Error' pages to actual websites (and thus lots of 'advertising' $$$) is facing a lot of opposition in the form of an antitrust lawsuit. Here for more.

- "Countless research projects around the world into cancer and other major diseases are producing bogus or misleading results because investigators are studying the wrong type of cell." Well, well, well... Article can be found here.

- An interesting article on the state of America's security for critical systems - and its not good (the Blaster virus actually managed to infect a nuclear power station for example, good thing was it wasn't operational at the time).

- And Saudi Arabia is considering (or considered?) getting a nuke? Makes sense i guess, though they're probably going to buy one (note that this article is being said to have been reported from an unofficial paper... Still, it has been circulated widely in diplomatic news wires so it's probably true). Check it out...

- New plans for response to a catastrophic attack in regards to the US hierarchy (ie the President gets killed) calls for the setting up of an Assistant Vice President whose job is to stay up to date, lay low, and live outside of Washington... More here.

- Finally the results of an experiment are showing that monkeys know when they're getting ripped off! Not to mention what this implies in regards to their cognitive learning abilities... That or if you like looking at monkeys click here.

And now for some funny or weird shit... ;)

- Organised 'Supermarket Dating'? SHEER GENIUS!!! Check it out here!

- Kid builds working nuclear fusion reactor out of junk parts! Click here to find out.

- Russian mushroom bumper crop making everyone happy (some of them literally) except for Emergencies Ministry. Find out more...

- Musuem pays 240,000 pounds (i seem to have no pound sterling key on this keyboard) for a plate with a portrait of a man made up of penises with the inscription in latin saying 'Every man looks at me as if i were a dickhead'. Is it art? Is it worth it? Click here to see for yourself (pic included)...

- Anybody heard of a myth involving Chiang Kai-Shek sending all of China's gold to the US to keep it out of the hands of Japanese and Communist forces? Neither have i... but a few poor suckers sure did. Have a look.

Ok, good night all! Gotta sleep to go my weekly NLC meeting tommorow... *zzz*