CNN.com - Woman charged over lost lottery ticket claim - Jan. 9, 2004

If it was a state lottery, why wasn't she charged with attempting to defraud the government?

So she cried and said that she wanted the money for her kids. So what? I could have cried and said that I wanted the money too, but I didn't and neither did you!

Besides, she held up giving the real winner her money. Man, if that had been my real ticket, I'd have been made as heck at this lady for slowing things down.

CNN.com - Purported bin Laden tape aired - Jan. 5, 2004

This guy just has to be stopped. His name carries a weight that no other outlaw in the Middle East can match.

Just a note to say I am an average American. Not sure what that's about today, but it's me.

Hateful Man Gives Up Man's Best Friend

Yep. My wife and I had to give up our little beagle/pug mixed puppy. The puppy kept attacking and biting my cat but the real reason I had to let her go was that my wife wasn’t handling the stress of not sleeping. The pup (Bug, if you must know) would sleep for about an hour and then wake up and start chewing anything. The pillow, me, the covers, because she was bored and growing like a weed. If you didn’t get up and play, she barked and howled and in an apartment, that just doesn’t fly.

Still, I miss Bug. She was a cutie.

Well, here's a sad sign of the times.

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=PRUKIEG4V00LSCRBAEZSFFA?type=topNews&storyID=4063682

If the URL has expired, it's an article about New Years Eve 2003. America waiting to welcome in the year of 2004 is accompanied by images of top secret planes cruising the skies of American cities as police frisk revelers and (of course) the ball in Times Square.

Perhaps I’m overly cynical. This could simply be America finally joining the sad state of the rest of the world. I guess the fairy tale is really over.