Here's this week's Friday Five (a couple of hours early, even):

1. What's your favorite vacation spot?
I haven't been to a lot of "vacation spots," but one memorable trip I took was to Costa Rica. My traveling companions and I did pretty much all the things you can possibly do in a week there -- volcanos, beaches, rainforests and of course, monkeys.

2. Where do you consider to be the biggest hell-hole on earth?
Besides San Jose, California? Ha ha, just kidding. Sort of. My final answer is Catoosa, Oklahoma, where I spent the worst few months of my life. I understand the place is a well-manicured big golf-course community now.

3. What would be your dream vacation?
A summer traveling through Europe, as if I were a college student again.

4. If you could go on a road-trip with anyone, who would it be and why?
I guess I'd better say my girlfriend, Andrea. I generally don't like road trips, but that would be a good way of knowing someone in a hurry. You deal with stress, irritating habits, sharing, compromise and money all in one setting.

5. What are your plans for this weekend?
The girls at work are having their monthly poker night, so Jeff (Sarah's boyfriend) and I are going to see a few movies at Cinequest. The event wraps up this weekend, and I'm sad to say I've only seen a handful of films. On the bright side, most of the ones I've seen are are decent, and if you add up all the good films I've seen so far, I'm already ahead of last year's film festival. Anyway, Saturday night we celebrate Andrea's birthday, which actually occurs on Sunday. But maybe it really is Saturday, when you take into account the time difference between here and Brazil. At any rate, I suppose I'll spend part of Friday shopping for a gift. Or maybe I'll just put it off until Saturday.

Yahoo! News - 'We've got work to do' on image with Muslims, Bush says

Though a majority, 67%, said the terror attacks Sept. 11 were morally unjustifiable, a significant minority, 15%, disagreed. Only 18% of those polled in six Islamic countries said they believed Arabs carried out the attacks. U.S. officials said all 19 hijackers were Arabs.

You're kidding me -- only 67 percent of Middle East Muslims think the WTC attack is morally unjustifiable? Suddenly, I don't give a crap what our "allies" in that region think of us.

GOP unlikely to filibuster campaign bill

Can it really be this close to passing?

Pearl Case Defense Lawyer Prefers Trial in U.S.

Because we're so unfair here, and all.

Salon.com News | Bush renews campaign for Arctic oil
President Bush on Saturday renewed his campaign to open an Arctic refuge to oil exploration, contending that drilling is essential to national security and job creation.

National security? Mr. President, even you can milk things only so much before the teat becomes dry.

I went with Sarah to the Cinequest film festival opening last night. Despite having "platinum" press passes, we got there late and got stuck in the second row of the theater. Before the movie started, we were talking in our usual loud way about the movie's star/director, Mike Binder, agreeing that we both hate his HBO show, Mind of the Married Man. Anyway, when they asked him to come to the front of the auditorium to make some opening comments, we realized to our embarrassment that he had been sitting directly in front of Sarah the entire time up to that point. We laughed, and continued to talk about how much we hate the show. Then Binder introduced his co-star in the movie, Sonya Walger, who also stars in the HBO series. As she got up to speak, we realized she had been sitting in front of me the whole time. True story.

This week's Friday Five:

1. Hey, baby, what's your sign? Do you think it fits you pretty well?
Cancer, and I don't believe any astrological sign fits very well. Come on, its the 21st century. Isn't voodoo passe?

2. What's the worst birthday gift you've ever received?
A stupid clock thing I got last year from my employer. Office gifts are always crappy -- the employee gift budget is too low to get anything nice, and co-workers (usually managers) are too pressed for time to get something creative.

3. What's the best birthday gift you've ever received?
Probably my first computer, an Atari 600 XL.

4. What's the best way you've celebrated your birthday thus far?
For my 30th birthday, my friends hosted a "trailer-trash ball" party. It was very fun and touching. So naturally, I moved away a few months later.

5. What are your plans for this weekend?
The annual San Jose Cinequest Film Festival has officially begun, so I'll be seeing lots and lots of movies for the next two weeks. I'm hoping to find a couple of gems among the loads of crap that couldn't find a first-tier distributor. And Sunday, I pick up Andrea from the airport!

Missing reporter dead

Bastards.

Here I am, waiting for V.P. Cheny to speak. I couldn't be more bored.

After Canada’s tie, Gretzky loses it

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah, Feb. 18 — Team Canada executive director Wayne Gretzky lashed out Monday at critics of his Olympic hockey team, saying other countries — especially the United States — revel in Canadian failure.

He says that like it's a bad thing.

If you're not following the big debate oncampaign finance reform, you ought to. I'll be amazed if this bill makes it through the process intact. And though I'm a big fan of campaign finance reform, I have to agree with some Republican critics who say the ban on television ads within 60 days of an election is probably unconstitutional. But equating campaign contributions to free speech? Pu-leeeze.

Whatever you do, don't rename a JPEG file as a *.pif, even if you just want to see what the heck the "pif" format refers to. Trust me.

Still sick, so I didn't go to church today. I think I'm going to sleep most of today and maybe catch up on some reading.

I just took Andrea to the airport and now I am feeling sick again. I think I've actually been sick all week but too busy to notice. Now I will get some sweet, sweet sleep. ZZZZZzzzzzzz...

Here's my very late Friday Five:

1. What was the first thing you ever cooked?
I have no idea, but in 7th grade everyone had to take both home economics and shop (quite a gender-progressive requirement in the heart of the Bible Belt, Oklahoma), meaning all the girls had shop class and all the boys had home economics at least one semester. Anyway, this is where I learned to cook. The only thing I can remember actually making, though, was a V-shaped cookie in a desperate attempt at extra credit in geography class, taught by Mr. Victor or Vickson, or some other V-named instructor. I did get the extra credit, but that didn't help my grade much. I aced home economics, though.

2. What's your signature dish?
Spaghetti. Ah, yeah.

3. Ever had a cooking disaster? (tasted like crap, didn't work, etc.) Describe.
The "Great Chocolate Chex Experiment." In theory, it sounded great -- I love Rice Chex cereal, I love Hershey's chocolate syrup. Why not combine them into something doubly delicious? The actual product was a disaster.

4. If skill and money were no object, what would make for your dream meal?
Capellini Pomodoro, which I understand takes only a little bit of skill and a little bit of money. I really ought to learn how to cook.

5. What are you doing this weekend?
I'm starting the Friday Five so late that my weekend has already started. I went shopping with my girlfriend -- she spent $138 at Walgreen's alone -- and we went out for dinner at a Greasy Tony's-type place in downtown Sunnyvale. Tomorrow I take her to the airport for her week-long trip to Brazil, and I suppose I spend the rest of the weekend pre-girlfriend style: back to Fry's and Barnes & Noble. I'm sure they've missed me.

An excellent proposal for a Sept. 11 memorial. Slate wrote a piece on it, but other than that, I've seen nothing in the media about this.

CNN.com - Alert issued for potential teddy bear bombs

If you receive this bear for Valentine's Day, you may want to re-evaluate your relationship. (Thanks to Chad for this item.)

Heinz launches chocolate fries

I love progress.

Star Wars Galaxies - Official Site

I may have found my new favorite game. I hope this comes out soon.

‘Highest alert’ after FBI warning

It's just after midnight Wednesday morning and still no attack. I guess we'll have to go back to reporting on the Olympics and Enron.