worldwineboutique.com (no link) is an internet wine shop.  And a spammer.  As this site has higher traffic than their own site, I’m sure this will show up in Google searches, and probably higher than theirs.  If you oppose spam, don’t order from the site.

Quiz: what do The Bullwinkle Show, The West Wing, and CSI: Miami have in common, as regards international relations?  For bonus credit, add other titles I don’t know about.

I used to research route planning.  I’ve never read the following rule formalized, so I thought I’d set it down.  The rule is:

When trying to get off a mountain, “Reverse the directions that got you there” is a better algorithm than “This road has to go somewhere, doesn’t it?”

I believe the rule has even greater validity in December.  In the Northern Hemisphere.  After a snow.  In the dark.  Jesus.

Check out the cast list for this upcoming film.

Glen Stephens is a Sydney-based stamp dealer.  He claims to have the most-visited stamp website in the Southern hemisphere, to be the largest stamp dealer in the Southern hemisphere, to be the largest stamp buyer in Sydney, and, I believe, to have cured polio.

It was he who offered the $500 prize that I described on this page.  It started at $200, but he made a post where he said if the thread reached 10,000 posts, he would up it to $500.

At 5,000 posts, he started a new thread because of “stability” issues.  The second thread met the 10,000 mark.

He is not honoring the $500 prize because “the thread” did not meet 10,000 posts — the thread that he closed.

Glen, as you might have guessed by now, has always had a gruff demeanor, high-pressure sales tactics, and an ego larger than his continent.  I always figured there was a heart of gold underneath.  I have long contended that stamp dealers fall neatly into two bins: those to whom you would entrust your house keys, and those you would cross the street to avoid.  Despite early warnings (such as charging obscene amounts for Machin booklets that were covered with pencil writing, which is inexcusable to not mention) I’ve given him chance after chance.  And it was a waste.

He posted on the site telling me that if I was not satisfied with the $200 prize, he could surely find a runner-up who would be.  Good for him.  Have fun, Glen.  May I suggest Waroff49?  I’m not intimidated by his threats, and I’m not intimidated by his deletion of my posts calling him on it.  I imagine that deletion of my user account will follow.  Such is to be expected from slimeballs.

The site is stampboards.com.  May I strongly recommend you do not visit?

For the search engines: “Glen Stephens sucks”.

Farewell, stamp boarders.  It’s been a pleasure knowing (most) of you.