Away With Words has a nice March Madness diversion, looking at the new book, The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything. The book posits that many of the great debates of our times can be resolved by methodically breaking these down into a series of one-on-one matchups culminating in a categorical “Final Four.” She links to Slate.com’s article about the book, which features four sample brackets: the greatest “Where Were You Moments”, “Ad Slogans”, “Marital Arguments” and “Film Deaths.”

In these samples, 32 candidates in each category are listed in Round 1 and you proceed to “face-off” each match-up into the next bracket. For example, in the “Film Deaths” bracket I found a lot of bona fide contenders that were hard to choose from, but when it was close I went with the death that was most central to the story. Thus the “Psycho” shower scene made it to my final four despite a strong first round challenge from the opening shark attack in “Jaws”. The rest of my final four ultimately included King Kong falling from the Empire State Building, Tom Hanks’ death in “Saving Private Ryan” and the Wicket Witch melting in “The Wizard of Oz.” (King Kong won.)

Deaths also figure prominently in the “Where Were You When” (Boomer Division) bracket with JFK, RFK, Martin Luther, Princess Diana, John Lennon, Dale Earnhardt among those featured, though these also compete against the fall of the Berlin Wall, Woodstock and the Miracle on Ice. In the Ad Slogans bracket you’ve got “Where’s the beef?” going up against “It’s finger-lickin’ good” in the first round, while “Does she or doesn’t she?” could conceivably fight it out with “Just do it” in one of the later rounds.

You can check out these sample brackets for yourself from the Salon link. While I don’t see that we could resolve many disputes by having a world-wide “Greatest Religions” bracket, this is a fun way to hash out your favorites — and all without having to listen to Dick Vitale (I didn’t notice if there was a “Most Obnoxious” bracket covered in the book).

When you’re finished you can check with your friends and acquaintences who also completed the brackets and then make a bracket to determine which of you is most compulsive.

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And set it down over here at Solid Rocks.

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Find out more at Solid Rocks Ministry.

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I need some help or information here because I’m afraid The Night Writer might get stolen away — well, in the night.

When I started blogging I registered my domain name with Registerfly for a nominal fee. I renewed the registration a year later with no problem. Again this year I received emails from Registerfly warning that my annual renewal was coming up. I renewed the domain name one day before the expiration and paid through PayPal which sent me a confirmation.

I then received an email from Registerfly that it wasn’t able to renew my domain. I figured it must have been a glitch in the ordering process, and went back to their site to try it again. This time I got an on-screen message saying that they couldn’t renew the domain name because their records show it belongs to someone other than my User ID! Naturally I’ve tried to contact Registerfly to try and figure out what’s going on and can’t get through. The several emails I’ve sent have so far gone unanswered and when I called in during business hours last week I was on hold for 35 minutes (with a helpful message repeating itself every minute telling me how many people were still ahead of me and how many minutes I’d already been waiting) and when I finally got to the head of the line I was suddenly put into voicemail – with a message that the Voice Mailbox was full!

Right now, I don’t know where things stand or even if Registerfly is still a going concern or not. Supposedly I have a month’s grace period to renew my domain after it expires, but right now I’m not feeling too confident about anything. I don’t want to see this blog overnight turn into a site selling foot creams or discount medications (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and I don’t want to move my domain registration business to GoDaddy because of their advertising.

Here are my questions; I’d appreciate comments from anyone who has any information or advice:

1. How do I go about moving my domain registration from one vendor to another, and are there other companies out there other than Registerfly or GoDaddy that anyone can recommend?
2. If my domain name should truly be lost, can I still preserve my URL and, especially, my on-line archives? (I’m in the process of manually transferring these to my hard-drive, which takes up time that I have precious little of right now).
3. If I end up changing my domain name and URL, is there a simple way to leave a “forwarding address”?

Thanks, folks.

Update:

I’ve got a bad feeling about this. There’s actually a website devoted to problems with Registerfly. Looks like I can kiss my original domain name good-bye. Now I just need to figure out if I can get a new domain name and still keep this URL!

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… tips are posted over at Solid Rocks.

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…are posted over at Solid Rocks Ministry.

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… now posted over at Solid Rocks.

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Our joy is complete — Al Franken is officially unofficially entering the race for the 2008 Minnesota Senate race. This will ensure months of blog fodder and amusement. Not that Al is all that funny himself, except unintentionally, but if his dyspeptic (and terminal) radio program is any indication I expect his campaign to provide a goldmine of material.

My friend Derek Brigham (aka “Chief”) at Freedom Dogs is even more elated: as official graphic designer of the MOB he’s already jumped in with several “Franken for Senate” bumper stickers . Go on over an order yours, or suggest slogans of your own.

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Kevin Ecker reached the five year anniversary of the EckerNet blog yesterday, which is a nearly unheard of milestone in the blogosphere considering how many bloggers don’t even make it to five months — and when you consider what the technological limitations were back then. Kevin had to do the equivalent of pounding rocks together when he started; kind of crude and ugly, but then nobody was reading blogs then anyway. Today the blog is still crude and ugly, but that’s more a matter of attitude than a problem with the design or the hosting platform.

Anyway, EckerNet is a daily (or more often) stop for the Mall Diva and I as we stop in to see who Kevin is picking on today, to view pictures of his latest gun, or to enter one of his caption contests. Visiting EckerNet is one of our favorite forms of entertainment, right up there with watching Mythbusters on TV. In fact, we see some eerie parallels between Kevin and one of the Mythbusters’ hosts, Adam Savage: they’re about the same age, size, have similar hairlines and kind of look alike. Could they have been separated at birth? Let’s examine (Kevin on the left, Adam on the right below):

The similarities are amazing:

• Both use the motto, “I reject your reality and substitute my own!”
• Both get paid to figure out how to blow things up. The difference is Adam Savage shows you how to do it on TV; if Kevin showed you how it’s done he’d have to kill you. (Go here for links to Mythbusters’ greatest explosions.)
• Adam busts urban legends that “everyone knows are true” using physics, curiosity and some cool gear; Kevin blows holes in generally accepted liberal “facts” and thinking using reason, research and a lot of attitude.
• Adam once tested the effects of a mannequin urinating on an electrified rail; urinating on an electrified rail is how Kevin wakes himself up in the morning.
• Adam goes to great lengths to test the limits of science and knowledge; Kevin goes to great lengths to try to buy my daughter beer and test the limits of my patience.

I think it’s conclusive, folks. Add a goatee, a little reddish coloring and perhaps a bit more restraint to Kevin and you have — Adam Savage. Busted!

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It’s Friday, which often means postings are more frivolous. I don’t have anything like that today, but I thought it would be fun to offer some good news.



In my day job I have come across some very heartening information about treatment for HIV/AIDS. One of the top HIV researchers in the world (and someone who has been in the front lines of this research since the early 1980s) recently summarized some of the tremendous advances and breakthroughs that have been achieved after 25 years of research and treatment. That article isn’t available for linking, but many of the details are generally available in the published research, and I’d like to share some of these here.



My purpose isn’t just to share the good news about what is happening in this particular area, but also as an “antidote” to so much of what appears in the media today that focuses on “impossible” situations, worst case scenarios and “it’ll never happen” doom and gloom (whether for political gain or out of sheer ignorance).



Anyone who has paid attention to HIV treatment over the last 25 years is probably familiar with some of the treatment challenges that originally arose: most treatments were only marginally effective; many treatments had debilitating side-effects nearly as devastating as the disease; and treatment regimens were complex and depended on perfect timing. Additionally, the cost and complexity of the drug regimens raised the possibility that patients who began but couldn’t maintain the schedule would lead to further mutations of the virus resistant to the drugs. Here’s what is happening now:

• Effectiveness: An HIV patient that starts therapy today has a nearly 100% chance of suppressing the virus and restoring immune function (this does not mean eliminating the virus, however). HIV therapy today can almost always restore a patient’s T-cell count (the key measure of the strength of the immune system) to normal levels. This has dramatically reduced the occurence of common infections such as pneumonia, retinitis and cryptococcal meningitis, and Kaposi’s sarcoma (a once trademark affliction of HIV-infected) is now rare, as are the cancers that HIV patients were susceptible to. HIV infection today is now more predictably responsive to treatment than common diseases such as hypertension or diabetes.






• The cure doesn’t kill: Many of the early drug treatments and their applications were toxic and often disfiguring for the people who received them. Nausea, anemia, diarrhea, confusion, kidney stones and the loss of fatty tissue in the face and extremities were common. Today the drugs have been improved and the dosages refined so that side-effects, while still present, are less common and much less severe.






• Treatment is less complicated: Earlier treatment required handfuls of pills that had to be taken according to complex schedules. Some medications had to be taken on an empty stomach, others had to be taken on a full stomach. Today most treatment (antiretroviral) regimens are combined into just one or two pills, taken as little as once a day. It’s not only easier buy less expensive for patients because the combined pills reduce the amount of their co-pays. This also makes it easier to stick to the treatment plan, which in turn reduces the possibility of flare ups or the virus developing a resistance to the medication.






• Growing availability: Advances in treating HIV in the U.S. gives hope to other countries that have much higher infection rates. The developments already described here make treatment in other countries more practical and realistic. Additionally a miraculous combination of political will, philanthropy and social pressure are making treatment available in places where, until recently, it was thought to be impossible. HIV medicines are being provided mainly through two efforts: the U.S.-based President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Geneva-based Global Fund for HIV, TB and Malaria. These programs are supported by deeply discounted or generic antiretroviral drugs and are being used to treat hundreds of thousands of people in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. That’s still just a small percentage of the global need, but it is significant progress.

With so much bad news reported (and celebrated) these days, I find it encouraging and inspiring that progress and breakthroughs can and do happen — even when a situation is said to be impossible and hopeless. Nothing happens overnight, but vision, integrity and focus — even by those “evil” pharmaceutical companies — are still making a better world. Happy Friday!

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