i would love to have dinner with these people.....

....or party with them. or date them, as the case may be. anyone you know??

gotta love tom

enjoy!~

greatest hits

how many of these albums have you owned? (yeah. remember albums??)

Deus Ex Machina -- say what now?...

i suppose that this really shouldn't surprise me, given that over half of the population around here believes that the universe is 6,000 years old, but -- come on!! take a look......

``Jesus Power and Light'' -- a free-electricity promotion denounced by scientists, consumer advocates and state attorneys general -- was pitched at an Akron City Council member's Sept. 5 ward meeting.

apparently, there's this sales guy named Fred Gissendaner, described as "a respected local sports hero and community figure," who claims to be a "certified dealer for the Hummingbird Motor & Sundance Generator, which purportedly harnesses the energy of permanent magnets to produce more electricity than it uses."

gets better. at the moment, the AKtual MagiK Machines aren't available. for now, Gissandaner is peddling a DVD that explains the technology. shell out your $20 for the disk, and you get to be one of 1.6 million so-called "witnesses" who will be invited to football fields across America and Canada on July 10, 2007, for the machine's debut. then they get to have the generators installed in their homes, at which point they're entitled to free electricity for life.

how will this work? according to Gissandaner, International Tesla Electric Co. (ITEC) will retain ownership of the home-installed generators, and the company will sell all the excess electricity being created in everyone's backyards, garages and basements back to the utilities. forgive us -- of course you wanna know what it looks like...

looks pretty legit, huh? but who's that dashing gentleman in the picture? could it be Fred Gissandaner? alas, no. it is none other than Dennis Lee. so, who is Dennis Lee?

a coupla google searches later, and it's no surprise to this cybernaut that this whole thing has sketchy roots. Dennis Lee, apparently, is some kinda techno-snake oil salesman for the new millenium. in an open letter he wrote in May of 1999, to explain to former members of the Tesla Society why it had been acquired for a grand total of $5,000, Lee proclaims, "It is my belief that Nikola Tesla was the greatest scientist ever to grace mankind with his presence....I am in awe of his greatness and respect his insight more than I do any other human this side of Jesus Christ." how touching. or weird. Lee refers to good old Nikola as "the Guru," while referring to himself, more modestly, as the Director of Research for Better World Technologies.

the BBA, on the other hand, refers to the whole thing as a scam. not to be discouraged, good old Akron, Ohio has seen the likes of Lee's shameless hucksterism before, back in 1999.

so, how is it that he is coming back? not to mention how a hair-brained scheme like this managed to get floor time at a ward meeting. according to the linked article, Akron Councilwoman Renee Greene, commenting on Gissandaner, said "she was unaware of the court actions or Lee's connection to Gissendaner's investment proposal when she agreed to let Gissendaner speak at her meeting."

"Fred is the kind of person that I consider resourceful," she said. "He came to us from a religious perspective."

She doesn't think any harm was done at the meeting because nobody took him up on the offer.

"If my church was going to be involved, then we would be investigating," she said. "Otherwise, this was just a pass-along-information thing."

ah! -- now we get it. if it were for your church, you'd take a closer look, but, hell, it's good enough for the city, yo!

Nikola Tesla
(July 10, 1856 - January 7, 1943)