I wrote in my journal, then /. deleted my text. ARGH!

My e-mail signature consists of...

-First name only
Reasonable contact info
Full contact info including redundantly included e-mail address
Witty (to you) quotes or sayings
Absurd paragraph(s) of legalease
Cool (to you) ASCII art
CowboyNeal ASCII art

Number of lines in e-mail sig:

0-1 My first mail account was on a PDP-7
2-3 Reasonable contact info...
4-5 ...Plus my e-mail address for MUAs lacking hip new reply features!
6-10 Of course people love my witty quotes.
11-15 Have you ever seen ASCII art? It's so cool!
16+ Damn lawyers
I dunno, CowboyNeal manages my sigs

We recently replaced our microwave oven with a newer model. We now have the means (the old microwave) to conduct fun experiments! What entertaining experiments would /.ers recommend and in what order? We'd like the final experiment to be the MOST entertaining! ;-) BTW: We'll be using a GoldStar model MA-6802 with 120V 8.5A single phase input manufactured 02/1994. It uses turnable dials instead of touch-panel/LCD controls.

Hopefully, this will become a place where I can keep track of all my barbecue visits.

The "overall rating" is a general overall summary of how much I like this place. It is not based on any formula that uses the individual ratings of each item. Furthermore, these ratings are very subjective. They can be easily influenced by how hungry I was, what kind of mood I was in, who I was dining with, and countless other factors on my end. Not to mention the countless factors at the resturaunt's end; server in a bad mood, meat a little over-seasoned that day, collards were over-boiled, etc... Reasons such as these is why I also include the number of vistis on which I base my scores.

Scoring
This is not gymnastics. I assume everything starts off with a score of 5. The score can go up or down from there.

1 Inedible
2 Probably came out of a plastic bucket.
3
4
5 Good average. Everything starts here.
6
7
8 They know what they're doing.
9 Excellent. Should re-visit to give 'em a chance to get a 10.
10 The best I've ever had.
- I haven't tried this item.

Dillard's BBQ
Overall Rating: 6/10 (Based on 4 visits)
Located near intersection of Buford Hwy and Suwanee Dam Rd.

5/10 Pork: Good texture overall. Deep on-site smoked flavor. Tends to be a little too salty.
6/10 Sauce: Only one. Served warm. Nice and spicy. Good rich flavor.
7/10 Brunswick Stew: Thick with all the right stuff.
-/10 Baked Beans:
9/10 Collard Greens: Excellent!
-/10 Potato Salad:
-/10 Cole Slaw:
8/10 Atmosphere/service: Super nice management. Staff of quiet teens.

Corky's
Overall Rating: 6/10 (Based on 10+ visits)
Located on Pleasant Hill Rd. 1/2 mile East of I-85.

7/10 Pork: Very moist and smoky. Served with drizled sauce.
6/10 Sauce: Red sauce is good and spicy, but you can taste the preservatives.
5/10 Brunswick Stew: Thick and spicy.
2/10 Baked Beans: Mush.
-/10 Collard Greens:
-/10 Potato Salad:
3/10 Cole Slaw: Too much pepper with strong cabbage aftertaste.
5/10 Atmosphere/service: It's a nice roomy resturaunt with a professional staff. Service experience similar to any major chain.

Buddy's BBQ
Overall Rating: 6/10 (Based on 1 visit)
Located in Knoxville, TN

6/10 Pork: Ordered dry and it was. Available wet, or use sauces on table.
6/10 Sauce: "Hot" was a great vinegar hot. Mild was eh.
-/10 Brunswick Stew:
-/10 Baked Beans:
6/10 Green Beans: Cooked w/ pork = good.
3/10 Potato Salad: Industrial bucket.
-/10 Cole Slaw:
4/10 Atmosphere/service: Fast food format, little personality. Nice roaming blue hair serving free hushpuppies! Service experience similar to any major chain.

Slope's BBQ
Overall Rating: 8/10 (Based on 20+ visits)
Located in Alplharetta, GA (Hwy 9 North of McFarland)

8/10 Pork: I get chopped. The pork is dry and drizzled with a little house sauce.
8/10 Sauce: One house sauce. I like it a lot, but some may find the texture powdery or chalky.
8/10 Brunswick Stew: One of the best Brunswick stews I've ever had at a resturaunt
-/10 Baked Beans:
-/10 Green Beans:
9/10 Collard Greens: Cooked w/ pork. Great flavor and good texture.
-/10 Potato Salad:
-/10 Cole Slaw:
9/10 Sweet Tea: Brewed. And with enough sugar. Thank you!
9/10 Atmosphere/service: The staff and atmosphere are warm, friendly, and inviting. All the condiments you might need are freely available. Nobody rushes you by constantly asking "can I take your plate?" "are you finished?" "will you please leave now?"

Country's
Overall Rating: 3/10 (Based on 1 visit)
Located in Columbus, GA

2/10 Pork: The pork was more charred than smoked. Tough meat.
5/10 Sauce: All three sauces on the table were fine. Happy to see a mustard-vinegar sauce.
-/10 Brunswick Stew:
-/10 Baked Beans:
-/10 Green Beans:
5/10 Collard Greens: Cooked w/ pork. Decent flavor and texture.
-/10 Potato Salad:
-/10 Cole Slaw:
8/10 Sweet Tea: Brewed. And with enough sugar. Worth taking a cup with me.
8/10 Atmosphere/service: Staffed mosly by young women. Obviously, there is a lack of entertainment options in Columbus due to the high number of pregnent servers. The dining area was comfortable and felt like a nice BBQ place to eat.

Groove Salad
Cryosleep

Doors greatest hits
Pink Floyd: Division Bell
Enigma
Sade

Def Leopard: Hysteria
Faith no more

Lee Greenwood (God bless the USA, etc...)
A decent National Anthem
This land is your land (and jib-jab version)

she drives me crazy
loverboy
wicked game

E'ry body in the club get tipsy
Emenim
Outkast
Beastie Boys
Van Halen: For unlawful carnal knowledge
Robert Plant
Rush
Easy-E: Straight outa compton
Snoop Dogg
Boyz-2-Men (mowtown philly)

Most common video game behavior used in the real world?

• Mentally arranging tetris blocks amongst everyday objects.
• Walking sideways around corners.
• Evaluating public places for sniper nests or kill zones.
• Heightened anxiety near a flickering overhead light.
• Double jump instead of stairs.
• Eating giant mushrooms.
• My persistent universe is a real world!

Just so I never forget:

!!!! NEVER USE REGISTERFLY !!!!
!!!! NEVER USE REGISTERFLY !!!!
!!!! NEVER USE REGISTERFLY !!!!
!!!! NEVER USE REGISTERFLY !!!!

They are NOT accredited by ICANN! http://www.internic.net/alpha.html

They do NOT have any phone support!

They do NOT have any escelation procedures for problems that continue to go unresolved.

Their servers go down for DAYS at a time!

My problems with RegisterFly are not isolated incidents or one-time goof-ups. The NUMEROUS and MAJOR problems I have encountered are symptoms of a completely broken operation. I used to work in the hosting arena, so I am VERY familiar with the types of challenges faced by RegisterFly. I tend to be (too) patient since I know what they might be going through; however, their issue handling constitutes gross negligence.

In my first 3 weeks of using RegisterFly for 6 new domains and 3 hosting packages (mid-range web-starter plan, not the super-cheap personal stuff), I have experienced the following problems:

1) Webhosting service down for 7 days straight.
2) DNS service down for 6 days straight.
3) None of the domains' e-mail services were setup. Rec'd auto-gen error e-mail re: failure to create new e-mail service.
4) Conflicting answers between live chat support sessions.
5) Conflicting answers between trouble ticket resolutions.
6) Trouble tickets being closed with no resolution and being asked to "open another ticket later..."
7) Buggy account login: I have to login twice anytime I access RFly.
8) Buggy checkout: Items continued to fall out of my shopping cart.
9) Buggy checkout: I could not register a domain name AND sign-up for web/mail hosting at the same time (despite being given the option to do so AND despite have done so a few days prior with another domain) I was told to purchase the domain name and come back later to sign-up for web/mail hosting.
10) The DNS, web, and mail hosting are dis-jointed systems cobbled togeather via clumsy control panels. The user interface issues are horrible.
11) Absolutely no phone support or any way to contact a real person.
12) Non-English support peoples are making difficult my chances of understanding the why problems of the issues not being fixing.
13) RegisterFly and Unified names is not even listed as an accredited registrar by ICANN! http://www.internic.net/alpha.html (MY fault for not checking this sooner.)

Support conversations go like this:

ME: My problem is blah blah...
RF: First of all, your settings are all wrong. They're still default values.
ME: I know, but I can't access the control panel to make the necessary changes. I was told last week that...
RF: Your settings have been corrected, please wait 24 to 72 hours for the change to be active.
ME: That's what I was told last week, but the problem still...
RF: Sir, please wait 24 to 72 hours and try again.
ME: But what if it doesn't work?
RF: Please open a support ticket.
ME: But they close the tickets without fixing the problem and ask me to re-open another one later.
RF: Sir, please wait 24 to 72 hours and try again.
ME: [I stop typing and just watch the chat window]
RF: Sir, please wait 24 to 72 hours and try again.
RF: Sir, please wait 24 to 72 hours and try again.
RF: Sir, please wait 24 to 72 hours and try again.
RF: Sir, please wait 24 to 72 hours and try again.

Submitted for ./ consideration. Recorded here for posterity's sake...

Although most technical questions have lucid answers buried somewhere in the man pages, source code, or those silly README files; sometimes, it's nice to hit the web for quick answers. Has anyone experienced much success with the community forums for trading technical assistance. I looked into Experts Exchange, but according to many of the posts I see, it looks like a lot of unhappy people (amongst a ton of ads). Tech Recipes seems to be at the other end of the spectrum with a nice to-the-point layout but limited content. Do you frequent a technical knowledge exchange web-forum you would recommend? I am interested in giving back knowledge, not just taking!

Beginning journal entry number 1... Is this suppossed to be like those 3-5 sentance ephiphanies that Doogie Howser had at the end of each week's episode? If so, I've nothing quite so deep to impart today. Cheers!