Phil-the-Gambler, and Gary, and Kim's cool arty friend Cathy.

See, I *thought* Phil and Gary were at the table, but I wasn't sure. I do remember thinking, "Hey, I'm at Hec's Storytime Table!"

I do remember thinking, "Hey, I'm at Hec's Storytime Table!"

Hmmm, well I do tell stories about you all the time.

eta: For example, at our lunch with the columnist Jon Carroll we talked about you. Which prompted him to talk about Susannah McCorkle (the jazz/caberet singer who committed suicide) - who he was friends with in college.

Loner 44%
Geek 25%
Stoner 19%
Drama nerd 13%
Goth 13%
Prep/Jock/Cheerleader 6%
Punk/Rebel 6%
Ghetto gangsta 6%

Not too surprising.

Of course, it strikes me funny that Matt's cobalt is white.

And, there's my case for cremation.

In my mother's family, they bury the cremains (favorite word!) under the family headstone, so you can have both.

at our lunch with the columnist Jon Carroll

You had lunch with Jon Carroll? Cool.

I need to scare up the link to his "don't hate what you love" column, which was marvelous.

You had lunch with Jon Carroll? Cool.

It was! JZ's dad bought a lunch with Jon at a charity auction about three years ago. We only just cashed it in a couple weeks ago.

Long Wikipedia article on the next generation of US manned space vehicles - the Crew Exploration Vehicle, which will carry humans to the moon and Mars.

NASA hopes to follow this schedule in development of the CEV:

• 2006 - (March) NASA selects one team to build CEV.
• 2006 - (July) Engineering review of CEV design
• 2008 – 2010 - First unmanned flight of CEV in Earth orbit.[26]
• 2011 - (June) First manned flight of CEV in Earth orbit.
• 2015-2018 - First unmanned flight of Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM).
• 2016-2018 First manned flight of LSAM.
• 2018 - First manned lunar landing with CEV/LSAM system.
• 2020 - Start of planning for Mars missions

The whole program should cost the same (or slightly more) than NASA is currently spending on operating the Shuttle - i.e. retiring the Shuttle by 2010 will pay for most or all of it.

In my mother's family, they bury the cremains (favorite word!) under the family headstone, so you can have both.

In my family, we either forget about the cremains (my grandfather's) and lose track of which funeral home they're stored at, or keep them on a shelf until such a time as it seems fitting to illegally dump them in a river (step-grandfather's and Gram's).

Paul's grandfather's cremains are buried next to the dog.

So, when I go, I'm thinking LifeGem: [link]

While having Grandma's ring is nice, I think having grandma as a ring is just...a bit creepy. But, perhaps, I am simply not in the spirit of the thing, but the testimonials at the site aren't helping.

If only a LifeGem could be utilized in some sort of DeathRay and sold to some supervillian....