Welcome to another installment of SCHIZOTRICHIA and another new article delivering the most thought provoking insights you'll ever see. Schizotrichia is society's alarm clock, waking everyone and bringing them back to harsh reality! Continue on at your own risk!

THIS WEEK: Hackers have a well-advertised convention and are shocked when one of them gets busted, Microsoft makes their stuff harder to use in a twisted attempt to avoid the Monopoly charges (Only reasonable explanation we could think of), and other fine examples of Lead In Our Nation's Water Supply.

Could we stopped being surprised and amused when Robin Williams shows up to to a TV Interview, and he instead wanders around the studio doing shtick to the camera and audience? Cripes, like he's never done *that* before.

Which reminds us; Has he gotten over his "I want to do serious movies" stage yet? People want to see a serious Robin like they want to see a 400 pound, unshaven Madonna.

It's SUMMER. It gets HOT in SUMMER. It ALWAYS gets HOT in SUMMER. People who march into Sears in the middle of July and bitch because there's not a big selection of Air Conditioners left, or that they have to get on a waiting list to have it installed, get no sympathy here.

Think these are the same morons who drive their cars into ditches and trees every winter because they're so shocked by the white stuff falling out of the sky?

And let's get this story straight, here: The E-Book Hacker did *not* go to jail for finding the security holes in the E-Book Program. He got arrested for selling a program that allows users to circumvent the security at a hundred bucks a pop.

The fact that most of the "Hack-tavists" out there are only telling the "FBI Busted this guy for finding a security hole!" part of the story most probably means that we can look forward to those wacky hacked "FREE DMITRY" web sites some time in the near future...

Speaking of, it's always amusing to watch these interviews with hackers with names like SCSI Hunter and Doomaniac try to claim that the Modern Hacker is just a Human Rights Activist fighting for Freedom Of Information. Nice try, guys, but that doesn't explain what stolen credit card numbers and cloned cell phones have to do with Human Rights Violations in China...

Marshall Field's is reportedly getting ready to offer The Gift For The Executive Who Has Everything: A Silver-Plated Computer Mouse. This should, of course, sell lots and lots of Silver Polish, since the constant contact with the typical computer geek's Greasy Hands will make this thing tarnish about every 12 hours...

Incoming Clue Alert, Part 1: If you've got a business, and you're planning to screw people over for a buck or two, don't leave the files outlining your little plan sitting around where disgruntled employees can get their little grubbies of them and post them on their web sites.

Microplanet, makers of the fine newsreader program Gravity, has decided to give the product away for free, claming they were losing too much money on it to Pirates. So, you stop software pirates from stealing money out of your pocket by *giving* the product away, and stopping all Tech Support? Kind of like stopping the burglars by placing all your belongings on a table in your front yard with a "Please Take One" sign on them...

CRAPWELL PREDICTS: In 2026, scientific tests will finally prove that Cell Phones give the users a form of slow, painful brain cancer. Cell phone usage will drop 3%. In 2070, A class action lawsuit will be fined against the cell phone companies when 50 million Americans discover, to their surprise, that they have slow, painful brain cancer.

Rat Race, or You Think Anyone Remembers It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World Or Cannonball Run? We're Hoping They Don't, Either.

You know you're a True Game Geek when a scene from a movie takes place in an arcade, and you immediately ignore the action to play How Many Arcade Machines Can We Name?

Oh, God. Planet Of The Apes actually contains the line "Can't we all just...get along?". Think Rodney King gets residuals?

Haven't we gotten past this stage on Usenet *yet* where we have this contest to say the most Witty or Idiotic thing, so as to become Immortalized as someone's .sig file?

The World Rock Paper Scissors Society? Either someone's got *way* too much time on his hands, or this is one of the more amusing in-jokes we've ever stumbled across...

And hell, if these guys can get people to cough up cash to become a "member" of their little club, God Bless Them. Bet that membership would look sharp on a resume. Shows you have an eye for detail.

And we'd like to take time out to thank the makers of Jurassic Park III for caring so much about Our Nation's Kids. It's not everyone who'd put a 3-micron-high Warning Label at the end of their toy commercials, warning parents that their movie is PG-13, and thus a bit too intense for the youngsters.

Yep. JFK Jr.'s still dead. And we don't care. Know why? Because it doesn't directly effect us in any way. We do feel a bit of sympathy for his family, but not enough to sit through any of those tasteless "Anniversary Of The Death Of..." TV Specials or People Articles.

Heartless? You think any of the Kennedy Clan or their cronies are gonna be in any sort of mourning when any of *you* shuffle off this mortal coil?

Did they ever settle that whole "East Side/West Side" Rap argument?

Let this whole Dot.Com Fallout thing teach you a lesson: First, business gets Profits. Then, people involved can go out and buy a Lexus for every mood and Foosball tables.

Here's a bit of an advertising stretch; Commercials for America's Funniest home Videos making the claim that it's "America's First Reality Show".

And a Moment Of Silence for Terry "Bamm Bamm" Gordy, one of the great 70's-80's Professional Wrestlers, who died from a blood clot last week. Despite the fact that he ended his major U.S. Career as a masked minion of the Undertaker called The Executioner, Terry had a decent career both here and in Japan, being an agile big man who actually got by on talent. And, despite drivel from Hulk "is Shannon Tweed available to co-star in any more of my movies?" Hogan's oft-repeated lies, it was actually Terry Gordy's wrestling team, The Freebirds, who were the first to come to the ring with entrance music. The music in question being, of course, "Freebird".

Reportedly 100,000 music CDs have been released with a new Macrovision copy protection, to prevent people from "ripping" them. So, any of you folks who were in the habit of making "back-up" copies of your CDs, and letting friends and acquaintances "test" them for you, or uploading songs to the net so that people could "test-drive" an album before buying it, might be out of luck in the near future.

Microsoft's new anti-piracy measures for their new Windows XP work like this; You get an "Unlocking Code" based on your Serial Number and computer configuration. If the configuration of the computer changed, Windows XP thinks it's been "moved" to a different computer and stops working. A decent idea in theory. Of course, Microsoft forgot that the typical Computer Geek changes the hardware configuration of his computer almost daily, with new video cards, additional RAM, bigger Hard Drives, and the like. Microsoft has reportedly re-coded Windows XP to allow a "certain" amount of changes each month or so. Gee, thanks. Anything else we're not allowed to do with *our* computer that we should know about now?

Speaking of the Boys from Redmond; They also bought a little heat this past week after they re-designed Hotmail again. Guess they figured it was a tad too simple to use, so they re-programmed it so that, after you sign in, you first have to go through a page of "ads" for various Mailing Lists before you can go to your mailbox. Well, at least they did get rid of the delightful Pop-Up ad after thousands of happy customers called in with 4-letter compliments.

Note to Vince McMahon; Maybe showing various WWII Nazi-related images in videos about your WCW/ECW Invasion Storyline is dancing a little too close to that Good Taste Line.

Best TV Ad We've Seen Yet: An ad for the Pax Bio-pic of Joseph (Yes, the Carpenter, Jesus' mortal father, *that* Joseph, you heathens) which contained the tag-line "What if you found out your new bride was pregnant...by SOMEONE BESIDES YOU?".

And for the 3 people who care: Jennifer Aniston's "people" claim that, at this time, she's not preggers. Big friggin' whoop.

Balthayzr is traveling to the United Nations this week in an attempt to get the world to agree to a Standard Set of Red Rover, Red Rover rules.

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