Deep Fried Live: Like internet cartoons? Like funny cooking shows? Would you believe there's a funny internet cartoon cooking show?

Check out 8legged.com.

More Pet Peeves: You know what else I hate?

It's not grammar Nazis or spelling Nazis. These people have a crusade I understand, even if I don't buy into it. They feel they're offering education and insight, raising the dialogue of the internet.

What I hate are typo Nazis. The ones who have to point out in every newsgroup or thread that your finger slipped. These are the folks who take joy only in being right, and, having found another chance to practice their art, they are incapable of moving past it.

When you find someone who does this, take note of their name. You have now found someone who is so push-button, so programmed in their behavior, you will be able to manipulate them like a puppet.

I refuse to believe these folks have any other motive. What did they think everybody was sitting there confused, wondering what in the world that subject meant when it read: Need Info On "For Whon the Bell Tolls"

Did they honestly stare at it like the Jumble, wondering what mystery that phrase encoded? And when their brain finally oozed around it, their keen intuitive abilities unraveled the hidden meaning, they bounded up the stairs to their rooftops to shout it to the masses?

Give me a vreak.

VP Debate: I've been out of town, visiting the lovely Fresno, CA.

I managed to catch the second run of the debate on CNN Teusday night--I guess the rest of you just watched the dress rehearsal.

How did it go? Well, it's fun to watch all the same pundits who before were saying, "Oh, Edwards is a trial lawyer. He's going to clean Cheney's clock," now saying, "Edwards really overcame his youth and limited experience to hold his own with Cheney. It was probably a tie."

Taxes: With the presidential debate on domestic issues coming up, I'd like to say a little about taxes that will be good to keep in mind as you watch.

First off, the way taxes are structured in this country, we earn taxes in one way only--when money changes hands. This means that the slower the economy, the less money that is going to be made on taxes. That's just the way it is.

Even the LA Times, liberal as their agenda is, recognizes that Kerry's plan won't come close to generating the revenues he says it will. It's simple math--if people know that moving their money around will result in higher taxes, they won't move their money.

It's like a pool with a filter in one end. If the water just sits there, nothing is going to pass through the filter. Making the filter bigger won't help. The water is still just sitting there.

What's needed is motion. A pump, a vacuum, something, to get that water moving around in there. If the water's moving, then even if the filter is smaller, you'll still get more water through it than with a bigger filter and no pump.

This analogy isn't perfect, however, because it doesn't take into consideration that the taxpayer is intelligent. John Q. Billionare could look at the tax rate and decide his investments weren't worth the risk, with that large a chunk taken from them. He then pulls his money out of the investments, meaning less money to fund business like you and I work for, less money in the coffers of the government, less money all around.

There are plenty of tax shelters for him to stow his assets in. He's safe. In the meantime, the government coffers are empty.

So keep in mind that economic movement is the real key. Listen for who sounds like they're going to get things moving. Then everybody benefits. More jobs, more opportunity, more rewards for your effort, and, yes, believe it or not, more money for the government.

Behold The Powers: . . . of the Master of Disguise.

Into The Wild Blue Yonder: My friend Becky is supposed to be updating her SpaceShipOne page with pics and video any moment now.

Wait with us with baited breath . . .

Update: Pics are up! And the link is now updated.

Doc On Life: I'm going to try to go back to school in January, but stories like this just depress me.

My brother, who's finishing up his degree and preparing for law school (Good luck on the LSAT this weekend, bro!) was talking about one of his classes.

The teacher said she was going to bust the myth that hard work leads to success. Just destroy it. And thereby, she felt, destroy the premise of capitalism and America.

Her arguments? The ones that completely proved everything about the philosophy of capitalism wrong?

1. Many women work very hard at home all their lives, and achieve no success.
2. A study once showed that 80% or more of workers got their jobs through a friend.

Ergo, hard work cannot possibly lead to success.

I don't know if this professor ever stuck her head into a logic class down the hall, but there's a few problems with her argument.

First, she doesn't create any definition for "success." She uses some sort of vague, hard-to-pin down arbitrary idea of success. If she'd had to create any solid definition of success at all, the whole argument would break down.

For example, if you were to have to define success in the phrase "Hard work leads to success," the most obvious definition, to me, would be "accomplishment of the thing you're working hard at." Suddenly, the argument that stay-at-home moms can't find any degree of success seems a little condescending.

As for the other argument, I had a friend of mine who used to work with 2by2.net, the network marketing company you used to see plastered across the side of really nice cars all over LA county.

Apparently, the kid who founded this company used to work in real estate. He was sitting in the barbershop one day and struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to him. Turned out the guy sitting next to him was a foreign multi millionaire here in the US looking for properties for multi-million dollar warehouses.

He struck a deal with the guy. The next few years, he stayed at this guy's side, learned tremendous amounts about business and came away a millionaire. 2by2.net was the first company he founded after that.

So this was all luck, right? Right place, right time? Being there, as the film title suggests?

That's part of it. The other part was that he stepped up to the plate. He took advantage of the opportunity. He wasn't afraid of hard work.

If it had been me in that chair, idiot that I am, I probably would have thought, "Wow. I wish I were the guy doing his deals," and gone home and told my wife about how I'd met a millionaire that day. From there, it would have likely been business as usual.

Opportunity is being in the right place at the right time with the right attitude and the right skills. If you think that's luck, it's luck you have to work really hard to come by.

So yeah, lots of people get jobs from people they know, but it's based on the corollary that you can't get a job you don't know about. Obviously, you have two choices--you either find out about the job from a friend, or you go out and find what jobs are available. The fact that more people choose the former does not take away the validity of the latter.

I actually hired one of each, just yesterday. One heard about the job from a friend, who told her about it because she knew it was right for her. The other was knocking on doors of the places that she had the skills for. Both got the job because of who they were and what they'd done.

Know How To Vote: Watch the debate tonight. See who talks the way you think they should. See if you believe them. Then vote accordingly.

Please, don't just vote based off what friends tell you or what the media tells you or what talk radio tells you.

Except me. If I'm your only source of news, you're fine.

2am Revelations: I never noticed that in this old Strong Bad email, when Coach Z and Bubs come running in, well, they are Coach B and Zubs.

I just never noticed it before.

Sort of like how I'm just now noticing how pathetic it is that I'm making such discoveries at 2am on a weeknight.

The Peterson Girls in Steinbeck Country: