Coomey.net

It's official. Tina and I are taking the kids to Disney World. We got a pretty nice little package that includes air fare, accommodations at their movie-themed resort, and passes to all five parks. Tower of Terror, here we come.

I can't wait to see Zoe's face when she sees Cinderella's castle for the first time. Phoenix is a bit afraid of flying. She asked me: "What if the Iraqi's hijack the plane?" Hah. Iraqi's. She'll be fine. MGM Studios is going to rule. So's Epcot.

We are leaving tomorrow and coming back a week later. Don't get excited, all you would be burglars, Chris is house-sitting for us, and he's been known to knife house intruders in the eye.

Pictures and video of the trip will be plentiful.

OK. Take a quick look to your right, under Current Visitors. More than like likely, you will see anywhere between three and ten "Anonymous" visitors. For about the past week, I have been inundated with these visitors. Now I know this is a snicker popular site, but there is just no way that these visitors are just regular old web surfers coming to take a peek at the life and times of the Coomey family. I have no idea what is going on. Could it be spammers or ha><0rz looking to 0wnz0r my bawx? Could be, but why so suddenly and from so many distinct IP addresses? I am stumped. Here's what I know so far:

• 88.76% of hits are single requests to the main page of the site.
• All of the requests are NOT to coomey.net, but directly to the site IP address, i.e. "http://66.189.35.193/index.php"
• 89.15% are using Windows 98 with Internet Explorer 5.5
• These "visitors" visit once and then don't come back.
• The requests are coming from all over the world.

Any ideas about what is going on here?

I don't know who he is. I don't know where he's from. What I DO know is that the years of piano lessons have paid off. This kid does a dead-on perfect piano rendition of the in-game music to the Nintendo Entertainment System classic Super Mario Brothers. He even knows the Star Powerup jingle.

Now all I need is a garbage bag sized bag of popcorn to watch it with (right, Chris?).

See it here: ben_mario_piano.mpeg [8.0MB]

I had an interesting evening on Saturday. It was about 1:30 AM and I was sitting on the couch drinking a frosty beverage, enjoying a cool documentary about Hitler's rise to power on the History Channel. My chuckle beloved wife was passed out cold on the couch next to me.

All of a sudden, the door between the kitchen and the living room closed by itself, as if by some unseen ghostly hand. I already had a few pops by this point, so I really thought it was a matter of 'augmented' imagination on my part. Then I thought I had a poltergeist. Wrong.

What I did have was the spook's preferred pet: the Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus). This sucker came screaming out of nowhere (apparently it had closed the door when it jumped from it). It proceeded to make figure-eights through my living room at breakneck speed... coming closer to my head with each pass. I yelled "TINA! WHAT IN THE F#$@%K IS THAT?!!??!!". She woke (sort of), and sleepily replied "I dunno...". I think she thought it was a bird. After it took a run at her melon, she realized quick that this was no bird.

It continued it's figure-eight pattern for about another 5 minutes, with Tina and I ducking at every pass (my neck is sore from that) until finally it landed in the curtains. Let me tell you, the animal made absolutely no noise as it flew. Not a sound. It wasn't like a fluttering bird... just silent. We got a pretty close look and it was pretty small when it's wings weren't extended. Almost black in color. Kinda cute actually, until you realize that it might be rabid. Tina opened the door, and the thing finally found it's way to salvation outside.

Anyone that lived in this neighborhood knows that bats are pretty common on the west side of Worcester, so this is no surprised. Jay (our old tenant) actually took a shower with one a few years ago. But man that was a lot more excitement than I expected that night.

OK. Tina and I have experienced what has to be the funniest television show of all time this weekend. It's called Most Extreme Elimination Challenge on TNN - that's that cable channel that used to be 'all-country-all-the-time' but turned 'all-edgy-T&A-shows-for-guys-all-the-time'.

It's basically MST3K (before they got that new guy that sucked) on STEROIDS. See, there is apparently a real show in Japan called Kaneshi's Castle, or something like that. It's a bunch of people doing horrendous things to their bodies in a series of 'challenges'. If they just aired this in it's unaltered Japanese, it'd be really funny. But THEY DUB IT IN ENGLISH. Funny doesn't begin to describe it. It's all pretty mindless, but incredibly well written. Anyhow, I can't do it justice in a feeble attempt at a description. I have dug up a site that hosts .wmv's of the episodes. Just make sure you empty your bladder before you watch.