I had a really interesting dream last night - it was one of those dreams where you want to keep going back to sleep so you can find out what happens. Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, sorry to bore those of you who hate dream stories, but I want to get this down so I don't forget it.

I went back to visit all my friends at Borders corporate HQ in Ann Arbor. My friend Ella greeted me and showed me their new digs, since they have moved to a new building since I left (which is really true). She was showing me around and I was saying hello to people, and I ran into someone I didn't like much when I worked there. But he was really nice to me, and even went and made an announcement over the loudspeaker that I was there, and that I had contributed a lot to the company, and that people should come and say hello to me. Keep in mind that it's a big company, and not that many people knew me when I worked there, much less now. After that, wherever I went, people were coming up to me and saying, "Oh my God! It's Kim Reed! How are you? I've heard so much about you!" Now that I'm typing this, maybe this is a manifestation of the big ego I referred to yesterday.

Anyway, after a while I went to meet with my old boss who now works for Borders Online. She was giving some sort of speech and she spotted me in the back of the room. Once she was done, she made a beeline over to me and started showing me around the offices. They had all this high-tech equipment (like a collaborative whiteboard and other neat stuff) and she was showing me how it worked. This is strange because she is (or was) a bit of a technophobe. The whole time I was with her, I was watching the clock because I was supposed to meet up with Jim at a certain time, and I was running late. Then I woke up. What does it all mean? One thing it made me realize is that I have done a terrible job of keeping in touch with my former co-workers and I should give them a call.

Two sites that I want to plug because I haven't lately: Gwen's Trailer Trash Page, which is hilarious and Beth's Bad Hair Days. I have really been digging all her stories about her dog.

I have to do a paper for my Human Computer Interaction called an awareness paper. Basically, the prof gave us some situations to put ourselves in that will make us more aware of how interfaces affect our lives, and how people react to good and bad interfaces. The topic I have chosen is playing a new video game, and learning how the controls work without reading a huge manual. How much of it is intuitive? How much of it is easy to learn? This is fascinating to me.

The carryover into web design is that people have learned to expect certain behaviors on the web. When you see underlined text, you expect to be able to click on it and go somewhere else. When you do click on a link, you expect the page to open in the same window. Note that I break both of those rules here. Oh well. If it really bugs you, let me know. I just like how non-underlined links look. I've been experimenting with the hover tag, but Netscape and IE use it differently (what else is new) so I haven't implemented it here.

And in my final news of the day, work has begun on my new site, kimreed.com. If you go to http://209.221.137.164, you should be able to see it. Soon the URL will work as well. I put up a mini-site I had to do for my Human Computer Interaction course. It does make use of the hover tag, if you're interested.

Warning: clicking on these links will launch a new browser window.

Baby Fever: It's not just for online journallers anymore.

The price is wrong, bitch! Bob Barker is hospitalized. Don't forget to spay and neuter your pets.

A shooting in a Ft. Worth, TX church. He "seemed to have a problem with religion". You think?

A Disney film about Pearl Harbor is set to cost more than Titanic.

No wonder I haven't been able to get into the Weather Channel's website! If you have the same problem, try Weather Underground instead. It may not be as pretty, but it's the same info.

E! Online has a preview of the new shows this fall worth watching. I'm intrigued by Action.

Salon has an article called "My Prom Date, the Spy". Maybe I should write one called, "My Prom Date, the Murderer". I wonder if that case has gone to trial? I should check on that.