Happy Dennis Ritchie Day. Thanks Slashdot.

We're more or less back to normal here in the BlueTower after a surprisingly early winter storm made its way up the northeastern U.S. yesterday. We lost power around sundown last night, but were pleased to find it was restored around dawn, which is a stroke of luck, as word is that other parts of our village are still blacked out. The main internet connection here is down, so I'm on my DSL backup, and the 20+ minutes I've been on hold with the cable company suggests their outages are widespread enough that I'm not going to be surprised if I'm on DSL for a few more days. Other than that, things didn't go too badly here: I have the walk shoveled and have pruned away the couple of branches that broke along the way. I think this was especially rough on the local trees, since they don't usually get covered in heavy wet snow like this while they still have so many leaves.

Links:	Thanks Ant and Mike Martinez and Acleacius.
Play:	Draka.
Stories:	Zombosium - a zombie conference at Winchester University. Man has to get cut out of kiddie swing. Fat guy in a little coat. Thanks Boing Boing. Metallica: India gig organisers arrested.
Science:	Immune system defect may cause ME. CDC panel recommends HPV shot for boys. Pill 'lowers ovarian cancer risk'.
Media:	Griefing The Controller. The Wonder of Breasts with Riki Lindhome. That Was A Quick 5 Minutes FAIL. Piñata Party.
Follow-up:	Faster-than-light neutrino experiment to be run again.