Normal message service to my mobile telephone via mobileATmountsutro.org has been restored. Thank you to those who let me know of the issue (Erik and Scott, among others) and to Chris for helping me fix it despite the simpletons at Cingular. I miss AT&T Wireless… but now I digress.

Please remember when sending messages that although you are sending an e-mail, my telephone is a few years old and truncates messages at 108 characters. If you use the above address to send me a message, be sure to get your point across quickly; however, messages are also delivered to my normal e-mail box so I can read longer messages at home.

I made a promise to myself that I would try to restrict the number of occasions I would express amazement at how search engines bring traffic to Mount Sutro. Search engines do appropriately usher visitors looking for topics and content that are relevant to articles posted, but here and there the results are unexpected.

Often more astounding to me is how deeply people will go in search results. I may go through 20–40 pages of results (depending on the particular search engine and my ambition to locate something specific) but some people crawl through hundreds — yes, hundreds of pages of results.

But I digress. The point of this article is to point out one particular irregularity brought to me by the Google shopping engine, Froogle and the user in Omaha, Nebraska who initiated the search. If you search for the term "talking spongebob patrick" in Froogle and browse to results 41–70 you will find the following entry:

Yes, the Google back-end took three completely different and unassociated items and assembled them into a product that does not exist. Now obviously nothing further can happen due to this listing, save bring a few additional disappointed visitors, but the scenario leaves me wondering what other anomalies like this exist.

Update! Another search phrase results in the same faux-product listing, the curiously offensive "spongebob squarepants condoms."

For completeness, the three articles sampled to create the above oddity are "Every Quarter Gets His Day," "STS-114" (in the Linkage section) and "Attack of the Homosexual Agenda!"

To those of you who may read one of Mount Sutro's RSS feeds: is it annoying that frequently updated features — such as the Refer Blacklist and E-Mail Blacklist — cause those entries to reappear as unread? I have been playing with RSS functions recently and noted that the above is true. Thank you!

Have you eaten at Taste yet? Taste is a fantastic restaurant featuring California Small Plate dishes for lunch and dinner in a hip and trendy environment. Their wine selection, general ambiance and service are all stellar as well. Located at 717 West Smith Street in College Park, Taste also features local artists' work in their gallery.

Incidentally, Taste is my newest client and I am advertising now (on my own accord) because I have just completed designing new print menus and a website for the restaurant. You can look at the new website and learn all about the restaurant by visiting tastecp.com.

If you do decide to stop in and give the restaurant a try, mention you came from Mount Sutro and tell them how much you love the new menus and website. And also please feel free to comment here with any feedback.

PLEASE NOTE
This information is out of date. The menus and website are no longer of my design.

The folks over at Best Gay Blogs, a site that accepts submissions for the people's choice of the best gay-authored weblogs and content, have selected Mount Sutro for the News category. Hello to you readers from Best Gay Blogs!

I must admit surprise over the selection considering that Mount Sutro does not focus on gay-themed news and politics, though it does come up from time to time. The article that caught their eye as the dealmaker was my discussion over the controversy surrounding the children's music video featuring cartoon characters — including SpongeBob SquarePants and his sidekick best friend Patrick — and the song "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge.

The Focus on the Family group, founded by James Dobson for the purpose of acting out against actions and opinions they feel are opposite their conservative and religious beliefs, was very vocal about this video stating it was another plot by the "homosexual agenda" at placing pro-gay propaganda in public schools.

After reposting the original BBC article on the subject, I went on to discuss the gay rights movement versus those in opposition, comparing and contrasting other civil right actions in history. A lively conversation came forth in the comments, as well.

It is an article I am quite proud of and am happy to have it recognized.

And just yesterday, I was called "the media." I wonder what is in store for tomorrow.

Note: some of the Best Gay Blogs site's content and advertisements are for adults only. Browse with caution.

In addition to the existing Refer Blacklist available for download, I have decided to also maintain a copy of my server e-mail filter for public consumption. Please note some of the entries' characters may look like normal letters but are actually special (or wrong) characters used to convince a human reader but trick a server filter.

This list will be updated every so often, as there is presently no automated way to query the server for this data. The E-Mail Blacklist was last updated on 24 April 2008, 2244.

This feature is no longer updated. Thank you.