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I am not one to make fun of another person's name. I won't tell you what my real name is, but you should understand that both my 'middle' and my 'last' names are rather unique and I have had a lifetime of teasing as a result of it. When I was a pre-teenager, I was really bothered by the teasing.

Once I reached adulthood, I began to understand the history of my unique names. I am proud of that history and I wouldn't have it any other way. (Later on in life, my then-fiancee' (now my wife) used to tell me that she didn't want to take my name after we were married. She wanted us to legally change our last name to "Carrington". As in Carrington from the television show Dynasty.)

However, I am really surprised by how different cultures react to names. In Western culture, you really won't find too many people named "Adolph" (as in Hitler) or "Judas" (the person in the Bible's New Testament that was a traitor to Jesus). Those are but two examples.

There is a person on my new contract (I don't work directly with this person), who by appearances and by their last name, must be of either Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Indian descent. The first name listed on the sign next to his cube is "Stalin".

I realize that names are cultural. But, isn't Stalin a slightly odd name to call someone? After all, Josef Stalin killed millions of people across Europe and Asia. And, it's not like the world didn't have mass media when he did his killing. A Google search on Josef Stalin returns over a million results. I've been here for months, but it still sort of sounds odd when someone says "Hey, thanks for all that help, Stalin".

What is it about the culture of this man where it is acceptable to be known as "Stalin"? Is it short for something? Are there other cultures that have this same issue? What names are not considered proper in Africa? In Central Asia? South America? Asia?

Can somebody tell me why Battlestar Galactica was not nominated for a Golden Globe Award? I realize that both 24 and Lost are great shows. I am a huge fan of both shows. And, there are many people that love Grey's Anatomy . It is too much of a girl-show/ER retread for my tastes, but I don't mind if other people love it. However, if BSG is NOT the best show on U.S. television today, is it not at least in the top five?

Don't even get me started on the lack of Acting nominations for BSG

Today (May 30th), the DJIA dropped a total of 184 points (almost 2%). That wiped out the gains that were made over the previous three days. I think that we are definitely out of the bull market from 2005 and early 2006. I also believe that, at best, we are in a trading range. But, I'm beginning to think we are heading towards a bear market. I'm mostly out of stocks (and have been so for about three weeks). I am now waiting for bear to be reached.

The DJIA is at 11,094. When it reaches 9,400, that will be the 20% drop that makes it a bear market. That is when I jump back in.

Of course, if I am wrong, then I don't lose money, I just don't make as much as I could have (I leave money on the table). Instead of keeping money in the stock market funds, I moved my money to much more conservative investments. I still earn some low level of interest, just not the 8% return that I have been making over the past couple of years.

Wow, I am finally using a day pass to see all of the submitted articles first, just like real subscribers! I feel so privileged.

Hey, there's my first article! I can tell because it is in RED, whereas the rest of /. is in standard GREEN. My first article is a Book Review. The title of the book is Core Web Application Development with PHP & MySQL.

Wow........uh..........well.........

Does anyone know of a way in which I can return my day pass?

For the fourth time in my life, Slashdot accepted my submission. And, in the middle of my description of the story, I screwed up the grammar. I used "it's", instead of "its". Hey, what can I say? I never was all that good at grammar. To the credit of the slashdot editors, they did re-write my submission quite a bit (I had confused the issue in my original text). However, the editors also missed the incorrect grammar.

In the future, I promise to continue to use incorrect grammar.