Good thing for Ruby that the WH universe is connected through a wormhole to the Dudely Do-Right one.

This week’s strip include a big shout-out to my main man, Illiad, over at UserFriendly. As all good webcomic aficionados should know, Columbia Internet (and it’s long-suffering tech support slave, Greg) is the setting for UserFriendly. I’ve been lucky enough to do business with Illiad when I was Senior Editor over at LinuxWorld Magazine, I arranged to reprint UF strips in the magazine. If this strip ends up being one tenth as funny as UF, I’ll be a contented man.

If contentment has slipped out of your fingers, maybe a dose of this week’s news from around the OFOW will help

If you’re wondering what a steam locomotive is doing running through the center of the O’Reilly compound in Sebastopole, CA; the answer is simple. a wizard did it.

For those of you interested in pre-ordering Revenge in a Nutshell, it will be published on April 1st, 2008. However, be aware that possession of this book has been classified as a class-B felony in seven states.

Will Ruby escape her terrible fate? Will we manage to consistently spell Pearl’s name right from week to week? Will Watering Hole doodads be available at the O’Reilly booth at OSCON? For the answers to none of these questions, check out this week’s Linux News

Poor Pearl, first she’s attacked by Congressmen, now she’s getting snide backhanded compliments from a vain jackal. And to think she gave up a role in The Mummy Returns for this…

I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I’m anti-Ruby or something, based on the character of Ruby being a stuck-up, conceited publicity junkie. In fact, I like Ruby (and Ruby on Rails), I recently created a system to manage all the articles I have out being written, built on RoR in under a day. But Ruby is definitely the Hot Thing of the Moment, and like all Hot Things, it is suffering from a bit of overhype. It’s easy to see how Ruby could consider herself the center of the universe.

If Linux, Open Source, Databases or Sysadmin are the center of YOUR universe, the week’s ONLamp news follows.

Looks like a new neighbor moved in while Pearl was visiting Our Nation’s Capital. And there’s nothing like the fear of becoming obsolete to bond former enemies together. I’m sure that given time, the old timers will learn to get along with Ruby. Of course, I’m also sure that we’ll see the Chicago Cubs win a World Series in my lifetime, so you may want to take that prediction with a grain of salt. While Pearl unpacks her luggage, enjoy this week’s Linux News!