Thanks folks, I appreciate it!!!
I guess this is just one of those things that will be flaky no matter what you do. Check out wiki description
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon - it says it all. I love the part:
There is no known guarantee that favicons will appear on all computers, even on same browsers with the same versions.
THere ya' have it.
We'll leave it there as long as it doesn't put too much strain on the web server.
If that happens, it'll be gone on no time. He looks cool, but he'll be history if he bogs down the site performance.