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Since I've temporarily lost my "writing mojo"
due to personal matters, I thought I'd contribute some comments from
someone who, if the latest T.V. ratings are any indication, has made his
feelings on current events crystal clear in the past few days. The
following is a hand-written letter I received today from a Mr. John Q.
Public:
And after that, the writing becomes illegible, mostly due to the heavy grease stains and crusted food droplets which are spattered on most of the letter. - 11/22/03 |
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Don't you love Instant Messaging spams?
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Will they marry? Where will they marry? When will they marry? Who's invited? Where's the honeymoon? How much will it cost? Will the marriage last forever and ever?
Shame on you, America, for elevating these two people to god status. Celebrity worship has reached a new low with the media frenzy surrounding these two mere mortals who happen to make movies and music. And thanks to you, I can't channel-surf, flip through a magazine, or turn on the radio without running into more useless details about Ben & J.Lo. And once they're married and it's no longer news, the next Big Distraction will come along and take its place. And our culture continues to circle the drain... - 9/20/03 |
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Can I get a little snippy here for a moment? Thanks. Having never been a bus rider until I moved to Seattle three years ago (since Phoenix's bus system sucks), I've gotten used to hopping on Metro whenever I need to get somewhere and I'm too lazy to walk. After a couple of years of this, I've noticed that even though I'm exposed to them for only a short time, bus riders can be put into two groups: 1) those who sit quietly and patiently during their ride, chatting quietly or minding their own business, and 2) everyone else. This irritating second group consists of people who seem to have only one function, as listed below:
Add your own annoying busfolk to the Forum! - 8/31/03 |
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Sick of virus stories
in the media? So am I!!
The public needs to take a few minutes to educate itself on this sort of thing, because this stuff spreads much faster with the help of clueless users (and it's extremely annoying for the rest of us who have to deal with the extra traffic slurping into our inboxes because some dork out there didn't know better). Learn to avoid dangerous file types (like .exe, .pif, and .scr). Learn how to set up filters for common virus-related email. Keep up to date on the latest keywords and phrases the viruses are using to entice you into opening them up. It's very easy to create filters, and if your mail client doesn't support filtering, it's time to get a new one. With the recent Sobig virus, the most common subject lines are:
Also, don't rely on your ISP to filter everything or protect you from all threats. Buy some firewall software (or download one of the popular free ones, like ZoneAlarm) and use it! It's not difficult if you just sit down and devote some time to learning it. I use ZoneAlarm and it's extremely easy to use...my PC is invisible to anything out there looking for some data to munch on. If you can't follow these easy steps to protecting your inbox and your PC, then stop bitching about the virus problems and get ready for the next wave. Like a physical virus, it will never be stopped until people get a clue and learn to prevent it from spreading. Duh. :-) |
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Gawd, what a hassle. This will probably bore most people, but for those who like geeky details, here's why I was offline for a few days. :) On 8/14 I renewed my ninahagenshrine.com domain with Ehost. Minutes later, as I checked my account settings, I had been demoted from a Core plan down to a Basic plan, without 95% of the cool & necessary features I've been enjoying for almost two years (1GB storage, 10GB transfer limit, FrontPage extensions, file manager, etc.). Even my billing information from the past few months was gone! And since it thought I was a Basic user with only 500MB of bandwidth (I was up to 4GB for the month), it completely shut me down with an email stating "Despite repeated warnings, you have exceeded your bandwidth limit, so we have disabled your website for the remainder of the month." Whaaaaat? It was obviously some sort of screw-up on their end. They refuse to publish an actual support phone number on their website (not a good business practice), so I had to send them an email about it. I got a generic message stating that they'd look into it, etc. Fine. A day goes by, then two, and nothing happens. No follow-up, either. Next, I emailed them to see if I could get a temporary domain redirect which would point visitors to my site to another URL explaining that things will be back online soon. I cringe at the thought of someone bringing up my URL and getting absolutely nothing! And since this was their screw-up, I asked for the redirect to be free (normally you have to pay $7.95/month, another naughty practice). Of course, I got no response to that one at all. Hmmph. On Saturday I did some digging around online and found their corporate phone number in Minnesota. I called and got a recording which referred me to their toll-free support number. Gee, why don't they make that number more accessible? It's nowhere on their "support knowledgebase." So I called it, and talked to a guy who sounded like he would rather have been anywhere but on the phone with me. He checked this and that, told me that my account wasn't synching up properly, and said he would make sure they kept working on it. He also said he would try to get Billing to switch my account back to a Core member, like it was before. Of course, they wouldn't be able to even look at it until Monday. *sigh* Sunday morning, still wiped out from my birthday drinkfest the night before, I started researching and shopping for a new hosting company. I discovered Lunarpages.com, which got rave reviews everywhere I looked. I honestly didn't find one bad review. And-and-and! At $7.95/month (with no setup charge!), it was less than half of what Ehost was charging. That would save me about $140/year. Their user control panel is extremely cool as well, with plenty of goodies, including spam filtering (something Ehost really sucks at). Gee, which one should I choose?? After looking at a few others, I decided to just go for it and opened an account. Then I went to my domain registrar and switched my DNS stuff over to Lunarpages. 10 minutes later, a nice lady from Lunarpages actually called me at home and confirmed my order! On a Sunday morning!! Now, that's customer service. Last night I uploaded my website crap to the new service (while watching "Gangs of New York") and getting other stuff set up, and here we are! Today I canceled my account with Ehost. I've been with them since they were a local outfit located just down the street from my (former) office in Pioneer Square...eventually they were bought up by some big company in Minnesota, and from what I've experienced, the customer service has suffered dramatically. Oh well. Now I'm just trying to get the Forum back online and get other things straightened out, so if something on the site doesn't work, that's why. :) Whew... - 8/19/03 |
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The Church of Ungodly Hair
Amusingly, I received this "invitation" today in the mail. I'm sorry, but this guy's hair (what's left of it) is just nasty. These people creep me out. But who knows, maybe they're as hip 'n' with-it as they try to look...not that I'll be dropping by to find out, of course. UPDATE: I just saw an ad on T.V. for these people. And yes, they're as scary in full motion as they are in print.
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Even after getting kicked off their Message Board, PABAAH still intrigues me. The DebateNazi not only banned me from reading/posting messages, but he blocked my IP address to keep me from logging in under a different name. The tricky scoundrel! So, I decided to get in another way. Thanks to a fun little IP-anonymizing service, I can now browse the boards freely and read the latest misguided hyperconservative peepeecaca that infests them. And boy, it's quite enlightening indeed. Here are some selections for your reading pleasure, complete with my comments in blue, of course. Please...try not to hwarf up a lung while reading these posts. These are merely animals posting in their protected habitat. Shhhhh, let's watch!
7/03 |
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Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World - By Carl Hiaasen After reading only two or three pages of this book, I could tell that Carl and I have something in common: a deep, cynical loathing of Disney and what it has become. Like sifting for cat turds in a sandbox, Carl does some digging and presents us with many fun nuggets that Disney would rather forget about. However, he also reveals just how powerful this company is. Did you know that Disney World is practically its own country, complete with its own utilities, planning & zoning, building codes & inspectors, fire department, and authority to levy taxes? And it doesn't stop there, oh no. Disney's abuse (and payoffs) to anyone who gets in their way, especially those injured in their parks, is astonishing. This is not a pleasant company to deal with when they want their way. Carl also discusses the company's power-mad business practices, its control over the press, and its hordes of security personnel who swoop in to "neutralize" any potentially embarrassing situations (or people) inside its parks. The dead rhinoceros story is especially fun. This is not a long book...in fact, it's under 90 pages and can easily be read in an hour. But if you delight in reading some very unpleasant things about this seemingly untouchable and "magic" kingdom, it's well worth a look! - 6/03 |
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6/30/03 |
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Take that, ya
stupid MALES.
I was absolutely astonished when I saw this blatantly anti-male billboard across the street from my office building. It's amazing that people are still pushing the stereotype of dumb, witless husbands who do nothing but sit around on their fat asses and drink beer in front of the T.V. while the gorgeous, omnipotent housewife slaves away--cleaning house, running errands, raising the kids, and being chained to the stove to make dinner for her worthless man. I wonder what the designer of this ridiculous ad would have to say about a recent study about abused husbands... - 6/03 |
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 This
was sent in by Phil,
who apparently knows that such horrific products are always appreciated
here:For you sir. They are hair clips for clipping a baby’s hair. They also allow the purchaser to "Dream*Imagine*Create." God fucking help us. Munchkin Minis. I’m gonna puke my ring. Not a hair clip, more a way of seeing the world, a free and wonderful way of living. Did they really need to TM that slogan? Who would steal it? Good also to see that they are meant for "all hair." - 6/03 |
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Here's a fun little story. I've had a Gold Card for a few years now, which came with a good-sized credit limit. Back in 2002 I had some financial difficulties and ended up having to use the credit card a little more than usual to pay my bills and whatnot. When I was late with a payment one month, they jacked my interest rate from 12% to 24%. That's right, it doubled. Jeezus, talk about being raped. Things have improved dramatically this year, so I've been able to make BIG payments on this card, twice a month, to kill it once and for all. The credit company sure noticed...first my interest rate was lowered to 19% (still too damn high), and the other day I got this little evil note in the mail which said, among other things:
Oh, I see. They realize I'm paying this thing off in huge chunks, so they want to ensure that I will remain a customer by raising my credit limit. After all, I "deserve" it, right? Translation: they don't want people getting out of debt at all...they want you to STAY IN DEBT FOREVER. It keeps people like us shelling out money every month to keep them in business. I've known for years that these people are absolute scum and that they're full of little tricks to keep you from freeing yourself from their hooks, but this letter reinforces my belief that credit card companies and banks are the most evil institutions on the planet. Sure, governments can get quite nasty, but they can't hold a candle to the subtle, smiling evil of these people. - 5/03 |
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Oh, wait...it's not really a cross, it's just light being filtered through the fabric's pattern. DUH. Isn't this just precious? Actually, it reminds me of a certain fence post. And I'm sure it's been passed around via email to millions of people, most of whom believe it's a genuine Sign from God™ (while the rest of us snicker and press Delete). Thanks to Elizabeth Smith for passing this along...I love patriotic absurdity!! - 4/03 |
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3/19/03 - Evening As one or two people out there may have noticed, I haven't updated my site for a couple of weeks now. Why? Well, I do want to do something on here about this stupid war business. My first instinct is to bitch about it, but I do enough of that already. Besides, what can I possibly say that others haven't said already? I'll have to think of something else. However, I think the real trouble is that I'm sick to death of this war and it's only just begun. Yes, I know that this war is a Big Deal™, because people are going to die and our country may be attacked in retaliation. (For the record, I want Saddam out of the picture, dead or alive...the man is evil, there's no doubt about that. However, I don't know if what Bush is doing is the right way to go about it, and I question his motives for doing so. Maybe I'm wrong. End of opinion...please feel free to keep your prowar/antiwar emails to yourself.) But you know what? What the media is doing to us...it's too much. Overload. Nonstop coverage on every news channel in existence, each with its own dramatic title (i.e., CNN's "Showdown Iraq"), logo, celebrity reporters, and theme music. Magazines are full of it, web news services are full of it. The media vultures have been licking their chops for a long time now, and finally they're getting some meat. And they're going to shove this thing down your throat every single day for weeks to come, with all their grim faces, dramatic reporting LIVE-LIVE-LIVE from the heart of Baghdad, detailed descriptions of attack maneuvers, scary stories about weaponsofmassdestruction, and endless talking heads saying "blah blah blah" about every goddamn angle of what's going on. When will enough be enough? Why can't we just get the facts without having it transformed into the latest version of Reality T.V.? I want news, not another episode of "Who Wants To Be A Dictator." I knew it would be like this the moment Bush said he would attack Iraq--it's inevitable. Also inevitable is the horrifying fact that Americans will EAT IT UP because we love seeing violence, explosions, and misery (as long as it's on T.V. and happening to someone far away). However, a growing number of people are turning to foreign media (such as the BBC or The Guardian) to get more balanced and news and less hype. Good. Outside of the news, people are shouting on both sides of the matter, each convinced that they're right. I've heard every argument pro and con. My email has been spammed with photographs of eagles and flags and other devalued patriotic bullshit, as well as the hysterical antiwar campaigns, tirades, and peace poetry. I've even been labeled a "mindless robot" (a phrase right out of the Rush Limbaugh Debate Guide) because I dared to attend an antiwar rally to take photos. (See my response to this here.) Lovely! The more this goes on, the more I find myself stepping back from everything and being more of an observer than a warmonger or peacenik. I do still have opinions about it all, but...well, I'm afraid that I may have been driven into a state of...how should I put this? Indifference. Is that possible? How can I not care a whole lot about something so BIG? Maybe I'm disgusted with the behavior of these so-called human beings in power (on both sides), whose egos and power-trips are outweighing the good of the people they govern/rule. Maybe I'm disgusted with the endless circle of misery created by people attacking each other for power and money...this madness has gone around and around for thousands of years, with no end in sight. Can I opt-out of the human race for a while? I'd like to cancel my subscription until further notice. Or maybe I'm just having a bad day...I do have other things on my mind that are dragging me down a bit. I don't know. What I do know is that today is ZERO HOUR...the war is officially on, and my T.V. is off. I watched them drop a bomb on Baghdad, and then I lost interest and turned the evil thing off. At the moment I'm listening to Debussy, which is gloriously free of bombs and evil and fear. Is that wrong? Am I a Bad American for not watching the War Show? Probably. Oh well, too bad. It's fun being a Bad American. Maybe I'd better shut up now. :) Feel free to visit the Forum and post your thoughts on whatever you want..... |
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Here's an email I received today, from someone named Emma. She was looking at the Outbursts page and made a great observation:
I just found this SO amusing. It's true... I don't have the transcripts in front of me, but the irony at this moment, on the brink of war, is just too delicious to pass up! Thanks for catching that, Emma!! - 3/03 |
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Or, as my friend Todd recently called it, "Single Awareness Day." And be sure and check out The Onion's Valentine's Day Kids' Page! (Graphic borrowed from The Onion without their kind permission) - 2/14/03 |
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Life's little
victories...
The other day, I started getting dozens of bounced messages in my domain's postmaster account. Since I don't send mail directly from that account, I was curious about all these "bounced" messages that I supposedly sent. I looked at a couple of them, and noticed that they were all sent to people I don't know, and whose addresses are apparently no longer valid. In the headers, I saw the return address was kwock@totalobscurity.com. Well, well, well! Some asshole spammer out there (you know who you are) decided to use my totalobscurity.com domain name to send out spams advertising his lame porn-link site. He was hoping, idiot that he is, that by disguising his identity this way, nobody would be able to track him down for sending them his stupid spam. Yeah, nice try.
Note the stellar spelling & punctuation, ranking right up there with the average third-grader. Oh yeah, we're dealing with a real pro here. "Secksy"? Good Lord. I immediately ran one of the emails through the wonderful SpamCop, of which I am a paying member, which promptly decoded the forged headers of his emails and revealed to me his internet provider as well as some other important info. So I sent a SpamCop report to his ISP as well as a couple of other parties, complaining loudly that my domain name was being abused and asking them to "spank this spammer hard". ISPs and network administrators usually take SpamCop reports very seriously, because it can disrupt their service if they are blacklisted. Next, I went to the website mentioned in his spam, and saw that his page was on a free hosting site (www.freewebs.com). Oh, goody! His page was basically a collection of links to porn sites, each one undoubtedly paying him money for each person who clicked on them. So I zipped over to the host's Contact Us page and filed a testy complaint with them about their abusive user. The next day, I went to his porn site, and...it was gone. Woohoo! Thank goodness for good customer service. Next, please... 1/03 |
Let's
be honest: if you're a victim of an email virus, there's a very good
chance that it's your fault. I know that not all viruses can
be 100% stopped at the user level (some attack via other means than
email), but will the general public EVER
learn not to open emails with attachments from people they don't know??
Strangers with candy, folks...don't trust them. And if you can't
resist reading the email (which usually doesn't say anything anyway),
don't open the attachment unless you know it's harmless.
If it's anything besides .jpg, .gif, .mov, .wav, .txt, or maybe .html,
don't mess with it! And don't be fooled by files with an extension
like .jpg.pif, either. It's a .pif!
