Is today “Piss Franklin Off Day”?

Is there a sign somewhere that reads, “Hey criminals and bozos, go piss Franklin off?”

First up on the Criminals and Bozos list: the National Small Business Alliance, who decided they’d give me a telephone call and pitch business credit to me.

Problem is, the solicitation call was a tape recording. In Florida (and many other states), using a recording to make a telephone solicitation call is a complaint with the State of Florida. Later this week, I’m going to have to hoof it down to the courthouse and file a small-claims-court suit against them, too. Goddamn bastards.

So then…then…get this. Some jackass sends out a bunch of spam advertising a kiddie porn Web site–and forges my email on the spam! I found out about it only because one of the email addresses he sent the Web address to bounced, and since my email was listed as the “From:” address, the bounce message came to me.

So then I had to stop what I was doing again, track down the IP address of this asshole’s kiddie porn site, and spend 45 minutes on the phone reporting it.

Spammers these days are increasingly forging the email addresses of known anti-spam activists on their emails. No doubt they think this is clever–“Tee hee, we’ll make it look like an anti-spam activist is sending out spam, how funny!” But it’s really, really, really stupid, because if any copies of the spam bounce, the person whose email address was forged gets the bounce notification…and anti-spam activists tend to be really, really good at tracking down the source of emails.

So this yahoo thought he could have a laugh at my expense by forging my email address on a solicitation for kiddie porn, and instead he’s getting a nose full of bees. Bastard.

The world really needs to quit fucking with me, because dammit, I fuck back.

Grr.

At last!

I’m going to see The Matrix Reloaded tonight!!!

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Just in case…

…there is anyone in the world who still believes George W. Bush is not completely out of touch with reality, I give you this: A serendipitous convergence of stories on the America Online news page:

Maiden voyage

Got my plane in the air today!!!

Yep, that’s right, it actually flies. 🙂 It was a serious hassle, and required far too much work–got out to the field and discovered the radio receiver wasn’t wired correctly, the prop nut flew off (twice), the engine doesn’t want to idle, but… it flew!

Yes, I’m a complete novice…and yes, I’m quite enjoying being a novice for a change. I love learning things.

A bit of work to do and it’ll be ready to go again.


(Yep, that’s kellyv‘s car behind the plane–it’s that big.)
more pics here

What the…??

The full, unedited text of an email in my inbox today:

Prezados Gentlemen.

Good night will be that they had not tired to send email the same every day and various times still? Therefore I will go to order them all in return for the Gentlemen if not to stop. They want to order notice, all good, but the same email some times per day “NOT”. E nor orders email in MIME. Until more. Thank You
Edyr Maria


What in the name of God and all that is holy is this person trying to communicate?

No file attachments, it’s not a virus that uses a random text generator…

Random miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam

kellyv just asked me “Who are you, and where the hell is my husband?” I’ve been up since 9AM this morning, for no reason save that living with bandage for two weeks has completely upset the natural order of things and destroyed my sleep schedule. Ordinarily, I try to get out of bed at some time around noon on weekends.


And speaking of weekends…

Heading down to the flight field soon for the RC airplane club meeting, going to try to get my plane in the air today. It’s been ready to go for quite a while, but I haven’t been able to find a flight instructor, or the time, or both.


The new Matrix movie is almost here! Yesterday, Shelly bought tickets for herself, me, kellyv, her roommate, and our friend J. kellyv and I are taking the day off work Thursday so we can watch it again. Oh, the pathetic geekness of it all…

Hit me hard…

There are, at last count, six billion people and change all sharing this grand ol’ planet with one another, and the breadth and depth of the human condition is vast almost beyond comprehension.

And even knowing that, there are still some things I find entirely inexplicable. Like THIS.

I don’t get it. I just. Don’t. Get. It. I’m wondering what the encore will be…something involving a blender? 🙂

It’s Friday!!

I’m about to leave to pick up kellyv from the airport. Big grins… 🙂

Shelly just told me I walk like a geek. And not just any geek, but specifically an electronics geek.

I’m confused…

Inflict this on your friends!

Last week, I introduced Shelly and my friends K., E., and K. to oneof my all-time favorite games, Mao.

Mao is named after Mao Tse Tung, the one-time Communist dictator of China. It’s a card game with a simple premise: The players (except the dealer) are not allowed to know the rules of the game before they play, and the players are punished for not knowing the rules.

Kind of like life in China, really.

The dealer can’t win the game. The dealer is the only person who knows the rules when play begins, and players must learn the rules by being punished when they break those rules. If you’re a good player, you strive to learn from other people’s mistakes.

It’s a great party game. There are thousands of varieties, with new ones cropping up all the time, so that players who’ve played before can still enjoy (if enjoy is the right word) Mao. Varieties exist which are drinking games, stripping games, sex games, or all three, though the basic version of Mao involves none of these things.

Just in case you want to inflict this game on those you know and love, here’s the variant we played:

Rules for Mao