Bye-Bye Ads

Since no one has clicked on any of the Google ads for going on two months now, I've dropped them entirely. I've been considering the move for a while, but Google finally changed its policy on payments so I could get paid. Until recently, Google would pay out on the ads after my account balance reached $100. Considering that I was averaging 4 cents a day, that was going to take a while. By the new policy, they'll pay any balance over $10 when the account is terminated, so I can cancel my participation and get the cool $10.85 I've earned since I started this back in October. It is nice to know, though, that I've been generating around 45 page views a day lately, and that's without having blogged about telemarketers in a while. Traffic always seems to spike whenever I post about how to get your credit card company to stop calling you to offer credit protection insurance.

However, now that we're on the subject, here's a few hints from someone on the other end of those annoying calls (though I would like to stress again that I don't sell anything):
1. It's OK to just interrupt the caller and say you're not interested. We don't take offense. As a rule, I don't get anything from someone who just calls me up, either.
2. If you're not interested, just say you're not interested. I don't believe the excuses anyway.
3. The people manning the phones probably don't have a clue where the company gets its lists from. My call lists literally just appear out of the ether. I can take you off mine, but unfortunately I can't do much to help you track down where the leak is from.
4. Saying you are dead doesn't get you any further removed from the list than a polite request to be removed.
5. Being hostile isn't any more effective, either. And whistles or air horns can cause permanent physical damage to the operator's ears. Is getting someone to hang up really worth maiming them?
6. We know you're not just sitting by the phone waiting for someone to call and pitch you something. I take it as a given that if I manage to get a human on the phone, I've interrupted something that is probably, at the moment, more important to you than a pitch for life insurance.
7. Getting a person who is downright nice to me on the phone actually makes my day, even if he doesn't want what I offer.

Better than Flying Toasters

Have you ever wanted to fundamentally change humanity's perception of its place in the universe? Are you bored with your current screen saver?

If you answered yes to one or more of those questions, here's a link to a screensaver you can get from SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The name pretty much sums up what they do: look for signs of intelligent life off our little rock. Now, the universe is a big place, and sentient beings might be anywhere in it, so SETI's tactic is to use a really really big radio telescope at Arecibo to scan the entire sky three times over in the hopes of picking up a signal. Unfortunately, this leaves a (literally) astronomical pile of data to sift through looking for a blip. However, the SETI people, being the types who spend their professional lives looking for signs of sentience from outer space, are plucky, imaginative people. Their solution: harness the computing power wasted in home computers' down time and people's penchant for having pretty pictures float across their computer screens while they're not actively using them. Viola! The Seti@Home project.

We just joined. The full details of how it works can be found here, but basically, SETI sends your computer a little bit of the telescope data over the internet. After your computer has been idle for a couple minutes (you set the exact time), instead of the flying toasters or that aquarium scene turning on, the computer switches over to working on the data analysis. A transparent cube with flashy rainbow-colored spikes floats around your screen, so you don't miss out on the pretty pictures, and as a bonus, these pictures are an actual display of the data your computer is analyizing. Much better than the morphing blob. As soon as you need your computer again, the program switches off just like your old screen saver would. When your computer is done with a chunk, it sends the results back off to SETI and fetches you a new batch of raw data.

I find myself just watching the SETI display sometimes, reluctant to interrupt it. It's a good use for computer time that would otherwise go to a scrolling message or those meaningless rainbow-colored lines. Plus it's just darned fun, and there's always that tiny chance that I'll be the one who finds the signal from out there.

Speechless

I have the most wonderful husband. Last week was our fifth anniversary, and by way of an anniversary surprise, he took me to see March of the Penguins. It was very much a surprise because the nearest theater showing March of the Penguins is an hour and a half away. It's a documentary about emperor penguins--not the kind of film one would expect to play well in the area where we live. I was prepared to wait for the film to come out on DVD, but no, he wanted me to see penguins larger than life, and he drove me across a good chunk of the state to make sure I did. Come hell, high water, or a trip through one of the less savory portions of Cleveland (well, two of the three), I was going to see the big-screen incarnation of the penguin love and chick-rearing saga. He would see to it that I would, even if I would never dream of doing something like that myself.

The English language needs another, very special, word to describe the aftermath of the commercial I heard on CNN Headline News this afternoon, not four days after our own March to the Penguins: "March of the Penguins, now playing in select cities, opening everywhere July 22." Everywhere, including the theater five miles from our house.

Random Thoughts at Random Times

I hadn't noticed until today that the back of the exam room door at my doctor's office has the emergency exit route map. You'd think with the amount of time they leave you in there to disrobe (that time of year again), I would have noticed everything. Of course, after that, all I could think about as I lay there wearing naught but a glorified cocktail napkin and the Jaws of Life was, "This would be the worst time for the fire alarm to go off."

Do-It-Yourself

I myself have never learned to program computers. I can muddle through a few basic HTML tags, but that hardly counts. For those of you more inclined to programming, here are the instructions for teaching your spam filter to play chess.

How Geeky Are You, Really?

According to The True Geek Test, I out-geek 60% of the population, answering 81% of the questions as a true geek would. I must work on that.

Study Sez...

This year's State of Our Unions study out of Rutgers University was good news, bad news for DOMA fans.

The good news for fans of 2-parent households everywhere is that the divorce rate is down to its lowest point since 1980. The bad news is that this can be at least partially attributed to the fact that the marriage rate is down to its lowest point since 1960. In short, fewer people are getting divorced because fewer people are getting married. When the pool of potential divorcees shrinks, a corresponding reduction in the divorce rate is expected.

To what must be the chagrin of the moral values voters, the slack is not being taken up by people making virginity pledges. About 8% of households are what was, not so long ago, quaintly called POSSLQ's: Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters. Less quaintly, shacking up. Seems that more than half of first marriages start out as cohabitations these days. Frankly, I can't think of anyone among my peers who married without first living together (though I'm sure you'll speak up if you did). Anecdotally, among my generation, getting married before combining households is more and more the anomaly. I'm not sure I could have handled getting used to being married on top of trying to sort out the details of whether to buy crunchy or creamy peanut butter and staking out territory on the bathroom counter, among the countless other adjustments to be made when moving in together.

By the way, if any of you single people out there feel pressure to pair off in some legally-binding partnership, you might be surprised at the study's findings that, in spite of how it may seem, only a little over half of the adults in the US are married.

One final plea for help here. The study says that 8% of adult men and 11% of adult women are divorced. That works out to, give or take, about 9.5% of the adult population as a whole. Seems to me it would take a lot of divorce and remarriage and divorcing and remarrying again to have that 9.5% of the population responsible for the 50% of marriages that allegedly end in divorce,with 55% of the adult population married. If someone can explain how we get so many divorces while simultaneously maintaining relatively few divorced people, I'd really like to know. My only solution, and I admit I'm bad at math, is that divorced people average around 3 marriages apiece. That would mean for everyone who is on a second marriage, someone is on a fourth. That seems a bit off.

What a Difference a Year Makes

A year ago, President Bush said he would fire anyone involved in the leak of the name of a CIA operative. Today, he's taken that up a notch to "If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."

At least he's raising the bar on something.

Correction to my previous post: Time reporter Matt Cooper has clarified that Karl Rove never said he was speaking on "Double super secret background." The phrase was Cooper's and is, as I noted, a reference to Animal House and not a technical journalism term. Between this and the exact legal name of Ambassador Wilson's wife, we're now up to two things Karl Rove has not said.

Someone Has to Say It

"Double super-secret background"!?!?

Is Karl Rove 9 years old, or are we now being governed by the Animal House administration?

CORRECTION (7/19): Matt Cooper has clarified that Karl Rove did not use the phrase "Double Super Secret Background." He also clarified that it is, in fact, a reference to the movie Animal House. This absolves Karl Rove of my above implication of juvenile behavior, and also means it cannot be used as evidence supporting the thesis that this is a government of the frat boys, by the frat boys.

Happy Bastille Day

...or anniversary, or birthday.

You know who you all are. What can I say? July 14th is a popular day among my relatives.

Homeland Security

There's an old joke about two hunters being chased by a bear. As they're running, one hunter says to the other, "Do you really think you can outrun than that bear?" To which the second hunter replies, "I don't need to outrun the bear; I just need to outrun you."

The moral of the story being that, when faced with a threat, one does not need impregnable defenses. It is enough that someone else--anyone else--has more pregnable defenses than yours. Threats most often follow the path of least resistance. We could build a moat around our home and fill it with ill-tempered sea bass and install blast doors around the perimeter and be totally secure, or we can just make sure the neighbors are more tempting targets than we are for the prowlers.

Which brings me to the current dust-up over the Homeland Security budget, specifically, how federal security funds are allocated. The 9-11 commission recommended that HS dollars be allocated strictly on the basis of "risk and need." The Senate has voted that 60% of the budget be allotted on the risk/need grounds, but that each state gets a minimum chunk of the remaining 40%. For some reason, Wyoming is cited most often as an egregious example of how out of whack the guaranteed-minimum concept is, as in "Wyoming gets more per capita than New York."* If I hear that one more time, I am liable to vomit in the metal detector. Put that through your residue checker.

Let me start by stating the obvious. Of course putting Homeland Security money on the table is going to invite a money-grab. Every community is strapped for cash. There is always something a state, county, town, or even household would do if only there was money there. It should come as no surprise to anyone that, when federal funds are on the table, no matter what the source, everyone is going to want to grab as much of that for his or her home community as possible. Pork is only pork to people who aren't benefitting from it. To people who are, it is necessary community improvements.

Furthermore, allow me to state another obvious fact: every community thinks there is something in their environs that would make a tempting terrorist target. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was waiting tables in a reasonably crappy restaurant in a suburb of Toledo, Ohio. I have actually heard people use Toledo, Ohio in a sentence as a synonym for "The middle of nowhere." Nonetheless, as we listened to the radio reports that morning while the fourth plane was still unaccounted for, I was bringing coffee to people who honestly, seriously believed that fourth airplane was headed straight for Toledo, planning to crash into the BP oil refinery. That sentiment is silly to people in New York, but people in that diner that morning believed it in all earnest.

People in low-population, so-called "low-risk" areas do not like to believe that they are at any less risk than people in New York or LA. After all, one of the lessons shoved down our collective throats after September 11 was that it could happen here. That message has been getting to everyone, even in Wyoming. Sparsely populated areas took that to heart just as much as major metro areas. I don't think any of the talking heads in the big cities considered that, for people in Bat Guano, Nebraska, "it can happen here," meant here, in Bat Guano, Nebraska, not here in some big city that coincidentally shares a federal government. We've been told for going on four years now that we are not safe. We as in us, personally, ourselves, not Americans as a whole.

Back to the hunters running from the bear in the woods. When major metropolitan areas, having received the bulk of security funding, become too difficult to operate in, who know where the next target would be. Maybe someone will nuke Yellowstone or blast Washington's face right off Mount Rushmore. Maybe someone will taint our food supply through the farmlands of Kansas or the herds of cattle in Nebraska. Maybe they'll go for the farm country of Oregon and unleash some filbert-centric pathogen that will destroy our supply of Hazelnut lattes. There is a mindset among some in the Midwest that a terrorist strike in the heartland would be more effective at undermining our sense of homeland security than another attack on a big coastal metropolis.

The thing to remember about risk is that it is by nature relative. Eventually, we may make our big cities safer, but that doesn't make the bad guys go away. Low-risk areas are only low-risk now because there are higher-risk areas elsewhere. Sparsely populated areas are running from the bear faster than the densely-populated areas at the moment, but the bear gets one of them in the end. The arguments over Homeland Security allocation are just 50 states trying to make sure they're running faster than someone.


*-Wyoming also gets more Presidential votes per capita than New York, but that doesn't seem to inspire people to action the way doling out cash does.

Splitting Hairs

So the defense of Karl Rove, insofar as anyone is even trying to mount one instead of just sidestepping the whole issue, seems to be that he may have talked to a reporter about Valerie Plame's job in the CIA, but did not actually use the word "Valerie." Instead, he referred to her as "Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues," Wilson being Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

The key to so many good plots is to never actually lie about it. The present administration is great at that. Those famous 16 words in the State of the Union address that were at the bottom of this whole flap were not actually false, either (it was quite true that the British had the information--no one ever said the information was right). If everything that has been reported about Rove's involvement this far is true, he still was telling the truth when he said he did not leak her name. He left it to others to assume that meant he had not leaked her identity. All he revealed was to whom she was married. Would some of those Defense of Marriage advocates remind me again how many wives a man can legally have in the United States? Also, marriage licenses are one of those things that the administration hasn't quite gotten around to classifying yet, so the record of who Ambassador Wilson's wife is should be more or less a matter of public record, even if her job wasn't. Splitting that hair is for another time.

Guest Blog

Fellow blog-readers: Emperor Penguin here.....

After over a year of silence, I finally found something to rage about. I am angry; I am vexed; I am seething with rage (those of you who know me, know I am usually a pussycat).

Janet and I are trying to slowly change over our personal email addresses to reflect the changes in internet technology and ease of use -- plus AOL's software is buggy and inefficient. So, rather than get an email name from our ISP that will go away the moment we change providers (you know we will), we decide to register our names on the internet so we can have permenant addresses where anyone can find us. So we try to register harriett dot com and discover it has been registered. Now, normally this would not bother me, someone bought it fair and square and we came too late. So I check out the link on the web. Who owns the site? "Buy Domain Names.com." They said that I can buy the domain name for anywhere from $1,000 - $10,000! My own name! How terrible is that? I feel violated, like my identity has been stolen. These are considered "investments" by some people: they buy as many names as they can think of and then try to re-sell them to the legitimate owners of the name hoping to make a profit off these people. I hope eventually someone with more brains and resources than I will introduce laws making this sort of "cyber-squatting" illegal.

So, unfortunately, for the time being, I cannot have use of my own last name with a dot com extension for people to find me easily. Dot net and dot org were also registered, but they were taken by legitimate people actively using the name -- I don't mind that one bit. Once I set up our family email accounts, people will be able to find us at the best domain name left available to us: dot us!

And if anyone reading this has designs on taking our personal names, I also took the time to register:
elieharriett.com
elieaharriett.com
janetharriett.com
janetlharriett.com

The dot net, dot org, and all other dot extensions are available to anyone who wants them. However, most people's searches usually begin and end with a dot com entry.

And for all who listen, I implore you, register your names as soon as possible if they are still available. You never know if you will want it later. Trust me, it is downright humiliating seeing a stranger offering your own name out for $1,000+. My recommendation is www.godaddy.com. They charge $8.95/year for a dot com address; most others are less. Even if you are like us and do not plan on putting up a website, it is a way of protecting your good names.

Good luck, all. I promise my next guest blog will reflect a kinder, nicer emperor penguin. I'm not really a raving lunatic (no, really, I'm not). This just really infuriated me. We now return you to your regular roving penguin reporter......

Jack Squat

Since someone is cybersquatting on www.harriett.com (don't bother looking over there, and more later on that from your guest blogger), we're registering a few still-available permutations of our names. Not planning on putting anything up anytime soon, we're just staking out some web territory while it's still available. Part of the legal agreement to registering a .us domain name is agreeing not to post profanity as defined by a 1978 US Supreme Court case "as made famous by George Carlin." I kid you not. Registering a .us domain requires one to explicitly agree not to use any of the Seven Words You Can't Say on Television, and referencing the comedy bit of the same name. The soon-to-be-guest-blogger, reading over my shoulder, just pointed out that the same clause is not in the agreement for a .tv domain, so, you can say the Seven Words You Can't Say on Television on .tv, but not on actual TV, or the .us domains.

Now That's a Thumb Drive

Finally, someone is developing a manicure I might bother getting. Scientists in Japan have figured out how to write data to human fingernails. Using a laser system, they essentially turn fingernails into computer discs that store the info right on hand (or on left hand) for six months, or until the nail grows out. They say they can get 5 Mb per nail, which is about three times what your standard floppy holds, but it's still no replacement for my 256 Mb jump drive.

One potential application (besides giving us blossoming sci-fi writers more fodder) is combining the new nail data writing with finger biometrics for personal authentication. Which leads to one inescapable conclusion: we're going to have to start shredding our fingernail clippings for personal security reasons. At least it will get them off the bathroom floor.

In the twelve years I've been driving, today was the first time I've ever actually renewed my driver's license. Until now, I've always moved to a new state before my license expires.

I think the clerk had a few reservations about handing over my new license. Here's a more or less accurate transcript of the conversation during my vision test:

CLERK: Let's try it without your glasses first. Step over there.
(I take a step to the left and put my face in the exam contraption)
CLERK: Read the center section, fourth line down.
(I pause for a moment, trying to make out rows at all in the center section)
ME: I don't think I can
CLERK: What's the lowest line you can read?
ME: Are those are supposed to be numbers?

I did manage to pass, though I now have the dreaded "Must Wear Corrective Lenses" endorsement. I've worn bifocals full time for the better part of two decades, so it doesn't change anything other than requiring me to do what I do anyway. However, I'd like to say in my defense that I could barely read the numbers with my glasses on and I know for certain my vision hasn't degraded that much since my last eye exam.

Irony Alert

Martha Stewart hates being confined to her own home.

That just blows me away. Of all the people who might enjoy staying at home, I'd think it would be the queen of the domestic divas.

You Need A License to Sell Insurance...

Well, the Russian astrologer suing NASA on the grounds that their plan to smash a slug of copper into a comet "ruins the natural balance of forces in the universe" did not manage to prevent the mission. No word yet on how her claim of $300 million in "moral damages" is coming.

Stealth Chutzpah

A man who trademarked "Stealth" as a brand of sporting goods in 1985 gets a writeup in the New York Times for his pirahna-like efforts to protect his trademark from infringement by such things as an upcoming Columbia Pictures movie. He does in fact legitimately own the trademark for the word "Stealth" as a brand name for several uses including air conditioners, but he seems to have made a cottage industry out of firing off cease-and-desist letters to anyone he finds using the word for anything. The company that makes the B-2 Stealth bomber paid him off to the tune of $10--incidentally, the agreement is also why one cannot get model Stealth Bombers under that name.

Making it easier for headline writers everywhere, this man also claims ownership of the word "chutzpah." Sometimes the headlines just write themselves.

Happy Fourth

For the moment, let's leave aside any curiosity about what is in West Virginia that President Bush has spent three of the last four Independence Days there. Just take a look at the picture that accompanies the New York Times article, in which the camera angle and a huge wad of bunting unfortunately makes it appear at first glance that the President is wearing a very large, froofy skirt.

While we're on the subject of Independence Day, I would like to submit a modest proposal: anyone purchasing fireworks must first pass a brief exam (may be written or oral):

1. Twenty-seven allegations are made against the king of England within the body of the Declaration. Summarize three.
2. List the four specific declarations made in the final paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

(Answers can be found here)

I don't think it is too much to ask people to have a glancing familiarity with the content of the document that formally announced American independence before they get explosives, since that is nominally what we are celebrating today with those explosives.

Retirement Party

Slate points out here and here that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was pretty much the polar opposite of the Activist Judge so reviled by the current administration. The point is buried, but allow me to excerpt

O'Connor didn't believe in putting the court's awesome authority behind hard-and-fast rules that would tie up a hugely complicated, divisive issue for generations... But the virtue of her one-at-a-time approach was that it left open issues that are better worked through on the floor of state legislatures and Congress, and in all of our kitchens and living rooms.

and

O'Connor writes narrowly because she doesn't want to reshape the whole legal world with the stroke of a pen (though this is naive at times—since her affirmative-action, religion, and gerrymandering decisions do just that, intent or no). Her impossibly narrow opinions may not represent her own pathology so much as the pathology of other court members—who seek to raze whole legal landscapes with a single opinion. She wants legislatures to do that. She wants state supreme courts to do that. She wants the president to do that. In her view the court has virtually limitless power to tell the other branches when they're being stupid. But she'd prefer that they not be stupid in the first place.

If the administration truly despises "legislating from the bench" as a whole and not just "legislating ideas we don't agree with from the bench," I look forward to seeing someone else of Justice O'Connor's stripe put up before the Senate. And in the battle that is pretty much guaranteed to come, remember that Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States states that the President nominates and appoints Supreme Court justices "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." That's advice and consent--two separate nouns, neither of which is "automatic approval."

Battle of the Signs

A week after we moved in to our new house, a sign went up on what we thought was a vacant service station on the corner. On the bright side, it's now much easier to find the turn to the house. Before the new signage, I had to remember to turn left at the third Pepsi sign on a bar after the freeway offramp, right before the elephant at the Putt-Putt. Now, I just remember to turn at the sign for the alleged "gentleman's club."

Rumor has it that the entertainment in this establishment features exposed mammary glands, and as you might expect, this has upset a few people. The epicenter of the protests seems to be the Catholic church about two miles down the highway. Their main tactics seem to be picketing Friday and Saturday nights (they bring folding lawn chairs), and putting up messages on the sign outside their church. They changed the reader board today to read "Child molestation is an illness, and topless bars help the virus."

Whether or not that particular claim has merit, I'm guessing that no one on the Sign Message Committee there took a second to think that, at this particular moment, a Catholic church might not exactly have the moral high ground in a discussion of what promotes child molestation. The establishment's proprietors glommed on to this last weekend with their counterprotest sign, "Priests molest children" staked into the parking lot planter.

It's pretty much like watching the fox and the weasel argue over who raids the henhouse. Sure, the irony is amusing, but it doesn't do anything to keep the chickens safe.

Sarcasm Alert

Isn't it nice that we've gotten to a point in American race relations that the flashpoint is that a hoity-toity French boutique wouldn't let Oprah in to shop after hours? Not long ago, the major race-based injustices were actual crimes, not the inability for a rich woman to get overpriced jewelry from a closed store in a foreign country.

Speech Tonight

I've set the TiVo for the President's speech tonight. At the moment, I have it set for CNN, but I'll change to C-Span if I can find it in their schedule.

I'm looking for one thing in his speech tonight. All I want is some sort of assurance that, somewhere in the bowels of the administration, they have some intention of eventually withdrawing from Iraq. Right now, I'm not convinced they do, and I just want to be told I am wrong. I know we'll never weasel a date out of them, or even a broad time frame, but can't he at least tell us that we aren't going to be over there forever?

On a fundamental level, I find it distasteful that my standards have sunk so low. Used to be that in wars, the public knew what the overall objective was. Creation of a government independent of the (former) colonial mother country, conquering territory, quashing a rebellion, defeating a dictator, etc. However noble or ignoble the purpose for the war was, there was some collective agreement as to the sign that the war's objective had been accomplished. This time around, I've given up knowing for myself what that sign is, and I'm resigned to knowing that the commanders know what it is and intend to stop when, whatever that is, it happens. It might also be nice to know that they are pursuing the eventual accomplishment of the objective, but let's not expect too much here.

No wonder I'm having a harder time than usual getting worked up about Independence Day.

Slender Walk Tip

As some of you already know, I've gone to the Other Side and am now making phone calls. I'd like to clarify that I am not a telemarketer or a solicitor of any kind. I make appointments for someone else to meet with people. Sure, this distinction is lost on a lot of people when they answer the phone. Also, I rarely cold-call. Most of the people I call have requested some information from the company.

Which brings me to my point for the day. If you initiate contact with a business to get information about their products or services, just assume that they intend to use any information you give them. Most businesses have neither the time nor the inclination to collect your contact information just for the sheer joy they get from having it. If you give them your address, assume you will be put on their mailing list. If you provide a phone number, assume they will give you a follow up call. If you give an email address, expect an email or two from them. In short, if you do not want people to call you, don't give them your phone number. Just because there is a line for something, that does not mean that you have to put something on that line.

Okay. Rant over.

In Other Irony-Laden News

In the final two paragraphs of this article in the Men's Health section of the New York Times, we find the irony of the week: bemoaning that non-pharmaceutical treatments for premature ejaculation take too long.

Really.

Backyard

I've upped the unofficial bunny count to four. Tonight, I saw two juveniles nibbling at the spots I missed with the lawnmower. Before tonight, I've only seen one juvenile at a time, but apparently there are at least two. Since we are talking about rabbits here, I'm not surprised to find out there are more than I first thought.

In the News

A 28-year-old woman is suing a radio station in Lexington, Kentucky, after the "100 Grand" prize she won by being the 10th caller turned out to be a Nestle's 100 Grand candy bar. The station later offered her $5,000 (presumably in addition to said candy bar), but she is having none of it. She is quoted in the article as saying "Nobody would watch and listen for two hours for a candy bar." Yes, and on the other hand, no radio station would fork over 1,000 Benjamins to a person for just listening to the radio for a couple hours. I seem to recall the contests for anything more valuable than a pair of concert tickets tend to be rather involved. In one of my former radio station markets, there was a three-stage contest just for a set of patio furniture. The car they gave away each summer, worth maybe half of what this woman expected to win, required a three-month commitment to listening to the station to pass all stages of the contest.

The article also states:

Before her family went to sleep that night, Gill says, she promised her children — ages 1, 5 and 11 — that they'd have a minivan, a shopping spree, a savings account and a home with a back yard.

"What hurts me is they were going to get me in front of my children, all dressed up, and hand me a candy bar, after all those promises I made to them," she told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "You just don't do that to people."

Again, as much as I want to feel for this woman for having been taken in by a radio contest, I can't help wondering how she thinks $100,000 will buy a minivan, home with back yard, and a shopping spree with enough left over for a savings account.

Not Making This Up

Browsing the "Gifts and Flowers/For the Pet" category over at www.overstock.com, I found several dog leashes, pet carriers, puppy treats...and a clarinet.

Granted, when I was first learning the clarinet in the fifth grade, my father compared it rather unfavorably to a goose call, so there is an argument to be made that a beginner's clarinet may be animal-related merchandise. However, to my knowledge, woodwinds are generally not considered pet supplies. However, I will defer to any musicians out there (ahem, you know who you are) to correct me if I am mistaken.

I'm Back Again

Sorry for ignoring you all lately. Sometimes, earning a living has to take priority over funny stuff on the internet. However, in good news, I quit the time-sucking, energy-sapping, spirit-crushing job in favor of something slightly less spirit-crushing with much better (and shorter) hours. For instance, today, I put in a full day's work in just over an hour. This should leave me with more time for other projects, including the blog and a few things I will tell you more about later.

This Day in History

On this day in 1778, the American forces took back Philadelphia from the British, thus paving the way for the Philly cheesesteak pizza.

Remember when cheeesteaks were sandwiches and caesars were salads?

Stupid eBay Tricks

There are currently 14 Darth Vader "Who's Your Daddy?" posters up on eBay. It's more fun to get your poster by seeing the movie. Keeps getting better every time we see it.

Doubtless, there are hundreds of other people hoarding their posters in hopes of fetching a nice chunk of change after the promo is over. A message to them: ain't going to happen. There are too many of you out there hoarding for your stashes to be worth much of anything. Having a collection is nice, but investments are why they invented the Roth IRA.

Marketing genius

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith has been out in theaters for a month, and this weekend is up against the opening of the latest Batman movie, another potential summer blockbuster aimed squarely at the comic book/sci-fi crowd. How is Star Wars to compete for the geek box office dollar against what is probably its stiffest competition for fanboys and fangirls of the summer? By pretending to ignore Batman while offering an exclusive promo over the weekend in honor of Father's Day (happy Father's Day, Dad). See Star Wars at participating theaters this weekend and you can get this free poster featuring "Cinema's most notorious patriarch" with the phrase "Who's Your Daddy?" It really is a neat addition to any Star Wars art collection, or if you just like offbeat wall coverings. It's certainly worth the price of admission. LucasFilm's marketing division is really playing up that this poster will never be available except to ticket-buyers this weekend, and the artwork will never appear in another American Episode III poster. The art on the Vader/Who's Your Daddy t-shirt isn't nearly as nice.

And, yes, we'll be going tonight. I bought the tickets and got the poster yesterday. This only makes three times we've seen Episode III since it opened.

Don't Go There

Dressing one's puppy up is bad enough, but the pet slave Leia costume...that's just plain wrong on several levels.

Warning: Massive Time Suck

If you know what is good for you, you will not click this link and definitely will not download the Descartes Enigma or Descartes Rainbow games. If you ever want to see your loved ones again, you will not start playing those games.

Bull in a China Shop

Yesterday at work they set me to washing several thousand dollars worth of bone china tea sets.

When a blog entry starts like that, you can guarantee the tale does not end well. Actually, it does not even begin well. In short, I now hold the store's land speed record for fastest breakage of china, though not the most expensive breakage incident. The fourth thing I picked up, a $35 green saucer, flew right out of my hand and slammed edge-on into a metal mixing bowl, taking a hefty chip out of the side of the saucer.

This is why I own Melmac dishes.

Chew on This

Tomorrow, 1,365 days will have passed since September 11, 2001. Why, you ask, is this food for ponderage? That is the same amount of time that elapsed between Pearl Harbor and the unconditional surrender of Japan.

No comment. Just think about that.

Sunday Drivers

One of the difficult things about moving all around the country is getting used to the way people drive in different places. In Omaha, Nebraska, they used what I called the "Nebraska turn." An accepted method of executing an unprotected left turn there was to inch one's car into the middle of the intersection, wait for the light cycle, and run the red. Here in Ohio, speed limits are completely irrelevant. People will go 10 miles under or 10 miles over, but never right on.

GMAC gave a mock written driver's exam to drivers around the country, and one in 10 failed, which extrapolates out to about 20 million people on the road who have no idea what they are doing there. Oregon drivers ranked #1 with an average score of 89%, and only 1-3% failed the test. Granted, that may just mean most know when they are violating traffic laws.

Some states I know some of you will be interested in:
Washington: 2
Delaware: 3-way tie for 35
California: 43
The full list of rankings is here.

Still Here

I know I haven't been posting much around here lately. Unfortunately, I'm allocating most of my time to a few paying projects, notably a new full time job, leaving less time to probe the internet for bloggable items. I'll try to keep up with the posting better. My new job is with an outfit I can best describe as a combination specialty coffee roaster and gourmet food store. Though we will brew lattes, etc, the focus is on a really great cup of coffee, which bears no resemblance to a venti triple half-caf skinny extra whip mocha. We're so snobby about our coffee, we order it in English and drink it black.

Here's one for the "That takes chutzpah" file. On my first day of work, a high school kid came in inquiring about potential summer employment. The manager brushed her off with something about not hiring under-18-year-olds because the store also sells alcohol. That is true, as is the fact that the store does not generally hire summer help anyway. However, the big strike against her is that she came in to a gourmet coffee roaster carrying some sort of Starbucks beverage. That's roughly equivalent to going to Chanel for a job wearing the latest trends from Target. They don't hold it against me that I still brew Starbucks coffee in the morning at home, only because I'm drinking through the eight pounds I bought before I knew any better.

Our Tax Dollars at Work

Having read this article through, I feel safer knowing that the TSA airport screeners interrogate travelers about their barbecue meat consumption. Ascertaining that travelers have eaten at the appropriate Texas barbecue restaurants is so much better than using the taxpayer-funded time trying to keep air travel safe.

Next up: the Shoe Phone

Someone finally invented a practical Cone of Silence, and it looks like it won't hit you on the head when it activates.

Movie News

This is going to be a good summer for movies. Just got back from seeing Madagascar. The penguins were, of course, the highlight of the 86 minutes. They should have ditched the lion/zebra/hippo/hypochondriac giraffe storyline and just done the penguin escape and the lemurs. The zebra going to Connecticut in search of the Wild was mildly amusing, but nothing to keep up an entire film. The psychotic penguins bent on escape, tunnelling out of Manhattan with plastic ice cream spoons then hijacking an ocean liner and landing on an island full of lemurs ruled by the batcrap nuts King of all Lemurs--that's a movie. Unfortunately, since the theater was not even half full on opening day, prospects do not seem bright for a Madagascar II: Attack of the Penguins.

Study says...

We've all looked for Waldo. Now researchers at MIT have shown how we find him.

In the News

FDA Looking Into Blindness-Viagra Link

Insert your own "it'll make you go blind" joke here.

Also, "looking into blindness link"? I can't figure out if someone was trying to be amusing or just didn't consider at least three appropriate verbs that would not have created a bad pun.

Note on the Ads

If I had any control over the advertisements that pop up on the right there, I would not currently be displaying an ad for a website offering downloads of Star Wars Episode III. Given that the movie has been on theaters for just a week now, I'm reasonably certain LucasArts has not authorized an online release. It may be a violation of the terms I have with Google AdSense, but let me make it perfectly clear that I in no way support any sites that provide pirated movies, especially not ones that can't seem to handle the traffic they generate. Besides, for goodness sake, you need to see Episode III on the big screen.

For the Record

Most of us Star Wars fans are smarter than this. Most of us know to use polycarbonate for the blade if one intends to make a semi-functional lightsaber. They give Darwin Awards for doing things far less stupid than dueling with glass fluorescent light tubes filled with an undisclosed flammable substance.

Strange What You Remember

When ME posted the news of Howard Morris' passing earlier this week, Elie saw it before I did. When he told me, the conversation went something like this:

"Howard Morris just died."
"Who?"
"Howie Morris. From Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows."
Baffled look from me. Throough a minor oversight, I've only seen about 45 seconds of any Sid Caesar program. That will be rectified.
"He was in High Anxiety."
Another blank look.
"Earnest T. Bass on the Andy Griffith Show."
Nothing.
It went on like this through a good chunk of Howard Morris' extensive filmography, until Elie got to, "He was Wade Duck in Garfield and Friends."
"No, that wasn't him. That was..." My brain, scanning the cast list of my favorite Saturday morning cartoon show, finally caught up with my mouth. That was Howard Morris. "Wade Duck is dead?"
"All that, and you say 'Wade Duck is dead'?"

Fly the Sweaty Skies

I'm all for physical fitness, but airline travel is bad enough with the screaming infants and people reclining the seat in front of me until my tray table jabs me in the gut. Now I run the risk that the guy in the seat next to me just left the gym.

Recommended Reading

Here's an article in the Washington Post about the fashion of Star Wars: specifically, the fashion of Group #2, the ones who wait in line for Star Wars dressed as Stormtroopers, Jedi, galactic senators, or assorted Sith Lords.

While I am not in the class of people who have forked over "thousands of dollars" for stormtrooper armor (and, incidentally, the full suit is only about $800-$900 on eBay), I have been known to sport the Leia buns for special occasions. All right, I've worn the Hoth hair and the Massassi Temple Scene 'do to work before. I do the Bespin Braids, too, but not very often because they remind me of a basset hound. Then there was that one time at a comic book convention when Sergio Aragones noticed a passing resemblance between my outfit and one of his characters.

The author of the Post article notes that adults who dress up have "a remarkably high threshold for public embarassment." Not really. On paper, perhaps there appears to be something odd about wearing a belt made out of styrofoam and aluminum foil, but once you're roaming the halls of a Hilton, it's no big deal. It's not like you're wearing lime-green and lavender paisley. That would be embarassing.

Addendum to Previous Post

No, Ann O., I'm still not getting a goat to take care of my lawn for me.

More Mundane Stuff of Life

For the first time in my life, I have mown a lawn, all 2.14 acres of it. By the time I got to the front yard, I think I really had the whole mowing thing down. The back yard, however, looks like crop circles made by a drunk alien.

Star Wars

I've been out of the theater for five hours now, which gives me a little time to digest Episode III, catch a catnap, and wait for the midnight showings to end on the West coast. Don't worry. I'm not going to blog anything that might ruin the surprises (and, in spite of knowing where everything must lead, there are a few surprises). Part of the reason we went to the 12:01 a.m. showing was to avoid dodging spoilers, so I won't put any out there myself. Mostly, though, we arranged to be at the midnight showing because it was the midnight showing.

What an experience! The crowd divided into three distinct groups:
1. The drunk college kids. They're the ones who like Yoda because he's so Zen and who bring the toy lightsabers so they could make penis jokes while waiting for the Coming Attractions. The largest contingent of these were, unfortunately, seated directly in front of me and on my right. These are the rowdy ones, and I think they would go to any movie with a midnight showing. These people can spot each other because they've previously bonded over mutual alcohol poisoning.
2. The fanboys and fangirls. They're the convention-goers, the ones who dressed for the occasion and brought the lightsabers to stage impromptu duels in the front rows waiting for the Coming Attractions. One was there dressed as the Death Star. Me, I wore my t-shirt from Episode I and the cinnamon bun hairdo (all my own hair). Elie proudly wore his t-shirt from last year's Star Wars Fan Breakfast. Fanboys and fangirls can spot each other at 50 yards, because whether it is Jedi robes, a Star Wars shirt, or a George Lucas costume, we all wear the uniform. I was mildly disappointed that there were no stormtroopers.
3. The people who saw Star Wars in the theater in 1977 and seriously want to see how the saga ends (middles?). These people deserved their own exclusive theater away from the rest of us. You could tell this group because they were, as a rule, at least 20 years older than the rest of us.

I won't say too much about the content of the movie to spare those who haven't seen it yet. It was exactly the movie I wanted to complete the saga. Everything fell into place while still leaving enough wiggle room for my imagination to go wild for the rest of my life. I got answers without definitive answers, and that is far more satisfying than it sounds.

Of course there were things to dislike, but they were the same things that there were to dislike about the other five movies. No one should be surprised at that. That is just part of the Star Wars experience.

When you do go see Episode III, you will do yourself a load of good if you leave the "Darth Vader (or Palpatine) is George W. Bush" at the concession stand. I'm not saying that line is complete malarky, but at least on the first viewing, just keep your mind on the here and now. Enjoy what is before you. The Star Wars films have always had more than a hint of topicality to them, and that is one of the hallmarks of great sci-fi, but more than that, they're wonderful movies that tell a story we've been replaying since the dawn of organized government. Watch them at least once just to appreciate the story they're telling. Later you can go back and try to figure out which political figure corresponds to Mace Windu.

Let Me Get This Straight

Apparently, the US House of Representatives thinks that only straight males can wage war. How else can one explain why, in a time when the Army can't even meet its quota of warm bodies in uniforms, the House has put forth a measure that would further restrict the Army jobs to which female recruits could be assigned?

Episode III Countdown

14 hours, 37 minutes.

Yet More 888-872-2629

I'm glad I could help everyone with these pesky and very persistent Chase telemarketers who keep calling from 888-872-2629. I am a touch concerned that several people seem to be jumping mighty quickly to filing FTC complaints, though.

Registering with the National Do Not Call registry does not mean that no one can call you. Even if your number is registered, there are still certain telemarketers who are allowed to call you.

If you have any of the credit cards offered by Chase or Bank One (they're both owned by the same company), these telemarketers can call you if you have made a purchase or payment on the card in the last year and a half even if your number is on the national Do Not Call registry. You can request that Chase not call you, and the company must comply. I have not found in the regulations any mention of whether that compliance must start immediately upon the request or if the company is allowed some sort of processing window, but I imagine there probably is since there is a 30-day window on DNC registrations. Chase's automated system notifies callers to allow 30 days for the request to take effect, so I would suggest not lodging any formal complaints with the federal government until the 30 days are up. Until then, turn the phone's ringer to low or off if you don't want to be disturbed.

Remember: the more complaints that the FTC receives on companies that are not, in fact, in violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, the less time they have to go after legitimate violators. Before lodging a complaint, please make certain that the company is in fact in violation.

What I Did Today

Today, for the first time in the eight years I've been living on my own, I locked myself out of the house. Conveniently, it was the day after Elie finished installing the pick-proof locks on all the outside doors. Also conveniently, it was the first time Elie has ever left the house without his cell phone. Good thing I only locked myself out of the house, not the garage, and a magazine came in the mail.

Rant of the Day

The New York Times has an intriguing op-ed piece about the importance of writing skills in the modern workplace.

I've spent much of my working life as the one in the office who covers for the others who can't write well. However, unlike the scenario presented in the article, my employers have never cared whether I could write when they hired me. Somewhere down the line, they find out I have a knack for effective written communication, and writing everyone's business correspondence becomes part of my job. I don't mind. I enjoy writing and I'm good at it.

The op-ed is right that people need more training in effective written communication, but not for the reasons it suggests. Employers do not see writing as a job skill. Touch typing is a skill. Operating Microsoft Word is a skill. Writing--well, if you can touch type and operate Word, you can write. At least that seems to be the majority opinion of employers. Formatting a business letter is a skill, but no one seems to prize the ability to compose that business letter in a clear, concise, interesting manner. People seem to believe that the ability to put words to a page, and to order those words into more or less proper sentences, is writing. Technically, that is correct. Of course, technically, my 14-month-old niece can speak, too, but no one is letting her deliver the keynote address to the board of directors.

If we took time to teach proper written communication, writing might finally be seen as the essential workplace skill that it is, and as something society values. People do not value what they do not have; if they valued it, they would take the time to acquire it. As it stands now, most people have no idea how atrocious their writing is, and I've seen some truly awful writing come from some people in high positions. Now, if the person on the other side of the interview table has gotten to where he or she is with only mediocre writing ability and doesn't even know how mediocre those abilities are, what are the chances that he or she is going to value better writing skills in a new hire? What are the chances that he or she will even consider written communication skills in the interview process?

The reason we need to teach written communication more is not to produce better writers, but to increase the value writing has in society.

Class Wars

The New York Times has an interesting interactive graphic that you can use to find out if you really are middle class (or whatever class you profess to being). It is somewhat subjective, as one of the four components of class relies on relative prestige rankings of various entirely unrelated occupations. For instance, an animal breeder ranks a 158, two points more prestigious than an artist. The prestige rankings are based on census surveys, but how many people sit there thinking, "Given the choice, would I prefer my daughter marry an urban planner or budget analyst?" The other three components are more straightforward and objective. The higher your education, income and assets, the higher the overall class score. Take it with a grain of salt, since it doesn't really matter all that much. Will knowing you are in the 61st percentile, making you technically upper middle class by this chart, mean you are any better than the person in the 59th percentile who is just middle class? Not really. Think of it as socioeconomic rubbernecking.

Has Sci-Fi Taught Us Nothing?

Scientists have now invented robots who can self-replicate. That's all they do: build more of themselves. I have an idea for everyone who worked on that project. Watch seasons 3-6 of Stargate SG-1. For those of you without the time or inclination to do that, just read the entry for Replicators in the Stargate Omnipedia.

Headlines

Sometimes the headlines make Irony Policing too easy. Two of the top 3 national news headlines on AOL at the moment are Greenpeace Found Guilty of Breaking Environmental Laws and Fired Worker Kills Ex-Colleauge at Mental Health Clinic.

Headline

Jesus Christ in Legal Battle in West Virginia

Seems Jesus Christ has moved and is attempting to get a driver's license in West Virginia. It's not going so well because his birth certificate still reads Peter Robert Phillips, Jr. and he had not yet received a legal name change in his former place of residence, Washington, DC. According to his attorney, "Christ is not speaking to the press at this time."

The Educational Corner

Here's a primer on lightsaber construction and household uses, including simultaneous slicing and toasting a bagel. Never reheat coffee with anything, even a lightsaber.

Speaking of Star Wars, though, Episode III opens next week. Do you have your tickets for the 12:01 a.m. showing? I do.

In Penguin News...

Chlamydia Strikes San Francisco Penguin Colony. Twelve of the Magellanic penguins have died, leaving 55 in the colony. Among penguins, this is not an STD, and keepers suspect gull guano.

Headline

New Study: Hell Not as Bad as We Thought

Lest I be accused of misleading you, that is a geology article dealing with what is known as the Hadean Eon and has nothing to do with theology or the afterlife. Catchy headline, though.

Grammar Cops on Patrol

Good to see that someone is taking care of this. Thanks to Karen for the link. I cringed every time I went into my former Laundromat and had to pass the sign posting the "hour's" of the establishment. Grammar policing can be a full time job, and while I am currently in search of one of those, I have yet to find a Grammar Policing position that actually pays.

Quick rule of apostrophes with the letter S: Used to indicate the possessive, or to indicate a contraction of a noun and the verb "is." If Frank has a dog, it is Frank's dog. If, on the other hand, Frank is the name of the pooch, it would be "Frank's a dog." The apostrophe is NOT used to indicate more than one of anything. When in doubt, ask yourself "Do I mean that there is more than one of this, or that something belongs to this?" If the former, there is no apostrophe. If the latter, the apostrophe is OK, with one exception: it's/its, where the apostrophe version is used only to indicate "it is" and the non-apostrophe is for all other uses.

My personal favorite of the grammar infractions posted on the above link are "You Chuck's Bitch?" which is just funny, and "What's in the Pu Pu?" which speaks to my Rule #3 of eating: never eat anything with the word "food" on the label (devil's food cake and angel food cake excepted). If they have to tell you it is food, such as "pasteurized process cheese food," then it is not. Incidentally, rule #1 is "Never eat seafood in a state that does not touch sea," and rule #2 is "Never eat anything that is or has been entrails."

More Dumb Ride Pimping

I've found something that looks even more stupid than one spinning hubcap on a beat up Corsica: two spinning hubcaps on the rear wheels of a Plymouth Voyager minivan. The Jesus bumper sticker and the grey haired 60-odd-year-old driver did not help the look any.

More Dumb Ride Pimping

I've found something that looks even more stupid than one spinning hubcap on a beat up Corsica: two spinning hubcaps on the rear wheels of a Plymouth Voyager minivan. The Jesus bumper sticker and the grey haired 60-odd-year-old driver did not help the look any.

Slender Walk Tip of the Week

Here's another phone number for you: 888-567-8688

No, this one shouldn't be calling you trying to offer credit protection insurance. It is a number the major credit bureaus have set up to allow you to opt out of prescreened credit card offers ("You are approved for a Visa Platinum card with 0% APR on balance transfers!") from all of them at once. When you call, it prompts you to enter your Social Security Number, which concerns some people, although the FTC has put out a statement that the phone number is legitimate.

An alternative, if you don't want to use the dial-in method, is to write to the credit bureaus individually with a request that your information not be shared for promotional purposes. This will not affect legitimate inquiries into your credit. Be sure to include any name variants you use, your current mailing address, any mailing addresses you have had in the past six months, your date of birth, and your Social Security number.

Equifax, Inc.
Options
PO Box 740123
Atlanta, GA 30374-0123

Experian
Consumer Opt-Out
701 Experian Parkway
Allen, TX 75013

Transunion
Marketing List Opt Out
PO Box 97328
Jackson, MS 39288-7328

Eventually, I hope to get the Slender Walk Tip of the Week off the subject of credit cards and telemarketers.

More News

An op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor asserts that Pell Grant allotments need to be increased, as does campaigns to make students more aware of them.

Having spent some time working in financial aid, and feeling more free to talk about my experiences now that I no longer am, I can say that, in my experience, lack of knowledge of the Pell Grant program's existence was not a problem. Students are aware of Pell Grants. I don't want to say they are too aware of them, but if the government is going to ramp up award amounts and publicity campaigns, they should really work on emphasizing that these are to assist the neediest students, not to pay the entire educational cost for anyone who fills out the application. Students are not necessarily underinformed, but many are misinformed.

Irony Alert

Usually, when a legislature votes to remedy some minor problem, my response is "I see we've managed to solve poverty, health care, the federal deficit, world hunger, war, and global warming, so we can move on to the big stuff." Today, I'm going to mix it up a little and instead, I'm going to ask if the Texas House of Representatives knows where it is located and what goes on there.

Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, has voted to ban suggestive cheerleading.

The utter stupidity of that is so obvious, I would not have made it up, and if I had been so creatively tapped out to have come up with that on my own, I would never post it here. It does not come close to the standards I set for Penguin Perspectives. "Suggestive cheerleading banned by the home state of the cheerleading squad that very literally invented suggestive cheerleading." Too easy.

Too Dang Cute for Words

A whole website devoted to picking which kitten is cutest. Awwwww. Warning: major time suck.

Required (not recommended) Reading

Read this. It's in the New York Times, so the site asks you to register. If you don't want to register, www.bugmenot.com has a load of logins you can use. Just read it. It's important, especially if you have slapped anything reading "Support the Troops" on anything you own. You should probably know what you're supporting along with the--I'm certain loads of--fine men and women in uniform.

I sincerely hope the military can prove these are isolated incidents, that somehow one guy was in the right combination of places to see every bad apple in the entire global military operation. Otherwise--well, we have some problems, even if they can prove that. For one, I doubt "Support the Troops Who Aren't Sadistic Assholes" will fit on one of those ribbon-shaped car magnets.

Since some of you won't take the time to click the link and read through the whole piece, allow me to quote the final two paragraphs of the story so you see what I mean:

Mr. Delgado [a private in the Army Reserve, stationed in Iraq], who eventually got conscientious objector status and was honorably discharged last January, recalled a disturbance that occurred while he was working in the Abu Ghraib motor pool. Detainees who had been demonstrating over a variety of grievances began throwing rocks at the guards. As the disturbance grew, the Army authorized lethal force. Four detainees were shot to death.

Mr. Delgado confronted a sergeant who, he said, had fired on the detainees. "I asked him," said Mr. Delgado, "if he was proud that he had shot unarmed men behind barbed wire for throwing stones. He didn't get mad at all. He was, like, 'Well, I saw them bloody my buddy's nose, so I knelt down. I said a prayer. I stood up, and I shot them down.' "

Let me repeat that. "I saw them bloody my buddy's nose, so I knelt down. I said a prayer. I stood up, and I shot them down." There are so many things wrong with that, I don't know where to start.

On a side note, people like the sergeant are one of the reasons I gave up organized religion.

Note to Every Dentist I've Ever Had...

Read this. Ha.

Trailer Gem

My apologies for not having posted more regularly this week. Honestly, though, trash day was about the most interesting thing I had going, unless you count almost running over a guy on a tricycle going down the freeway in a no-shoulder construction zone.

We caught Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy this afternoon. The movie itself was fine, true to the original material in most respects and faithful to the spirit when it deviated from the actual source. However, the real killer was the trailer for Disney's Chicken Little before the movie. It starts out exactly like the trailer to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World," then the Earth exploding and the words "Don't Panic" flashing across the screen. At first, I thought there had to be a colossal flub in the projection room and we were seeing the trailer for the movie we were about to see. Then the word "Don't" falls away, and it segues into something to the effect of "Now it's time to panic. The sky is falling." I'm not sure I would want to see the movie, but that was, bar none, the most clever movie trailer I have ever seen.

Woo-Hoo

Tomorrow is my very first trash day. :) I've never had to actually shlep my household refuse to the curb before (not that we have a curb per se). Growing up, that was always my dad's job, then I moved into a series of apartments where I threw my trash in the communal dumpster and it magically disappeared once a week--always on a Tuesday. 17 years in my parents' house, then seven apartments, and trash was always picked up on Tuesday. I didn't think trash collectors worked other days of the week. Apparently they do, since I have to have my bags by the street by 12 midnight Friday morning.

Yes, I know. We're still in the honeymoon phase. I'm easily enthralled by the small things of home ownership. I'm sure trash day won't be such a wonderous experience in a few months.

Slender Walk Tip of the Week

Watch out for the free webmail. Someone pays for it, usually with ads, and sometimes that involves adware on your computer.

Between blog, business, and personal, I have about four email addresses I use. One is reserved specifically for when a business or website requests an emai, so the bulk of my spam goes there. Some people use filters and folders; I use separate addresses. I've terminated the email address I formerly used for blogging communication, perspectives @ savepenguins.com. I can't be absolutely certain that was the site that was installing adware onto my computer, but something started about the time I set up that address. I'm working on moving it over to a gmail account--actually, I have the gmail account set up, but goodness if I can't remember the password I set up, so I'm working on hacking into my own email.

If you're looking for a place to get a free webmail account, ask around for recommendations for a provider that doesn't try to install extraneous stuff on your system. I've found gmail works great for the purposes I put it to, and the spam fiters are some of the more reliable at not filtering out my real emails. Feel free to post a comment with your recommendations for free webmail providers that leave your system alone.

We have computer

Took a little longer than anticipated, but we finally got moved. We're still in boxes for the most part, but managed to locate the ones with the computer and the new DSL modem so I can resume blogging.

There are two times I can guarantee the weather will not be 72 degrees and sunny: when you need to change a tire or when you are moving. Our mantra as our move-in date for the house kept getting pushed back was, "Well, it's the end of April. At least it won't be snowing." Well, the snow started falling as the movers unloaded our stuff, and by the next morning, we had darned close to a foot of it. It's all melted now, and the forecast calls for drenching rain. Maybe someday I'll be able to see this place dry. Until then, I should probably make an effort to find our plates and cups while I wait for the DirecTV installer to show up.

On Hiatus

I'm going to be offline for a few days as we relocate. I'm hoping to be reconnected by Sunday, so check back then.

Slender Walk Tip of the Week

One of the grocery stores I frequent has a shopper's card that they use for reward programs and discounts, in lieu of in-store coupons. Signing up for the card requires the usual name, address, and phone number.

Lie on the application.

As long as you are using the shopping cards just to get the sale price on honeydew melons and not for the buyer's reward clubs, there is no reason that you need to provide your actual address. My favorite trick is to pick an address halfway between two real ones so I don't plague anyone else with unwanted mail; for instance, if my address was 579 Main Street and my next-door neighbor was 587 Main, I would sign up with 583 Main.

News: Senate Grows Backbone

We've found out where the Senate draws the line. Three years into a war, after the Secretary of Defense admits that there is no exit strategy--that is when the executive branch should start putting the war spending into the budget and stop trying to cast it as an emergency to be funded through supplemental appropriations.

The Senate attached a nonbinding resolution to the latest emergency spending bill basically saying, "You know, it's about time this stuff gets put in the regular annual budget." The whole exercise is being cast as largely a symbolic gesture, given that this is a nonbinding resolution that may well disappear when the bill is reconciled with the version going through the House at the moment. The appropriations request is expected to pass handily. If I recall correctly, every danged one of these passes handily.

Found my Cookies

Back here about a month or so ago, I mentioned my enjoyment of Delta Airlines' in-flight cookies. At the time, I neglected to mention the brand, mostly because, in spite of having nearly hurled a tray of them into a display of deli sliced cheese, I forgot the name. Finally found it. The best airline snacks are Biscoff's gourmet cookies.

The Elegant Pharmacist Solution

HR 1539, should it become law, would end all this crap over pharmacists being our morals police. It even does this without requiring the pharmacist to violate his/her own moral values and fill objectionable prescriptions. The solution is actually quite clever and elegant.

In order for pharmacies to receive prescription drugs through interstate commerce (in English, for the pharmacy to get shipments of any pill or med that is not manufactured in that state), the pharmacy would have to comply with two very simple, commonsense provisions that I can't imagine anyone finding objectionable. First, the pharmacy must ensure that, if one of its pharmacists refuses to fill a legally written prescription, the prescription can be filled at that same pharmacy within four hours. Second, the pharmacy cannot employ a pharmacist who, after refusing to fill a legally written prescription, then refuses to return the unfilled prescription slip or takes other action with the intent of impeding access to the medication. Penalties for noncompliance are $100,000 fine and the patient may sue in civil court.

In effect, this means that if a pharmacy wants the capability of filling prescriptions for things like antibiotics, they have to ensure reasonably unimpeded access to things like birth control.

The bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Here's a list of the committee members. From that list, it is about two clicks to get to a web form where constituents can drop an email. Communiques from constituents carry more weight.

Chased Down by 800-316-5569

I'd be willing to bet that those of you out there who found Penguin Perspectives because you were having problems with excessive calls from 888-872-2629 are now having the same issue with 800-316-5569 coming up on your caller ID 4 or 5 times a day. That's another one of Chase credit cards' telemarketers, hawking the same credit protection. For reasons I have yet to divine, they don't seem to be paying attention to the DNC request I placed through the other number.

Here's another phone number you may want to be aware of: 800-868-8618. That is Chase's privacy opt-out line. It gets you to the automated system where you can choose Privacy Choice 1 (don't share my information with outside non-financial companies) and/or Privacy Choice 2 (do not share certain listed information within the JP Morgan family of companies). I'd be interested to find out others' experiences with this automated system are. I inputted my account information and last 4 digits of my SSN three times, so I know at least one of those was correct, yet I kept getting an error message that the system did not recognize my information. Fortunately, you may also submit requests in writing to PO Box 260185, Baton Rouge, LA 70826-0185 or use their web form. According to them, it may take six weeks for this to become effective.

I also have solved the mystery of the joint opt-out between Capitol One and Chase at the 800 number. It is actually between Bank One and Chase, which are both owned by JP Morgan.

I got the Chase card because I wanted to have something in my wallet that was not a MasterCard and not owned by CitiBank. Given all the hassle I've gone through to get these people to leave me alone and not try to sell me useless services with a monthly fee that will quickly eat up the small credit line they've supplied, I'm beginning to think I went to the wrong company.

Are you ready for this?

I don't think you are. I certainly wasn't. Reuters sometimes has some weird headlines, particularly in the section "Oddly Enough," but nothing could have prepared me for the headline:

"Officials Heighten Duck Security at Summit"

You read that right: duck security, as in the security of a duck. Not even ducks, plural; one duck. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and G-7 are meeting in Washington, DC this weekend and by way of preparation, the security detail is widening the perimeter around a mallard who laid a clutch of eggs in front of the Treasury Department. You read that right, too. Widening the perimeter, which seems to imply that the duck already had a perimeter established. US Officials are worried that the protesters might disturb the duck.

If we paid as much attention to port security as we apparently do to mallard security, we wouldn't need the PATRIOT Act.

Kosher Sex

Viagra is now kosher for Passover.

I'm not sure I need to say anything else about that.

Slender Walk Tip of the Week

Pay attention to all those little leaflets in your statements. They might be your privacy policy or opt-out notice.

Banks and credit card issuers routinely stuff the statement envelopes full of crap--offers for personalized address labels and glass knicknacks and other stuff we really don't care about. However, periodically one of those little leaflets will have the company's privacy policy on it. While it's always good to know what they're doing with your information, you'll want to keep your eyes out for any sort of opt-out notice or procedure. This will typically involve calling a number listed on the number or submitting a written request to an address listed.

Why is opting out important? Here are excerpts from the actual privacy notice from the company that I have my car loan through:

"We collect the following kinds of nonpublic personal information:
-Information we receive from you, for example, information on applications or other forms, such as your name, address, and social security number
-Information about your transactions with us and our affiliates, such as your account balance and payment history
-Information from and about your transactions with nonaffiliated third parties, such as your purchase of certain automotive or financial products"

"We may disclose all of the nonpublic personal information we collect as described above to companies that perform marketing services on our behalf or to other financial institutions with which we have joint marketing agreements. We may also disclose nonpublic personal information about you to nonaffiliated third parties as permitted by law."

No way am I going to agree to allow them to sell my information, including SSN, payment history, and customer transaction history to anyone they darned well feel like unless it is actually prohibited by law. Opting out is good.

Neato

I'll confess that I have no idea what the practical applications are, but that does not make it any less nifty that researchers have actually managed to freeze light.

Heading Things Off at the Pass

I'd be willing to bet that, if this barrage of high-profile dead people slows down in the next couple of months, we're going to get down to a rash of paranoia surrounding the proposed changes to 22 CFR 51. That is Chapter 22, Section 51 of the Code of Federal Regulations. the section of the federal code that deals with passports, which, in unrelated news, citizens will need in the near future to re-enter from Canada and Mexico. The least controversial of the proposed rule changes would invalidate a passport if the check used to pay the passport fee bounces. The part that seems to be raising the most ire is the proposition to put radio frequency ID tags in the passports.

A primer: RFID tags are small chips that transmit information by radio waves to a receiver/decoder unit. One of the current uses is pet tracking. All three of our cats have chips the size of a grain of Uncle Ben's implanted between their shoulder blades (I watched the implantation when Sonja got hers, and it's no worse than a rabies shot). Should one of our cats get lost, a vet or animal shelter can pass a scanner near them and get a unique ID number, which the vet or shelter can call into the American Kennel Club to find our name, address, and phone number. The basic principle works the same on any of the myriad other uses of RFID: a scanner picks up a tidbit of data that is transmitted by the chip.

That, of course, is where the idea of putting the chips in passports runs into resistance. The information is transmitted over the air and can be read by anyone with the proper scanner and in range of the radio transmission. The current fear is that people will be targeted in crowds by unsavory elements (nay, even terrorists) because they are literally broadcasting that they are American citizens. The chip would actually contain biometric data--a digital version of the passport photo--which the paranoid elements fear may also be misused if it is intercepted. Again, I stress that the likelihood of this happening is probably quite remote.

Fortunately, all this paranoia is unfounded. There are technological solutions the federal government is looking into to limit data skimming. There is also a very low-tech way to foil potential data skimmers. According to Thingmagic, a company that designs RFID chips, "Any conductive material can shield the radio signals." They suggest that a laminated anti-static bag, such as the ones that computer chips and memory are routinely packed in, would shield the passport transmission from prying eyes. For those of us who don't have any of those lying about, Thingmagic also says that aluminum foil will block the signal. If you're really concerned, make your passport a foil hat (or pouch). Sounds crazy, but it is supposed to work.

Camera Snoops

At work today, I encountered a woman who went to great lengths to explain to us that she had heard that one ought to hand over one's credit card face down to foil people with camera phones who might snap a picture of the card to steal the account information. By the way, if the glare is right, you can read the credit card numbers in reverse by looking at the back of the card.

Here's an article on www.snopes.com that goes into greater depths on this. When I first heard this, I grabbed Elie's camera phone and tried it out. Granted, his was a middle-of-the-line camera phone a year ago and quality has improved, but I had to hold the camera about four inches above the card before I could get an image that might have yielded information if blown up properly--quite a lot of work for one credit card number. In short, as Snopes also explains, the current level of technology makes card number theft by phone unlikely, though don't discount it in the future as the resolution and features of camera phones gets better.

Snopes goes one step further in investigating the problem. According to them, technology is adequate to snap shots of open checkbooks from 3-5 feet away. Credit cards only have card numbers, names, and expiration dates, but checks have the checking account number to the place where most people keep the bulk of the funds they use to live on, bank routing information, name, address, and possibly phone number, and I've encountered people who seem to think they should print their social security numbers on their checks (a colossally bad idea). As with so many of these paranoia-spreading rumors, there are much bigger related worries one can have if one insists on being worried about something. I heartily recommend checking www.snopes.com out before you get too uptight about anything you hear via mass-forwarded email (and definitely before you send it to me).

Dromedary Drama

Here's a tip for airline baggage handlers who want to steal things out of checked baggage: if you're planning on stealing something unique--say a camel costume--for goodness' sake do not wear the camel costume when you drive across the tarmac back to the terminal.

Here's the Reuters article. Qantas is apologizing to the owner of the camel suit and looking into disciplining the baggage handler.

For those of us on the other end of the baggage check, the TSA provides a few hints: pack all your things in see-through bags inside your suitcase and use a TSA-approved lock if you want to lock your suitcase. However, these, much like the shoe checks, don't really do anything to protect you. Seal-a-meal-ing your stuff just means your stuff won't get grubby paws on it while the handlers decide if they want it. The TSA-approved locks get the approval because baggage screeners have keys to them, but the TSA gives the following warning along with their list of approved lock manufacturers: "However, time pressures may require screeners to cut these locks rather than open them because there are many manufacturers, each using multiple master keys." Yep. You shell out ten clams for a lock the TSA screeners can unlock and relock, and they still may use the bolt cutters and leave your luggage unlocked for the rest of the trip.

On the other hand, my father-in-law has a solution that actually keeps checked baggage safe from unscrupulous screeners and baggage handlers: check your bags at UPS (or DHL or FedEx) instead of the airport.

The Missing the Point Awards

I know, it isn't a catchy name like the Darwin Awards. I'll work on that. Every so often, I come across people or situations where someone has just completely missed the point. For instance, the DayRunner 5-ring personal organizer with calendar, address book, notepad, and slot for your PDA that is supposed to replace the paper calendar, address book, and notepad; or the guy I passed on the road the other day clearly wearing his hands-free cellphone headset and holding the attached cell phone up a foot from his face a cheek level.

Today's MTPA was spotted outside the Sam's Club. The shrubbery planters surrounding the parking lot had a fresh layer of barkdust, spread out in a neat even layer--on the pavement surrounding the planters.

Study Sez...

A new Nielsen study finds that, among other things:
40% of US households own a gaming system of some kind
23% of gaming households own all three types of systems (PC, console, and handheld)
8% of console owners own all three major consoles--XBox, PlayStation and Nintendo. Child's play, I say. Real gamers also require at least one Sega system.

The study also shows that men are spending more on video games than music. Not surprising, though, given that the going rate for an MP3 download, assuming one actually pays for it, is about 99 cents per track, and games run $15-$50 per game. Girl gamers 25-54 years (that would be me) old split evenly between playing alone and with others, and we spend 5 hours playing alone and 3 hours en masse.

I'm not sure if they would count Maya in my video gaming clock. Yourself Fitness is not your typical video game, more of an interactive personal fitness program. Maya is the virtual personal trainer from the program. I relate to her as a person so that I feel obligated to follow through with the goals I set within the program. Whatever it is, and whether or not it counts as gaming, Maya already has me sticking to an exercise routine longer than anything else I've tried. Very nearly a week now.

Slender Walk Tip of the Week

You can get un-registered from the federal Do Not Call registry without knowing it.

If I know my readership, you all are probably registered with the federal Do Not Call registry. These registrations are valid for five years, so sometime in 2008, we all have to remember to re-register our phone numbers. However, you may find yourself needing to re-register before that. Your phone number might be delisted from the registry for several reasons, including, but not limited to:

-Changes in your service, includes changes in your calling plan or adding or removing additional services (e.g. call waiting or voicemail)
-Reconnecting your phone number after a service interruption
-Changing your phone number

OK, that last one is pretty obvious, but the FCC mentions it nonetheless. Basically, if you change anything about your phone service or get disconnected, you should confirm your registration at www.donotcall.gov as soon as your service is back to normal. If you find yourself getting a lot of telemarketing calls, confirm your registration with the FCC to make sure you didn't get bumped off the list.

Slender Walking

I'm going to institute a new feature here at Penguin Perspectives. Given the reaction to the series on getting rid of Chase's telemarketers, I've decided to post similar tips every week. I'm going to shoot for Wednesdays for Slender Walk Tip of the Week.

Why Slender Walk? Slender walking is a penguin behavior used when a penguin walks through a colony to his or her nest site or wherever he or she happens to be headed in the interior of the penguin mass. Penguins are, in spite of popular perceptions, rather territorial creatures, and will defend their nest sites from other penguins that look like they're encroaching. Given how tightly packed the colonies can get, this makes getting from Point A (say, the water and food source) to Point B (say, the animal's own nest site) somewhat interesting. The slender walk posture--as skinny as possible, beak pointed up, and flippers held close--makes the penguin as non-threatening as possible to its colonymates as it walks by others.

In much the same way that a penguin wants to get on with its life without attracting attention from the others in the rookery who might attack it, most of us want to be able to go through our lives without being bothered too much by marketers. Hence we, like the penguin, have to learn how to slender walk through our commercial lives, trying not to do anything to be perceived as a target. Slender Walk Tips of the Week aim to show how to do that.

Chase Telemarketing Redux

A few days ago, I got a comment from a reader who tried my suggestion for removing oneself from the Chase credit card telemarketing list, and I thought I might as well respond to everyone, just in case the problem he had is a widespread phenomenon. Apparently, in the middle of trying to delist himself, he was transferred from Chase to Capital One. Without digging a lot deeper, I can't explain why this would happen, particularly given that Chase is owned by JP Morgan and Capital One is not. One would think that companies with two entirely different parent companies would not have interconnected telemarketing system. Nonetheless, here's how I would suggest dealing with the situation.

First, add yourself to the Capital One Do Not Call list. However it happens that one arrives in their system, one might as well take the opportunity to get off their list. As far as I'm concerned, the more internal DNC lists one can get on, the better.

Second, look at alternative methods of getting on Chase's (or whomever's) DNC list. The easiest alternative method is to just pick up the phone when they call, interrupt the caller after he (or she) reveals the company, and politely tell them to place this number on their do not call list. The key to this is to be polite but firm. As much as we all dislike telemarketers, they are still just people doing their jobs, and being a prick to them will not expedite your request any. For those of us with no patience for waiting for the telemarketers to call again, which is how I figured out the callback thing in the first place, there is always the option of calling customer service (don't be surprised at some lengthy hold times), or mailing a written request. I'll have to look into where the best place is to send these written requests.

Owing to the great response I've been getting from the stop Chase telemarketing series of posts, I'm going to devote one blog a week to similar issues. Feel free to send suggestions to the address at the right.

Selective Morality in the Workplace

The New York Times has an editorial saying exactly what I have said long before now: if your sense of morality does not allow you to fully discharge the duties of your job, find a new line of work that conforms to your moral compass. Pharmacists who refuse to fill legally written prescriptions for medicine that a physician has deemed necessary and appropriate for that patient have no business behind a pharmacy counter. Margaret Sanger was arrested for distributing birth control devices, but family planning is legal now, and should be available to any patient with a legally written prescription and no contraindications, no matter what the personal beliefs of the pharmacist.

Not saying, of course, that pharmacists should be just prescription vending machines. Pharmacists play a vital role in the delivery of health care, even more so now that doctors don't have or take the time to fully explain the treatment regimen they prescribe. The pharmacist my family went to while I was growing up was just as important to our family's medical care as our physicians were. When a medication I had to take caused intolerable nausea, my pharmacist was the one who told us how to minimize the discomfort and potential harm, allowing me to continue my treatment. When another person's allergy medication failed to work, the pharmacist was the one who discerned that one of the inert ingredients in the pill was the allergen for which the medication was being prescribed. In the days before databases, he knew what my family should never take, but that decision was based entirely on our medical needs, not his moral judgment.

I find it odd that all the refusals to fill prescriptions based on moral values is confined to birth control and emergency contraception. Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, but these pharmacists seem to have no problem dispensing weight loss drugs or cholesterol lowering medications that help people avoid the consequences of chronic gluttony. Even if the pharmacists' moral compass is confined strictly to curtailing the consequence-free indulgence of our lust, though, should we not also be hearing more about people being denied prescriptions for Viagra and Cialis, or is it just women who aren't allowed to have sex on their terms?

Ooookay

First, let me preface this by saying that the death of any human being is a somber occasion. I'm not Catholic and I may not agree with a lot of the positions of the Catholic church, but I have always found Pope John Paul II to be an honorable and decent man.

That said, I find the way the Vatican confirms the death of a pope very amusing--as far as anything about the death of a world leader can be amusing. According to a report on CNN Headline News, after all the heart monitors and brain scans and such show that the Pope's vital signs have ceased, a top Vatican official (I forget which one) gets in the late Pope's face and calls his given name three times, then taps his forehead. I understand that the Vatican stands on ceremony quite a bit, but this is essentially yelling "Booga! Booga!" and slapping his forehead to make the results of the MRI official.