When we got home from our vacation Friday, I checked the phone messages (only four – two junk and two for an event that’s now past), and turned on the TV (DVR 99% full!) I could delete a few shows we saw during the week, which got it down to 92%, and I thought I’d watch some while unpacking. But then something fell off the back of this humongous piece of furniture where the television resides and unplugged the TV. This meant moving the furniture, which meant removing all the LPs (yes, LPs), VHS tapes and DVDs from the beast, plus photos and other items; fortunately, the two drawers, each with dozens of tapes, pull out. I could plug in the TV, and I recovered my cribbage board which had fallen previously, but this meant that I had to also recover…the Barney DVD that had fallen some months earlier. By accident. Really.
Unlike the Barney cassette, which I don’t mind, the DVD is a game show with an audience of children…and adults. There’s something really creepy about WATCHING grown-ups feign (I think it’s feigning) the same enthusiasm as their kids. I mean, it’s OK for them to BE that enthusiastic; I just don’t want to see it.
***
Checked my e-mail. 524 new work e-mails. One was a link to this stupid internal Microsoft video for stupid Vista:
I also discovered that the search committee I’m on for the PR position in my office has four interviews on Wednesday and Thursday; so kind of them not to schedule them for Monday. I also found out, in an e-mail that only arrived Friday afternoon, that a presentation that a colleague and I offered to the Association of Small Business Development Centers was selected for us to present at the ASBDC 2008 Annual Conference: Blogging with the SBDC – Implementing Web 2.0 Technologies at Your Center. Which means I’ll be going to Chicago in September. I’ve never actually been to Chicago; being at O’Hare does not count, so that’s rather cool.
***
I’ve been trying to catch up on reading some blogs. Ken Levine wants people to vote on some komedy kontest. I learned from Mark Evanier that Kelly Bishop was in the original cast of A Chorus Line; she already looks like a younger version of Emily Gilmore from Gilmore Girls. Evanier also has a cat named Lydia, darn those Marx Brothers. And I’ve discovered how Mike Sterling posts every day:
***
Sometimes, I just love spam. In addition to all those kind offers of getting me free money or increasing the size of…well, you know, there are these:
Dear Gmail Account Users,
We hereby inform you that our system has developed database error so we need to access all accounts in other to save and keep them active even till after a new database is introduced to Gmail .
Gmail Team advices you update your account details to verify and keep them valid and undeleted.
PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH THE FOLLOWING
USERNAME:……………………………
PASSWORD:……………………………
VERIFY PASSWORD:………………….
ALTERNATE EMAIL ADRESS:……….
DATE OF BIRTH:…………………………
COUNTRY/TERRITORY:…………………
After the details are given your account will be upgraded and safe for your use.
YOU WILL BE ABLE TO CONTINUE USING YOUR E-MAIL AS SOON AS THE MAIL IS RENEWED AND ACTIVE.
To reply just “CLICK” on the REPLY tab in your browser.
Please bear with us.
I didn’t need the REAL notice from Gmail – Warning: This message may not be from whom it claims to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender with any personal information. – to detect it as fraudulent. I’m guessing though that if they actually got native writers/speakers of English, they might fool a few more people. “our system has developed database error”? “we need to access all accounts in other”? “keep them active even till after”? Spammers, thank you for today’s entertainment.
ROG<
A Potpourri of Questions
Please answer any that strike your fancy.
1. Mr. Burgas found this article about a library dropping the Dewey Decimal System in favor of shelving “by topic, similar to the way bookstores arrange books”. This hurts my head, not because I’m married to Dewey – my library actually uses Library of Congress – but because shelving by DDC or LoC IS arranging by topic. But maybe I’m missing something here.
a. How are the books, etc., in the libraries you use arranged?
b. How would you prefer they be arranged?
2. Several folks have linked to the story about e-mail bankruptcy, i.e., to say, “My e-mail’s overwhelmed me. I give up. Let’s start over.”
a. On average, how many e-mails do you get a day at work? At home? How many sit in that limbo-land at any given time, waiting for some sort of action? For me it’s about 150 at work, 30 at home. Occasionally, I’ll get rid of work e-mail at home. At any given time, I have between 60-150 work e-mails and 10 home e-mails waiting for me to do SOMETHING. Sometimes, it’s posting on a blog. The solutions in the article, phone calls and Instant Messaging would not work for me AT ALL; they’d be too distracting. How about for you? And how’s your spam content? The so-called king of spam was arrested this week. About 2% of my work e-mail and 10% of my personal e-mail is spam in a given week.
3. The Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez ticked off some people when as a runner, he misled an opposing fielder, noted here. Was this OK, or out of bounds? Deception has always been a part of the game. A pitcher’s pickoff move. Hidden ball tricks. An outfielder pretending to catch a ball to keep runners at bay. Phantom double plays, where the middle infielder’s foot is in the general vicinity of second base. The A-Rod incident didn’t bother me at all.
***
Prove the world is flat. Win $5,000!
ROG