What is up with me receiving upwards of 100 e-mails per day that try to sell me on products to "turn my trouser mouse into a monster?" Luckily the spam filter catches most of it, but still -- it's bloody ridiculous. Case in point:

from: Eliah Lillenes <eliah [email protected]>
to: [email protected],
date: Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 3:12 PM
subject: Develop exceptional length and girth

Lynn moaned in pleasure and cried that the feeling of my longer, thicker tool in her felt amazing.

http://www.lokivae.com/
Develop exceptional length and girth

Is that narrative excerpt really supposed to sell me on the product? Are men so obsessed with increasing the length and girth of their junk that they welcome these deluges of augmenting solicitations? On the one hand I guess that people are annoyed by the spam -- hence the creation of spam filters -- but on the other I think that if a significant number of guys weren't actually biting companies wouldn't keep sending out these messages ad nauseam. And that's kinda sad and gross and pathetic.

I almost stole some boxes today!

See, I'm almost ready to mail out this year's round of holiday packages (holiday cards probably won't go out for another week and a half), so I ventured out to the post office today in search of boxes. Now, I have boxes here -- lots -- but I've also heard that they have free mailing materials down there. So this year, rather than emptying whatever I already have in the boxes and stripping them of previous labels and scribbling out stamps and business logos and whatnot, I figured I'd make it easy and pick up a few free boxes and mailing envelopes from the post office.

Obviously, I wasn't clear on how the free materials thing works -- or the fact that the post office carries two different types of materials. The priority mail flat rate boxes are indeed free, and can in fact be ordered on the US Postal Service website at no cost (though I imagine there's a shipping charge somewhere). However, there are other materials that cost money... and given the first sentence of this entry, you can probably guess which kind I had in my possession when I left without paying. (more...)

So we were just watching a bit of "The Science Bowl" on one of the local education channels. Seeing the show always brings back some fond memories for me -- I was one of the alternates for our middle school team (wow, that was like 15 years ago!), which basically meant that I got to miss classes and accompany the team to games, where the other alternates and I got to watch via closed circuit TV and eat cookies backstage -- but that's not what motivated me to post about it. No, I'm posting because of the sheer ridiculousness of the answer I just heard.

See, Mr. Z (the host; good ol' Mr. Z is still at it!) paraphrased the Alvarez hypothesis -- leaving out the relevant bit of info, of course -- and asked the contestants to note which heavenly bodies the hypothesis proposed was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. And immediately one of the teams buzzed in and gave the following answer:

Angels.

They even repeated it.

ANGELS.

You should have seen the look on Mr. Z's face. Or on mine, for that matter, at least for all of the two nanoseconds it lasted before I collapsed into a maniacal fit of laughter.

Incidentally, we had to turn from it because the teams ring in via a bell, which caused poor Bacardi to bark and twirl like mad because he kept thinking someone was at the door.

Angels killed the dinosaurs.

I thought I'd seen it all when it came to the 419 scam e-mails, but this one just floored me:

Dear Friend,

Greetings.Andrew Anderson is my name,an American Soldier in the US Military serving in the 3rd Infantry Division,Patrols Tal Afar, in Iraq.I am seeking your assistance to evacuate the sum of $2,570,000 to the States or any safe country of your choice as far as I can be assured that it will be safe in your care until i complete my service here.

SOURCE OF MONEY:
When on Special Patrol duties on the 24Th of April earlier this year,we found $100m and 90m euros in 31 containers and this money had been hidden behind the false wall of a house searched by my unit based on prior information.You can go to this web link to read about events that took place here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988455.stm

I do not know for how long i will remain here as I have been lucky to have survived 2 suicide bomb attacks by Pure Divine intervention.If it might be of interest to you then endeavor to contact me.

Email: [email protected]
Respectfully,
Lt. Andrew Anderson

With all of the real soldiers actually dying over there as part of this moronic war, I can't believe the scammers would cross that line and actually expect to get some takers. But then again, maybe there's some ultra-patriotic idiot out there who would do anything -- even fall for such an obvious scam -- in his zeal to "support the troops."

And speaking of obvious scams, here's another message that I received tonight: (Read more...)

This morning I woke up to find this orange lightning bolt indicator on my laptop going nuts. My still half-asleep mind immediately began pondering its meaning:

Is my computer trying to summon the Flash? Does Freakazoid require my help battling Cybermen somewhere in the Internets? Did Windows download an automatic update that gives me advance thunderstorm warnings?!

Not really, of course -- it was pretty obvious that something was up with the battery -- which became even more apparent when the computer died as I went to check the connection to the adapter. So after I plugged it back in and lamented the loss of my Spider-Man and Transformers personality quiz results (I got Doc Ock and Trailbreaker, respectively), I turned the laptop back on -- whereupon Windows informed me that the battery was IRREVERSIBLY DECEASED (or something similarly distressing and in all capital letters). So yeah, my laptop battery is dead -- not that I ever used it all that much anyhow.

I'd still like to get a new one, though, if only so that I don't have this gaping hole in the bottom of the machine that oh-so-conveniently happens to include the area where one of the four rubber feet used to be and leaves the machine lightly balancing on three prongs. (Of course, I could rectify this problem by just leaving the dead battery in, but then I'd run the risk of the machine trying to eat my brAAAiNsssss. The constantly flashing thunderstorm warning was also pretty bloody annoying -- before I finally removed the blasted thing I took to covering it up with a package of chewing gum.) Unfortunately, in addition to costing $165.99, the only Dell battery available for my laptop has absolutely horrible reviews. Seriously, go look -- they're horrible. Shit, even the power adapter got horrible reviews. How do you even make a horrible power adapter? Seems like that should be a pretty straightforward product to me.

Ideally I'd buy a better third-party battery, except Dell doesn't recommend using any batteries other than Dell batteries. It doesn't necessarily mean that other batteries wouldn't work -- they probably would, and I wouldn't get one unless it mentioned my model anyway -- but it does mean that I couldn't bitch at Dell if it exploded in my face or something. Not that I'd necessarily be alive to bitch if it exploded in my face, but yeah. (Then again, if Nathan Petrelli can be at about ground zero when a WMD goes off and survive, who knows? 😛 ) There would also be the problem of the missing rubber foot, which I'm guessing only Dell batteries made for these laptop models have. There is absolutely no reason to have the goddamned rubber foot on the battery.

Dell is totally fucking with me.