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.

And that is how I lost track of three and a half hours.

Remind me to write about the horrible TV segments that I saw tonight at some point (ABC's "Just For Laughs" is far more disturbing than funny), but in the meantime here is a humorous excerpt from tonight's #db chat:

[01:04] <Junta> Ku: so how did your dihydrogen monoxide testing go? ;P
[01:04] <Wes> oh yeah
[01:04] <Wes> CHEMISTRY
[01:05] <Junta> We must know whether or not you were successful in banning the use of dihydrogen monoxide
[01:05] <Wes> wait why would we ban that
[01:05] <Wes> we need that
[01:05] <Wes> otherwise drunk assholes who fall into rivers would live 🙁
[01:06] <Junta> Wes: Easy, we shove 'em off a bridge as an alternative
[01:06] <Wes> Junta: I thought we were talking about chemistry
[01:06] <Wes> that is PHYSICS!

Yes.

In other news, "The IT Crowd" is flipping brilliant.

So there is the cake, which mostly followed the template of a rum cake but included some notable recipe changes (insofar as I was following a recipe, anyway) -- namely the replacement of coconut rum with dark rum and coconut cream pudding with vanilla pudding. I also put about 1/4 cup of beer into the batter. Aside from the cake sticking to the pan a bit -- likely because I didn't grease the pan well enough (the icky feel of the Crisco made me want to vomit, so I got that part over with as quickly as possible; also note that I broke the cake in three places when trying to get it out) -- it turned out smashingly. I think in the future I'll modify my recipe to include more rum and sugar and forego the glaze since the coconut rum isn't exceedingly rummy and the glaze kind of limits the extra sugary goodness to the outer edges, but I'm still proud of my first cake-baking experiment.

I'm a little disappointed with my mother's reaction, though. I mean, I wasn't expecting her to be super enthusiastic or dance a little jig because I baked her a cake -- she bakes cakes all the time, so it's not like I expected her to regard it as a super amazing feat -- but the way she practically scoffed at it irks me. She'll grant that it tastes pretty good and that I did a pretty good job for a first-timer -- because it does, and I did, damnit! -- but she still sort of implied that my cake is inferior because I didn't follow a recipe to the letter (heaven forbid someone try to do something different!) and because it doesn't taste exactly like a cake she would make. In short, her response pretty much exemplified everything that I despise about her. So while I actually kind of enjoyed making the cake and will probably make another (or a pie, or cookies!) sometime in the near future -- and this is a ways off, but perhaps I will even send folks baked goods during the winter holidays! -- I doubt I'd ever go out of my way to make a cake for her again.

But maybe I should bake one for my own birthday next week! I wonder if triple sec would work well in a cake...