Spammers 518, Eddie 0

Spam today reputed to be from “Aegis R. Blackberry”--sounds like a Groucho Marx role--and “Fascists G. Cotter”. How do they generate these things?

ee-yikes

And Fred Ebrahimi would have us believe print is dead.: "'Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Last Himalayan Kingdom' weighs in at over 130 pounds and 5 x 7 feet. "

Officially done!

I've completed all my Christmas shopping!

But I still have to wrap everything. How I'm supposed to do that when TOB&C all but never leaves the house beats the living bickety outta me.

Magnificent name

Per the NYTimes obit of Harold von Braunhut, who sold "sea monkeys" and X-Ray Specs through ads in comic books, his widow's name is Yolanda Signorelli-von Braunhut. My, doesn't that just roll off the tongue?

Final score

Spam 199, Legitimate e-mails 21

The ACME of success

From theNew Scientist's annual Feedback competition: "Coyotus Interruptus A momentary suspension of the law of gravity, usually accompanied by the sudden realisation of impending gravitational acceleration. The term is derived from the name of its discoverer, Wile E. Coyote (Carnivorous vulgaris), who often observed the phenomenon when, in pursuit of Road Runner (Accelerati incredibilis), he was propelled at high velocity from a precipice of sedimentary rock by an apparatus of his own contrivance or by a commercial product, such as Fleet-Foot Jet-Propelled Tennis Shoes (ACME, Inc).
Jacqueline Jaeger Houtman, Madison, Wisconsin, US "

Thanks to Dan Goodman for mentioning this in his blog.

Ever yet more cryptic spam subjects

The new fashion in spam subject lines, at least the ones that get past my spam filters, seems to be of the form "Re: [One word of gibberish in all caps], [two or three words randomly stolen from somewhere].

This morning I have, so far, "Re: YRLUOW, strangely: the procurators" and "Re: DOSNTVJ, in a contralto". Also, the usual sellers of body modifications and other enhancements, pharmaceuticals, and hotel heiresses.

When in doubt, blame it on IT

From the NYTimes article about the charges filed against Michael Jackson for child molestation:

"[Santa Barbara County District Attorney Thomas]Sneddon said he had been waiting [to file charges] for the Santa Barbara County Superior Court...to get its Web site for information about the case operating. 'Even now they're having technical difficulties,' Mr. Sneddon said, 'but I told the court that I was not going to wait any longer and that we were going to file these charges today.'"

The foot in Donald Rumsfeld's mouth

From the Guardian:

The US defence secretary scooped the Plain English Campaign's premier Foot In Mouth trophy for his 62-word attempt to clarify a point to a defence department meeting: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know".

The rest of the story is worth reading as well.

Words designers dread

Our sales manager came into my office today with a comment on our new logo: "My wife says she liked the M in the old logo better."

Metallic metaphors

Somebody called "hank" has sent one of my work e-mail addresses a message with the subject line "It makes me feel like gold."

Huh. Isn't "blue steel" the usual metaphor?

Spam, spam, spam

Spam is bad enough.

I got all my spam in triplicate this morning. Took an hour and a half to get to the most recent, which were also the ones that had to be dealt with.

Score: Spam 382, real e-mail 4.

The manual I'm working on says you get to the Filter function by clicking on the Find button. A page later it says you get to the Find function by pressing the Filter button.

You can wait here in the sitting room, or you can sit here in the waiting room.

Sigh.

Another iPod accessory.

Okay, it looks slick, but do I really need to spend another hundred bucks to replace accessories I have that seem to work just fine? (Note: the answer might be yes, if the thing is less static-prone than what I have now.)

Good, a print project.

Just got a print project to do--in Word, of all the terrible things.

At least I don't have to fool with the web site for a while. I can only stand looking at that for so long. Limited variety is by far the worst thing about my job.

Our head sales guy also wants me to send a new distributor our logo, for her to put on her business card.

I'm sending her an .eps file, because that's what I'd want, and I tried to make clear in my cover letter that her printer will probably want it too. I'm still half expecting to have to send her a .bmp, though.

Quark Forums missing--Eddie loses it.

Quark: Products - QuarkXPress User Resources: "Note: User forums are being restructured. Check back periodically for updates on this effort. "

I used to be a regular contributor to Quark's user forums, until Quark took them down--on the very same day they announced the release of version 6. Maybe I'm just too cynical for my own good, but it's hard for me not to suspect that Quark really didn't want to support an unmoderated channel for comment about their product.

I've e-mailed Quark on several occasions to ask when the forums might return. I have to say the response has been somewhat unsatisfactory. Their regular customer service people directly quote web pages but say little else, and they're purposefully vague about a timeline.

I did a little better with a sales rep I met at the "Driven by Design" seminar in October. He didn't have an answer when I questioned him on the spot (no surprise, since at the time he'd only been working for Quark for a week), but I followed up with him by e-mail and got this response:

"What has happened is Quark moved all there servers etc. whitch brought down the forums down. I have been told that the forums will be back up Jan 2004 ."

Now that's about the lamest excuse I've ever heard. On the plus side, at least there's a stated time line.

Well, duh!

No relief expected from spam

In other headlines: Phoenix anticipates hot summer; Cats shed all over the place; Bush optimistic about Iraq

Heavy Metal Madness: Seeing Pink Elephants

Amusing article by Gene Gable with many illustrations from the 60s and before.

On the second page of this article, it's noted that Ben Franklin compiled a list of slang terms for "drunk." I'm all for reviving "nimptopsical."

Spam of the Day

From: "Ruffs E. Tropospheres"
Subject: My breakup letter to you..... kfkIG VBrKC

Foes of Bush Enlist Google to Make Point

Hee hee hee. (requires free registration)

Dinner plans

Just got a call from the old ball and chain; he wanted to remind me that we're expecting a guest for dinner tonight.

Note: the word remind, in this context, is not meant to imply that I've ever heard we were expecting anybody. We'll probably take her out to dinner; we may bring her by to meet the cats.

I take it back--once I got the knack of using the cheapo barcode reader I found it much easier to deal with. It doesn't work with about 10-12% of the items I've tried to scan so far, for various reasons, but that's probably bearable. Maybe.

Yay, I got the barcode reader for my database software! That's the good news. The bad news is that it's a cheap barcode reader. It really doesn't work very well.
Oh well, if I only have to enter .x sku's as opposed to x sku's, that'll be worth it.

Strangely, the Blogger interface works better in Safari than in Mac IE. Wish they'd implement the link feature properly though.

Drat. My song title's already taken.

My In-Laws Are All Outlaws