Spam and Other Products

Hello everyone!

Well, it's officially over.

After over a year and a half of mostly undisturbed email enjoyment on my Yahoo email account, the spam has finally caught up to me.

I was careful. When I first signed up for my new account (after the Yahoo bastards dumped my first account for reasons never explained to me), I made sure I didn't give out my new address to anyone who wasn't an actual person that I knew. If I had to provide an email address for something, I made sure to use my crappy Hotmail address that I check once a week or so to dump all the spam. This system worked great for over a year or so.

But somehow my Yahoo address finally made its way out into the spamosphere. Once that Pandora's Box was opened, there was no turning back. Now I find myself up to my cyberneck in advertisements for debt consolidation, Viagra, mortgage refinancing, free Playstations and Xboxes, and of course, penis enlargement. I expect to be informed any day now about my long-lost distant relative who died and left me millions of dollars in a Nigerian bank account.

(It's worth pointing out that my spell check highlighted "viagra" in the preceding paragraph. I checked the spelling suggestions for the hell of it expecting to see "Niagara" or "viable" or something similar, but instead the only suggestion was "Viagra" with a capital "V" and not the lower-case "v" that I had originally used. This means that "Viagra" is in the Google spell check dictionary, even though brand names such as "Hotmail" aren't. I guess even spell checks aren't immune to the influence of the pharmaceutical-industrial complex.)

My Yahoo account gets as much spam as my Hotmail account, except now there are also emails I want and need to read mixed in with the spam. The only reason I haven't switched to Gmail yet is: a) I don't want to go through the trouble of changing my address, b) my spam filter seems to be working pretty well, knock on wood, although a couple weeks ago I sent an email to myself, from my same Yahoo address and it was even sent straight to the spam folder, and c) I already have three email addresses (four if you count my MySpace space).

I thought all these modern "conveniences" were supposed to make our lives better. How does more complicated equal better?

Here's another question: Am I the only one who thinks the word "product" has suddenly become alarmingly way overused throughout our society? It's now the latest fad to use the word "product" in addition to or place of anything that already has a name. This way, the focus isn't on what the "product" really is called because the name might clue someone in to what exactly is being pimped to them. For example, toilets are no longer toilets, they're "toilet products". Financial advice is no longer financial advice, it's an "advice product". Drops that look and smell like diarrhea are no longer drops that look and smell like diarrhea--they're "products" that are "now available for non-governmental sale." Even meat in a can is a "potted meat food product".

This really bugs the "Doo Drops" out of me. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but people should just call whatever they're calling whatever it's called! You know the saying: "A rose by any other name..." Either that or: "You can't polish a turd."

Regardless, I hope you've enjoyed reading this blog product.

Rob

Photo Caption Contest #3

Hello everyone!

Well, it's that time again. That's right--it's time for a new photo caption contest! The last one admittedly didn't go so well thanks partly to a formatting snafu on my part. There was one submission on my MySpace space that's just too grisly to reprint here. Now that you're curious, you can read it by clicking here.

So let's try another one, shall we? Here it is:

This is a once-in-a-lifetime photo of Jimmie Walker from TV's "Good Times" standing next to transsexual rightwing "pundit" Ann Coulter. Which one is the bigger joke? That's for you, the viewer to decide!

I look forward to reading your submissions. This time the winner gets a fabulous all expenses paid 15 month vacation to Baghdad courtesy of Robert Gates and our friends at the U.S. Army. Be all that you can be--because you'll never amount to anything, anyway.

Rob

A Grab-bag of Tasty Nuggets of Fun and Violence

Hello everyone!

I figured I owe all both of my readers a new column since I haven't posted anything original for a couple weeks. There are a lot of things I want to talk about, but I don't want to say much about any of them, so this posting is going to be a grab-bag of sorts. Sound good? No? Well, too bad.

First, this has been a great couple weeks for me in terms of good movie watching. I saw The Corporation, Why We Fight, and Jesus Camp, three fantastic documentaries that everyone must see. I also saw the docudrama Fast Food Nation (the book was nonfiction but the movie added characters and a plot), Babel, and Stranger than Fiction, and highly recommend each of them. Six fantastic movies in two weeks. Now you know why I haven't been posting to my blog!

On the other hand, I also sat through National Lampoon's Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj. This steaming turd ended up being one of the worst movies I've ever seen, almost as bad as Be Cool. Actually, this was worse than Be Cool, but less painful to watch since my expectations were much lower going into it. The only redeeming factor was this one exchange of dialog between Pipp Everett, the Earl of Grey (The stereotypical snooty British Royalty assclown) and Taj Mahal Badalandabad (The stereotypical Indian doofus who became the stereotypical cool leader of the stereotypical loser misfits that stereotypically rise up against all odds to defeat the stereotypically arrogantly rich bourgeoisie in a stereotypical athletic and academic competition in which the winner stereotypically gets to run some stereotypical college council). Here's the exchange:

Pipp: Let's settle this like my ancestors did!
Taj: You want to exploit me economically?

There you go. However, I would've enjoyed it much more if I hadn't already seen it several times in the previews. In fact, I think that exchange was even playing in the background of the menu screen on the DVD. One clever line loaded with social commentary does not in itself make a good film.

Wow, I just ended up writing 2-3 times as much about one crappy movie than the six good ones. Hey, I'm not a "glass half empty" sort of person. I'm a "What the hell is this crap in the glass?" sort of person!

Speaking of which, I am now the Vice President of student government at Lane. Don't get all excited--it's not nearly as impressive as it sounds. First off, I'm the third VP we've had this school year. That's only because the first VP had to step down, and then later the President had to step down, so the second VP took his spot. So I'm pretty much a VP by default. Secondly, the school year is winding down, so I'm only going to be VP for six weeks or so. Third, I won't be doing anything different than before except heading up our weekly meetings and going to one or two additional meetings. Still, I guess it's something "impressive" that I can put on a resume as long as I don't explain the details.

An update on the debit card battle: I'm now part of a committee that will make a recommendation to the administration in May. My role is to meet with local banks and credit unions to see if they can facilitate a direct deposit system and if the accounts could be local in case the debit card stays. Here's the thing, though: I've asked on multiple occasions but still haven't been given any information from the administration about our current system, information I would need when I meet with the banks and credit union reps. Basically, if I were to go to them now, I would be asking, "Could you help us?" and they would reply, "Help you with what?" to which I would reply, "I don't know. Money stuff, I guess."

When we had our last meeting, the member of Lane management who was supposed to gather the information that I needed couldn't make it. How convenient!

While that's going on, some of us members of student government have been working on educating the students and trying to get them involved. We tried to enlist Lane's OSPIRG chapter to help. For those out of the loop, OSPIRG stands for Oregon State Public Interest Group. The most recent thing they did at Lane was organize a light bulb exchange in which students could bring in a regular bulb and exchange it for an energy efficient fluorescent bulb. We wanted them involved because they are great at organizing and campaigning, and because they campaigned against a similar program at Portland State. So you'd think they'd naturally want to get involved, right?



Wrong!

I wasn't given a straight answer of why they don't want to get involved, so my only guess is that it would be too difficult for them. I mean, who's going to complain about a light bulb exchange? But with the debit card issue, there's going to be some some people who disagree with them, and we can't have that, right? OSPIRG: Working for the public interest as long as we don't encounter any resistance.

I really can't blame them, though. My generation has been conditioned to just accept whatever is given and don't question it. The younger generation has been conditioned even harder. I realize it's much more difficult to think for yourself than to have someone do it for you, but the benefits are so worth it. Wait, that's not true--I'm the frustrated, cynical one with the ulcers and anxiety attacks while they confidently go through their day with their white iPod ear buds and their self-created plastic bubbles.

Sometimes that plastic bubble bursts, and occasionally, that can be disastrous. Witness the shooting at Virginia Tech. I'm still not sure what to say about it, but I do know that all this talk about gun control laws and campus security only addresses the symptoms of a much bigger problem throughout our society: we solve our problems with violence.

Don't believe me? Watch "Cops" some time. Look at how we police ourselves: violently. Watch a cop handcuff someone who had tried to escape. And why do we even have cops? To protect us from ourselves. We not only tolerate them, but we actively fund and promote a group of government sponsored uniformed people with tool belts full of items designed to violently hurt or kill our citizens. If we screw up badly enough, we could get killed by one of these guys. That's a lot of non-stop pressure to live under. Also, if a regular person kills someone, he or she would go to prison and may even get executed, but if a cop kills someone, "it's just part of the job." Is it any wonder why people tend to be suspicious of cops?

Look at our justice system. If a lawyer or group of lawyers convinces a jury of 12 people that you did something, you could be executed, which is a fancy way of saying "killed by the government." Ask yourself whether or not you know 12 people who are easily influenced. How would they fare against a professional attorney whose job it is to get a guilty verdict? I'm not saying that people on death row are innocent--I'm just saying that people on death row didn't have (couldn't afford) as good a lawyer as the prosecution.

More violence in our system: If you sign up for the military, you get to shoot and kill people all the time--in fact, you're even trained for it. Hell in Iraq, what happened at Virginia Tech happens all the time. It's also happening as a direct result of what our government has done in our name. But we don't think about that when we read the headlines.

So are we really surprised that this Virginia Tech shooting happened? Sure, the particular college may have been a surprise. The particular person who did the shooting may have been a surprise, though there were apparently warning signs. But are we really surprised that someone went bonkers? An insane world breeds insane people.

So how do we stop this from happening? Well, if we continue to act all shocked and indignant every time someone goes berserk and shoots a bunch of people but only respond with gun laws and more cops, then shooting sprees will continue to happen.

But we can stop them from happening if we reevaluate everything about our society. Think that will happen? Not until things get much worse, I'm afraid.

There may be some hope, however. I read a speech that Barack Obama gave not long after the shooting took place. Here's an excerpt:

Obviously what happened today was the act of a madman at some level, and there are gonna be a whole series of explanations or attempts to explain what happened. There is gonna be discussion about how did this person get the firearms that he used. And there are already reports that potentially the semi-automatic weapons he used would have been banned under an assault weapons ban that was allowed to lapse. There'll be discussion about security on college campuses. There will be speculation as to what caused this young man to snap. But I hope that it causes us to reflect a little bit more broadly on the degree to which we do accept violence, in various forms, all the time in our society. We glorify it, we encourage it, we ignore it, and it is heartbreaking and it has to stop.

There you go. I haven't jumped on the "Obama '08" bandwagon yet, but I do like what I keep hearing. Of course, the cynic in me tells me if he gets elected or leads in the polls for a while, or if he just starts getting a following, he'll suffer the same fate as JFK, RFK, and MLK (three other problems solved with violence). Good thing for him Obama doesn't start with a "K".

Oh well, who knows where we'll be 18 months from now. Hopefully there will continue to be more great movies at Flicks & Pics for me to rent and watch.

On that note, I think it's time come down off my soap box for today. Until next time!

Rob

The Link, The Whole Link, and Nothing But The Link

Hello everyone!

Here's a link to a very funny short film featuring Will Ferrell sporting a big 'fro and a drunk toddler landlord. I'd post it to the blog, but the bastards at FunnyOrDie.com won't let me.

Rob

More Vonnegut Talk...

Hello everyone!

They're obviously fans over at The Onion:

Kurt Vonnegut Dead

Kurt Vonnegut, author of The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five, died late Wednesday evening of head injuries sustained in a fall...

Enjoy. I think Kurt would.

Rob

Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

Hello everyone.

And I was having a great day...

Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84: paper

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American literary idol Kurt Vonnegut, best known for such classic novels as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died on Tuesday night in Manhattan at age 84, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Longtime family friend, Morgan Entrekin, who reported Vonnegut's death, said the writer had suffered brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago, the newspaper reported.

Vonnegut, born in Indianapolis in 1922, also wrote plays, essays and short fiction. But his novels -- 14 in all -- became classics of the American counterculture. He was a literary idol, particularly to students in the 1960s and 1970s, the Times said.

The defining moment of Vonnegut's life was the firebombing of Dresden, Germany by Allied Forces in 1945, an event he witnessed as a young prisoner of war, the newspaper said.

Dresden was the basis for "Slaughterhouse-Five," which was published in 1969 against the backdrop of war in Vietnam, racial unrest and cultural and social upheaval, the Times said.

Vonnegut became a cult hero when the novel reached No. 1 on best-seller lists, the article said, adding that some schools and libraries have banned the book because of its sexual content, rough language and depictions of violence.

The novel featured a signature Vonnegut phrase, "so it goes," which became a catch phrase for opponents of the Vietnam war.

After the book was published, Vonnegut went into severe depression and vowed never to write another novel. In 1984, he tried to take his life with sleeping pills and alcohol, the report said.

Vonnegut's books were a mixture of fiction and autobiography, prone to one-sentence paragraphs, exclamation points and italics, the report said.

Some critics said he had invented a new literary type and other accused him of repeating himself, of recycling themes and characters. Some readers found his work incoherent, the Times said.

"Cat's Cradle" was published in 1963 and although it initially sold only about 500 copies it is widely read today in high school English classes, the newspaper said.

Vonnegut's last book, published in 2005, was a collection of biographical essays, "A Man Without a Country." It, too, was a best seller, the newspaper said.

His first play, "Happy Birthday, Wanda June," opened Off Broadway in 1970 to mixed reviews and around the same time he separated from his first wife, Jane, the Times said.

Vonnegut, a fourth-generation German-American, is survived by his wife photographer Jill Krementz, their daughter and his six other children, the New York Times said.

Link

Rest in peace, Kurt. Say hello to Kilgore Trout, Eliot Rosewater, and Bokonon for me wherever you end up.

Hi ho.

So it goes.

And so on.

Rob

Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Flip Their Respective Lids!

Hello everyone!

Here's a clip of two of my least favorite "journalists" almost coming to blows. I really wish they had.


Hey, it's probably the only time you're going to see me side with Geraldo. Too bad he lost me at the end by sucking up to his bosses at FoxNews.

Rob

Stop "Compalining"!

Hello everyone!

For those of you with short-term memory, or for those of you who usually don't read my blog but stumbled here by accident, a while back I wrote about the debit card issue at LCC and how we're going to be fighting against it, etc. It's a fascinating read, and I definitely recommend it.

Anyway, last week I started a myspace site titled "LCC Students Against The Debit Card". The reason for this is because we've found that most LCC students don't even know about it, and this is one way we're trying to spread the word. But in order to let the students know about the site, I've been going through the myspace "current student" listing for LCC and inviting each person one at a time to join the friend list. It's a painstaking, arduous task, but it's the only way that I know to get the word out.

So it's been four or five days since I started, and (as of Sunday morning) I've gone through 500 out of over 5,200 current students on myspace, or at least ones who have identified themselves as an LCC student. Here's what I've found:

1. Former LCC students who are still students at another school (such as the University of Oregon) show up on the current student list. This means I have to look at each profile and scroll down to the part that shows what school the student is currently in. Sometimes it will say things like "2002-current" under the "years attended" heading for LCC, and I wonder if that person has really been there for five years. And I thought my three years was a long time...

Anyway, I try to only invite current students, but sometimes I get in a hurry or I get lazy and someone like the guy below gets invited. But most times I try not to invite someone who's no longer at LCC. This means that even though I've gone through 500 people, I haven't actually invited 500 people.

2. Certain users set up their accounts so that you have to enter either their last names or their email addresses to invite them. This keeps spammers from sending them a friend request. But it also keeps me from sending them a friend request. So again, even though I've gone through 500 people, I haven't actually invited 500 people. this is really frustrating because I've found myself saying, "Hey, it's that girl from my Government class from the fall term. Crap, I don't know her last name. I don't even know her first name. Grrr!"

But all in all, I've probably invited about half the students I've looked at, making it around 250 as of now. And out of the 250, 85 have joined as of Sunday morning, officially surpassing the number on my personal site. Oh well.

But I'm sure there will be more out of the 250 who haven't checked their site yet but will join once they do. If we hit 125 out of the original 500, that's 1 in 4, which means that when all 5,200 students are gone through, we could realistically end up 1,300 students total. That's significantly more than the 200 or so who have signed up for the card.

The purpose of the site, however, is not to collect numbers, but to keep the students informed and to provide a sounding board since the college certainly hasn't done that. I've gotten a few messages and postings that have been in support of our cause and have been thankful for the information. But I did receive one negative message from Coelispex, AKA Chelly this morning. So without further ado, here it is:

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Coelispex
Date: Apr 8, 2007 4:16 AM


All of you "intellectuals" who claim to compalin about the lack of education you receive at LCC are in the dark like Vampires.

As a UCLA alumnus, I will tell you that education is an illusion. You will learn what you will learn.

Read books and understand them. If you depend on your professors to teach you, I feel no regret in calling you an idiot.

You are what you know...

Chelly

There you go. I've found that whenever someone starts a sentence with "As a [blank] alumnus..." you can expect the rest of that sentence to say something really stupid. It's the whole "I need to remind you about my credentials in order to justify what I'm about to say because what I'm about to say can't stand on its own" idea. Even worse, this guy is essentially saying, "College doesn't teach you anything. Take my word for it--I know stuff like this because I've been to college." Am I the only one who doesn't understand that logic?

Am I also the only one who doesn't understand the logic in criticizing someone for saying something that that person never said? I mean, I know FoxNews does it all the time, but still. Nowhere on the myspace profile was there anything complaining about a lack of education, unless you count the lack of education students have received about the card itself.

But had this guy said "Getting a Bachelor's degree in English from UCLA doesn't mean squat," he'd have a point. Apparently, logic and common sense are not prerequisites.

Oh yeah, "...in the dark like Vampires" is the stupidest simile I've ever heard in my life. And why would an English major capitalize "vampires"? Sure, "compalin" is most likely a typing error, but come on, "Vampire"?

So of course I had to respond:

Chelly,

What are you talking about? Did you even read the "About me" section of the profile? It's written in big, easy to read letters.

The issue is not "a lack of education"--it's about a debit card system the college administration is foisting upon us that is riddled with hidden fees, among other things. If you're going to criticize something, at least know what you're criticizing. If you're going to call someone an idiot, at least learn how to spell "complain", otherwise you'll come across as an idiot. And no, that's not something I learned from a professor--it's just common sense.

I'm not impressed that you're a UCLA alumnus, and if you need to send myspace messages to people calling them idiots in order to feel better about yourself, then "I feel no regret in calling you an idiot."

So if you're interested in defending the debit card system, do some research first, and then get back to me. But if you're just out to try to make yourself look smart at the expense of someone else, find a high school dropout's site. You might stand a chance. Regardless, stop wasting my time.

LSATDC

PS While I do appreciate Kurt Vonnegut Jr. being heavily featured on your myspace page, you're still a douche.

Yes, I resorted to calling him a douche, but man was it fun, and I felt a lot better after doing so. And now I feel even better posting it here on my blog.

So what have we learned today? If you don't want the world the three people who read this blog to know what a douche you are, think before you send messages to people you don't know about things you know nothing about. Also, it's not okay to send messages calling someone an idiot, but it's perfectly fine to respond to that message by calling the person a douche and then posting it on your blog. But only if that person really is a douche.

Rob

Apparently Kucinich tied, er, inched out Nader to win the Presidency in '04

Hello everyone!

This is just sad. Here's yet another reason we need to invest more in education. Apparently being at a second grade level in math makes a person qualified to work for your local Fox News station:



First off, they seem to think that 33% and 12% mean the same thing: "It was a tie first..." and then the guy "corrects" her by saying "Spears inched out Hilton" even though she over two and a half times the votes. O.J. Simpson had more votes than Hilton, but I guess he doesn't count because wasn't near the top of their graphic. Oh, and Mel Gibson was "high on the list" with 1%.

Still, somehow 33% and 12% are higher than 40%. I guess if you add them together, they make 45%.

But the best part is the few seconds of awkward silence when they finally realize how what they were saying has nothing to do with what's on the screen. Then they try to cover: "...who was the foolish [¿qué?] this year..." and "Well you can still vote if you want".

Good, because my vote is for whoever decided to let a pack of wild baboons run that Fox News program. That person is definitely the most foolish American.

Second place goes to the person who responded to the question, "Why is Britney Spears the most foolish?" with: "I don't know... She's been in the news a lot."

Rob

They're Made Out Of Meat

Hello everyone!

Enjoy this nice short film titled, "They're Made Out Of Meat":



Rob

Ten of the Best April Fool's Day Hoaxes

Hello everyone:

I had plans for posting a huge April Fool's Day prank, but I couldn't think of anything to say. Sure, I could've said that I was gay or getting a divorce or joining a monastery, but I don't think anyone would've believed me. So instead, I'll copy and paste this article about famous April Fool's Day pranks. Enjoy.

Ten of the best April Fool's Day hoaxes: US museum

Mar 29 01:46 AM US /Eastern

From television revealing that spaghetti grows on trees to advertisements for the left-handed burger, the tradition of April Fool's Day stories in the media has a weird and wonderful history.

Here are 10 of the top April Fool's Day pranks ever pulled off, as judged by the San Diego-based Museum of Hoaxes for their notoriety, absurdity, and number of people duped.

-- In 1957, a BBC television show announced that thanks to a mild winter and the virtual elimination of the spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. Footage of Swiss farmers pulling strands of spaghetti from trees prompted a barrage of calls from people wanting to know how to grow their own spaghetti at home.

-- In 1985, Sports Illustrated magazine published a story that a rookie baseball pitcher who could reportedly throw a ball at 270 kilometers per hour (168 miles per hour) was set to join the New York Mets. Finch was said to have mastered his skill -- pitching significantly faster than anyone else has ever managed -- in a Tibetan monastery. Mets fans' celebrations were short-lived.

-- Sweden in 1962 had only one television channel, which broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert appeared on the news to announce that thanks to a newly developed technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to receive color pictures by pulling a nylon stocking over the screen. In fact, they had to wait until 1970.

-- In 1996, American fast-food chain Taco Bell announced that it had bought Philadelphia 's Liberty Bell, a historic symbol of American independence, from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.

Outraged citizens called to express their anger before Taco Bell revealed the hoax. Then-White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale and said the Lincoln Memorial in Washington had also been sold and was to be renamed the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial after the automotive giant.

-- In 1977, British newspaper The Guardian published a seven-page supplement for the 10th anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semicolon-shaped islands. A series of articles described the geography and culture of the two main islands, named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse .

-- In 1992, US National Public Radio announced that Richard Nixon was running for president again. His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." They even had clips of Nixon announcing his candidacy. Listeners flooded the show with calls expressing their outrage. Nixon's voice actually turned out to be that of impersonator Rich Little.

-- In 1998, a newsletter titled New Mexicans for Science and Reason carried an article that the state of Alabama had voted to change the value of pi from 3.14159 to the "Biblical value" of 3.0.

-- Burger King, another American fast-food chain, published a full-page advertisement in USA Today in 1998 announcing the introduction of the "Left-Handed Whopper," specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new burger included the same ingredients as the original, but the condiments were rotated 180 degrees. The chain said it received thousands of requests for the new burger, as well as orders for the original "right-handed" version.

-- Discover Magazine announced in 1995 that a highly respected biologist, Aprile Pazzo (Italian for April Fool), had discovered a new species in Antarctica : the hotheaded naked ice borer. The creatures were described as having bony plates on their heads that became burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speed -- a technique they used to hunt penguins.

-- Noted British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on the radio in 1976 that at 9:47 am, a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event, in which Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, would cause a gravitational alignment that would reduce the Earth's gravity. Moore told listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment of the planetary alignment, they would experience a floating sensation. Hundreds of people called in to report feeling the sensation.


Copyright AFP 2005, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

Link

And since it's April Fool's Day, that means my birthday is tomorrow! No, that's not an April Fool's Day joke. I hope you got me something nice!

Rob