What?

So earlier I mentioned that I had been getting an inordinate number of junk emails offering me the opportunity to participate in internet gambling as well as to purchase Viagra and knock-off Rolexes at fabulous discounts. For a while after that, it seemed I had graduated to offers for celebrity sex tapes. Now, I’m just getting these emails that have no text, just a link that goes to who knows where. The thing is, they have these truly bizarre subject lines that totally make me want to click on the link. I mean, I refrain…because did I mention this is my work email and my work computer? But it’s so tempting…

Here are 2 I received just today:

• God Destroys Boise For Not Being Gay Enough

• Angelina Jolie Set To Destroy Own Vagina

What? I mean, really, what?

The entire email consists of just one of those subject lines and then a link that says “click to watch video.”

I really want to click it.

Crafty marketing there, internet spammers…kudos to you.

Nature can mess you up good

So, I’ve been off the blog for a while and here is the reason why. Let’s begin with this post, composed over a week ago (way back on July 12, in fact):

Well, it’s 9:50 pm on a Saturday night and I’m sitting here in the dark as I have no power in my house. Earlier this evening, there was a hellacious storm with the thunder and the lightning and the blowing out of transformers and such. I’m just home, minding my own, watching a little television and bam! Huge flash of lightening, simultaneous crack of thunder, and then no electricity whatsoever. That was at about 6-ish this evening, so the lack of power is getting a little old at this point. And it is extra annoying, because from where I sit, I can see that the neighbors on one side have electricity. Apparently, I am right on the edge of whatever grid the power outage is affecting.

So, several things
1. I cannot tell you how many times I have flipped on the light switches out of habit. Even though I am walking through the house holding a flashlight, I still automatically reach for the switch upon entering a room.
2. At this point, it is clear that the power is most likely going to come back on after I’m asleep, at which point everything that was turned on when the power went out will come back on and wake me up and that will annoy me.
3. Last time I checked, I was in FL and it was summer. And, no electricity means no AC. Not even a fan. Although, surprisingly, it’s not actually broiling hot in here yet. The AC was on right up until the power went off (which was fortuitous as I don’t always run the air that much) so the house was pretty cool. Also, I think the rain cooled things off, which was helpful.
4. Thank god for Apple and their fabulous personal electronic devices. My iPhone and iPod are serving me well. I watched Blades of Glory (hadn’t ever seen it, it was as expected) and now I’m into my stash of Sports Night Episodes (God I love that show. What is wrong with people that no one watched it?) Also, my laptop battery is hanging in, allowing me to type this. Although, there is no power to the router so no wireless, which means I can’t post this until I am once again with power.

And now I return to you, many days later, to relate the fall-out of said storm and tell of the personal tragedy that has befallen my home. The victims: 2 television sets (one fairly nice, one a hand-me-down from the parents), one cable modem (that’s Comcast’s problem fortunately), and one wireless router (I think). Also, my computer died the next day. That would seem to be not directly related to the storm, but who knows. On the plus side, the A/C was unharmed, and my work laptop still functions, so I haven’t been completely without computing ability. But, I’ve been too busy buying TV’s and dealing with overpriced computer repair dudes to properly blog. Which, since no one reads this, hasn’t really been a problem. But, things are on the mend. We are back up to a full contingent of TV’s at the house (the new one in the living room is so pretty) and the overpriced computer dudes claim a new hard drive will fix me up, although I think I will seize this as an excuse for a shiny new computer. Thus ends my tale of woe.

ouch

So, I’ve never claimed not to be a clumsy girl (meaning a girl who is clumsy, not someone who is clumsy at being a girl…I think I actually have that one mastered. The moving through space without injuring myself thing though, that’s still a work in progress.) Witness the evidence from my fabulous 4^th of July Weekend>>>

This was on day one, when I stepped on a loose board on the deck and scrapped my shin on the way down into the hole:

Then on day 2, I managed to scrape the top of my foot on a hermit crab shell (which also had some of those tiny little barnacles on it, which made it extra scrape-y):

It's not so visible in the photo, but trust me, it both hurt and bled. Here is the leg/foot scrape combo, for your enjoyment:

I also managed to get a collection of some sort of itchy ant-bite-like bumps on the other ankle…alas, no photographic evidence.

Fortunately, I was liberal with the sunscreen, so no burn, and there were no fireworks related injuries. And some neosporin and the healing waters of St. Andrew's Bay fixed the scrapes right up. So all-in-all, I call it a successful holiday.

What can I say, I notice the random...

Ok, here is how much of an NPR geek I am. I’ve noticed recently that the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (who underwrite a number of NPR shows) has recently changed their tagline from “committed to building a just, equitable, and sustainable society” to “committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.” Interesting…

I was then poking around their website where--in addition to the descriptions of grants for a ridiculously diverse group of worthy causes including: affordable housing; digital media, learning & education; population & reproductive health; human rights and international justice; and many, many others--I also found this. That is some responsive customer service, right there...

They seem nice.

Hey there, America...

Happy Birthday!

7 unrelated things

1. So there’s this commercial that keeps coming on that feature the song Breed, by Nirvana. I knew it was for a video game, but I thought it was Guitar Hero or Rock Band (which would make sense because it has that cool riff) but it turns out its for a baseball game. Anyway, the point is, I had totally forgotten about the existence of that song until I heard it on the commercial. That song kind of rocks. Nevermind is an album that I had on cassette when it came out (yes, I am old, let’s move on). Since I didn’t have it on CD, it never made it into my iPod, and therefore I have not actually heard that record in a while. It's another one of those holes in the collection necessitating a trip to iTunes. (an aside, this site is cool, it lets you track down songs used in commercials, which is quite a handy resource Actually, I believe my friend Disco Dan had a similar idea at some point…)
   
   (An addendum, I saw that commercial again last night and actually paid attention to it. I'm usually out of the room or doing something else during the ads and I mostly hear rather than see them. Anyway the commercial is for Guitar Hero for Nintendo DS, at least the one I saw. I knew it had guitars and not baseballs in it. The internet misled me again...)
   
   
2. Did you know the Washington DC Chief of Police is a woman? (Well, I'm sure you did, Rakes...)
   
   
3. I learned all this random stuff about Uma Thurman yesterday including that she was married to Gary Oldman, her father was the first westerner to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and her mother is a Swedish model-turned-psychotherapist who was once briefly married to Timothy Leary. And her mother was introduced to Leary by Salvador Dalí. That’s kind of a lot of interesting stuff to stumble upon…
   
   
4. You know, some kind of crazy shit is always going down here in Florida…
   
   
5. I’m totally waiting for invisibility to happen. I guess it’s the voyeur in me (and if you followed that link, I was referring more to the second definition…a prying observer who is usually seeking the sordid or the scandalous…and less to the more creepy peeping tom primary one) Of course, invisibility is only cool if you are the only one who has it…
   
   
6. After a lengthy string of second place finishes, we finally won at trivia last night. Whoo hoo!
   
   
7. So this happened a little while ago, but I forgot to mention it. There is a pitcher who plays for the Yankees named Chien-Ming Wang, who hurt his foot recently and had to go on the disabled list. It was like a perfect storm for headline writers: Yankees always gets abbreviated to Yanks and when someone is on the DL, they are described as being “out” (as in out of the line-up), and the dude’s name is Wang. So every single headline included the phrase “Yanks Wang out”. (This is my favorite, because it makes it sound like the yanking resulted in crutches. Also, it’s on a site called ballhype…Yes, I am 12 years old…)