I wsa doing a little afternoon reading today over at Slashdot, and found an article about email "Phishing". Essentially, phishing is a fraud scam. The target gets an e-mail alerting them that they need to update their account information, or renew their credit card, or something. Somewhere in the message is a link to a web site that appears to be legit. However, when the victim clicks on the link, they're taken to a web site set up by the phishers. The site looks like the real deal, but it only exists to collect the victim's info - credit card numbers, social security numbers, passwords, etc. For instance, last week I received an e-mail from "US Bank" alerting me that they've ...
As I pointed out in my last post, I'm working on an overhaul to my site. I've got a lot of things planned, going beyond a new look. I've run into a roadblock though: I have no witty, clever title. The Chuck has "The Life Of Leisure". Dan has something. Everybody has something. All I got is "my weblog". So, I'm looking for suggestions. Anyone? Note: "Mr. Aster-risk", and any variants thereof are immediately disqualified.
I've been kicking around an idea for a re-design of the site for a few months now. It goes in spurts - some days, ideas are flowing like beer, others I struggle to come up with anything new. This has been a good week. It's nowhere near complete - for instance, there's no site navigation - but I do have a prototype up. Give it a look and see what you think - I'd love to hear any feedback. As long as I'm on the topic, I gave The Chuck's site a facelift yesterday, too.
I've had an 11:00 meeting on my calendar at work for almost a week. I wasn't too excited about it, because I didn't think I really needed to be there. It's not a project that I'll be involved in. But, I'm a team player, so I went anyways. About 5 minutes into this meeting, we heard the door open. A very nattily attired woman - a "bag lady", if you will. She was asking my co-worker, Jenni, if she could use the phone to call someone to take her back to the hospital. Jenni sort of froze up, and gave me a look like "I don't know what to do". Our visitor started moving around the reception area, and made her ...
Last night, I was reading from a book I purchased off the $4.99 rack at Border's about a year ago. It's titled "The Complete Illustrated Guide to Feng Shui", by Lillian Too. I really don't have all that much interest in Feng Shui, per se. It seemed like an interesting book to have lying around, so I bought it. I'd like to share with you a nugget of wisdom from the text. It's a sidebar within the book, a story by the author of how she has applied the principles of Feng Shui, and how people have been affected by it. The good part is at the end, of course. James And Maryanne Take, for example, the case of James and ...
I got very little sleep last night, and I've just hit the infamous "wall". I now have the attention span of a cricket. So, since I'm not going to get any work done, I thought I'd check out some movie trailers over at Apple. First up, a movie I've been drooling over since I first read about it last year, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow". It was initially titled just "World of Tomorrow", but someone decided to add the Sky Captain bit. Anyways, wow! This one starts "Jude Law":imdb and "Gwyneth Paltrow":imdb. The trailer is pretty cool, very stylized. You might watch it and think, "yeah, no big deal - just a retro-sci-fi movie". Here's the thing - ...
We were able to get access to the condo over the weekend. I wanted to take some measurements, Judy just wanted to hang out. Both missions were accomplished. There's another set of photos up. Not that big a difference compared to the previous set, but things are starting to take shape. The hardwood floors are in, the tile has been laid in the bathrooms, and the countertops are in place. There's still some finish work left to do, the carpeting in the bedrooms, and installation of the applicances. They've still got a month to go...
When I woke up on Monday morning, I had no idea that this was Taco Week. I really didn't. But, as luck would have it, I have (mostly) enjoyed more than my fair share of tacos this week. Earlier this week, I had dinner with Rajan & Tora at Xel-Ha. It's in the space that used to be Taqueria Azteca - before they got so damn good they couldn't fit everyone in that little room and moved into Ye Olde Dinner Bell's space. Xel-Ha was good, not great. The service was a little slow. Actually, it was a lot slow. Everyone else ordered tacos, and I ordered the Chili Verde with Shrimp, which was pretty good. I hear the tacos were a ...
I can't say that I'm a fan of his music. Actually, I can't say that I'm not, either - I've only heard one song. But for the last 3 months, John Mayer has been writing a short column ("Resident Rock Star") for My Favourite Magazine - Esquire. It's not really about anything, just his musings and insight. It's actually pretty good stuff. Last month, he wrote about some of his ideas and suggestions for the record industry. Here's one I enjoyed; I can only assume he's talking about the RIAA suing P2P users: ยป Stop suing kids. If R. Kelly can't piss on 'em, you can't, either. This month, he recapped some of the highlights from his recent credit-card ...
I just finished up a breakfast sandwich from Subway. Apparently, the location on Brady Street is part of their test-marketing campaign. I frequent the Subway - not nearly as often as the Jimmy John's - and last week, I received a flyer notifying me of the new breakfast menu. I was up and about a few minutes early this morning, so I thought I'd give it a try. I was the only one in there. The guy behind the counter asked me what I wanted, and I asked "what do you got?" I was a little disturbed when he suggested "well... we've got subs". But, then he made a little motion towards the menu board, and up in ...
Today is the day that we all should get down on our collective knees and thank Jeebus for bringing The Chuck into our lives. 30-odd years ago today, little baby Chuck was born. Strangely enough, he has less hair today than he did then. I don't have enough time, or patience, to recount my favourite Chuck stories with you. I will, however, list the top 5 jobs that The Chuck has had - that were particularly beneficial to me. These are in no particular order: Milwaukee Brewers UWM Post US Exchange Koss (Any of the various movie theatres he's worked at) Anyways, happy birthday.
There was a great article over at Slate yesterday that I'd like to share. It's in the format of a letter - from the author to Roger Clemens. Apparently, the author is from Boston, and holds a tiny grudge against Clemens. Completely understandable. He calls him "fat" no less than 6 times, and picks out a half-dozen or so reasons why he hates him so much. I can't say that I disagree - I've always thought Clemens was a bit of a dick - the Piazza incident from a year or two ago is a perfect example. T his is the best of the author's comments, by far: You don't travel with the ...
Have you seen the most recent Bush TV ad? This time, they're targeting Kerry's attendance record. I don't have the actual text of the ad in front of me, but the gist of it is: "John Kerry has been skipping out of his responsibilities as a US Senator in order to campaign for the Presidency." First of all, it's almost like the ad is implying that the Kerry campaign is the equivalent of a 6-month vacation. "Instead of voting for a bill that would ban the kicking of puppies, John Kerry is travelling around, running for President. Who does he think he is?" I also did a quick Google search for ...
I recently added 6-7 albums worth of U2 to my iPod. I already had a few of them on there - The Joshua Tree, The Unforgettable Fire. I added a boatload of newer material - Pop, Zooropa, Achtung Baby, All That You Can't Leave Behind. I've come to the realization that I just don't like U2. I hate to sound like one of those guys who turns on a band when they make it big, but the older stuff was better. And, I'm going to limit that to The Joshua Tree (I still place it in my top 10 all-time albums), and most of The Unforgettable Fire. Anything released post-Rattle & Hum just doesn't do it for me. I think ...
The newest addition to The List was made this morning - The Knick. I hereby submit that I will *never* again eat at this restaurant. Judy & I went for brunch this morning. The weather was a little iffy - it looked as if it would rain any minute. Keeping that in mind, we decided to get a table inside, rather than out on the patio. Since it was 11:00 on a Sunday, and it was the 4th, I really wasn't all that surprised when the hostess told us it would be 20 minutes for a table. So, we wandered over to the bar, grabbed a seat, and got a few drinks. About 15 minutes later, the skies turned a bit ...
I was just checking into the web site of the Polyphonic Spree (serious flash-action), hoping to find that they've added some tour dates to replace the cancelled Lollapalooza tour. No such luck on that front, but I did find 2 other things: 1 - Chuck mentioned this a few weeks ago, but there's a new album on the way - "Together We're Heavy". On sale July 12. Hopefully, it's half as good as the first (and not so much like the single they released on iTunes a few weeks ago). If you still haven't heard the first album, "The Beginning Stages Of..", go ...
