BunkBlog

I’ve always been a bit smug about my lack of PC viral infections. I scoff when people make the assumption that, when their computer acts a little weird, it’s a virus. I’ve been infected by one virus, and (until this week) only received three in the last 15 years that I’ve been online. Since I’m an online whore, that indicated to me that viruses are much less common than the tech news guys would like you to believe. Of course, I’m much more smug about the fact that I don’t use Outlook Express, which seems to be a petri dish for VBS virii and other fun stuff.

This weekend, I received 4 different emails (all from strangers to me, but addressed to webmaster@andysocial.com), all containing some variant on the theme:

I send you this file in order to have your advice.

Of course, Norton Antivirus popped up and killed the worm contained in the attachments from these email messages.

The W32.Sircam.Worm has hit me! Oh, no! Fortunately, the fix for this worm is pretty simple: don’t open strange attachments. And, if you must open them (curious monkey), go to Symantec’s info site to find out how screwed you may be.

Ah, the joys of computing…

My job is so boring even I can’t stand to describe it. Let’s just summarize and say it involves creating documents based on other documents and an occasional test event. Primarily, though, it’s just sitting at a computer and editing things.

My coworker has been working on a monster document for the past 2 months, and the boss’s boss (B2) has edited it at least twice before, as well as the boss (B1) editing it several times as well.

Last week, the document made it to the tech editor finally. The tech editor spewed forth 15 pages of edits, including some surreal parenthetical comments apropos of nothing. Fifteen pages is considered “getting off light” with this fella (yes he’s Mensan), also referred to as “frustrated English professor”. After spending a day making the changes, coworker sends document off to B1 again. B1 now has some major heartache with it, and orders further changes to the changes to the revisions to the updates.

Gets to B2 late yesterday, back today from B2. Many, many more changes. A large number of the changes are things that the all-knowing master of time space and English had told coworker to change. Now, those items have changed back. Other changes involve sentences composed entirely by B2 in the first place, but now deemed unspeakably wrong.

Ever seen Falling Down? Very understandable movie some days…
current_mood: bitchy

Pooka! Hope you’re having a great day. 🙂

OK, here’s the latest creation: Black Forest Cake.

4 layers (2 split cakes). First layer topped with cream cheese frosting and drunken cherries. Second layer topped with fresh chocolate mousse. Third layer topped with whipped cream, and the sides frosted with stiff whipped cream. mmmmm

It did not last long…

Well, whoever sent me Office Space, thanks a bunch. Love that movie.

Hey, BlooJanuary! Happy Birthday, girl!

Hey, you guys are just not as generous to strangers as I had hoped. Check out my wishlist at Amazon, or CDnow. A mere 13 days until my birthday. Hop to it!
current_mood: greedy

So, although I make plenty of money and can afford the usurious rent payments here, I have been denied for a mortgage that would leave my payments at least 50 dollars per month lower? Figure that logic out. Fuck me in the goat ass.
current_mood: pissed off

OK, if Corto can admit it, so can I. I, too, am a male baker. Whew! I feel so much better.

Today was Baklava Day. Baked up a big ol’ pan of baklava and even used the scraps (my pans are too narrow for the phyllo dough) to make rolled baklava.

So, in the past year I’ve made a bunch of baklava, a pumpkin cheesecake, a chocolate cheesecake, and various brownies and cookies. Next up: black forest cake. Mmmm, I love that stuff.

Of course, being not quite the glutton I once was, the majority of the baklava is going to work to feed the ungrateful ones I must spend many of my waking hours with.

OK, forgot this one for a few days, while thinking of how to add context and failing.

Most incongruous statement during a Mensa picnic: “I’m no genius, but…”

For some reason I was thinking about alligators eating people today, and kind of let the mind wander a bit.

Experts always say that sharks (and most other big predators) don’t like the taste of people, and only eat us by accident. Seems like a pretty big accident, and I’m sure the victims don’t feel relieved by it being an inadvertent mistake. More importantly to my twisted mind: how do scientists know we taste bad to sharks? Is there a taste test they do? Some sort of aquatic predator version of the Pepsi Challenge? I don’t get it.

Maybe that wacky Steve Irwin would know…
current_mood: bored

Happy Birthday, Rayne!

Went to my first Mensa meeting this weekend. Overall, it was pretty decent. The host seemed to have some abiding hatred for families with small children. Well, he didn’t actually say that, but he didn’t want them living next door to him. Made me think of old movies or stories with the term “those people” used liberally.

Another oddity: one of the guests, who had brought store-bought fried chicken to a potluck dinner (not even KFC), wanted everyone to keep her disposable plates and plasticware, so she could wash and re-use them. Apparently she has a difficult time finding plates that fit in her wicker plate-holder baskets, and the red and blue plasticware is so hard to find, except at the beginning of July.

Just proves that smart people are not always very normal.
current_mood: tired

So, the fine intelligent IS professionals that work for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) have finally gotten around to installing Office 2000. Now we’re only one generation behind, woohoo. Simultaneously, they upgraded the browser to IE 5.5 (not SP1 yet but at least within a year of the current version) but with their security enhancements turned on. More accurately, many features turned off, such as Java (no loss), Javascript (kind of important), and VBScript (thank goodness). The loss of Javascript means that many of the sites that we are required to go to to complete our normal daily jobs are inaccessible or broken when using Internet Explorer.

The DISA “solution”? Use Netscape 4.7, which is still the official DISA browser. Good to see that the Information Systems masters are so completely out of touch with modern realities.

Firstly, if they wanted to enhance security by turning off Javascript, why leave it enabled in Netscape? Secondly, although I’m hardly a Microsoft fan, it’s absurd to pretend that all sites will work with Netscape. Does the term Embrace and Extend ring any bells at DISA, I wonder.

And these are the folks that the Department of Defense entrust with their most prized IS tools. Your tax dollars at work.
current_mood: amused

Well, if can do it, I suppose I can. Check out my wishlist at Amazon. only 5 weeks until my birthday. Heheh
current_mood: silly

OK, so now (or actually it has since the latest re-install), the machine will take a five-second siesta every minute. This is most noticeable during high-speed gaming sessions, when it is (naturally) the most important to not have a random hesitation pop up.

Anyone know of something that causes a five-second period of sluggishness every minute (or 70 seconds), like clockwork? Very annoying.

OK, so now my “new” computer (all of 6 months old) is going down more than a bargirl. Windows ME is crashing with such regularity I can almost set my watch by it. I can rip 2 tracks from a CD before a BSOD, or I can try to talk to someone on AIM at the same time as I download my mail. Now, since I’ve got a 1 Ghz Athlon with 384MB or DDR RAM in a Micron machine, I’m assuming my hardware is not an issue.

The big question is: Do I go back to Win98SE (the machine was preloaded with WinME but it blows), or should I go to Windows 2000? Either one requires much time-consuming backup and restore stuff to bring ICQ and such back from the dead, but which is better for a normal home user that plays a few games? I’m kinda leaning toward Win2k right now, but if I install that, will I be able to dual-boot with Linux later? NTFS5 is supposed to be a bitch file system, from what I hear.
current_music: A Perfect Circle – Nom De Mers
current_mood: bitchy

Reading over some email, cleaning out crap, doing maintenance on the file system, you know: usual geek crap. Came across this gem “The good ones are always taken.” HA! Sure, if you waste enough time, they are. 🙂

I suppose I shouldn’t be too gleeful that someone who treated me poorly has realized her error. But, it sure is cathartic.
current_music: Staind – Can’t Believe
current_mood: happy

Everyone go over to Neurosis’s journal and tell her to get naked. All these people going for posting numbers before they’ll bare all, what an interesting trend…

I blame Nikki for starting the whole thing with her breast shot last week. Oooh, I hope she starts something else. Gnomey Breasts are good

Honestly, this will be my last complaint about peculiar online choices tonight.

Red and Yellow do not make a good, eye-soothing, web design. If your intent is to look like the Oscar Meyer hotdog wrapper, congratulations. If your main desire was to entice people to actually view your site, sorry but you missed the mark.

Let’s go back to elementary school here and think of complementary colors, shall we? Yellow and Red aren’t. Red and Green are decent, although kinda Christmasy. Yellow and Purple are an acceptable combination as well.

Or, you could just look around and copy a webpage you like. If you like Oscar Meyer, then fine — stick with your red-on-yellow monstrosity. Just don’t be surprised at only getting visitors who are hankering for some processed meat by-product. 🙂
current_mood: silly