Suzanne and I just returned from Coralville, IA.

I wanted to check out the membership of Mensa's local chapter. We tried to see if they were going to be at Old Chicago last week, but that didn't materialize. No biggie! Some of my cohorts from work were there and Suzanne and I had great pizza and great beer (I had the beer and Suzanne refrained) and I got to be my usual geeky self. The restaurant we met at this evening was called Saigon to Bangkok. It was a fairly small place but it had a pleasant atmosphere and great food. We don't frequently drive an hour to dine out but I'm glad we did. I've been telling Suzanne (probably since we got married) that I was going to join Mensa.

The "phishing" spam craze must be growing insanely out of control. The local Iowa NBC affiliate ran segments about phishing yesterday. When the local media in the corn wilds of Iowa/Illinois starts doing phishing scam stories, you know that something's out of control. I always go one step further with phishing scams. I report them to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center and the bank that is being targeted. Ignoring this crap won't make it stop. Fighting it probably won't make it stop either, but the odds of someone being hammered for fraud perpetration are better if people report it.

I just noticed a link to a new Google feature I haven't seen before.... See the Google Scholar. I'll have to see what that's all about later.

Why later? Well, unfortunately (or fortunately considering the monetary value), I signed up to do some overtime this evening. See y'all tomorrow! Suzanne is about to crash and I'm not far from heading out the door.

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I forgot to talk about the daily phish...

One BIG HINT that the suspicious e-mail you've received might be a phishing scam...

When you hold your mouse pointer over the link/graphic that points you to a web site and the address that displays in your status bar isn't that which you would visit to access your bank, you've probably received a scam. The common thing I've seen in the "phishing" e-mails lately is an address like this (the series of four numbers (218, 158, 230, and 101) commonly called the dotted quad and the page and directory will likely be different):

http://218.158.230.101:87/b/index.htm

I received one e-mail today (the web site was closed down by the time I started checking) that had an address that looked like this:

http://%32%31%38%2e%31%35%38%2e%32%33%30%2e%31%30%31:%38%37/%62/%69%6E%64%65%78%2E%68%74%6D

If you wanted to figure out what in the hell that URL would actually point to (the easy way), visit here and enter the URL in the form.

Banks don't send out e-mails that have links like that. Plus, a bank shouldn't be sending you e-mails asking you for your personal info. It just doesn't work like that...

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So, there we were...

When Suzanne got home from work this afternoon, she didn't feel like making dinner. Hey, that was cool. The question we had was what we should do about it. We ended up going to Steak 'n Shake. Not bad... It had been a while since we visited there.

Afterwards, I got a wild hair up my arse and wanted to run by Best Buy. I haven't had any problems with Best Buy, but I know some people who really hate that place. Unfortunately, it's the only electronics-store-in-a-box around these parts. Suzanne and I both wanted a new cable modem. We figured that the rental from the cable company seems like it's old and possibly, well, "busted". Besides, why pay more money to the cable company? Oh yeah, I broke down and did something I never figured I would do. I bought Eminem's new release.

I hooked the modem up as soon as we returned home. It took the usual fifteen minutes (probably a little more because I wasn't really counting) waiting on the phone to talk to a customer service rep just to answer a very simple question about our account. Beyond that, there were NO problems. I was a little surprised because our modem wasn't on the list of approved or compatible hardware. Hey, what the hell, it works. Hopefully it will solve a little problem we've been having.

I really should be in the arms of Morpheus, but damn it all, I'm just not tired enough and the last of the Star Trek: The Next Generation vintage of movies is on one of the movie channels.

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And then there were six....

Six people who have decided to vacate their positions in Dubya's administration. How many more people will Dubya drive away (OK, maybe it's not that bad)? The dynamics of Powell's resignation have appeared especially interesting. Hey, maybe I'm reading more into the situation than there really is. It'll be interesting to see how Condoleezza Rice (assuming she's confirmed) makes the transition from National Security Advisor to Secretary of State. It'll also be interesting to see who is picked as the National Security Advisor. What we really need are more hawks in the halls of power....

We just finished watching this show on the Discovery Times channel. Truthfully, I only half-heartedly watched it and Suzanne barely glanced up from her laptop. What I did see of it seemed like a brief but informative synopsis of U.S.-Saudi relations before and after 9/11.

Back when I started this blog, I had just discovered the CIA World Factbook and started linking "a country a day" for a while. While surfing through the State Department's website tonight, I found this. From there, I moved on to the various country studies available from the Library of Congress. Hey, I may not always like our government, but I'll always love this country. Besides, our tax money is funding this stuff so we might as well access it.

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It's immensely sad (Advance warning: This post contains profanity. If you don't like that, contact the FCC and/or read no further.)...

That Saving Private Ryan has fallen prey to the "values war" that started coming to its height after the Super Bowl this year. Nearly 30% of ABC's 225 affiliate stations wouldn't air the movie for fear of indecency accusations. I didn't watch Saving Private Ryan when it aired several nights ago. However, I have seen it and I thought very highly of it. Yes, there was graphic violence. There was also profanity. From what I understand, ABC went to great pains to remind the viewers of that fact. Reminiscing on the "wardrobe malfunction", there were no such warnings. I'm not bothered by profanity OR nipple-shielded breasts. If I had children and I wasn't warned beforehand (e.g. the Super Bowl halftime show), I might be slightly miffed but the world wouldn't be at an end. However, the uproar about Saving Private Ryan is uproariously sickening to me.

I've never been in the thick of battle. However, I happen to believe that even the saintliest of individuals might find a swear word or two escaping from their lips when they were taking fire. Hell, we should test that theory. Let's strap up Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Franklin Graham with M-16s to go defend Iraqi freedom and record every second of their encounters. I'm sure that the only words leaving their mouths would invoke G-d and Jesus and how wonderful the two figures are. Falwell would probably condemn the yellow Teletubby as a jihadist at the same time.

Pardon me in advance for saying this, but you people need to LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP! Go watch Sky Angel or something...

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