dave's not here

choice spam subject lines

We’ve all seen them, and I know that I’m not the only one to make a post like this (or even a website), but here are some choice spam subject lines I’ve seen recently in my inbox:

• do vampire my moist
  (creepy yet almost poetic despite being grammatically incorrect)
• malaria and toothaches
  (good band name)
• tattered hole puncher
  (can be read a couple of different ways, none good)
• just fuck and don’t think about anything else
  (to the point)
• and a broken leg with scabies
  (seriously, who’s gonna click on this?)
• best-selling chestnut
  (it’s about time!)
• as saxifrage is destined
  (I had to look up saxifrage)
• eurarsian paper napkin
  (so much better than the North American variety)

Seen any good ones in your inbox lately?

cancelled out

You know how your hair usually doesn’t look so great in the morning? I’ve got thick hair, so it can look pretty weird, pointing in all directions and stuff. And you know how wearing a hat all day can make your hair look all weird too? Well, I wore a cap for most of the day yesterday, took it off a couple of hours before going to bed and I woke up this morning with perfect hair.

True story.

distraction

Stupid fun: http://novelconcepts.co.uk/FlashElementTD/

Thanks, Alistair.

more on the blogging phenomenon

This article was posted to MetaFilter yesterday. It’s fairly dense, but this jumped out at me near the beginning:

“Despite countless attempts to feature blogs as alternatives to mainstream media, they are often, more precisely described as “feedback channels”. The act of “gatewatching” (Axel Bruns) the mainstream media outlets does not necessarily result in reasonable comments that will be taken into account…To “blog” a news report doesn’t mean that the blogger sits down and thoroughly analyzes the discourse and circumstances, let alone checks the facts on the ground. To blog merely means to quickly point to news fact through a link and a few sentences that explain why the blogger found this or that factoid interesting or remarkable, or is disagrees (sic) with it.”
(emphasis mine)

I liked the reference to “gatekeepers” which reminded me of my media criticism days back at university. Before the web really took off, I remember my profs all getting into a lather about how our reality was constructed for us thanks to the gatekeepers at the major media outlets. As we know, we are told not only what to think about, but how to think about it.

The thought that the web, and blogs in particular, might “level the playing field” hasn’t really proven to be the case. Bloggers aren’t necessarily competing with major media outlets – they’re just watching the gates and commenting on what’s coming out of them. It’s got me thinking a bit differently.

Anyway, the article is fairly dense, and I haven’t had time to read it all the way through yet. Just wanted to share that. More to come.

winter blows

I live in Vancouver. It doesn’t snow in Vancouver. We get a token snow day each year, everyone takes their kids to the park to slide down hills on garbage bags, and the next day the rain washes it all away. That’s winter.

Most people I know barely own a winter coat. Or boots. Okay, there’s that crowd that goes skiing and snowboarding and so on, but the rest of us have a nice windbreaker, maybe some hiking boots and a touque. It’s just not worth the investment for something you’re likely only going to wear once a year. In the 33 years I’ve lived here, I think there’s only ever been one white Christmas (Note to self: look up weather almanac on the web, source weather conditions on Dec. 25 for last 33 years. Write blog post proving my point.)

So why am I going on about this? Our usually mild winter has been replaced this year with a plethora of freak wind and snow storms, with some excessive rainfall thrown in for good measure. In early November we were hit with torrential rainfall that caused turbidity in the reservoirs so severe that many residents couldn’t drink the water for two weeks without boiling it first.

Shortly after the water returned to normal, we were hit with snowstorms that brought the city to a standstill for the last week of November.

Mid-December brought hurricane-force winds that downed more than a thousand old-growth trees in Stanley Park and left hundreds of thousands of people without power for days at a time. The wind returned in fits and spurts through the Christmas season, culminating in a brief flurry of sloppy snow on January 5.

Now, once again, it has snowed more than a foot in 36 hours, and the temperature is currently -2 and falling. The roads will freeze and there will be carnage again tomorrow morning on the roads of the city.

That’s enough. I hate this crap. I hate wearing boots and heavy jackets, sweeping snow off my car or truck, scraping the frost off the inside of my windshield, tramping through slush to get a cup of coffee, or just staring in dismay at the cold, miserable, slushy sight outside my window. Snow belongs on the mountains. Hurricanes belong in Florida.

I can’t wait for summer.

a victim of their own success

As I write, the Canadian Junior hockey team is playing Russia for the gold medal in Sweden. It’s a big game, but it’s hard to watch if you’re stuck at work.

Unless you have access to the web.

TSN is broadcasting the game (as well as other games in the tourney) live, on the web. Alas, they have reached maximum capacity, and my hopes of watching the play unfold live have been dashed. It was such a smashing success that they can’t keep up with the volume. I’m stuck with the live scoreboard, which I can pretty much get at any number of places.

Anyway, some guys from work were talking about this at hockey the other day, so I was looking forward to listening to the game at work and being able to switch over and see a reply right away. Maybe next time.

In the meantime it’s still kind of interesting, because I remember how cool it was that we could simply listen to the Canucks games over the web for the first time about 10 or 11 years ago, back when I was still in University. We’d crank up one of the lab machines to point to CKNW so we could listen while we worked on our projects on other machines. We were stoked that we didn’t have to miss any hockey just because we were in school. Good times.

So now we can watch the games live on the web too. Sometimes technology can be pretty nifty.

Update: The Canadians won 4-2 for their third gold medal in a row. Nice job boys.