I’m still alive, even if I haven’t gotten much of value accomplished lately.

Got to play MechWarrior on Saturday with a friend of Rae’s with the most awful shirt I’ve ever seen on a non-bowler. Got a little done on the game I’ve been working on, more on that later. Got a tiny bit of writing done for Ford. Unfortunately, this latest chapter had a little bit of research involved in it, and also centers, for the first half, around a character that isn’t mine, so it’s taking me a while to get it done. Even found some time to read part of my HR Haggard collection.

All of which means I haven’t been spending much quality time on the blog, a situation I hope to begin rectifying by finishing up the weekly schedule I’ve been meaning to do. I’ve got a few things still in the works to add to the blog, hopefully in the next week or so (but probably not).

Also, while we’re on the subject of the blog, there’s something that’s come up over the weekend that I feel needs to be addressed, and quickly.

Let me be perfectly clear by saying that this is a personal blog. A personal blog.

It is not an entertainment portal, not a news portal, not a group-think journal, not a writing portal. If that’s what you’re looking for or expecting, you’ve come to the wrong place; this is just a blog, the personal online journal of an ugly guy in Alaska and nothing more.

While I’m glad that some folks have found some of my material, such as the Moronboss stories, worthwhile, I would be appreciative if people would keep in mind that those stories are, and always will be, part of the archive of this blog rather than stand alone material. I didn’t write them with the intent of creating a page just for them.

Please don’t gripe at me because the Tales of Moronboss don’t have their own link in my navigation and you’re too lazy to find them yourself. All of the archives are conveniently linked in exactly the place you’d expect to find them on a blog. I’ve made the archives available by date, and I’ve also taken the time to categorize my entire archive to make browsing it easier.

If that’s not good enough for you, then please keep that to yourself. You are here, unbidden by myself, and, unless you’re willing to pay me to do this, I’m not at your beck and call. It’s not my responsibility to serve up whatever material you happen to be looking for on a silver platter. Try to think of this as my apartment. If I tell you you’re welcome to get yourself a Pepsi out of the fridge, don’t bitch at me because you had to move the milk to find them.

If you’re still not sure how you should behave here, I’ve provided a lovely FAQ for your perusal. Please use it.

Thank you.

Local military officials are stumped by claims that pieces of a North Korean warhead were found in Alaska.

– Officials puzzled by North Koreas warhead claims

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said Tuesday he’s never heard of such a thing. Neither had Chris Nelson, the state’s missile defense coordinator.

Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, said the report probably referred to a three-stage missile tested by North Korea in 1998.

“It splashed in the water hundreds of miles from Alaska,” Lehner said. “I’ve never heard of any piece of a missile landing in Alaska from that test or any other test.”

– Newspaper says N. Korean missile pieces found in Alaska, Officials puzzled

Imagine that.

So, apparently, there are two birthdays to acknowledge: TA, who apparently doesn’t want his birthday acknowledged, and Hetta, who, for some reason, celebrates her birthday several months after it occurs.

Anyways, Hipy papy bthuthdth thuthda bthuthdy.

As for me, we were supposed to be having a big MechWarrior game today, to celebrate the fact that the official tournaments were moved to a weekday afternoon when none of us adults can play, but, despite agreeing to it a week and a half ago, almost everyone seems to have cancelled.

Ah well. It’s a good day for a hotdog and a walk downtown if nothing else.

Dear Mr. Blix:

pro·ac·tive or pro-ac·tive adj.
Acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty; anticipatory

I’m the #1 result for “STUPID GUY PAGE” !!

I like to think of myself as something of a foul-minded pervert, but even I have to admit that the porn spam that’s coming in these days is getting more and more offensive. What I don’t understand is that the terminology they’re using seems purposefully designed to make sex as unappealing as possible, and when I say that the sex they’re describing is disgusting I mean that in the not-fetish way. It really makes me wonder what the intent of these ads are since, clearly, it’s not to entice you to visit their page.

One effect it has had, however, is to make lawmakers more and more willing to try and do something about it.

Arkansas is the latest state to join the fray with House Bill 1008:

Under House Bill 1008, such e-mails would have to include the sender’s name, a correct street address and an identification number of the sending computer.

The bill would require that all adult advertisements carry

• The name, address and “valid Internet domain name” unique to that sender.
• The phrase “ADV:ADULT” as the first nine characters of the e-mail’s subject line. “A lot of times you don’t know what it is until you open it,” Creekmore said. This requirement will warn people, he said.
• A “valid, functioning” e-mail address to allow the recipient to automatically remove himself from the sender’s mailing list by replying to that address.
• A toll-free telephone number to call to also allow the recipient to get himself removed from the list, if the sender has such a number.

– Bill Targets Porn Spam

And while I support the idea behind this bill and others like it, I have to ask, who’s going to pay for this?

I have a good feeling that the people who support those bills whole-heartedly all had the exact same reaction, “What do you mean pay?”

Well, what I mean is this, spam is not like telemarketing, you can’t just call up the phone company, make a complaint, and have the police send a fine to their place of business. No, there’s such a thing as spoofed headers. Not only that, there are hijacked mail servers. Sure, you can find out who really sent a message with a little digital leg work, but who’s going to pay the salaries of the people doing that research?

Then there’s the question of jurisdiction; what if the spammer is from Nigeria?

I’m all for stopping emails describing “TINY TEENS TORN TO THE MAX!!” but, in all honesty, I don’t see it happening any time soon. Not unless we’re willing to either pay higher taxes for the privilege or give up some of our own rights to email.

One truly notable part of the Arkansas bill is that it protects ISPs and email providers from damages incurred by their users. I’m of a split mind on this. On one hand, it’ll tame people like Mike Gallagher who think Yahoo should be shut down because child pornographers use Yahoo email addresses; but it’ll also remove any incentive for ISPs to help with complaints about their users.

I’m taking a wait-and-see with this one.

Education experts warned yesterday of the potentially damaging effect on literacy of mobile phone text messaging after a pupil handed in an essay written in text shorthand.

The 13-year-old girl submitted the essay to a teacher in a state secondary school in the west of Scotland and explained that she found it “easier than standard English”.

Her teacher, who asked not to be named, said: “I could not believe what I was seeing. The page was riddled with hieroglyphics, many of which I simply could not translate.”

[…]

The teenager’s essay began: “My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we usd 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- kds FTF. ILNY, it’s a gr8 plc.”

– Girl writes English essay in phone text shorthand

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

shyt, i’m soo totalli bore rite now. godd sum stupid ass bitch yesterdai has realli gone crazy, started bashin mi n mai fwendz<>.( SUMBODI darn gone kookz ). oh yea, yesterdai when i came home from gettin tapez for mai dad, shyt mai freakin heel actualli broke(can u imagine the way i was walkin, oh godd) mi soo embarrassed now<>. omg, i haven’t done ne of mai hw, damn, gotta start one rite now hopefulli<:D>
buh bye.

– Lizzie_Hugs_n_Kisses’s Xanga site

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear TA was writing this.

Also on the subject of blogs, I did get an email from Daniel Chan at Daypop, offering to remove my site from the index list. Still no workd on whether he’ll provide a way for other sites to remove themselves.

So Tuesday night Ann and Camdon came back.

I had the beer bottles cleaned up by Tuesday afternoon, and did one last perusal of the house to see if the crack whores stole anything obvious. Then I packed up my crap, took it home, and then sat at the airport waiting for their flight to get in (and drinking a 16oz chocolate milk that cost $2.25).

Anyway, I’m back to my own little hovel now.

Unfortunately, while moving my crap in and out of the zip mobile, I somehow managed to dislocate my ass. Now, every time I take a step, my ass hurts, and it sends stabbing pains down my leg. Which means that, yesterday, I took the day off to stay in bed all day eating potato chips and watching Star Wars and occassionally moaning in agony, and then quickly remembering that I have nobody around to moan in agony to.