Microsoft Advertising

I was browsing Microsoft's website today looking for information about their new video download service and I came across this picture on their front page:



Two things about this ad strike me as odd.

First, I chuckle at the thought of Microsoft writing an anti-spyware software. Spyware is a rampant problem on Microsoft Windows because programmers at Microsoft are utter retards. Why are they retards, you ask? I'll tell you. They're retards because they sell an operating system where all the users run in "administrator mode." There are no security checks within the system. The system assumes that everything is secure to begin with. Stupid. Furthermore, why the hell would I want to use Anti-Spyware from a company that created the entire problem? Thats like somebody who wants to quit smoking, buying nicotene chewing gum from Phillip Morris. I digress.

Second, if you look close enough at the ad, you'll notice something even stranger (Besides the question of why is the guy using binoculars to look at the laptop). The laptop in the advertisement is an Apple Titanium Powerbook. Why would Microsoft want to use a competitor's products within their advertisements? I realize that the ad industry typically uses Apple products because of their sleek, industrial design, but you need to question the product placement in a computer advertisement. I'm pretty sure someone got fired for this big mistake. Looks like the retards aren't just in the programming side of the company.

Phishing Scam: Revisited

Justin, the alleged phishing scammer, responded to my email. He claims to be legitimate. Here's the email:

From: Apple Apple [**Removed**]@mac.com
Subject: Re: Thanks for writing in . . .
Date: March 31, 2005 1:51:32 PM EST
To: Me
Actuallly, it's not a phishing scam.
You will note that I didn't ask you for any personal information but your phone number. I really am independently contracted to do telephone interviews and put together a report on user satisfaction with iPods and Macs. Also, note that I am a real person taking the time to respond to your email, not an automated phisher program.

Thanks for the Kudos, though. Would that I were so devious.

-- Justin

I'm still not convinced. I believe that the truth is one of two options:

• He is a phishing scammer
• He's really bad at his job

Lets say that he is legitimate, why didn't he offer up any evidence to backup his "claim" that he is indeed a independent contractor working for Apple. Why would think that people would just freely give him their contact information based on faith that he is who he says he is. What's really scary is the thought of people who do give out personal information at the drop of a hat. You'd think that with an email such as his, he would have received more replies like mine. Oh well, I guess the old cliche still rings true: Its hard to find good help these days.

Got the wrong burger? Call 911

A thank you to Chambers for sending me an email about this. Here's the soundclip. Its a 911 call of a mom who got the wrong burger at Burger King. Instead of being a "big girl" and resolving the issue herself or simply getting her money back, she decided to waste even more people's time and call 911. Yes, the dumb bitch obviously thought it was an emergency on par with a car accident, house fire, or a burglary. The 911 operator is great though. She basically reaches through the phone and gives the bitch the slap to the head she needs.

I honestly weep for society sometimes.

Phishing Scam

Roughly about a month, I submitted my own story to Apple's Switch campaign. Its a place to "share your story" about switching to Mac. Anyway, three days ago, I received this email:

From: Apple Apple [**removed**@mac.com]
Subject: Thanks for writing in . . .
Date: March 28, 2005 11:10:51 AM EST
To: Apple Apple [**removed**@mac.com]

Hello.

My name is Justin, and I'm contacting you on behalf of Apple regarding the submission you made to apple.com. We were excited to receive your "new-to-Mac" story, and appreciate the time you took to let us know how you're doing.

Over the next week or so, I am conducting some follow-up phone interviews, and I am wondering if you would be interested in participating. If so, please write back letting me know how and when to contact you.

Thanks for your help.

Sincerely,
Justin **Removed**

I was thrilled to hear that Apple wanted to talk to me about my submission but something about the message bothered me. I just couldn't put my finger on it. Part of me didn't want to be further contacted or bothered. Another part of me didn't want to give out my phone number over email. Yet another part of me questioned the validity of the message. So I kept it in my inbox and let the idea stew for awhile. This morning, I saw the email and decided to look at it again. The following are the clues that I saw that made me believe that this truly is a phishing scam and not legitimate:

• The email address is from a public domain. Apple employees use @apple.com. Only dotMac subscribers use @mac.com
• No job title
• No contact information
• The content is a form letter... without my name
• My email address was not in the TO: field
• No way to contact the company
• No evidence to backup his claim that he is working for Apple
• Originating IP address [69.203.7.147] wasn't an Apple block IP address.

In any event, I decided it was truly a phishing scam but I wrote him back anyway. Here's my response

From: Me
Subject: Re: Thanks for writing in . . .
Date: March 31, 2005 10:55:43 AM EST
To: Apple Apple [**removed**@mac.com]

How many people actually fall for this phishing scam? Kudos to you, you had be believing it for awhile until I realized that @mac.com was for dotMac and not Apple employees.

Take Care,
Dave

As you can imagine, I'm excited to get his response. I always enjoy talking with douchebag low-lifes who survive on the gullibility of good, trusting people. Thankfully, I'm not a soccer mom, so I don't have the sudden urge to contact the local media, form a coalition to end phishing, and create a political firestorm a la Sheila Broslofski. Instead, I just reported the scam to my Gmail who already had a "Report phishing" option on the email. Thanks Google.

Yuengling Traditional Lager

Name: Yuengling Traditional Lager
Brewery: Yuengling Brewery
Origin: Pottsville, PA
Style: American Lager
Alcohol: 4.90 % ABV
Rating: 4.5/5.0

Following up the world's oldest brewery is Yuengling Brewery, the oldest brewery in the United States. I absolutely love this amber lager. Its a honest American brew that is great in so many different occasions. Its great with food, great with beer pong, and the attractive price makes this beer even more enjoyable. Yuengling's Traditional Lager has a great smooth taste superb finish. There's no after taste like with Heineken or Budweiser. Thank you Pottsville.

Political scien.... I mean bullshit

Politics is all bullshit. Politicians and the media continue to wonder why my generation is so completely apathetic but never see the answer. I for one am completely fed up with the bullshit. I'm sick and tired of the bleeding-heart left and the religious right. I'm sick of the crying liberals and the heartless conservatives. I'm sick of CNN and Fox News. I'm sick of Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh. I am sick of the Crossfire type discussion that plague our society.

The major players persuade us to believe that their opinions are the only ones that matter. They attempt to only tell two sides to a story. They make people believe that only the Democratic and Republican parties hold the answer to all of our problems. The fact of the matter is that this is the farthest thing from the truth.

There are a thousand sides to a story. There are millions of opinions and there should be more than two major parties. If we look around the world (well except for North Korea, China, and most of the Middle East), the political world has many voices. Most major countries have copious amounts of parties but yet we are stuck with just two. Why is that?

Why must we subject ourselves only to the views of the extremists (who only oppose each other at tangents anyway)? I wish I had an answer to my questions but I don't. The only hypothesis I have is our society has taught itself to stop thinking. We're taught to make decisions but only permitted to select from pre-determined lists. You have a problem, well you can choose from:

a) Republican
b) Democrat
c) Ralph Nader (but that's really a vote for Republicans anyway)

Real-world problems are not a scan-tron test in a civics course. Real-world problems have numerous solutions and I hate to break it to the elephants and donkeys but you don't have the best answers for your constituents that you pretend to represent.

This country needs a third major party. This party needs to be a voice of reason. It needs to be a blend of progressive thinking and conventional wisdom. We need a voice that is based on compromising and working together instead of extremists and talking points. I refuse to believe that this country is made up of red states and blue states. This country is not populated by extremists. It is populated by Americans. We are truly a country of purple states and a country that needs a purple party to represent us because currently no major party is capable of doing so.

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier

Name: Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier
Brewery: Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan
Origin: Freising, Germany
Style: Hefe Weizen
Alcohol: 5.40 % ABV
Rating: 4.5/5.0

This hefe weizen (German translations: hefe=yeast, weizen=wheat, weiss=white) style brew is among the best in the world. Brewed at the Älteste Brauerei Der Welt, or oldest brewery in the world, I first sampled this beer during a trip to Munich. Its famous for its opaque golden color, banana & clove taste, and spicy finish. Although a horrible selection for beer pong use, its a perfect match for hearty meals or afternoons watching the game when you crave a quality brew to savor.

How to drink Dom Perignon

Bucknell diversity

Like most American males, I've been following March Madness obsessively. As surprised as I was to see Bucknell beat Kansas (I had Kansas pegged to play the final game in my bracket), I was even more surprised to find that Bucknell had black students. For a school that mimicked an advertisement for Abercrombie & Fitch when I took a college tour in 1999, its nice to see there's a little more diversity now.

Maddox, where art thou?

I've been an avid reader of The Best Page In The Universe for quite awhile. To quote the author:

This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong.

The page is known for its very unpolitically correct perspectives on a wide array of topics, which include:

• How to kill yourself like a man


• Bill O'Reilly is a blubbering vagina


• More crappy children's artwork


• I am better than your kids


• Love your kids? Prove it by beating them

The problem is that its rarely updated anymore. In its prime, it was updated every few days with a new morsel of comedy and satire of popular culture but lately I'm lucky too see an update every month or even longer. Maddox, where have you gone? Your fans miss you!

Spreading Santorum

I discovered a new word recently. A word so foul that the American Dialect Society dubbed it the "Most Outrageous" word of 2004."

::Santorum::
The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.

The word was coined by the columnist Dan Savage in honor of the homophobic right-wing Senator Rick Santorum (Republican - PA) who in 2003 made outrageous comments in defense of laws that banned gay sex.

The situation in my opinion is absolutely hilarious. To quote my friend Steve, "I just love the irony of Santorum's name being attatched to anal sex." Anyway, for more information about the controversy check out the article in the Wikipedia here.

Take back your computer

I was talking with a friend last week about the trouble he's had keeping his girlfriend's computer spam, virus, and spyware free. Its been an exhausting effort for him. He recounted the various procedures and steps that he had gone through and was asking for my opinion. I explained to him that he had neglected to see the obvious solution. Viruses and spyware need administrator access in order to get into a system, so the easiest solution is to limit administrator access.

The advantage of Microsoft Windows when it first came to market was that it allowed the average lay person to manage their own computer. This was a great advantage. It allowed each computer owner to install and remove software, create documents, and so forth. This was also before the Internet caught on with the average computer user. The average computer user has no idea what I virus does or how spyware gets into a system. More importantly, the average computer user simply does not care. They only want a system to get their work done. The Internet has created a gigantic obstacle for Windows because the average computer user is often confused and duped into installing spyware while getting a cool daily weather icon in the taskbar.

So I recommended to my friend that he turn on (its already there by default) the Administrator account. Secondly, he should adjust the permissions of his girlfriend's account from "Computer Administrator" down to "Limited Account." This way, she can use all the programs but won't be able to install software. She also won't be the victim of the newest Internet Explorer exploit that downloads and installs viruses and spyware when visiting a website (Use Firefox Web Browser instead!). Then whenever the computer needs to have its software upgraded, you simply log out of the normal account, log into the administrator account, update the software and then revert to the normal account.

I've currently have had this setup working for a sibling of mine for the past year with great success. His computer, once a furious hell hole of swarming viruses and member of the hacked computer borg, is now back among the members of functioning computers. He's able to create Office documents, chat on IM, send and receive email without having to worry about anything hurting his computer and without monthly phonecalls talking up my time. By the way, if you still have problems, just get a Mac Mini and be done with Windows; I'm forcing my parents to get one as their next computer.

Exit

I wonder if motorists get off at this exit? This was an exit I saw when traveling from Chicago, IL to Kalamazoo, MI this past January.

Anatomy of a college haircut

Step 1) Drink until you think of a stupid idea


Step 2) Use the dullest clippers you can find


Step 3) Give your asian friend the Chairman Mao look


Step 4) Proceed to the Dennis Franz look


Step 5) Give him a skullet


Step 6) Pretend to be a Yakuza

Facebookaholic

Well, I've only be on TheFaceBook for one day and I'm addicted already. I'm typically against such internet social networking time wasters but this seems to just click with me. I updated my class information and was able to find out the names and contact information for people in my classes... how extremely useful. No more struggling with homework and not knowing who to contact. I can just start up a "group" for the class.... a la... students_who_take_ME_472_and_think_kobus_looks_like_triple_h (he really does look like Triple H... see here. Besides, I can also stalk to hotties in my apartment so much easier now. I now know that one particular sophomore hottie lives fifty feet away. Hmm... maybe I'll just "poke her" and she if she "pokes" back but first I need to check my profile for the 847th time today.

Book smart

Why is it that morons always attempt to make us believe that they are "book smart." You know who I'm talking about. Its those people (and in my opinion, it seems mainly to be prissy girls) who are just utter morons and have the common sense of say a peanut. Anytime they don't understand or fail in a debate, their immediate rebuttal is "well I'm just not smart that way, I'm more book smart." What the hell is book smart? I don't believe there is such a thing as being book smart. I believe that either you are smart or you are not.

Book smart seems to be a copout for utter morons who happen to do well in school. Unfortunately, doing well in school does not necessarily mean that one is smart. In most classes, good grades are the result of sucking up, not procrastinating, caring about the subject matter, and simply regurgitating information one week later. A person that can bullshit an English paper or memorize the exact date of a historical event does not automatically qualify as a person smart in my book.

Smart people are those that are able to take what they have learned and APPLY it. Smart people are capable of engaging in intellectual debates. Smart people realize they don't need to constantly stroke their ego. More importantly, smart people have the intellectual ability to realize that those who claim to be "book smart" are complete and utter morons merely attempting to brainwash themselves into believing that they are not as stupid as they actually are. Now I may not be "smart" but at least I'm smart enough not to constantly remind people how "book smart" I am.

Das Boot

I rented the 1981 German film, Das Boot, the other night. The film is a detailed look inside the lives of a German U-Boat crew during World War II. Whats great about the film is that it never once glorifies war.

The fact that the crew are Nazis is such a clever device. It allowed the audience to forget about patriotism, glory, and many other typical war movie themes. Instead the audience is invited to focus on the cold realities of being on a submarine. Its claustophobic, lonely, boring, dirty, and most importantly... scary as all hell. Had it been an American boat or rather any Allied force, trying to destroy German boats and tankers, I think the story would have suffered. The simple fact that the audience hates the characters at the beginning allows us to bypass the typical war movie cliches.

Another theme that the movie shows is the emotional impact that war has on soldiers. In one of my favorite scenes, the crew has torpeodoed a British tanker and survived a retalliation from a Destroyer. After six hours of hiding, they resurface and find that the tanker is on fire but just won't sink. They fire one more torpedo to finish it off (which reminded me of Westerns where a cowboy will shoot an injured horse to end its suffering). At this point, the officers discover that the tanker's crew has not been rescued yet. No where to go, the crew jumps off the boat and into the cold North Atlantic waters to escape the sinking and burning ship. Their screams and cries for help can be heard by the Germans but they do nothing, because they don't have the capacity to help them both politically nor physically (no room on the ship). The climax of the scene is the reactions of the German officers. The Captain is furious because the Destroyer had not rescued the crew during the six hours they hid, others are awestruck, and one officer is so overcome with guilt he begins crying. Its an emotional scene that shows its one thing to fire torpedos at a tanker using a parascope but quite another when you witness the deadly ramifications of your actions. Its always easier when you don't see the results.

What I love best about the movie is that its not a happy ending and that makes it a perfect ending. War never has a happy ending because its war. War is cold, miserable, and furthermore the characters are Nazis. The ending scratches the topic of basic human existence. The audience hated the characters in the beginning but we hate to seem them suffer at the end. The great thing about the movie is that there isn't any true antagonist. The British and Germans are simply doing their jobs. Having no true antagonist allows the audience to see that the "enemy" is not always the enemy but rather sometimes just the opponent.