The Navy Launches a Denial-of-Service Attack on Itself

I am currently suffering through a textbook example of what happens when idiots are faced with spam. In my case, every individual in the US Navy with a last name of Berrios - Dieter was emailed that dumb "Bill Gates will pay you for forwarding this!" scam. This particular email has been in circulation since 2004, and is carrying with it a history of email addresses so long that the message body itself is 9 MB in size.

Understandably, we all feel ticked off and harassed for having to put up with this email. Incredibly, people feel the need to "Reply All" and to tell everyone else how ticked off and harassed they are. INFURIATINGLY, they keep the original message in the reply so that I now have twenty 9 MB emails trying to squeeze through my already taxed email server. We are launching a denial-of-service attack on ourselves. I'm sure the Chinese couldn't be prouder.

I have deleted most of them, but being that I can't do much else while this is going on, I figured I would share some of these thoughtful insights that employees of the world's most powerful Navy deemed important enough to share:

"So now I have to hear from each one of you that this is a scam?!?!?!?!? Just STOP, delete it and let it be!!!!!!! You are wasting valuable DoD time!!!!"

"Stop this, it overloads Outlook."

"All, Do not respond the this hoax email! Maybe the sender should do some research before they send a mass email such as this. This is a hoax!! Read the following at: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/microsoft-aol.asp or http://www.hoax-slayer.com/ms-money-giveway-hoax.html and many others, if they would do some research. Also, sending mass emails, such as this, is a violation of the NMCI user agreement."

"PLEASE stop hitting "reply to all." You're clogging up the system more than the original garbage did. Thanks in advance."

"This is bogus. I remember getting this same junk email about two or three years ago. I don't believe it has resurfaced."

"ALL, Please do NOT act on the email sent to you. This is TOTALLY fake, hoax, scam, urban legend. Please read the following from Snopes = http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/microsoft-aol.asp. All you've done is spread spam email...which is one of the goals of the originator who came up with the hoax."

"Remove me from this list. Don't resend. NMCI notified. "

"DO NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT SEND THIS TO ME. You people have clogged up my email several times now. I've reported this to NMCI. Take me OFF this list. Thanks"

"Whoever has me on their distro list take me off now. I am tired of my inbox filling up with this crap. Last time I checked mass spamming is not authorized. Quit hitting reply to all..... "

"Do NOT reply to all on this list. This email is bogus and if this continues, action will be taken."

Note that most of these individuals came to the prescient conclusion that Replying All was in fact causing the majority of our ills, but that conclusion could not in itself prevent them from also clicking on Reply All.

It is worthwhile to note that some of the individuals making these replies are in positions of considerable influence, and these individuals, who couldn't muster the mental fortitude required to think through the consequences of a single email action, most definitely have a hand in the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars and responsible for the welfare of our Sailors.

It cooks...and cleans?!

I watched my oven clean itself for the first time on Saturday. It was amazing. In an hour, every bit of dripped cheese and every crumb of unknown and suspect origin was reduced to a tidy pile of ashes. I am still beside myself. As a closet-OCD guy with no love for cleaning, automated help is greatly appreciated. I have a Roomba. I use Tilex religiously. I employ various methods for cleaning toilets without actually touching them.

But I admit I was initially skeptical of this self-cleaning feature, which explains why it went unused for this long. I knew that as soon as I pressed the "Clean" button, the oven would lock me out, as if it were saying, "Nah, bro, I got this." This to me is an attitude unbecoming of a kitchen appliance. The first fifteen minutes were hard, but once I glimpsed the near-Hades being recreated in my kitchen and watched the cheese drippings incinerated into itty bitty cheese constituents, I had a better time of letting go.

Now I am convinced of the oven's lofty perch high above the lesser appliances. When was the last time you helped me out, stove? And don't get me started, microwave. No matter how the power setting, you still manage to spew tomato sauce everywhere. Every appliance should have a clean-by-vaporization option. Anything less is more work for me.

Cruise Chronicles: Alaska Edition - Seattle

Seattle is a nice town. Especially in the early summer months when the highs are in the seventies and it isn't raining. I imagine that the place isn't quite as pleasant during those winter rains the Emerald City is famous for. Anyway, here are some basic observations.

The Space Needle is overrated. There are taller skyscrapers in downtown and a lot of the the northern hills are higher than it. Totally not worth twenty bucks to ride an elevator to the top. It does, however, make a good backdrop for pictures. And those are free.

The guys who throw fish are awesome.

Pike Place is like the New Orleans French Market, only twenty degrees cooler.

The gum wall is hyped up a lot, but at the end of the day it is a collection of sticky misdemeanors. It is kind of hidden, so you feel like you've accomplished something when you find it.

Town car drivers cut travel times in half.

The Mediterranean Inn is a fantastic place to stay. A great roof top view and a Starbucks off the lobby.

For the birthplace of Starbucks, there aren't as many as you'd think.

Queen Anne has a Bohemian feel without the druggies and other negative aspects. Perfect for good eats without the uncomfortable walk.

Mount Rainier is a big volcano.

This is my first attempt at blogging on my iPhone, so please forgive any spelling errors which I am sure are numerous and annoying. 

Sent from my iPhone. 

Life's Lessons

I went to Walmart today, because Leslie is coming home tomorrow and I wanted have the pantry stocked (with my food) when she got home. I spent all morning cleaning the house. I vacuumed (well, Roomba vacuumed), I Swiffed and Windexed the floors, I cleaned the bathrooms, and I changed the linens. I was pretty darn proud of myself.

After I loaded the groceries in the car I stopped by Tropical Smoothie on the way home, the intent being that if I had a smoothie now I wouldn't be tempted later by a burger or something else laced with lipids and salt. I picked up a Blue Lagoon, unable to resist the delicious mix of blueberries, strawberries and banana.

When I got home, I quickly got inside with the smoothie and my library books. The smoothie was already quickly transitioning to the liquid phase, so I stuck it in the freezer door while I unloaded the car. This will be important later.

I brought in the dozen or so bags of food and quickly sorted out the freezer items. Desperate to get the lasagna and chicken strips (Leslie will be so pleased) into the freezer, I whipped open the door and watched 22 ounces of minced fruit fall swiftly to the ground below. The result was catastrophic. I went through the stages of grief in a record fifteen seconds. I couldn't believe it at first, and then quickly became agitated at the $4.74 that lay on the ground before me. I tried to scoop it up, trying to save it. When I saw the blue streaks on my walls I vomited a little in my mouth, and slumped into the only clean corner in the kitchen, where my silhouette was clearly visible, my body having shielded at least a portion of the wall. After two quick tears, I grabbed the six-pack of paper towels I just purchased (Scott, pick-a-size quilter) and got to work.

Having been inspired recently by Obama's ability to turn anything into a lesson, sort of like life gives you lemons, make a racial relations team-building exercise, I took inventory of everything I could learn from this event. The list is quite extensive, as it took me a very long time to clean up the mess. Here is that list. It has been formatted to fit your screen and edited to run in the time allotted.

I have learned:

1. That freezer doors are useless places for storage.

2. That a falling body, beginning from a height of four feet with an initial vertical velocity of zero, assuming negligible air resistance and a sea-level acceleration due to gravity of thirty-two-point-two feet per second squared, will reach a final velocity of ten-point-nine miles per hour when it reaches the floor.

3. That ten-point-nine miles per hour is more than enough to destroy a Styrofoam cup.

4. The plastic lids on Tropical Smoothie cups will blow out before they separate from the cup.

5. Tropical Smoothie cups will rupture in multiple locations if given the opportunity.

6. That as a rule, splatter can travel up to three times the height of the initial fall.

7. Blueberry juice stains everything.

8. That for some inexplicable reason, the floor slopes down underneath my refrigerator.

9. That I should clean under the refrigerator more often.

10. That the idiom, "clean enough to eat off," should be literally applied only in the cleanest applications, and never with a liquid.

11. That the floor was not as clean as I thought it was.

12. Blueberries and strawberries have a lot of seeds.

13. These seeds are a pain in the ass to pick up.

14. Blueberry juice rivals industrial adhesives in stickiness.

15. That our cat Mimi has a new reason to lick my feet.

16. That the sticky floors feeling is the worst feeling in the world.

17. That it takes ten rinse-soap-rinse iterations before this feeling goes away.

18. Quilted paper towels really do hold more liquid.

19. That wood laminate floors covered in Dawn dish detergent are slippery.

20. That the limits of my flexibility are now painfully defined.

21. That some categories of groin pulls don't really hurt until two hours after.

22. That I am definitely eating something high in lipids and mercifully solid tonight.