I heart CAPTCHA

So, there's this thing called CAPTCHA that some sites use to help prevent bots from signing up and taking all the good things. Specifically, Ticketmaster uses it. At least that's where I found my three cool CAPTCHA images from.

First, we'll discuss the following CAPTCHA image:
I've performed several imaginary acts in my life. A lot of them have to do with nightly activities. But, needless to say, I found that one a little amusing.

Next, we'll talk about:I've heard "bigger isn't always better", but isn't this phrase taking away from the American Way with "I want it BIG and I want it NOW!"? But, then we come to:
Now, CAPTCHA is trying to contradict itself. First it wants things smaller, now it wants an endowment. I'm sorry, but you can't be small and well endowed :)

Three things I learned I hate

I'd like to share a few tweets from Saturday:

• I HATE roots, and I don't mean the Kunta Kinte kind. 09:47 AM September 20, 2008
• And clay. I HATE clay... Especially Red Georgia type.. And sometimes that homo Aiken ;-) 10:00 AM September 20, 2008
• And bricks... I HATE bricks, too... don't ask me why I'm finding bricks buried in my back yard, but I am. 10:11 AM September 20, 2008
  

First, I'd like to point out how eerily evenly spaced the three posts are. I just noticed it. Not planned at all!

Basically, what went on was I decided to start digging a trench to bury the cable from my satellite dish to my house. First, I hit a number of roots... then I got tired of digging in my Red Georgia Clay (I'd like to think we have more pressing matters than where that link goes to, but I digress)... Then I hit a brick. I thought it was my imagination at first until I dug out a perfectly shaped brick... then another... and a third... I gave up after I dug out no less than EIGHT bricks. That's right, people -- there's a stockpile of bricks buried in my back yard. I'm' about 2/3 of the way from the satellite dish to the house and I gave up. And it's going to piss me off to finish this trench so I can a) get my back yard looking "closer" to normal and not have a partial moat and b) say I accomplished something that's needed to be done for a while.

OH MY GOD! THERE'S NO MORE GAS!

Ok. We all know the unfortunate circumstances that caused Hurricane Ike to hit the Galveston area. In the hours leading up to the turmoil, people in the Atlanta area decided to totally freak out -- similar to the way they freak when the word "snow" comes into the forecast. Except instead of buying all the bread and milk off the shelves, they went and bought up as much gas as they could.

Basic price / demand from my Economics class came into play. That, and some gas stations decided to make a few extra bucks on the gas. One station was charging $5.25/gal at one point. They decided to back down to 4.51, but that price was about $1 more than it was the day prior.

Even with the insane gas prices, people still decided they wanted to hoard up as much as they could in the event the Gulf region of Texas decided to not exist anymore after Ike. As if the US's entire gasoline supply comes from Texas. This resulted in several area gas stations running out of gas. There's a BP down the street from where I live that hasn't had gas since Saturday. With it being Thursday, I REALLY feel for them.

My sister lives in MA. Their gas is at least fifty cents cheaper than here. Since they're further away from the carnage, they didn't decide to freak out and are still reveling in "almost decent sounding" gas prices.

Shortly after I moved here, I remember seeing gas at 72 cents a gallon. It cost me less than ten dollars to fill up my tank. It's now more than five times that price, and is REALLY hurting my wallet. I'm all for alternate forms of energy. My next vehicle will be a hybrid. But something has to be done to help alleviate out wallets.

My Sister Cursed Me!

It's been quiet around here. The Company has kept me busy with their standard BS around processes. So much to the point that it's not even going to be put in the labels today!

Yesterday, Sis and I had HORRIBLE experiences with the most terrifying thing on the earth. In the morning, she sent me a picture message with the following, and BEGGING for someone to kill it.


Now, I'm TERRIFIED of those things as it is. I don't need to see pictures of them. (In other news, this blog entry will NEVER be viewed by me again). She eventually had someone kill it.

I came home and let Bradley out like I normally do. I went and dressed down and decided I'd go outside to play with him also. I happened to look in the middle of the doorway and immediately slammed the door shut. Of course, at this time Bradley decided he wanted in. Since nobody would believe how freaky this incident is, I had to take a picture of it.


I took the ant spray I had and proceeded to spray that deadly animal and it laughed at me. It slid down it's web and finally decided it would try to walk on the patio. That's when I decided to somehow get the balls to KILL IT! Yes! I killed it... by stepping on it... WITH A FLIP FLOP! Of course, NOW I realize that it could have decided to jump up and bite me before the crunch of death came down on it.

But in all, Princess Sparklepants was SO proud of me!

Here's To Yesterday

So, way back in 2001-2002 (and a couple days in 2003), I had another bit of a blog. It wasn't hosted by something like blogger -- it was hosted by me... in an application I created myself. In that time period, I did fifty-two entries. I started out strong, then had months in-between at times.

Of course, during this time period, I was working third shift at Waffle House. I didn't have time come up with witty repertoire. I was too busy making ends meet and trying to find a real job. It was officially removed when I worked with the company prior to The Company. My Canadian Manager there pissed me off because he basically told me it's not OK to spread that link to anyone at work because it says I'm gay and it's not good to be gay at that place of employment. I took it down, but saved all the entries in the event I decided to bring up a blog again.

I found the entries. Initially, I decided it would be cool to throw random "blasts from the past" entries in here if I didn't have time to post... until I started reading them. I needed SERIOUS help way back then. I had forgotten a lot of the things that happened during that time of my life. I had a lot of serious drama in my life that I don't need to be spreading any further. :)

It brought back some retrospect as to how much I've grown in the past *does math* six-plus years. It brought back some good times, some hard times, some sad times, and some fun times. In short, it's one of the many building blocks that makes up my life. I may post portions of the ones I find relevant -- but it would be a lot of work to remove names to protect the guilty.. I mean innocent.

When do I get my super-human powers installed?

So, while working for The Company, every year we're required to take an online course called "Corporate Responsibilities." Ok, it's several online courses called that with different suffix numbers like in college (101, 102, 104.. not sure where 103 went). Anyways, today I took that course.

During the course of the course, there's "mini checkpoints" to make sure you're understanding what's going on. One of them was to identify twenty things wrong with a picture in accordance to the "clear desk policy" The Company has in place. Below is the answer:


Let's start with the #12. A CD is left in the computer. How am I supposed to know that? I'm not Superman with X-Ray vision. Besides, I don't think X-Ray vision works in pictures. And, for that matter, what if it's Duran Duran's Greatest Hits? Is that a violation of the Clean Desk Policy?

Then we'll move up to #3 -- My eyes aren't as great as they used to be, but I can't exactly tell that's a bank statement. Much less a checkbook for #4.

#6 -- That doesn't look like a briefcase. More like a laptop bag. Person has a desktop though (with a CD in the computer). I wonder if there's a CD in the laptop in the laptop bag....

#8 -- I only see one cell phone...

#11 -- Yeah, applications are left open. But, we're supposed to LOCK the computer. That is the real problem with that one. And, is it me, or does it look like they have some sort of chat conversation open? Nice use of The Company's time, dufus. No wonder we had sites like GMail and Facebook and Evite blocked!

#13 -- That sticky note can say anything -- like "Remember to go to the bathroom so you don't wet yourself again."

#15 -- There's a hallway over there? I'm glad we can pan and zoom static images to find all these problems... and interact with the environment. And I can't really see much, but it kinda looks like the window is from a higher floor. Are we protecting our information from window washers? Or maybe Superman....

#16 -- I'll bypass the obvious hallway comment and go onto the window. The contents of the whiteboard are IMPOSSIBLE to see from the window... Unless you're Superman... and can control your X-Ray vision to go JUST far enough in the whiteboard to see the marker on the otherside... then read it backwards.

So, in short, The Company is protecting it's information from super villians! Not sure when I stepped into the world of DC Comics.

That being said, I love our policy on keys:

To protect our keys, we need to lock the keys in a key box or cabinet and take THAT key with us. But, really... shouldn't we be locking THAT key, too? TECHNICALLY that key is a key used to secure assets. Sounds like some sort of endless battle... unless.... COMBINATION LOCKS! (Let me guess... the combination has to be stored inside the case?)



And, apparently I'm supposed to look extremely surprised to know I have some sort of role to maintain a safe workplace. I love that picture.

Just like when James Woods took over Peter Griffin's life

Yesterday, I received the notice that several Countrywide customers received -- that a (now former) employee sold unauthorized personally identifiable information (PII), that could include SSN, Address, Account Information, and other really bad things.

The best part about it -- the IDIOT sold SSN's for approximately 2.5 cents each.

Working for The Company, I have to take regular online courses about things such as that deal with privacy matters. I realize that many companies have sensitive PII, and it scares me. In order to get a financial account, you need to provide your SSN. You also need to provide this to set up a number of your utilities. They perform a credit check to determine your worthiness and how much you pay in fees. The lower your credit score, the higher the fees.

Now, I'm going to take a quick digression on this -- If you have a low credit score, you're going to pay more. Let's think about this for a minute -- Who generally has lower credit scores? The people who don't make enough to pay their bills on time. So, we're going to penalize these people who are already barely making ends meet and charging them more -- providing an endless cycle of debt. God bless the American Way.

So, I've started to determine who has my information -- I've come up with the following:

• Mortgage Company
• Gas Company
• Electric Company (and not in the "HEY YOU GUYS!!" kinda way)
• My Bank(s)
• My Credit Card holder(s)
• Sallie Mae
• My School(s)
  
• US Government
• Dr. Hottie's Office
• My Dentist's Office
• My Chiropractor
• The Company (and other previous employers)
• The DMV
• The Credit Reporting Bureaus
  

Pretty much anyone I pay on any regular basis. And, I'm pretty sure it's greatly incomplete!

Seems like a larger number of organizations than I realized at first have information that can be used for identity theft. I can't believe it's apparently so easy to take over someone's identity.

So, today, I have the exciting task of contacting the three major credit reporting bureaus and placing Fraud Alerts on my files. I don't know the full impacts this is going to have, but I can imagine it's not going to be a great thing.