You won’t believe this…

…the Dell rep shows up and goes to work, and all goes well. … As he’s walking out the door, he says “by the way, it looks like the hard drive they (Dell) sent you wasn’t a new one …”

Dell actually gave me a hard-drive straight from the Department of Defense.

     Un-freaking-believable.  This means that, at some point, one of three things occurred:

• A Dell rep walked out of a DoD facility with a hard drive, ignoring the usual disposal procedures
• A DoD employee sent their laptop to Dell, ignoring the usual disposal procedures
• The DoD upgraded a series of leased laptops, ignoring the usual disposal procedures

     A little over a week ago, a law enforcement official called me to hack into a seized notebook.  In under thirty seconds, I found the Administrator account (they had changed it — just like the DoD does), erased its password and reset the account protection on the file system.  I then logged into Safe Mode as the Administrator, deleted the passwords on the client accounts, handed it back to said law enforcement official and said, “Have fun with that.”  I got my $125, and went my merry way.

     Sure, not everyone can do it that quickly, but I know there are plenty of people out there who are perfectly capable of doing what I did.  Distributing Department of Defense hard drives to people with that kind of know-how could certainly be a serious risk to National Security.

     In my book, at least three people need to be held accountable for that kind of screw up.

     Ok, I took the quiz, and yes, I am officially a Star Wars Dork with a score of 41 (out of a possible 43).

     I am so ashamed…

     Spank Me, Princess Leia … You’re my only hope.

Tip: Matt Mullenweg

     Tonight, as usual, I tried to have a good night, hanging out with the Pirate Chicks.  I like them.  And, overall, they give me great insight.

     But…

     Our place-of-choice was, as usual, sub-optimal.  This required me to go to the bar on many occasions to get our drinks, because the service was, typically, sub-optimal.

     And what should happen, just before I left, if one of the servers didn’t come and sit down at our table, telling us all her hopes and dreams, about how she’s going to be a clothing designer?  She’s so much better than “this place?”  How she’s going to move away from Knoxville, and get a “real life?”

     And when I offer her a bit of advice, she says: “I’m not gonna sit around here talking to some f&*#ing bald guy!”

     Let’s see …

     Waitress?

     Old enough to be her father?

     Experience, maybe?

     Already been to the countries she dreams of visiting?

     Know more people than she ever will, most probably?

     No.  Doesn’t matter to her.

     *shrug*

     Long story short, bouncer, bartender, and both of them told me I didn’t do anything wrong.

     “She’s drunk, dude, and being a bitch.  Sorry, man.”

     “I am so sorry, and I don’t know what happened, but you’ve always been sweet to me.  And you’ve — Oh, Thanks!”

     *shrug*

     It’s all about Customer Service, to a very large degree.  Don’t insult your customers.  And if you do, apologize.

     And if you’re a drunken idiot, at least have the couth to say, “I’m drunk.  Bye.”

     Wish I could drink while I worked … *rolls eyes*

Here is another repugnant conservative Kristian site trying to bring back the Moral Majority. It’s hard to know where to start with this stuff because it is so ignorant and pathetically stupid. Their list of Gay Bands to avoid and defend your kids from is laughable. I mean, in general, there are a lot of reasons to not listen to these bands, and some sort of gay connection is pretty far down the list. And any mental flyweight retarded enough to be under the influence of these clowns isn’t worth bothering with to begin with. Except that they probably minister to a lot of very young, gullible kids. Kids may be smart as whips, but they don’t know enough to understand that these people are ‘tards. So they become the victim of their abusive “teachings.”

But the real issue here is one that most all gay bashing Kristians have and that is the notion that one becomes gay or decides to be gay and that they can be fixed.

But then, these aren’t people who listen to science, so I don’t know why I am surprised they don’t get it. Chances are, we can create gay people at will by messing with a mother’s hormone levels during pregnancy.

Being someone who actually knows and has talked to many gay people, let me make this very clear. People are born gay. They certainly do not choose it. Nor are they victims of gay sexual abuse.

That is fact.

     For a few months, I’ve been writing down some of the bizarre and humorous things that come out of peoples’ mouths.

     Back on November 10th, we’re sitting having a late lunch, and from out of nowhere, Zacque sits up in his chair, narrows his eyes to slits and monotonically mumbles:

Ahhh! Get your genitalia out of my eyes! I can’t see!

     On November 20th, I slammed the last portion of a beer sitting on the table, because you know, we can’t abuse the alcohol.  Susan quotably quipped:

Yeah, what’s a little backwash between friends?

     On November 30th, Zacque, Susan and I were sitting in the Old City when Niki walks in wearing a — form-fitting — red shirt.

Zacque: “Ya know, that’s a very nice shade of red.”

Me: “Yeah, I was gonna say, that is a very nice shade of nipple.”

Niki: “And they’re cold, too!”

Me, Susan & Zacque: “DUH!”

     Now, of course, there have been many, many more over the last few months, most of which are too rude to post here (I try and keep things semi-clean).  Hilarious, nonetheless…

     But this one today, from Lisa, takes the cake:

Stop cursing! I’m ovulating and it turns me on!

     Apparently, insanity runs in circles. 

Notice anything odd about this portrait? This portrait of a singing group? They are not smiling. That’s the way it used to be. Then, for some ungodly reason, we all had to smile when someone pointed a camera at us. “Feign delight!”

I think Walt Disney and his “happiest place on Earth” may have had something to do with it. Maybe it was the hippies. I don’t know.

But I do know it needs to stop. I am sick to death of newscasters who feel a need to be happy and perky telling all the grisly details. I am sickened by everyone in TV commercials living in happy happy land where it’s all non-stop smiley fun world!

Look, chicken! Yeah!

Tooth polish! Whee!

And every damned show is now filled with perky, happy people. You can’t redecorate a house or bake a dinner on TV unless you are insanely gleeful while doing it.

Enough!

I have more than one feeling or emotion and the majority of my life is not happy funland. That’s just where I go to put quarters in machines to take my mind off my real life for a while with the kids.

If I pass you at work and don’t say, “Hi, how are you doing?” it does not mean A) I hate you or B) I am deeply depressed and need help. It means, I am normal.

All this fake smiling is creepy. Like some horror movie. Like those creepy ass clowns. Like John Wayne Gacy.

I fucking hate perky people! The people who inhabit TV commercials and talk shows and any of those DIY instruction type shows are the freaks who need help. They make me sick. I want to trip them and make them fall face first in a mud hole.

That would make me happy.

     Parents are frequently reminded about how resilient their kids are despite seeming so fragile.  I’m sure one friend of ours is thankful how tough hers are.
     On Friday night, her son, daughter and a friend of theirs were in a pretty horrible car accident.

     The son and the friend are both in clear, and already out of the hospital — concussions, internal bleeding and broken bones, and already out. 
     Her 15-year-old daughter, however, wasn’t quite that lucky.

     Above and beyond being bounced around and getting a few nasty bruises, scrapes, gashes and broken bones, she ended up being impaled on the car’s gearshift.
     According to a Paramedic on the scene, she wasn’t taking her predicament lightly.  Though they were attempting to help her, she was dead set on kicking their butts when they tried to move her — so much so that she had to be sedated before being removed from the vehicle and flown to the Hospital.

     She’s going into a surgery in a few hours to repair her broken spine.

     But even with injuries like that, she’s still been moving her hands and feet.  For that matter, she’s been writing notes telling people what she needs. 

     That’s a helluva tough kid, and I have no doubt she’ll pull through with unbelievable speed.
     She’s a Pirate’s kid — these things happen.

     But at the same time, a little but if prayer never hurts.

     Apparently, Monty’s opened up a can of worms that can’t be shut.  Again, I get put in the position to bring it down a notch.

     In the immortal words of Reinhold Niebuhr:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

     To put it bluntly, “Shit happens.  We deal with it, or we don’t.”

     Recompense helps.

     But when even that fails…

     Laughter always makes us feel better.

     Let’s leave our apprehension, anger and fear at the door for a moment.  I mean, hey, it’d do us all good to just sit back, take a deep breath, and have a good laugh.
     Shall we?

Thanks, Zacque!

When will it start? Every single person who reads this has been attacked repeatedly. And if the attack were successful, our computer might be dead or our back accounts drained or our identities stolen. Sounds freakin serious to me.

I have a very good sys admin who keeps 99.9999+% of the spam and phishing scams from ever hitting my inbox. But some still comes through. And over 99% of the email traffic on the internet is spam. The work of compromised, infected computers. National Security? Hello.

My sys admin knows who they are. He blocks them and send the spam to the bit bucket. Why does he have to?

Wanna stop elderly folks and computer newbies from sending thousands of dollars to Nigeria? Stop with the free distribution of spam! It’s that easy.

We need to stop it all at the Internet backbone. If the engineers and computer scientists in charge of maintaining the Internet decide to implement it, they could stop 80-90+% of the spam immediately. Thus freeing up bandwidth for more porn commerce.

Every day it only gets worse as a new computer has a broadband connection to the Internet every half second and three days later 1 out of 100 of those is sending out 100,000 spam emails an hour. It will cripple the Internet. And no one is even thinking about it. No one but the sys admins fighting the war on their servers and the people like us fighting off one attack after another.

Not to mention the millions of dollars that is lost daily to the crap coming into our Tubes…

The news of the double murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom is shocking. But I want to know where this all began. We know where it ended and who is in custody, and who died. Young white kids from the West side died East Side of town.

What will be truly telling is where it all started. Why are they holding that back? I think the answer will be that it started somewhere “safe” like ”Turkey Creek” and they don’t want people to know that. If it had happened in the Old City or downtown, you can bet it would have been news from day one.

I really want it to have happened in West Knoxville. I want the world to give up this notion that parts of town are “safe” and parts are “unsafe.” Why doesn’t the media report the number of thefts and robberies and other crimes in the parking lots of Turkey Creek and West Town Mall, but seem to regularly report anything that happens downtown? If people knew the facts, it would change a lot. When Bill Haslam’s mother’s purse was snatched at the mall, they were unable keep it quiet. News this big can’t be kept quiet either.

We will see if there is a real reason the location is unknown, or if it is just their way of protecting some economic interest’s investments, or maybe some segment of Knox County’s notion of “safe.”