Pilot's Log

[Previously posted on my Facebook webpresense:]

It's Publisher Clearinghouse Sweepstakes time. I get a mailing teasing me about a $3 Million Dream Home--but somehow I think I'd be happier with a dozen $250K homes, scattered about the nation/world. What would $250,000 US get a fella where you are?

Some of my Dad's e-mail gets forwarded to me.

Mostly his junk. Got a piece the other day from the Warner Brothers video club, since we're sorta signed up with them, in spite of never actually buying anything from them. Header said "Cartoon classics..." Only it wasn't Looney Tunes they were pushing--it was old Hanna-Barbera stuff from the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties. (And I don't mean THEIR really old stuff from the Sixties!)

All of a sudden I wonder if there might be a shotgun marriage in the works between Bugs Bunny and Yogi Bear. Ugh. Why is youth culture in America SO OLD?

Took Mum to Knoville today so we could visit Virtual Interactive Center (our ISP) and talk to Josh (our service rep). The bad news:

VIC is also discontinuing their e-mail and web hosting services. Mum's mail will be phased out in a few months and her website will need new hosting probably in less than a year.

Since Mum has accounts with other webservices we can migrate her e-mail pretty easily, but doing something about her website is going to take some creativity.

It's a shame that VIC is dropping our business because in our view they've always been a class operation and we like them just as much now as we did in 1997 when we started.

PS: I bought my box set of Wings of War: Fire In The Sky. Going to open it this evening.

Q: Did your Mom have a nice birthday?

A: She had a very nice birthday. And you know a holiday that involves gift-giving isn't over until all the gifts have been opened and enjoyed...so it's still ongoing for her. Today my sister and brother-in-law visited and treated her to a lunch of exotic foods guaranteed to help her through her health issues. Sis also gave Mum three new shirts.

A family/church friend gave Mum a Key Lime Pie for her dessert tonight, which excused me to finish off Mum's birthday cake. Oh, the duties I have in this family.

The trojan spammer who has somehow hacked into my mail account struck again this week. I'm still trying to find ways to undo the damage.

In the meantime, I threw a new signature on my account. I repeat my "Dadah Means DEATH" line from my User Info here and go on to say that I don't approve of on-line medicine commerce. Messages that come from me with a sales pitch should be pitched.

I hope this irritates the spammer and he decides to move on to greener pastures.

But I want to counter-attack him more directly. Wish I knew how.

I still haven't gotten Mum's e-mail back for her--or even her "Bejeweled 2" for her!--and I'm not liking myself for having this slump happen at an unhelpful time.

*) Did an extended shopping trip today. Didn't buy much, because places had sold out of what I wanted to buy. But at least that's a good sign. (I was halfway expecting to write this out in Kiffiescope, and may still do that.)

*) When I was in Knoxville yesterday, I noticed that Marshall Classics seemed to have been replaced with another car seller at its Morris Avenue location (where I-40 and I-640 came together) west of Downtown. It wouldn't surprise me if Ross Marshall had retired or moved on; the economy wasn't there to support his rebuilt Bentley Special operation, or his Deronda super-roadster. He also imported that MGTD replicar from Asia that I mentioned a few years back.

*) A stalker is sending e-mails to me because he thinks my addy is for somebody named Suzanne. He's sending links to "e-greetings" that I think are virus-ridden.

*) Mum may finish her latest book this week if all goes well.

*) My brother and I are planning a vacation for Spring Break.

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Truth be told it's been about the same for the last ten years since I got online. IRC has come and gone, and my blogging and FB-ing is new, and USENET is fading away, but it's all been pretty static. Of course, if I had some sort of high-speed connectivity it would be far different.

You'd think that Hallmark would go after those spammer crooks who use bogus e-card notification mailings to spread computer viruses.

* I think I saw Ruby last night (the ghost of this house's previous owner). It happened too fast for me to be sure, tho'.

* Last week I put a new filter in Mum's spam-trapper on her e-mail account. So far, it's blocked 100% of her spam messages. She says it's taken a lot of the fun out of her e-mail, but I'm not changing it back.

* I finally (after years) have decided to pack away a lot of my VHS tapes. Since my player isn't working there isn't much point in them being readily handy.

* Need to write Sempai a letter.

* The weather has been unseasonably warm and wet here. Every other day, we've had thundershowers.

* The flyash spill is on the other side of Knoxville from where I am, and the earthquake I wrote about had nothing to do with it. So far as we know.

* The NFL has been screwy this season, hasn't it?

* I plan to have a set of pictures taken modeling my new shirts the same way I modeled those four pair of trousers this past summer.

* We just ate our first meal from a monster eight-pound ham (from Cracker Barrel) that a neighbor gave us. We'll probably have ham casaroles, ham sandwiches and ham omelets for weeks. We're gonna need cheese.

* I'm going through my collection of unbuilt model kits to see what I can sell to Paul. Some of these I bought when I was working years ago, and thought I might be able to build them right away, but since they have just sat forlorn and half-forgotten in boxes in the guest room. Meanwhile, I'm also pulling out stuff to work on.