Lee.org

I’ve had this no-yearly fee Visa card forever. I even forget who I originally got it with. The company on the masthead has changed so many times… Today it’s Chase.

You know how you get those little “Important Notes for Credit Card Customers” pamphlets… the one written all in legaleze. I decided to read mine this time and yow! My APR on this thing is now 30.99% with a late fee charge of $39. So if I buy a $1,000 item and miss my payment date by a day, I instantly owe an extra $65! Oh, plus a $1 finance charge.

The moral of the story? Don’t be late!

(To try and cover my ass, I just set up an automatic billing thing with my bank. If I forget to pay, Chase Visa still gets an automatic “minimum payment” of $10)

The state of comment spam is always evolving. Welcome to the next generation.

I’ve now gotten 2 comment spams like the following:

Comment on Star Wars post
URI: http://www.bon[no referal for you!]us.to
Comment: Great trailer great film. Many thanks Lee.

(I added the [..] bit)

This spam was obviously written by a human. I’m guessing in a high-tech sweatshop in China. Hurumph.

I’ve been listening to audio podcasts the last week or so on my way to work and around town. I’ve been very impressed. It’s an idea who’s time has totally come.

I have iPodder software and I’ve subscribed to… yow a whole lotta shows. A partial list of some of my favorites include Accidental Hash, Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code, Audio Dharma, Catholic Insider, Decoder Ring Theater, Gillmor Gang, several NPR shows… I count almost 50 shows I’m subscribed to.

Cool.

How I do it: iPodder –> CD-RW –> my new car stereo which can read mp3 discs. I swap CDs (holds 10-20 hrs) every couple days.

When I browse my website logs, I sometimes find interesting trends. Usually I just find people that are hotlinking to my site.

They just love this image on myspace. I’ve been getting 4,000 hits a month on it for a good while.

The latest big thing is my family’s Christmas tree.

It’s apparently being sent around in a Yahoo email (example referer) and now it’s popping up in blogs all over! Wee!

# of hits
5,000 November
23,000 December
15,000 The first 5 days of January

If you’ve seen this tree, do not attempt to apprehend. Just forward the email to me too!

Update 12-15-06: I’ve noticed the hit counts rise again this Christmas season. Mine is the second most popular Christmas tree on the internet!

Update 2-8-07:
Barbara sent me the final image of the ad. It was nice :-)

(attn. doubters) I went for a walk tonight and found my local sushi restaurant. Kiji on Guerrero and 22nd. Super high quality. Authentic. Comfortable. Friendly. Fairly expensive.

The place has been there only barely longer than I have been in my new place.

At the prompting of my neighbor at the bar Jeremy and the guy at the end of the bar, I had saba (mackerel), uni (sea urchin) and sake. It was as excellent sashimi should be, a symphony to the senses.

I’ll be back.

PS. -This- is why SF is an expensive city. Sanctuaries like this command your attendance.

RE

I recently had an exchange with the person behind WikipediaClassAction dot org. The transcript is below Comments are welcome, though the following quote from wikipediaclassaction.org might do just as well to show you how stable the author is (emphasis my own):

Our primary concern is that Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. and JIMBO (Jimmy) Wales believe themselves above the law, refusing to remove offending, defamatory and untrue content, even going so far as to cause further damage by highlighting the content, asking people to vote on its removal, etc. The system is full of problems and these are intentional in design and purposeful in their intent; to cause harm, to permit and encourage a system of anonymous libel and we submit, the result of Wales’ deep-seated upset with ridicule he suffered the result of his porn business; something like the way that Richard Desmond acts because he has never quite been accepted into ‘society’ because of his King of Porn history. Similarly, Wales uses Wikipedia to libel and ‘get back’ of those he doesn’t like…

Transcript follows:
Continue reading ‘Wikipediaclassaction.org’ »

Today I was called a big lug. As in “Ya big lug.”

I got all mushy over it.

Can you believe the kinds of Customer Service emails I get?

From: André Sala
To: support
Subject: big probleem with TonicTV
Created: 12/19/2005 11:20:07
Greetings.

I am Borat and I having technical difficult with your tonicsTV software package.

I am running most up to date versions of Windows 95, and I have absolutely most top of line computer laptop.

I have to like very many channels, and will looking forward to many video blog channels.

I have checked all connections and even try fresh new battery. Will you fix?

Thank you.

Borat.

My flight got in from EWR at 4:30am EST. There was an electrical problem on the plane so they had to turn around and get us another one. We suspected something was wrong when they had a lot of trouble playing the “seat cushion as floatation device” video. They had to close and open the TVs from the ceiling 3 or 4 times and the sound kept not working. We knew there was a problem when the captain came on and said, “We’re probably going to be turning around. We’ve just about finished troubleshooting the electrical problem…” People shouldn’t be “troubleshooting” at 10,000 feet! A flight attendant came on a couple times with an unsure note in her voice. That didn’t help things any.

We landed a bit heavy (I’m guessing because we were heavy with fuel). I wasn’t really unnerved until I saw the 2 fire trucks and assorted support vehicles at the end of the runway. Getting off the plane, the right side of the cabin was dark and the left side had emergency lights on. I’m guessing that if both generators had failed, we might have had Trouble.

We got off and found another plane at the opposite side of the terminal. I watched our new flight crew read some sheets of paper very intently. I’m guessing it was what they should do on this new plane in case of a water landing or somesuch. Joy.

We got in the air at 10pm, 4 hrs late. Got in at 1:30am. The baggage carousel broke after spitting out 1/2 the bags so we switched to another one. Joy. I found a van service (we don’t have these in NJ). For $15 they took me right to my door. A cab would have been $30. After me, they dropped off a few other folks in SF.

I dropped into blissful San Franciscan sleep on my matressless floor at 2:45am (that’s 5:45am for you east coasters)

After all that rigormoral…. I’m back! Yeah!