Be Careful When Screencapping

One of my friends works in a office where a secretary has an addiction to screencapping. When there is something she wants to show someone, instead of utilizing copy/paste to transfer the text into an email, or even providing a URL, she decides to press the "Print Screen" button.

She then makes a .jpeg and sends it as an email attachment, which requires everyone to download the file and use an image viewer to see a slightly blurry picture of her screen.

Everyone was suitably annoyed with this practice, until she slipped up.

She was running multiple applications, and sent a .jpeg that showed some of the other items she had on her taskbar.

One was an internet browser labeled "Sex Acts."

My Internet Returns!

On Wednesday morning I woke up to find my internet was dead. I kept getting "connection refused" and "permission denied" messages, although I was getting a very strong wireless signal.

When I noticed it was the last day of the month I became suspicious about whether my roommate remembered to pay the bill. She was staying at her parents, so I called her that day and left a message.

I called her again Thursday morning when I didn't hear from her, telling her I really needed to use the internet for homework assignments. I talked to my other roommate (who wasn't in charge of the internet bill), who told me, "Gee this has happened before. Remember in March, when our power got turned off, but back on the same day when I called her?" (That was news to me since I wasn't home that day, but it certainly made me even more sure my internet withdrawal was her fault).

My suspicions were confirmed Thursday afternoon the mailman delivered a "PAST DUE" notice from our internet company that said "Your internet is scheduled to be disconnected. Disconnection may have already occurred."

I called my roommate again, with no reply.

Late Thursday night my internet came back on, but automatically disconnected every 2 minutes.

As of Saturday, it's stabilized somewhat, and I get disconnected only every 10-15 minutes. I wonder if this is the company's way of punishing us for late payment.

Oh yes, and my roommate never called back.

New Blogroll

I've updated my links to other blogs/sites to more accurately reflect what I'm reading nowadays.

Sadly, some of my favorite blogs retired. However, I found some new things to giggle over.

Hobo Hideout

Yes, some more amusing wireless network names I've encountered during my travels:

Hobo Hideout

LALALA

Slugmedic

Alleviating Boredom With a Pickaxe

My father is retired, and understandably bored.

One day he decided our backyard was not flat enough, and he wanted to level it out. As he passed me with a pickaxe I thought, "This can't be good."

My pessimism was validated a little later, when I heard him screaming, "Turn off the water! Turn off the water!"

He had punctured a pipe in the backyard.

The pipe was repaired and we thought he learned his lesson.

We were wrong.

Some time later he decided to level the yard again. My mother admonished, "Remember what happened last time."

He said, "I'm not stupid. I know where the pipes are now!"

A little while later he discovered a new pipe.

eHarmony Rejects

I saw a commercial the other day that left me perplexed and somewhat amused.

In it, a young woman who had been rejected by eHarmony speculated as to why, but only mentioned benign things such as library fines.

The commercial concluded by inviting everyone to their supposedly more-inclusive, and less judgemental dating service.

Call me a cynic, but I interpreted that to mean, "Hear ye, hear ye, people with criminal backgrounds, bad credit, current spouses and halitosis. If you are one of the leftovers of the dating world, unable to partake of the eHarmony smorsgasbord, come here to meet people with equally low standards."

Yoda gets Hyphy

I think this wins for the strangest wireless network name I've ever encountered: "Yoda gets Hyphy."

Bad Match, Poor Odds

I've stated before that my personal vice is reading personal ads and giggling.

The best sites to indulge my vice are the free ones, of course. This is not just because I'm frugal. This is because pay sites screen out a lot of losers. Losers that flock to the the promised land of not having to pay to meet women. Thus, if you want to make fun of people, make fun of the cheap ones.

Of course, I haven't done a real scientific survey, but I've skimmed a lot of profiles and let me tell you: The majority are single for a reason.

I'm not saying a dating profile is a complete, in-depth assessment of an individual's personality. However, given that the user has pretty much unlimited time to think of something clever to say, or even get help from his friends, it's not a good sign when the profile is generic. It says to me he's boring, lazy and possibly stupid.

And not surprisingly, most people on the internet fall into those categories.

For example, on OKCupid I can use the search function draw up a random selection of 100 people in a given area or age range. Out of 100 this was the breakdown of the last run:

9 people I wouldn't want to run into in a dark alley (or anywhere else)
3 guys I'm sure were related to each other (or at least shared the sad-looking, unkempt appearance)
1 boy that looked 13 years old (but claimed to be 20)
1 person who thought "I'm hella introverted" was a good thing to say
1 white guy who flashed "gang signals" that at first glance made me think he was missing a few fingers from an industrial accident
1 man who was holding another woman in his photo
1 man who had two women in his photo, one of which was kissing him
3 men that looked angry
1 guy who proclaimed "I'm not your average pretty-boy type, and goddamned proud of it."
1 guy who was good-looking, but incredibly bland
1 guy who had an interesting profile, but was obese and included a photo of himself putting a mouse into his mouth
1 guy who was good-looking, intelligent and interesting, but seemed "sketchy"
76 people too generic to remember

Yep, plenty of fish in the sea. Too bad most are starting to smell.

Webcam Losers

I have a vice. I like to read personal ads and giggle. The internet has made this very, very easy. To those of you who post online dating profiles: I would like to offer you a bit of advice in return for the hours of amusement you have given me.

Dear Participants in Internet Mating Rituals,

Do not use webcam photos.

They're rarely flattering and often make you look like you have a giant forehead or chin, but most importantly, they make you look like a loser who has no friends.

Are you really sure you can't ask your buddy, roommate, sister or neighbor for 2 minutes of their time to take your photo? Is it really that hard?

Please, use a photo taken by someone else other than you and somewhere else other than in front of your computer. It demonstrates that you leave your room every so often. It's nice to have hobbies and places to go, and having non-webcam photos helps convince us you're not a drooly moron lacking social graces.

Sincerely,
Someone Who Reads Your Profile and Has No Intention of Dating You

P.S. Mug shots are not good, either.

Please Leave Me Out of Your Love Triangle

I spend little time on AIM because it seems every time I surface I get sucked into someone else's drama. Maybe I should stop being polite. An example:

I get a message from a screen name I don't recognize, saying "Hi." I ignore it until the person says "It's Dave."

I know several Daves and I think it may be one of them so I ask, "Which one?"

Dave: "The Mexican one!"
Me: "Sorry, doesn't ring a bell."
Dave: "Are you messing with me man?"
Me: "No, sorry I think you have the wrong person."
Dave: "This isn't Tom?"
Me: "No."
Dave: "No way!"

Eventually I convince Dave I am not Tom. The very next day I get a message from Rob, who also thinks I am Tom. I politely tell Rob to check with Tom, who seems to have sent his friends the wrong screen name.

Rob: "Who else have you talked to?"
Me: "Some guy named Dave."
Rob: "Dave is a pimp!"

Rob seemed a little jealous of Dave, and proved difficult to convince I was not Tom. Unfortunately it took a little while for the real Tom to spread the word about his correct screen name.

Two weeks, four or five separate messaging attempts from Tom's friends, and several miscellaneous comments later, I piece together the story.

Now I can tell people, "Yeah, I once had two guys fighting over me, but that was when they mistook me for a gay man from Illinois."

P.S. The reason I didn't block Tom's friends from the get-go: Once a poor chap mistook me for his girlfriend and became rather distraught when I ignored him.