Here’s a clever bit of spam e-mail I received today:

————-

Warning – TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 002 PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS ISSUED AT 2312Z 30 OCT 2006

THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN

.. TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN …

THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS NOTE REVISED MAGNITUDE

ORIGIN TIME – 2139Z 30 OCT 2006
COORDINATES – 38.2 NORTH 144.8 EAST
LOCATION – OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU JAPAN MAGNITUDE – 7.1

MEASUREMENTS OR REPORTS OF TSUNAMI WAVE ACTIVITY

ALL DETAILS HERE (link removed)

————-

I removed the link to avoid giving them Googlejuice, but it leads to the site for a manufacturer of wooden doors.

A message like the above will definitely grab your attention (should you actually read it), but after clicking through I wonder just how many people would be in the market for a new door? Shouldn’t that come after the tsunami? I wonder how much the door manufacturer paid for the traffic spike?

…insight, intelligence, humor, and poise that belie her years – if the years be not a lie, in truth.

P: How sayest thou? In truth there be no lies.

Q: If thou believest this to be the truth
Then never shall true love thy soul o’ertake
Unless it break thy proud and simple heart
And to a greater truth thy mind awake.

EXEUNT

It’s been a few months since I last posted on this topic, and during that time I have come across several blogs worthy of attention that I hope to feature. Today I’d like to introduce you to nektros, by Yvonne Tran. Okay, I’ve already led you to Yvonne by linking to her a few times, but she deserves more than a handful of one-liners.

Yvonne is an 18-year-old student at the University of Queensland, down under. Her age surprised me, because her writing contains insight, intelligence, humor, and poise that belie her years — if the years be not a lie, in truth. Perhaps her easy style comes from her studies in journalism, or a natural talent that led her to study it. Or do Australians just wise up more quickly than us yanks?

Subtitled “Cynicism in a Hot Dish”, Yvonne refines the art of subtle attraction. From the simple but appealing header graphic, to her dimmed gravatar, to the casual interjection of intriguing details, she knows how to keep your interest by staying just beyond your ken.

But as in all of my favorite blogs, the best part about nektros is the content. Always thoughtful, often self-referential, and guaranteed to provoke a laugh or at least a smile. And having gone through a bit of a blogging crisis, Yvonne has lots of good advice for fellow bloggers. She also engages commenters, spinning off some great conversations from the original posts. All this, and she’s only been blogging since last June.

Happy early birthday, Yvonne, even though I know you’re “over traffic“. Keep up the great work — I hope to be reading you for a very long time.

• WordPress Italy » Blog Archive » WP Plugin: OPML Blogroll Widget
  Apparently my OPML blogroll widget is catching on in Italy, thanks to Sergio.
  (tags: opml blogroll widget wordpress)
• Mini-Microsoft: Microsoft Academy
  Who da’Punk posts on hiring: “I need you to be able to write a GC, not be in an unhealthy co-dependent relationship with one.”
  (tags: hiring microsoft education)
• Fly Your Name to Mars on Phoenix – | The Planetary Society
  Sign up for free and your name will be sent on a DVD to Mars. Why not? Thanks, Armchair Anarchist.
  (tags: space mars)
• AP Wire | 11/02/2006 | Microsoft backs Novell’s Linux platform
  I think I just stepped into a parallel universe. via Scoble.

According to my referrer log, lots of people out there searching for “blood type o recipes” or similar search terms have found this post. So I think it’s time for another recipe installment.

Although people like me with blood type O thrive on red meat, I do like to have the occasional salad. In this next recipe, every ingredient is beneficial for type O secretors except for the vinegar, which is neutral and added merely for flavor. Be sure to use apple cider vinegar only. If you’re a non-secretor, leave out the vinegar entirely.

Salad:
Romaine lettuce and/or fresh spinach (sans e coli)
Scallions (green onion), chopped
One red chili pepper, sliced
Several pieces of raw broccoli
Parsley, chopped

Dressing:
Extra virgin olive oil (about 1/4 cup)
Apple cider vinegar (about 1 tsp.)
Turmeric (about 1/2 tsp.)

Play with it however you like, but this medley works for me. Besides, the combination of broccoli and turmeric has been shown to fight prostate cancer. Yes, broccoli can give you gas, but the next time someone holds their nose and asks, “what died?!” you can smugly reply, “just a few nascent cancer cells.”

• Targeting Spam: A new type of trackback spam?
  This “semi-automated blog” picked up an old post of mine on trackback spam and pulled in some related posts from others. Interesting.
  (tags: spam blogging trackback)

A few weeks ago I was having trouble with my ISP’s SMTP server, so I setup my own local SMTP server under IIS on my local network, behind my firewall. Even when my ISP’s server is working properly, I prefer the local SMTP server. It runs faster, and it’s totally under my control.

But I have one problem: it seems like AOL is blocking my e-mails. Whenever I send to an address @aol.com, I get a message back about delivery being delayed, followed by a failure notice the next day or so later.

To try to diagnose this issue, I setup an AOL e-mail account for myself (I feel so dirty). I can send to it from my gmail account just fine, but e-mail sent from my local server doesn’t get through.

Stupid me, I didn’t save the failure notifications to look at them more closely, and now I’ll have to wait a day or so to get another one back.

I’m guessing that because the server is behind a firewall that denies all incoming requests, they might be trying to ping or otherwise verify back to my server in order to weed out spammers. When they can’t get to me, they fail. Does anyone know what port I would need to open up to let them see me?

Many thanks in advance.

BTW, the AOL on-line help treats me like an ignorant n00b. “Verify that the sender has correct e-mail address”. Puhlease!

Update: e-mails sent to gmail addresses also fail. Fortunately, they fail quickly. Here’s the detail:

Reporting-MTA: dns;zeus.internal.camdensoftware.com
Received-From-MTA: dns;DIONYSUS
Arrival-Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 16:19:21 -0800

Final-Recipient: rfc822;chip.camden@gmail.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.5.0
Diagnostic-Code: smtp;550-5.7.1 [216.160.99.195] Our system has detected an unusual amount of unsolicited
550-5.7.1 mail originating from your IP address. To protect our
550-5.7.1 users from spam, mail sent from your IP address has been
550-5.7.1 rejected. Please visit
550-5.7.1 http://www.google.com/mail/help/bulk_mail.html to review
550 5.7.1 our Bulk Email Senders Guidelines. 18si1655506hue

I’m thinking reverse DNS is the problem?

Today the esteemed Dr. Testavuoto answers your difficult questions:

Dear Dr. Testavuoto:

Do I weigh more when I have an erection?

Just Wondering

Dear JW:

That depends. If you’re a woman, then the answer is definitely yes — and congratulations on your new appendage.

Or maybe you mean “have” in a different sense — as in to “have” a cannoli? In that case, also yes.

In fact, we can rely on the General Theory of Everything for our answer:

Generally, Everything a woman does causes weight gain.

Dieting, not dieting, exercise, not exercising…even asking this question caused you to gain a pound or so if you’re a woman.

If you’re a man, on the other hand — actually, it doesn’t matter which hand — then the answer is no, because wood floats.

Have a question for Dr. Testavuoto? Leave it in the comments below, or e-mail to Dr.Testavuoto@chipsquips.com.

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately, other than my daily link blog. Trying to keep up with a steady stream of work and at the same time managing many of the duties that my wife is unable to perform since her injury (not to mention taking her to doctor’s appointments and therapy for said injury) I haven’t had two extra seconds to obsess on my Technorati rank or count the pennies in my Adsense account, let alone blog.

My day starts at 4:45 AM when I get up to feed Halley and take her for our run/walk/stop/sniff/repeat . We have to start that early if this activity is to occur at all, as you will see from what follows.

5:50 AM: Get home, take a shower. Make my son’s lunch and snack for school before he’s awake to contest its contents: yogurt, carrots, crackers, and a brownie. Put away last night’s dishes, load any late dirty ones. Take recycles and garbage out. Make a cup of tea for myself. Breathe.

6:30 AM Wake my son, make him breakfast — usually a toasted English muffin with melted butter. Funny, my English friend Jim says he never saw these in England. Like French fries, I suppose.

6:45 AM Get my son’s clothes and toiletries in order. Find his jacket and shoes; untwist the former and unknot the latter. Start my breakfast on simmer (yes, it takes a lot of time to cook my breakfast, but it’s the only decent meal I get most days). Review any requirements for school such as forms to fill out or homework to review.

7:15 AM Take my son out to meet his school bus. Exhale.

7:20 AM Knock on my daughter’s door to wake her. It doesn’t help that each child’s school has a different bus schedule. Make my daughter’s breakfast — usually French toast and hot cocoa. Add a few more ingredients to my breakfast in between. Pack my daughter’s lunch: a turkey and lettuce sandwich on Jewish rye (crust must be excised), applesauce, crackers, and orange juice. Review her school requirements, maybe quiz her on spelling words.

Somewhere about now my wife hobbles out with her walker. Make her coffee and toast with melted butter, cinnamon, and Stevia.

8:00 AM Start the shower for my daughter so she doesn’t burn herself. Finish making the seventh meal I have prepared this morning (my breakfast) and start to eat it while reading Ulysses (disclaimer: Amazon associate). Get interrupted several times to take care of some unforeseen emergency or brush my daughter’s hair before I finally finish the last few cold bites. That’s on a good day. If I get interrupted too many times, I’ll have to leave half of it until later. I can’t decide which is worse: breakfast interrupted, or James Joyce interrupted.

8:35 AM My daughter and I retrieve our retriever Halley to walk with us to the bus stop. My daughter gets on the bus; the bus driver throws a treat to Halley. We laugh that Halley thinks that the bus is just a big, yellow treat dispenser. I run back with Halley to her dog run. Go back inside. Breathe.

9:00 AM Prepare the shower for my wife. This involves positioning various stools, towels, and chairs so that she can get herself in and out safely. Setup the laptop on the bed so she can go online. Retrieve various other things that she might need during the day. Exhale.

9:30 AM Read e-mail and feeds. Depending on how long that takes, I might actually start working anywhere from 10:00 AM to noon.

Most afternoons I have to take my wife to a doctor’s appointment or physical therapy, or one of the children to some afterschool event or activity. Yesterday evening was consumed with the annual mockery of the ancient celebration of Samhain, in which I escorted the children around to various doorways so they could extort unbelievably unhealthy edibles (questionably so) by means of an unspecified threat of mischief.

I’m getting pretty tired of being Daddy and Mommy. Maddy. Dommy. Dummy. It will be several weeks yet before my wife can rest weight on her right leg, though, so I’d better get used to it.

Then this morning I slept through my alarm clock. Somehow I managed to get both kids fed and on their respective busses along with their lunches, but the rest of the usual schedule suffered high casualties.

So what do I do, seated amidst the wreckage of things left undone?

Blog it, that’s what.