Friday, August 29, 2003
Anyone out there remember Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers? It was part of the Disney cartoon
lineup, back in the late Eighties. I missed them during first run, but fortunately they
were in reruns, five days a week, during my college years. I'd always rush back
from class so that I could catch the one hour Chip and Dale and Darkwing Duck block every weekday afternoon. I've been through
a couple cartoon stages during my adult life. There was a long stint with
Mighty Max, and later, Recess. I'm currently partial to The Weekenders. (This isn't an exhaustive list, but those are
the ones I've stuck with the longest.) I think I get more out of these shows as an
adult than I ever did as a kid. Maybe I'm just old enough to get all the adult jokes now.
I'm convinced the writers throw in a few jokes that nobody under thirty could get, just
as a thank you to all the parents who are forced to watch these shows with their kids.
Now, ten years later, all the fans of Chip and Dale have grown up. There are fan sites, fanfic rings, fan art (some perverted beyond belief)... And things like Of Mice and Mayhem, by Chris Fischer. OMaM is a 231 page online graphic novel, picking
up our heroes
a few years after the events of the TV series. It's surprisingly good. Were there a
market, and if the Disney attack lawyers didn't rip it to shreds first, it would rival
many of the print comics out there today. If you were a fan of the cartoon as a kid
(or as an adult), I highly recommend you set aside a couple hours and give it a read.
Posted at 9:39 PM
Thursday, August 28, 2003
ADDENDUM: CD Girl Fan Mail Mystery
(In which the Author gets all bent out of shape about a self-professed "Non-Lolita.")
As you may remember from my earlier post, I
was sent a bit of mystery fan mail back in late July, 2003. Now, normally, I wouldn't obsess over a random
e-mail correspondence. I've gotten quite a few over the years
(and again, my thanks for your kind words), and some have even developed into enjoyable long-term correspondences.
But, I certainly don't feel compelled to turn armchair Columbo over each and every one.
However, this one intrigued me. I'm no closer to finding out who sent me the original
message, in spite of a few hours worth of thumb-fingered 'Net sleuthing. (It's probably unnecessary, at this point,
to say that I have way too much time on my hands.) I've pretty much decided to let it go, as curious as I still am about
all this. If you're out there, mystery fan, I'm calling olley, olley oxen free!
I did find out who the model is, thanks to
Mr. Sniper at the allbrand.nu forum. (Someone had already done the legwork. I hadn't really planned on following up on this aspect of the mystery.) Her name is Ashley, from
Georgia:
I'm 15 years old & I'm from Georgia! Some things I like to do are gymnastics, shopping & modeling. My dislikes are mean people, bugs & lies. My favorite color is pink. My favorite foods are do-nuts & tacos. My favorite drink is Sprite. I love all sorts of music & my favorite animal is a penguin.
The above is from her website. (While there is no nudity, the site is almost certainly NSFW.) Apparently, she's a semi-professional "model," and part of the seedier side of the
Internet. Also from the site, this time a snippet from the web-spider text at the bottom (in lavender purple text on a
lavender purple background):
Ashley models four times per month so you get many updates of her gorgeous non nude non naked
non nudist images. Ashley only does nice clean clear digital images in cute tiny clothes... Schoolgirls in schoolgirl
outfits and pictures in string bikinis or maybe thong bikinis non nude pre teen and teen model pictures super model
who is super sweet and young... if you are looking for a sex site a lolita site or a nude site then this is not it please look
elsewhere...
And so on. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. But with a purpose, of course. For those of you who don't
know, here's a quick history lesson. (The rest of you quit rolling your eyes. You were new to the Interweb once, too.)
In the early days of the Internet, search engines would rank pages based on the number of occurrences of a given
keyword. Say you entered the keywords "foo bar" into the engine, and out popped a list of sites containing those
words. The website with the most instances of the words "foo" and "bar" will be at the top of the list, on
the assumption that this site is the most relevant. In the early days of the Web, this worked out pretty
well. But, soon, that method of search organization was perverted by those seeking to artificially increase traffic to their
sites. First, it was simply a matter of repeating "foo bar" over and over a few dozen times. Commonly, such garbage
text would be placed at the bottom of the page, often the same color as the background so that the human visitors
couldn't see it. That page would quickly shoot to the top of the list, where it would be seen first. Later, search
engines became smarter, and easily recognized this trick. So the authors had to write entire sentences using the
desired keywords, to fake actual content. Nowadays, search engines are even more sophisticated, and use better
methods to find and organize lists of websites. But the old tricks are still around, to fool the more primitive engines.
So, back to my point. You can easily tell how Miss Ashley wants her page perceived by the general public, in spite of
the disclaimers. Check out the number of times words like "nude" and "teen" and "young" and "sex" and "nudist"
appear in the snippet above. (Most carefully preceded by "non," which the search engines conveniently can't interpret.)
And that's only an excerpt. Each relevant word appears several more times. It's almost
hypnotic. And it's designed to assure that this site pops up near the top of the list every time someone enters
"young nude teen nudist sex" in Google. (Please, for the love of Fred, don't do that! It'll scare the
bejeezus out of you.)
"So what," you ask? Yes, there are pedophiles out there, and there are thousands upon thousands of sites,
some considerably more explicit, designed to part them from their money. So what's my point? From the
entry page:
This site contains no pornography, nudity or sexually explicit images. All pictures
have been independently checked as to their suitability for publication on this site.
Ashley has her parents consent to appear on this site.
This 15 year old girl (or, more likely, someone acting on her behalf) is hiring professional photographers to take
pictures of her trotting around in her dainties, for the sole purpose of giving some 40 year old fat man from New Jersey
something to wank over. That's the only
purpose for the site, and it's clear that everyone involved knows it... Including her parents. And they're
letting her do it! Or, worse, she (or the webmaster on her behalf) is lying and her parents are so ignorant and/or
apathetic that they have no
clue how she's getting $14.95 a month from a few hundred "friends" from across the globe.
I realize that there are worse things happening to children as we speak. I know there are child prostitution
rings, and hardcore kiddie porn syndicates, and a hundred equally horrifying exploitations that would make
your blood boil and run cold at the same time. By comparison, "Teen Angel Ashley's" little commercial venture is just a harmless tease.
But this is the first time I've had contact, even tangentially, with this kind of thing.
And, frankly, now that I've dug into it, it turns my stomach. There is value to childhood innocence,
as maudlin and cheesy as that sounds. It should be cherished for as long as possible, before it inevitably decays
into adult cynicism. And someone, somewhere, is allowing, perhaps encouraging, Ashley from
Georgia to sell it. For $14.95 a month.
Perhaps I'm just in a peak cycle in my moral outrage biorhythms this week, but that really
pisses me off.
Posted at 7:05 PM
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Buildings of Disaster
These
are
quite
possibly
the
most
tasteless
things
I've
seen
in
my
life!
Posted at 11:41 AM
Nine games of Feline
Peril! They're in Japanese and Engrish, but they're not that hard
to figure out. I especially like "Nikotama," AKA Disembodied Cat Head Plinko (top row, second from the right). Who knew cat heads were so bouncy? There are also some interesting games (and also some really dumb and incomprehensible ones) below the big cat sketch.
Posted at 12:12 PM
Coda
"There is more than one way to burn a book.
And the world is full of people running about with lit matches."
Coda, by Ray Bradbury, is a scathing indictment of censorship and editorial liberties taken with his (and every author's) works. I think this, most of all, is what keeps me from becoming an author. (That, and sporadic talent combined with the utter lack of anything of substance to say. But that, as Conan's biographer would say, is another tale.) It must be exceedingly painful to pour heart and soul into a literary work, only to have some third party demand that it be hacked to pieces to avoid offending the sensibilities of the most thin skinned of readers. Or, even worse, simply to get the word count down! I've heard that the author's best friend is his chainsaw. I suppose that's true, once you get past the screaming and the bleeding. I'll leave off with the following, from "Coda."
For, let's face it, digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones. Laurence Sterne said it once: Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer - he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.
Posted at 12:20 PM
The Purloined E-Mail
Spam Mimic is an online utility that encodes a short text message in a realistic sounding (that is, poorly spelled with terrible grammar) get-rich-quick style spam message. The recipient can then use the utility to extract the text string on the other end.
This is an amazing idea! Of course, it's not uncrackable. I find it hard to believe that any code available to civilians (even PGP or GnuPG) is truly unbreakable. But it has a huge advantage in concealment and subterfuge. An encoded e-mail is blatantly obvious as a string of gibberish characters. Spam Mimic generated messages look just like any of a dozen mass-market e-mails that would be in the average user's inbox at any given time. It's like Poe's purloined letter, hiding in plain sight. Or perhaps it's more like a needle in a pile of slightly different needles. But the Poe reference is more literate, if less accurate.
As I write this, I honestly can't think of a single thing in my life that I would want to hide that I would even consider sending by e-mail. Sure, there are credit card numbers and that kind of thing. But I have better sense than to e-mail those to my buddies, anyway. Still, I find this kind of thing fascinating.
Unfortunately, the primary weakness (or perhaps it's just an initial logistical hurdle) of the system is the recipient on the other end must read his or her spam. That's probably too high a price to pay.
Posted at 5:29 PM
Monday, August 25, 2003
World's Least Interesting Weblog Entries:
Attempt #1 - My Morning Ritual in 44 Easy Steps
Following is a detailed account of my morning ritual on a typical weekday.
- Wake up, take one:
- Stare at the wall, realize I am awake for no apparent reason.
- Look at the small digital LCD alarm clock on my nightstand. This clock is only used for this step.
- Slap the button on the top of the clock to activate the Indiglo panel.
- Blink as the painfully bright blue glare burns itself into my retinas, then read the time.
- Look at the day and date reading, to verify that it is, in fact, a weekday.
- Realize that I have, once again, awakened 20-30 minutes earlier than necessary.
- Swear, but not so vehemently as to fully wake myself.
- Sleep for another 20-30 minutes.
- Wake up, take two:
- Stare at the wall again, and try to figure out what woke me.
- Listen to the red LED clock radio on the dresser progress from a gentle meep... meep...
meep... to a loud MEEP! MEEP! MEEP! over a span of 20 seconds.
- In what will quite possibly be my most graceful movement of the day:
- Throw back the blankets.
- Roll out of bed.
- Take two long steps to the dresser.
- Slap the snooze button.
- Roll back into bed, pulling the blankets back into place as I do so.
- Sleep for another 9 minutes.
- Wake up, take three:
- Decide if I can afford to hit snooze button again. If so, repeat step two. If not, proceed with step three.
(The alarm clock was placed on the dresser, instead of the nightstand, in order to force a decent decision making
interval before hitting the snooze button.)
- Throw the blankets back in the other direction, and clumsily throw my feet over the side of the bed nearest
the bathroom.
- Stand up. Disentangle my feet from the bedsheets.
- Start the inevitable song stuck in my head. Since I awake to an annoying beep instead of the radio function,
it's generally either the last song I thought about the night before, or something from a dream.
- Wander into my office to check on my computer. Glance at my e-mail reader and note anything that's not Spam,
but don't read it.
- Wander back to the bathroom and use the toilet.
- Shave:
- Take my Norelco out of the linen closet (where there's a convenient outlet for recharging) and turn it on.
- If the blades seem to be laboring, turn it off, remove the head, and dump it into the sink. Cringe away from the
red-brown mushroom cloud of finely-chopped facial hair.
- Shave, starting on the left side of my face and working my way to the right. Initially, use the circular motions prescribed in the instructions. Then, switch to a series of short, linear strokes when that appears to take too long.
- Trim my moustache with the beard-trimmer attachment, if required. Screw it up, and then resort to using tiny
nose hair scissors to finish the job. Trim nose hair while I'm at it. Wince and blink back involuntary tears as I pinch
sensitive sinus tissue between the scissors blades.
- Neaten up any missed spots on my face with a cheap disposable razor and water, as required.
- Find plastic cap for both the electric and manual razors, and return them to their customary places.
- Turn on the shower:
- Close the shower curtain.
- Adjust the balance and fold of the towel (already present from the previous morning's use) as necessary to
prevent it from falling off, while keeping it out of the shower stream.
- Turn the cold water knob up as far as it will go.
- Remove the washcloth from hot water knob and turn it three half-turns counterclockwise. Drape the washcloth
over the knob, provided it's not too stiff. Otherwise, get a replacement from the linen closet and toss the old one in
the hamper in the adjacent bedroom.
- If it doesn't appear to be operating properly, remove the multi-function shower head from it's bracket and beat it
against the shower wall a few times. Return the showerhead to its bracket, careful to direct stream away from the
shower curtain.
- Allow the water to reach the proper temperature while performing the next step.
- Brush teeth:
- Fish the toothbrush (Crest electric) and the toothpaste (Sensodyne whitening tartar control) from the plastic
bucket by the sink. (There are no drawers or medicine chests in the master bathroom, and the cabinets are
inconveniently placed for morning fumbling.)
- Turn on the faucet and wet the bristles of the toothbrush. Leave faucet running, just to spite the water
conservationists.
- Twist off the cap and apply the toothpaste. Fumble the cap back into place while balancing the toothpaste laden
toothbrush. Drop the tube into the bucket.
- Turn on the toothbrush and brush my teeth. Listen to the song in my head as I try to reach those back molars.
- Spit the excess toothpaste lather into the sink. If it was necessary to empty the electric razor in step six above,
try to aim for the small islands of excess facial air that pile up on the edges of the pooling water from
the faucet.
- Rinse off the toothbrush, and run it over my teeth again to rinse away the remaining toothpaste. Again,
strategically aim spat out toothpaste as necessary.
- Turn off the toothbrush, rinse, and drop it back in the plastic bucket.
- Using my fingers, direct a stream of water at any leftover deposits of toothpaste and/or hair left in the sink.
- Turn off the faucet.
- Get undressed. Toss my bedclothes in the hamper in the adjacent bedroom. Try to avoid looking at naked body in
giant bathroom mirror. Scowl in disgust and vow to go on a diet if I fail to do so. (Women reading this account should
picture Tom Selleck in his "Magnum, PI" days. This isn't even remotely close to the truth of the matter, but it will make
the next section more bearable.)
- Take a shower:
- Make any necessary fine adjustments to water temperature, using first my left hand, then my left wrist for testing.
- Step in the shower and quickly close the curtain behind me.
- Take one quick turn under the water to get thoroughly wet, then stop with my face in the water. Hold this position
until I'm completely awake.
- Begin singing or whistling the song stuck in my head, if the tune and mood are appropriate.
- Wet my hair thoroughly. Wipe the water out of my eyes with the end of the towel placed conveniently over
the shower rod.
- Turn my back to shower stream, and shake the water from my hands.
- Take the shampoo (Head and Shoulders for oily hair) from its spot on top of the soap dish, and slowly drizzle some
into my left hand. Make intricate, random spiral patterns on my palm. Return the shampoo bottle to its normal place,
and apply the shampoo to my scalp.
- Lather vigorously.
- Turn around to face the stream, and duck under the water. Close my eyes and sputter while soap runs into my
face. Scrub the soap out of my hair.
- Wipe the water out of my eyes with the towel.
- Try to remember if this was the first or second time I washed my hair.
- Attempt to use the squeak test. (Drag my left fingers down the hair on the back of my head. If it makes a
squeaking sound, it's clean. If the fingers slip quietly, then the hair is still greasy, and another cycle is needed.)
- Perform the test multiple times, then skip back to hair washing step six anyway. Vow to remember this time.
- Certain that I have washed my hair at least three times (as opposed to the prescribed two), move on to washing
the rest of my body:
- Take the washcloth from it's spot on the hot water knob, and wet it thoroughly under the shower. Try to avoid
the initial stream of ice-cold water that dribbles off the washcloth.
- Turn away from the water, and spread the washcloth flat over my left palm. Take the bar of soap (Lever 2000
Anti-Bacterial) from the soap dish, and apply an even film of soap to the cloth. Return the soap to soapdish.
- Point the shower head at the floor, to avoid premature rinsing and removal of the soap from the washcloth during
the next step.
- Apply the soap-laden washcloth to my body, starting with the left arm, then the right. Wash the front of my
torso. Rinse the soap from left hand, so that I can lean on the shower wall and maintain my balance. Work
down to my feet, and up the back my legs and torso.
- Turn to face the water. Rinse out the washcloth, wring out the excess water, and return it to it's accustomed
place.
- Tilt the showerhead back to it's regular position.
- Scrub and rinse off the soap. Use the removable shower head for hard-to-reach places.
- Apply soap directly to my hands and scrub my face. Perform a difficult blind maneuver to replace the bar of
soap. Wince as I drop the large, slippery bar on my bare toes. Try to locate the lost cake of soap by sonar, and
shuffle my feet to avoid stepping on it.
- Rinse my face, being careful to get all the soap out of my moustache.
- Wipe the water from my eyes with the towel.
- Retrieve the errant bar of soap, and return it to the soapdish.
- Rinse the excess soap from hands.
- Turn off the water. Turn off the cold water first, then race to remove the washcloth and turn off the hot water
before I get burned. Replace the washcloth.
- Remove the towel from shower rod, then open the curtain.
- Vigorously dry my hair with the towel, then dry the rest of my body.
- Step out of the shower, and return the towel to the shower rod. Pull it flat so that it will dry for the next morning.
- Retrieve some underwear and a T-shirt from the basket outside of the bathroom door.
- Decide which pair of pants will be worn that day. Dig in the basket for a matching pair of appropriately colored
socks (brown or black). Throw the socks on the foot of the bed.
- Return to the bathroom. Hang the T-shirt on the doorknob and put on the underwear, right leg first, leaning
against the sink for balance.
- Find the deoderant (Right Guard Active Sport Gel) in toiletries bucket and apply, left arm first. Return it to the
bucket.
- Put on the T-shirt.
- Find the comb (Ace hard rubber, fine) in the toiletries bucket. Wet the comb, and comb my hair straight back on all
sides. Carefully work out the inevitable tangles in the thinning hair on top of my head, as a result of the previous
towel drying. Pick the knots of hair out of the teeth of the comb and drop them in the toilet.
- Retrieve the hair spray (Visible Changes In Salon Techna Line leave-in conditioner spray) from bucket and pump
four evenly measured bursts. Start at the right temple, then move on to the right then the left sides of the crown,
and ending with the left temple. Comb the hair again, straight back. Return the comb and spray to the bucket.
- Turn off the light and leave the bathroom.
- Go to the closet and turn on the light. Select a shirt to match the previously selected pants. Put on the shirt
(right arm first) and leave the hanger on the closet rod. Turn off the light and close the closet door with my foot.
Possibly return to my computer to read an e-mail or two, if present, while buttoning my shirt.
- Retrieve the previously selected pants from the neatly folded pile on top of extra hamper. Put on the pants, left
leg first.
- Retrieve assorted personal accessories from the top of the dresser:
- Select a belt to match the pants. Put on the belt.
- Load the items into my pockets, in
no particular order.
- Select a pair of shoes from shoe the organizer beside the dresser. Toss them onto the foot of the bed with
the socks selected earlier.
- Check the charge on my cellphone and clip it to my belt.
- Put on shoes:
- Sit on the foot of the bed.
- Lift my left foot and cross over my right knee.
- Pull a sock onto my left foot, just past the ankle.
- Untie the double knot in the shoelaces of the left shoe. Place it on my left foot, leaving it unlaced.
- Drop my left foot to the floor and work the shoe into the proper fit.
- Bend over and pull the left sock the rest of the way up.
- Left my left foot and cross it over my right knee again.
- Tie the shoelaces in a double knot.
- Place my left foot on the floor.
- Repeat with the process with the right foot, from shoe donning step two.
- Stand and note the time on the alarm clock.
- Turn off the bedroom light and head to the front door.
- Check the markerboard on the front door for any pertinent reminders. Exit the house, shutting the door behind
me. Remove the keys from my pocket and lock the front door.
- Walk to my car, pressing the car alarm remote repeatedly until the alarm acknowledges with
flashing headlights. Grumble about having to eventually buy a new, exhorbitantly priced remote.
- Open the car door and get inside. Put the key in the ignition and start the car. Put on my seatbelt.
- Turn on the book-on-MP3 player (Audible Otis) and start
listening to the current book. Hope it will quickly drown out whatever insipid song is stuck in my head that morning.
- Back out of the driveway and drive to work. The drive will take 30 to 40 minutes, depending on traffic.
- Stop for breakfast (skip this step on Fridays, as donuts are provided at work):
- Drive through three lights and make a right turn.
- Enter the parking lot of a Conoco station on the way.
- Check the gas gauge. Tape the gauge, and grumble about the accident that made it start sticking, years earlier.
Decide there is enough fuel to make it to work.
- Park in front of the Conoco convenience store.
- Stop the book player, open the door, and exit the car. Lock the doors with the remote, pressing multiple times
until the annunciator chirps. Resolve to get new battery for the remote.
- Enter the store.
- Walk to the back of the store, grabbing a cinnamon roll (Mrs. Bairds Apple Cinnamon Roll) from the
rack as I pass.
- Place the cinnamon roll in the microwave for 20 seconds.
- Get a fruit juice (Fruit Works, various flavors) from the refrigerator.
- Retrieve the cinnamon roll from microwave. Grab several napkins from the adjacent rack.
- Go to the checkout stand. On the way by, take a teriyaki beef stick (Tillamook Country
Smokehouse) from the plastic box (ignoring the metal tongs in favor of my more efficient fingers), and drop it into the small paper bag provided.
- Wait in line for checkout. Pay for the purchases, which come to $3.03. Resolve to bring a nickel with me the
next day, so that I don't have to break another dollar for that $0.03.
- Wait for the clerk to locate a plastic grocery bag, like he does every morning.
- Depart the shop, unlock and enter the car. Lock door, and try not to make eye contact with the eager day workers
in the parking lot. Place my purchases on the passenger seat.
- Start the car, buckle my seatbelt, and turn on the book player.
- Remove the items from their plastic bag. Place the juice in the cupholder. Put the teriyaki stick on the seat (it is
dry, and won't stain the leather), and lay the small, white paper bag on the seat next to it.
- Unwrap the cinnamon roll, careful to avoid getting icing on my clothes or fingers. Place the wrapper in the plastic
bag on the passenger seat.
- Tear the cinnamon roll in half and place it on the paper bag, to protect the upholstery.
- Pull out of the parking slot, and get back on the road.
- Once underway, consume breakfast.
- Start with the cinnamon roll, eating the half nearest the back first, in case a sudden move causes the
paper-and-roll assembly to slide and get icing on the seat back.
- When the roll is finished, open and drink approximately half of the fruit juice. Firmly recap the juice bottle
and return it to the cupholder.
- Nurse the teriyaki stick for as long as possible, consuming the 12" stick in several 1/4" to 3/8" bites.
- Arrive at the parking garage. Find my customary parking slot, if available.
- Finish the fruit juice. Place the bottle and the other debris from breakfast in the plastic bag.
- Kill the engine and remove my seatbelt. Remove the keys from the ignition and place them in my pocket.
- Time permitting, listen to the book reader until the story reaches a good stopping place. Turn off the MP3 player.
- Grab the trash bag and brief case (if it wasn't left in my office the previous evening) and exit the car. Lock the
car door by frantically pressing the remote button.
- Juggle the items in my hands until I can reach the comb in left pocket. Place the items on the car's roof if necessary.
With the aid of my reflection in the driver's side window, comb my now-dry hair to loosen up the hair spray, so that
my hair is not plastered to my scalp. Return the comb to my pocket and rejuggle items to a more convenient
configuration.
- Walk to the building. Drop my garbage in the trash receptacle by the entrance.
- Enter the lobby, pausing to appreciate the air conditioning.
- Press the elevator call button, if nobody else is present. Enter and press seven. Lean against the back wall of
elevator while it makes it's way to my floor.
- Exit the elevator and enter my office by the back entrance. If on time, smile and nod at fellow employees, and
perhaps offer a good morning or similar sentiment. If I am late, walk determinedly to my cubicle with a determined
expression on my face, and look neither to the right nor to the left.
- Place the brief case (if not already present) on the back table of my cubicle and turn on my computer. Wait for
the computer to boot. (If it is Friday, retrieve a donut from the break room during this interval.)
- Type in my password. Wait for the computer to finish booting.
- Check my inter-office e-mail and, time permitting, a couple of web comics.
- And, finally, begin the work day.
That should keep any stalkers out there satisfied.
Posted at 10:33 PM
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Fan Mail Mystery Solved!
(Sort of...)
I received the picture on the right by e-mail, about a month ago. It arrived with no content, other than the picture attachment and the subject "Hi!" The picture was named HI.JPG, and the return address was Ashley4329@Yahoo.com.
Obviously, I had no idea who the person in the picture was. I've cropped a bit from the bottom of the image for
display here, for the sake of my own reputation. She was actually posing in her underwear. Granted, you see young
women wearing considerably less at the beach, but it's the principle of the thing. I'm not going to start posting pictures
of underage Lolitas in their skimpies on my webpage, thanks much.
At the time, I assumed the picture was sent as fan mail for the Microwaved CD-ROM Experiment.
Not an unreasonable assumption, based on her choice of wall decorations. I sent a non-committal
response. "Thanks for the picture. I like your wall hangings! Have a good day." I received no further e-mails from her,
so I soon forgot about it.
Until last night, that is. I was doing some websurfing, and ran across the Caption Thing. It's a nifty little web toy. Select one of several premade pictures, and type in a short message. The Caption Thing will put an apparently hand-written message on the picture. Voila!
Instant fan worship picture.
For those of you who don't know, this type of picture became popular on the Web a few years ago, when cheap digital cameras and webcams hit the market. Fans would write their personalized messages on a piece of paper (or even directly on their bodies), photograph themselves, and e-mail it to whatever 'Net Personality struck their fancy. Even though it's more primitive, it's actually a bigger ego boost for the recipient, because the sender actually had to make the picture just for him. When you start receiving pictures like that, you know you've arrived! Sure, it would be neater and more
professional looking to take an image and Photo-shop a message on top of it. But a picture produced that way could
have been used 50 times before, and may not even be of the person actually doing the sending. A simple picture with a hand-held message is much more personal.
At least until webpages like the Caption Thing came into being. Oh well. Another nice personal touch killed by
technology. I scanned through the images available and, to my surprise and dismay, I ran across
Ashley! But that only solves part of the mystery.
I still have no way of knowing who sent me the
message. The Yahoo address was evidently a throw-away, or has expired (doubtful, since it has been less than a
month). Messages sent to the address now just bounce. All I know is it could be one of 132,941 people (according to
the caption counter on the page at this moment). According to the disclaimer, "Source pictures were sent by site users or obtained from various public internet web sites."
So whoever the girl in the picture actually is, she probably doesn't even know she's a fan of 132,941 different people
and websites!
There's more to it, though. Someone actually went to a fair bit of trouble to conceal the source of the image from
me. Aside from setting up a bogus e-mail address, they did some simple image alteration, as well. The picture shown
on the left shows details from two different versions of the Ashley picture. The lower image
is from a picture I made using the Caption Thing and the Ashley picture. Notice the Allbrand.nu logo. The upper image
is from the fan picture I was sent last month. Someone went to the trouble of airbrushing out the logo (presumably
using Photoshop or a similar computer art package). So at least someone spent a little time on it. That's something,
anyway.
I'm not altogether sure how I feel about this. I suppose I should be relieved. Teenage girls sending pictures of
themselves to 30 year old men can only lead to trouble. Especially if said girls are doing so without the benefit of
pants!
Still, I'm a bit crestfallen. Up until yesterday, Ashley was my biggest fan!
----------
Addendum: See the followup post.
Posted at 11:06 PM
Friday, August 22, 2003
After a long hiatus, my weblog is up and running again. Without going into excruciating detail, basically there were some growing pains involved with Blogger's recent (early June, 2003) changes in FTP policies. Until some compromise was reached, Blogger's FTP servers were unable to talk with my ISP's servers, while both claimed they were using the same transfer protocols. Much finger-pointing ensued. Vexing.
But, things are working again. Now I have no excuses, beyond my normal laziness. We'll see.
Posted at 6:22 PM
I recently found out that my ISP compiles statistical information on my webpage. Fortunately, it came up
in passing while trying to work out some other issues (this weblog, some quota space issues).
Apparently, I've had stats since July of 2001, but it didn't occur to anyone to actually
mention it to me. D'oh!
Happening upon this kind of information is the worst thing that could have happened to a closet
Narcissist like me. As soon as I found out, I spent three or four hours plowing through the origin
links from other pages. If you've linked to me, thanks! Apparently, something like 48,000 different
people (or at least different domains) have dropped by my little
tourist trap on that hoary old Information Superhighway. That's good for my ego, anyway. I'd say I've achieved
my goal of becoming the electronic equivalent of Cajun Jack's Reptile-O-Rama, or the Biggest Ball of
Twine in Minnesota.
But, after the initial head rush from the raw numbers, it's the search keywords (AKA referrer logs) that are the most entertaining. For those of you who aren't familiar with webpage statistical programs,
referrer logs contain all of the keywords used to find your page from a search engine, like Google, Lycos,
or Yahoo. Someone actually typed these words into Google, for reasons of their own, and came to my
site.
- "how to speak teen" - I've wondered that for years. I'm certain I was no help there.
- "the octopus eats swiss cheese in the ocean" - Um... Bwuh? The scary thing is it was searched more
than once.
- "we are the buddy bears" and "buddy bears always get along" - I wonder if Jim Davis realizes he created such a pernicious meme with his saccharine parody of a kid's show, the Buddy Bears. Between the two, there were 32 different searches using these keywords.
- "snowman wrestling" - I don't know what to think about this. I think I've heard of snow, but only in books. Is snow tough? Does it fight dirty?
- "need fake social security birth certificate name emergency" - I don't know what this was all about, but I find myself rooting for him, nonetheless.
- "when lava lamps go bad" - Tonight on Fox!
- "karma sutra zero gravity" - I have no idea. Sounds a lot more interesting than anything on my page, anyway. I wonder if there's a pop-up edition?
Posted at 6:43 PM
Question? Comments? Complaints? Indecent Proposals? Death Threats?
Drop me a line now!
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