Month: September 2006

Public Announcement

My parents keep telling me that somewhere on here I referred to my Dad as a “Budweiser kind of guy”. I don't think I did, and I can't seem to find it (SELECT * FROM `blog` WHERE blog_content LIKE '%Budweiser%'), but I know I did say that “When I was growing up, my Dad liked Budweiser (the American version), so I thought that was what beer tasted like, hence I thought I didn't like beer.”

For the record, Dad is by no means a Budweiser kind of guy, nor do I think he really is all that fond of it. It was just all they had to drink back in the '70s – that or perhaps something even less appetizing. And if you were hosting a hadball tournament, that's what you'd get a keg of, because as I recall, after a couple of games of handball, a watery beer would be pretty swell. In any case, I owe Dad quite a few beers for that offense. I should mention that the first day I drove the first car I ever drove, I carried an open container of Bud – a tapped keg as a matter of fact – to a handball tournament, the “First Annual Helen Keller Invitational” where the power went out.

Tonight with dinner I had a Belgian Trappistes Rochefort #10 that I paid way too much for at the local Bevmo. I think El Centro even has a Bevmo these days. Bevmo still doesn't have Dogfish Head Raison d'etre – not to mention 120 minute IPA (yes, I even read the brewmaster's book, Brewing Up A Business), but they do have a decent selection of microbrews, including the one I just had as well as Ommegang and Three Philospophers, plenty of Stone selections, Rogue River, several of the ubiquitous but tasty Chimay flavors… I don't know if Dad has heard of any of these, but I'll make it a point to introduce him. Funny thing is, I only end up drinking a single beer every few days, 'cause I'm trying to watch the carbs and they make me snore. Sometimes I go wild and have a big bottle.

Oh, (“2 RESULTS FOUND”) I also said, re St. Patrick's Day, “Friends don't let friends drink green Budweiser.” That one I'm sticking to.

Meet my newest web diversion: Wikitravel. WT is the Wikipedia of travel guides. It's got, or will have, articles about every city on Earth (worth visiting and/or worth writing about and/or someone's from or been to). Go ahead, go there and check your local city. I'll wait.

Pretty cool, eh? What, you found something wrong? Or better, something you'd like to add? Go ahead! All pages are editable. If you vandalize or make a mistake, someone else will helpfully revert the page to before. Articles are well-linked to others, and are fairly hierarchial where possible.

Besides cities, it has articles about other popular places – Death Valley, for example; I'm trying to write one about the Mojave Desert.

I've been concentrating on what I know best – San Diego area, a few in Los Angeles, some in Baja and of course Imperial Valley – which is actually a rather popular tourist destination.

I even wrote Driving in Mexico – mostly, unless someone's edited it. Is it perfect? Of course not – but someone will get around to fixing it. Feel free to hack at it yourself. If you do, it works better if you register a username, tho you're not required to.

One of the cool things about WT is that, although it's been running for a couple of years, it's still sort of getting started – so maybe you're not getting in on the ground floor, but maybe you're on the Mezzanine. Or the pool deck on top of the lobby, or something.

Waste of time? Sure. But it's entertaining. And I enjoy contributing to this sort of open information exchange. And I found information about all the places on my upcoming trip to China (more about that at some point).

Recently I've been getting “comments” on some of my blog entries, from automated spammers. The messages are pretty consistent: “Hi! Great web site!” blah blah blah. Then a bunch of links to websites.

It was pretty easy to kill these, I just rejected any comments that contain http:// and that takes care of it. Prevents legit guests from posting website links as well; c'est l'merde. I could have made it “log on to register” but then I have to deal with the whole login system. Was a lot simpler just to regex comments.

I notice they also have hit several other blogs that I read – often there are more spam messages than there are legit comments. Which is unfortunate, because like email spam, popups, and mailing list spam, it quickly devolves into more noise than signal.

The odd thing to me, is that these spam sites aren't even up when I go to check them. I still get the rejects in my mailbox, so I sometimes look them up. What I've found is that either they've been taken down already, or they never existed. They usually have links like somejunksite.cheaphost.org – and even cheaphost.org isn't even available. Pretty ineffective marketing, even if they worked.

Best thing for you to do? Never, ever click or order anything that came from a spam, no matter how you got it. I imagine it's too late, and there are too many people online that are stupid enough to order viagra or golf clubs or spamming software or antispam software, from spam. So we get more and more of these until the medium becomes unusable. That's not crapping in your own nest – it's crapping in everyone's nest.

“I prefer a man who will burn the flag and then wrap himself in the Constitution to a man who will burn the Constitution and then wrap himself in the flag.”
–Texas Representative Craig Washington, quoted in Molly Ivins’ syndicated newspaper column, June 30, 1997

“You know, I would totally watch Survivor: South Pacific, in which the challenges involved washing that man right out of your hair.”

“History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.” – Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'