Kay -N- Kay

I’ve been an avid computer user for pretty much my entire life.  I mean, when I was around 12, along with playing “Adventure” on my Atari 2600, I was writing BASIC code to make funny little graphics of an airplane dropping a parachutist who would inexplicably splatter into a red mist when he reached the ground.  Yeah… I know.  I’m not proud of it… well, actually I was, heh.  But the point is, in all this time, from early in the 1980’s until today, I’ve only really gotten a single computer virus.

Back around when Al Gore invented the Internet, I got my first taste where so many others started, from America Online. (AOL)  Back then, it was all the rage.  Key words, chat rooms, all at a blazing 9600 baud speed!!!!  Being new and completely naive, when a stranger offered to give me a totally rad new program to haxor the bajesus out of AOL, I jumped on that opportunity of a lifetime!  I was going to be 1337!  I was going to be a terror of the chat rooms!  I was going to be a virtual babe magnet!

After installing The Program of Awesome and dutifully rebooting, I was staring at a black screen proclaiming “Operating System Not Found” and wondering what happened.

Since that valuable lesson, I have been virus free.  Well… I mean as much so as anyone can truly be.  I pick up tracking cookies every 5 minutes, Adware may creep in here in there, and I’ve caught viruses trying to install themselves, but nothing truly destructive.  No key stroke hacks, robot spammers, redirectors, or backdoor trojans. (Yeah, I giggle too every time I here that, too, hee hee)  It’s not that I have security ratcheted up to Fort Knox levels, I just… I don’t know… I’m observant.  When Facebook emails me about an update, my spidey sense tingles and you know… I just don’t click.  When Bill Gates emailed me Windows patches back in ’95, I kind of wondered how he got my address.  As a result, my computers have been blissfully virus free.

And then my wife discovered teh intrawebs.

Kristin picks up viruses like kids eats candy.

Each week, she’s cussing at her computer until I drop everything (read: stop playing WoW) to come over to see what is vexing her.  To my horror she’s got her home page redirected to www.mega-virus-download.com, the computer is streaming our passwords to China, her email is cranking out spam to our friends and family, I mean the PC is completely hi-jacked.

Ok, I may be exaggerating for effect, but the point is that her computer gets viruses and mine doesn’t.

Last night, Bran comes in while I’m playing WoW to tell me that Mommy wants me.  I’m only half listening, because there’s a raid boss I’ve only killed 80 times before and I don’t want to get caught standing in the fire.  Then I hear him saying something about a virus.

/sigh

I walk in to discover she has managed to download the grand daddy of all viruses.  Shit is popping up everywhere, pretending to be Windows Security alerts.  It’s saying I have a virus and just need to activate this, download “Anti-Virus Pro”, click on yes to proceed, scan my hard drive, continue on by clicking yes, all all manner of tempting boxes, buttons, and links promising salvation.  Meanwhile, it’s merrily downloading the entire seedy back alleys of the Internet, changing my icons into pretty little pictures of genitalia and redirecting them to such innocuous sites as www.porn-queen.com.  It was searching out other computers on the network, finding cable modems and routers, leaching memory and sealing itself into BIOS chips.  Email addresses were devoured, spam was spurting forth like the the pictures of my new icons, friends lists broadcast, IM programs sprang up and web pages were duped.  The TV was reprogrammed, all the digital clocks reset, the dog was impregnated, IT WAS PANDELERIUM!!!!

I spent a while trying to rescue the poor soul, but in the end it was a total wash.  Everything had to be wiped clean and just reinstalled.  Unfortunately, such is the way with viruses.  Anti-virus software does a good job of keeping you protected, but once you actually HAVE a virus, all to often it just can’t effectively remove the infection.

So let this be a lesson to all of you… www.porn-queen.com looks pretty damn cool!

My Grandfather passed away recently and we went to the funeral last week.  He lived to be 101 years old!

Most anyone who knows me knows I’m not a religious person, but my grandparents (maternal) were.  They were those rare sorts of people who despite being deeply devout in their beliefs, would not wear their religion on their sleeves.  They were never the sort to look on you with that vaguely disappointed expression, as if already imagining your soul burning for all eternity and wondering how they could possibly “help” you to see the light. (My friend Molly is very similar)  If my grandparents ever said a prayer for their heathen grandson, I never knew it… and I love them all the more for that.  They were genuinely good people who lived their lives, strong, yet quiet, in their faith.

Bran was very curious about the whole affair.  We’d taken him with us a couple of months back on what would be the last time I’d see my Grandfather alive, so he actually knew and remembered who it was who had died.  It was recent enough to still be clear in his 7 year old mind, probably even complete with memories of words spoken.  At that time, Grandpa was having more “bad” days than “good”, but we’d lucked out for our visit.  We talked about him playing trombone in the Ohio State Marching band and his time as a missionary for three weeks in Honduras.  I won’t go so far as to say that the conversation was easy, heh… he was 101 and if he rambled a bit or couldn’t quite recall enough details, well that was just fine.  Bran was naturally shy about this scary old man in his hospice bed and oxygen tank, and initially refused to come in.  But as the minutes passed I looked over to find he’d scooted closer and closer until he finally joined our circle.  It wasn’t long until he was asking questions and telling his own stories to his “Great-grandpa.”

That was a good day and I guess everyone felt better for it.

At the funeral last week, I explained to Bran that Great-grandpa had died and that his body was up in the casket at the front of the room.  We’d already gone over a lot of questions such as “Why is he dead?” and “How did he die?”  We explained that Great-grandpa was very old and it gets harder for your heart to keep beating and pumping your blood when you get that old.  He’s read a few books with us about the human body and has long been fascinated with the concept of lungs, hearts, and other organs.  He accepted our explanations with an unaccustomed  solemnity.

The casket was open and Bran could see Great-grandpa sort of propped up and highly visible.  He definitely wanted to go up for a closer look, so Kristin and I took him closer.  He was very quiet and respectful.  He paid some face time with looking at the various pictures around the casket, but his attention clearly kept wandering back over to the casket.  Later on, after he’d had some time to think on it all, he said that he wanted to go back up.  At first he said he just wanted to go “touch” Great-grandpa, but he further clarified by saying he wanted to “touch his heart.”

Now I wasn’t at all sure about this, but evidently Bran was.  I’m not sure if he wanted to just verify that his heart was no longer beating… or a fascination with seeing a dead person and what that really meant?  But I think it was his 7 year old way of coming to grips with the concept of mortality.

We’ve already had a couple of those moments during an otherwise normal bed time story or good night kiss, when he seemingly out of no where busts out with that parental nuclear warhead, “I don’t want you to die, Daddy.”  What can you say to that, really?  I still remember my own long nights of sleeplessness as a child, realizing that people really do die and then connecting the proverbial dots that meant that “people” includes “Mommy”.  As a child you try to find some sort of loophole in that logic, anything that can offer some sort of hope that the most important thing in your life… really the ONLY thing in your life, isn’t actually mortal.  Fortunately, when your young, magic isn’t something that can yet entirely be ruled out, so eventually sleep does come.  But deep down, when everyone else is asleep and the nightlight doesn’t seem so bright, you still know…

Bran eventually did touch Great-grandpa’s heart.  I think he’s connecting his own dots.

At the end of the service, he liked the idea of writing a note to put in the casket, to be buried with him.  He asked me for a couple of spelling confirmations, but the words were all his own:

William “Doc” Myers, 6/27/1908 – 10/25/2009

You will always be loved.

Honest to God, an actual cheer used at MIT athletic events:

I’m a beaver,
You’re a beaver,
We are beavers all!
And when we get together,
We do the beaver call!

E to the u du dx,
E to the x dx!
Cosine secant tangent sine,
3.14159,

Integral, radical, mu, dv!
Slipstick, slide rule, M-I-T!

Go tech!

It’s kind of catchy, really.  Maybe not on the same level as such classic, stadium rocking cheers as “O-H-I-O” and “GO BLUE”, but nevertheless, it has style.

While we’re on the subject, I can get the sound of this woman’s voice out of my head.  It’s really phreaking me out.  O.o

The 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index was released today.

Yeah, I never heard of it either, but evidently it’s a fairly legit operation.  And by legit, I mean neither the Democrats nor the Republicans hired them to prove how evil the other party is.

The index is based on a definition of prosperity that combines economic growth with the level of personal freedoms and democracy in a country as well as measures of happiness and quality of life.

The 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index, published on Tuesday and compiled by the Legatum Institute, an independent policy, advocacy and advisory organization, ranked 104 countries which are home to 90 percent of the world’s population.

So, obviously USA is #1, right?

No… that’d be Finland.

O.o

Finland?  You mean… the people of Finland are more prosperous than Americans?  Come on.  Really?

Well, maybe Finland is really cool and all.  So cool that they and USA were close enough that some rounding errors pushed them over the USA in a fluke runoff tie breaker or something?  Probably something like that.

Except that #2 is Switzerland, not the USA.  Friends and countrymen, we are not even in the top 5!  I’m afraid, when the next Olympics roll around, we’re all going to have to chant, “We’re number 9!  We’re number 9!”  I don’t even want to think what the giant foam hand things will look like that we’ll need to raise up in the air from the stands.  By the way, if you’ve been disconcerted lately with thoughts that perhaps Canada isn’t such a bad place after all, well chances are that you aren’t alone… they came in ranked #7 overall.

Here are the categories of the index, ordered by where the USA was ranked in each:

#1 – Entrepreneurship and Innovation
#2 – Democratic Institutions
#7 – Education
#7 – Social Capital
#8 – Personal Freedom
#14 – Economic Fundamentals
#16 – Governance
#19 – Safety and Security
#27 – Health

So um… health care.  Yeah… that old thorn in our side.  You suppose we should do something about it?

Let’s take a look at some of the countries that have better health care than the USA.  #1 is Austria.  The rest of the top 5 are Ireland, Switzerland, Singapore, and Belgium.  Hmm… what do all of these places have in common?  If you guessed “public health care”, you win the Kewpie doll!!  It’s not just the top 5, either.  The list is long and rather unvaried in terms of countries ranked higher than the USA and whether or not they provide government run health care as an option to all of their citizens.

Smarten up people.  If you want your country to one day over take such health care juggernauts as Hong Kong (#18), New Zealand (#19), Slovenia (#24), and Taiwan (#26)… maybe even one day measure up to our wacky Canadian (#22) neighbors, eh?  Then call your congressmen and let them know that you support government run, public health care options.

Or else next year, we may slip further down, past Uruguay (#28), United Arab Emirates (#29), and Hungary. (#30)

I think Kristin was this drunk one time.  Ranting about Illinois football and how I don’t care.

Edit: I had to change the link to a different video of the same footage, due to some terms of service violation.

Molly linked me this video and I can’t get the song out of my head.

getonmyhorse.com

I think I am seriously in danger of just randomly responding to people with “Shut up woman, get on my horse!”  And it’s a forgone conclusion I’ll never be able to drink lemonade without commenting, “Mm, sweet lemonade.”

Oh wow, this is a whole heck of a lot of Michigan-Go-Blue FAIL.

See?!?!?!  OSU was just trying to do Michigan a favor when they tore down that banner back in ’73.

Towards the end of a fairly busy day at work, I got this voicemail from my 7 year old son:

Bran – Pixie Sticks

The best part of it is the very end when he drops the “I’m-leaving-a-very-official-message” voice and transitions into something more natural.  Clearly he hasn’t quite perfected that concept that even though you are done with what you WANT the other person to hear, they aren’t done hearing it until you actually hang up the phone.  😀

Michigan lawmakers in Lansing are meeting to clean up old and outdated state laws.

Legislation approved today would no longer make it a crime to engage in a duel with an enemy, to be in a prize fight or to take a woman against her will and force her to marry.

Finally! At long last, I can now legally challenge ALL of my arch-enemies to duels!!!  One at a time, I shall at long last enact the vengeance that has until now been denied to me.  You may have forgotten your transgressions, oh cretins of Michigan, but not I.  No… never I.

In completely unrelated news, Kristin and I are now legally married!

Detroit Woman Kills Alleged Purse Snatcher

A woman in Detroit was at this gas station when two guys come up and grab her purse.

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As they run away, she whips out a gun and goes Dirty Harry on their asses.  Half an hour later, one of the guys stumbles into a hospital and dies.

Pretty hard core defense for your $15, lipstick, and pack of Newports, Don’t you think, lady?

What do you expect in a city whose mayor hires hit men to take out stripper witnesses and then fires any police who investigate?