This next spam excerpt is from an e-mail I just received in my spam box today… that is, Saturday, October 29. In other words, two days before Halloween, which falls on a Monday. Why is this important, you ask? Well…

A Halloween must have!

Want to have the coolest Jack O’ Lantern on your block? Come see the Amazing Rainbow Pumpkin Light at [url deleted] The Amazing Rainbow Pumpkin Light, lights up your carved pumpkin in 7 superbrite colors. It’s safe, fun and will last for years. Visit [url deleted]

Enter discount code: 1031, and receive $1.00 off each light you purchase.

Orders ship same day! allow 2-3 business days for delivery.

Riiiight. So I’ll end up getting this pumpkin light… oh, what, two days after Halloween? Absolutely impeccable timing, spammers… makes me look completely organized in that regard, which is quite a tough task.

OK, these spammer names just keep getting weirder and weirder.

Tonight I had a message in my spam box from one “Altair C. Yoknapatawpha.” Selling medications, no less.

Talk about your alternate-universe Faulkner…

Yes, I know, I know, I haven’t posted anything here in ages.

Why? Well, for one thing, I’ve been rather busy lately… mainly coordinating a group assignment for a Software Engineering course. Not that this isn’t something I needed to take; in fact, I’m learning quite a bit about the development process in it, far more than I did in the corresponding course at Mercer, despite the fact that group projects were involved in each. Maybe it’s that the professor’s lectures are slightly clearer; maybe it’s that there’s more emphasis on the project (I don’t remember the workload being quite as insane, though it was heavy in Mercer’s course too), but something is helping me understand it better. Of course, it’s still extremely vague no matter who teaches it, simply because of the open-ended nature of the subject matter…

Oh, yes, and there was also the ACM Southeastern Regional Programming Competition a couple weekends ago. Fun times, even though my (new) team didn’t do nearly as well as in the past… some of the test cases they came up with on those problems were absolutely insane, because they obviously thought of situations that didn’t even cross my mind. And normally I’m quite good at spotting those strange out-of-bounds sorts of conditions…

And, well, outside of all that’s been keeping me busy in the CS department, I still haven’t a whole lot of time to blog. Something or another’s usually keeping me preoccupied… though, granted, it’s not always important. I know I spent several hours playing We ♥ Katamari when I could’ve been blogging, for instance…

…But then again, my brain’s been so foggy lately that I haven’t really been able to think of much to write, anyway.

So why am I posting right now, then? There’s a simple two-word answer to that, and that would be “fall break.” Currently I’m back home lying on the bed with a laptop on one side and a lapdog on the other. Ahhhh.

I really need to make more friends who can drive. That, or find somewhere up here that offers halfway affordable driving lessons catering to those with neurological quirks… or a taxi service that’s not $10 round-trip (if such a thing even exists)…

Once again, other than the redacted URL, this is entirely verbatim. I think there were more words that were supposed to be randomly chosen from arrays of synonyms in a lot of places, but somehow those words were never inserted… thus leaving this spam a bunch of complete nonsense.

Subject: Become an investigator
From: “deidre carter” <isaac@djlong.accessgenealogy.com>
To: “Sherri George” <cody@zone38.net>

,

let go I held for .

thank you enough for me in this . You have given me a on life. Already
twice as much as I in my old job.

I a . Taking home in 18 months. in this . and I am a hero to the and
to my . What an to be in.

exactly what your me to do, . I go to the and locate all of the I can
handle.

(more…)

OK, so we all know by now that the campus buses here at UGA don’t run at all on the days of home football games, but I figured I’d be able to catch a city bus somewhere near campus, right?

Wrong. Unless I wanted to walk approximately a mile and a quarter to the nearest bus stop that they do pick up at on game days (an illustration via Google Maps).

And they do not mention this fact at all on their web site. After actually getting over my telephonophobia and calling transit headquarters to confirm whether the routes run to south campus on game days (hey, at least I had the foresight not to wait at the bus stop for an hour wondering where the bus was…), I left a message with the Athens Transit webmaster letting him know that, hey, the fact that the routes change on game days is something that needs to actually be mentioned somewhere.

As for that mile-and-a-quarter walk? The temperature right now is 86°, according to AccuWeather, while the heat index is 94°. I was about to collapse just walking the quarter of a mile to the East Campus dining hall… yeah, I know, part of it’s because I’m out of shape, but I could make that walk in the winter without much trouble.

From a University of Southern California press release, this may be one of the most self-referential headlines I’ve seen in a while:

Grammar Lost Translation Machine In Researchers Fix Will

(found via ACM TechNews)

Argh. Yes, there may be a public transit system here, but rapid transit it is not.

I decided to take a little excursion this afternoon, while I had some free time, to go to the grocery store to pick up a couple things I needed— namely, orange juice and a box of blueberry Toaster Strudels™®©. (Mm, I love those things.)

Catching the bus to the grocery store wasn’t an issue, either. So I got there without a hitch, and found the orange juice I needed… but lo and behold, the store’s freezer wasn’t working properly, so the Toaster Strudels were more than a bit warm. I didn’t want to risk it, so I decided just not to bother with them.

So I came out with the grocery store and waited eight minutes for the bus, just like the schedule said.

And waited.

And waited.

By this point, it was already past time for the bus to be several stops past the one I was at, yet I hadn’t seen the slightest hint of it.

So I decided to walk back a bit… slow as it was.

Finally, after several minutes of walking— honestly, I had lost count of how long it had been by then— a bus showed up and I stepped on, to ride it all the way around the route. Naturally, there had been no buses that showed up on the other side of the street… and even if there had, there’s no way I’m playing a life-sized game of Frogger to get across that busy road. (Who in their right mind would design a major intersection and not put a crosswalk there, anyway?)

Total time spent? Over an hour. For a carton of orange juice. Now I have to go to some other store some other time to find the Toaster Strudels.

Maybe I should try my hand again at learning to ride a bike…

OK, I’m going to have to find somewhere else to do laundry. The place I’m supposed to go to is two blocks away… and not air conditioned. There’s no way I could spend several hours in there watching over my clothes— and there’s no way I’m walking back to my own apartment, where I can’t even hear the washer or dryer go off, not to mention that I’d have to walk back to start the next load. Even waiting outside the laundry room would be an issue; it’s just as hot outside as it is inside, at least during the summer and early fall.

I wonder if there are any laundry pickup/delivery services around… or even a public laundromat on one of the bus routes…

Actually, even better, it seems that the Housing department will let me use the air-conditioned laundry in the next apartment building over, if I can get a signed letter from Disability Services explaining the circumstances. And yes, before anyone asks, it is a disability issue; I’ve passed out because of my asthma and other medical conditions in similar circumstances in the past. So at least the outcome looks promising.

It may be hard to believe, but I have not altered one bit of this unsolicited e-mail I’m quoting here:

Subject: lacie
From: “earle oxford” <wesansgar@emailaccount.com>

sol

http://{%LOGWITHID:{%ROTF:E:\EveryDayDomain\all01.txt%}?{%RND:^%}={%ROT
F:E:\EveryDayDomain\CompanyTest\pharrotates.txt%}%}

later,

kenya

And to think that companies are actually paying for this— nice way to recoup your investments when the recipients can’t even get to the page…