I had a fun weekend around the home. Saturday was spent going to and from the kids’ basketball games. Today was spent going to and from the circus. A great time was had by all. And the weather cooperated a bit, being dry and in the mid to upper 50s.
I’m sorry to see the weekend go. Tomorrow it’s back to the daily grind.
I got two mystery calls to my mobile phone today, one from 876-561-5492 and another from 876-559-3893. I didn’t answer either one, but I suppose that’s not the point of the calls. The point is for me to see that I missed the calls and attempt to call them back!
You see, the 876 area code isn’t an American area code, but a Jamaican one. Calls to Jamaica, even with my dirt-cheap VoIP calling plan, are $0.26 per minute! So some unsuspecting person sees that they missed a call from an 876 number, calls it back, and gets strung along during the call, thinking that they’re paying domestic rates while all along they’re paying through the teeth for the call.
AT&T has a nice page that discusses 876 area code calls. Read it and take its advice: don’t call back numbers you don’t know.
New Hampshire tourist Todd Connell captured the moments leading up to the death of SeaWorld whale trainer Dawn Brancheau (note: the actual attack is not shown). If you skip forward to the last 20 seconds you can see Brancheau lying down next to the whale, Tilikum: apparently a breach of protocol with a whale that was already responsible for two deaths.
Maybe wild animals should remain in the wild?
The N&O’s Mark Johnson reported on state Senator R.C. Soles’s guilty plea to assault charges yesterday. I don’t know the true circumstances of what took place at Soles’s house, though when a homeowner shoots a stranger in their home it’s often in self-defense. Soles pled guilty and that’s that.
I do take issue with the way Johnson painted the picture that it’s almost always Democrats in trouble. Johnson seems to forget state Rep. Cary Allred, the Burlington Republican who was about to get ticketed for driving 102 MPH but pulled rank on the trooper and got off – at least until the news broke. He was also said to have showed up drunk to the General Assembly and gave what many witnesses considered to be an inappropriate hug to a female teenage page. Not exactly Boy Scout behavior, is it?
I’m just as upset as others are of the shenanigans taking place with state politicians. Unlike most politics lately, though, this truly is a bipartisan effort. Let’s not omit that, Mr. Johnson.
I was wondering if the Dalai Lama would be as happy if he had to deal each day with morning traffic.
I just finished watching The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, a film about the life of the actor best known for his roles in the Pink Panther movies and Dr. Strangelove. It showed a side of Sellers I was unfamiliar with, that of a man who was emotionally stunted to a severe degree. Like millions I was captivated by Seller’s performances, as he always seemed like a bomb ready to go off. Apparently there was good reason.
Geoffrey Rush plays Sellers and does an absolutely fantastic job of it. It isn’t easy to slip into roles you so closely associate with another actor but Rush wins the audience over into believing he is Sellers. Charlize Theron is also great as his suffering second wife. And John Lithgow plays Blake Edwards masterfully.
Sellers didn’t live a happy life, at least from what this film shows, but he was a brilliant comic. Watching Sellers’ life in this film isn’t always easy, but it is fascinating look at a talented but troubled man.
My friend John Beimler decided to take advantage of the Public Records law and get a copy of all the email addresses from all the email lists the Town of Cary maintains. The following email went out to all the folks on those lists:
We want to let you know that a person has requested a copy of the e-mail addresses from all Town of Cary electronic mailing lists, and as a subscriber, your email address is included in this database. Therefore, you may begin receiving emails from others outside of our control. As a reminder, the database is a public record under North Carolina law (see our Public Records Policy and our Privacy Statement).
The email lists are being requested by:
John Beimler
1206 Castalia Dr
Cary, NC 27513
919-926-7264
jbeimler at radiomind dot com.
As always, we apologize for any inconvenience this may bring and hope that the actions of others will not result in your deciding to unsubscribe from the Town’s e-mail service. Please contact us if you have questions or need further information.
Susan Moran, APR
Town of Cary Public Information Officer
susan dot moran at townofcary dot org
I had reason to check my Asterisk phone server logs today and noticed some script kiddies have been knocking on its door. Apparently an exploit kit exists that hacks into Asterisk PBXs and allows you to register as a phone on these systems. Way back in 2002 I put some firewall rules in place which allowed fairly wide open access to my Asterisk system. They had been there so long that I never revisited them, but on the other hand I never had much reason to.
I’m not quite sure what the point is as VoIP makes calling any number in the world virtually free, and VoIP-to-VoIP calls are completely free. Where’s the incentive to hack? Heck, back in my day when ten-cents-per-minute long distance was considered a bargain there were plenty of tools and methods to get free calls. Not that I ever tried them, mind you, but I knew a number of people who did (Apple Computer might not exist today if it weren’t for this kind of petty larceny).
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Swervin’ In My Lane
Robert Earl Keen, Jr.
Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing
‘Cause sometimes all my days are filled with rain
As I travel down life’s highway, things ain’t going my way
‘Cause there’s always someone swervin’ in my lane
You keep a-swervin’ in my lane and it’s causing’ lots of danger
I’m a-honkin’ on my horn, I’m a-shooting you the finger
I keep a-switchin’ on my bright lights, but you’re just too dim to know
When your swervin’ on life’s highway, you’re running someone off the road
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So, yesterday the FBI announced it was closing its investigation on the 2001 anthrax attacks, saying it was convinced that it was the work of Dr. Bruce Ivins. The report the FBI released paints a picture of Ivins as a man with mental problems, in effect posthumously convicting a man who will never get a trial. Anytime someone gets convicted of something after they can’t defend themselves my BS detectors go on high alert. Looks like my initial hunch about the case is being proven out.
The anthrax attacks are a curious event in our history. Coming on the heels of the September 11th attacks, conservative hawks like to conveniently forget these attacks whenever they spout the fallacy that America’s response to the 9/11 attacks kept more terrorist attacks from taking place, as if mailing deadly pathogens to United States Senators doesn’t qualify as terrorism. In my mind, the FBI’s report shows all the signs of an investigation not really wanting to know where the facts lead, perhaps because doing so would raise uncomfortable questions best left unasked.
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