The following just came in from Alexander. (If this keeps up, I’m going to have to give the boy his own login to the website…)

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So my mother and I were watching the beginning of the animated movie, “Robots.” As those first few minutes went by, it was revealed the robot babies came from… assembly kits.

So I said to myself, “You know, that has got to be a father’s favorite private joke.”

Think about it. If a child comes up to him and asks, “Where do babies come from?” and the boy’s about eight, he can’t just give him the birds and the bees talk, can he?

So the dad sees an opportunity for a joke. “Well,” he says, “most people go to the store, buy the kit, and follow the assembly instructions.”

The shocked kid exclaims, “I came from SEARS!?”

With a smile, the dad shakes his head and replies, “No, but you were a blue light special at K-Mart.”

Mom cracked up at this story, and immediately demanded that I send this to you.

~Spud

Oh, where do I start?

• Mom called, full of remorse that she’d missed my birthday but wanting to wish me a happy one nonetheless. Except, of course, she actually called three days early. I’m expecting another call Thursday.
• My computer arrived, and my monitor! Yes, that makes this the best Monday in a long time, automatically.
• Ben got in touch. Maybe that doesn’t sound momentous to you, but I’ll have you know it’s been years since I knew anything about what he’s been doing with his life. (Hopefully he’s been enjoying it, but we’ll find out.)
• On the downside, my spiffy new X-Fi sound card? If it’s not actually pre-owned, the box contents have been riffled through. The installer CD is missing, as is the helpful sticker that’s supposed to go on the back of the sound card so I know which jack is what. As long as the card itself works, though, I don’t really care. It’s not like there aren’t newer, better drivers available at the manufacturer’s website, eh?
• My “no-graphics” purchase option workstation came with… a graphics card. This card, I feel it necessary to point out, came with no cables and is missing one of its cable screw-in posts. I can’t make much use of it, but I wasn’t going to anyway. As long as I don’t get charged extra, I suppose I can just laugh it off. It’s not like I don’t already have a drawer full of video cards I never use, right?
• Today is day one of my three-day work week. I’m taking my birthday and the following day off, partly as vacation and partly to help a particular someone move into her new abode. I’m such a great guy!
• I sent a sales query to Infinity Internet on the 16th and the 21st of February regarding the possibility of getting some upgrades done on this webserver. The form-letter autoreplies (“we have received your query and will be contacting you, blah blah blah”) showed up in my email this afternoon… in reverse chronological order. Oh, goody.
• Those magazine subscriptions I didn’t make but got dinged for anyway? I got my money back from them both. That’s the good news. Unfortunately it looks like I also “subscribed” to at least one more title (in this case, Time) so I’m facing the prospect of at least one more of those terribly entertaining phone calls. Argh. Remind me never to shop at Suncoast again, ever.
• My boss gave me his old scanner. There’s nothing wrong with it, he just prefers his new sheet-fed scanner over the flatbed style he used to use. I guess this means I should actually clean my desk enough so I can actually use a scanner, doesn’t it?

For hours, every time I thought I was done with this entry something else would happen which simply begged to be included in the list. Nothing new has come up in the last forty-five minutes, however, so I’m going to click “Publish” now.

What a day, huh?

The thought had never crossed my mind that people might get implants for their buttocks in much the same fashion that they get breast implants. I learned this from an episode of CSI a few weeks ago, and this morning a stray thought crossed my mind:

If you undergo this particular implant procedure, could I say that you’ve had a rebuttal?

…Maybe not.

I just upgraded this site to WordPress 2.1.2…

Wait. That reads a lot like the start of yesterday’s post, doesn’t it? Well, get this: Some asshat got their grubby mitts on the contents of the 2.1.1 installation package right on the WordPress server and snuck in some backdoor code. Nice security, wot? So, if you’re running 2.1.1 you should upgrade sort of immediately.

I’m glad I didn’t get around to upgrading the rest of the WordPress sites on the server from 2.0.x yet, I suppose. If I’d had to go through a half dozen rounds of updates twice in as many days, I’d be even crankier than I already am. You get three guesses as to what’s on my plate for the weekend, folks…

Has anyone else experienced this? I’d love to hear from you to compare notes and/or get some useful advice. I’m partly annoyed and partly creeped right the hell out…

I looked at my bank statement online over the weekend and noticed something a bit odd. Anyone who knows me could tell you that I’m not what you’d call a sports nut. Why, then, is there a subscription charge for “SI Magazine” in my transaction history? Looking back a couple of weeks there was another charge that escaped my notice, and that one was for “EW Magazine.” Each charge was for $24.95.

Oh, goody.

I flagged the two transactions, and received notice today from the bank that if I want to investigate them as possible fraudulent activity then they’ll have to turn off my card and issue me a new one, immediately. Well, sure, but I sort of need the card I have. There are payments due, right? My other option was to contact the party responsible for the charges to see if they’d remedy the situation. Oddly enough, the line items included an 800 number to call. (For the record: 800-586-5305.)

Sure. Let’s try that first, shall we?

I called, and right away I knew I was in for a fun time. Have you ever dealt with those voice-response automated systems? “Please respond with Yes or No.” Over the course of the next six minutes I found myself saying “No” several times to such questions as, “Would you like me to reverse the current charge and sign you up for our special deal on blah blah blah for the next so-many months?” I also discovered that both subscriptions had been ordered on the 4th of December, last year.

That’s funny. I’m sure I’d have noticed a couple months’ worth of Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated strewn about the house. At no time, by the way, was any company name given so I’d know who I was actually dealing with. The word “fishy” doesn’t begin to describe it, folks.

So. Six minutes per call, two calls, and I spent the entire time speaking clearly and distinctly while thinking quickly enough (I hope) to dodge the little verbal pitfalls strewn in my path. Oh, yes, they went to great trouble in order to phrase questions in a way designed to elicit a knee-jerk “Yes” response which will actually lead to more charges to an account they had no business accessing in the first place! They really, really wanted my business money. Too bad they weren’t providing any sort of service at all, let alone one I wanted in the first place.

Let this be a lesson to you, folks. Watch those bank statements closely! Be careful where you use your credit or debit card! (No, I haven’t figured out where I messed up. I don’t do shopping online from strange websites or any of that nonsense. Argh.)