Category Archives: Over the Transom

The Case of the Missing Article

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Got an email recently purporting to be from a financial services company that I do business with, X. It includes the X logo and small-letter verbiage directing me to visit the X web site in the normal way. Which I expect a lot of people don’t do, but rather click the message’s link.

The big lettering that forms the main message, with a highly visible link in the second sentence, says as follows, sic:

Thank you for your X account information. This message confirms your X account requires update.

To protect and keep your X account up to date, Please UPDATE YOUR X ACCOUNT immediately.

Ah, the want of an indefinite article gives the game away, if you didn’t know that companies like X don’t send messages like this anyway. As in, “your X account requires [an] update.” There’s also the matter of the errant capital letter in “Please.”

A missing article made me think of this scene. Remarkably enough, since I haven’t seen that movie since it was new in 1976. The scene was easy enough to find. I Googled “Murder by Death ar” (as in the first two letters of articles) and one of the auto-suggestions was “Murder by Death use your articles.”

Wintertime Social Zoom

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On Friday evening, I participated in another social Zoom, once again attended by old friends. Really old friends. As far back as I can go among my friends, since I doubt I’d ever be able to contact my best friend in first grade, whose name was Smith.

The recent Zoom involved two friends I met in elementary school and another in junior high, and who continued to be friends in high school: Steve, Rob and Kevin. After that, we weren’t in touch so much, with sporadic contact over that last 40 years, though Kevin went with me and two other high school friends to New Orleans in the summer of ’81.

Steve I met in 1968, Rob and Kevin in the early ’70s. As I said, taking things back as far as I can go. Only my brothers have known me longer.

Two participants were in Texas, one in New Mexico, and one in Illinois. Steve is a high school band director, Kevin a graphic artist, and Rob a retired computer programmer.
One of the things we did as a group in the mid-70s, beginning in junior high and petering out in high school, was play penny-ante poker at my house. Good fun, as I recall.

So was the Zoom call, though occasionally awkward. After all, there’s been a lot of water under the dam since we hung out.

Tempus Fugit, As You Sit and Watch

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As I was waiting for a call yesterday, a whim inspired me to check out the National Institute of Standards and Technology Official U.S. Time page — time.gov. (Does its existence upset certain people? That the federal government is trying to monopolize time itself?)

Anyway, it’s been a while since I looked at the page, and it’s been redesigned. Used to be fairly drab, but now it’s got spiffy color-coded time zones and digital clocks of the zones ticking away. There used to be a single clock, and you had to toggle between the zones. The new version isn’t just good enough for government work, I’d say, but better.

Remarkably, I happened to capture an image at exactly 4:00:00 Central, or x:00:00 to be more inclusive.
NIST MapI see that Arizona is still contrary when it comes to Daylight Saving Time, though for now it’s in sync with MST. Except that it looks like the Navajo do going along with DST — but the Hopi do not.

Though I cut them off in my image grab, to the side of the main map the NIST also provides the time in Puerto Rico (UTC-4), Alaska (UTC-9), the Aleutians and Hawaii (UTC-10), American Samoa (UTC-11), and the time used by the Chamorros (UTC+10), which I assume is both on Guam and the Northern Marianas.

In a slightly Orwellian touch, the NIST web site reaches out and calculates how far in error the clock in my laptop is, compared with the official time. At nearly 4 yesterday afternoon, at least, I was behind by 0.807 seconds. I think I’ll just have to live with that.

007 Sighting

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A blustery, cold, sometimes rainy weekend just passed. A classic northern November, in other words, and one of a number of reasons to stay home. Most of the time.

Spotted this truck on the street not long ago. A advertising tie-in between DHL and the Bond franchise that I didn’t know about before.
Apparently DHL has paid big bucks to be associated with the latest Bond movie, No Time to Die, whose release has been delayed to April, at the earliest, because now is No Time to Go To the Movies.

I’m not sure I’d want James Bond anywhere near my delivery vehicles. Let’s just say he has a long history of wrecking whatever mode of transit he finds himself in, or wrecking the vehicles of the bad guys chasing him, or both.

My Donation for This Campaign Season

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An urgent appeal came in the mail today. The fate of the Republic, it asserts, depends on the outcome of the upcoming election, and I could do my part by supporting one of the contenders for high office and not the other. Not moral support, mind you, but cash money.

I was touched. I decided to dip into a certain cash reserve that I keep around the house and respond to the appeal right away. I sent a high denomination, I have to add.

I doubt that the campaign will get the message, however, since such letters are probably opened by fatigued volunteers who have seen every kind of nonsense in the mail.

The Graduation-Industrial Complex

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A cap and gown catalog for Ann, a senior this year, came today. Except it’s pretty hard to find an actual cap and gown to order in it, assuming there’s even going to be a need for them this year, considering how cluttered the catalog is with other junk — I mean precious mementos to remind you of your high school years.

Was there this much graduation-related stuff on offer when I was a senior back in the benighted late ’70s? I don’t think so. I did get a class ring. It couldn’t have been that expensive, or my mother wouldn’t have paid for it. But now the prices seem a tad excessive for all but the most basic model made out of some cheap alloy you’ve never heard of.

“These are so ugly,” Ann said, flipping through the catalog. “How can something so ugly cost so much?”

How indeed? The two-tone items especially. The ring variety is staggering: standard high school rings (at least what I think of as standard), bands and signets with an array of stones and many possible engravings — you want a religious symbol or an astrological sign or an animal or a sports/hobby/club emblem or a state outline or maybe even your school mascot on it? No worries.

GEMSTONES says one page, offering various options. In smaller letters above that word, “simulated.” Cut glass, in other words. But real gemstones are also available for considerably more.

Rings are only the beginning. You can also get class of ’21 “senior gear” (clothes), necklaces, key rings, lockets, bracelets and nipple rings. No, I added that last one. Maybe that would be special order.

A Good Slogan Is Hard To Find

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We had a pleasant warm weekend, but rain came overnight and cooled things off. Not cold, but not summertime warmth either. Touches of yellow in the trees are growing more visible by the day, but are still patchy when it comes to fall foliage.

Not a lot of political postcards are arriving this year, probably because so few of the Illinois races are competitive in 2020. I did get a card from our incumbent state rep not long ago, however. I see that she’s dropped her earlier slogan, Mom on a Mission.

What kind of mission? That was a little vague, but I guess to make Illinois a better place for the wee tykes. Anyway, I had to look around the card for the replacement slogan, so little was it emphasized: Commonsense Leadership for Change.

Distinctly underwhelming. But expected. After all, an honest slogan like, I’ve Gotten Used to the Income, Please Re-elect Me, isn’t going to fly.

A Sunday Drive + Phishin’

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The last day of August? Even this pandemic summer has sped by like an ordinary summer. I’ll post again on September 8.

We were out and about on Sunday, including a drive on I-90 between metro Chicago and Rockford. Here’s the highway as seen from the Belvidere Oasis, looking west.
tollway oasis BelvedereThat is, at a large rest stop on the toll road. They seem to be unique to Illinois.

On the whole, we did a classic Sunday drive — a trip just for the sake of driving, except that it was also driving practice for Ann, who has a learner’s permit these days, and not much experience on highways. We made it as far as Rock Cut State Park near Rockford, then headed back.

As part of our return, we stopped at Gabuttø Burger. Formerly located in Rolling Meadows, the Japanese-style hamburgerie is now in Elgin, near the Randall Road exit on I-90. Not very convenient for us most of the time, but we were in the area.

Eating in was an option, but instead we found a small nearby park with a picnic shelter. Good eating. We are fortunate indeed.
Gabutto BurgerFor some reason while we were out on Sunday, a number of phishers came calling. Our voice mail captured 13 messages. Actually all from the same source saying the same thing: Your X account has been breached…

How thoughtful of them. They provided a phone number to call, and I’m sure for a small fee — what’s that credit card number again? — they’ll be happy to fix a problem with something I don’t even use.

Also, an email (all sic) pretending to be from a major financial services company came on Sunday:

Your account security is our priority.
To validate your account, click here or the validation button below.
The link will expire in 24 hours, so be sure to use it right away.
failure to confirm your record will result in account disabled. Please confirm your records.

Such is life among the digital wonders of the 21st century.

Fremont Avenue ’15

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Near the end of August 2015, I spent a few hours wandering around the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle. One place I went was Fremont Avenue, which ran roughly from where I was staying in Upper Fremont down to the rest of the neighborhood.Fremont Seattle

Fremont SeattleIt’s one thing to tag a lonely wall somewhere, but a street sign? Wankers.

I was footloose and had a camera, so I took pictures of whatever caught my eye along the street.

Fremont Avenue SeattleFremont Avenue SeattleFremont Avenue Seattle

Not something you see often. Or ever. An orange Bel Air station wagon.
Fremont Avenue SeattleWith a sleek hood ornament.
Fremont Avenue SeattleTravel far enough south on Fremont Ave. and you’ll come to the Fremont Bridge.
Fremont Bridge SeattleFremont Bridge SeattleFremont Bridge SeattleFremont Bridge SeattleFremont Bridge Seattle“Today, with traffic across the bridge a constant, the bridge opens around 35 times [daily], often creating long waits for drivers,” notes Atlas Obscura, which asserts that it is the most-opened drawbridge in the country.

404 Fehler

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The other day I was nosing around a web site of a German company — though the part of the site I visited was in English — and came across a 404, which I guess has the same meaning in every language now.

404 FEHLER
Seite konnte nicht gefunden werden
Die von Ihnen gewünschte Seite ist leider nicht verfügbar.
Möglicherweise ist die angeforderte URL falsch oder veraltet beziehungsweise wurde die betreffende Seite von uns archiviert oder umbenannt.
Gehen Sie zurück zur Startseite, um Ihren gewünschten Inhalt zu finden.

Lots of fun words in that text, such as verfügbar, umbenannt und möglicherweise.