Blackmoor Vituperative

When I was seventeen
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We’d hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen

When I was twenty-one
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for city girls
Who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
When I was twenty-one

When I was thirty-five
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls
Of independent means
We’d ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five

But now the days grow short
I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
From fine old kegs
From the brim to the dregs
And it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year

(from It was a very good year, by Frank Sinatra)

While looking for an English to Russian online translator that would return Russian words using the English alphabet, I ran across this page of Russian phrases. Being a curious fellow, I perused the site to see what it was about, and came across this list of nine myths about Russian women.

Like most people, I have always had negative feelings about the idea of a Western man marrying a Russian bride. I have always assumed that the men are pathetic losers and the women are mercenaries looking for money and/or a passport. But after reading this page, I find myself having more sympathy for the people involved.

I was very lucky to find my one true love and soul-mate at the tender age of thirteen. Most are not so fortunate. If their search for love and companionship takes them to the other side of the globe, well, why not? Russia is not so terribly far away. If one finds love there, it’s certainly worth the trip. So I wish them the best of luck.

I also found several pieces of wisdom on the site which made me smile. I’ll repeat them here.

• Do not send lots of money to anybody you have not personally met.
• I do not say that a real woman cannot be passionate, young and be honestly interested in you, but when everything is too good, things move too fast, without much effort from your side (“I thought I just got lucky…”), it usually ends too bad.
• An old proverb says that it’s very easy to find a suitable partner for marriage: one just must be a suitable partner himself.
• Another nice saying is: Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
• According to USCIS (former INS) study, the success rate in international marriages is 80% after 5 years comparing with 50% of “normal” marriages – i.e. 4 international couples out of 5 are still married after 5 years while every second “normal” marriage ends in divorce.
• Nobody gets married to his wife. One got married to his fiancee, but it was a completely different person…

Above all, I am grateful that I do not have to go to Russia to find love.

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished me to the Sixth Level of Hell – The City of Dis!
Here is how I matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante’s Divine Comedy Inferno Test

I want a full refund for everything I have ever paid or am scheduled to pay to Cavalier Telephone.

Roughly six weeks ago, I switched from Cox Digital Telephone to Cavalier Telephone. On the date the telephone transition was to take effect, my phone went dead. I called Cavalier, and was told it would be a week before they could restore my dial tone. A week later, I had a dial tone.

A few days later, my phone went dead. I called Cavalier, and was told it would be a few days before they could restore my dial tone. A few days later, I had a dial tone.

The next week, my phone went dead again. I called Cavalier, and was told it would be a few days before they could restore my dial tone. A few days later, I had a dial tone.

A week later (mid-December), my phone went dead yet again. I called Cavalier, and was told it would be January before they could restore my dial tone.

Today, about a week from the last time I called, I called to complain about still not having a dial tone, and to find out how to check the voice mail for this non-working phone line. I was put on hold 25 minutes, and then was told that I needed to go outside and poke around my telephone network interface to see what kind of technician you needed to send.

My phone worked just fine until you people got involved. Before Cavalier: had a phone. After Cavalier: no phone. you figure out the reason why. I am not here to fix your mistakes.

On top of this, the phone number you people gave me for the voice mail, 757-248-4098, is “not in service at this time” — I guess they have Cavalier phone service, too!

I called you people back to check to see if this was the correct number, or if the voice mail number would be online again any time soon, and this time the person on the phone kept demanding my Social Security number before she would answer my question. As you are well aware, the SSN is not a secure way of verifying a person’s identity, and it is a privacy violation to ask for it. Besides which, what difference does it make who I am, if all I want is information about the voice mail number? I told “Natasha” this, and she hung up on me.

Cavalier Telephone is the worst phone service in the world.

I am switching back to Cox Digital Telephone. I want a full refund for everything I have ever paid or am scheduled to pay to Cavalier Telephone.

Merry Christmas!

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government’s invasive abilities. We theorize that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

(from On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study)

I suspected as much.

Susan and I are buying some property just outside Richmond, with the intention of building our dream house on it. If you have Google Earth installed, you can open this file and it will fly you to the location. If not, you will need to install Google Earth first (available at http://earth.google.com/).

We are currently considering a nifty name for our future castle and grounds. The name currently in the lead is “Mirkwood”, but we are open to suggestions.

Update: Alas, that property fell through. According to our soil scientists, the ground there is too wet to build on. I think the exact term they used was “marshland”. The search continues….

More fun with pumpkins.

A fun Flash tutorial on how to carve a pumpkin like a professional.

I have updated the site statistics, featuring the IP addresses of idiot hackers from around the world and the search terms that lead people here. The Fantanas are still beating Windows by a healthy margin.

A friend of mine who is a photographer passed along these images, supposedly from hurricane Katrina. Pretty breathtaking stuff.

http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000765_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000766_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000767_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000768_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000769_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000770_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000771_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000772_big.jpg
http://members.sparedollar.com/MsNumbers/i000773_big[1].jpg

They aren’t actually from Katrina, of course. These images are actually photographs of tornadoes taken by storm chaser Mike Hollingshead in southwest Iowa in late spring 2004. Most of them are viewable on the 2004 Digital Photos section of his web site (scroll about halfway down the page).