I got an IM from a coho tonight. In case you’ve never seen one, that’s a coho there, on the right.
How did this happen?! I mean, no thumbs. No fingers, even. You can’t fool me, I said, cohos can’t type.
I wasn’t all that surprised to get a random IM, although the fish thing did kind of throw me for a second. I post one of my AIM screen names online, so every now and then I get a message from a name I don’t recognize.
Salmon are Rude
So I wasn’t worried when I couldn’t place my good friend BunnyCoho when he or she IMed me. Being A) relatively polite to strangers and B) insatiably curious, I IMed back. Mistake. If I want to listen to a random person insult me, I’ll turn left from a right turn lane in downtown Salem. Then at least I’ll deserve it.
Oh, Disappointment, Salmon are Actually Just People
It turns out, this is not intended to be SPAM or general harassment. This is a social experiment. TheGreatHatsby is a bot that scoops LiveJournal account screen names, and randomly matches the users up. The insidious thing is that it’s done in such a way that each participant believes the other one contacted them first.
This is kind of a neat idea. I like to talk with new people, and I’m all for new methods of online communication. But if you’re going to initiate unsolicited communication between people without any advance notice of the experiment, you’re going to piss a lot of people off. So, unless the goal of the project is to create irritated misanthropes, you might have missed the mark a bit.
According to the Wikipedia article, this bot died out in 2007. TheGreatHatsby was replaced by the Salmon bots, which are essentially the same, but less private (your screen name may or may not be filtered) and more confusing (text is randomly edited). Screen names may appear as (adjective)Trout, (adjective)Salmon or (adjective)Coho.
Oh Good, I’m Not Crazy, Being Hacked or Being Spammed
My thanks to Morouxshi.com, for the instructions on how to opt out (type $optout as a response) and livejournal’s themissinghat for explaining what the heck was going on.
Good luck to Project Upstream as well. I was glad to have a reason to learn about something new, and you can surely add one more misanthrope to your tally.
There’s nothing like sitting in a meeting across from your boss, in an open room with no conference table between you, for 45+ minutes, then realizing that your fly was unzipped the whole time.
This is how I started my day today.
The Solution
Since I like to encourage my co-workers’ appreciation and amusement at the suffering of others, I returned to my desk fully zipped, buttoned & clasped (the pants I wore today were kind of complex) and promptly shared the story with Cynthia, who sits in the cube behind me.
My grandmother taught me that when you’re completely mortified because of something asinine that you’ve done, you should always tell on yourself, and laugh about it thoroughly with others.
Otherwise, no matter how inconsequential the situation, it will just fester and embed itself in your psyche so that 19 years later, when you think of first grade, all you can remember is your horrible teacher making fun of you, because apparently you can’t tell the difference between a bean and a pea. And even as I write this, I’m still cringing.
Being able to laugh at yourself somehow takes the sting out of your embarrassment. Plus, you get a good story that you can share and then forget about. I don’t know why this works, but for some reason, it does.
Incidentally, the word “embarrassing” has entirely too many letters, and should be roundly punished.
And You?
What about you? Tell me about an embarrassing moment that you handled gracefully. Or, because it’s even more fun, one that you really didn’t, and wish you had.
“Mr. DeMartino - Daria, can you concisely and unemotionally sum up for us the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny.
Daria - Manifest Destiny was a popular slogan in the 1840s. It was used by people who claimed it was God’s will for the U.S. to expand all the way to the Pacific Ocean. These people did not include many Mexicans.”
Oh, Daria, I wish you were my friend.
I remember learning about Manifest Destiny in school. Our history books were somewhat selective - for example, in the course of the Miseducation of Leanne Heller, the 50s-70s were a peaceful time, when everyone got along. Before that, we had the feudal system, which everyone liked, especially the serfs.
So, you can imagine how Manifest Destiny was described, embraced, and applauded.
I don’t have a problem with world conquering. (Obviously.) But I don’t understand the need to refer to your actions as Divine Mandates.
One reason might be to sway the masses to do your bidding and like it. Silly, I know. I can’t possibly think of a country where the strict religious beliefs of one political party has prevented voters from reasonably and fairly assessing the competency of its candidates.
Anyway, there’s a fantastic book about this called Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom. Essentially, it’s the story of animal farm, but with people, and on a slightly larger land mass (i.e. China):
Summary: A rebel group is determined to overthrow the corrupt government, their leaders get used to power & become corrupt themselves, and they proceed to use religion and false divinity to control their population.
Aside from this reason, I can’t see claiming it was my God-inspired destiny to do anything in particular. I believe in the possibility of spirits and prophets. It’s when the other kind of profits get involved that I start to question things.
Using God to justify plundering the wealth of others is uncalled for. If you’re jerk enough to take it, and you have the power to just take it, you should be big enough to say, “Hey, I’m a jerk, and I think I’ll take that.” Sure, you won’t be very popular with the conquered and the righteous, but who is? Plus you’ll have a lot of stuff.
Probably a lot of SHINY stuff.
Anyway, prove me wrong. Have you ever felt divinely inspired to do something? If so, what’s your crusade? How will you handle it if your crusade clashes with another person’s jihad?
And to end it with a conquering spirit, Rock On, Viking Kittens:
For the past few weeks, I’ve been sicker than a half way run-over hedgehog on the highway. Most of my organs are still intact, but it’s still been pretty miserable.
To make myself feel better, this post will be about 5 people who have it worse than I do.
1. Jackie Berg. Jackie is the most recent Survivor Reject. And yes, I watch Survivor. It is the perfect show for aspiring world dominatrices. You slowly eliminate your enemies (and then allies) one by one, and then cackle over their burned out torches.
Anyway, it sucks to be her, because her tribe decided that physical & mental skills were less important than keeping around expendable dead weight named Kelly. Survivor has 12.85m viewers, according to this completely arbitrary site. Have you ever been humiliated in front of 12.85m people?
2. AIG’s executives. Despite their canny financial aptitude and frugality, the financial crisis has been hard on AIG’s executives. They all live in shacks and eat only rice and beans.
Oh wait. No they don’t. They go to spas and then steal my #)$*#*(%&($) tax money. Burn in Hell, AIG. Roast evenly on both sides.
3. Anyone with SARS. My sickness sucks, but SARS is worse and less curable. SARS is no joke. Although, when I was studying aboard in Italy, there were a lot of asian tourist groups with Burberry face masks hanging around the Duomo, presumably because of the risk of SARS. Near the start of the semester, I came down with bronchitis. Just to have fun with the tourists, I used to sidle up to them, look alarmed, and start coughing my face off. That was fun.
4. Anyone with stocks. According to my financial guy, the market’s dropped 40% from its high. My mutual fund weeps at night, in cold, dark corners at the end of the earth. That is where the sad funds go.
Luckily, I have approximately 200 more years before I can retire, or approximately 5 more years before I carry off the celebrity kidnapping that will fund my empire. Think A Life Less Ordinary with no singing, deux ex machinas, or berets.
5. The staff at the new Dunkin Donuts on Route 114. Apparently, it takes 6 people and 20 minutes to make an egg and cheese sandwich. I understand. This is a complex alchemy. There are eggs AND cheese involved. That’s TWO forms of dairy. And let’s not get into how difficult it must be to differentiate different types of bagels. I mean, they’re all SHAPED the same.
But the reason it sucks to be them isn’t their lack of skills or IQ. It is because, in retaliation, I will firebomb their cars. Let me give another cinematic example, but with a clearer visual. Think the Godfather, when Michael’s Sicilian sweet patootie gets into the car before it blows up. Yeah. Like that 6 times. Pew pew pew pew pew pew.
Gee, that was sure cathartic. You should try it. Whose life sucks more than yours?
And just for fun, let’s end with Avenue Q’s timeless classic, “What Do You Do with a BA in English/It Sucks to Be Us:”
According to her debate responses, these are Sarah Palin’s weaknesses.
I understand. Being a beacon must be pure hell on cruises, what with the other ships steering into you all the time.
To be fair, let me add that I was tempted to write all about my new warm fuzzy feeling towards Joe Biden tonight, but then he and I had a slight disagreement about gay marriage. We’re still on speaking terms, mostly because of his flashy grin, sexy squint and ability to string coherent thoughts together, but he’s on probation.
Instead, I’m going to point you towards an excellent blog, I Heard Tell by Molly Schoemann. Tonight, she’s watching the VP debate on the big screen, and has promised to report.
I wait with bated breath to hear Molly’s unbiased (I call it this because I agree with her) view of the debate. Personally, I need a cupcake before I can watch any more of this. Sarah Palin’s idea of logic makes me crave comfort foods.
