I noticed that the old site has finally been updated. Nothing from Iambe yet but the comment page is clean and has a short note from Arcterex who, last I knew, was working up a new blogging site for our GVG.

I had a brief email correspondence with Iambe back in Jan. where she indicated a possible re-emergence. Apparently, life has not been kind to her the past year…..

Let’s hope she makes a comeback. In the meantime…We can keep pressing on here, although our readership seems pretty low.

As many of you no doubt now know, New Jersey just signed into law a bill that gives some rights to same sex couples, including recognizing out of state same sex marriages.

Yay.  Way to show up my state.  At least WE still have delicious hams.  but still, this is a good thing, no matter WHAT side of the fence you are on.

Say you are for gay marriages.  This is good because this is a good step in the right direction.  I haven’t needed the churches blessing for a lot of things…I still haven’t forgiven them for the past millenia.  Still, we’re not there yet, and while I myself am not gay, I fail to see how I am superior simply because I choose an x chromosome to sleep with.

Say you are a god fearing church goer that see’s this as an affront to gods intended plan, which is one man, one women, one marriage.  Until you get divorced, then you can repeat it again.  Just for fun, wear that virginal white, too.  But civil unions are a good thing, because, being a purely non-religious thing, you now know exactly what houses to avoid when going out to convert the godless heathens!  They are the ones that didn’t interrupt bingo night with yet another ceremony where the old biddies sniped at the young kids, thus ensuring that attendance will continue to drop…but I digress.  And no, I don’t think your 14 year old daughter is cute.  Thats just creepy, ma’am…I’m 32.  Besides…alienating demographics by trying to control their actions is fun!  Ask ANY cult leader!

For those that are against gay marriages because they think gays are inferior to testosterone manufacturers, this is a GREAT thing!  The next time your common law wife gets drunk and beats you for putting holes in one of her white pillow cases for a hood, or the next time you try to fix something with nothing but duct tape and fire, or the next time you utter the words “Hey y’all, watch this!” rest assured, civil unions mean that in new jersey, the taxes you avoided paying by not keeping a job won’t go to keeping a homosexual alive…they will be able to use their partners insurance instead ensuring that you are the beneficiary.  So go right on and jack up your truck using an acetylene torch plugged with chewing gum while drinking your 20th beer for the morning!  You’re covered!

No, but seriously…civil unions are a good step forwards.  More and more people are choosing not to get married, and more and more people are getting divorced.  People are realizing that beyond tax reasons, there really is no need to get married, and to tell the truth…sometimes you pay more married then single.

But…as anyone that remembers the 60’s will tell you, this has happened before.  Separate but equal didn’t stand then, and separate but equal won’t stand now.  Simply because it rarely is equal…

I changed the theme on this site because the old one did not identify the writer of the posting. This one does so we’ll give it a try.

I took my daughter out last night for valentines. I came close to blowing the whole thing for lack of prior planning. I started thinking about reservations around three weeks ago and when I called the restaurant where I wanted to go I found out they were closed for remodeling (grrrrrr). By the time I got around to calling my next choice things were already full up. Last minute reservations for Valentines Day are simply embarrassing. I’m surprised that the hostesses didn’t just laugh and hang up on me.

Nevertheless, I finally recalled a nice little Thai restaurant that rarely is busy (although the food is excellent) and managed to get in. We had some nifty soup called Tom Ka Gai and I was impressed with the presentation. It comes to the table in a … ummm… err.. well… bowl certainly doesn’t fit but, a metal serving “bowl” with a hole in the middle which contains something flammable. They light this thing and the flames shoot up through the hole in the middle and keep the soup hot. It’s really pretty neat.

After dinner we went bowling. I have probably only bowled twice in the last ten years. Nevertheless, I did ok and we had a lot of fun. A couple of things I noticed about the bowling alley. First thing was that it didn’t reek of tobacco smoke. Hooray for kicking the smokers outside (as a former two-pack a day Marlboro man I feel justified in saying that. Hey… I quit, so can you). The other thing was the lanes are all computerized these days. Keeps score for you. That was kind of strange but it did a reasonable job, only screwed up twice.

Some time ago, I happened to notice a pattern in peoples driving.  Doing a completely unofficial, and totally unprofessional survey, I sat down to work out who was the worst driver.

The criteria was simple.  Iwould base it on the vehicle type.  I didn’t care about race, age, sex, or in car actions (such as smoking, eating, or in one interesting case while I was looking out a window on a bus, autoeroticizing).  I just cared about the vehicle and how it was driven.  Everything else was secondary…I didn’t care about why, just the how.  I only marked down the why so that I could get my road rage screams right.

I did mention this was unprofessional and unofficial, right?  Your results may vary.

Oddly enough, I came up with an answer.  I know who are the worst drivers are.  It was a huge surprise.  I mean…SUV drivers came in at THIRD.  Huge gas guzzling, road hogging, unnecessary, ostentatious, and often driven by a woman whose hair has more dye in it then the east river during saint patties day…cell phone firmly attached to the ear, car crossing the divider, and almost always…no kids at all.  Third place.  The SUV’s really weren’t being driven that badly.  They just had a much greater chance of an accident due to the hair spray used seeping into the brain causing hallucinations.

Second place was…sporty economy cars.  Almost always driven by the younger generation, these vehicle usually run inches off of the ground…with the exception of the tail pipe, producing nice little sparks whenever there was a slight dip in the road.  Sometimes clean, sometimes beat up, always sounding like it just wanted to roll over and die from the stress, these poor little cars not only had an engine like a low powered motorcycle, they were often driven like one too.  Correction…with rare exception, motorcycles were driven (ridden?) pretty safely.  Not having anything to keep the flesh on your face should you take a minor spill tends to focus the mind, I guess.  Zipping through traffic, weaving between cars, never noticing that should they strike a single gnat their entire engine block would be destroyed…sporty economy cars had no such compunctions.

But the worst…the very worst…not tractor trailers…not pickups…not caddies (or even in a few instances caddie driven golf carts)…but trucks.  Oversized trucks, mind you…the ones with the spare 2 wheels in back.  Bright and shiny tool boxes, and never any tools or equipment in sight.  Designed for off road, and never a speck of dust on them.  Built for durability, and no dents.  Tow package?  Got one.  Never been used, but it’s still there!  These yahoos have a vehicle built for work, and they cover it in so much flash, I wonder how much weight I could remove with a hammer and not affect the function of the vehicle.  The drivers are incapable of following the speed limit.  They have no concept of minimum safe distance.  Double line?  They go for the pass!  Can’t merge, not enough room because their vehicle is bigger then my apartment?  Do it anyways…god won’t let anything happen to such a beautiful truck.  And screw the other guy…if he doesn’t need a fork lift to reach the drivers cab, he’s got nothing but a road bump.

I’m serious.  These guys are the worst.  They are careless, reckless, rude, inconsiderate, and very prone to playing a joyful little ditty when they lay into their horn because…well…I’m never really quite sure why they are honking at my fellow drivers.  Me, I have a bumper-sticker that says “Honking your horn means you want me to slam on my brakes and sue you”.  Still, when a vehicle is so close to me, I can see where the drive train has been painted a camouflage color, it may be time to back off.

Funny thing though…I’ve seen them have an accident twice.  Both times, instead of getting out and checking on the other person, their exact words were were…impolite.  But concerned for their truck.  Concern for the other person was secondary.

Of course, these are personal vehicles I am talking about…I do occasionally see one that actually has tools in them, has dents, scratches, lumber, ladders, and a concerned person asking me if I was ok, and that the police were on their way, and yes, driving in snow sucks.  Oddly enough, they usually drive pretty well.  Much better then I do in the snow.

It might be worth a reality show…find these guys, and replace the chrome with tinfoil.  Scratch “I’m a safe driver” into the paint job.  Glue My Little Pony stickers to the bumpers.  I’d pay to watch that.

I read an article about a potential theft scenario using the ‘man-in-the-middle’ tactic which targets bankcards. While the tactics are not new the sophistication is getting amazing. This particular scenario is UK-based but will eventually be deployed around the world.

The following is extracted from the article. The full article is here

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We will illustrate the relay attack with a description of a real life scenario. For that we will introduce the characters:

* Alice is the innocent customer who is about to be defrauded from her savings.
* Bob is a crook. He is now employed as a restaurant waiter.
* Carol is Bob’s accomplice who is loitering at a jewellers shop waiting for Bob’s signal to participate in the attack. She is carrying all the equipment needed for the attack in her backpack.
* Dave is an honest merchant who operates a jewelry shop and is not associated with Alice, Bob, or Carol.

Alice, our innocent customer, is about to pay £20 for a meal in a restaurant. Unbeknownst to her, Bob, the crook waiter, presents her with a terminal which looks and behaves like a real Chip & PIN terminal, but is secretly relaying a transaction with Alice’s card to Bob’s partner in crime – Carol. This is done by using a hidden laptop hidden behind the counter.

Carol is in Dave’s jewellers shop about to buy a £2 000 diamond. Just as Alice inserts her card into the restaurant’s terminal, Carol is notified via a radio link or SMS message to insert her specially modified card into the jewellers shop’s reader.

As Alice keys her PIN, it is read out to a earphone worn by Carol. All communication from the jewellers shop terminal will be sent through Carol’s card and Bob’s terminal to Alice’s card, and vice versa. Dave will see that the transaction has succeeded and will hand Carol the diamonds that will be charged to Alice’s account. Alice leaves the restaurant thinking she paid £20 for a meal, while her statement will show £2 000 for a diamond. As the malicious terminal will never communicate with the bank, Alice will not be changed for the meal.

Alice will have used a terminal which looks perfectly normal and it will have shown £20 on the display. Dave will see that the transaction went through without any problem. The bank will see that Alice’s card appeared to have been used with the correct PIN. Carol and Bob, however, have walked away with a £2 000 diamond without paying for it.

Jagmeister posts –> I read an article today on how pathetic we Americans are about saving some of our coins for the future. Last year went down as the worst in 74 years. Get this…the actual savings rate was NEGATIVE! Meaning that not only did people spend all the money they earned but they also dipped into savings or increased borrowing to finance purchases.

I keep running across magazine and newspaper articles that have a rather foreboding view of what the future holds for a very large number of the baby boomer generation.