E-Dribble

I’d like to take a meandering walk along various points of idiocy:

Obama and Gaga race to 1 million Facebook followers.

This could be used as a perfect reason why I neither vote nor use Facebook.  I don’t know what amuses me more.  The fact that people think either Obama or Gaga update their own pages or whether anyone at all thinks those numbers represent actual fans.

Hey, speaking of Facebook, If you’re getting divorced, you’d better hope you’re not sharing too much. Who thought that this network that allowed you share every single detail of your life with people you don’t know could have been used against you? Frankly, I’m shocked.

Hey, speaking of divorce, if you’re a woman and you unsuccessfully attempt to murder your husband, not all is lost.  You can then divorce him and get half his shit. I have been well trained since childhood to know that I am supposed to apologize for being both white and male, but this might be going a little far.  Giving half of my stuff to someone after they fail at trying to kill me seems as if I’m awarding a consolation prize for their incompetence.

If I got mad enough to kill her, would they give me the stuff back?

The final numbers are in and it seems that 1.5 million people are now the proud owners of an Apple iPhone4.  In my reader, I had to suffer through two days worth of reports concerning fanbois and tech addicts standing in queues up to 48 hours to pick up their pre-ordered phone.  For my patience, I was rewarded almost immediately upon the phone’s release with reports of bugs and problems, the two most prominent being yellow spots on the screen and the fact that you have to hold the phone a certain way or risk a degradation of cell signal.

Let me be completely honest.  I assumed this was a case of rotten grapes at first, and could picture Apple haters everywhere trying to pick the phone apart.  In the case of the yellow spots, it seems that might be the case, as the spots purportedly disappear as the adhesive between the plates of glass disappear when dry.  The cell signal deal seems to have teeth, however.  Tons of reports have confirmed that if you hold the phone while touching the antenna band on both sides of the face(the most common method of holding any phone), you’ll notice signal deterioration.

So 1.5 million early adopters have been rewarded with a phone that drops calls if they hold it a certain way.  Apple must be scrambling to fix this.  Well maybe, but if they are, nobody has told Steve Jobs.  When asked, he responded via email “Non issue.  Just avoid holding it in that way.“  The article continues to let you know that you can purchase a $30 rubber band to keep from touching the antenna in an effort to restore the functionality of the phone.

The whole thing makes me giggle.  Steve Jobs telling everyone that spent too much money on his phone was just told by him to quit their bitching and hold the phone some other way or buy a $30 rubber band for their new phone.

Which makes him the genius he is.  If anyone would pay $30 for a band of rubber, it’s someone that would stand in line for up to 48 hours for the iPhone.

What to do with that picture you took of your infant sucking on your bong?  Why, post it on Facebook, of course!

Now, if you’re the type of parent that would take a picture of your little one playing with your bong, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d overlook the potential ramifications of posting the image on an international sharing site.

Let’s place the blame squarely upon the shoulders of those responsible:  Facebook’s confusing privacy settings.  Says the mom-of-the-year:

“And I took a pic to show one fucking person and it was a mistake. I would never, ever let him get high.”

Of course not.  What kind of mom would that make her?

From Techdrivein.com:

Top Six Google Chrome Extensions for a Much Secure Browsing Experience

At first, I thought he forgot a word there, but after looking at his suggestions, I’m more inclined to believe that he couldn’t decide between “Much the same Secure Browsing” or “Much false sense that you are Secure Browsing”

Here’s his suggestions for protecting yourself from the villains that reside on the web:

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I often bitch about the lack of innovation when it comes to scammers of late.  I’ve seen the same thing over and over.  So much so, that I’ve reached the point that I don’t even amuse myself any longer(hence the lack of recent content).  Hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Ah, but I found a guy that has rekindled in my heart the hope that we may see some new and innovative scams soon.

Recently, I read an article that laid out a method of searching mp3 directories across the web for music.  I followed the instructions and damned if I didn’t find results for all the searches I made.  I was pretty impressed, but seeing as how I don’t download music illegally, it wasn’t of much use to me, so I quickly forgot about the bookmark.  Until today.  I was trying to download one of the free albums from ytcracker, but the page he directs you to is inaccessible.  Then I remembered this incredible link I found, so I fired it up and gave it a spin.  Which led me to Wally.

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I got a 419 scam in the form of an IRS refund notice, which is pretty ingenious.  Providing you don’t screw it up by forming the letter in the “illiterate and foreign 5 year old” format that is very popular with today’s scammers, it’s one of the more believable scams I’ve seen.  So why am I making fun of them?  Well, let’s just say they’re not aiming high enough.

From: Internal Revenue Service(IRS)
Subj: IRS Notification – Tax refund

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity
we have determined that you are eligible to receive
a tax refund under section 501(c) (3) of the
Internal Revenue Code. Tax refund value is $189.60.
Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days
in order to IWP the data received.
If u don’t receive your refund within 9 business
days from the original IRS mailing date shown,
you can start a refund trace online.

If you distribute funds to other organization, your records must show wether
they are exempt under section 497 (c) (15). In cases where the recipient org.
is not exempt under section 497 (c) (15), you must have evidence the funds will
be used for section 497 (c) (15) purposes.

If you distribute fund to individuals, you should keep case histories showing
the recipient’s name and address; the purpose of the award; the maner of
section; and the realtionship of the recipient to any of your officers, directors,
trustees, members, or major contributors.
To access the form for your tax refund, please click here

This notification has been sent by the Internal Revenue Service,
a bureau of the Department of the Treasury.

Sincerely Yours,
John Stewart
Director, Exempt. Organization
Rulings and Agreements Letter
Internal Revenue Service

$189.60? Really? I’m going to risk all of my personal data for less than two hundred dollars?  Let me tell you something, Mr. IRS scammer.  I don’t get out of bed for anything under 500.  Shoot me another email when your fictitious refund represents something worth having.

This is exactly why I stick with deposed royalty.

I was browsing through my Akismet spam for something interesting(which very rarely happens) and actually found something that made me smile.  It was spam from a search engine optimization (SEO) company.

Here’s the spam, complete with links(don’t say I never did anything for you, Flux!)

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Reader’s Digest is trying to promote their new online edition by giving away a new Apple iPad to the viewers.  One thing that I noticed as soon as I hit the page is that Flash 10 is required to view the page. As everyone(but the promotion crew) knows, the iPad is unable to view Flash content.  I couldn’t help but chuckle.  To promote their online edition, they’re giving away a reader that can’t view their online edition.

That’s some fine promoting there, Lou.

Either Chinese gold farmers need to purchase a fucking dictionary, or Blizzard has been overrun by illiterate and foreign twelve year olds: