Scattered Thoughts

In honor of IU's surprising loss to Michigan State, here is the Top Ten Reasons that IU Football Sucks…

10. At Indiana University, basketball and soccer rule.

With five NCAA National Championship Banners hanging in Assembly Hall and six NCAA National Championship Banners hanging in Bill Armstrong Stadium, and only eight, eight visits to a bowl game in the history of IU Football, it's clear that nobody here cares about football. Bring on the round ball sports!

9. Two different coaches in the last five years.

If you chahge the direction and leadership if your program that quickly, you can't expect anything except to be consistently bad.

8. Pass defense

You mean they can throw the ball? WOW, novel concept. Less passes = less interceptions.

7. The Second Half.

Hey coach, I have something for you all to work on in practice Monday… SCORING IN THE SECOND HALF! How do you go from being in the lead 20-7 to losing it AND, what's more, the game.

6. Missed field goal attempts.

I have seen too many IU football games lost by a field goal to not include this high on the list.

5. Run defense

After seeing the second half of play vs. Michigan State, I have realized that we all were tricked into believeing that we were going to have a decent season this year/

4. Matt LoVeccio

Game clock, anyone? Matt, do you know what a game clock is? No coach, I've never heard of one before.

3. Officials

As everyone knows, it's always the official's fault that anyone loses a game, NOT the student section that was heckling the stripes before the game started.

2. Jerry DiNardo

Student of Football for Dummies

And the number one reason that IU football sucks is…

1. What is IU football?

Nobody in this state/country cares about IU football.

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – Likes of You Again – Flogging Molly

Quote of the Day – Hey Chewbacca, where's R2?" –Chad heckling number 96 on the MSU bench for his long out-of-the back orange hair that was obviously died.

Hero of the Day – Chris for making sure I was awake this morning.

Current Mood – – Aggravated because of the IU home loss to a team we should have beaten.

Here's how it works, for those of you who aren't up to date with the latest in cheating and technology.

You receive an e-mail from a seemingly legitimate source, say your credit card company. The e-mail usually starts with a paragraph saying something like "There has been a lot of reported identity theft with us." Followed by a request such as "To make you safe, you need to follow this link and fill out this form." There is also usually included a threat that goes like "If you don't, your account will be deactivated."

Well, I got one of these e-mails the other day and thought I would share it with you all. Here is the actual text of the e-mail. Notice that it is an image and not text. Most the time these are sent as an image imbedded in an HTML e-mail.

Now if you look at the source code of this e-mail, you'll notice something peculiar. This is the html of the e-mail I received.

You'll notice that there is a lot of text at the end of the HTML that is coded to be the same color as the background of the e-mail. The main function of this coding is to make sure that anti-spam filters don't delete this e-mail. The way said filters work is by scanning multiple e-mails from the same source and seeing if they are identical. If they are, they all get deleted. This HTML makes it so that all of the e-mails are different. It's just randomly generated text.

Anyway, once you click on the image containing the link, you are taken to a page that looks like a legit page where you are asked to enter personal information that will give someone the chance to steal your identity. If you follow the actual link on this page, you are taken to a 404 error. Click here for an example.

Now these things wouldn't exist if they were not lucrative. Something like 60% of people who get one of these e-mails will actually do what it says for fear of not being able to use their account or of having their identity stolen. Kind of ironic huh?

I just wanted to share that with you all because I'm sure you all will one day encounter a phisher. And when you do, I'm sure you'll remember hearing about it here.

Later dudes.

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – The Man Who Sold The World – David Bowie, the real version.

Quote of the Day – "It's Scary Down There." – IU SCUBA Club shirt on some chick on the bus today. Imagine the double meaning there

Hero of the Day – The above mentioned chick for making me and Will laugh the whole ride to campus.

Current Mood – – Tired

Until the next post…

There is a curious fashion going around campus that I've waited to comment on. Most of the frat-boys and sorority girls are running around town wearing these yellow LIVESTRONG bracelets.

At first, I thought it was just a poser fad or perhaps a ploy for the frats and sororities to draw attention to their members. Things like that, to me, aren't worth investing the time, effort and/or money to find out what it's all about. I'm not one for following the crowd, as most of you know.

Once I heard that the bracelets were a fundraiser for the Lance Armstrong foundation, I was even more appalled. Not that they were being sold to raise money for cancer research, but that the Posers of Indiana University (PIUs) were trying to make themselves be part of the crowd by wearing them.

That opinion all changed this weekend, for me.

Now, I don't know anyone living with cancer, nor have I ever been close to anyone who has died from cancer…

But I have friends who do.

I ran into Patrick Howell this weekend. He was a ranger at RSR this summer and I saw that he was wearing a LIVESTRONG bracelet when he walked up to me. Immediately I started joking with him about it and he stopped me. He said "Do you even know why I'm wearing it?" and proceeded to tell me the story behind his wearing of the yellow.

Instantly I felt like an ass, and it caused me to think to myself, "Is this a cause that I can get behind and one that I am willing to support?" The answer is yes.

I received an e-mail from my father this morning asking if I would like a LIVESTRONG bracelet. He had bought a few and had given them to my mother, sisters and some of his work acquaintances. I told him to save me one and I would wear it.

Some of you might start asking "But you're not donating money to the cause." My response to that is that supporting a cause is more than just giving money. It's more about raising awareness and bringing more people into the following. I will eventually be donating to the cause, but right now I am not able to, financially. I can just raise awareness and encourage others to follow the example set by Lance Armstrong.

After all of that, I realize that it appears that I agree with the PIUs with their wearing of the band… Truth is that I don't. It's not right to turn this cause, or any other for that matter, into a fashion statement. If that is their motive for wearing the bands, they should be ashamed of themselves. However, I am not going to criticize anyone else about wearing a band because what if they do have a reason other than fashion? What if they are wearing it to show support for a loved one? What if they are wearing it to remember a lost friend?

Well, there you have it, the reason that I will soon be joining the LIVESTRONG movement. Criticize me if you want, lump me in the PIU group if you must, but I will still continue to support this cause. Who knows, maybe one day in the near future someone in my family, one of my friends or perhaps I might be suffering from cancer.

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – Wonderboy – Tenacious D

Hero of the Day – Mojo for sticking with this weekend's bullshit.

Quote of the Day – "$1.49 + $0.89 = a damn good time." –Mojo

Current Mood – – Excited that I get to see Erin tonight for a while

Hey all, I finished the main part of the design of the photoblog tonight. I put the site back up but there are still some parts missing. If you click on a link and it goes nowhere, let me know so I can fix it.

The new design only shows one day on the front page at a time, so if you want to check in to see what's going on, you'll have to check every day. Nothing against multiple entries, but it makes the site look a lot cleaner.

The pictures that I've taken that haven't been up yet will be up starting tomorrow (Friday) then you can expect a post every day for a while as I catch up on what I've taken.

Hopefully it works on all browsers, I only tested it in Mozilla Firefox, but I'm assuming if it works there, it will work everywhere.

Now that you all know it's done, I'm going to go back to making sure each link has a page behind it.

peace out!

tm

How many of you have had a teacher who was obviously attracted to a student?

Hopefully not too many of you can raise your hand when asked that question. I'm not exactly in that situation, but I am in something similar. If you'll remember back to my class schedule post, I'm taking a class called First Aid and CPR for the Professional Rescuer. Not a very interesting class, the only reason I'm taking it is because it's part of the EMT certification.

Anyway, I digress, back to the story.

Today in class, our Associate Instructor (AI for those of you still in the high school), we'll call him Ralph, introduces to us our Undergraduate Teaching Intern (UTI, youngens), we'll call her Pam. She is a fifth year senior majoring in safety (I didn't know that was possible until this semester). Her role, as we understand it, it to assist in grading and in demonstrations in class. Pretty much the normal role of a UTI.

Pam really isn't too attractive of a woman, but that is beside the point. The point is Ralph obviously wants to get into Pam's pants.

Today was conscious choking day, so we went through the procedures and HOW-TOs for getting a foreign object dislodged from someone's trachea.

And of course, Ralph must demonstrate on Pam.

I'm going to spare you all the details, but I will say that he was superfluously friendly during his demonstration.

And IT DIDN'T STOP THERE!

We went on to talk about checking a conscious victim and getting consent to give care. Again, his hands were all over her in places they shouldn't have been inside a classroom…

Now, I'm a pretty easy going guy, things don't get under my skin too easily, but after this, I don't even want to go back to class! Now, don't get me wrong, I will just because I want to pass the class, but I'm a bit disgusted that I have to sit in the front row!

Hopefully all of you reading this will have enough common sense to not act like that if you're ever in that position. It's not right, it is fraternization and it's disgusting. Just leave the hormones outside the classroom and the world will be a better place.

sick…

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – American Pie – Don McLean

Quote of the Day – "This is where the fish lives…" – MST3K – The Touch of Satan

Back by popular demand…
Hero of the Day – Chad, our trumpet AI for going off on a tangent about how The Flash could kick any other super hero's ass. He is sadly mistaken because Superman is the best at everything.

Current Mood – – Disgusted by H160 today…

Until the next post…