Mick Jagger’s love letters to the mother of his first child, Marsha Hunt, and the inspiration for the song Brown Sugar are set to go on Sotheby’s auction block early next month and are expected to fetch about £100k (approx $160,000.)
50 years from now, just how much do you think the tweets of Justin Bieber to Selena Gomez will be worth?
We took a little trip to Florence to visit Cousin Laurie and current beau Harold. With one cup of coffee each for Laurie and I, plus a refill or two, between us, we used 8 little creamer containers and about 26,000 granules of real sugar. The little bowl for the creamer cups was empty and the sweetener packet holder was left only holding those blue, yellow or pink packets of synthetic stuff.
Maybe because it is past the summer I-95 Florida tourist time and not late enough for the I-95 Snowbirds, the Cracker Barrel was not really busy. As a consequence of this we ended up with an overly attentive waiter which became a source of both amusement and irritation.
But somehow attentive didn’t translate into efficient. We didn’t get our food to us in a very timely manner, it seemed to take longer than usual and when it arrived nothing was outright cold, but nothing was really hot, just warm. Plus Harold’s breakfast meal came without any bread (everything at Cracker comes with biscuits), when he asked for some toast, it came very quickly, so much so that it almost didn’t look toasted. No butter or jelly came along with it though. Now, suddenly, the guy that was asking how everything was, seemingly between bites, was nowhere to be found.
After we parted ways, Donna and I did a little geocaching (9 for 9) on one of the sections of Florence’s wooded trails that is near the Mall. On the drive home the Purple Whale passed by the 26,000 mile mark.
The South Carolina Department of Revenue’s database was hacked into by some Russians (see I told you they were awesome hackers.) So if you filed an income tax form in the state in the last 4 years someone, and more than likely more than one someone, now has your Social Security Number and or your credit card number. 3.6 million Social Security numbers and 387,000 credit card numbers are on the loose, meaning that many folks are at risk for Identity Theft and maybe some shopping done with their credit cards.
The breaches in the SCDoR computers occurred back in August and they didn’t know it until October 10th. They fixed the problem by the 20th and then the public was told about on the 26th. I bet the only reason we found out at all was that some newspaper or TV station got the info and the State had to go public.
To help ease the minds of 3.6 million taxpayers the state is going to provide 1 year of Identity Theft Protection from Experian (ProtectMyID.com) for free. Let’s see, how is that going to work, the state is funding the program, the state gets its funds from the taxpayers like me, so I’m really paying for my own ID Theft Protection. Not only will I be paying for my own, but I’ll be paying for a whole bunch of others folks as well, here is why.
It was announced that to get the theft protection you needed to call a toll free number to get an activation code. Go ahead and try to call a toll free number around the same time 3.599999 million other people do and what do you think will happen, that’s right, a busy signal. They announced that they were adding more operators and now instead of a busy signal people were getting a recording saying call back later because they were experiencing a higher than normal call load! Duh!
Yesterday I was going to try and give the number a call, so I did a Google search to find out what it was and I landed on a Columbia TV station’s webpage that had the number. They also gave out the code that you got when, or if, you finally got through to the number: SCDOR123. Not anything special that proved you were one of the 3.6 million, just a code, SCDOR123, that sounds like the director of the South Carolina Department of Revenue’s secret password (and maybe that is what got us into this whole situation to begin with.)
Because they are not checking to actually see if you might have been affected by the hacking before giving out a code to sign up for protection, any Tom, Dick or Harry from anywhere can sign up with the code of SCDOR123. So now the state, and by extension me, will probably have to foot the ID Protection bill for over 20 million folks. If you would like a year’s worth of free ID Theft Protection just go to http://www.protectmyid.com/scdor and enter the code SCDOR123.
You’re welcome.
In Saturday’s mail there was a letter for me and the return address read Red Sox Nation. “Oh,” I thought, “Maybe this is a refund.”
Inside was a letter with as close as an apology as anyone would get “Thank you for being a part of the Red Sox Nation program. While it was a challenging season for all of us, the continued devotion and passion make Red Sox Nation unparalleled in sports.” Also enclosed was a Johnny Pesky replica baseball card, a 2012 Red Sox Nation sticker1 and the ability to download a couple dozen photo highlights2 from this season.
Oh yeah, that makes up for it alright.
1. There has been one of these every year until this year when it was replaced by a nifty Fenway Park 100 Years sticker.
2. Some might say that that is all the highlights they had this season.
The 10 year old leaf blower is getting awfully hard to start, half dozen pulls minimum and my gas line repair is now spouting fuel around the tank hole when I press the little bulb thing. Its noise level is an assault on the ears, so much so that I wear ear plugs and Donna has to be in the opposite yard from me when I use it. Time to replace it.
Earlier this year we bought a battery operated Black & Decker string trimmer & hedge trimmer. They work pretty well, so I thought maybe we could get the B&D leaf blower that uses the same 18v batteries. It would be quiet and light with no dripping flammable fluids. I read the reviews online and the biggest negatives about the unit were it was kind of weak and used up batteries.
Weak might be OK because all I would be using it for would be blowing off leaves and grass clippings from the back deck, the front sidewalk and the driveway. Batteries shouldn’t be an issue as I already have 3, one came with the string trimmer and one plus a bonus came with the hedge trimmer. Home Depot had some in stock and at $75 worth a trip right after work.
Boy was the box small. It fit in the Miata trunk along with both our lunch boxes and Donna’s purse. When I got home I snapped on the the two tubes and plugged up one of my already charged batteries. I started with the back deck and it seemed like I was cruising along blowing leaves everywhere, but it was having trouble moving the acorns around. The battery was drained by the time I was done with the deck. Hooked up battery number two and headed to the driveway. The small scattering of leaves danced out of the way, the acorns not so much. On the smoother deck it did get them rolling, but on the rougher concrete surface it was like they were super glued down.
Came inside, disassembled the thing and packed it back in its box. After dinner we went back to Home Depot and spent $150 bucks on a new gas powered leaf blower.
We pulled off I-95 in near Melbourne, Florida to do a driver change. We turn right and make a u-turn to stop in a spot on the left hand side of the road. This allows Donna to just turn right out of the parking and turn right again to get back going southbound.
At the intersection at the bottom of the off ramp there is a red light. No problem we should be able to go right on red. Ha. It is a very busy road and we watch 25,000 cars go by until a light turns red somewhere back to our left. I zip across 4 lanes to get in one of the two left turn lanes and get caught at another light. We wait for another 25,000 cars to go every which way until it is our turn. Of course to two left turn lanes promptly turn into one lane creating confusion and jockeying for position. After navigating that mess we find ourselves in a giant Target parking lot. I make a left and then another left to head back out to the road where we run into a stop sign and no place to pull over to swap drivers. We do it anyway and rush through the procedure. Only to have to wait at the stop sign for another 25,000 cars to pass by before a big enough gap appears for Donna to pull out and get on the Interstate. What takes 3 minutes on I-95 in SC or GA takes 15 minutes in FL. If Donna’s sister didn’t live in this state we would never get anywhere near it.
On I-95 near Flagler Beach, Florida the Purple Whale passed the 25,000 mile mark. Since we bought the car we have been driving the heck out of it, in the five hundred and fifty eight days of ownership we have averaged 46.5 miles a day. We only live 6 miles from work…
Late afternoon as I sat in my chair in front of the computer screen I could feel myself getting sleepy, I could use a little caffeine. I had two options, bottle of Coca-Cola or a cup of coffee. The Coke was to much fluid with too little caffeine, so coffee it will be. Now I had two more options, coffee from the machine for a quarter or a 50¢ premium cup of joe from the Keurig in the mail room. I thought it would be nice to go for the slightly better K-cup coffee. This created still another set of two options, I could get change for a buck to pay for the coffee or I could just stiff the company as the Keurig setup is on the honor system.
I’m too honest for my own good sometimes, so I headed to the change machine in the cafeteria. I selected my crispest dollar bill because sometimes these machine can be finicky. I feed it in and it got spit back out. I unfolded the 1/16″ turned down corner and tried again. It came back. I swapped which end of the bill that went in first and it came right back out again. I decided to try a different bill, one slightly more wrinkled, the machine clunked and whirred and sounded like it was going to work. It did. A shiny gold dollar coin dropped into the output dish. WTF!
I had two options, I could go get 4 quarters from accounting for the dollar coin to get that cup of coffee or I could forget about the whole thing and go back to my desk. I went back to my desk, as I was now wide awake after my walk up front and failed attempt to get a couple of quarters.
