Another stupid public employee

I’m not sure why this idiotic state worker left enough clues to identify him/her as a state worker.

Blogger wanna-be

I am on the brink of thinking that people should be required to pass an exam in order to be able to blog.

Somebody asked the following question

I’m NEW!! and my first atempt at bloging!!

Where do I find my Blog address to send to my friends!?!

and got the following response:

The url is in the address bar! look at internet explorer (or any browser you’re using… where you type something too to search…if you’re on your blog…what you see there is your blog address..it starts with…
www…. or ..http://………… 🙂

One would think that anyone who has ever used a computer could understand that, but another blogger-wannabe responded:

This reply does not help me at all. I\m new too and I do not know how to get to my blog. Please help me.

FAIL!

Yet another risk of using Facebook

A man who dined and dashed his way out of a bill of about $340 in a restaurant in Australia got busted when the restaurant’s owner found him on Facebook (thanks to the help of a former waitress who the man had asked about). To make things worse for him, the restaurant owner contacted his employer, who promptly fired (or as the Aussies say, sacked) him.

People who are looking for jobs are always advised not to have anything embarassing or criminal in their Facebook profiles. Maybe it should also go the other way – people who are going to commit crimes should not have a Facebook page…

Why, oh why do I get drawn into flame wars?

I spend a lot of time on the social networking site Plurk. I recently got myself involved in a nasty spat between two Plurk friends (now ex-friends.)

Basically what happened was that “A” had visited “B” in person. There was some alleged behavior from A that B did not approve of. B then apparently unfriended A, and A posted (plurked) griping that B had unfriended her without any warning. There were some other comments by A’s friends, and then B showed up in the thread. Oh man, he went ballistic, using the “F” work rather liberally. Not only did he totally trash A, but her friend “C”, telling C to shut his f***ing trap.

Some time later, I pointed out that he should’ve had the guts to tell A in private (as opposed to posting it in public) and that he should shut his f**king mouth.  Well, naturally, he tells me to f**k off and that he did nothing wrong.

My final words (so far) are that he is a bigger liar than GWB (I should probably have used Dick Cheney or Satan as an even better comparison).

The sad thing is,  that I really enjoy this flame war! I don’t know if it’s over, but I’m thinking “Bring it on! Tell me to f**k off again, you asshole!” Why do I like this so much? Maybe I should’ve been a lawyer…

My Internet presence

I have heard on many occasions Internet experts warning that most people have a much wider presence on the Internet than they think. I decided to try a few googles. I googled the following phrases:

• wigwam2theorem – 10,800 results
• “King Al” wordpress – 2, 660 results (I added the search term wordpress to try to eliminate results that are not me. I’m assuming that almost all of these are me.)
• “my name” city state – 271 results (most of these appear to be me.)
• wigwam2theorem.wordpress.com – 434 results (which is far more than the number of posts on this blog.)

While my name is not associated with most of these (with the obvious exception being the search on my name, city, and state), it wouldn’t be too hard to track me down. For anybody who plans on cyberstalking me, you’re gonna be disappointed…

My hopes dashed by a typo and bad editing

Darn, and I was hoping that during this crisis they were going to reform “ATM” to eliminate fees incurred when using another bank’s ATM…

With the plummeting value of stocks, I wonder if there will be anyone left who has to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which is what this article is really about.

Pet peeve – blogs and websites that autoplay music or videos

As a general rule, I am not a fan of blogs or websites that  autoplay music or video. If I don’t like what is autoplaying, it is likely that I will never visit the site again. However, some of my favorite blogs do have autoplaying music or video. SinceI am not going to quit visiting these sites, so in these cases, I just stop the music or video while perusing the site, but I still resent having to do this.

The biggest offender for me is ESPN. I don’t know why the heck ESPN has autoplaying videos. They are well aware that many people going to their site are at, umm, work, and it could be problematical if co-workers (or the boss) hears ESPN news coming out of the computer.  As for me, I’m tempted to leaving earphones plugged into my computer at all times, so nobody has to hear ESPN coming from my computer.

AT&T apparently thinks I am a major job hopper

I just found out that AT&T offers a discount on cell phone service for government employees. So I went to their website to sign up, giving them various bits of information including my work (California Department of Transportation) email address.

I’ve gotten three emails from AT&T in the last week.  If you believe their emails, I am the biggest job hopper on the planet.

The first one states that I am an employee of “Department of Transportation Sponsorship.” Sponsorship??? Well, at least that one is pretty accurate. 

The second one reminds me how many deals I qualify for as an employee of the “ALAMEDA COUNTY GOVERNMENT Company.”  Government Company? LMAO.

The third one states that I am an employee of the “University of California San Fran” (they mean San Francisco.)

I wonder who my next employer will be. Hopefully I will get to settle down soon. All this job hopping is really hard on my back (you know, loading all my stuff into trucks to bring to the next job…)

Blogger is annoyed with Blogger blogs

If you’re going to complain about something, at least get the facts straight. (Of course, I’ve been known to do this myself, but this is my blog…)

For the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would use blogger as a platform for writing their blog.

When reading a blog, I see the blogger favicon in the tab bar and I shudder. Why… Here’s why: –

Writing a comment is a nightmare. You spend 5 minutes entering the correct captcha, and then to add insult to injury, once the captcha is correct, the post is then held for moderation (double moderation) – Why?

If you don’t have a google blogger account then the reader is screwed. Some bloggers only have this option available in the comments section.

These are all options set by the blog owner, not the Blogger software. In other words, if you have to sign in using a Blogger account, go through CAPTCHA to enter your comment, and wait for your comment to be approved before it shows up, blame the blogger, not Google. (Well, at least he seems to realize that not all Blogger blogs require someone have a Google account to comment.)

Very non-PC / offensive / pointless forum questions

Some questions on Internet forums are so offensive and/or non-PC that they can only be answered one way unless the answerer wants to be the victim of a virtual tar and feathering.

Take this example from BlogCatalog.com:

would u work under one? (female boss)

What kind of person, other than a religious fanatic, is going to answer “No” to this question? Is there any point to asking a question where all the answers are going to be the same?