WRAL TV has started a cash giveaway contest on your Facebook page. It is so spammy that I’m going to unfollow them.
I think there are ways to drive people to social media outlets and there are also ways to drive them away from social media outlets. WRAL’s approach is definitely the latter.
I hope WRAL realizes the damage they’re doing to their Facebook brand and changes course soon.
In the mail today we got a new set of credit cards. Our current ones have been working fine and are valid for another year but since the Target data breach I suppose the banks aren’t taking any chances.
A letter from the bank reads:
“Dear Customer:
Please begin to use this new credit card to protect yourself after the Target breach.
Thank you for being a loyal customer. Here’s your new credit card to help protect you after the recent data breach at Target stores.”
I noted that, like the old cards, the new cards do not include a smart chip that would go a long way towards preventing the next data breach.
I noted with interest the announcement that Amazon would begin collecting sales taxes in North Carolina. This seemed curious since the Constitution’s Commerce Clause means Congress is the only entity that can regulate interstate commerce and thus the state can’t impose taxes on Amazon. As far as I knew, Amazon doesn’t have a physical presence in North Carolina. It seemed strange to me that Amazon would willingly start paying taxes. Who does that?
Well, looks like I found the reason. This job ad from Amazon ran on Craigslist yesterday and there are plenty more on other job sites. Amazon.com is interviewing for software developers and says they’re coming to Raleigh!
Software Engineer, Digital Products (coming to Raleigh) (Seattle, WA)
We will be in the Raleigh area conducting interviews February 20th-21st!!
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This song’s been on my mind this afternoon, apropos of the way I’m feeling today. It’s the Beastie Boys’s Skills to Pay the Bills. Lyrics here (from a post I wrote ten years ago. Damn.)
While I’ve been feeling low for the last few weeks today I felt euphoric, excited about the possibilities before me. No, I don’t yet have a new job nor has really anything changed about my situation except for my outlook. I was turned on by one of those crazy hunches I get every now and then when I just know that something fantastic is coming my way. I don’t know what it is yet but I giddily await finding out.
It’s been a good few days with the kids, too. It’s Kelly’s week to travel and so I’ve flown solo with them the past two days. While we miss her and can’t wait for her to return to us, we’ve had a fun time together. I enjoy my time as the center of the kids’ attention, because though I like to think of myself as head of the household we all know who really rules the roost!
So, world, let’s do this. Let’s do something great together. I’m so ready for it.
When the cops arrived after I called about the metal thieves raiding the subdivision under construction, they began peppering me with questions. I was amused to hear the questions had nothing to do with the crooks.
“Hey, what can you tell me about this subdivision?”
“Is this a multi-family or single-family project?”
“Any idea what these will sell for?”
Crime happens so rarely in my area that cops don’t have much opportunity to visit. The ones that do express surprise that such nice homes like Bennett Woods’s and (soon to be) Oakwood North are tucked inside East Raleigh. “It’s like Wisteria Lane or something,” one told me incredulously upon seeing Bennett Woods for the first time.
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You know, if I were a local reporter on the energy beat, I’d think it’d be very interesting to study how last week’s snow days affected our community’s energy usage. Did a near-week of school days cause our area to use more or less electricity and/or natural gas? Did our local businesses burn energy to heat and light mostly-empty offices during this time? What about the gasoline saved from all the school buses that weren’t running? Or the commutes that didn’t take place? How about the fleet of municipal utility trucks that constantly worked to clear our roads?
Unlike hurricanes and ice storms, last week’s snow caused relatively little damage to our electricity infrastructure. I think this makes an ideal situation to study because one can essentially rule out downed power lines as the cause of energy savings (if any). I’d love to see a breakdown of the energy costs of this recent break.
I was packing the kids’ lunches today, putting in a pack of granola bars as I normally do, when I became curious. These Nature Valley “Oats ‘n Honey” granola bars from General Mills are tasty and have an appealing photo of the bars next to a fat spatula dripping with honey goodness.
Nature Valley Oats ‘n Honey granola bar box
I’ve noticed more cable modem strangeness this afternoon. I reflashed my router today and noticed that my home cable modem is once again on its old 24.40.133.50 address. I have no explanation for what happened to the 24.40.133.16 address I have been using for the last 24 hours.
It’s not been my experience that TWC/Earthlink swaps out IP addresses so quickly. Normally I get an IP address for many months without it changing. It’s very unusual to have one flip in just an afternoon.
Thinking I liked my newer IP address better, I tried to force a new assignment by unplugging my cable modem for ten minutes. Apparently that wasn’t long enough to do the trick, though. I will have to consider other options.
I still have no explanation for the earlier phantom response. Well, no rational explanation, anyway. I could say it was another quick DHCP assignment but that still wouldn’t account for the missing Microsoft ports which otherwise get filtered at the cable modem of every subscriber.
Are these Time Warner Cable shenanigans?
I didn’t watch the Superbowl yesterday because professional football kind of bores me. Last night’s blowout of Denver by Seattle makes my choice seem justified. Plus, what does it say when all anyone wants to talk about is the Super Bowl TV commercials?
Apparently Coca-cola struck a nerve in some when they had the audacity to air a commercial with brown-skinned people singing America the Beautiful. Yes, even this patriotic song by Katherine Lee Bates and Samuel A. Ward is causing some conservatives to flip out. Why? Who the hell knows?
I’ve been seeing responses on the Desert Storm Veterans Facebook page that just make me want to smack my head.
Here’s one pic from Facebook that’s been making the rounds:
!["Hey Coke! No American Solider [sic] has ever served his Country so that we could hear America the Beautiful in another language during our Superbowl! Big Mistake.. big, big Mistake!"](http://www.markturner.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/America_The_Beautiful-Coke-response-2014-02-03.jpg)
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