Aug10_0003

Ron and Val Ives (with additional child labor provided by Olivia) made these boards for my associations as a gimmick to promote our industry “Team Building Night” for the regional construction specifiers conference and trade show. (even though I realize that Cornhole is barely a team sport which is why it took some real pitch work to get it approved as the game/giveaway for the exhibit)

They were a huge hit (which I totally knew they would be) and we were far and away the most popular booth in the entire place. (except with our neighbors whose exhibits kept being hit by errant throws – by a miracle no one was injured)

I wanted to make sure they got posted so Val and Ron could see how great they looked after they were lettered and everything. When I called FastSigns to have them lettered I told him I had something weird for him to do, and after hearing what I wanted, he told me that they letter those boards all the time. Evidently, I’m behind the curve, again. But not too far behind since scads of folks told me last night that they had seen it, but never played.

The set now has a new home with an association membership prospect and many more were converted to the game having tried it on such awesome boards! – Great job, Ives!

ESPN’s Tom Friend is reporting that Maurice Clarett called him Tuesday night at about 11 pm to “thank him” for running January’s ESPN story on Clarett’s drinking problem and its effect on his career in the wake of the January robbery charges — and notes that the phone call came about two hours before Clarett’s latest arrest. Friend goes into a LOT more detail, though — an incredibly interesting read (and Clarett claims he called Tressel right before that!)

Via weColumbus.

I’ve been using the internet, in one form or another, for about twelve or thirteen years, now — ever since I went off to college, and the use of email exploded and commercial service providers sprang up all over the country to get people connected. America Online was always the big black sheep of that bunch, a faceless, monolithic corporation who made it very easy for people to get on the web but whose many, many users quickly gained a reputation for an inability or unwillingness to learn and abide by the internet’s established societal norms. It became very easy to point and laugh at the internet giant, even after it ballooned and was absorbed by Time Warner — AOL was often seen as the lowest common denominator of internet services out there.

While we were out last week, I saw in the news that AOL has decided to stop charging ufor access to its services, allowing anyone with a broadband connection to check their AOL email and use AOL’s software. Smart — but then I laughed out loud when I saw that in order to get rid of the fees, AOL users have to call a customer service number, and CAN’T get rid of the charges online or via email — i.e., by using AOL’s services. This, on the heels of at least one account of AOL’s horrible customer service refusing to easily cancel a user account and what appears to be a brand new instance of their customer service refusing to cancel a dead man’s account.

So yeah, I thought I’d seen it all. Then I saw this, which I apparently missed.

Holy. Crap.

Why the big deal, you ask? Let’s see. From this “anonymized” data dump, which AOL apparently pulled from the web mere hours after letting it loose (too late!), there’s been at least some tentative identification of criminal behavior — and now, at least one of the “anonymous” searchers has been positively identified, all in a little less than three days.

But no. Don’t worry about Google or Yahoo or Microsoft turning over their search logs to the government. I’m sure that there’s nothing in there that might positively identify or embarrass you (or worse) — and even if there is, the federal government will take every precaution to make sure that your personal information isn’t lost or stolen.

Dude, how many guns do you have to have in your car before it’s considered an arsenal?

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Police said they used Mace and a Taser gun to arrest former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett Wednesday morning after they found an arsenal of weapons inside an SUV he was driving.

Clarett was taken into custody at about 3 a.m. in a restaurant’s parking lot off Brice Road following a brief chase, NBC 4’s David Wayne reported.

…”(Clarett) was resisting to the point that they felt it was necessary to try to use a Taser,” said Columbus police Sgt. Mike Woods. “He had a bulletproof vest on and the Tasers would not penetrate that, so they used Mace. It took several officers to get his arms behind his back and get him under control and handcuffed.”

Police then found an arsenal of weapons inside the SUV, including a loaded assault rifle and three loaded handguns. A hatchet, clothing and an open bottle of vodka were also taken from the vehicle, Wayne reported.

So, three handguns and an assault rifle, then. Good to know.

…and also, a hatchet.

More, obviously, here and here.

Aug08_0001

Received in email this morning:

Call out Gouranga be happy
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga!
That which brings the highest happiness…

Ah, the joys of spam. Hello again, internets.

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