In which there’s local news.
“Red Monkey downtown lounge opening Saturday. Ten TVs, a disco ball, VIP lounge, food, drinks and great vibe. 25 W. Alder.”
(3:52:19 PM) DslVelcro: hmm
(3:52:56 PM) mushlette: Ten TVs and a disco ball.
(3:53:00 PM) mushlette: WTF
(3:53:06 PM) DslVelcro: wonder what that is like
(3:53:20 PM) mushlette: it’s not even open yet and it’s confused about what kind of place it is
(3:53:33 PM) mushlette: Ten TVs = sports bar
(3:53:38 PM) mushlette: disco ball = hipster club
(3:53:45 PM) mushlette: both = Iowa
(3:53:51 PM) DslVelcro: lol
But zOMG, the menu [pdf] has portabello burgers on it! And caprese panini! And the place is on the very block I work on!
I’m totally going there ASAP, because no one loves disco balls and TEN GOBLINBOXES HANGING FROM THE CEILING IN CAGES as much as your intrepid narrator.
In which I’m bugging people I don’t even know.
I want to see this film. A lot.
Unfortunately, you gotta be an organization to get a copy – DVDs for individuals aren’t for sale yet.
So I bugged Sheila over at the paper, and she gave me the names of some unsuspecting progressive people in the community, and I found their email addresses on the ‘net and fired off a missive asking them to host a screening.
So we’ll see.
In which I remind you to protect your data!
A co-worker just told me a story: While sitting in a restaurant with his wife over the weekend, his car was broken into. The thief got, among other things, his wife’s laptop, and on that laptop was a spreadsheet – unencrypted – containing their full names, SSNs, dates of birth, credit card numbers, the codes and online logins for all their credit cards, and all their account information. Their kids’ information – full names, SSNs, DOBs – was also included.
They drove like bats out of hell to a nearby rest stop, got on wi-fi with his laptop, and canceled all their accounts. But everything the thief would need to perform full-on identity theft for four people was in that spreadsheet.
The moral is this: don’t keep mission critical crap in unencrypted format on a portable machine! And if you must use a password database (which you should, since all of your online accounts should have different passwords), use an encrypted application and protect access to it with a very strong password — one with capped and lower-case alpha characters and numbers and special characters.
On the same co-worker’s advice, I use KeePass for all my secure information, and I keep it on a thumb drive. Once in a great while I print a hard copy and file it, but I don’t keep the info on my laptop.
Be safe, my babies. Because you really don’t want to spend an entire weekend – or two, or more – closing accounts, buying SSN protection, and then being financially crippled until your new checks and credit cards arrive.
