Monthly Archives: August 2009

Oh (Nearly) Happy Day!!!

msnbc.com:

Many of those annoying prerecorded telemarketing calls will be history starting Sept. 1.

The Federal Trade Commission said Thursday that it is banning these “robocalls” to consumers, unless the telemarketer has written permission from a customer that he or she wants to receive these calls.

That's 5 kinds of awesome.

Other calls not covered by the Telemarketing Sales Rule include those from politicians, charities that contact consumers directly, banks, insurers, phone companies, survey calls and certain health care messages such as prescription notifications. These don’t fall under the jurisdiction of the FTC, a commission spokesman said.

And that's 4 kinds of FAIL.

I'll Be You

FOXNews.com:

Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke was one of hundreds of victims of an identity fraud ring that stole over $2.1 million from individuals and financial institutions, Newsweek magazine reported on Wednesday.

The magazine, citing court documents, said the central bank chief became entangled in the scam after a thief stole his wife's purse in August of last year and began cashing checks on the family's bank account.

An Experiment in Footwear, Ctd.

On my second day of running in the FiveFingers, I was able to run a couple of stretches without having to think about the position of each of the bones and the tension in every muscle below my waist. It just clicked a couple of times! I ended up with a very fast, very short stride, with my heel hitting just hard enough to make me worry about it, but not enough to rattle my teeth. To do that, though, I needed to concentrate on everything above my waist: my posture and the tilt of my body: very straight posture with a slight forward tilt. At the same time, it all had to be very loose and relaxed. As with avoiding hard hitting on my heels, that posture is exactly what's required for sprinting. So, this is turning out to be pretty much what I noticed the first time out - a slow-motion sprint. Instead of using full power going forward, I'm doing it all at about half power, and all of my leg motions are about 3/4 speed.

Another thing I noticed with the FiveFingers: because they have almost no sole, you can feel hot pavement pretty well. That's not fun.

MAOAM

Telegraph:

"The lime, who I assume to be the gentleman in this coupling, has a particularly lurid expression on his face. I demanded to see the shop manager and, during a heated exchange, my wife became quite distressed and had to sit down in the car park."