thisiswhatyoushalldo

Who Else Sang That?

Driving down the road, you have the radio on and you hear a song, a song you have heard a thousand times before but perhaps this time it is being performed by someone else, someone you aren’t used to hearing. Or perhaps you just wonder, when you hear some Springsteen opus, if someone else has ever given the thing a try.
I had exactly these thoughts many times and a few months back, heck maybe even longer than that, I stumbled upon the The Covers Project. A music covers blog.
As a resource, this a great site. I haven’t taken the time to play the game, although Rock Guy can and probably will, as will Snowball and perhaps Beaker. The idea is to take a song and create a chain linking a song as many different ways by the bands and the folks who have covered it. Kind of a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing, or Clint Howard for the more adventurous.

Notes On Nextel

What to say now.
New job and responsibilities.
In a familiar place surrounded by many familiar people.
It is old and new.
The first day I felt like a sophomore returning to campus after a summer off. It was as if I never left. Friends and former coworkers around every corner.
Lunch at the BBQ stand and a chat with the folks at Jabos.

With just three days on the books I am enjoying the new challenges. It is a different part of the business then I was exposed to before and that makes it interesting. And I am genuinely helping people.
One of the Buddha’s rules and all that. It makes it worthwhile.
I work in the Fraud Operations Department and I spend my days investigating claims of fraudulent cell phone account activations and then I either turn off the phones/accounts or route the issue to the correct department for handling. It sounds a bit boring but there is some small bit of joy to be had. I get to help fraud victims by protecting their credit and I get to assist Nextel in protecting about $120 million in losses. And I get to a bit rude and downright mean to fraudsters who have used someone elses credit information or social security number to establish an account.

It is perhaps sad that the world has come to this. That there is now a department in most medium to large companies solely dedicated to stopping fraud.
Groups of office-phone-talking-computer-screen-scouring worker bees analyzing and micoscopically inspecting potential customer discrepencies for flagged details. It is humbling, really.
As the country grows, as the technology that makes us free also traps us in the security of knowledge that seems to be compiled in some central repository, it appears also, that those same technologies which make us free are also technologies molding us into victims. Trapped against the desire to own the technology and the need to steal to obtain it. Trapped in the need to surround ourselves in technologies to protect and to then fight off hackers and felons trying to topple the digital walls we create. Just as days past, we fight battles to protect our villages. Months before I began this job I was talking to Renee who used to work in this office. And she said that her exposure to corporate fraud and identity theft rings has made her wary. She is now keenly aware of where and how her identifying data is used and even decided to call her insurance company to ask to have a different number used as her account number, rather than her social security number. She said she now shreds all her receipts and is vigilant about credit card receipts not being left at a restaurant or a car seat. Now if you were to know Renee, you would know she is hardly a person to be paranoid. The fact that these are the steps this mellow and calm, confident woman has taken is a telling sign. The fact that Nextel is confident it can protect itself by stopping $120 million in fraud loss and waste is shocking.

A Brief Review Of The
Work Of Charlton Heston

I love this post. This is what a blog should be. This is the new standard that I will be shooting for.

DOJ And Greenpeace Go To Court

The Department of Justice will go to trial later this month to prosecute the radical environmental organization Greenpeace. Using an odd and arcane maritime law that forbids persons from boarding a ship unlawfully, the Justice Department is now breaking new ground by prosecuting the entire organization for an act committed by four Greenpeace members. Very little seems to be written about this case but it bares watching. In April 2002, two Greenpeace members illegally boarded a ship from Brazil that, according to Greenpeace, was illegally importing mahogany wood from South America into the United States. Using a tried and true method of civil disobidience, the enviro activists boarded the ship and attempted to hang a banner off of it reading “President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging.” Theywere later arrested and eventually pled to misdemeanor infractions. Then months later the Justice Department decided that was not enough and has invoked an old, arcane law. A law so obscure that constitutional and other legal scholars can not find a citing for its last use. Acording to Greenpeace, ” the 18th-century law is designed to prevent unscrupulous boarding house proprietors from luring arriving sailors to their establishments.”
Using this law, the Justice Department has pressed charges against Greenpeace Inc. The organization faces a statutory maximum penalty of five years’ probation and a fine of $10,000 as well as the potential loss of its tax exempt status and thus its ultimate demise. If convicted, it would have to report its activities to the government and get approval for all of its actions – a scary thought if it comes to pass.
I don’t get most of the Greenpeace agenda and have always questioned the effectiveness of chaining yourself to a tree or using a tiny rowboat to stop merchant vessels carrying oil or other cargo while traveling in shipping lanes.
But the government’s whole-hearted attempt to shut up one of the current administration’s loudest dissenters is chilling.
And yes, the law, as arcane and untried as it may be, is the law and perhaps has clearly been broken. But in this case, so what. Until now, that particular law has been ignored for over a hundred years.
And I can only imagine that any other groups who attempt, through acts of civil disobedience, to defy the government will be facing a similar ominous fate. But is it really a just Justice Department that attacks the use of free speech by destroying the organizations and people who dare defy them?
Scary stuff.

(Not wholey unrelated: no charges to date have been filed against The Enron corporation. )

Video Footage of Tiger Attack

Here is the footage of animal illusionist Roy Horn being attacked. Please be careful. Graphic animal versus magician violence.

via Dave Barry

From My Hometown Newspaper

The link says it all. Wilma is very adamant that the name is pronounced K-OO-ntz.

Thanks to the Rev. for the link.

Job Hunting

I have spent the last 19 months looking for a job. I return back to Nextel on Monday in a new department and closer to happy. Some networking, some follow through, some interview prepping and I got the job. Several observations along the way. It really is easier to look for a job while you have a job. The steady paycheck, the social network of being in the workplace instead of at home alone, and the ability to turn down a job or an opportunity because you aren’t desperate is a necessary step to reclaiming your life after losing your job are invaluable.
The hardest part is to force yourself to keep looking and to use your off-work time to really focus on looking for work. But because you have a job already, make the time focused, the experts say. And instead of jumping at every ad in the paper or online, develop a network and some skills and tools to get the next interview and the next position. I found the Crossroads newsletter at Net-Temps to be very informative and packed with tips, tricks and suggestions. And unlike some of the other job hunting boards on the internet, this site’s advice is pretty current and they don’t talk down the reader as if they are looking for their first job. Or you can always just call Ed – but the fees a minor celebrity charges for employment consultation are a bit steep. Good booze is expensive.

Bruce DVD and Album out in Nov.

According to Eric Alterman’s blog, there is two disc DVD of Bruce’s Barcelona show to come out on DVD, scheduled for release on Nov. 18 and a three disc “Essential Springsteen” album to be released on Nov. 11. Bruce’s 121 show tour supporting “The Rising” grossed $221 miilion over the 14 months the E Street Band was on the road. So it is important to buy the album and DVD before the band just plain starves to death.
As an addendum, Christmas is just around the corner.

Careful What You Read In The Paper

The Olympian, a newspaper in Olympia, Washington has noticed it has been getting the same letter to the editor with different signatures. And, upon closer inspection, has discovered that the same letter is running all over the country, all penned under different signatures. And many of the signees have never seen the letter before. Could it be that there is a concentrated propaganda move by the Defense Department to built support for the Iraq war? Surely not.