"I am a citizen of the greatest Republic of Mankind. I see the human race united like a huge family by brotherly ties. We have made a sowing of liberty which will, little by little, spring up across the whole world. One day, on the model of the United States of America, a United States of Europe will come into being. The United States will legislate for all its nationalities." -- George Wasington (b. 1732-02-22[*], d. 1799-12-14; President of the US 1789-1797), writing to Marquis de La Fayette
[*] Recorded as 11 Feb. 1731-32 in the Julian calendar, which England and her colonies used at that time; retconned to the equivalent Gregorian date, 22 Feb. 1732, when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1752. See a calendar for September 1752 for the changeover (on a Unix/Linux computer, type "cal 9 1752"). Note that different countries adopted the Gregorian calendar in different years.
Let's get the self-pity part out of the way, then I'll move on to less self-centered stuff ...
( A much less expensive fumble this time, but it still bugs me )Less self-pitying but still kinda whiny, ( more DTV grumbling )
In the not-whiny-just-mundane department, last week I got my first SMS phishing attempt. (I tweeted it at the time but never got around to posting here.) While I was coming out of the pharmacy I got a text message alerting me to unusual activity on my credit union account and directing me to call a certain phone number. This, of course, did not smell right, so I asked Google-SMS for the main number of my credit union, called that, and said, "I just got an alert on my cell phone that sounds like a phishing scam, but I thought I should check just in case," and got an immediate response of, "It's bogus, and we're aware of it. We don't know where the scammers got the phone numbers from." When I got home I searched the web for the phone number in the text message and found a bunch of news stories about the scam.
As I recall, pure water isn't an especially good conductor of electricity. How much stuff does there have to be dissolved in Baltimore city water, for me to get a static electric shock when I put my hands under the tap on especially crackly days? (The knobs are acrylic, so I don't get zapped turning the water on; not until my finger hits the stream of water.) I should try it in the dark to see whether I can get a visible spark (probably not).
And yes, I'm aware that tap water isn't supposed to be pure. At the very least there'll be chloride and fluoride ions in there. But I have evaporative crystal formation evidence that Baltimore water has a significant mineral content. I don't notice a strong taste, but the rime (I can still call it 'rime' when it's mineral deposits instead of ice, right?) on the pan sitting atop an electric radiator (the space heater in the bathroom) tells me what my taste buds don't. (I'm seeing much less mineral buildup this year than in past years, by the way.) I just hope that whatever minerals are in there are good for me (which seems not-unlikely).
And at this point I'd better start doing other things I need to do, instead of trying to remember what else I'd been planning to write about that escaped my foggy brain.
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