Not Your AVG Attack

AVG is an excellent antivirus program for your computer – their free version is often more effective than Norton or McAfee.

BUT –and this is important – They do not solicit!

A couple days ago, I was surfing the web when I got a pop-up that warned that AVG had discovered a Trojan on my computer.  It had a button to click to correct the problem, and without thinking ( I used to run AVG Free, but had uninstalled it several months ago) I clicked on it.

It then installed what it said was AVG 2011, and demanded payment to activate the program.  I closed it, but continuous pop-ups blocked all attempts to remove it.  For example, I could access Control Panel, but it blocked access to Add/Remove Programs. 

I was eventually able to run Malwarebytes, and after rebooting I was able to find and remove a file labeled AVG.  I have had no further problems, but the consensus on an on-line chat room I frequent was that I got off lucky – at least two responders who got the same thing had to format their hard drives and reinstall Windows!

One of the folks who responded included a link to the  Phony AVG Story  from a website called  F-Secure, which includes screen shots of the real and the phony AVG screens.

Bottom line – If you get a pop-up from AVG, it is a fake that is trying to steal your credit card information, and it could crash your computer!  DO NOT click on the button!  Close it  before it damages your computer, then run whatever antivirus and malware program you have loaded – a good one to run would be AVG.

Dear Labby

Yes, there really is a Dear Labby column.  It appears on the dogtime.com website, along with  information on pet rescue, the best pet match to your personality and currently, a photo feature about the 2011 Westminster Dog Show.

I think Labby is cleverly written and her advice is at least as good as her human counterparts.  Here’s a sample column.

Dear Labby,

I found my little Whippet, Henry, on the side of the road two years ago. He loves to smell flowers, is very fastidious about where he eliminates, and has never tried to hump another dog. Except for another male dog, on two different occasions. At a party the other night, I made a joke that Henry is gay. Another guest – someone I’d just met -- was so offended she got up and left. Labby, my sister is gay and I volunteer at the AIDS ride every year. I’m not homophobic and didn’t mean to offend, but the hosts seemed flustered by the walk-out. How do I rectify this situation?

Signed:

Sorry The Remark Angered Your Party-goer Resulting In Disconcerting Episode

Dear Sorry The Remark Angered Your Party-goer Resulting In Disconcerting Episode:

You’ve learned a valuable lesson, right? No one likes stereotypes -- even so-called "positive stereotypes" (a la gay men have great fashion sense). Of course that said, no one likes Uptight Ursulas who can’t roll with what seems like a fairly innocuous -- perhaps even endearing -- comment. Heck, comedians spend entire sets riffing on stereotypes just to get a laugh. Some people love it, some people take great umbrage. (Ahh... I've always wanted to say "take great umbrage.")

Contact the hosts of the party, S.T.R.A.Y. P.R.I.D.E., and tell them you feel badly about offending another guest. Chances are, they know you well enough to “get” the spirit in which your comment was intended. If they feel anything further needs to be done, they can advise.

Bird Bashing

Birdie, who looks like a bright green version of Sesame Street’s Big Bird, uses a little comedy to entice people into a southeast Houston furniture store on weekends, but it wasn't too funny when he was attacked during his shift Saturday. 

You’ve seen those costumed characters outside of local businesses, promoting a product. While most drivers laugh at them and just keep going, Saturday, a couple of guys pulled over and got violent.

"It felt like a truck hit me," said the man behind the mascot, Russ Vogel.

Vogel was working from 2pm to 5pm Saturday out in front of Exclusive Furniture store on Interstate 45 near Almeda Genoa.

Right as his shift was ending though, someone attacked from behind, sending him and his furry costume tumbling to the ground.

"I think he was laughing as he was running away until he found out I was in back of him and then he got a little panicky," Vogel said.

So he chased his attacker down to an awaiting car.

"Put both hands on the front of his hood and looked them dead in the eye, 'I got your license plate number and I got you and you,'" Vogel recalls telling the suspects.

But the suspects backed over a curb and got away.

Vogel was left with some minor bruises and tweaked his arm. The costume was damaged. The eyes and mouth no longer move because of a broken cable.

Vogel believes movies and YouTube videos could be to blame.

"I guess this is life imitates art, because there have been a couple of movies, where the guy is dressed as a burger and somebody comes by and body slams him and knocks him down," Vogel said.

But the stunt is also a crime and police are investigating it as an assault. Some eyewitnesses were able to provide police some good clues. The attacker left in a silver Scion with the license plate number HRT 980.

This must be getting pretty old for Vogel.  There was another guy in the costume, but a bird mascot owned by Vogel was attacked on Frye Road in Katy back in January, 2008, and that wasn’t the first time.

"I saw shadows behind me," said the mascot Kyle Lincecum.

"Then I turned around and he shoved me real hard," he said.

A couple of assailants took part.

"One was videotaping while the other was harassing me," Lincecum said.

The assailants got away. Consider though this is the fourth time the mascot has been attacked around this same Katy intersection.

"They just look like hellions and ruffians and they say, 'There's a big bird, I'm gonna get it,'" the mascot's owner Russ Vogel recounted. "Sometimes I don't think they're aware of whose inside and it's a person just like them."

Mance Lipscomb

Being a fan of the Blues, growing up when I did in Southeast Texas was just about as good as it gets.  I had the opportunity to see giants of the genre perform – men like Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed (both before and after he did time in Huntsville),  Zydeco /Blues great Clifton Chenier – I even got to see Whistlin’ George Nelson play his oil drums down on the Galveston seawall.

One of the very best of the bluesmen lived up the road in Navasota, Texas.  His father was a black man who had been born a slave, and his mother was a Choctaw Indian. His name was Mance Lipscomb.

His mama named him Beau De Glen, but he took the name Mance (short for emancipation) as a teenager.  Born in 1895, he seemed older than Brazos-bottom dirt when I first saw him in 1959 or 60, but his music left me entranced.

Just watch the video below, and you’ll see what I mean.  With a bandaged finger on his picking hand and an old  jack-knife for a slide, he makes that guitar sing.

Gorgeous Gloom

The beautiful forest pictured above is Aokigahara, also known as the Sea of Trees. It is an 8500 acre forest that lies at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan.

Over the years, Aokigahara has become a popular place for both tourism and human suicide. In fact, it is the  second most popular suicide location in the world, led only by San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

The majority of the victims end their lives by hanging themselves. Numerous signs have been posted in the forest urging people to reconsider their actions. Due to the wind-blocking density of the trees, and an absence of wildlife, the forest is known for being eerily quiet, except for the occasional wail of wind, or perhaps, the a wail from something  unknown.

Since the 1950s, more than 500 people have lost their lives in the forest, most of them suicides. In 2002, 78 dead bodies were found in Aokigahara; in 2003, the rate climbed to 100 people, and in recent years the local government has stopped publicizing the numbers in an attempt to downplay Aokigahara's association with suicide.

The number of suicides in Aokigahara is often times attributed to the 1960 novel Kuroi Jukai by Seichō Matsumoto, which ends with two lovers committing suicide in the forest. However, the history of suicide in Aokigahara dates from well before the novel's publication, and the place has long been associated with death.

The forest also has a historic association with demons in Japanese mythology and is said to be haunted.

Living In The Present Just Ain’t Possible

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Those fine words from Emerson are pretty typical of literally dozens of quotations extolling the virtues and benefits of living in the present.  Unfortunately for old Waldo, it is physically impossible to experience now.

When we look at the clear night sky, we “see” stars that may not exist, that may have burned out or gone supernova eons before the earth became a habitable planet.  That is an obvious example of our inability to experience now, but the present is much more elusive than that.

The smallest scientifically accepted measurement of time is the Planck unit. It’s the amount of time it takes for light to travel one Planck length in a vacuum – roughly 10 to the minus 43 seconds.  As of 2010, the smallest amount of time ever actually measured was 12 attoseconds – 12 quintillionths of a second, or 1024 Planck units.

It takes  about a gazillion of those Planck units for my words to make it from this computer screen to your eyes.  Once it’s there, it takes even more time to convert the light hitting your retina into electrochemical impulses that must then travel your optic nerve to multiple locations within your brain where they must be recognized, analyzed, organized and then somehow reconstituted into cogent thought.  The ball is in the catcher’s mitt long before even the brightest Evelyn Wood scholar can get the bat off his shoulder.

Even if you stub your toe or bite your tongue, by the time your brain experiences pain, the actual contact that created it is long gone. 

In terms of what we can comprehend or even what we can simply experience, there simply is no such thing as now.  If now exists at all, it has become then long before we are aware of it.

 

Another Ft. Hood Memory

I mentioned earlier this week that my platoon at the 502nd Admin Co. included the staff from the 2nd AD Chaplain’s office.  That “staff” was a Sp5 named Michael (Something) who served as the Chaplain’s clerk. 

With the same sort of military logic that had assigned the semi-literate Glaupion to the post office, the young man assigned as the chaplain’s assistant  was easily the rowdiest soldier among the 44,000 or so stationed at Ft. Hood at the time. Mike used to brag that his chain of command went from him, to a full-bird colonel, to God.

The Division Chaplain was, in fact, a colonel, and a Roman Catholic priest.  About once a month or so, he would join the enlisted men in line for a meal, then sit and talk with them while they ate – a fairly effective way of staying in touch with the young men who constituted his flock.

One evening when he had joined our line, a private – new to the company, exclaimed “Hey!  There’s a f**king colonel standing in line – an honest to God Full-bird Colonel!”

A sergeant further down the line was apparently offended. In a voice that easily could have been heard across the parade ground, he said, “Shut the f**k up, asshole.  that Goddamned colonel is a f**king Priest!”